The Call of the Thunder Dragon (38 page)

Zam raised her hand high over her
head and let it drop slapping Falstaff across the face.

“Hell! Wally you bastard you
pushed me!” Falstaff blurted as he woke with a start sitting up,
his eyes cleared slowly.

Zam picked up his revolver.
Dropped it into his hands and pointed at the tribesmen now within
meters of the plane.

“It’s empty! Where’s your
pistol?” Falstaff’s eyes desperately quizzing Zam’s pale blank
face.

“I don’t know,” she stuttered,
tears running down her face.

“Your jacket, your coat!”
Falstaff fumbled with her coat, holding off her protests with one
hand, he groped and patted down her chest; through three, then two,
then finally one layer as his hand gripped the warm butt of the
tiny pistol.

“Your hand’s are freezing!” Zam
screamed.

Falstaff put his hand on Zam’s
head and pushed violently her down. He swung around and fired as
the first tribesmen climbed aboard. The Tribesman’s face
disappeared. There was a splash as he slid into the water after the
fish. Falstaff fired at the next two boats. The men back paddled,
turning to head towards the far shore.

Falstaff started the engines, now
better able to control the Caproni with all engines working he
steered towards the trees on the near bank, sheltered and secure
away from the waterfall and as far from the distant cove where the
tribes men were pulling their boats ashore.

Falstaff rubbed his jaw. “Why
does my face smart?”

“Here let me look?” Zam said
softy.

Falstaff turned to face her and
caught another slap across the other cheek.

“It was like that, you wouldn’t
wake up!” Zam squealed.

“Why slap me again?” Falstaff
protested. “I didn’t do anything?”

“You are, what was the word, oh
yes, incorrigible!” Zam shouted. “Your hands were cold! You
molested me!”

“I was trying to save our lives!
You forgot the damn pistol and where you’d put it!” Falstaff pulled
off his wet shirt and wrung it out. He looked down at his leg, the
trousers were ripped and dark with blood.

“You could have said?” Zam
shushed “I was already scared!”

“You were scared? Did you see
that fish?” Falstaff said wide eyed in amazement and fascination.
He pulled up the anchor line and found a frayed knot in the end.
“It swallowed the damn anchor! It was that thing all along?”

“I’m cold, can you get me the
Brandy?” Falstaff stood and pulled off his trousers, to inspect the
wound. He was barely scratched, but a repeatedly in a series of red
rings all around his calf, the bleeding had stopped as soon as he’d
been released. Falstaff bound his leg with bandages. By the time,
he was done Zam reappeared with the brandy.

“I’ve brought the stove out, I’ll
heat some water.” She climbed out and expertly unpacked the little
stove. “You told me not to use this in there unless we were
flying?”

“Forget it, I’m frozen, that lake
water is really cold.” Falstaff wrapped his arms around her,
placing his hands on her neck she squealed and spun around to face
him.

“See what I mean incorrigible!”
She said proudly.

“Who said that? Who taught you
that word?” Falstaff pulled her closer wriggling his arms around
her warm flesh inside the layers of coats. Sliding his hands up her
warm back, he pulled her to him burying his face in her
breasts.

“It was Alistair, I overheard him
with Ludwig. He called you an incorrigible English bastard, for
being shamelessly shacked up with a Chinese slut?” Zam said
plainly.

“You do pick up the lingo quickly
don’t you?” Falstaff lifted his head. “Did he say that?”

“Yes and when I asked him to
explain he went very red, so I thought incorrigible must be an
awful thing indeed!” Zam smiled, in a ‘I told you so short of
way’.

Falstaff rolled his eyes. “I
suppose he neglected to explain the rest of it?”

“I wouldn’t dare to ask! What
would he think of me?”

Falstaff extracted himself from
her coats. “Let’s go inside and continue this. Take your coats off,
that way you can be incorrigible as well!”

“Oh, I see.” Zam piped.

Falstaff grinned. He found that
Zam only needed a nudge and she could be very incorrigible as
well.

Falstaff lay warm in the furs
under the tight canopy over the nacelle. He checked his watch it
was two thirty.

He yawned, tired, but refreshed
by the rest. Falstaff marvelled at how calming the act of making
love had been after having there nerves tested to the limit. He
chuckled, making love in an aircraft always interested him. First
time on water through. Next it hard be in the air he thought.

He glanced at Zam, who was still
asleep, naked on the furs. He sat up and peeked at the bandage on
his leg, decided it wasn’t going to fall off, apart from the dull
ache it didn’t feel too bad. He stood slowly rotating his foot,
flexing his muscles.

Suddenly he heard a thud resound
off the fuel tank. He crawled forward slowly, there was another
thud, which woke Zam behind him. He held up his hand cautioning her
to stay down. He reached up to pull at the lace drawing the cover
tight around the tanks and back of the cockpit. He peeped out.
Jumping back in surprise at the sight a tiny black face surrounded
by golden tufts.

“Oh, it’s the monkeys!” Falstaff
said with relief.

He stood up, holding the canvas
shut around himself to cover his nakedness. The troop of Langurs
had descended from over hanging trees to eat their lunch. They were
lined up along each wing, with a few larger males reclining on the
aircraft tail.

Zam stuck up her head struggling
with her blouse obviously still naked. “Monkeys?”

A few monkeys were sat on the
canopy over the nacelle. A few were investigating the lacing
securing the sides.

“Oh, do you mean they were…
here?” Zam nodded, pointed with her chin. “While we, … down
there?”

“Yep!” Falstaff grinned.

“Monkeys are…” Zam called out,
looking for a word

“Incorrigible?” Falstaff
interrupted.

Zam dropped out of sight
suddenly, Falstaff felt a sharp kick on his ankle.

“Hey, that’s my hurt leg!”
Falstaff shouted in pain.

The nearest monkey leaned forward
exposing his teeth in a grin.

“Very funny! Har-har!” Falstaff
said.

Chapter Nine – Flight into the Unknown

Ten minutes later they left the
water, roaring once more westward.

Zam crawled around the cabin
checking for holes, deciding if she had the right to continue to be
bashful and angry at Falstaff or not. She was relieved to find no
monkeys aboard then climbed out to sit beside Falstaff.

She started enjoying the journey,
seeing the landscape fly by and change underneath her was
exhilarating, but the chill of the wind was not her thing. Instead
of the cockpit, she would kneel beside Falstaff, a rug over her
knee just behind Falstaff’s elbow, lower down she could see him
without feeling the wind. He would let his arm down when he was not
navigating and she would hold it or he would pat her head, asking
her again to come up into the cockpit.

“Stop sitting there like a
frightened rabbit! You’re a good co-pilot when needs must!”
Falstaff smiled affectionately.

She wasn’t quite there yet, but
the fact that she could refill the fuel tanks, cook and take notes
on bearings without complaint in freezing weather was extremely
useful. Next best thing to a real co-pilot he reflected. If he
could carry on flying with Zam in this way, judging by her
performance under the nacelle on the lake he’d fly with her
anywhere he decided.

Falstaff chuckled, a vision of
the waves lapping clear across the lake to the northern shore. The
tribesmen watching the red flying boat rocking on their lake. He
grinned wondering if it was true what they said about sound
travelling across water? The tribesmen would be worshipping a new
Lake god from now on, after Zam’s rampant and shrill cries.

Zam slapped him. “What is it?
You’re being incorrid..jig-jigble again aren’t you? Seh lang! Seh
lang!”

Since leaving China, they had
now past the great high mountain ranges coming down from the
Himalayas. They had crossed the four great rivers: Chindwin,
Sittang, Salween and Irrawaddy. These rivers, like four long
fingers, extended down from the eastern tip of the Himalayas,
spreading out dividing the land. Now Falstaff had flown across them
all. Few people would know what that meant, even fewer could claim
to have seen them or flown over them.

The mountains and uplands of the
Pegu Range over which they had flown were heavily forested with
teak. The forest extended like a dark green carpet to the horizon.
The sky buzzed with birds heading south. The unmapped central
region they had flown through was ringed by steep, rugged
highlands, pushing upwards towards the sky.

A constant feature, the highest
point in the distant north towering up to 19,295 feet, the great
mountain Hkakabo Razi. The triple point border for Burma, China and
Assam. It marked the northernmost limits of Assam. The mountain
marking the start of the foothills of the Himalayas, which formed
the ridges through China, Burma and Assam.

Looking to the North, then
slightly over his shoulder, Hkakabo Razi was behind them at last.
Falstaff whooped at the sight, the three dark ridges, highlighted
by silver threads. The rivers shining in the sunlight, with Hkakabo
Razi always to the North ahead of them, was finally behind them.
Left behind in the east.

He called for Brandy and coffee.
His body was frozen, yet his face smarted under the glare of the
sun and constant blast of the wind. He struggled with the glare as
they started to thread their way through tufts of white cloud
reflecting the sun and dazzling the eye further. Zam automatically
searched for his smoked glasses. He took her hand with a grin.

“We’re in British India! We’re in
Assam!”

The British had theoretically
drawn lines across the Naga dividing it into three parts. The low
hill district, which was directly administered; the control area,
over which a deputy commissioner of the hills attempted to exert
political influence, mainly in case of village feuds, and trade or
for passage through the tribal territories. The third and largest
section was the unknown section of the map.

On the high hill passes, Zam
pointed out more tribesmen almost naked, wearing headdresses of
black fur, adorned with buffalo horns. The tribesmen turned and
glared at the sound of the engines and flinched as their shadow
flashed across the land. Below arrows and spears harmlessly pursed
them, Falstaff was relieved that they weren’t within reach of the
angry huntsmen. He visualised his head or his skull, adored with
goggles and flying helmet mounted on a propeller and hung on the
wall of some chieftain’s hut, beside it the head of a catfish. He
laughed with relief and howled into the air.

“What’s that?” Zam leaned close
to ask the question over the buffeting winds.

“Nothing! Just what the lake men
will be telling their grandchildren about the cries of new red lake
monster!”

The highlands of Naga to the west
and the Potkoi on the east were visible from the Caproni side by
side, separated only by the jagged ridges tearing at the sky, just
as effective as black ink line on the map. These were parts of the
country rarely visited, as opposed to never. Flights from Alistair
and Ludwig’s little airstrip went south to Rangoon, hardly anyone,
they had said was stupid enough to try going west.

Falstaff squinted down looking at
the forests, dark green trees on either side as far as he could
see. Little or no anthropological fieldwork had ever been done
there. Most of the villages remained undisturbed by European
exploration. To crash here would mean disaster, they would never
manage to walk out. No one had ever bothered to walk in.

The long seclusion of the Naga
hills was partly due to the inhospitable country, which offered
nothing to the people living in the fertile lowlands of Assam. The
warlike character of the Naga allowed no stranger to penetrate into
their lands. Headhunting or frequent wars between tribes made
contact between the villages and outsiders extremely difficult.

Their destination, Assam, was
growing nearer with every ridge they past. Falstaff was in good
cheer. Swinging from side to side, weaving along. Despite the
scarves around his face and the buffeting winds, he was
singing:

“Picture you upon my
knee,

Just tea for two

And two for tea,

Just me for you

And you for me …
alone! Cha-Cha-Cha!”

Zam gripped his arm. “Hey Stop
it! I’ll be sick!”

Falstaff glanced back and saw the
wrinkle in the brow under her helmet, he levelled off and continued
singing more quietly.

Assam was a state blessed with
natural beauty and scenic wonders, fertile rivers and lakes. The
hill stations of Assam, with their misty backdrop of azure hills
and emerald rivers and green plantations, were extremely bewitching
and enchanting. Assam was attractive and fertile, with a
comfortable climate, perfect for profits grown from tea.

As Burma started to recede into
the distance, the clouds descended to cover their tracks Falstaff
recalled the quiet discussion about the Saya San rebellion only a
few years before on his first visit to the India. The threat of
rebellion had been in the air for a while, but Assam had remained
peaceful while the thunderclouds cracked in the east. In Burma, the
rebel leader Saya San now held the position of almost legendary
status, his rebellion against the British was well remembered.

Right on the eve of the
rebellion, which had lasted two years, a leading Burmese newspaper,
The Sun, published an article “A Warning to the British Government
of Burma” which spoke of Burma being a “key of dynamite”. The
explosion came in 1930. The British in Assam couldn’t help but
speculate, in the end they ignored the situation across the
mountains in Burma.