WHEN THE DIESEL engine had cooled, the speed was set at a steady twelve knots and left unattended except for an occasional check to see that the fuel was holding out and all the gauges registered in the safe zone. Mei made a meal from the food taken from the kitchen behind Wan Kuen-fa’s petrol station and, after they had all eaten, she sank into a deep natural sleep on the deck. Before closing her eyes she had extracted a promise from the two detectives that they would wake her to stand a duty at the helm.
The promise was not kept and she was not roused until a sudden, torrential shower of rain pelted the junk. By that time it was mid-afternoon and the junk was well-advanced along the estuary, keeping to the west of the many islands that sprang from the muddy water in the upper reaches. Chang had completed his interrupted work of painting the identification markings on the port bow and the cradle had been hauled in. Some of their exhaustion had been eased, and Crown’s pain had subsided to a dull throbbing. This had been achieved by alternate ninety-minute rest periods—one man sleeping while the other took the helm.
Chang—changed back into his peasant’s garb after burning the army uniform—and Crown had seen an increasing amount of shipping as they took their turns at the helm. At first just freighters of many nationalities ploughing up and down the narrowing estuary. Then, when the islands forced a course closer to the mainland shore, the re-numbered junk began to skirt small fleets of other junks, fishing off the mainland villages. Once, Crown saw a CCN patrol vessel and woke Chang to take the helm while he went below into the cramped engine room. If the look-out on the navy craft ran glasses over the junk, he was apparently satisfied with its mundane appearance and a single Chinese crewman on deck. For the launch made no course alteration and sped away to the south-east.
The abrupt deluge that woke Mei and Chang matched the rain of the night before in ferocity. Visibility was reduced to a few meters, but Crown had seen the ominous yellow tint spread across the low cloud ceiling and was in the process of changing course when the skies opened to unleash the torrent.
‘Get on the engine, Po!’ he yelled as the two sleepers were jerked into awareness. ‘Dead slow. Mei, get to the bow. Yell if you see anything.’
Chang dived down into the hatchway but was soaked before he was under cover. Mei ran forward and was soon lost to sight. Crown bent his head over the binnacle and cursed the squall for not holding off a few moments more. They were running between two islands, a kilometre apart. He had seen a village on the island to port, but that to starboard was desolate along its western shore. Towards its northern end there was a narrow-necked bay and it was for here that he had started to veer the junk when the rain fell to obscure his surroundings as effectively as a heavy drape curtain. The rain was not the reason for heading towards the bay—merely an excuse which was also useful in that it provided cover. But, as Chang throttled back and the speed dropped dramatically, shelter from the weather became equally as important as the initial reason. For, unlike the storm of last night, this one was suddenly strengthened by a vicious south-easterly wind.
In an instant, the muddy brown sea was no longer merely pocked by hard-falling rain. The wind swooped in and lashed the surface into rolling, white-spumed waves. Water crashed against the bow and sent white spray flying across the deck. The junk was tossed high and sucked low. In the bow, at the helm and below in the engine room, Mei, Crown and Chang had to fasten hands and arms around the closest solid pieces of the junk to keep from being flung off their feet. The wind howled, the sea crashed, the rain hissed and the timbers creaked. Crown steered blindly, struggling to maintain the compass heading he could only estimate was somewhere close to the right one. Mei was wasted in the bow, for even if she had a bullhorn, Crown would have been unable to hear her above the raucous sounds of the raging storm. But there was no way to get her back. And she was as safe there as anywhere else aboard.
Sometimes the junk hovered at the top of a wave, stationary while her screw spun in mid-air. At others she inched forward, the screw biting in the sea. Then again, a gust of wind slapped her stern-on and surged her ahead. Once again Crown’s strong sense of survival cut across pain and the arm of his injured shoulder was hooked in a frantic grip around the binnacle compass mounting. His good arm concentrated firmly on the wheel, fighting the strength of the fast-running sea beating at the rudder.
Then, as abruptly as it had come, the rain ceased. There was still lashing spray, for the wind remained high and vicious, but this was only a temporary interruption to visibility. After a wave had crashed into the junk, the Australian was able to see along the canting deck, over the bows where Mei clung to a hatch-cover, and five hundred meters beyond. Five hundred meters because that was how far off the island the junk was now positioned. He was steering fifteen degrees off course and spun the wheel to correct the heading. The wind chased the rain north-west and the deluge looked like an enormous piece of silver-grey material being dragged across the surface of the sea—the hem churning up the water.
Between the arms of the bay, which ended in sheer rock cliffs towering to fifty feet on one side and a hundred on the other, the spume was flung high and wild. Beyond, the almost landlocked expanse of water was merely ruffled by the wind. As the junk’s bow swung towards the frantically angry water, Crown saw Mei staring at him and guessed she had the same nagging worry that he did. The natural harbour was empty; and perhaps this was because there was a submerged reef stretching across the entrance.
But the junk was committed. Already the water astern was behind the storm and the village on the other island was visible. So there was a risk they would be seen running for shelter. As visibility ahead lengthened, the risk increased. So Crown slammed the telegraph to demand full-speed ahead in an all-or-nothing attempt to reach the bay unseen. Chang responded at once and the screw bit harder and faster at the angry sea. In the bows, Mei crawled to the rail and gripped it so that she could peer through the flying spray at the turmoil of white water in the bay entrance. The wind veered and whirled, striking the struggling junk at the stern to thrust her towards the objective, then ricocheting back from the cliff faces to buffet her bows off course. The rain curtain raced away and unveiled other junks making full speed for shelter. But not for the bay Crown had selected.
Then the hi-jacked junk was in the gap between the headlands of the arms of land—fifty meters wide and divided by a stretch of water in vicious turmoil. Not daring to release his grip on the binnacle, Crown fought one-handed to keep the rudder amidships as the sea sought to tear control for itself. Mei had turned her head and the Australian could see her mouth was wide open, shouting to him. But the wind whipped her words away even before the crashing sea could mask the sounds. Crown could merely try to read her expression and he thought he recognized a lessening of terror. He chose to believe this, anyway, and assumed it to mean that the woman could see no jagged rocks in the path of the pitching and rolling junk.
Then they were through the gap and the vessel steadied: enough for Crown to risk releasing his hold on the binnacle. His shoulder became a raging mass of pain as he got both hands on the wheel and spun it, sending the junk into a sharp turn to starboard. The wind whining through the gap, took a last, desperate swipe at the junk. But the gust aided the manoeuvre, speeding the turn. The rudder swung back to amidships and the junk raced into the shelter of the headland. The noise level dropped abruptly and Crown became aware of the engine note—straining frenetically.
Pushing the telegraph lever to the stop position was his final act before the agony became too intense for his brain to take. He saw the indicator click into the right segment, then glimpsed Mei as she stood without support. He tried to do the same thing, and to match her smile of relief. But unconsciousness swamped him and he crumpled to the deck. As he fell the final compartment of his brain to retain awareness received a message.
‘Mr. Crown!’ High-pitched and tremulous with anxiety. Then, only a few meagre seconds later: ‘Mr. Crown?’ More like Chang’s voice should sound. A long way down from soprano and the tone calm. A question instead of a shriek.
The Australian opened his eyes and it was dark. But not pitch black. His pupils adjusted and with lights and shapes, came sounds. He and Chang were not in limbo. Then came feeling to make this certain. He felt pain, but it was concentrated in his shoulder and its degree was just a fraction of what it had been a few seconds ago. Then he shook his head. ridding himself of the final remnants of unconsciousness, and knew the time lapse was far in excess of seconds. For night had come and the junk was moving. He was lying flat on his back on the deck and could see the sky. Low with rain clouds. No rain, but no moon either. But light—refracted off the cloud ceiling. Night clamped over a city!
‘Who needs an old man who keels over as soon as the going gets a little rough?’ he growled, and eased up into a sitting position. His shoulder made a painful complaint at the activity, but it held back from sheer agony and quickly settled into a regular cadence of dull throbbing.
‘You had us worried back at the bay,’ Chang said. ‘Old, but tough. Welcome to the buttoned-down world of unswinging Canton.’
They were all on the stern deck. Mei smiled nervously at Crown from the helm. Chang was squatting on his haunches beside Crown, who was in the insecure cover of the starboard deck rail. His smile held a little more confidence than that of the woman.
‘On your right, Tung-t’i-ta-ma-lu with Canton East Railway Station beyond. On your left, Ho-nan-pin-chiang-lu. Directly ahead of you, Hai-chu Bridge.’
Chang was talking like a tour guide, oozing too much surface self-assurance. Perhaps as a cover for his fear. No, certainly as a cover for his fear. Crown’s head swung this way and that, seeing the meagrely-lit streets between which the river flowed and the bridge towards which the junk was heading. Fear clamped an icy grip around his heart and threatened to turn his insides to water. And he knew his Chinese partner well enough to be aware he was not prone to interludes of insanity.
‘Jesus Christ, we’re in downtown Canton!’ he rasped. ‘How long have I been out?’
‘An hour longer than me,’ Chang replied, his voice and expression becoming grave. Then he changed his language to Cantonese so that Mei could understand. ‘Back in the bay on the island we checked your shoulder and then things kind of caught up with me. You were sleeping like a baby instead of a pole-axed copper so Mei convinced me I should get some sleep. I asked her to wake me when the squall blew itself out.’ Now he smiled fleetingly at the woman. ‘She woke me as we were going past the docks at Whampoa.’ He switched back into English. ‘I think we can trust her now, Mr. Crown?’
‘Bloody hell!’ Crown muttered, took another look at each bank of the river, and ducked his head as a brightly-lit ferry boat put out from a pier on the north side.
‘I knew you wanted to get to Kwangchow in the darkness,’ Mei said hurriedly, as if she thought the foreign expletives were a criticism of her action. ‘And you both needed to rest. You did not even stir when I started the engine. You were very tired. I did not leave until evening and nobody saw. There were many boats near Whampoa. Some navy patrol craft. I began to wonder if I had done wrong and that is when I woke Chang Po. I do not know what to do when there are other boats in the river. Boats close to this one.’
The street on the south bank was still Ho-nan-pin-chiang-lu. To the north the riverside thoroughfare had become Nan-t’i-ta-ma-lu. The junk nosed past the darkened, multi-story Provincial Industry Exhibition Hall, closing on the Hai-chu Bridge. Listening to the soft, apologetic voice of the woman, Crown brought his initial near-panic under control. Canton had been the objective from the start and they had made it. Every inch from the off-coast limit out in Mirs Bay they had been in Red Chinese territory. The only difference now was that they were in the middle of a Red city crammed with better than two million comrades. The shock of waking up to this had been traumatic, that was all.
‘Can you trust anybody with more than your life, son?’ the Australian asked in English. Then, in Cantonese to Mei: ‘Even if the Governor himself tries to keep you out of Hong Kong, you’ll get in,’ he promised.
Her gratitude was expressed in a broad smile. Then she concentrated on steering the junk. The ferry was heading up-river in the same direction as the junk, but making better speed than the hi-jacked craft.
‘Almost there,’ Crown said, tense again as he eased up on to his haunches and peered around.
Chang’s announcement of their position east of the river’s Front Reach had not been merely facetious. Both men had made a close study of top secret maps of Canton as a back-up to Kwan Sung’s first-hand knowledge of the city. Thus, with the DI6 man dead, they had to recall the knowledge they had absorbed during the briefing sessions. And with the present position known, the geography of Canton fell into place in their minds.
The river curved to the south west under the Hai-Chu Bridge and the two detectives concentrated their attention on the north bank. The riverside street took on a new name here—Hsin-t’i-ta-ma-lu. They recognized the façade of the Ai-ch’un Hotel and then, after another street name change—Hsi-t’i-ma lu—the Nanfang Department Store, the Postal and Telecommunication General Bureau and the Customhouse slid by on the junk’s starboard beam. The ferry ahead nosed into a south bank pier and the junk overhauled her and slid under the Yan-Mah Bridge.
The Pearl suddenly broadened where a tributary joined it from the south. Chang rose and went to join Mei at the helm. She surrendered the helm to him and he eased over the wheel, swinging the junk on a diagonal course across the river at its junction with the tributary. The Sha-Mien area with its lights was left astern and the junk headed for the dark piers and wharfs behind the Shi-wei-t’ang Railway Station.
Mei suddenly gripped Chang’s upper arm tightly. Crown muttered an obscenity in English. Chang glanced up-river, to where the Pearl swung north again, towards the wide span of the rail and road ‘Big Bridge’. A fast launch was powering down-river, its bow wave spraying and the wash of its wake reaching both banks. The launch was on an interception course with the junk and its siren wailed.
With no time for Mei or Crown to reach the engine, Chang could do nothing but spin the wheel to veer away to port. A searchlight mounted on the launch’s superstructure stabbed a beam across the muddy river.
‘We go over the side if we have to!’ Crown yelled as the light searched for, found and fixed on the junk.
But then the light was turned to spray its widening beam across the water. The launch did not slacken speed. Instead, the helmsman gave his craft hard rudder and skimmed her in a wide curve around the stern of the slow-moving junk. As the junk rolled and pitched in the wash of the speeding boat, Chang glimpsed the white-painted markings that identified the launch as a police patrol vessel. She resumed her course and arrowed towards the mouth of the smaller river, searchlight showing the way ahead and siren wailing to warn other boats to clear a passage.
‘Fuzz,’ Chang reported as he resumed his course for the dock area. ‘With something else on their minds.’
Crown finished lighting the cigarette that he had started to fire before the launch put in its sudden appearance. ‘A copper’s work is never done,’ he growled. ‘And the way I feel now, I know why we get called pigs and all those other choice names.’
Chang smiled. ‘But you can’t call those boys Fascist pigs,’
The Australian blew out smoke. ‘The feeling’s past, son. Right now I love those lousy Red defenders of law and order.’
He took two more deep, fast drags against the cigarette and flicked it over the stern. Then he hauled himself carefully to his feet and used the hand of his good arm to massage his injured shoulder as he approached the helm.
‘I’ll take over now, Po,’ he said gravely. ‘You get on the engine. Better take Mei down there with you. Remember what the cloak and dagger boys said about him.’
Chang nodded and stepped back, retaining a hold on the wheel until Crown had full control of the junk’s steering. ‘You’ve forgotten something, Mr. Crown,’ he said, and crouched over the bundle that had been carried so far.
‘If you’ve forgotten it, too, there’s no time.’
Chang’s grin didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I didn’t spend all my waking time nursing you, Mr. Crown.’
He unfastened the neck of the bundle and spread out the water-stained canvas. Revealed was a collection of the necessities of life to a destitute Chinese who had taken to the road: cooking, eating and tea-making utensils, a tattered map of Kwangtung Province, identity papers and travel permits, a razor, a chop, a small pillow, a tobacco pipe and pouch, a change of clothes and a spare pair of boots. And a few luxuries: two books of the writings of Mao Tse-tung, a large bar of soap and a box of crayons with paper to draw on.
Some of the items were precisely what they seemed. Others had been nothing more than camouflage, specially manufactured and expertly aged. Now they had served their purpose, for Chang delved amongst them and drew out a fully-loaded 9mm Smith and Wesson automatic with a silencer screwed into place. It had taken him fifteen minutes to assemble the gun from the components which were hidden in more mundane pieces of equipment.
‘You think of everything,’ Crown said, reaching low to take the gun, which he thrust into the waistband of his trousers.
‘I didn’t get half-killed with a monkey wrench,’ the Chinese excused his partner, then beckoned for Mei to go through the hatch into the engine room.
‘Po!’ Crown called as Chang started to go below in the wake of the woman.
He looked up.
‘We’re playing it cool, son. Remember, there’s going to be two bastards at this meeting. But only one is bastard enough to kill a friend.’
Chang nodded. ‘No Seventh Cavalry stuff, uh?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think no Seventh Cavalry stuff. From here on in, you’re on your own, Mr. Crown.’
The Australian turned to look ahead, at the dark shape of a pier jutting out into the river. He pushed the telegraph to register dead slow and a moment later the engine note subsided to a subdued throb, hardly more powerful than a tick-over. The junk slid across the end of the pier and he spun the wheel to force the craft round into a tight turn towards the wharf. A torch with a white lens flashed momentarily, Crown’s muscles tensed into hard knots and he levered the telegraph to the stop engine position. The silence was broken only by the hiss of water along the hull of the junk and the hum of the sprawling city.
‘Hello, John,’ a voice called as the junk’s fenders juddered against the pier pilings.
Crown went to the rail, hefted a coiled line and hurled it across the narrow strip of water. The man he had come so far and so violently to see caught the rope and lashed it around a bollard.
‘I hope it’s good to see you, Lin-ching,’ the Australian rasped, and reached up a hand towards the top assassin in the offensive arm of the Red Chinese intelligence service.