OUTPOST IN CHINA
By
VAL GIELGUD.
Author of “Africa Flight” and Part Author of “Death at Broadcasting House.”
CHAPTER XII. (Continued.) “Things look pretty bad,” Patrick James had written from his mission house. "I hear that there has been a lot of real trouble round Chungking. Every boat that comes up gets fired on. And my people are in a regular stew. I believe your friend Wu is in it up to his thick neck. I can't say for certain, but there’s a lot of talk to the effect that Gerald Havelock has been buying him on the quiet paying danegeld. If that's true it accounts for a lot. Every bandit for miles will want a sip at the honey-pot. I wish you were here, my dear Leslie, and even more, I wish that Janet wasn’t. I’ve tried to make her quit, but she flatly refuses. Says she’s too old. But I believe it’s because she won t leave Sheila Havelock alone. Which doesn't altogether surprised he did not say. But why Patrick James had not been surprise he did not say. To Leslie's amazement he found Mr Greer as disturbed as he was himself. He didn't wait to hear the end of the missionary's letter, which Leslie war trying to read to him, but pulled a type-written document out of a drawer in his desk, and thumped it with his podgy fist. «, “ “Report from the Consulate at Chunking, Dale,” he said, querulously. "Tan Fu’s in a blazing mess. And the country seems to be rising all along the river. It may be the Red Spears, it may be odd guerillas on the loose. Anyway, we may find the river route cut any day.” ( “And what," asked Leslie coldly, “do you propose to do about it?” “I’m proposing," said Samuel Greer, testily, “to ask you to accept my personal apologies for having transferred you from Tan Fu, and ask you to go back and get Gerald Havelock and his wife away. Obviously an outpost job like that was too much for the young man. Will you go?” Leslie Dale grinned sardonically. “You’ll stop me going with one thing —a gun,” he said. “And I make one condition. You must get a steamer to take me this very evening.” And he was out of the office, and driving to his hotel at the greatest peril to traffic, almost before Samuel Greer realised what had happened. And Mr Greer, having had his own way, was not the man to waste time in wondering how he had £ot it. Which was another reason for his success . . .
For Gerald Havelock those three months had been a long purgatory. For perhaps a week the relief of the removal of Dale’s efficiency and disapproving eye upon himself had appeared the greatest of blessings. But other aspects of the case soon became apparent. Business fell off —in his eyes unaccountably. His clerks, like his house-boys, passed from incompetence to downright insolence. And there is no nationality like the Chinese for exploiting the subtleties of insolence while simultaneously avoiding the crudities which can be dealt with by the strong hand. Gerald, be it said to his credit, did what he could. He dropped his natural indolence. He worked like a black. But he could not teach himself how to handle the Chinese any more than he could teach himself the Chinese language.
Always in the background there was the vaguely menacing figure of General Wu, looming over Tan Fu like the proverbial man’s hand. If he had appeared in person, thought Gerald things might have been better. The obstacle or peril that can be seen and faced is never so bad as it seems in imagination.
But Wu did not appear. He knew better than that. His snakey, mur-derous-looking emissaries pinned his demand notes all over the place: to the verandah posts, to the door of Gerald's private office, even to his pony’s bridle. And Gerald, bewildered and cursing himself, had paid —and paid secretly through the medium of his comprador, who took a handsome commission on the deal, and despised Gerald as heartily as he feared Wu. Gerald knew that there payments were as wrong as they were futile. But he could see no alternative. With the trouble down river, he could see no hope of getting armed help should Wu make a direct, attack upon the town. And, typically enough, he hoped that by putting off the evil day, something might crop up Iq resolve the whole situation. He would not discuss his troubles with Patrick James. He identified James too thoroughly with Leslie Dale. He was afraid, too, of the missionary’s rough common sense, based on years of experience in China going back to the Boxer Rebellion. He could not discuss them . with Sheila—because he could discuss nothing with Sheila. Since the day of Dale's departure his relationship with his wife had been polite, dreary, indifferent and utterly unhappy. He was working too hard to see much of her except at night. And at night she would read the tattered, thumbed novels Leslie Dale had left behind him. with an almost furious concentration, and go to bed early in her own room. They seldom squabbled now. Gerald would have welcomed even a scene now and then. Sheila never mentioned Leslie Dale, and nothing would have induced Gerald to open the subject . . .
Finally with the outbursts of trouble round Chungking which had so disquieted Mr Greer Gerald had been driven to the desperate measure of demanding through his comprador that Wu should pay him a formal visit of ceremony.
Exactly what he hoped for as a result of such a visit. Gerald could probably not have explained. It was something of a gesture of desperation. And now that he had made it. he stood at his window, and looked at the jagged outline of those savage red hills against
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the evening sky, and longed dei down in his heart for something, an' thing, to happen to prevent Wu fro
coming . . . As for Sheila, she was in some ways most to be pitied of the three. For Sheila had no work to do.
She soon had to give up her rides, for the country round Tan Fu became demonstrably more unsafe day by day. Though it took a couple of occasions when she was actually fired at to convince her of the fact. Leslie Dale was on another planet, as far as she was concerned. He did not write. And though Sheila wrote, she never sent the letters.
Somehow, once he had gone. Leslie became queerly insubstantial to her. That he would ever crime back seemed beyond belief or hope. Her only company was Janet James, and Sheila suspected that Janet disliked her about as much as she disliked Janet. The missionary's wife was the kindest and most capable woman in the world. But she was nearly 50. and she had seen too much in tno shape of tribulation and sudden deatli to be able to feel much sympathy for a young woman whose only apparent problem was that she didn't fit any too well into the environment of Tan Fu. As for Gerald —Gerald had become a shadow on the wall. The evening sky over Tan Fu was deepening from indigo to purple. Against that sinister sky, the outline of the hills where lay General Wu’s stronghold showed up stark and bare as a ground row against a stage backcloth. Gerald Havelock, wearing the dinner jacket and stiff shirt appropriate to the garrisons of the outposts of Empire according to all the novelists, stood at his french window, looked out into the dusk, and furtively gnawed his nails. In the shadowy room behind him, Sheila flipped over the pages of a novel, which she could not see to read, and held between her fingers a cigarette which was too much trouble to smoke. She was wearing a skirt and jumper, arid sandals on bare feet. At last, with an abrupt movement, she snapped the covers of the book together, and sat up in her chair. “Look here, Gerry,” she said, “it’s rot turning me out! I want to stay, and see the fun.” Gerald did not move. And that admirably tailored, immoveable back irritated her almost beyond endurance. “Well.” he answered, “you cant!” “I suppose you don't want me to be here to see you make a fool of yourself? That wouldn’t be a novelty, you know!” “I’m afraid you can’t rile me as easily as you used to be able to,” was Gerald’s only retort. “One gets used to anything!” "Not if you've any spirit. Gerry. I've not got used to Tan Fu.” But Gerald was firm in his determination not to take up the challenge. “Wu will be here any time now," he said. “You’d better get along over to Janet's.” “You do look after my comfort, don’t you?” said Sheila. “Dear Janet!” “She’s a jolly good sort,” said Gerald indignantly. "And she’s been most awfully nice to you.” “She,” said Sheila deliberately, “has behaved like a perfect Christian lady —the sort that goes in for rescue work!” “It’s not her fault if she’s middleaged—” “And flat-footed, and fat-headed — and aggravitingly helpful! No, I agree it’s not her fault. It is my misfortune!” Gerald turned back to the window, passing his hand wearily across his forehead. “She’s expecting you. Sheila,” was all he said. “But I want to see Wu!” said Sheila plaintively. “Why should you want to deprive me of the only original experience I'm likely to get out of this frightful spot?” “Do be sensible, Sheila! I’m supposed to be giving Wu an official interview—not tea and games!” “Then why should the Reverend Patrick be invited?” asked Sheila. “He asked to come,” said Gerald curtly. “And I ask to stay.” "The padre is responsible for the safety of his mission Chinese,” said Gerald irritably. “Considering Wu’s threats to the town, it's natural that James should want to know what he has to say.” Sheila shrugged her shoulders. “You must get along,” Gerald continued. “Janet will be worrying that you haven't turned up.” Sheila lay back in her chair. “She will,” he agreed calmly, “but then Janet loves worrying about other people—it's her life's work!" "A saucer of milk for Mrs Havelock. please.” said Gerald, with a laugh quite hideously forced. "Oh don't try to be funny. Gerry! If I go now, I can't dress before dinner." "Then dress now!” “So as to have to walk half a mile in evening shoes! Don't be a perfect idiot!” Gerald swung round. “This was all fixed up days ago," he said. "Must you argue about it now?" (Tn be Confinuedt.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1940, Page 10
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1,790OUTPOST IN CHINA Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1940, Page 10
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