The Mercenaries Read online

  Ira sighed, catching the stink of dope and the bitter nutty tang of castor oil with which the frame and fabric of the old machine were soaked. Things had come a long way in the few short years since it had been built, and the Americans had even got an aeroplane round the world. For a moment he was lost in a daydream, his mind filled with memories he hadn’t had for years. When the war had finished he’d put them all behind him and hadn’t suffered from a moment’s nostalgia. He’d joined up just one year older than the century and had ended the war still not much more than a schoolboy with a gift for survival.

  For the first time in years he found himself listening for the broken revving of Clerget engines as the Camels came back from patrol, side-slipping in their familiar crab-like movement over the poplars, and the shouts of the mechanics as they raced forward across the stiff frosted grass to seize wing tips and swing them into line. Curiously the memories of combat refused to materialise. Instead, it was the blinding light that dominated the dome of heaven and the sun flashing fire across the wings of his machine; the fabric bellying in the slipstream and the quivering of the fuselage about him and the tang of lacquer, exhaust, oil, leather and clean hot metal. It was the cumulus castles rearing into the blue, full of bumps and nodules and buttresses, all piled one on top of another in vast cloud mountains with their own misty crags and cornices towering thousands of feet above the minute speck of his machine. He had watched their birth a hundred times, seeing them grow before his eyes, alive with light, knowing all the time that they were as transcendent as a moment in time, as frail and ephemeral as his own ability to hang suspended in the air, obsessed by loneliness and beauty.

  He recalled the scroll that had been given to him when he’d first been commissioned. ‘George, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the seas… To our trusty and well-beloved servant, Ira Abel Penaluna… reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, courage and good conduct, do by these presents constitute and appoint you to be an officer in our special reserve of officers…’

  George, by the Grace of God, had been glad to have him in 1915. Now, ten years, a great deal of killing and several promotions later, George by the Grace of God couldn’t have cared less what happened to Ira Abel Penaluna. As far as George by the Grace of God was concerned, his trusty and well-beloved servant could fiddle for a living.

  Probably flying was out of his reach now, and who would employ a man still young – not much older, in fact, than Sammy Shapiro crouched out of the dust clouds in the Lancia by the hut – who knew only one trade, the handling of an aeroplane? Central Africa Air might have offered him a job but he had no real wish to heave into the sky the big metal Junkers they owned. He could go back to the R.A.F. – with his string of decorations, they’d still have taken him like a shot – but he couldn’t see himself standing on parade again or going through the motions of discipline. The very nature of his calling made it one for individualists and, from what he’d heard, the R.A.F. wasn’t what the old Flying Corps had been. They learned their trade by numbers these days and the man who flew by the seat of his pants was already in a minority.

  He thought for a moment of finding a job in an office somewhere, but he rejected it without really considering it, and climbing out of the aircraft again, walked back towards the hut. Sammy moved towards him out of the shadows.

  ‘Mr Penaluna. You all right?’

  ‘Sure. Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I thought – I thought…’

  Ira swung round to the puzzled face of the boy. ‘God, Sammy, you didn’t think I was going to sit in the plane and shoot myself or something, did you?’

  Sammy frowned, looking faintly irritated with him. ‘I didn’t know what to think, man,’ he said. ‘It ain’t every day a bloke goes bust.’

  Ira slapped his shoulder. ‘Well, you needn’t have worried,’ he said. ‘I don’t tick over like that, Sammy.’

  Sammy managed a twisted grin and Ira put an arm round his shoulders.

  ‘Sammy, you know what Foch said. “My centre’s giving way. My right is in retreat. Situation excellent. I shall attack.” Let’s go and find a drink. It’s not too late, even now, I’ll bet.’

  Sammy stared at him again, his expression changing slowly, then as Ira climbed into the car, his mouth split wide in his great grin and he started the engine and swung it round with a careless crash of gears, and went roaring across the field towards the road, the moonlit dust it trailed drifting slowly among the thorn trees and sparse grass.

  * * *

  A week later, with the imminent and inevitable sale of the Avro hanging round their necks like a dead albatross, Sammy turned up at the airfield, his eyes sparkling with joy and affection, his expression mysterious and conspiratorial so that Ira knew immediately he had something up his sleeve. It was a special look Sammy always wore when he was about to announce anything of particular importance. He’d worn it when he’d arrived with the information that he’d found the Avro and he invariably wore it before announcing any modification he’d worked out. He was already an intelligent craftsman who could be relied on to think up advanced refurbishing as if it were part of the job, and his improvements had always been heralded by the look he wore now. He liked to savour his surprises and hated giving them away too soon.

  ‘Still no hope, boss?’ he asked.

  Ira shook his head. ‘You’ve seen the books,’ he said. ‘I went to the bank again. They wouldn’t play. If we stay here much longer there won’t even be an aeroplane to fly, because I’ll have to sell it to eat. You’d better start looking for a job. What are you going to do? Find some great fat millionaire and persuade him he needs a private aeroplane and you to fly it?’

  Sammy didn’t answer at once. ‘Perhaps you ought to fly for him instead,’ he said, pushing at the dust on Ira’s desk as though his life depended on it.

  Ira grinned. ‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘What is it? You’ve been looking like a sick calf for a couple of days now. What have you got on your mind?’

  Sammy looked up abruptly and grinned back at him. ‘A bloke,’ he said. ‘He’d heard of you. He might have a job for you.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Flying an aeroplane.’

  Ira stared. ‘Here?’

  ‘Perhaps not here.’

  ‘Why didn’t you grab the job?’

  ‘I couldn’t do it. That’s why.’

  Ira’s eyes narrowed. ‘Out with it, Sammy,’ he said.

  Sammy shrugged. ‘One of my cousins in Jo’burg told me about him. I’ve been writing round.’

  ‘Have you, by God? What’s this chap want?’

  Sammy shrugged. ‘Perhaps we’d better let him tell you himself,’ he said. ‘I arranged for him to be here. In an hour. I went to see him in Moshi.’

  ‘Did you, by God? So that’s where you’ve been?’

  ‘I’m your friend, see, boss,’ Sammy said. ‘I’m your partner.’ Ira stared at him and Sammy chuckled at his expression. ‘You ought to know that once I get my hands on the books you’ll have to make me a partner. He asked me to speak to you.’

  ‘Englishman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘South African?’

  ‘No.’

  Ira studied Sammy from the corner of his eye, then he stood up abruptly and began to sweep the bills from his desk.

  ‘Better wheel him in,’ he said.

  * * *

  To his surprise, it was a Chinese who was sitting in the big new Packard that drew to a stop by the ramshackle office. He was fanning himself with a straw hat as he opened the door and climbed out.

  Ira thrust out his hand. ‘Understand you want to do business with me,’ he said.

  ‘That’s correct.’ The other was a tall good-looking man with a long thin face and the high-bridged nose of North China. His clothes were immaculately cut and he spoke excellent English.

  Ira gestured at the office where Sammy was standing by
the door like a commissionaire. ‘Better come in,’ he suggested. ‘It’s not much of a place to talk business. Normally we always did what we wanted at a hotel.’

  What he meant was that most of his decisions had been made over a drink in a bar, but it passed as the truth. The Chinese seemed unperturbed.

  Inside the office, Ira pulled a chair forward and indicated a second one which Sammy held out, and the Chinese introduced himself.

  ‘My name is Lao Tse-L’Ai,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m searching for pilots to go to China to fly aeroplanes. I heard about you.’

  Ira’s eyes flickered towards Sammy standing in the corner.

  ‘China,’ he said slowly. He knew nothing about China save that it appeared that the Chinese did everything backwards – from signing their names to writing letters. He had a mental vision of one of Lao’s aeroplanes flying tail-first and almost burst out laughing. He pulled himself together quickly. ‘What sort of flying?’ he asked.

  Lao gestured. ‘Perhaps I had better explain,’ he said. ‘After the Manchu dynasty was overthrown by revolutionaries in 1911 the republic’s first president was Yuan Shih-K’Ai, but when he insisted on making himself emperor, his generals in Yunnan rose in revolt, and, as he fled, defeated, it suddenly occurred to them that, since they had the troops, they, not the politicians, had become the holders of power in China.’

  Ira nodded, wishing he knew more about Chinese history. During recent years the Far East had been somewhat overlooked in the greater events taking place in Europe and remarkably little of what had been happening there had ever found its way into Western newspapers.

  Lao had drawn a deep breath and was gesturing with a long pale hand. ‘Since that time,’ he said, ‘the republic has become the sport of the military and, though there has been a succession of cabinets both in Peking and in the south, both assuming the name of government, both are really controlled by their own generals.’

  Ira studied the Chinese warily. He seemed completely in control of the interview. ‘Whose side are you on?’ he asked bluntly.

  Lao avoided a direct answer. ‘I am on the side of democracy,’ he said.

  Ira pushed a packet of cigarettes across. ‘Go on,’ he encouraged.

  Lao took a cigarette and lit it carefully, the bony structure of his narrow Manchu features heightened by the glow of the match flame.

  ‘These generals,’ he went on, ‘support or betray for money whichever government they represent. They organise the opium trade, sell positions, tax the people and finally retire to Japan or Singapore with immense fortunes. They don’t fight much, preferring instead to offer or accept bribes. The poor are oppressed, and the soldiers are like bandits in uniform. The whole of China has become a battlefield.’

  ‘Where do I come in?’

  Lao leaned forward. ‘There is a general in the north,’ he said. ‘General Tsu Li-Fo, the Baptist General, the Warlord of the South-West. He is a disciple of Sun Yat-Sen, the great Liberal thinker, and he has sworn to end it all. He is a Christian and, with the backing of the Peking government, is gathering an army to give China back its democracy.’

  Ira was suitably impressed even if not entirely convinced, and Lao went on quickly. ‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘the warlord who opposes him to the south, General Kwei, has an aerial balloon which makes all attempts to move dangerous.’

  ‘Because it can see everything that’s going on?’

  ‘Exactly. And he talks now of acquiring aeroplanes. But General Tsu is very air-minded, too, and he is trying to organise a fine up-to-date air force himself.’

  A doubtful look crossed Ira’s face. Flying in someone else’s war wasn’t quite the same as flying in your own. In Russia he’d never been able to find much enthusiasm for the work.

  ‘There will be no shooting,’ Lao assured him, as though he’d guessed his thoughts. ‘We are not asking you to fight – only to organise and train our men. That is all.’

  Ira nodded again. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘I’m interested.’

  Lao smiled and gestured towards Sammy who was listening carefully by the door. ‘I have heard you are an experienced instructor and engineer,’ he went on, ‘and that you were a leader of distinction in the war in Europe. I think you are the man we want.’ He paused. ‘Especially as I have heard you are no longer anxious to run your airline.’

  ‘Capable’ would have been a better word, Ira thought.

  ‘What about pay?’ he asked.

  ‘General Tsu is a wealthy man,’ Lao pointed out. ‘He will agree to anything reasonable. Shall we say four hundred dollars a month – plus expenses?’

  Ira controlled his gasp with difficulty. Four hundred dollars a month seemed like a fortune when you’d been keeping a whole airline running on very much the same amount, scratching for coppers, hopefully paying for petrol on the never-never, hardly ever catching up with debts, and scrimping and saving even on the safety margins to keep the aircraft flying. Four hundred dollars represented untold wealth.

  ‘All right so far,’ he said cautiously and he saw Sammy grin. ‘But what about aircraft? And spares, vehicles, ground organisation – that sort of thing.’

  ‘We have several fine new aircraft. Modern ones with guns.’

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘I’m not an expert.’

  Ira gestured. ‘Want another?’ he asked.

  Lao nodded towards the door and rose. ‘The machine out there?’

  ‘The very one.’

  Outside, Lao kicked the tyres and the skid of the Avro and stared into the cockpit. ‘Did this machine carry a gun?’ he asked.

  ‘It was a trainer. The best.’

  The Chinese studied the rear cockpit thoughtfully. ‘Tell me about it,’ he suggested.

  Ira drew a deep breath. He’d been listening half his life, it seemed, to the slow clonkety-clonk of rotary engine cylinders as they sucked in petrol, and had sniffed the burnt castor oil they threw out for so long he’d more than once suffered from bowel disorders.

  He settled for simple sales talk. ‘So easy to fly,’ he said, ‘pilots killed themselves when they went on to more advanced machines. Dual controls. Gnome Mono engine. They keep on going even when parts drop off. One of them once took off itself and flew forty miles chased by the pilot in a car. When he found it, it had landed safely in a field.’

  It was a story he’d heard many times and, though it may have been apocryphal, it was still worth re-telling.

  The Chinese seemed impressed. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We will ship it to China. Will you go with it?’

  Ira was on the point of blurting out a joyous ‘Yes!’ when he felt rather than saw Sammy’s eyes on him. They seemed to be boring a hole in the back of his head and he turned to see the desperate appeal in them.

  He gestured. ‘I have a pilot under contract to consider,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he’d come, too.’

  ‘Is he a good instructor?’

  ‘I trained him myself.’

  ‘Very well. We can accept one more, though we already have two other instructors waiting in Shanghai.’

  ‘I see.’ Ira decided to push his luck a little further. ‘Then that raises another point: Who’s going to run the show?’

  ‘You wish to?’

  Ira had long since decided that the world could be divided into three groups – those who wished to lead, those who were willing to be led, and those who were neither one nor the other. He’d once been called by Cluff ‘a bloody independent Comishman’ and he supposed he was, and he couldn’t see himself in a subordinate position.

  ‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘If I come, I run the show.’

  Lao seemed satisfied. ‘You would be given the rank of major,’ he said. ‘Two other aircraft will be waiting in Shanghai, and we have also recruited expert mechanics. If I may come and see you here tomorrow I will bring the necessary documents for you to sign.’

  As the Packard drew away, Ira turned back towards the office, his breath coming out in a great gasp of relief.
Sammy was staring at him from the far side of the hut, quivering with anticipation like a setter waiting for the gun.

  Ira grinned. ‘Sammy, lad…’

  ‘Yes, boss?’

  ‘When you’re a partner in a firm you don’t call the Old Man “boss” or “mister”.’

  ‘No, boss – I mean, Ira.’

  They were both laughing now.

  ‘I think we’ve got a job,’ Ira said.

  Sammy hurtled round the table, scattering papers to the floor in his excitement. Unaffectedly, he seized Ira’s hand and began to kiss it, and Ira pushed him away furiously, slapping at him wildly.

  ‘Cut it out, you bloody idiot.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Penaluna – I mean, Ira.’ Sammy straightened up, quivering and trying to hold down his excitement and grinning all over his face. I’m always too bleddy emotional!’

  Chapter 4

  Turning his back on the dusty field near Moshi was harder than Ira had expected. He was surprised to find he had thrust down roots and the idea of leaving frightened him a little.

  He sold the Lancia and the lorry and the tin-roofed bungalow for knock-down prices and, with Sammy’s help, crated up the tools and spares from the workshop and shipped them south before flying off in the Avro for Mombasa. In Mombasa they stripped the machine of its wings and, with Sammy sitting on the tailboard of a hired lorry holding the skid, towed it into the docks and saw it hoisted aboard ship.

  Waiting in Durban for them were two seedy-looking individuals who introduced themselves as the mechanics Lao had engaged.

  ‘Geary,’ the tallest of them said. ‘Fitter.’

  ‘Lawn.’ The other gave a boozy grin. ‘Rigger.’