Jon Cleary - High Road to China

They landed at Le Bourget to refuel. The French aerodrome official checked them in, looked at their planes, went away and came back with two gendarmes. He gestured at the rear cockpits of O’Malley’s and Weyman’s planes. The Lewis guns were locked in position and covered by canvas sleeves, but there was no mistaking what they were.

‘It is not permitted, m’sieu, for private aeroplanes with machine-guns to fly across France.’

‘These are not private machines.’ O’Malley’s French was adequate if not fluent. A six months’ affair with a girl in Auxi had improved his schoolboy French in every possible way. ‘We are delivering them to the Greek government in Athens.’

‘Have you papers?’

‘We were told the Greek embassy in Paris would arrange for our transit. Everything was done in a hurry. The machines were only ordered yesterday. Things are very bad in Thrace, as you know.’

The official didn’t know, didn’t even know where Thrace was, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He said doggedly, ‘You need papers.’

‘M’sieu, I admit we should have papers, but there wasn’t time. It was a holiday in England yesterday – the French embassy was closed – and everything is so urgent. As you know, the Turks are attacking and winning.’

The official once again didn’t know, which was just as well, since the Turks were losing badly. But the sergeant of the two gendarmes opened his eyes wide, then nodded. ‘Damned Turks. I fought against them in Syria. We were supposed to have beaten them.’

‘The Greeks will beat them with these machines,’ said O’Malley. ‘Your government is also supplying them with some of your wonderful aeroplanes. With your Spads and Nieuports and these machines of ours, the Turks will be beaten in a matter of weeks.’

It was the official’s turn to nod, but he wasn’t going to give up so easily. ‘Who is the lady?’

Eve, whose French, learned at Boston’s Winsor School, was good enough to allow her to follow the conversation, was about to introduce herself when O’Malley, with a bow to her, said, ‘She is the daughter of the Greek Foreign Minister. She is hurrying back to be with him.’

‘Does she speak French?’

Before Eve could answer for herself O’Malley said, ‘Unfortunately, no.’

‘Does she have a passport?’

‘As you know, the Greek government, since the war, has not got around to printing passports.’

The official once more didn’t know; as O’Malley hoped he wouldn’t, since he didn’t know himself what was the Greek situation on passports. ‘Who is the Chinese gentleman?’

‘The Foreign Minister’s butler. The Minister used to be the Greek ambassador in Peking.’

‘Let them go,’ said the sergeant. ‘We’re holding up giving those damned Turks a hiding.’

The official sighed, shrugged. ‘Just don’t fire your machine-guns at anything before you cross out of France, m’sieu.’ He bowed to Eve, shook hands with George Weyman, then followed O’Malley across to his plane. As the latter climbed into his cockpit the Frenchman said, ‘I always admire a good liar, m’sieu, and the English are so good at it.’

‘And the French, too,’ said O’Malley, taking a risk. ‘Let’s give credit where credit is due.’

The Frenchman acknowledged the compliment. He was a thin man with sad, bagged eyes in a bony, mournful face. He was still weary from the war, too old to be hopeful about the peace. ‘Just where are you going, m’sieu?’

‘China.’

The Frenchman smiled. ‘A good lie, m’sieu. Keep it up. Bon voyage.’

They took off again, heading almost due east. They ran into rain squalls south of Strasbourg and O’Malley gestured to the others to widen the gap between them; they flew blind for ten minutes, then came out into bright, almost horizontal sunlight. They flew on yellow rails, through brilliantly white clouds, and at last slid down towards the sun-shot blue of Lake Constance, the Bodensee. They landed at Friederichshafen, going in past the huge Zeppelin sheds. They parked their planes at the end of the field and at once saw the big Mercedes staff car speeding down towards them. It skidded to a halt on the grass and two men jumped out.

‘Sprechen sie deutsch?’ He was a plump, blond man, hair cut en brosse , a personification of the cartoon German.

‘Unfortunately, no,’ said O’Malley. ‘Sprechen sie englisch?’

‘Yes,’ said the plump man and twisted his little finger in his ear as if getting ready for the foreign language. ‘I was a prisoner of war for two years.’

The other German, a younger man with dark hair and eyes that would never admit surrender or defeat, only half-hid his sneer. ‘Herr Bultmann is proud of his English and where he learned it.’

‘At least I survived,’ said Bultmann, as if that had been the purpose of war. He explained to the ex-enemy, ‘I flew in Zeppelins. Unfortunately we were brought down. Herr Pommer was ground crew. He learned his English from a book.’ He looked at O’Malley and Weyman, as if he knew they would understand that ground crew could never be shot down. Then for the first time he saw the guns on two of the planes. ‘You are armed? Why?’

‘We are on our way to Turkey,’ said O’Malley. ‘As you know, things are going badly for your ex-allies there. These machines have been bought by the Nationalists.’

‘ British aeroplanes?’

O’Malley shrugged. ‘You know what governments are like, even our own. They will sell anything to anyone, if there is a profit in it. Herr Weyman and I are just paid civil servants.’

‘But the Treaty of – where was it? Sèvres? – I thought the Turks were not allowed to have any military equipment. Like us.’

‘Ah, what are treaties? They’ll be turning a blind eye to you, too, in a year or two.’

‘If they do, the wrong people will get the equipment. Who is the lady?’

‘Daughter of the ex-Foreign Minister of Turkey. She speaks neither English nor German, unfortunately. The Chinese is her father’s butler.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Bultmann, still smiling and friendly, his prisoner-of-war English impeccable. ‘I do not believe a word of it. You will have to come with us, please.’

Then another car came speeding down the field. This was another Mercedes, but this one had never been a wartime staff car; it was a private one, badly needing a coat of paint but still looking huge and powerful and opulent. The man who got out of it, though not huge and powerful, also had a suggestion of opulence about him. He wore a homburg, a winged collar with a grey silk cravat, black jacket, grey waistcoat, striped trousers and grey spats. He could have been a diplomat, a successful lawyer or a gigolo. Only when he got closer did Eve, who had an eye for such things, see that everything he wore was like the car, pre-war and frayed at the edges.

‘What is the trouble, Herr Bultmann?’ He spoke in German in a soft voice that didn’t quite disguise the harsh Prussian accent.

‘No trouble, sir. The English party just have to explain why they are flying armed aeroplanes over German territory.’

The newcomer turned to face O’Malley and the others. He was a very tall, lean man with a bony, handsome face that gave no close hint of his age: he could have been an old twenty or a young forty. He had cool, insolent eyes, a sensual mouth and an air of contempt for the world and everyone in it. Eve thought him one of the handsomest men she had seen in a long time.

He took off his hat, exposing sleek blond hair, clicked his heels and bowed to Eve. ‘I am Baron Conrad von Kern,’ he said in English. ‘I live just along the lake. I saw your aeroplanes come in and I was curious. The last time I saw a Bristol Fighter was two years ago. I shot it down in flames.’