The Blue-Eyed Shan (33 page)

Naung smiled a thin acknowledgment of this bravado. “No pack?”

“Only this.” Greenwood slapped the Thompson.

“All the same,” Naung suggested, “make a kind of farewell.”

This was no threat, only a warrior's precaution. Greenwood took Loi-mae by the shoulders, hesitated while Naung turned away, and then set his forehead to his woman's. “Only an hour or so.”

“You will come back,” she said softly.

Greenwood released her; decorum mattered. He embraced Lola. The rustle and twitter of the forest seemed sharp and close. The air was piny, aromatic. “Lola, remember all that I have told you. And when some silly Weng-aw carries you off, think of me now and then.”

“I shall think of you always, my father,” Lola said, willing herself brave. “Naung has told me that it would be unnatural to forget you, and he is right.”

“Then try not to forget me for an hour or so,” Greenwood said, tickling her, “and cook me some chicken for the midday meal, and I shall be your young man and smuggle the best bits into your bowl.”

“You always did!” Lola cried, and hugged him tight.

“Come,” Naung said.

Both men shaded their eyes and saw by the remorseless sun that it was indeed time. Naung stepped to Loi-mae for a quick embrace, and they made a queer family of four in the sun-dappled yard of the little bamboo house; and the two men marched down the leafy trail.

The Sawbwa, in his Pawnee gaungbaung, wished them Godspeed. Za-kho had uttered platitudes. Benedictions were intoned. Naung glanced nervously at the sun. So did Greenwood. Some of the women watched; at their belts hung the dah, or a dagger.

Greenwood toted one footlocker, Yang the other. They set off for Red Bullock Pass with Naung leading at a fast pace. Taw-bi the runner met them halfway and reported all quiet. Shwe thought that a Chinese soldier had been killed before dawn but was not certain. “One less,” Naung grunted.

Near a lookout called the Roost on South Slope, a broad ledge of rhododendrons above East Poppy Field, they joined Wan and Kin-tan. General Yang puffed, and mopped his face, and sat on a footlocker in the noonday sun, buttons and buckles winking gold. “Not before we hear the airplane,” Naung said. “You will not so much as show your heads against the ridge until we hear the airplane.”

“And then we dash,” Greenwood said. Wind: not much wind, light air, and that was lucky. Gordon-Cumming could save himself a long taxi—just set down, pick up his passenger, turn and take off. The Chinese would not fire. Greenwood was morally certain that the Chinese would not open fire. “He'll come from the south. We cut straight for the road.”

“Yes, yes,” Wan said. “The men are in place, the orders have been passed. Only let him come, by the gods.”

Above them a kite mewed. They watched it circle.

“We can only wait,” Kin-tan said.

“Where is Mong?”

“Commanding the North Slope.”

“A cheroot?”

“Not now, you fool.”

General Yang asked, “Everything all right?”

“Perfect,” Greenwood said. “As planned. No time for sentimental farewells, my general, but you're one of a kind and I'll see you in Mandalay.”

“Come out with me.”

“Get thee behind me, Satan.”

Abruptly and unaccountably fear assailed Greenwood. The Sawbwa was a silly, sick old man. Za-kho was a bumpkin preacher. Naung might or might not be competent. Greenwood was not sure where error had first crept in, but error mocked him now, bloated and belching, the uninvited guest. The Shan proverb: Events have their ancestors and their progeny. If the past was a mistake, if the future was an idiot child?

He imagined himself on the plane. He imagined fame and fortune.

He had promised to take the midday meal with Loi-mae and Lola. The promise steadied him now. He had so far kept his promises.

Gordon-Cumming homed in on the right stretch of the right road. He had worn sandals, which was a mistake; his big feet were icy on the rudder pedals. He wiggled his toes and began an exploratory descent. His memory had been true. The road was straight enough and long enough.

He saw the Chinese bivouac. Now who the hell are these? Bloody Wa? Drag the strip, old boy.

He barreled in fast, leveled off, saw the uniforms, the faces blooming upward. Chinese!

Then he saw something else, and cursed, and stood the damned ship on its tail.

“Hold your fire,” Olevskoy said. What was wrong here?

“He has come for General Yang,” Major Ho said. “General Yang did not mention an aircraft.”

Major Wei, much saddened, did not speak. They gazed wistfully at the approaching aircraft. It was the color of old pewter. It zoomed sharply.

“God in heaven!” Olevskoy cried, understanding at once. “The fools never knew!”

Thuan-yi lay rigid and asked himself what this sign meant. The thing itself was a foreign thing and known to exist. It was mysterious, like a rifle, and not supernatural like the voice of the storm. But the meaning of its appearance at this moment required priestly explanation, and Thuan-yi contracted in dread. He wondered if a crossbow could kill this thing. They were known to be metallic, and Thuan-yi wondered how thick their hides were.

Naung cried, “Now!”

Greenwood gripped General Yang's hand and tugged him up. “Time, old friend. You're on your way.”

The general stood like a stump, disbelieving. He and Greenwood hoisted the footlockers. The engine droned, and as they topped the ridge the roar swelled. Greenwood paused to salute the Argus, good old Gordon-Cumming, good old RAF, never have so many owed so much to so few; then he scanned the foilage for Wild Wa; then he checked the Chinese camp, approving their tight semicircle, doing justice to Olevskoy even as something nagged, something odd, wrong, even as an altered landscape warned him.

The others were lurching downhill now in a clumsy bullish gallop. Greenwood shot one more outraged look at the road and bellowed, “No! No! Back! Naung, bugger you, back!”

They skidded, halted, crouched and stared wildly up the hill at this madman; far below, the Chinese faces turned like sunflowers.

“The poles!” he shouted. “Those buggering cages! He cannot land! Do you hear me? Come back! Come back!”

He watched the Argus zoom, climb steeply, bank and diminish.

“You saw,” Olevskoy said. He and his majors were drinking local tea within their ring of ready ordnance and placid donkeys. The Wild Wa had not molested the animals, perhaps because they wished these foreigners to depart, perhaps because asses' heads did not satisfy their gods' demands.

“I saw,” said Major Wei, much subdued.

“We are in a peck of trouble,” said Major Ho.

“I cannot believe it,” Major Wei said. “He led us out. He could have had himself flown out months ago, but he led us out. He was loyal to us as we were loyal to him.”

“And what more can we ask?” Major Ho was matter-of-fact. “He led us out. That is all he promised.”

“They were carrying those accursed footlockers,” Olevskoy said. “Do you know, I think our position has improved.”

The majors waited. Major Wei was no longer toting his Browning automatic rifle; it was set up in their front and only line, manned by two nervous corporals.

“They'll need us,” the colonel said.

General Yang sat bewildered. What were those poles, those cages? No one had explained. They had raced pell-mell back over the ridge, then trotted cursing to council. Fate lay heavy upon the general. He was a baffled immigrant with two footlockers. “Those poles could be chopped down and cleared away,” he said.

“Not now,” Greenwood said. “The Wild Wa would cut us to pieces from the woods.”

“I could return to my troops,” the general suggested, “and establish a defense. Even attack. We could coordinate.”

“Attack what?” And would they have you? Greenwood was busy, translating aloud, assessing, sifting quick ideas. “You go out on foot tomorrow, to the west, with Jum-aw.”

Wan said, “We must send this Jum-aw to parley with his cousins the Wild Wa.”

Mong said, “We could send a piglet to parley with a leopard.”

“Let us have the Russian officer,” said the Sawbwa.

Naung spat. They were in council before the Sawbwa's house, but this time they were not seated gravely in a circle. They were standing, kneeling, pacing and cursing. Below them women and children were drifting onto the Common Field, burdened with foodstuffs, trailing livestock. Each isolated house was a trap; a massed village was blood and bone, brothers and sisters, companions in life or death.

“We need them” Greenwood said. “Thirty-some trained fighting men. That's about as many as there are Wild Wa.”

“Then let them stand and fight,” Naung said. “Let them each kill one Wild Wa.”

“Well, curse it, Naung,” Kin-tan said, “today I think you may be wrong.”

Naung dipped deep into his rum; the bowl hid his eyes.

“Bugger it, Naung,” Greenwood said, “no rum now!”

“I shall send an emissary,” the Sawbwa said. “Perhaps Ko-yang.” The Sawbwa was impelled by powerful memories, by impressions that had become certanties: Shang, a soothing American voice that eased his blindness, his early injustice to Green Wood. And now the gods had sent a Russian in the hour of need; to the Sawbwa, events were proceeding harmoniously.

“Well, we have the mule by the wrong end this time,” Mong said, “but here is what I believe. I believe that if we invite the Chinese to enter, the Wild Wa will flow in behind them.”

“So I believe,” said Naung, “and then you will have an occupied Pawlu.”

“That need not follow,” said Wan. “What if, as the Wild Wa flow in, we attack from both flanks?”

They mulled this.

“And further suppose,” Kin-tan said, “that upon a signal the Chinese turned and made a stand. There is a tale of Hu-chot proceeding in that manner.”

“So that we squeeze those flowing Wild Wa from north, west and south,” Greenwood said, “and slice them up and fling them back across the road.”

“One does not squeeze shadows,” Naung said. “One does not slice shadows. One does not fling shadows.”

“Then why have the Wild Wa never taken Pawlu? Has Naung surrendered before the battle? Is Naung already beaten?” Greenwood chose the soft voice and the sorrowful gaze.

Naung chose thunder. “By the gods, you know better!” His hand leapt to the hilt of his knife. “Rather I would die! You speak so to
me?
”

“That's better,” Greenwood said coldly. “We need anger and not rum. Wan and Kin-tan are right. We cannot fight the Wild Wa at night; we need to see. If the Chinese cross the road at sunrise, the Wild Wa must move, attack, infiltrate or go home; and even the Wild Wa cannot move in daylight without some stir. How many can there be? Thirty, forty? If we pick off ten, the battle is won.”

“So it must be,” said the Sawbwa. No one even looked at him.

“But it cannot be done without Naung,” Greenwood said. “I am older now and bookish, and unused to command. My weapon fits my hand still, but Naung must give the word.”

Naung dried his bowl, tossed it aside and said, “Complete the assembly in the Common Field. Order latrines dug. Bring livestock; rice; pots and bowls. Meanwhile there is only murder in my heart, so I leave you for a while.”

“Come back,” Greenwood asked. “I am going to the road. I shall be the Sawbwa's emissary.”

“Curse you,” Naung said, but returned. “Was there no other way but by Pawlu?”

Olevskoy too felt the fever rising. He was a general at last, and he coped with all problems: stores, munitions, discontent, deployment, grand strategy. And with all possibilities: weather, disease, attack, withdrawal, allies. The men muttered against General Yang and he did not upbraid them; this shift in loyalty was to his own advantage. Major Wei was unhappy, Major Ho bovine. Olevskoy kept close watch on the obvious approaches to Pawlu, the gaps in vegetation, the ditches and depressions. On the Shan slopes he had spotted observation posts, great clumps of Alpenrose, the Chinese called it sheep-stagger-bush, on flats or shelving rock.

He hoped for a message. Corporal Pao's death had taken him. The colonel had stood, sometimes alone, against a variety of enemies, but never against lethal shadows. He supposed that this was like jungle fighting. He had read of jungle fighting. It made good reading.

He knew what ought to be done, what he wanted to do, and he smoked half a packet of Russian cigarettes from Fang-shih reviewing the problem and refining his solution. At first light tomorrow he would enter Pawlu. The Wild Wa would harass him. If the Shan were alert, they could annihilate these little beasts from both flanks. Meanwhile he and his men would drive for the center of Pawlu. After that, some arrangement: provisions, a guide, a laissez-passer. Or a dash south toward Siam. But first these pestilential trolls.

He was all soldier now and wasted no energy in lamentations. If he was not invited, he would crash the gate. There was, of course, a flaw. There was always a flaw. Everyone had agreed upon this, from Clausewitz to some American called Murphy, and General Yang had told him that it was the rule even in mathematics, even in physics: there was always a flaw. The flaw here was that if the Shan could annihilate the Wild Wa from both flanks, they could annihilate the Chinese from those same flanks.

“Major Ho,” he called. “Major Wei. To me, please.”

Thuan-yi now lay on South Slope sheltered by masses of sheep-stagger-bush. He had seized his moment, daring all alone for the good of his people: when the flying metallic thing thundered past the cages and every man's eyes followed, Thuan-yi had sprinted across the road like a hare and dived into deep foliage, breathless at his own courage and wit. He was well and truly cut off for now; he could call his men only by risking his life and theirs; but he lay between the Chinese and the Shan. Once this side of the great road he had made his way up the slope at a slug's pace; and now he was a clod, or a rock, or the shadow of a bush. His gods had smiled, and would again.