The Mercenaries by John Harris Read Free Book Online

imaginable object--all competing for the right of way against the rickshaw boys, chair carriers and wheelbarrow-bus porters staggering under their loads of half a dozen women and children.
    An enormous swarm of coolies was unloading sacks of rice and beancakes from a river steamer just astern, the sun flaring like a scarlet lantern through the yellow dust that drifted in the breeze, and from the half-starved Chinese, the bony fans of their ribs showing as they laboured, came a sad plaintive song like the humming of insects, rising and falling, the two notes never ceasing as each man jogged down the gangplank under his load. The whole line of the shore seemed to be pulsating with life, a grey, brown and blue mass of human beings, shoving and heaving, each individual conducting a permanent fight against all the others for breathing space, space to eat and work, to make love and bring up a family, even space to die, a swarm of minute drab specks threaded through with occasional flashes of colour.
    Ira swallowed quickly, wondering what he’d let himself in for, then a hand touched his arm. It was Sammy, excited and grinning all over his face as he watched the scene below.
    ‘Chap in the lounge to see you, Ira,’ he said. ‘Yank. Says he’s our agent.’
    Ira nodded, still staring down at the bund, not knowing whether to laugh, protest or feel afraid.
    ‘O.K.,’ he said, tearing himself from the rail. ‘I’ll come.’
     
    5
     
    The man waiting in the lounge was lanky, slow-speaking and lantern-jawed, with blond hair plastered to his skull. He had a gold-topped cane and a high stiff collar that seemed to saw at his ears.
    Ira liked him at once for his shy, self-effacing manner, and the humour behind his eyes.
    ‘Eddie Kowalski,’ he said, making a gesture with his hat that was almost a bow. ‘Yank. I guess you’ll find me quite trustworthy, nevertheless, because I was in this flying thing of yours from the beginning. I’m your agent in Shanghai and my background’s O.K. Until recently it was the Chase Bank, but I’ve just left ‘em to handle business on my own. Real estate, import-export, anything. I’ll be handling your financial arrangements, that insurance you so wisely insisted on for everybody, and what supplies it’s been possible to get for you.’ Kowalski stopped and gave a sudden infectious grin. ‘Though they aren’t so goddam much, I guess.’
    They sat in the crowded lounge, surrounded by the movement of porters with baggage and the stiff farewells of the old China hands returning after their leaves in England. The place was full of people and luggage--tweedy Europeans still garbed for winter; uniformed ship’s officers; and a multitude of Chinese clerks and shore workers who had swarmed all over the ship for a thousand and one contracted tasks. The din was deafening and they had to shout to make themselves heard.
    ‘Call on my firm for help any time,’ Kowalski urged. ‘Politically, I guess you’ve come at a lousy time.’
    ‘Why?’
    Kowalski gestured with his drink. ‘Brother, how do you explain chaos? Bismarck said it was best to let China sleep but, holy mackerel, she’s awake now and hell’s a-poppin’.’
    He gulped at his beer and gestured at the waterfront. The slopeheads are beginning to want their country back,’ he explained. ‘From you. And me. And the French. And the Japanese. And all the other bastards who’re on their goddam backs. They object to the treaty ports and I guess I would, too. They were hi-jacked from the Manchus when they’d lost their power and now all the river and rail trade’s run by ‘em. They suck every bit of profit out of China and take it to Europe and the States, and the white taipans have so little regard for the slopeheads they’re even excluded with the dogs from their own goddam parks.’
    ‘Don’t these warlords do anything about it?’
    Kowalski grinned. ‘You bet,’ he said. ‘But not the way you think. Because both the Canton and