The Challenging Heights (17 page)

The kneeling men were dispatched one by one, the peasants by shooting in the back of the head, the officials by strangling or beheading by a brawny headsman carrying a huge curved sword. Held to the window by bayonets pricking their backs, Dicken and Father O’Buhilly were obliged to watch every minute of it. Dicken was shaking with rage but the priest quietly muttered prayers to himself from beginning to end.

‘Sure, if the poor heathens are anything at all they’ll be Taoists,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think the Almighty will mind a Catholic prayer being offered for their souls.’

Wailing women collected the bodies. Those who had bribed the guards were allowed to have the heads which they then sewed back on to the severed necks so that their menfolk could go to their ancestors without losing face. Those who could not afford the bribes or had refused to pay found the heads were hung from poles with cords pushed through a slit in the ears. Nevertheless, Lee allowed the funerals to take place and there was a procession of lanterns and gongs, and Lee provided a mockery of a military band which played ‘John Brown’s Body’
in front of the wreaths and effigies of horsemen and favourite pets, while the local orchestra of hired musicians blew sobs from long instruments like huge garden syringes.

That night Dicken worked all the harder with the scrap of metal Father O’Buhilly had found, digging at the crumbling plaster round the base of the bars in the window. In between, when they rested, he found himself discussing religion.

He had never been a religious man and had always regarded God as a sort of benevolent commanding officer but, falling in love with Nicola Aubrey, listening to her talk about her Catholicism, had made him think about it because she had often worried what would happen to her if she married a Protestant. The priest listened carefully, nodding and saying little.

Then Dicken lit a cigarette, took a puff and handed it to the American. ‘How does one become a Catholic, Father?’ he asked.

Father O’Buhilly smiled and returned the question with another. ‘Are you a good Protestant, me boy?’ he asked.

‘I try to be, though I reckon I’ve not always been successful. I seem to have been too busy.’

Father O’Buhilly smiled as he took his turn again with the cigarette. ‘Then the first thing to do, me boy, is to become a good Protestant. When I first came East, I, too, had doubts and I once asked a Taoist priest how to become a Taoist. He advised me first to become a good Christian.’

Dicken smiled back. ‘Does your religion allow you to escape, Father?’ he asked.

‘Most certainly.’

‘With a Protestant?’

‘God’s more broadminded than most people give Him credit for, my son. Contrary to what many think, provided you’ve been a good man – and I’m thinkin’ you have – he’d even allow you into the Kingdom of Heaven, whether you’ve been a Catholic or not, a good churchgoer or not. He couldn’t possibly raise any objection to me goin’ with you.’

Dicken grinned as he took his turn with the cigarette. ‘Even if it meant clocking that sentry over there by the aeroplane? We might have to.’

‘Even with that, me boy.’

‘How do you reckon He feels about revenge, Father? Because if I bump into Lee again, I might lose my temper.’

‘Pride, me boy, is the spring of malice and the desire for revenge. Does your anger spring from pride?’

Dicken grinned and passed over the last of the cigarette. ‘No, Father. Just a strong desire to punch him on the nose.’

The priest finished the cigarette and tossed it through the window. ‘So long as it is no more than a calm, cold-blooded, non-denominational straight left to the jaw,’ he said, ‘I feel He would not object.’

Two nights later they had the bars loosely held in place in their sockets with mud which they had made by the simple procedure of urinating on the dirt floor. Over it they had sprinkled dust so that it looked like old cement.

‘You’re quite sure,’ Father O’Buhilly asked nervously, ‘that it would be unwise to make the journey back to Shanghai on Shanks’ pony. I have never flown, y’see, and I have to confess that the idea strains the fastenings of me faith.’

‘Listen, Father,’ Dicken said quietly. ‘It’s a waste of time trying to walk from here to Shanghai. We must be a hundred or so miles away and Lee will get his men out as soon as he finds we’re gone. They’ll have horses and cars and I doubt if we could shelter with the local people. Even if they wished to help us, they wouldn’t dare in case he comes down on them with reprisals. It’s the aeroplane or nothing.’

‘We can start it, me boy?’

‘I think so. But it’ll have to be quick. And that means you’ve got to learn what to do. I shall dispose of the sentry–’

‘We’ll discuss that later.’

Dicken grinned. ‘When he’s disposed of, we chuck his rifle away so he can’t grab it if he comes round, then I climb into the cockpit. Your job will be to swing the propeller. But there’s a bit of rigmarole to go through before you do that, and you’d better do it properly or you’ll get your head whipped off.’

‘It would be a most unusual way for a servant of God to go to his Maker, my son.’

‘Right, then. You handle the propeller. I hope you’re strong because you have to be to swing a DH9. When I’m in the cockpit and I’ve checked the controls, I’ll stick my thumb up. Like this. Then you call out “Switch off. Petrol On. Suck In,” and turn the propeller to get rid of excess petrol, leaving it horizontal. Then wipe your hands – spit on ’em if you like for good measure – scrape your boots on the ground a bit to make sure you’ve got a good foothold, then lean well forward, with your hands on the blade of the propeller and try your balance. Like this.’

Demonstrating, he waited until Father O’Buhilly had understood. ‘All this is a safety measure,’ he explained. ‘So that when you’re fiddling about with the propeller, I don’t allow the engine to fire and whip your block off. Understood?’

Father O’Buhilly nodded. ‘It is terrible dangerous by the sound of it.’

‘Not if you do as I suggest. Right, then, when you’re ready, you call out “Contact”. That’s to let me know
you’re
ready and I can switch on. That’s when I switch on the magnetos and the engine’s ready to fire. Right? I reply “Contact” to let you know I’ve heard, and then, and not until you hear that word, you heave down and away on the propeller, leaning back as you do so, so that you’re out of the line of the blades. Think you can do it?’

‘Perhaps a little rehearsal will do no harm.’

‘It might not fire straight away, of course.’

‘And if it doesn’t fire at all?’

‘In
that
case we shall be Lee’s guests for a lot longer, because it looks very much as though nobody’s going to stage a rescue for us.’

They decided to go the following night when there would be a slight moon to enable them to see.

‘We’re going to be taking off in the dark, Father,’ Dicken pointed out. ‘I’m going to be doing it by the seat of my pants.’

‘And I, me boy, will be in the other seat with my eyes tight shut prayin’ to the Almighty to make the seat of your pants a good guide to the two sinners who’re dependin’ on ’em.’

They had rehearsed the rigmarole of starting the engine until Father O’Buhilly had it perfectly, then Dicken had drawn marks on the dirt floor of the cell to indicate exactly where the mounting slots were in the fuselage to enable him to climb quickly into the rear cockpit when the engine was running.

‘But not,’ he explained, ‘before you’ve yanked the chocks away from the wheels. Those are the triangular wooden blocks which stop the machine moving forward when the engine’s running. If you forget them, we might have trouble. Chocks first, then the cockpit.’

The priest nodded. ‘I have it, me boy.’ He tapped his head. ‘Up here. ’Tis full o’ nothing else so there’s plenty of room.’

‘Once you’re in the cockpit,’ Dicken said. ‘You’ll find you’re probably standing on sandbags. They were for ballast, to trim the machine on the way up here in place of a man, and if they haven’t been removed, get rid of them. Toss ’em over the side. But try to do it before we start moving fast. We don’t want ’em bouncing off the tail surface. There’s no gun to get in your way. Which is a pity,’ he went on, ‘because we might have put a burst or two into Lee’s precious yamen as we left. Can you work a gun?’

Father O’Buhilly smiled. ‘I worked one often in the Argonne, me boy, but I would imagine the Almighty might frown on that sort of revenge. So perhaps it is as well we haven’t one. Since we finished the last cigarette, I’ve been harbourin’ thoughts in me mind that don’t become a servant of God.’

The following afternoon, another DH9, bearing Chiang’s sunburst markings on the wings, landed and stopped outside the cell with its engine throbbing. A man climbed out of the rear cockpit and headed for Dicken’s machine. Climbing into the cockpit, he sat there checking the controls, while the pilot of the new machine worked the propeller. As the engine roared to life, the chocks were hauled away and the machine rolled forward.

With grim faces, Dicken and Father O’Buhilly watched it lift into the air at the end of its run and begin its climb away to the hills.

‘Well, that seems to be that,’ Dicken said. ‘It looks like being Shanks’ pony after all.’

When the rice appeared that evening, Lee brought the pilot of the Chiang DH9 with him.

‘I say,’ he said. ‘This is Captain Hsu. He learned to fly in America. He has come to thank you for the gift of your so splendid aeroplane to his squadron. It is now beyond your reach.’

Hsu was a lean good-looking Chinese who spoke English with an American accent. He wore smartly-cut breeches, a short leather flying jacket and a white silk scarf, with ribbons attached to the top of his flying cap in the manner of the pilots in the American pulp magazines.

As the bowls of rice were placed on the floor, Lee gestured. ‘When Captain Hsu goes tomorrow, we shall withdraw northwards. You’ll go with us as hostages for our safety. We shall be celebrating our new aircraft tonight with rice wine.

The sun went down in a lemon yellow sky and they could hear a lot of laughter from the big house with the curved eaves where Lee had his headquarters. Dicken was staring through the bars of the cell window at Hsu’s DH9. It was a new aircraft but its mechanics had not cared for it and there were streaks of oil along the engine.

‘What are ye thinkin’, me boy?’ O’Buhilly asked. ‘Now the aeroplane’s gone?’

Dicken was silent for a long time. ‘That there’s another one, Father,’ he said. ‘
That
one.’

‘What are you gettin’ at, me boy?’

‘Why don’t we take it in place of the one we’ve lost?’

‘Y’have terrible thoughts, me boy. Here I was thinkin’ almost the same thing meself.’

Dicken smiled. ‘If we took Hsu’s machine,’ he said, ‘it would be a fair exchange. It’s even probably newer than the one they’ve pinched. Unfortunately, there are two sentries there now and I couldn’t get one without the other raising the alarm.’

‘So what’s wrong with me tacklin’ the other, me boy?’

‘Does your religion permit violence of that sort?’

‘I’ve tried to convince you, me boy, that the Almighty’s more broadminded than most people think. I’m sure He wouldn’t object, if I do a little prayin’ beforehand to let Him know what we’re about. So long as I report to the Orderly Room, I think it will be all right.’

When it was dark, they quietly worked at the bars in the window until the crumbling cement in the upper sockets fell away. Quietly removing them, Dicken was about to lay them on the ground when he hefted their weight in his hand, smiling at the priest.

‘Father, do you think God would permit you to hit the sentry with one of these? It ought to be enough to keep him quiet for a while without killing him.’

O’Buhilly smiled back. ‘I don’t think the Almighty would frown on a severe headache,’ he said.

‘Right. You know what to do. Let’s go through it once more. It’ll be exactly the same with this machine as mine. Can you do it– quickly?’

‘Did I not see it, boy? Right there, outside the window. Did not Captain Hsu obligingly go through the whole rigmarole for me within yards of me nose? I already had thoughts in me head of replacing our machine with that one and I gave it the utmost attention just in case your own thoughts were the same as mine. I have it clear in me mind.’

‘And the sentry? You can fix him?’

As the priest nodded, Dicken stuck the iron bar in his belt and climbed on to his back to clamber into the window opening. Sitting there, he grasped Father O’Buhilly’s hand and hauled him up, before dropping quietly through to the other side. Father O’Buhilly followed him, landing alongside him in the shadows.

Quietly they crept on to the field until they could see the wide wings of the aeroplane against the sky.

‘It’s facing the wrong way,’ Dicken said. ‘When we’ve polished off the sentries, we’ll have to swing it round before we go through the start-up routine.’

Crouching in the long grass close to the sentries, he whispered to the priest. ‘You take the nearest. I’ll whistle when I’m ready.’

Working to within two or three feet of the sentry, Dicken whistled gently. Almost at once there was an answering whistle and he saw the sentry stiffen. He was staring towards where Father O’Buhilly was crouching as Dicken leapt to his feet and swung the iron bar. There was a grunt and the Chinese crumpled up, his rifle clattering to the ground. Almost at once, he heard a scuffle where the other sentry stood, then a muffled cry and, hurrying across, found the priest struggling with one hand over the man’s mouth. As Dicken’s arm swung and the man collapsed, Father O’Buhilly’s teeth flashed in the faint light caused by the glow of the moon coming over the trees.

‘I think the Lord was holding me hand,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hit him hard enough. Heaven be praised for unbelievers like yourself.’

Dicken gestured at the aeroplane and together they lifted the tail and swung it round. ‘Chocks,’ he said. ‘Otherwise she’ll jump forward when the engine starts.’

Pushing the chocks back into place, he climbed into the cockpit, wriggled himself into the seat, checked the controls and looked at the instruments. He could just make out in the faint light what he was doing.