Chapter Three

1

I leaned on the rail of the first-class deck of the ferry-boat and watched the third-class passengers fight their way up the gang-plank onto the lower deck.

It was a colourful and interesting sight. Everyone, and they were all Chinese, acted as if the boat was about to sail immediately whereas it had at least a quarter of an hour before pulling away from the Star Ferry pier. Coolies, staggering under enormous burdens slung on bamboo poles, rushed up the gangplank, jostling and pushing as if their lives depended on getting onto the already overcrowded deck. Chinese women, babies strapped on their backs, surrounded by sharp-eyed children in padded coats, pushed and shoved their way along the pier. Two slim Chinese girls in black coats and trousers came up the gang-plank at a trot carrying between them on a bamboo pole a large sausage-shaped wicker basket in which lay a fullgrown and grunting pig. A half-naked Chinese youth, his right shoulder horribly deformed through carrying heavy burdens slung on his carrying pole, grinned happily as he bustled a group of tiny children ahead of him. Two smart uniformed Chinese policemen stood, their thumbs hooked in their revolver belts and watched the scene with a fatherly tolerance. I shifted my gaze to look at the few first-class passengers who were coming aboard. There was no sign of Stella, but I was sure she would arrive at the last moment. She was the type who timed her entrance. She would never be either too early or too late.

A squat, heavily-built Chinese, wearing a black city suit, a bulky briefcase under his arm came up the first-class gang-plank.

Looking down at this powerful-built man, I had the image of a figure reflected in the mirror at Enright’s hired villa. I was suddenly sure that this was the man I had seen watching me from the darkened lobby.

I watched him come, studying him. He could be any age up to forty, but there was great strength and power in his squat limbs and he moved with the speed and ease of a gymnast. I told myself all Chinese look alike and I was being cock-eyed to think this was the man who had been watching me in Enright’s villa, but the feeling persisted even when he walked past me without looking at me and sat down, opening a newspaper with a flick of his wrists and hiding himself behind it.

At one minute to sailing time, I saw Stella, wearing an apple-green cotton dress and carrying a straw basket, come along the pier. She paused at the foot of the gang-plank and waved to me. She was the last passenger to arrive.

I went down the gang-plank to take the basket from her to the irritation of two Chinese sailors who were about to wheel the gang-plank away.

“Hello,” Stella said. “Well, here I am… as usual I just made it.”

We regained the deck and the ferry moved away from the pier. We sat on the bench seat and talked. The conversation was impersonal and Jefferson wasn’t mentioned. As we came in sight of Lantao Island, Stella asked casually what I had been doing all the morning. I told her I had been exploring the back streets of Hong Kong.

“Well, here we are,” she said as the boat nosed up to Silver Mine pier. “I’ve got to leave these things.” She waved to the basket. “I’ll have to talk to the old dear. I’ll be about an hour and a half. Why don’t you walk to the waterfall? It’s really worth seeing.”

“I’ll do that. Shall we meet here?”

“The next ferry back is just before six. I’ll be here.”

She let me carry the basket down to the pier, then she directed me the way to go.

“You follow the path around Butterfly Hill,” she said, “then you will come to a bridge. Keep on and you will come to another bridge. Beyond the second bridge is the waterfall.” She smiled at me. “It’s one of the most attractive sights here.”

“I’ll find it,” I said.

I watched her walk away to a row of poor-looking houses festooned with gaily-coloured washing. She moved gracefully, avoiding the jog-trotting Chinese peasants and the well-fed, cheerful-looking children who swarmed around the skirts of her green dress.

I looked around for the squat Chinese, but he had vanished. I had seen him get off the boat, but now I had no idea where he had got to.

I had nothing to do until eight o’clock and I felt ready for a walk. It was a warm sunny day and I was in no hurry. I strolled along the path pointed out to me by Stella and after ten minutes or so, I left the waterfront behind and found myself walking along a deserted footway. After I had passed through a village I later learned was Chung Hau, I was suddenly alone with Butterfly Hill on my right and an expanse of open country to my left.

I reached the waterfall without meeting anyone, duly admired it, and then decided to retrace my steps. It was then that it happened. Something that could have been a large-sized hornet zipped past my face. It was followed by the distant sound of a rifle shot.

I spread myself flat on the ground with the reflex action I had had drummed into me during my service in the infantry. As I rolled off the road, there came another rifle shot and the dust was kicked up about two yards from me. I rolled into the thick grass on the side of the path as yet another rifle shot cracked in the still air. This time he nearly nailed me. The bullet zipped past my head alarmingly close. Sweating, my heart thumping, I kept moving, rolling over, trying to dig myself into the hard ground. I finally came up against a large rock, and with speed, close to panic, I slid around it and lay flat and waited.

Nothing happened and I began to calm down a little. Whoever was shooting at me was up on the hill. He was probably using a telescopic sight. From the sound of the rifle shot, he was a good quarter of a mile away.

I cursed myself for not bringing my .38, but I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of slacks: no outfit for carrying a gun. He knew where I was. All he had to do was to wait for me to show. Very cautiously, I lifted my head to look behind me to plan an escape route. A rifle cracked and a bullet flicked past my face. I flattened out.

There were two of them! The last shot had come immediately behind me. The sniper was closer than the other one… too damn close!

They must know by the clothes I was wearing I wasn’t armed. There was nothing to stop them now they knew they had missed me with their opening shots to come down and make sure they didn’t miss.

I looked at my strap watch. The time was twenty minutes past five. Would Stella come to meet me when I didn’t show at the pier? Suppose she walked into these two? Would they kill her as they were trying to kill me?

I started a slow crawl away from the rock. My combat training was still alive in my mind. I slid through the long grass, snakelike, moving downhill. After five minutes of careful manoeuvring I was a hundred feet from where I had been. Then, inch by inch, I lifted my head to try to see where I was.

The hiss of the bullet by my face and then the crack of the rifle made me flatten into the ground. These two were either smarter than I thought they were or I was a lot less good as an infantry man.

I slowly shifted my position. It was as well that I did. Another shot cracked the silence and a bullet zunked into the earth just where I had been lying. I told myself it was a lucky shot. The guy had fired at where he imagined I was, but it was far too close for comfort.

I moved farther to my right, then I saw the long grass ceased to exist. Another four feet ahead of me would bring me to barren rocky ground which dipped sharply to a slope, probably to the side of the hill, running down into a valley.

I lay listening and waiting. I heard nothing. Without raising my head, I could see nothing.

I did the Indian trick of putting my ear down on the ground and listening intently. For several minutes I still heard nothing, then I heard him. I guessed he was about fifty yards to my right. He was crawling towards me, hidden in the long grass and he would be on me pretty soon if I didn’t do something about it.

I tried to judge just where he was, but that wasn’t possible. At least I knew from which direction he was coming. I waited a minute longer, then feeling naked and pretty scared, I rose out of the grass with a quick jinking movement, jumping first right, then left to throw the other joker’s aim off. I was aware of a distant crack of a rifle shot. The bullet went wide by yards. I saw a movement in the grass six yards from me and I started for it.

A Chinese, wearing a blue coat and trousers with a baggy black cap rose out of the grass and grinned at me. He was small, thin and wiry. The sun flashed on the knife he held in his hand. I didn’t give him a chance to get set. I dived for him, my right hand groping for the knife hand, my left hand for his throat.

I hit him in the chest with my shoulder and we went down into the high grass with a bone-shaking impact. I had his wrist and him by the throat. He tried to get his fingers into my eyes, but I slammed the top of my head into his face. I heard him grunt. He didn’t stand a chance. He was half my weight and half my strength. I got the knife away from him, then I fastened both hands around his throat. He squirmed under me, but not for long. I squeezed into his skinny throat until I saw his eves roll up and felt him go limp. Panting a little, I heaved myself off him, keeping flat, wondering if the other joker was on his way down.

I waited some minutes until the Chinese began to move. I crawled around him and sat him up by shoving against his shoulder blades, but keeping flat myself. His cap had fallen off in the struggle. From where the sniper lay my man could have been me and that’s what the sniper thought or maybe he didn’t care. A rifle cracked and suddenly my man’s face was a mask of blood. It was good shooting. I let the limp body drop back into the grass, then I crawled backwards until I was about fifteen yards from the body.

I waited. From time to time I pressed my ear to the ground. It was a long wait. The hands of my watch showed half past six before the sniper lost patience and decided to come down and find out what had happened.

He came with plenty of confidence, knowing I was either dead or harmless. By parting the grass a little I was able to see the hillside from where the last shot had come. I caught sight of him coming down the hill, a rifle under his arm, squat, powerfully built, incongruous in his black city suit… the man who had been watching me in the Enright villa and who I had seen on the ferry-boat. Watching him come, I had a creepy sensation. It had been Stella’s idea for me to come to this lonely island. I had been invited to the Enright villa, and this squat Chinese, walking so confidently towards me, had been there to take a look at me. It seemed to me as I lay in the long grass that I had walked into a prepared trap from which I wasn’t supposed to escape. At the rate he was moving, he would be with me in less than ten minutes. I crawled through the grass to collect the long-bladed knife. It didn’t give me a lot of confidence. A knife against a rifle isn’t fair odds. I looked around and found a flat, heavy stone larger than my hand. I collected that too.

By now the squat Chinese was walking along the path. He had slowed his pace and was moving more cautiously, but he still seemed to have plenty of confidence because he carried the rifle under his arm.

By now I had squirmed farther from the body… twenty yards of high grass separated us. The squat Chinese would come on the body before he came on me.

He was now too close for me to watch him. I lay flat, gripping the stone in my right hand and the knife in my left.

I could hear him. I heard him give a little grunt. Cautiously I lifted my head. He had found his pal and was standing over him, staring. He jerked his head up and we looked at each other. The rifle slid from under his arm into his hands. As I threw the stone, he squeezed the trigger. The flying stone spoilt his aim but it wasn’t all that bad a shot. The bullet scraped the top of my shoulder. My stone was luckier. The edge of the stone caught his right hand, splitting the skin. He dropped the rifle, and as he bent to pick it up, I was on him.

It was like charging against the side of a house. He had twisted sideways, his legs spread to take the shock of my charge. His hand flashed up and grabbed my wrist. He had fingers like steel. I went flying over his head to land on the ground with a jar that shook the breath out of my body. I was dimly aware I had lost the knife. I was also aware that my fall had brought me to the side of the hill. Letting myself go limp, I started to roll. I heard him coming after me. After I had rolled fifty yards or so, I dug my heels into the soft ground and stopped. I was dizzy and breathless. I saw him coming, a vicious grin on his fat, yellow face, but without the gun.

I was on my feet as he reached me, below him and at a disadvantage, but he was coming too fast to stop. I swerved aside at the moment of impact. He tried to grab me, but his hooked fingers slid off my arm as he went careering past. I swung around and planted my shoe in his fat behind. He pitched forward and slid down the hill on his face.

I found another flat, heavy stone which I snatched up and threw after him. The stone caught him on the back of his head and blood flew. He went on down the hill, kicking up the dust, but limp. Maybe I had smashed his skull. I didn’t care. All I knew he wouldn’t worry me for some time… if ever.

Breathing heavily, feeling a burning in my shoulder, I set off down the path, walking unsteadily, towards the Silver Mine Pier.