Jon Cleary - High Road to China

Eve ed at O’Malley. There were only the three of them at the table Weyman was in his room, still asleep. Sun Nan, careful of his manners, had asked to be excused from eating with them; munching an apple, he was now out on the terrace, admiring the scenery like any unworried, conscience-free visitor. Breakfast made a mockery of the claim that people further north were on the verge of starvation; eggs, bacon, sausages, fruit, three sorts of bread loaded the table like some harvest offering. The fruits of defeat, thought O’Malley, who hadn’t had a breakfast like this in longer than he cared to think about. And looked at Kern and wondered if he could put up with the arrogant ex-enemy.

‘It’s up to you, Miss Tozer.’ He sipped his coffee, tasted the mushy bitterness of it; at least the coffee in England wasn’t made from acorns, as this was. ‘If it won’t offend the Baron to fly a British machine.’

‘You are a flier like me, Herr O’Malley. You know real pilots draw no distinctions between aeroplanes. Your fliers had as much admiration for our Albatroses and Fokkers as we had for your SE’s and Bristols. All one looks for is a machine that gives him pleasure to fly.’

‘At least we have that much in common.’ O’Malley tried not to sound too grudging. ‘If the Baron flew with von Richthofen, he’d be a good pilot. I know – I flew against the Circus.’

‘We may even have flown against each other,’ said Kern.

‘The thought had occurred to me. Were you ever shot down?’

Kern hesitated, but his honesty was equal to his pride. ‘Once. I was flying an Albatros and we ran into an English formation above Rosières. I shot down two machines, two Camels, then a third one got above me, put me on fire. I got back to our own lines, but only just. My mechanics dragged me out, but not before I was burned. Here.’ He ran his right hand down his left side and left arm. ‘It was 22 July 1918.’

O’Malley looked at his coffee cup, pushed it away. ‘I still fly that Camel back home in England.’

Kern showed no surprise: the war in the air had always been a local affair. ‘Did you claim me as a kill?’

‘I’m afraid so. I thought you were a dead duck.’

Kern shook his head, smiled thinly. ‘Your count was wrong, Herr O’Malley. So I am one up on you, thirty-two to thirty-one.’

‘Are you finished, both of you?’ Eve, worn out, had slept soundly; but she had woken depressed. The offer by Kern had given her a momentary lift, but now she was annoyed by these two men and their reminiscences that had nothing to do with what concerned her so much. ‘This is not a lark, Baron – ’

‘The war was no lark, Fräulein.’

Eve ignored that: she knew it had been no lark, but these two talked as if it had been some sort of deadly game in the air. ‘Our arrangement would be a business one. The same terms as I’m paying Mr O’Malley. Five hundred pounds and your return fare. I don’t know what that is in marks.’

Kern smiled. ‘Who does know? Yesterday it could have been a billion marks, today a trillion. The money is immaterial, Fräulein Tozer. But I’ll take it.’

He’s as broke as I am, thought O’Malley. The castle, the big Mercedes, the servants, the big meals: it all floated on God knew what depth of credit. The Junkers still survived, though O’Malley wouldn’t bet on how long. Not even a credit bet, if anyone would give him credit.

Eve stood up, suddenly eager to be on their way again. ‘Could we leave in half an hour, Baron? We hope to make Belgrade tonight.’

‘I shall have to telephone Herr Bultmann before he talks to his superiors.’

‘Is he likely to hold us up?’

Kern shook his head. ‘Herr Bultmann is one of the old school.’

What the hell does that mean? O’Malley wondered; but didn’t ask, because he had already guessed. Certain areas of Germany still echoed to the click of boot-heels; the workers’ soviets might be taking over towns in Saxony, but not here around Freiderichshafen. He determined there would be no heel-clicking between here and China.

Kern went away to make his phone call to Bultmann and Eve and O’Malley went up to say goodbye to Weyman. He was more comfortable this morning but far from cheerful. ‘This is a right do, isn’t it? Stabbed by a blasted Chinaman, replaced by a Boche. I did better than that in four years of war.’

‘Stop laughing, chum.’

O’Malley would miss Weyman on the flight. His mercurial temper was a handicap and they would be flying over terrain where his prejudices would have flourished like weeds; but he was an excellent mechanic and O’Malley had little confidence in his own ability to keep the machines going if any of them should break down. But he was becoming more and more aware of Eve Tozer’s concern for her father, could see that the air of cool control she affected was now no more than a veneer, and he did not want to add to her worries by mentioning what, with luck, might not happen.

‘Good luck.’ George Weyman put out his bandaged left hand, made the gesture of a handshake. ‘You’ll get there in time, Miss Tozer. You can put your money on Bede.’

Eve, an affectionate girl, kissed Weyman on the forehead; he blushed as if she had pulled back the sheets to get into bed with him. ‘Good luck to you, too. See Arthur Henty when you get to London. Tell him so far we are keeping to schedule.’

‘Second day out,’ said O’Malley sardonically. ‘I should hope so.’

‘That’s the only way I can bear to think,’ said Eve. ‘Day to day.’

‘Sorry,’ said O’Malley, and bit his tongue to remind it to be more careful in future.

An elderly servant drove Eve, O’Malley, Kern and Sun Nan in to the airfield. Sun Nan sat in the back with Eve and O’Malley, completely indifferent to the change of pilots in the third plane. He made no reference to Weyman, not enquiring about how his victim was this morning; and on the surface he looked equally uninterested in Weyman’s replacement. But he was studying Kern, certain that the German aristocrat, in his own way, had as many prejudices as the English working man. They were all the same here in the West and he would be glad to get back to China, where all the prejudices were honourable ones.

Bultmann and Pommer were waiting for them at the airfield. One of the airships had been brought out of its hangar and floated against the morning sun as it nosed a mooring mast. The Mercedes drove through the shadow of it and went down to the end of the airfield and the parked Bristols. Kern looked up at the huge shape above them.

‘Some day the sky will be full of those. There will be no room for fliers like us, Herr O’Malley.’

‘Let’s take-off, do a circuit and come back and shoot them down.’

For the first time Kern smiled directly at O’Malley. ‘Jolly good idea.’

The car pulled up in front of the three Bristols. O’Malley, certain that Kern was going to get his way with the class-conscious Bultmann, went to his plane and began to dismantle the Lewis gun in the rear cockpit. Then he did the same with the gun in what was now Kern’s plane. He stowed the guns in the cockpits, but left the Scarff rings still mounted. He jumped down from Kern’s plane as the latter and Eve came across to him.

‘We can put the guns back when we get into hostile territory,’ he said.

‘What is the point of them with nobody in the rear cockpit to fire them?’ said Kern.

‘They were Weyman’s idea. If we’re going to have to fight anyone, it’ll be on the ground, not in the air.’

‘A pity, don’t you think?’

‘Stop that sort of thinking, both of you!’ Eve snapped, turned and strode across to her plane. She gestured curtly to Sun Nan to get aboard, then she clambered up and settled into her own cockpit.