The Mercenaries by John Harris

slapping silk umbrella that had been hastily erected. ‘Tsu Li-Fo, Baptist General, Pride of the Missionaries, Warlord of the South-West, welcomes the illustrious fliers from across the sea!’
    Fagan gave a shrill bark of derisive laughter. ‘Holy God,’ he said. ‘The illustrious fliers from across the sea wish to Christ they were back where they came from, and that’s a fact!’
    Lao stepped in front of them, brisk and arrogant. ‘Why have you broken the aeroplane?’ he said. The General is very expert on aeroplanes.’
    The General, waiting under his silk umbrella, his parchment-yellow face bland as a monkey’s, nodded placidly.
    Ira stared back at Lao, his brows down and furious with rage.
    ‘The General knows as much about flying as a bloody turtle,’ he snapped. ‘And so do you! Why wasn’t the ditch flagged and the field marked properly? And what made those damn great grooves?’
    Lao stepped back, startled by the attack. ‘Guns, of course,’ he said quickly. ‘And carts. The General used this land to drill his troops during the rainy season when there was no fighting.’
    ‘Well, you can tell the General that the whole bloody lot’ll have to be levelled again and all the ruts filled in. Every pothole, every ditch, every bump. And why aren’t the mechanics here? Why didn’t they mark the strip?’
    Lao drew himself up, his lip curling. ‘Your mechanics have not yet appeared,’ he said. They weren’t on the Fan-Ling when it arrived in Hwai-Yang.’
    Ira turned, still angry, his rage all the greater from the sick disappointment inside him, and the feeling that in coming to China he’d stepped out of the frying pan into the fire. Conditions at Moshi had not been good but here they seemed to be appalling.
    He swung round, ignoring Lao, looking for Tsu’s legendary aircraft, but the General hurriedly jabbed at Lao with his stick and the two of them spoke together in Chinese. Lao turned to Ira again, smiling and subservient.
    ‘The Warlord of the South-West,’ he announced, ‘says that the time is not now appropriate to see his aeroplanes. He is anxious to put on a parade for his new and illustrious friends, and he suggests you have dinner with him at his house this evening when the inspection will be made. In the meantime you will perhaps care to see your hotel.’
     
    Hwai-Yang had grown up as a centre to exchange the coolies’ rice, meat and silk for thread, cloth and kerosene, but as it was not a treaty port, there were no foreign officials and no Sikh policemen to maintain order. Tricolours, Stars and Stripes and Union Jacks were flying on the properties of Chinese merchants, however, in the hope that they would protect them from the disputing warlords, but the law seemed to be administered only by Tsu’s soldiers, shabby little men in grey cotton uniforms with ancient rifles, some of them still even wearing the pigtail.
    Their mild appearance was misleading, however, and as Tsu’s cars transported them across the city, they passed a couple of mule carts containing Chinese with their heads shaved and their hands bound behind their backs.
    ‘Criminals?’ Ellie asked.
    Lao shrugged. ‘They are to be executed,’ he said calmly, ‘for refusing to pay taxes.’
    ‘Executed?’ Ellie’s eyes widened. ‘You mean hanged?’
    ‘I mean executed. Beheaded.’
    Ellie’s face went pale then her eyes became furious. ‘You can’t behead people,’ she snapped. ‘Not in a civilised country.’
    Lao gestured. ‘This is not a civilised country,’ he said mildly. ‘Not these days.’
    She turned, staring narrow-eyed at the condemned men, and Fagan slapped her knee with one of his great hands. ‘This is China, old girl,’ he said with a loud laugh, ‘not the good old U.S.A., the land of the free.’
    She turned again and stared once more at the carts, her mouth tight. The soldiers were pushing the men out of the carts now on to the roadside, and a coolie with a long sword joined them. As