The Call of the Thunder Dragon (16 page)

The rickshaw puller was well paid
and reprimanded against dropping anything on his way back to the
hotel.

Falstaff watched the cart go and
took Zam’s arm. “Shall we try the department store before lunch?
Then we can see if we can root out one of these truck
mechanics?”

Chapter Five – Lotus Tea Society

Marihito marched up the avenue.
His suitcase in hand, trying to look as smart and official as he
could. The local Police station was on the edge of the town at the
top of the hill on the road from Meizi to Simao and the main road
leading back out of the hills to next big town.

All around the town were lines of
bare tea bushes, with hilltops capped with pine trees and to the
east there was nothing but pine trees and bamboo for miles.
Marihito plodded west would up the road. Somewhere to his right,
down amongst the trees the he knew that Captain Soujiro’s
paratroopers were making the same journey.

Marihito was out of breath when
he got in sight of the Police station and its tiny lockup. The
Police station was an old building to begin with, converted from
some ancient sort of local administration building.

“They call this dump a Police
station? The Colonel will be furious, if he hasn’t managed to
escape this flimsy pigsty?”

Marihito stepped in cautiously
calling out. He saw a sign at the end of the room indicating the
location of the police office.

A grey haired, thin looking
police sergeant stuck his head around the corner. Cautioned his
visitor to patience while he boiled and poured the tea.

In the lookup, waited the two
prisoners sharing a creaking bench. The windows were boarded inside
and out with additional panels added around the room giving the
impression of a large wooden box. Colonel Haga-Jin and Takechi sat
at opposite ends of the one truly sturdy bench. The other being too
fragile to use and too near the full chamber pot they had been
forced to share.

Putting his steaming tea aside,
the policeman welcomed Marihito. He bowed ducking and nodding
thanks as Marihito produced the documents. The ancient policeman
grabbed Okura’s papers and read them quickly, seemingly rejoicing
in the fact the paper work would finally be completed and
filed.

The old police sergeant smiled
and waved away further evidence proffered by Marihito. The
passports, the forged letters from the Lotus Society and the
Japanese embassy. Marihito felt disappointed and pressed the papers
on the policeman, who waved them away, taking only one copy that he
shoved into another file with glee, without so much as a second
glance. Taking up his pen, he completed a form with an ink flicking
flourish. Marihito almost gasped aloud, the rush and mess the
policeman was making would not have been acceptable in a Japanese
office.

The old policeman was, in fact
glad to have an excuse to get rid of the Japanese. He knew they
weren’t messengers of reconciliation from the Lotus society. If
they were spies he wanted to be rid of them quickly, their
passports were worthless. It would be a waste of time checking
them. The last thing he wanted was to be in the middle of another
contrived or staged Japanese incident.

During the night the two Japanese
had made such a fuss and been so much trouble as prisoners the old
sergeant had sent out for noodles and wine to keep them quiet.

He waved Marihito to silence. Who
had come prepared to battle his wits against the police. Making use
of his Embassy and military experience to cow the sandal flopping
rustic policeman into handing over the Colonel and having him lick
his boots by way of reparation. Finding himself flapped into
silence, by the thin bony sergeant, he swallowed and fumed.

The sergeant shuffled off,
slurring his dismissal of Marihito. “Yar, yar, yar!” His voice
faded as he sloped away down the corridor.

Finding himself alone, Marihito
shouted. “Oy! Hey!” His cry went unanswered. He looked at the tidy
police office. The desks were clear, the wooden trays empty, accept
the out tray. The desks were characterised by the rings in the wood
left by noodle bowls. The only thing that looked used was the knobs
on the big radio that faintly hissed a jazz tune in the sudden
silence. Marihito suddenly felt his efforts wasted on the
provincial policeman.

First Colonel Haga-Jin emerged,
followed by Takechi, they both wore expressions revealing their
anger and bemusement. They were surprised to find themselves being
released and uneven more stunned to see Marihito. The policeman
waved casually and sat down.

“What is happening now?” Haga-Jin
snarled.

Marihito saw this as his chance
to show his worth and use his forged documents.

“I demand...” He started.

The policeman held up his hand,
flapping it in the direction of the door.

“Yah, yah, go!” He said and
flopped into his chair, his shoulders folding to the curve of the
high back. He slapped the papers in the out tray. “It’s done,
go!”

Takechi guided Colonel Haga-Jin,
urging him out of the door, before he exploded, for he knew how
angry he had become locked in the cell.

Marihito followed on their heels,
starting his rehearsed speech of explanation, pointing at his
broken nose.

Falstaff and Zam returned to the
hotel directly. Carrying the bags of warm clothes and hot water
bottles. Falstaff had also managed to find, after some explanation
to the shopkeeper a travel tea set, which included a little cooking
stove.

They set off towards the shore
accompanied by a line of houseboys, heavily laden with their
shopping and bags.

With relief Falstaff sat down on
a log and looked up at the bright red Caproni, it was exactly as
they had left it, apart from the thin layer of snow and ice formed
on the cockpit cover. The cover on one engine had blown off and was
hanging twisted against the fuselage, but no damage had been
done.

“What is all this stuff for?” Zam
asked. “You’ve spent half the money on this lot and the rest on
wine and food.

“And there’s the fuel to come
yet!” Falstaff pointed out. “Apart from food and fuel, possibly
lodging at one of our stops we shouldn’t have any more expenses?”
Falstaff murmured.

“How much more?” Zam raised an
eye brow. “I thought we’d spent the afternoon haggling over
petrol?”

“Let’s just say this journey is
going to be cold and I don’t intend to freeze! Now tell me how much
is already on board?”

Zam dismissed the houseboys,
sending them back to the hotel jingling with copper coins.

“Having sold the horses, I bought
Pu’er tea for my father, raw Tuocha cakes, some Maocha – light
green ripened tea and rich Dian cha; his favourite!”

Falstaff crawled over the
aircraft, out on to the fuselage on the first tail boom behind the
port engine then the other. After managing to undo the flaps on the
inside of the tail section, he got his head in to see how the cargo
was stowed.

“Okay, Garcia stowed the bags of
cargo in each tail? Tea, bottles of wine and a few other boxes?”
Falstaff rubbed his nose, frowning. “What are they?”

“Jade, also clothes and some silk
threads.” Zam frowned suspiciously. “What’s wrong?”

“Weight,” Falstaff pointed at
their gear. “Weight, is always the problem. Weight and altitude in
this case. If you don’t get it right, we’ll end up either not
taking off or sinking out of the clouds instead of climbing. But
don’t worry we’re alright. More than alright. This crate was
originally designed to carry big torpedoes!”

Zam didn’t know what a torpedo
was, but trusted Falstaff’s judgement, relieved that none of the
cargo would be left behind or was being at risk of being
searched.

They packed the bedding into the
crew space behind the cockpit, padding the fuselage sides, the
food, wine and brandy was stored in the nacelle that was packed
with more furs and blankets.

Falstaff kept aside the tools.
Zam frowned as he set aside a large portion of the strong ‘sauce’
rice wine with the tools.

“Don’t worry we’ll need that.
I’ll be well prepared before we take off.”

“You’ll end up drunk more like?”
Zam stood watching him. Everything had now been packed; only their
personal things at the hotel remained.

“Are we ready to go?” She said,
hopefully. She’d got Falstaff this far. She would see her father
soon.

“What are you so pleased about?”
Falstaff regarded the girl, standing with her hands on her hips,
grinning like a child on presenting to a doting parent a homemade
or hand painted model.

“Beautiful,” Zam said dreamily.
“Oh, my Beautiful Zam! That’s what my father will say!”

“Oh,” Falstaff said. “Looking
forward to getting home?” He climbed down, groaning trying to hide
the pain in his ribs. He wanted to get going, he was bored of the
hotel, and was sure they hadn’t seen the last of the Japanese yet.
He wanted to get flying.

Punctually a truck arrived
bumping and dodging its way up the track towards the aircraft.

Falstaff looked around as they
came. “Alright Zam, you can leave me here. We can check and test
the engines and then I’ll walk up to the telegraph office. If I can
manage that,” he said doubtfully, “I’ll be fit enough to fly
tomorrow!”

The two men in the truck were big
men, both Chinese grown hardy through many generations of local
foresters; rich through the lucrative lumber trade and supply of
local firewood and charcoal. They were brothers, now kept employed
more through the maintenance of the lumber yard equipment and
trucks more than through chopping wood.

They had eyes only for the
aircraft’s engines to begin with, after casually acknowledging
Falstaff they wondered around looking at the engines pointing and
speculating with beaming faces.

After they had chance to absorb
the scale of the machine, they turned to Falstaff and greeted him
more heartily.

“All I need to do is test the
engines; check over all the spark plugs, which will mean removing
them all then replacing them,” Falstaff explained the task, pleased
with enthusiasm of the help.

He had found stowed in the
aircraft the one thing he knew they would never find or buy for all
the tea in China; sparkplugs to fit the 200 horsepower engines.

Between the three, six-cylinder
engines they had Eighteen plugs to check or change, chances were
that at least half or more might need replacing. Best done here
near to Kunming, rather than have one fail over the Himalayas.
Master Garcia had 15 replacement plugs, wrapped in the original
packaging.

Before the work started, the
brothers went into deep discussion about the weather. They started
building a big fire, urging Falstaff to help.

“If you fly tomorrow, there will
be snow?” The younger brother said.

Not understanding Falstaff shook
his head and smiled. He had to get on well with the pair, without
their help he’d be stranded. He’d previously had the misfortune of
trying to make mechanics out of untrained coolies. Given the
knowledge they evidently had of engines he’d have grabbed the
chance to work with the pair of brothers.

“No, no,” The younger brother,
Jinling, waved his finger. “No, tonight – much cloud. Come over
lake, frost make much snow.”

“Really?” Falstaff’s heart sank.
“How cold? Freezing?”

The brothers set to work on the
fire, to keep them warm while working on the Caproni. They started
the fire with oil and petrol, then stood back offering Falstaff a
beer.

Suddenly he had doubts about the
pyromaniac brothers, he shielded his eyes from the bright burning
blaze and wondered if everything would be for naught as the flames
shot high into the air, the wind threatening to blow them towards
the Caproni.

Jinling and his brother Ang
laughed off the close call and clinked their bottles urging
Falstaff to the drink, pressing a bottle into his hand. To his
surprise, it was beer, a strong earthy beer, reminiscent of strong
IPA. The brothers watched him drink laughing. They then divulged,
between titters, that it was their own brew. Wary of either,
misunderstanding or tomfoolery designed to trick a foreigner, he
fought the urge to spit it out. Flushing with anger Falstaff
frowned, his mouth full of beer. This set the brother of guffawing
again.

Swallowing the beer, Falstaff
asked again. “What is it?”

“Bitter watermelon beer!” They
giggled.

He finished his beer with a deep
sigh, they had a four or five hours of reasonable light left, but
if the brothers carried on like they were they would never
finish.

After two hours it was nearly
done, half the plugs had been replaced; One of the brothers worked
away loosening the plugs while Falstaff inspected them with a wary
eye.

After another half hour they were
left with two problems. The central engine itself was a sticky,
oily mess. All the plugs were fouled and had been replaced. One
plug on the port engine they’d been unable to reseat. Re-pulling
it, Falstaff had found pieces of the plug gasket came away with the
plug. Fuming Falstaff left the brothers to work on the clean-up of
the central engine.

As darkness fell, one brother
extracted a length of cable from the truck and climbed up into the
trees to fix a light there. He hung another hanging from the
gunner’s basket over the central engine. With the truck’s engines
running the lights, - the truck headlamps, hung by scraps of wire,
shone down aiding Falstaff’s tied eyes.

Falstaff climbed down from the
wing gripping a piece of paper. He tossed aside the striped twig he
had been using and held out the paper. Covered in thick black gunky
oil, Falstaff showed the brother’s the complete spark plug gasket
or all its fragments extracted socket. Falstaff breathed a sigh of
relieve at this small success, flying with an engine full of metal
fragments could mean failure occurring at any time.