The Call of the Thunder Dragon (42 page)

Loudly and with a sharpened tone
Falstaff announced, “Before her Ladyship retires to her room,
perhaps she would be permitted to deposit her valuables in the
hotel safe?

Falstaff dropped the bags with a
hefty thud and pulled out the two well-wrapped leather sacks. The
coins clinked brightly as he dropped them on the desk.

“I took the liberty of bringing
them along, best not left in the aircraft Mam?” He looked down his
nose at the clerk. “My employer would like a receipt,
thank’ee.”

The Indian clerk rushed off to
find the manager and bookkeeper. Falstaff took the opportunity to
replace his leather flying helmet and goggles with his Imperial
Airways cap from his leather flight bag. He straightened out his
collar and jacket. He smirked at the passers-by, who moved on to
seek less colourful amusement. Apart from one middle-aged woman who
studied the pair from behind her fan with the eye of a practised
tattler.

Presently the manager arrived,
full of apologies for the delay. A set of en suite rooms was
rapidly found, one that contained an office desk and a safe for the
valuables.

Zam felt uncomfortable with the
attention Falstaff was bringing her. She had never liked fuss, as
the third daughter of the Lord of Paro, she had status in Bhutan,
but the people did not treat her with such fawning airs as the
staff at the hotel suddenly did the moment gold was flaunted. She
suddenly felt homesick. She thought about her father, Lord Lang, a
hereditary title based on local and family legend. Her father would
be ashamed of her receiving such treatment because of his
title.

Their rooms contained an entire
suite suitable for a wealthy plantation owner and his wife. Two
en-suite bedrooms; one that included an integral office, with
private safe; and a reception room, which could double as a dining
room. Almost as many rooms as Zam had in her own home.

The hotel was surreal to her; as if she’d entered the
fabric of a painting.
The great carved and coloured walls of
her home, full of woven tapestries, knotted wood and wooden floors,
polished by patter of many feet and covered with hand finished
grass matting, was so much more real than the smooth painted
plaster, wallpapered halls carpeted with thick spongy Wilton mode
runners that hid the structure of the building.

She felt uncomfortable, homesick
and lost. The rooms felt like a trap. Vexed, she sat on the chaise
longue, looking at the white netting hanging over the window.
Everything seemed to be veiled in some way or other. Everything had
to have a
beau mode
, a cultured acumen she didn’t
understand. Even the thing, Falstaff had called a ‘chaise longue’
was upholstered for a purpose she didn’t understand beyond that of
the desk chairs, the dining chairs, the pair of wing backed reading
chairs, the beds and the settee in the reception room. Who could
possibly need so many types of chair in one rented room?

“It’s all for tea and tiffin; the
correct time of day and the proper decorum for the type of visitors
you getand so on!” Falstaff said stretching.with yawn. He’d just as
soon lie on the floor right then. “It’s a bit over the top isn’t
it?

Zam nodded slowly. “I think so,
it is too much. This room and then there is the club? What do
people use it all for?”

Zam glanced at Falstaff and found
that he’d stripped off his boots, socks and long Johns and was
standing in naught but his oil-stained shirt. The first thing she
noticed was his toes and the black fluff that had accumulated
between them from his socks. She laughed pointing.

Falstaff rubbed his feet into the
Wilton.

“Don’t! You’ll spoil it!” Zam
remonstrated.

“Oh, rats! Let’s see if we can’t
dirty the bathroom as well? I’m afraid the tub will be a
disappointment, too small to share, - but there’ll be plenty of hot
water!”

Falstaff found the bathtub was a
typical small European affair; the cold, clean white enamelled
bathtub stood on its four cast legs, like an empty butter dish. It
was no comparison in comfort to a big outdoor wooden tub fed by hot
water springs. Discouraged by the sterile white tiles, they didn’t
linger while soaking in the tub.

Falstaff managed a verse or two.
“Shadows on the Moon are saying, autumn time will go! And soon
we`ll hear the winter trumpets blow!”

They took turns each scrubbed
until the tub, floor and basin were smudged with oil and dirt from
their journey.

Falstaff was waiting in Zam’s
bed, wrapped in the crisp white cotton. Zam emerged naked in the
doorway fresh as a peach. All curvy and pale skinned. Her face
rosy, with a ripe redness in her cheeks after the hot bath. Eye
catching and in the raw, she stood with one hand on her hip in
contrast to the elaborate decor of the colonial fakery of the hotel
room.

“Shadows on the Moon are waiting,
for a smile to start to chase away! The shadows on your heart!”
Falstaff boomed, throwing back the covers, he beckoned. “Come here
my lady!”

Zam didn’t leap. Instead, she
walked slowly with her hands on her hips, close enough that
Falstaff could reach out and grab her. She leaned forward slightly,
so the weight of her breasts made them jiggle. “Do I really have a
pretty nose?” She asked.

“What?” Falstaff sat up, his eyes
wondering over Zam’s figure. “Why do ask now?”

“You told Mr. Gibbs that you fell
for my pretty nose didn’t you?” Zam turned her head on one side and
wrinkled her nose at him.

Falstaff made a grab at her arm.
“Damn it, come here!” He pleaded.

Zam stepped back. “I thought you
liked me for all this? And you told Mr. Gibbs I was rough around
the edges!” She pouted, licking her lips.

“Er! I did, but that means your
manners! You did call me... what was it, a Horse faced what?”

Zam smiled, putting one hand on
her hip, she sashayed to the foot of the bed. “I can walk and talk
like a princess if you like? Or I can play rough?”

Falstaff threw the sheet, which
ballooned out descending over her like a net.

“Not too rough, princess my ribs
still sore. Now let me remind you how the things you’ve got, are
better when you’re trying not to be a princess?”

Next morning Falstaff rose
early. He brushed the worst of the dust from his trousers and
pulled them on, along with a clean shirt and leather slippers and
went for a walk around the hotel He quickly found the lounge.

He settled down next to a pile of
old newspapers. Ordering a pot of coffee and toast, he started to
catch up on the news at home. Sitting by the window, with sunlight
streaming through the panes of glass, the noise of breakfast being
severed across the foyer in the dining room.

The murmur and clink of cutlery
reminded him briefly of England, his School. Harrow and the rush of
boys, hungry for breakfast and the yelp of Masters cautioning them
to silence! The morning routine of Cranwell. His RAF College and
the buzz at the tables while Cadet airmen and ground crew whispered
feverishly about the content of the previous day’s half-forgotten
flight instructions and the hangovers nursed with tea and eggs.

Falstaff suddenly laughed,
understanding maybe for the first time the pain filled yelp of the
Masters at his school, insisting that they be quiet until they’d,
at least, one cup of tea without interruption?

A well-read Times newspaper,
three months old, eye caught Falstaff’s attention first. The Prime
Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was being savaged for his refusal to
make a decent declaration that might have deterred Germany from
taking the action it had by invading Poland in a few months earlier
September 1939.

The Times contentious argument
widely attacked Chamberlain’s leadership and a number of public
figures for their failed policies towards Germany. There was even
veiled suggestion that the failure to equip the British armed
forces also had appeared indecisive; more of an encouragement to
Germany, rather than a warning. The article was a clear
denunciation of what the Times saw as ‘appeasement’, which it
argued was the deliberate surrender of smaller nations to the
outrage of Hitler's blatant bullying. From the gist, it was clear a
change of leadership was required to let the culpable men
retire.

He read on how Chamberlain had
pledged Britain to defend Poland's independence if the latter were
attacked, an alliance that had brought Britain into war when
Germany attacked Poland in 1939.

With a huff, Falstaff searched
through the pile of papers further, picking out a more recent paper
and started reading an article on the sports page. Blackpool
Football Club was leading the first division for the season
starting August, then Germany had invaded Poland. The sports writer
was evidently trying to fill his column by expanding on the hopes
of the previous season. Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End were
hoping to climb higher this season, but the writer evidently
supported Arsenal, exaggerating their last victory before the
season was halted.

All play was to be abandoned
following the British declaration of war on Germany. The English
man was now without his beloved football, large gatherings of
crowds were suspended with the implementation of the Emergency
Powers. The outrage was either a destruction of civilisation as the
English man knew it or a sign that Hitler would have to answer to
the men whose weekly pilgrimage to the terraces of Blackburn Rovers
had been interrupted?

The sports writer’s message was
lost, however as he had made a final plea that the relevant part of
the act be repealed, so that football should be allowed to continue
as it had been during the Great War. It had given the nation moral
fibre, he claimed and maintained fitness ready for war. The humble
sports writer also wished to consider the financial impact on club
members, especially season tickets holders who had just bought new
tickets?

Falstaff sat back to absorb the
news. War hadn’t just been ‘declared’; the British were preparing
for war on the scale of the previous ‘Great’ war. He shuffled
through the papers. September 1939, war declared, it was now
January 1940?

He sorted the papers looked for a
more recent edition. Chamberlain was still in power and being
criticised for his leadership of the war cabinet. Conscription was
met with mixed blessings in England, the army and navy having been
ordered to prepare for continental war. The Territorial Army had
doubled from thirteen to twenty-six divisions. Britain’s aircraft
production was rising to meet demands previously set but had been
impossible before the formation of the war cabinet. The Army
remained firmly behind the war cabinet’s direction, but the papers
alleged shortages of equipment for men and pointedly argued that
still more needed to be done to provide artillery and tanks.

Falstaff tired of the politics
flicked through the papers and he picked the December Manchester
Guardian, the most recent paper he could find. His eyes drifted
over an article regarding the final outfitting of the battleship
the ‘Prince of Wales’ for deployment to Singapore. There was much
hope being placed on the King George V class ships. They had been
designed to meet the provisions of the Washington Naval Treaty and
to answer the Naval threat of Japan and Italy, who had both
withdrawn from the treaty. Concern was still widespread in the
government owing to the lack of new modern battleships in the navy.
As a result, the paper speculated, the Admiralty would be sending
the ship to the Singapore within weeks.

The new battleship, the Prince of
Wales, was originally named King Edward VIII but upon the
abdication of Edward, the ship was renamed. Cammell Laird's
shipyard in Birkenhead had been working on her since January 1937
and having launched her in May ’39 and was coming to the end of her
fitting out.

Falstaff sat back drinking his
now cold coffee. The Prince of Wales coming to Singapore? The
Navy’s newest battleship coming out east? Did that mean the war
would come to Asia, engulf the Empire? Did they expect a pact
between Japan and Germany? Falstaff doubted it, at least, last year
he would have laughed at the idea, but Germany had now withdrawn
wholly from China, leaving it open for Japan, - and the Chinese
without another ally.

Falstaff felt a pang of fear or
guilt, wishing for the relative safety of home while he sat in
luxury far from the growing fear of conflict.

Falstaff wondered if Gibbons was
contemplating giving up his job as a groundsman? Gibbons was a year
or two older? Surely it wouldn’t be too long before he married? If
Gibbs stayed in Jorhat, he might either marry and settle down in
India or perhaps return to England to find a wife? Had he thought
about conscripting himself?

Falstaff wondered if conscription
had been extended to the colonies yet? He’d always been a bit vague
on his own reserve status? He doubted that anyone in Whitehall
would be concerned about all the pilots of no fixed abode who had
taken up the life of freelancers or already succumb to disease or
crashed into a foggy mountain top or been drowned in the China Sea,
to bother about him?

He had not been in touch with
home once since he left and he had never kept still. Hong Kong and
Bora Bora were his only two regular haunts. The idea of returning
home to conscription and the idea of returning home to face his
father merged. His unpleasant overbearing father, always adamant
that Falstaff was not to fly and never would fly if he had anything
to do with it. In a small part, he could arrange that. His father a
recently retired RAF officer he would have been called up himself,
possibly he was wondering what had become of this son? They both
had a blazing row on his return from Afghanistan. Despite being
reported lost, his father showed no glimmer of thanks for his son’s
safe return. Instead, he’d harangued him about unpaid bills,
reparations for wrongs done to various women and their husbands and
the damage done to the family name.