High Road to China. Jon Cleary

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      ‘We do.’

      Even Henty looked stunned, as if he had bought a ticket for Ascot and found himself in the Potteries. He rushed to our defence: ‘It’s only temporary, I’m sure.’

      ‘That’s what we said when we moved in here over a year ago. Don’t apologize for us, Henty. We’re broke. Kaiser Bill could raise more credit at our bank than we could.’ Since George had already wiped out the profit I’d been anticipating, I could afford to be honest; it was about all that I could afford. I turned to Miss Tozer, took a nose-dive. ‘Never mind the reason why you want to fly to China. We’ll go with you. As you said, the money is good enough reason.’

      ‘I admire your honesty, Mr O’Malley.’ But she sounded as if she was surprised by it, too. She walked out again to the open doors of the shed, stood staring off into the distance – towards China? Perhaps: she was looking east. She took something from the pocket of her suit, fondled it without looking at it: it was a gold watch and chain. Then she came back to us. ‘I’ll tell you why I have to fly to China.’

      Which she did, her voice faltering only once, when she mentioned that her father would be killed if we did not reach Hunan by the deadline date. My ear faltered, too, because I found it hard to believe what she was telling me. But the proof was there in her face and in that of Henty behind her.

      ‘It may be dangerous, Mr O’Malley. Perhaps now you won’t want to come.’

      ‘She needs your help,’ said Henty before I could volunteer to be a hero; then looked at his crippled leg with hate. ‘I wish to God I could go!’

      George came back, one big hand clutching a roll of maps, the other holding a school atlas. I told him why Miss Tozer wanted us to fly to China with her. He listened at first as if I were telling him about a proposed joy-ride to the Isle of Wight; then abruptly he exploded. He swung round, pointing a rifle-barrel of an arm at Mr Sun Nan still standing beside the Rolls-Royce.

      ‘Is he part of this? You mean you take that sort of threat from a – a damned Chinaman? I’d kill the swine!’

      ‘If we kill him, Mr Weyman, we’ll probably also kill my father. If you dislike the Chinese so much, perhaps you’d better not come with us.’

      ‘He’ll come,’ I said. ‘We need him. We’ll go with you, but it will cost £500 for each of us and our return fares.’

      ‘Five hundred each!’ Henty, I hadn’t suspected, had a bookkeeper’s mind. ‘That’s preposterous! You’re making money out of someone else’s difficulty!’

      ‘I’m not going to bargain – ’

      ‘Neither am I!’ Miss Tozer was suddenly fierce. ‘You sound as if you’re putting a price tag on my father’s life!’

      ‘On the contrary. I was putting a price on our lives. I don’t think I’ve over-valued them. We’re cheaper than the machines you’re buying.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’ I had the idea that Miss Tozer was not accustomed to apologizing. I also had the idea I had hurt her and that hadn’t been my intention. ‘I’ll pay whatever you ask. Now may we please get down to planning the trip?’

      I made tea, got out our four cracked and only cups, pulled the chairs and two boxes up to the kitchen table, spread out the maps and got down to planning an 8000-mile trip to China, everything to be ready within 24 hours. Moses, Columbus and Captain Cook, three other voyagers, would have laughed at us. The roll of maps George had scrounged took us only as far as Vienna. The rest of the proposed route, over which we had some argument, was sketched out on a school atlas on which the inky fingermarks of its former owner, some unknown juvenile, were sprinkled like a warlock’s mockery. I began to wonder what George and I had let ourselves in for. I felt like Columbus or Magellan, heading for the edge of the world, flying into an unknown sky.

      ‘We can’t take a direct route,’ George said. ‘We’ll have to fly by way of places where we can refuel. And there’s no guarantee we can do that all the way. There are bound to be stretches where they’ve never seen an aeroplane.’

      ‘We’ll have to risk that,’ said Miss Tozer. ‘Can you have everything ready by tomorrow morning?’

      George nodded. ‘I’ve already asked half a dozen chaps to stand by to help us. I promised them a pound each if they would work right through the night – all right?’ Eve nodded, but Henty looked as if George had promised them life pensions. ‘I didn’t tell them where we are going, just that the machines have to stand up to some hard, long flying. They’ll have them ready in time.’

      ‘I’d like to take off at noon tomorrow. Is there anything I can get up in London, things we’ll need?’

      I had been making out a list. ‘We want to keep things down to a minimum because of weight, but there are still essentials. You’d better get flying suits for you and Mr Sun – ’

      ‘Let the swine freeze,’ said George.

      I ignored him. ‘We have our wartime suits. You’ll need some good strong boots – just in case we have to walk. We want a spare compass for each machine – and you’d better get us a spare sextant. Four sleeping bags, a Primus stove and eight water-bottles, two each. Make sure the bottles are silver or nickel-plated inside, the water tastes better. You can buy them at Hill’s in Haymarket. We’ll need a medicine kit – John Bell and Croyden in Wigmore Street will make up one for you. And maps – the best place will be the War Office.’

      ‘I’ll get those,’ said Henty.

      ‘We’ll supply the cooking things. A rifle will come in handy, just in case we have to shoot something for food. You can advise her on that, Henty.’

      ‘Miss Tozer has her own gun. I gather she is very competent with it.’

      ‘What do you shoot?’

      ‘Elephant, tiger. And the occasional man.’

      George and I looked at her with cautious interest this time. Then George said, ‘We’ll bring our service pistols. And I’ll fit machine-guns – the ADC has some spares.’

      ‘Isn’t that illegal?’ said Henty. ‘I mean arming a civilian aeroplane?’

      ‘Yes,’ said George. ‘But we’ll be out of here before anyone knows. I’ll put a couple of Vickers forward on Bede’s and my machines and I’ll mount a couple of Lewis guns on the Scarff rings in our rear cockpits.’

      ‘I hope we shan’t need them,’ said Miss Tozer soberly.

      We were all silent a moment. The machine-guns suddenly made the other equipment seem superfluous; George and Henty and I were all at once back to the values of war. For the first time it struck me that the actual flying to China might not be the worst part of the trip.

      ‘We’ll wait till they fire first,’ I said, denying a wartime principle. ‘Whoever they are.’

      Hently took out a cheque-book and I left him to George, who was our book-keeper, when we had books to keep. I got up and went outside. Miss Tozer followed me. She took a cigarette from a gold case, fitted it into an ivory holder, looked at me.

      ‘I don’t smoke. I haven’t any СКАЧАТЬ