Send a Gunboat (1960) (26 page)

At that moment Rolfe lunged forward, his hand closing on Ling’s wrist while he groped wildly for the pistol in his belt. As they toppled over on to the floor, Rolfe gasped aloud with pain, as a rifle butt struck him savagely in the back. As he twisted round to face his new attacker, the other soldier jumped across his shoulders, forcing him to the floor, with the others on top of him.

For a moment they rolled in a tangled mass of gasping bodies, but as he felt a man’s throat between his fingers, another rifle butt crashed down into the pit of his unprotected stomach. A thousand lights exploded in his eyes, and he heard himself cry out in agony. He was still writhing, as they wrenched his hands behind him, and pulled a noose of thin wire over his wrists. Vaguely through the mist of pain he felt them drag him to the opposite wall and secure the wire to a rafter, so that he was forced to stand on tip-toe to prevent his arms from being wrenched from their sockets.

Ling watched him balefully. “Very stupid again, Captain!” Then he turned back to the others, his black eyes noting Judith’s expression of horror and pity as she stared across at Rolfe’s taut body.

“Now, we can go on.” He sounded calm and unruffled again. “It was unfortunate that Mr. Laker and his friends were able to make good their escape. It would have been fitting evidence for the world to see, if we had caught them with their ill-gotten spoils! However, we have the next best thing!” He smiled coldly. “We find that we have the Western collaborator and spy who has made their escape possible right in our midst! Not only that,
but the Captain of the imperialist gunboat is also found with him, without his uniform, and hiding in our territory!”

Rolfe ground his jaws together in an effort to still the pain. “No one will believe such tripe!” he gasped.

Ling spun round, his lips curled in a thin smile. “Everyone will believe it! Especially when we produce the written confessions and publish photographs! Oh, yes, Captain, we Chinese are not still in the Green Dragon era!”

“You can’t make us sign anything!” Rolfe glared at him, his grey eyes glinting. “That idea failed in Korea, and it’s useless to try it here!”

Ling stood up lazily, consulting his watch. “I must go to my office and prepare the statement for signature. That will be something to go on with!”

Felton struggled vainly with his bonds. “I won’t sign! My whole life, all my hopes,” his words were a meaningless garble, and Rolfe could see he was suffering from a form of shock. “I’ll tell the whole world what a filthy impostor you are and what a lying, ruthless government you represent!”

Ling opened the door, smiling without humour. “When I come back you will sign. That, I promise you!” The door closed behind him.

Two of the soldiers followed him out, but the small man with the automatic rifle watched them unblinkingly from his seat in the corner.

“Sorry about this,” began Rolfe softly, “I’ve made a complete muck-up of the whole business!”

The girl eyed him, her face resigned. “I knew that Major Ling was bad! When the soldiers burst in here today and started to attack the injured people in their beds, I knew then that all Brian’s hopes were finished!” She shuddered, as the memories came flooding back to her. “It was terrible, I thought I was going mad!” Her voice shook, and Rolfe wanted to get to her, but the wire biting into his wrists reminded of his helplessness.

“Did they touch you?” He kept his gaze steady. “Was there an officer in charge of them?”

She nodded wearily. “They had their orders about us. Now we know why!” Her eyes filled with tears. “Poor little Chu, they took him away and shot him in the road! Right up to the
last he thought they were just playing with him. Like all the other villagers, he believed what Brian had told him about the Communists!”

Felton didn’t respond to her bitterness, but slumped heavily against the wall, his eyes tightly closed again.

Rolfe could imagine the turmoil in the man’s mind, but he avoided looking at him, he had eyes only for the girl. It made his heart ache to see her tired, frightened face, and the unsteady movement of her breathing.

“We will get away from here! We must remember that all the time!” He put all the firmness into his voice that he could find. “Don’t forget I’ve promised to take care of you!”

She raised her face, her mouth quivering. “You did, didn’t you? Don’t worry, I’ll try not to let you down!”

Major Ling entered the room, his face unsmiling and businesslike.

“You’ve been quick, Major,” Rolfe remarked softly, “so it’s only to be a short confession!”

Ling muttered under his breath, “It is enough.”

Felton laughed. “Of course, you wouldn’t by any chance have had them already made out in advance?” There was a sneer in his voice.

Ling was unmoved. “Yours, yes! The Captain’s, no! But now they are done! So let us not waste any more time. Who will sign first?”

“What happens to us afterwards?” Rolfe watched the man’s eyes for some small sign.

“Afterwards? Who knows? But it is not my concern! My Government will decide that!”

“Well, I’ll not do a thing until you find out what’s in store for us!” Rolfe began sharply, praying for time and searching for a plan.

“You will, Captain!” Ling snapped an order and the soldier laid down his rifle carefully and shambled obediently to Ling’s side.

Here it comes, thought Rolfe coldly, the torture about which he had heard so much in Korea.

It was all like a nightmare, without beginning or end, and even the people about him seemed shadowy and unreal.

He chilled with horror as the soldier stepped jerkily forward, his yellow face intent and hard. He didn’t even glance at Rolfe, but walked straight to the girl, and before he had time to realize what was about to happen, he jerked one of her feet off the ground, and as he crouched like a small, deformed animal on the floor he flung her sandal across the room and gripped the small bare foot in his two rough hands. Judith stared at the soldier, her eyes wide with terror, her body shrinking back away from him.

Ling smiled sadly. “You see, Captain, there is no chance for you! I understand that certain parts of the female body are quite tender and susceptible to pain!” As Rolfe strained madly at the wire he continued dreamily, as if repeating a lesson. “In a second or two, this soldier will cut open the sole of her foot!” He nodded sharply, and the crouching figure produced a short, wide-bladed trench knife and laid it against the soft brown skin.

She struggled wildly, but in that grip she was helpless. She turned her eyes desperately to Rolfe. “Don’t sign anything! Don’t give in!” Her voice was strangled.

Felton watched them, his face contorted with fury. “Don’t touch her, you swine! She has had nothing to do with any of this! She’s done more for these people than any of you!”

Ling eyed him thoughtfully. “Are you ready to carry out my orders?”

“Yes, yes! Only tell that beast to leave her alone!”

Ling spoke a brief order and the soldier dropped the foot reluctantly, his thick fingers stroking at her ankle. When he stood up, there was something else in his narrow eyes, and his mouth was slack with lust. He shuffled across to Felton and untied the rope, and watched blankly as Felton rubbed weakly at his bruised wrists. Shakily he moved to the table, his eyes unseeing, as Ling, his pistol again in his hand, indicated the long sheet of paper and the pen.

Felton snatched the pen and scrawled his signature across the bottom.

“Aren’t you even going to read it?” Ling’s voice was silky. “It explains how you have connived with the Captain to remove the bourgeois criminals from our hands, and how you have been a very active agent during your stay in Santu! The other paper
which, unless I am very much mistaken, the Captain will willingly sign, explains his part in the conspiracy!” He waited until the soldier had re-tied Felton’s hands and had released Rolfe. “I think that whatever happened out at sea, Captain, your ship will certainly not be far away. I suspect that it will be nosing around soon to look for you!” He watched Rolfe sign the paper and laughed shortly. “To think that you crack so easily! And all because of this woman!”

Rolfe writhed inwardly as the soldier slipped the wire over his numb hands. He had brought nothing but disaster and failure with him. Even the ship was in danger now! The ship—he had hardly given her a thought since he left her. It was strange how he had altered.

Ling glanced at the papers, apparently satisfied. “Good! I shall have to leave you for a little while, I’m afraid. I have to find our signals unit.” He fixed his hard eyes on Rolfe. “I must inform my superiors that your ship is inside our new territorial waters, Captain! They will no doubt send a suitable vessel to deal with it! That should be fairly easy, as your incompetent government have nothing available, apparently, but that ancient ruin which you have the honour to command!” He crossed to the door, speaking softly to the soldier. “I shall be back! And maybe you will be allowed to watch the final assault on the fort and the destruction of the General’s remaining forces!” He slammed the door behind him.

Judith trembled violently, “You shouldn’t have done it,” she sobbed. “You’ve thrown everything away for me!”

Rolfe was about to answer when he saw her eyes move to the soldier, her body straining with sudden, unrestrained violence.

The man was staring at her in that same dazed manner, his wide mouth hanging open, to reveal his thick, uneven teeth and lolling tongue. He leaned his rifle against the wall and walked slowly towards her.

“For God’s sake!” Felton was struggling wildly. “Can’t you stop him?” And he poured out a flood of Chinese at the advancing soldier. It was if he had said nothing, and with a sudden, hungry movement, he seized the girl’s shoulders, his fingers digging into her as he pulled her body towards him. She was like a child in his hands, and as Rolfe struggled and cursed, he saw the blunt,
dirty fingers itp open the top of her dress, the worn cloth tearing like paper in his powerful grip. Her writhing, sun-burned shoulders and naked arms were half hidden by the panting dwarf as he pulled excitedly at the remains of her dress, while from his throat rumbled a series of grunts punctuated by sounds of anger as he wrestled with the girl’s struggling figure.

As her eyes rose above the man’s broad shoulders she gasped to Rolfe, “Don’t watch. Please don’t look!” Her words were choked off short as he pushed her back against the rough wall.

The surgery door opened from the waiting-room, and Rolfe twisted round, his face contorted. “Stop him, for Christ’s sake!” His mouth hung open, the frantic words stilled in his throat. It was more like a fearful nightmare than ever, but as he stared, he knew that the small, wet figure with the huge Service revolver gripped in front of him with both hands was his steward, Chao. He didn’t know how that could be possible, yet when the room rocked with the savage blast of the gun, and the soldier was flung forward on to the girl’s body, an ever-widening stain in the middle of his back, he knew that the impossible was happening.

Chao turned towards him, his face old and determined. A knife appeared in his hand, and with two strokes the wire was slack around Rolfe’s wrists and he was running to the girl’s side.

He gathered her shivering body in his arms, while Chao released Felton, muttering at the same time, “Quick, Captain-sir! Out through other room, no guards there!”

Then they were running and stumbling through the long waiting-room, while from behind them came the shouts of the two sentries, as they beat on the other door, which Rolfe guessed Major Ling must have locked, or else the dead soldier had done so to keep out his comrades. At the thought of what had nearly happened, Rolfe hugged the girl to his chest, but although she gripped him tightly around the neck, she could still only stare at him from shocked eyes.

They paused outside the hospital, and Rolfe’s eyes fastened on the dull shape of a jeep, Ling’s, no doubt.

“Quick, get in!” he barked, “I’ll drive.”

Felton clambered weakly into the back with Chao and the boy reached out to help Rolfe with his limp burden.

Rolfe grunted with satisfaction as he saw the automatic rifle which Felton carried awkwardly in his hands. “Well done, Brian!” he gasped as he slammed the car into gear, but Felton stared uncomprehendingly at the weapon, as if he didn’t remember collecting it from the dead soldier. He sighed with relief as the jeep responded to his inexperienced handling and shot, swaying, down the coast road. There was a brief crackle of rifle fire and a bullet ricocheted from the metal bodywork, but the sounds were drowned by the mounting whine of the engine, and the sudden increase of explosions from the direction of the cliffs immediately below the fort.

“How did you get here, Chao?” Rolfe spoke between his clenched teeth as he swung the wheel in his hands.

“I jump overboard and swim after you!” the boy answered simply. “I think maybe you need me!”

Rolfe nodded his head in amazement. Of course, the sounds he had heard as he scaled the cliff. Chao must have just been pulling himself out of the sea. And to think that he had not only swum after him, but he had not had Rolfe’s advantage of being carried half-way to the shore by boat!

“I shan’t forget this, Chao! You don’t know what you’ve done!”

“Bit of luck you drop your gun when you climb cliff, yes?” Chao grinned cheerfully. “Though it nearly knock off my head!”

The tyres screeched as the jeep rocked round the hairpin bend towards the harbour.

Two or three dark figures ran haphazardly from their path, but whether they were soldiers or fleeing townspeople, Rolfe didn’t know.

“Where are we going?” Felton sounded vague.

“Harbour! Only chance! Must get a boat of some sort and get away to the other end of the island, now, before dawn!”

He was thinking of the
Wagtail’s
motor-boat, which had been abandoned when the gunboat had been forced to withdraw in the face of the attack on the harbour. It was incredible to realize that the attack had only been about nine hours before. He shook his head furiously, nothing must stop them now!

He felt a movement from the floor of the jeep and from the corner of his eye he saw Judith trying to arrange the tattered
dress to cover her nakedness. A warm flood of emotion surged through him. “You were wonderful, Judith,” he said softly.