The Call of the Thunder Dragon (18 page)

“Yes Colonel Haga-Jin, there...
John Falstaff Wild.” Marihito trembled.

“Now tell me if I’m wrong
Marihito? We are now waiting in this cold, stinking barn because
you blundered into the hotel and gave yourself away?”

“Hai! But I needed your papers,
sir?”

“And we are waiting here for
Captain Soujiro who is at this minute rounding up clueless locals
so you can ensure my safe release from police captivity?”

“Hai! Yes, Colonel
Haga-Jin-Dono!” Marihito was confused. He presumed everything was
going to plan. Haga-Jin had done nothing but moan about the
coldness of the barn all afternoon; that he felt was not his
fault.

“But I’m already released?
Without any fuss, without out these papers!” The colonel’s voice
raised in pitch as he grabbed the papers from the crate and tore
them to shreds before hurling them into the fire. “Is that not so!
Ma-ri-hi -to?” Spittle hit Marihito with every syllable.

“What good did you do today?
Without you, I’d have been released. We’d have gone back to the
hotel. Collected our things. Then walked out of town to re-join
Captain Soujiro. Then we could radio for our plane to collect us
and we would leave... unnoticed!”

“Yes, sorry, Colonel
Haga-Jin-Dono. Sorry.” Marihito muttered defeated.

“We were looking for an Italian
pilot called Garcia, this one is English you imbecile!”

“Yes, Colonel…”

“No, Marihito!” Haga-Jin balled
out. “I asked you what good you did today?”

Haga-Jin’s rage boiled over. He
pulled out the pistol he’d been gripping inside his pocket and shot
Marihito in the chest.

Marihito fell, a look of pained
disbelieve on his face. Haga kicked the fallen man until he was
breathless and dizzy, then slumped down on to the crate beside the
fire and wiped his face panting with exertion.

When Haga-Jin had calmed, Takechi
spoke. “If this Falstaff is the one who killed Okura, I will be the
one to kill him.” Takechi hunched closer to the fire and pulled his
collar up around his chin.

Breathlessly Colonel Haga-Jin
nodded. “Yes, now you speak like a true Bushi! A warrior worthy of
Japan!”

They both ignored Marihito, who
crawled to the side of barn then lay still.

Having chased down the houseboy
with his boots, Falstaff pulled them on. Throwing a copper at the
boy who’d fallen asleep by the fire instead of cleaning them. They
were at least dry and warmed through thought Falstaff.

He pulled his long leather coat
tight and headed into the snow up the avenue towards the telegraph
office. He felt warm, still feeling the glow within after the hot
bath. At the office he found old man Bo by a tiny stove shivering
and grumbling himself.

“This stove is only good for the
day and now it is night and I am cold!” He reiterated, leaning
forward towards the service grill. Wagging his hairy chin at
Falstaff. “I’ve a long walk home, and the food don’t keep me warm
any longer!”

“I’ll buy you a tumbler old
fellow. Can you send this to Kunming?”

The old man read it and raised
his thin white brows, now no more than the odd strands of long
white hair over each eye. “A general eh? The General. Do you know
him then, Chiang Kai Shek? I knew him when he was a boy!”

Falstaff smiled, nodding. “I’ll
buy you a drink, I promise! Just see the message is sent, - right
away please!”

The old man Bo fixed his eye on
Falstaff then shuffled away grumbling, turning on the lights and
uncovering the telegraph machine. Falstaff cupped his hand to his
ear to listen at the window to the tapping. The old man rapped out
in Morse, the code for Kunming then repeated:

‘Gen. Chiang Kai Shek
stop Falstaff wild mobile air volunteers stop broken ribs stop
recuperating will re-join at Kunming soon stop urgent dispatch
stop’

“Okay – encode correctly for you
and phonetic spelling for ‘Fa-ru-staf’ and dispatch rider to
General. 100 coppers.”

Falstaff kicked himself, not that
he begrudged the man his coppers, looking at the wall with pages of
the Chinese Telegraph Code pasted on them. Each Chinese character a
four-digit code, he should have done it himself.

“Okay!” Falstaff threw a heavy
coin at the old man who snapped it up. “And don’t forget the
change, that’s no brass either!”

“Okay, okay... you buy me drink
now?”

Seeing the bar and restaurant
named by the brothers Jinling and Ang, Falstaff hurried ahead of
the old man plodding slowly in wind and snow behind him. Before he
could catch up, he ducked inside and handed the mama-San behind the
bar a handful of coppers and told her to give the old man one drink
and see him on the road. She smiled and nodded, as old Bo ducked
under the low door into the dimly lit bar.

“One?” The mama-San laughed. “One
drink?” She cackled, “He practically lives here! He'll drink until
we’re closed then go back to the telegraph office on the corner!”
She laughed pushing Falstaff towards a vacant table.

“Ang and Jinling? He said
quickly.

She showed him where they had
been waiting, nursing a pot of tea. “Sorry for the wait. Zam
insisted I have a bath! I don’t think she wanted oil on the
sheets?” He added in a whispered tone.

The brothers laughed it up,
forgiving him for the long wait.

“Please, you order, I’ll pay, but
remember it’s snowing and I’m hoping to fly tomorrow!”

The brothers took this as a grand
joke and ordered duck all round.

Old man Bo sidled over. “Thanks
for the drink, but why did you leave me in the snow alone? I could
have fallen and lost my way?”

Falstaff grinned and answered in
perfect Chinese. “Bo, if you’d fallen, you’d have slid in the rut
in the road that goes between this place and your office!”

Bo rolled his eyes, waving his
hand at the Brother’s guffaws. When he could interrupt, he leant
forward and whispered in Falstaff’s ear. “Wu Sam Wong, sends his
best wishes, he asked yesterday if you’d arrived? I told him, most
definitely! One Japanese agent dead, two in jail. You buy me drink
now?

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Falstaff
grinned. “Why did you have to go and charge me so much then?”

“Mama-San says she charge me
rent, - unless I pay chit now!” Bo grinned triumphantly, putting
his finger to his lips, he winked at Ang, who snorted into his
tea.

Bo ducked low as if hiding behind
the teapot.

Not to be outdone Falstaff stood
shouting across the room. “Hey! Mama-San? How much does this old
goat owe you?!”

“Ninety cash, after you pay his
drink now.” She balled from behind the bar.

“How much is a Mexican dollar
worth to you today?”

“One hundred and ten cash!” She
sang back.

“Bo’s got the money now, in
silver and he’s buying us a bottle!”

Old-man Bo’s head dropped
defeated. “I should have listened to Wong, he is right. You are big
trouble!”

The brother’s Ang and Jinling
were breathless, with tears rolling down their faces. Ang banged
the table. “I can’t laugh anymore!”

“I’ll drink to that!” Falstaff
poured the rice wine and grinned to himself, he wished Zam had been
there, or Ivan, or even Sam Wong. To see them laughing before, he
took off on his impossible flight across China, Assam and the
elevated heights of the Himalayas. For that matter, he wondered
what the men of his old squadron were doing? His squadron had done
Iraq and Afghanistan tricky flying, but nothing compared to the
Himalayas. What would his father say, the man who’d barred him from
ever flying at all?

Crossing the mountains would be a
higher achievement than his service award and his discharge. He
sighed. It wouldn’t be the same flying and fighting without the
Russian. He missed Ivan, he had always covered his back. He missed
Sam’s wise cracks. The close knit group had been squashed and
splintered by the Imperial Japanese Air force. He decided he’d had
enough of the Japanese for now. He smiled and thought of Zam was
waiting at the hotel. He ate up quickly, wanting to get back to her
happy-go lucky kindness.

Colonel Haga-Jin marched behind
the flag of the rising sun. Down the hill they marched towards the
main avenue and the shore line. The sun appropriately was just
rising over the town.

Now feeling resplendent his full
uniform, reclaimed from the knapsack of Goemon, Colonel Haga-Jin
led the eighty men down into the town. Tight around his throat his
collar with the yellow and triple red striped insignia, - showing
three stars.

In the middle of the column were
sixteen prisoners surrounded by the united para-troop force. The
soldiers entered the town, now marched with bayonets fixed and
ready pointing at the backs of the prisoners.

Colonel Haga-Jin shouted his
orders and Captain Soujiro echoed them even louder. These in turn
were echoed again by the Lieutenants and sergeants down the line.
The collar and insignia echoing and repeating the yellow and red,
down to red and yellow, then red with a single star for the lowest
privates. The orders echoed off the shuttered hotel windows.
Disturbing the peace of the town. Meaningless repartitions of
‘March’ and ‘forward’, the noise was ceaseless, accompanied by the
slow, deliberate stamp of boots through the thin layer of snow and
ice.

Zam had tapped Falstaff on the
temple. “Did you hear that?” She said.

“Hear what?” Falstaff mumbled
from under the blankets.

“That!” Zam said insistently.

Realising this could go on
indefinitely, in the age-old ritual of men and woman everywhere, he
decided to be the better man and offer to investigate. Flicking
back the cover he strained his ears.

“Sounds like marching?” He said
and lay there, for a long pause, his eyes closing again.

“Marching?” Come back the
inevitable question.

“God, yes?” ‘Marching?’ The
reality seeped into his dosing brain. Falstaff sat up. “Sounded
like orders? Shit! It’s Japanese” Falstaff rolled and slithered out
of the bed into a crouch, scampering across to the window. “I see a
flag, it’s the Japs alright!”

The shutters along the street
started to open with small cracks, then as the noise in the street
grew to a tumultuous racket, they burst open in horror. The
shutters banging open to protest the sudden invasion. The town
around woke, crying out at the sight of Japanese soldiers.

Silence followed as they
recognised the poor prisoners stripped to their loincloths. The
town’s people started to emerge along with the hoteliers and
sleepy-eyed houseboys.

Colonel Haga-Jin nodded to
Takechi still in plain clothes as he emerged from the shadows
beside the hotel on his left.

The crowds tentatively came
forward asking each other what was happening? Confirming with each
other that it was still five o’clock in the morning? Colonel
Haga-Jin jumped onto an empty market stall and fired his pistol
into the air.

“All of you listen! I am here by
the command of the Japanese Emperor! I am here as part of the
co-prosperity plan!” His voice was a terrible screech. “You will
surrender any foreign pilots or foreign soldiers hiding here! Bring
them out!!” He fired his pistol again to add to the distraction he
was causing.

Takechi charged into the hotel as
soon as Haga-Jin had started speaking. He shot up the stairs
passing Song and the staff in the foyer and turned left. The maid
sleeping in the hall was just sitting up, she gasped as he ran
past, pulling out his pistol, his face set as if he were out to
catch the devil himself.

The shot made Falstaff jump back
from the window. He heard shouting outside, but the sound of
pounding feet made him turn towards the door. He lunged hooking his
holster up with his left hand, transferring the revolver to his
right in one motion, his finger curled around the trigger, ready to
face the coming noise.

The door exploded inward.
Falstaff gave back a step to avoid the fall of the door. Framed in
the door he recognized a brown derby hat, got a vague impression of
brown army boots typical of the Japs and the outline of pistol
raised and silhouetted against the hallway light. Falstaff fired
three times.

Blinking, he drew breath for the
first time since he’d seen the flag outside. He was shaking, his
heart racing.

“God, not again,” he said out
loud. “Zam stay back against that wall. Throw me my shirt and
pants. He pulled the Mauser pistol from the dead man’s hand. “A
Red-nine, another cheap export from Germany I guess.”

Pulling on his pants, he hopped
to the shutters, ducking into his shirt. Outside there was silence.
Then Falstaff saw the man stood on a market stall, a colonel.

Below Colonel Haga-Jin started
shouting his demands. “You will surrender any foreign pilots or
foreign soldiers hiding here! Bring them out!!”

Falstaff saw the colonel glance
momentarily, but deliberately, towards the hotel foyer. The rest of
the time, he made an act of looking around. “Zam, get my socks and
my shoes and my coat. Quickly!”

While Zam searched under the bed
and by the door, Falstaff lifted the corpse onto his shoulders and
carried him into the hall. He stopped by the terrified girl in the
hall. The same unfortunate girl as before, “Sorry? Can you help fix
our door, we’ve got a terrible draft?” He ran past her and down the
stairs.

Coming back without the body, he
raced back to their room and grabbed his things, from Zam. “Get out
of here! Hide in the back office anywhere but our room! They know
we are here.”

Zam nodded.

“Get them to clean the blood if
you can?”

“Where are you going? You’re not
leaving are you?” Zam pleaded.

Falstaff kissed her. “No, but I’m
getting out of this hotel though! When the coast is clear, get all
our gear out of the room and packed up. I’ll come back for you. But
if they see my face we’ll both hang!”