Read Return to Skull Island Online
Authors: Ron Miller,Darrell Funk
Return to Skull Island (9 page)
Pat pretty much kept to herself during all this, though I didn’t care much for the smirk on her face. The other two women hadn’t said a word, either, for that matter. They ate and drank like automatons, their glassy eyes focused on nothing in particular.
As I’d expected it would, the conversation eventually turned to politics.
“Tell me, Mr. Denham,” he asked, “what you think of the current situation?”
I knew exactly what to say: “I figure the Japs are giving the Chinese a pretty rotten deal.”
The little guy brightened at this expression of sympathy and his eyes gleamed behind his big round glasses.
“They are indeed giving my people what you call a ‘rotten deal,’ Mr. Denham. The invaders have been inhumanly brutal in their treatment of the Chinese. They have systematically bombed civilians and massacred survivors.”
“I saw some of that myself,” I said and told him what I’d experienced in Shanghai. “But surely,” I asked, “there’s a resistance movement of some kind?”
“Yes, but it has been ineffectual. Officially, all resistance to Japan ended with the surrender of General Ting Chao in 1932. But there are many guerilla movements that still fight for China.”
“So I’ve heard. Outfits like this Tang?”
“Yes. Marshal Tang Yulin has been quite a thorn in the side of our Japanese masters.”
“Marshal?”
“Yes. Tang Yulin is—or was at least—governor of the province of Jehol.”
“Well, what d’you know about that.”
“I am afraid, however, that such brave men are fighting a losing battle. The Japanese have resources and numbers that our puny resistance cannot long withstand. I fear all is lost.”
For some reason, I decided to hold off telling him about Tang’s imminent visit. I’m not sure why. The kid needed a boost, there’s no question about that, but I wanted to get a better feel for the lay of the land before I got more involved than I already was.
Henry apparently lost interest in me after that. Not that his attention had been entirely focused on me anyway. He’d been staring all along at Pat like Rockefeller ogling a dime.
“Please forgive me if my inquisitiveness intrudes on courtesy,” he said to her, “but I am overwhelmed by curiosity to learn what such a beautiful woman is doing in such a dangerous country as mine so unfortunately is.”
“Why, Henry! China is absolutely charming!”
“‘Manchuko’,” he muttered.
“And had I not visited,” she continued, “how could I have continued living happily knowing I’d missed the pleasure of your excellent company and hospitality?”
She batted her eyelashes at him and I thought he was going to bite through his fork.
“You know, Miss Wildman . . .”
“Pat, please!”
“Ah, Pat. You know—Pat—I cannot help but think how charming you would look in silk. Green silk, emerald green, of course, to compliment your glorious hair.”
“It’s hard for a working girl to afford silk these days, Henry.”
“You should not have to suffer for that, my dear. Silk should be showered over you simply because something as beautiful as you exists. It is your due, a humble homage from the gods, as is the gilding on a great statue of Buddha, the downy cloak of the graceful swan or the endless forests that clad the mountains.”
“Oh, shucks, Henry. You flatter me.”
It was weird watching the emperor flirt with Pat like some love-struck college Romeo, especially with his wives watching. Or at least I think they were watching.
What with what seemed like a dozen courses and several bottles of wine and all the chit-chat, dinner didn’t start to wind down until nearly ten o’clock. I didn’t know about Pat, but I was beat. Henry’s two wives still looked like zombies, with eyes like fried eggs, but the emperor looked like he was good for the rest of the night. Nevertheless, for all his enthusiasm, he was too good a host to overlook our exhaustion. He apologized profusely for letting his passions impose on us. He was particularly effusive in his apologies to Pat and for a moment I was afraid he was going to throw himself at her feet in a fit of remorse.
“Don’t worry yourself,” she said, “about me losing any beauty sleep. Mr. Denham needs that more than I do.”
“You are as gracious as you are beautiful, Miss Wildman,” he gushed, kissing her hand like Wimpy drooling over a hamburger.
Turning to me he said, “There is much I would like discuss with you tomorrow, Mr. Denham.”
I said I was sure there was.
“What did you think of those two women?” Pat asked as soon as we left the dining room.
“I don’t know. They were pretty quiet.”
“They weren’t quiet, they were drugged senseless!”
“What do you mean, ‘drugged’?”
“I mean they were a pair of cocaine fiends if I ever saw any. Did you see their pupils? Like pinpoints.”
“And where would you have seen cocaine fiends?”
“That’s neither here nor there. The point is that those two women were drugged—whether intentionally or under duress, I would sure like to know. Either way it’s a little spooky.”
“Well, this is China. There’s an opium den on every corner. What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. It just seems weird to me that Henry allowed us to see them that way.”
“Like I said, this is China. So who the hell knows?”
Back in my room, I discovered a pot of hot tea waiting for me. I figured it was just what I needed to help me get to sleep and drank a full cup. It helped me get to sleep all right. I barely made it to the bed.
It was broad daylight when I woke. I had a splitting headache, so I dressed quickly and went in search of some hot coffee. I found Pat waiting for me in the dining room, where a breakfast buffet had been laid out. She was dressed in embroidered silk pajamas and looked so perky I wanted to slap her.
“You look like you could use some hot tea,” she said.
“No thanks. I had some of that last night. Is there any honest coffee around here?”
“Sure. Gallons. You didn’t drink that tea in your room last night, did you?”
“Why not?”“There was a mickey in it. Enough opium or morphine or some such thing to knock out an elephant. No wonder you look so awful.”
“I suppose you dumped yours down the drain?” I said with all the sarcasm I could muster.
“Well, of
course
! How dumb do you think I am?”
I decided to change the subject. I poured myself some coffee and poked under the covered salvers to see if there was anything decent to eat. There were sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes and potatoes, fried bread and black pudding., prunes, marmalade and juice. It was all very English but I wasn’t in any mood to quibble. While I loaded a plate, I asked: “Why would anyone dope me?”
“By ‘anyone’ you must mean Henry. Who
else
would?”
“The question remains: why would he do something like that to me?”
“Don’t be so conceited. He just wanted you out of the way. In fact, now that I think of it, you were probably lucky that mickey wasn’t permanent.
“Besides, what he tried to do was me. And by ‘do’ I mean exactly that.”
I had had only half my coffee so what she was getting at didn’t soak in for a minute.
“Wait a second. Are you trying to tell me . . .?”
“I am.
“I’d gone straight to my room after saying good night. All I really wanted was a hot bath and some sleep. There was a tub in the bathroom and even hot running water, for goodness’ sake, so I took myself a long soak. When I returned to the bedroom I discovered that Henry hadn’t been kidding when he said he’d shower me with silks. Some perfectly gorgeous things had been laid out on the bed for me while I’d been bathing. Green, too, just like he’d promised. They were as sheer as spider webs and felt pretty nice, I can tell you, after wearing the same clothes for days.
“I wasn’t surprised to find the things waiting for me since I knew Henry had been watching . . .”
“What?”
“Sure. How else would anyone have known when I was taking my bath? Besides, the first thing I’d done was check the room carefully. This particular building had been specifically constructed not only as a residence but for diplomatic guests as well. It didn’t take much to figure that included ways to keep an eye on visitors. There were at least half a dozen hidden peepholes in the bedroom and bath. So I put on what I hoped was a pretty good show.”
And I hoped Pat didn’t hear the gulp I made since my imagination is no slouch.
“There was also a pot of hot tea on a side table, but one sniff of that confirmed exactly what I’d been expecting. I poured a cup and pretended to drink it, but it all really went into the potted chrysanthemum.
“I found a magazine and assumed an attractive pose on the bed. I had been lying there reading for about an hour when I heard someone at my door. I had been half expecting something like that after finding the dope in my tea, so I turned off the bedside lamp and waited. After a moment I heard the door open and the sound of slippered feet on the carpet. It was Henry, just as I’d thought. He had on silk slippers and robe, an expectant grin and not much else.
“I gave him time to get well into the room when I asked, ‘Someone forget to read you your bedtime story, your highness?’ You would have laughed at the reaction
that
got! I know I nearly did. You never heard such apologizing in your life, and the Chinese are experts at that. ‘So sorry! So sorry! I mistook this room—that is, I mean, I thought . . .Are you resting well? Do you need anything? I mean . . .’ et cetera et cetera. He went on in that vein for a couple of minutes.
“I got out of bed and went over to the table where the tea pot sat over its little burner. ‘Would you perhaps care to join me in a cup of tea?’ I asked. “I found it immensely soothing.’ I could see him out of the corner of my eye and thought maybe I was going a little too far. He was a bright red, his glasses were entirely steamed over and he was gasping for breath. I was afraid maybe he was going to have an aneurism, and at his age, too.
“Well, I kind of felt sorry for the little punk, even if he’d tried to dope me and have his way with me. So I let the poor kid grovel his way out of the room. It was funny as hell.
“Now that I think of it, I guess maybe I
did
laugh.”
“You would, but I don’t think the emperor got many laughs out of it.”
“Aw gee, Carl, you’re making too much of this. I was kind of flattered, even if the little punk was trying to add me to his hop-headed harem.”
“Look here, Pat. You might think that was all a big joke, but he’s already got two wives he’s turned into zombies. He was hell-bent on making you number three. That’s no laughing matter.”
“You always underrate me, Carl.”
“You overrate yourself. How do you think
Henry’s
going to take what happened—or didn’t happen—last night?”
“I hadn’t really thought of that.”
As it turned out, the emperor didn’t take it well at all.
We found that out later that morning. We hadn’t seen the emperor since the night before and were finishing with breakfast. There were plenty of magazines and papers from Europe and the States and we were bringing ourselves up to date on the news when a gang of uniformed guards appeared. We assumed they were going to escort us to the emperor.
Instead, we were escorted to one of the featureless concrete blockhouses that lay under the wall that enclosed the compound.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Henry was a pretty sore loser, of that much I was certain. I’d tagged him as an overgrown, spoiled kid when I first saw him . . . and this just proved how right I was, for whatever satisfaction that gave me. He was a smart cookie, I’ll give him that. He was wise to the Japs and loyal enough to his country to make an effort at saving it, even if the people did brand him as a traitor. At least that’s what I had thought.
Still, he was used to getting what he wanted. Although he must have been about thirty or so at the time he had all the emotional maturity of an adolescent. He’d wanted to add Pat to his menagerie and she hadn’t gone along with it. Worse, she’d humiliated him while doing it. For myself, I couldn’t figure why she couldn’t have strung him along for a few days, or at least as long as it took for Englehorn to get to Ying-kou. I mean, so what if the kid wanted to pitch some woo at her? What harm could it have done?
It was all moot now anyway. The damage was done and here we were penned up in a cell in the palace barracks waiting for God knows what to happen.
I had been spending the past hour pacing while Pat, damn her yellow eyes, was lounging on the single cot, her hands behind her head, smiling like she was bunked down on a cruise ship.
“I don’t know what you’re looking so happy about,” I told her.
“Don’t be such a grump,” she replied. “You’re getting yourself all worked up for nothing.”
“Nothing, my foot. That little slant-eyed lounge lizard has designs on you.”
“You make me sound like the tattooed lady. I tell you there’s nothing to worry about. You think we’re worse off here than we would have been in the palace? If so, you got another think coming, Bub.”
I was about to tell her exactly what I
was
thinking, but just then a soldier came into the larger room that held our cell. He wore a Chink uniform that had a lot of brass and gewgaws all over it that must have meant he was some sort of big cheese. The guards in the room thought so, too, because they immediately leaped to their feet, saluting. The officer ignored them and came straight over to our cell.
“You are Mr. Carl Denham and Miss Patricia Wildman?” he asked in unaccented English.
“Yes,” I said and “You bet,” said Pat.
The officer pulled a long envelope from his tunic, took a sheet of typewritten paper from it, cleared his throat and read: “You have been charged with espionage against the sovereign state of Manchuko. The sentence for espionage is death. The execution will be carried out at 6 am on November 25, 1934.”
He put the paper in the envelope and shoved it back into his tunic. He stood waiting. So as not to disappoint him, I said: “Hold on a minute! I’m an American! We’re both Americans. I demand to see our ambassador.”
“The United States has not recognized Manchuko. There are no diplomatic relations between our nations. There is no embassy.”
“You can’t do this!”
“
I
cannot. But the emperor can do as he wishes. His will is that you are to be executed. That is all there is to be said about the matter.”
“But we’re not spies! For God’s sake, we haven’t even been here two days!”
“Were you not recently guests at the camp of the traitor Tang Yulin?”
“Yes, of course, but . . .”
“And were you not aware of his plans to attack this city? To undermine the accord between the Chinese and Japanese peoples that has resulted in peace and prosperity between our great nations?”
“What? Of course not!”
“Did you not supply him with the weapons he needed for this heinous act of terrorism?”
“Well . . . not exactly . . .”
“Then I have nothing more to say.”
It wasn’t all that
I
had to say, but he had already turned and was striding out of the room.
There was no one left to talk to but Pat, so I turned to her.
“Now see what you’ve done?”
“What
I’ve
done? What have
I
done?”
“You’ve put us in front of a firing squad, that’s what you’ve done.”
“Phooey.”
“You’re a bigger spoiled brat than Henry. I should put you over my knee and give you a good spanking.”
“You’re welcome to give it a shot.”
I sat down heavily on the cot next to her.
“Never mind,” I said. “I know when I’m licked. Forget what I said, too. This isn’t your fault.”
“Of course it isn’t. I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses.”
“Senses, ha! If I’d had any sense at all I’d never have started on this wild goose chase in the first place.”
“Nothing’s over ‘til it’s over,” she said. “Hope always springs eternal.”
“I knew it. Henry got you on his dope after all.”
“The problem with you, Carl, is that you always look on the dark side of things.”
“And the bright side of this would be what, exactly?”
“Anyone can stay in a four-star hotel, being waited on hand and foot. And that’s all the palace was, Carl: just another four-star hotel. Where’s the fun in that? Now look at where we are! How many people do
you
know who can say they were in a Manchurian prison cell waiting for a firing squad? This is adventure, Carl. For goodness’ sake, show some appreciation. Besides, at least they left me my shoes.”
I could only stare at her with a kind of dumbfounded fascination.
Well, there wasn’t much to say after that. Six in the morning was scarcely twelve hours away. I spent the time worrying. Pat spent it sleeping. I went through a hundred plans for escape, each more insanely impossible than the previous one. I imagined a dozen ways in which we might be reprieved, all equally unlikely. The only thing that would save us was a change of heart by the emperor and, frankly, I didn’t think he’d get over his sulk that quickly.
There’s not much point in dragging this out. Any description of my feelings and thoughts would only be depressing—and, frankly, a little embarrassing. Imagine yourself in my position and I’m sure you’ll get the idea close enough. Anything I could tell you wouldn’t help you understand any better, so you’re on your own.
At 5:45 sharp the next morning, a gang of Chink soldiers came into the room that held our cell. The iron-barred door was unlocked and opened. No one said a word, but the gestures were eloquent enough. All held guns and looked ready to use them. They needn’t have worried so far as I was concerned. One of the men entered the cell and handcuffed both of us. We then left the cell and, surrounded by the men, were led out the door and down a flight of steps.
Just outside the door and to the left was part of the high concrete wall that surrounded the palace grounds. The barracks we had just left had been built up against this. The first thing I noticed was that a space of the wall about two or three yards long and about five feet above the ground was pitted and pock-marked by bullet holes. The second thing I noticed was a squad of soldiers on our right, each with a rifle at slope.
As we were led to the wall, I said, “Well, this is it, I guess. I’m sorry about what I said to you. The fact is, I’ve had a pretty swell time and this is as good a way to end it all as I can imagine.”
“You’re a real brick, Carl, but I can imagine a lot better ways to call it quits.”
“Like what? Sitting in a rocking chair in an old folk’s home?”
“Something like that. You think they’ll be punctual? The Chinese, I mean. You don’t think they’ll jump the gun or anything like that, do you? If you’ll pardon the expression.”
“They seem to do things strictly by the book around here. But what’s a minute one way or the other?”
“You’ll see.”
We were backed up against the wall, side by side. Evidently some efficiency expert had decided it was better to kill two birds with one stone. We were offered blindfolds but I couldn’t see much point to it and waved it away. So did Pat, who always was a real trouper. I’ll say that much for her.
The officer in charge stepped away from us and raised his sword.
“Bèi!” he said and the firing squad raised their weapons.
“Miáozhǔn!” he said and the rifles were aimed at us.
“Shèjī!”
There was a loud explosion. I could smell something burning as a hundred sharp projectiles pummeled my body. I was thrown to the ground. Someone was tugging at my shirt. Good God! I wasn’t even dead yet and they were fighting over my clothes!
“Come on! Get up!”
It was Pat. I opened my eyes. She was leaning over me. Her hair was disheveled, her face was streaked with dirt and blood and her clothing looked like a mad bobcat had been at it. But she was alive and, it dawned me, so was I.
“Come on!” she said again. “Get up! We have to get out of here!”
I got up.
There was a dense cloud of dust and smoke and from somewhere within it I could hear shouts and could see vague shadows. An alarm bell was ringing. Pat had taken my hand in hers and was pulling me toward the wall, where I now saw a gaping hole where a moment before there hadn’t been one. The ground was littered with chunks of concrete as big as my head. Pat was already clambering through the opening and, since she still had a death grip on my hand, I had no choice but to follow. As if I wouldn’t have anyway.
“What now?” I asked.
“Run!”
I didn’t take particular notice of which way we ran, but I got the impression that Pat had some destination in mind.
Behind us, I could hear the alarms still ringing, now joined by a siren. Pursuit would not be long in coming but, it dawned on me, we had a chance. The wall against which we had been standing was some considerable distance from the main gate. The delay this would cause might just give us the few extra minutes we needed. It was true that anyone was free to use the same hole we had, but it wasn’t a very big one and only one soldier at a time would be able to climb through it. Any serious pursuit would come through the main gate.
Fortunately, Changchun was typical of most provincial Chinese cities in that it was a maze of narrow, winding streets. It took us only a couple of minutes to get out of sight of the palace. We found a blind alley—really just a space between a couple of buildings scarcely a yard wide—but invisible from the street and packed with refuse which gave us plenty of cover. But that would be only a brief respite. We were white foreigners in Manchuria. We stood out like sore thumbs. And we were still close enough to the palace to hear the sirens.
“You think there’s a chance one of the embassies might give us shelter?” I asked.
“Not a chance. Things are so tricky between Japan and China right now that no one wants to get involved, certainly not to the extant of protecting a couple of convicted spies from a country that doesn’t even have diplomatic relations with Manchukuo.”
“What the hell happened back there?”
“I told you last night you were worrying about nothing.”
“But what
happened
?”
“I blew a hole in the wall.”
“What are you, Mandrake the Magician? You were standing right beside me.”
“I arranged it all the night before, stupid. As soon as I chased Henry out of my room, I figured he’d try to pull something. So just in case I was right, I slipped out of the Jixi and put a bomb against the wall where I’d noticed executions had obviously been held.”
“I hadn’t seen that.”
“You don’t have my eyes. Anyway, I set the timer for six since that’s kind of the traditional hour for firing squads.”
“But what if nothing had happened? I mean, what if Henry hadn’t had us arrested? The bomb would still have gone off.”
“So what? They would have just blamed it on the resistance movement and no harm done.”
“And what if they’d decided to hang us or something like that?”
“Well, they didn’t, did they?”
“Wait a second. Where did you get a bomb from?”
“I made it. There was a false bottom in my suitcase where I had a half dozen sticks of dynamite and a handful of blasting caps. I like to think I’m always prepared for an emergency.”
I didn’t know what to say.
She wanted to go down the Yin-ma River to where it met the Sung-hua, but I nixed that. The first thing the Chinks would do would be to watch the river traffic. Same went for the roads and railroads, too. Besides, I told her, that was the long way around since the Yin-ma flowed north and we needed to go south to meet Englehorn.
“Ever been a bo?” I asked.
“Been a what?”
“Before I got in the picture game I decided I wanted to see something of the world, but I wanted to see it from a different angle. So for a year I hopped freights.”
“Hopped freights? You were a tramp?”
“I was a
hobo
. There’s a big difference. A hobo will work for his meals and that’s what I did. And in between, I rode the rails. I can tell you, I learned a lot.”
“I can only imagine.”
“The point is, the Chinks will be watching all the passenger trains but I bet you a dollar they won’t be checking the freights.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. I liked it when she did that because she got these cute little frown lines between her golden eyes.
“I think you might have something there. We’ve got to get some food first, though. It’s three hundred miles to Ying-kou. Probably take us two-three days.”
There were a dozen trains passing through the city every day, carrying coal and iron down from the mountains to the coastal ports. The problem was that the main yards, as well as the city train station, were located only a short distance west of the palace. Still, the easternmost part of the yards lay less than a quarter of a mile due north of the palace. I figured it was our best chance, since the river and the southern roads would be the most closely watched routes.
Pat suggested that we ought to hole up somewhere until dark and I agreed. Even if the emperor’s men didn’t spot us, we were sure to be noticed by a citizen who I was certain would take no chances and report us.
We seemed safe enough where we were for the time being. The buildings that hemmed us in were stucco-covered brick but raised a little over three feet on pilings. We hunkered into the shadowed crawlspace, I for one hoping there’d be no rats.
I was sure that no one would suspect we’d gone to ground so close to the palace. The search for us, I was sure, was spreading in an ever-widening circle . . . and getting further and further away.
