Collection 1980 - Yondering Page 14

  They were soldiers of fortune, men who made their living by their knowledge of weapons and tactics, selling their services wherever there was a war.

  The munitions dealers were there, also, mingling with diplomats and officers of a dozen armies and navies. Thirteen flags, it was said, floated over Shanghai, but there were always visiting naval vessels from still other countries.

  The terrorist tactics that have become so much a part of world news in these later years were an old story in Shanghai. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese gunmen killed each other with impunity, and if one was discreet, one avoided the places where these affairs were most likely to take place. There were a few places frequented by each group, and unless one enjoyed lead with one’s meals, it was wise to go elsewhere. The Carlton, fortunately, was not one of these places, and they had boxing matches as part of the floor show. A fighter who did not become too destructive too soon could make a decent living there and at a few other spots. The secret was to win, if one could, but not so decisively as to frighten possible opponents, for there were not too many fighters available.

  When I first met the general, I had no memory of him, but a chance remark brought it all back. He had been a regular, always sitting close to the ring and giving the fights his full attention. My time in Shanghai was too brief to really know the place, although some of my friends knew it about as well as one could. From them I learned a great deal, and with some small skill I had for observing what goes on, I learned more.

  * * *

  IT BEGAN QUITE casually as such things often do, with a group of people conversing about nothing in particular, all unsuspecting of what the result might be.

  My company was quartered in the chateau of the countess, as during the war she had moved into what had once been the gardener’s cottage. It was the sort of place that in Beverly Hills would have sold well into six figures, a warm, cozy place with huge fireplaces, thick walls, and flowers all about.

  The countess was young, very beautiful, and clever. She had friends everywhere and knew a bit of what went on anywhere you would care to mention. I was there because of the countess, and so, I suppose, was everybody else.

  Her sister had just come down from the Netherlands, their first visit since the German occupation. There was a young American naval attaché, a woman of indeterminate age who was a Russian émigré, a fragile blond actress from Paris who, during the war, had smuggled explosives hidden under the vegetables in a basket on her bicycle. There was a baron who wore his monocle as if it were a part of him but had no other discernible talents and an American major who wanted to go home.

  The war was fizzling out somewhere in Germany, far from us, and I wondered aloud where in Paris one could find a decent meal.

  They assured me this was impossible unless I knew a good black-market restaurant. Due to the war there was a shortage of everything, and the black-market cafes had sprung up like speakeasies during the Prohibition era in the States—and like them you had to know somebody to get in.

  Each had a different restaurant to suggest, although there was some agreement on one or two, but the countess solved my dilemma. Tearing a bit of note paper from a pad, she wrote an address. “Go to this place. Take a seat in a corner away from the windows, and when you wish to order, simply tell the waiter you are a friend of the general.”

  “But who,” somebody asked, “is the general?”

  She ignored the question but replied to mine when I asked, “But suppose the general is there at the time?”

  “He will not be. He has flown to Baghdad and will go from there to Chabrang.”

  I could not believe that I had heard right.

  “To where?” the naval attaché asked.

  “It is a small village,” I said, “near the ruins of Tsaparang.”

  “Now,” the Russian woman said, “we understand everything! Tsaparang! Of course! Who would not know Tsaparang?”

  “Where,” the naval attaché asked, “are the ruins of Tsaparang?”

  “Once,” I began, “there was a kingdom—”

  “Don’t bother him with that. If I know Archie, he will waste the next three weeks trying to find it on a map.”

  “Take this”—she handed me the address—“and do as I have said. You will have as fine a meal as there is in Paris, as there is in Europe, in fact.”

  “But how can they do it?” Jeannine asked. “How can any cafe—”

  “It is not the restaurant,” the countess said, “it is the general. Before the war began, he knew it was coming, and he prepared for it. He has his own channels of communication, and being the kind of man he is, they work, war or no war.

  “During a war some people want information, others want weapons or a way to smuggle escaped prisoners, but the general wanted the very best in food and wine, but above all, condiments, and he had them.”

  The general, it seemed, had served his apprenticeship during Latin American revolutions, moving from there to the Near and Middle East, to North Africa, and to China. Along the way he seemed to have feathered his nest quite substantially.

  A few days later, leaving my jeep parked in a narrow street, I went through a passage between buildings and found myself in a small court. There were several shops with artists’ studios above them, and in a corner under an awning were six tables. Several workmen sat at one table drinking beer. At another was a young man, perhaps a student, sitting over his books and a cup of coffee.

  Inside the restaurant it was shadowed and cool. The floor was flagstone, and the windows hung with curtains. Everything was painfully neat. There were cloths on the tables and napkins. Along one side there was a bar with several stools. There were exactly twelve tables, and I had started for the one in the corner when a waiter appeared.

  He indicated a table at one side. “Would you sit here, please?”

  My uniform was, of course, American. That he spoke English was not unusual. Crossing to the table, I sat down with my back to the wall, facing the court. The table in the corner was but a short distance away and was no different from the others except that in the immediate corner there was a very large, comfortable chair with arms, not unlike what is commonly called a captain’s chair.

  “You wished to order?”

  “I do.” I glanced up. “I am a friend of the general.”

  “Ah? Oh, yes! Of course.”

  Nothing more was said, but the meal served was magnificent. I might even say it was unique.

  A few days later, being in the vicinity, I returned, and then a third time. On this occasion I was scarcely seated when I heard footsteps in the court; looking up, I found the door darkened by one who could only be the general.

  He was not tall, and he was—corpulent. He was neatly dressed in a tailored gray suit with several ribbons indicative of decorations. The waiter appeared at once, and there was a moment of whispered conversation during which he glanced at me.

  Embarrassed? Of course. Here I had been passing myself as this man’s friend, obtaining excellent meals under false pretenses. That I had paid for them and paid well made no difference at all. I had presumed, something no gentleman would do.

  He crossed to his table and seated himself in his captain’s chair. He ordered Madeira, and then the waiter crossed to my table. “Lieutenant? The general requests your company. He invites you to join him.”

  A moment I hesitated, then rising, I crossed over to him. “General? I must apolo—”

  “Please be seated.” He gestured to a chair.

  “But I must—”

  “You must do nothing of the kind. Have they taught you nothing in that army of yours? Never make excuses. Do what has to be done, and if it fails, accept the consequences.”

  “Very well.” I seated myself. “I shall accept the consequences.”

  “Which will be an excellent meal, some very fine wine, and I hope some conversation worthy of the food and the wine.” He glanced at me. “At least you are soldier enough for that. To find a very fine meal and t
ake advantage of it. A soldier who cannot feed himself is no soldier at all.”

  He filled my glass, then his. “One question. How did you find this place? Who told you of me?”

  Of course, I could have lied, but he would see through it at once. I disliked bringing her into it but knew that under the circumstances she would not mind.

  “It was,” I said, “the countess—”

  “Of course,” he interrupted me. “Only she would have dared.” He glanced at me. “You know her well?”

  It was nobody’s business how well I knew her. “We are friends. My company is quartered in her chateau, and she is a lovely lady.”

  “Ah? How pleasant for you. She is excellent company, and such company is hard to come by these days. A truly beautiful woman, but clever. Altogether too clever for my taste. I do not trust clever women.”

  “I rather like them.”

  “Ah, yes. But you are a lieutenant. When you are a general, you will feel otherwise.”

  He spent a good deal of time watching the court, all of which was visible from where he sat. He had chosen well. The court had but one entrance for the public, although for the fortunate ones who lived close there were no exits, as I later discovered.

  Not only could he not be approached from behind, but anyone emerging from the passage was immediately visible to him, while they could not see him until they actually entered the restaurant.

  On our second meeting I surprised him and put myself in a doubtful position. I was simply curious, and my question had no other intent.

  “How did you like Chabrang?”

  He had started to lift his glass, and he put it down immediately. His right hand slid to the edge of the table until only his fingertips rested there. His tone was distinctly unfriendly when he replied, “What do you mean?”

  “When I asked the countess if you would be here, she said you were in Baghdad—on the way to Chabrang.”

  “She said that? She mentioned Chabrang?”

  “Yes, and I was surprised, It isn’t the sort of place people hear of, being in such an out-of-the-way place, and only a village—a sort of way station.”

  His right hand dropped into his lap, and his fingers tugged at his trouser leg, which clung a bit too snugly to his heavy thigh. “You know Chabrang.”

  It was not a question but a statement. His right hand hitched the pant leg again. Suddenly I realized what was on his mind, and I almost laughed, for I’d been away from that sort of thing too long and had become careless. The laugh was not for him but simply that it seemed like old times, and it was kind of good to be back.

  “You won’t need the knife,” I told him. “I am no danger to you.”

  “You know Chabrang, and there are not fifty men in Europe who know it. Am I to believe this is pure coincidence?”

  He had a knife in his boot top, I was sure of that. He was a careful man and no doubt had reason to be, but why that was so I had no idea and told him as much.

  “It was my only way out,” he said. “They found me, but they were looking for a man who was carrying a great lot of money, and I had nothing but food, weapons, and some butterflies. They let me go.”

  “I believed it was a way out for me, too,” I said, “but I was not so lucky. I had to turn back.”

  He turned to look at me. “When were you in China?”

  “It was long ago.” I have never liked dates. Perhaps because I have a poor memory for dates in my own life. “It was in the time of the war lords,” I said.

  He shrugged. “That’s indefinite enough.”

  We talked of many things. He gestured widely. “This is what I wanted,” he said. “I wanted time—leisure. Time to read, to think, to see. Some people make it some ways, some another. Mine was through war.”

  “It is no longer regarded with favor,” I suggested.

  He shrugged again. “Who cares? For ten thousand years it was the acceptable way for a man to make his fortune. A young man with a strong arm and some luck could go off to the wars and become rich.

  “All the old kingdoms were established so. All the original ‘great families’ were founded in just such a way. What else was William the Conqueror? Or Roger of Sicily? Or their Viking ancestors who first conquered and then settled in Normandy? What does Norman mean but Northmen? Who were Cortés and Pizarro? They were young men with swords.”

  “Ours is a different world,” I suggested. “Our standards are not the same.”

  “Bah!” He waved his fork. “The standards are the same, only now the fighting is done by lawyers. There is more cunning and less courage. They will sell you the arms—”

  “Like Milton,” I said.

  He stopped with his fork in the air and his mouth open. “You know about Milton,” he said. “I am beginning to wonder about you, lieutenant.”

  “Everybody in China knew that story. Perhaps I should say everybody in our line of business or around the Astor Bar. It was no secret.”

  “Perhaps not. Perhaps not.”

  Such stories are repeated in bars and tearooms, over bridge tables as well as in the waterfront dives. Milton had been a well set up man in his early forties, as I recall him. A smooth, easy-talking man, somewhat florid of face, who played a good game of golf, haunted the Jockey Club, and owned a few good racehorses, Mongolian ponies brought down for that purpose. He had been a dealer in guns, supplying the various war lords with rifles, machine guns, mortars, and ammunition. As a machine gun was worth its weight in gold and as some European nation was always liquidating its stores to replace them with more modern weapons, Milton did well.

  He reminded me of a first-class insurance salesman, and in a sense that was what he was. The weapons he sold were the kind of insurance they needed.

  He might have become enormously wealthy, but he had an urge to gamble, and he had a blonde. The blonde, some said, was none too bright, but she had other assets that were uniquely visible, and nobody really inquired as to her intelligence, least of all Milton.

  A day came when too much blonde and too much gambling left him nearly broke, and she chose that moment to say she wanted to go to Paris. She pleaded, she argued, and he listened. He was willing enough, but the problem was money.

  At that moment an order came for six thousand rifles, some machine guns and mortars, with ammunition for all. Milton had only six hundred rifles on hand and insufficient cash. Such deals were always cash on the barrel head. He agreed to supply what was needed.

  Long ago he had arranged a little deal with the customs officials to pass anything he shipped in a piano box, and as a piano salesman he seemed to be doing very well indeed.

  Knowing the kind of people with whom he dealt, he also knew the necessity for absolute secrecy in what he was about to do, so with one German whom he knew from long experience would not talk, he went to his warehouse, and locking the doors very carefully, he proceeded to pack the cases with old, rusted pipe and straw. Atop each case, before closing it, he put a few rifles to satisfy any quick inspection. Yet the greatest thing he had going for him was his reputation for integrity. He supervised the loading of the piano boxes on a Chinese junk and collected his down payment of three hundred thousand dollars.

  He had taken every precaution. Through a close-mouthed acquaintance he had bought two tickets on a vessel that was sailing that very night.

  “Pack an overnight bag for each of us,” he said. “Nothing more. And be ready. Say nothing to anyone and I’ll buy you a completely new wardrobe in Paris.”

  Now, his rifles loaded on the junk, he drove at once to his apartment on Bubbling Well Road. He ran lightly up the steps carrying the small black bag. “Come! We’ve got to move fast! There’s not much time to catch the boat!”

  This, you must remember, was before World War II, and there were no airlines as such.

  “Where are the tickets?” he asked.

  She came to him, her blue eyes wide and wonderful. “Oh, Milt! I hope you’re not going to be angry, but the Funstons are hav
ing a party tonight, and they are always such fun! Well, I turned in our tickets and got tickets on another boat, a much faster one, that leaves tomorrow!”

  No doubt there was a moment of sheer panic; then what he hoped was common sense prevailed. It would take that junk a week to get to its destination. Well—four days at least. There was nothing to be done, and why not one more night?

  The next morning was one I would never forget. I’d known Milton only to speak to, although we did have a drink together once. When a friend banged on my door at daybreak and told me he had something to show me, I went along.

  What he showed me was what Milton might have expected, for the men with whom he did business did not play games.

  There, standing upright in the parking lot outside his place on Bubbling Well Road, was a piece of the rusty pipe he had so carefully packed. On top of it was Milton’s head. His complexion was no longer florid.

  “Everybody knew that story,” I repeated. “At least everybody of our sort. I heard it again a few days ago in the Casual Officers’ Mess on Place St. Augustine.”

  “But you know about Chabrang,” the general said.

  The wine was excellent. “I see no connection,” I said.

  He gave me a sidelong glance, filled with suspicion. Why the mention of Chabrang disturbed him, I could not guess, as it was but an unimportant village on one of the routes out of Sinkiang to Ladakh. It was in no way noteworthy except that it was near the ruins of Tsaparang. The ruins represented about all that remained of a long-ago kingdom.

  “Did you know Milton?” I asked.

  “I knew him. If the Chinese had not killed him, I would have. Those munitions were consigned to me.”