The Call of the Thunder Dragon (62 page)

“I mean it’s her isn’t it! She’s
the one, Lord I should know she’s shown me those fists once or
twice!” Falstaff laughed.

Lang’s face split into a smile.
Falstaff was right, only Zam had the gall to test him so.

Lang dropped Falstaff and flung
Zam up into the air, so she shot up to the rafters and down again.
“Zam, you’re home!” He caught her and set her down roaring with
laughter.

Zam punched Falstaff on the
shoulder. “What do you mean family a-semblance?”

“Resemblance! That little crease,
that thing you do when you... oh! There it is!” Falstaff held up
his hands to ward off another blow.

“Stop it, my sisters used to
tease me about that! Zam grabbed him with both hands, squeezing him
tight. “Thank you, John-di-di you did bring me home!”

All that was left was to unload
the horses and hand over the gold. Falstaff sat back and let Zam
show her father the gifts, the tea and return the stolen gold and
jewels and other stones. The rice wine was already open. Lang
coughed and sputtered over the sauce wine, grinning like a bear
with a face full of honey.

Lang dismissed Zam, left with her
sisters and Lang turned to Falstaff pointing at the sacks stacked
in the hall.

Lang looked at the gold coins
carefully, minutely. The discs of gold like tiny buttons in his
hands. His face darkened.

“How did you come by this gold?
These stones? Tell me Falstaff now!” Lang’s voice came from deep in
his chest a booming growl.

“I didn’t, it’s not mine. It’s
hers. She and the Chamberlain... I don’t know the details!”
Falstaff stood to face Lang waiting for the truth.

Lang frowned even deeper.

“Leave us, now!” Bellowed
Lang.

Falstaff was led away, the hall
suddenly silent. The laughter and joy leaking away through the
cracks in the floor, out of doors and through the rafters where the
wind blew through, replaced by a still cold silence.

“Zam? What have you done?” Lang
rumbled, as Falstaff as walked away.

After an hour waiting, Falstaff
was invited in for a feast.

“Zam will join us later.” Lang
rumbled, “Please, sit and enjoy this feast. “I hear you have come a
long way to bring my daughter back to me! I want to know why?”

Falstaff regarded the feast being
laid out in front of them.

“I know it was cold in the
mountains this time of year. You must be hungry. It is Zam you
should thank for this, she has told me everything and I am
grateful.” Lang sat back his chair creaking. “Please, you should
eat!”

There was a hot, chilli and
cheese broth, rich and warming, which gave him hiccups.

“Here let me fix that!” Lang
rumbled.

The fright cured Falstaff
instantly, the idea of having Lang pat his back startled him so
much the hiccups miraculously vanished.

He tucked into a bowl of noodle
soup, filling and aromatic, setting his heart racing and his brain
buzzing. Tea helped wash down plenty of pork sausages, fried with
chillies in butter.

“Ho, ho! These are my favourite!
I’m glad you like them too!” boomed Lang, as swung his great hand
down smacking Falstaff on the back.

“Ach... yes they are the best!”
As pork sausages went they were as tasty, firm and meaty as any
sausages, he’d had in Lincolnshire. But the hot chilli fried skins
burned his lips as he bit into them.

Falstaff yawned. “Excuse me, I
think yesterday is catching up with me?” His chin dropped to his
chest.

“You rest now, I will see to
Zam.” Lang rose and left Falstaff dosing by the fireplace.

Guwahati Station, Assam

Renzo Kagawa, the dentist,
stepped from the train behind Donald. He tipped his hat and said
goodbye.

“It was a pleasant coincidence to
meet with you on the train Mr. Donald er?”

“Quittenton-Godfrey... Commander
actually, Royal Navy. Well, morning!” Donald trailed off, biting
his tongue.

He turned and left the
inquisitive dentist. He’d found himself sharing the same carriage
compartment on the return to Guwahati and had been drawn once again
into conversation with him. He stood silently watching the dentist
walk up the station. Wondering, he had been briefed on the
possibility of Japanese intelligence officers in India, but none
had been found to his knowledge. He shook off his suspicions, with
the high unemployment in Japan it might be perfectly natural for
the dentist to seek work in India.

Nevertheless, for Britain,
particularly in India and for the US in the Pacific, the leaking of
information to the Japanese was a serious problem. A lot of
admiralty staff and chiefs considered this to be a Chinese problem.
Seeing Chinese security as the weak point; the US and Britain both
breaking Chinese code in turn had learnt from their access to
Japanese code, that the Japanese were also able to read Chinese
code. It was unknown however how the Japanese were able to make
such detailed observations or collect so much detail in their
intelligence reports. Nor was it recognised that the steady trickle
of intelligence coming out of the Britain India and territories
could be coming from field agents working close to the British
themselves.

Donald knew from Soviet sources
that the Japanese were serious when it came to intelligence
gathering. From 1933 the Soviet’s discovered that the Japanese had
hundreds of men, chosen for their good eyesight watching the border
and the operation of any transport, 24 hours a day with strong
field glasses, noting every coming and going, down to the every
trip to the outhouse.

This kind of espionage based
collection of information required an extensive and focused,
intelligent department that the admiralty could not accept to be in
existence at the time. It was more readily accepted that Japanese
intelligence operations were poorly focused and only collected
information via attaches dispatched to embassies and open sources
such as newspapers.

Donald flushed as watched the
dentist bob along the platform into the crowd. He realised he had
learnt far less about the man than he had of him. Could it be he
wondered? He found he was clutching his walking stick like a sword
ready to lunge and strike. All of a sudden he felt the strong gaze
of a person beside him.

“Wah!” Donald jumped out of his
skin.

He realised the man had been
scrutinizing him while he had in turn been observing the Japanese
dentist.

“Pardon me, I didn’t see you
there!” Donald lifted his hat from his head then held it to his
chest as if the straw would protect him a moment while he caught
his breath.

The visitant apparition standing
in his shadow turned away in an instant. The sharp black eyes
caught Donald’s for a fleeting moment, then the stranger showed his
back, covered by a large Guquin case, as he stalked away into the
obscuring crowds.

Donald gulped as the silent
figure disappeared. The intensity of the sharp eyes had set his
pulse racing and a cold sweat running down his spine.

He went to replace his hat on his
head and then realised that he’d crushed it in his hand out of
fright. Pulling himself together, setting his chin up and his
shoulders back, he set the hat straight and started marching up the
platform. The twisted and broken hat on top of his head as if it
had made a forced landing there.

Shortly, Donald found Captain
Webster with his unit of six marines, standing smartly in blue
undress uniform as worn by ship Marines. Rifles held resting at
ease. Two more with Thompson Submachine guns, casually tucked under
their arms, scowled menacingly towards any of the gawking boys who
got too close. The white of the Wolseley helmets and the Captain’s
peaked cap stood high over the crowd of black hair bobbing around
them.

“Captain Webster! Pleased to meet
you! You can put away the cuffs and chains. I’m afraid we’ve been
sent on a fool’s errand. This prisoner has escaped and there’s been
no sign of the blighter since!”

Ox Lake, Bhutan

The old monk arrived on foot
breathless from the long walk.

Colonel Haga-Jin offered nothing
but contempt for the man as he stood, huffing for breath instead of
delivering his message.

“My Lord, Lang Druk sends word
the he has received both Falstaff and his daughter. He has
separated them and will send Falstaff to you soon.”

Haga-Jin was speechless, he
turned away quivering with excitement. He’d see Falstaff in chains
and kill him within hours.

“Our thanks,” Captain Soujiro
said curtly.

The monk turned and walked away
watching Soujiro over his shoulder.

Falstaff awoke aburtly to the
boom of Lang’s brisk orders.

“Come on! Get up! It’s noon! No
time for sleepy heads! Your salvation can’t be found under the damn
pillow! There is no glory for a lazy ape no matter how good
looking!” Boomed the giant. “Come with me!”

He dropped a bundle of orange and
yellow towels on the floor. “Get undressed and follow me!”

Falstaff stretched and looked
Lang up and down. He was essentially naked with a cloth wrapped
around his waist and another over his shoulder. The iron helmet
still sat on top of the thick black bushy hair.

“Time for a bath! You need to
clean yourself up after a journey like that. Can’t have you
catching a chill?” Lang’s naked toes drummed on the wooden
floor.

Falstaff looked up at the forest
of black hair on Lang’s chest. To think Zam had told him that her
father was over seventy, he looked to be in great shape.

“I guess a hot bath won’t do any
harm. Is it far?”

“Just a short walk, now get your
clothes off!” Lang boomed.

Falstaff stripped off, taking a
piece of the yellow and orange cloth he wrapped it around his
waist. Taking another, he draped it over his shoulder.

The pair went out through the
front door, through the courtyard and out onto the mountainside.
Falstaff bobbed along behind Lang trying not get left behind while
watching for the stones in the road.

“I thought you said it wasn’t
far!” Falstaff called after Lang. he could see his breath in the
cold air. His knees were beginning to knock and the cold was making
its presence felt beneath the thin cotton towel.

“It isn’t far!” Boomed Lang
pointing towards the village below them.

Soon Falstaff could smell wood
smoke, mixed with it was the aroma of herbs and cooking.

“That is the old herbs from the
baths! They put them on the fire to sweeten the air!”

There appeared to be several tubs
open to the air, close by were brick fireplaces with smooth round
stones cooking in the embers.

Lang waved aside the bathhouse
owner, taking the tongs he lifted the largest stones he could find
and threw them easily across the clearing into the largest of the
tubs.

Most of the tubs were made of a
single trunk, split and opened up, carved clean and smooth. The
largest tub was made of several trees together, dug into a lined
pit of wood and stone. Water trickled down an open bamboo shoot
straight from the mountain streams. A pebble was used to block its
flow when needed; waste water naturally over spilled and ran on
down the mountain to the river.

“Get in! Get in!” Lang bellowed.
“Isn’t it wonderful!”

Falstaff paused for a moment
wondering where Zam was, he thought to ask Lang then reconsidered.
Watching his step on the smooth stones, he disrobed and at Lang’s
urging stepped into the half-filled pool. The water was freezing
before Falstaff had a chance to shout his indignation at Lang, a
stone slapped into the water next to him spraying him with warm
water.

The water rapidly went from
lukewarm to scorching. The pebble boiling the water away in a
flourish of bubbles. Lang leapt into the tub with a laugh.

“Isn’t it wonderful!” The
colossal aristocrat beamed.

“Which part?” Falstaff asked.
“The cold water, the getting splashed while ducking hot stones or
the...”

“Now, now, relax my boy! You’ll
enjoy it!”

The bath keeper poured in a
bucket full of fresh aromatic herbs picked in the high
altitudes.

“Ah, Ha ha! Smell that! Oye!
Bring the Ara!”

Falstaff drank the warming Ara,
only disturbed by the splash of the occasional hot stone. It really
wasn’t so bad.

“So why did you bring my daughter
back to me?” Lang suddenly asked.

Falstaff went quiet. He realised
the topic of flying, mountains and sausages had now been
dropped.

“She’s a very persuasive woman...
I mean girl. She’s a sweet young thing. All she wanted was to get
back to her dear Popa... I am mean your good self, of course. She’s
sweet and has a heart of gold... Of course, as a gentlemen, I
couldn’t resist her...” Flustered, Falstaff’s feet twisted and
writhed as he tried to balance on his pebble, which rocked
unsteadily beneath him.

Lang Druk’s eyebrows were
pointing down, the crease deep in his forehead.

“I mean as a gentleman I couldn’t
resist her... sad and compelling story. I had to help such a
dam...”

Falstaff stopped Lang was
breathing like a bull through his nose at him. “Damn, er damn...
damsel. A princess in distress, I am mean...”

“Oh, poppycock! Bi Zui! Shut up!”
Lang hollered out. The sound reverberating through the water.

He flared his nostrils again.

Falstaff’s pebble toppled
underneath him, he fell screaming in panic as he expected Lang
would strike out at him.

“Hmm! Can’t you smell it? Can
you? Beautiful air, oh, those herbs! Go on what were you
saying?”

Falstaff sat down again, waiting
for his heart stop racing. Christ, this man’s a monster Falstaff
silently cursed, Lang snorts like damn bull when all he’s really
doing is sniffing the petals like a maiden in June!’ How like Zam
was that?