White Ghosts

16. PILOTS

Nazar asked Klim if he would be able to write an article about the pilots living at the airfield on Dashatou Island. Sun Yat-sen’s recruiters had hired them from all over Europe, and now Canton boasted the most multinational air force in the world.

“These pilots are real heroes,” Nazar persuaded Klim. “They fly their machines without any reliable weather forecasts and navigate using the mountain tops and the railways. In fact, they don’t even have any maps. Would you dare go up into the sky without a map?”

Nazar’s biggest hero was Comrade Krieger, who was in charge of technical maintenance at the airfield.

Krieger was a German by birth but had grown up in Prague and received his engineering training in America. According to Nazar, Krieger had arrived in China during the Great War to organize the shipment of all sorts of goods to Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Later on, when Sun Yat-sen had started building his army, Krieger had joined his air force to help the Kuomintang and the communists to free the Chinese people from the warlords and foreign invaders.

“He’s an amazing man,” Nazar kept saying. “He not only built our airfield from scratch but has also learned to fly better than any ace. He is besotted with aviation. He thinks it is the future of warfare.”

“Sounds impressive,” Klim said. “Well, let’s go and interview these flyboys.”

It was raining when they got to Dashatou Island, and they had to run across the flooded airfield to reach the “canteen,” which was little more than a long table and a couple of benches under a thatched canopy.

There were a dozen tanned pilots sitting at the table in overalls stained with motor oil.

“Always a pleasure to have the press here!” they shouted, and after exchanging handshakes with their guests, they gave Nazar and Klim the seats of honor that had been improvised out of a couple of aviation fuel barrels.

It was pouring now, and it was so dark under the canopy that it might as well have been evening already. The orderlies, soaked to the skin, brought in pots of rice and fried canned meat with vegetables. Banana leaves were used instead of plates and enamel army cups instead of wine glasses.

Konstantin the Bulgarian filled the cups with baijiu, a kind of Chinese rice vodka.

“To the victory of socialism!” he toasted.

They all drank and talked, interrupting each other—in Russian, English, and German.

Klim took notes in his notebook. The pilots were all from different countries, but their stories were surprisingly similar. They had been sent to the front straight from school and had quickly learned how to survive, how to laugh in the face of danger, and to value camaraderie above all else. They were fond of women but loathed the responsibility and curbs to their freedom that children and a settled life entailed. The humdrum conformity of civilian life bored them.

“What kind of a man are you if you’re afraid of a fight?” the curly-haired Pierre from Belgium shouted. He had returned from the war covered in decorations but could never stick at a permanent job. He was forever getting into trouble with his bosses for arguing with his customers.

“What exactly are you fighting for here, in China?” Klim asked the pilots.

“For justice,” said Richard the Austrian, and he began recounting a recent operation they had undertaken against some rebels who had mutinied against Sun Yat-sen: “I banked and strafed their truck. The fuel tank exploded, and the soldiers jumped out of the truck with their pants on fire.”

The pilots roared with laughter. Here, in Canton, they were gods of war riding the clouds and wreaking havoc against the enemy.

“I can’t wait for our Northern Expedition to start in earnest,” Konstantin said. “But first Sun Yat-sen must destroy these ‘paper tigers’ from the Chamber of Commerce.”

“I’m not sure that he can,” Klim said cautiously. “The merchants’ army has already taken Xiguan and won’t allow the government troops and tax collectors to enter.”

“Nonsense!” Nazar said, his cheeks flushed with vodka. “We’ll shell them into submission. Chiang Kai-shek has already received the mountain guns he needs. The only thing that is stopping him is that the shells we received from Shanghai are the wrong size for the guns. Our men have to manually shorten each sleeve. But soon we’ll show the rebels what for.”

“Is Chiang Kai-shek going to shell his own city?” Klim asked.

“Not the whole city, only those traitors in Xiguan.”

A bedraggled and muddy basset hound came to join them under the canopy.

“This is Mucha!” Nazar yelled, laughing and trying to fend off the dog as it strove to lick his face. “Leave me alone, you smelly mongrel!”

A man wrapped in a military cape appeared out of the rain, and Klim stared at him dumbfounded, unable to believe his eyes. It was Daniel Bernard.

“Comrade Krieger, take your beast away!” Nazar said with a laugh, but Daniel didn’t laugh with him.

“What is this man doing here?” he asked, pointing at Klim. “He is a spy. I’ve met him before in Shanghai.”

They searched Klim and brought him to a dingy guardhouse. The walls were covered with damp political posters, the roof leaked in several places, and there were tins on the floor to collect dripping water. Two soldiers with Mausers stood behind Klim.

“Was it Edna who ordered you to spy on me?” asked Daniel.

Klim watched him rummaging through his belongings on the desk. “I had no idea that you were in Canton.”

It was obvious that Daniel wouldn’t want anyone in Shanghai to learn about his secret double life, and the only way to keep that secret would be to bury his old acquaintance in the nearest ravine.

Klim had great difficulty portraying a semblance of calm. “I was asked to write an article for the People’s Tribune, and so I—”

His words trailed off as he heard Nazar giving a yelp from behind the wall. “I met him at the Whampoa Academy and thought he was Soviet. A-ah! Don’t hurt me!”

Klim went cold. Thank God, he had sent his diary to Shanghai. If Daniel had found and translated it, Klim would have been summarily executed as an enemy of the revolution.

The rain turned into a full-blown storm, and the raindrops drummed into the tins. Mucha tried to enter the guardhouse, but Daniel shouted at him sharply, “Get out of here!”

He pulled folded sheets from Klim’s wallet and went to the window to examine them.

“Avro 504,” Daniel said, grinning. “And you said you weren’t a spy. Were you sent here to figure out what kind of airplanes we have?”

“This machine belongs to the White Cossacks trapped in Shanghai,” Klim said. “They asked Fernando Burbano to find a buyer for it, and I helped him with the translation.”

Daniel looked up at him in surprise. “Is the Don in Canton? Finally!”

He went out on the porch and gave the soldiers some orders.

The scales finally fell from Klim’s eyes. Fernando and Jiří knew Daniel and had been working for him. It had been Nina who had brought them together, and they had used the fake Czechoslovak Consulate as a front to smuggle arms to Sun Yat-sen. When Jiří had been arrested, he had started giving testimony against Daniel, and Wyer had killed him to shut him up. The captain was evidently not keen for rumors to get out about his German son-in-law helping the Bolsheviks and Chinese nationalists.

“Don Fernando can vouch for me,” said Klim when Daniel returned to the guardhouse. “We have known each other for years. He’ll confirm that I’m not a spy.”

Daniel took the Avro specifications. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

When he left, the soldiers made Klim sit on the bench, tied his hands behind his back, and sat down at the desk to play cards.

Time passed unbearably slowly, and in the end Klim lost all hope. Even if the Don had not already left Canton, he would be sure to refuse to vouch for Klim. The old mercenary had no reason to save Klim’s worthless skin.

Water overflowed from the tins on the floor, but the soldiers didn’t even notice. They were totally engrossed in their game, slamming down their cards hard as though they were swatting insects.

Does Edna know what her husband is doing? Klim thought. Probably not. She has lived with this man for years without having any idea who he really is. Nina was fascinated with the scoundrel too, and now because of him, she’ll never know what has become of me.

Finally Klim heard the sound of splashing puddles.

“You son of a bitch!” roared Don Fernando as he appeared in the doorway. “I’m soaked right through to my bones, thanks to you. The things I have to do to save your ungrateful neck… Do you think I have nothing else to do with my time?”

He strode up to Klim, grabbed him by the shirt, and pulled him up on his feet.

“Hey you!” he called to the soldiers. “Let him go.”

His interpreter, a dark-skinned lad dressed in faded army shorts, said something to the soldiers, and they cut the rope on Klim’s wrists.

“Thank you!” said Klim with emotion, rubbing his numb hands together.

Fernando kicked the tin standing on the floor.

“I should put a ball and chain on you and set you to work in the boiler room alongside the Chinese.”

They went outside, and the Don’s bodyguards offered them umbrellas.

“We are going to see Mikhail Borodin now,” said the Don. “He’s been sent from Moscow to be Sun Yat-sen’s chief political adviser. You’ll be doing the interpreting for me, and if you try to escape from me again, I’ll personally break every bone in your body. Is that clear?”

“As clear as day,” Klim nodded. “I owe you for this. Thanks.”

“I gave Mr. Bernard my word that you would never return to Shanghai to spill the beans on him,” the Don said as they got into a motorboat. “We’re going to Vladivostok, my boy. The Bolsheviks want to export their revolution to China, and for us, it’s an excellent opportunity to earn good money by exporting guns and human stupidity.”

That was really bad news. But Klim decided that now was not the time to take issue with Fernando. The first thing he needed to do now was to get away from Daniel Bernard, and as far as possible.

The rain stopped, and a patch of bright blue sky appeared in a gap between the clouds.

“Why the hell did you run away from me in Whampoa?” Don Fernando growled. “I wanted to introduce you to some useful people at Sun Yat-sen’s headquarters. Don’t you realize what a big chance you missed?”

“I’ve spent five years in a civil war,” Klim said. “And I’ve seen enough to last me a lifetime—”

“You were just on the wrong side,” Fernando laughed. “If you had brains, you would have joined the Reds, not the Whites.”

Their motorboat reached the shore, and Klim followed the Don and his bodyguards to the pier.

“Let’s walk,” said Fernando. “Borodin doesn’t live far from here.”

They went up a street flooded with water. There wasn’t a soul around, all the shops were locked, and the windows had been shut tight with wooden shutters.

Klim thought he saw a black shadow flit across one of the roofs. He covered his eyes with his hand to look up and almost tripped over a dead body in the process. Nearby lay three more. The streams of water running along the pavement were red with blood.

“What the—” Don Fernando swore as he slipped on a piece of human gore.

“Boss, we need to get out of here,” said one of the bodyguards, his face turning white.

They rushed into a narrow street with countless advertising panels and reed awnings covering the second-floor windows. Something moved further up the street, and they heard the bark of a machine-gun, its deafening echo reverberating as though they were at the bottom of a well. Shop signs were shattered into splinters, and Klim, Fernando, and the bodyguards tumbled to the ground.

Klim rolled into the gutter and covered his head with his hands. The rainwater flowing over his body riffled the shirt on his back.

The pavement steamed, and here and there the street was lit with golden pillars of light. In the distance, Klim saw soldiers with rifles. Judging from the blood-curdling cries, they were busy stabbing someone with their bayonets.

Fernando groaned loudly. Klim turned his head and saw the Don struggling helplessly in a pool of blood, clutching his thigh. His bodyguards were nowhere to be seen.

“Fernando, keep quiet and play dead,” hissed Klim, but the Don was crazy with pain and was insensible to anything going on around him. His eyes bulged, and he bellowed, breathing heavily.

Every fiber of Klim’s being was clenched into a ball of nerves. They’re going to kill us. I know they will.

He crawled over to Fernando, grasped him under the arms, and dragged him into a niche in the wall where a large gilded statue of the goddess Guan Yin stood. He managed to squeeze the Don into the narrow space between the statue and the wall, but there was nowhere for him to hide.

“Sit here and try not to give yourself away,” Klim whispered to Fernando, but the Don didn’t answer. His eyes rolled back, and foam appeared on his ashen lips.

There was a splash of water and the clatter of wooden shoes. Somebody’s hands pulled Klim out of the niche, and he hit his head on a big stone censer standing in front of Guan Yin. For a brief second a black shadow stood over him, a bayonet covered with blood flashed—and then there was a deafening rumble.

The last thing Klim saw was the face of the goddess Guan Yin moving rapidly towards him. Why is she trying to kiss me? he thought and passed out.