Sad Wind from the Sea

It was the Russian who had spoken. Hagen stood, hat in hand, a few feet away and feigned an interest in some travel brochures. He tried to pick up as much of the conversation as he could. The gist of it seemed to be that she hadn’t paid her hotel bill for three weeks and the Russian wasn’t being too polite about telling her. Hagen half-turned towards them, wondering whether he should intervene, when the girl opened her handbag and took out a cheque-book. She scribbled furiously for a moment, tore out the cheque, and flung it into the Russian’s face.

She turned to Hagen and cursed the man fluently in Malay, Cantonese and a dialect that was new to him. ‘They think because I am a Eurasian they can treat me any way they like, these people.’

Hagen smiled. ‘The cheque act was the best part of the show,’ he told her.

She smiled up at him, a tight little smile, and suddenly her face seemed to crumple and she began to cry. Before they could attract any attention Hagen gripped her arm and rushed her into the American Bar. Everyone had gone to lunch and for the moment the bar was cool, dark and empty. He left her in a booth to get the crying fit over and went and sat on one of the high stools at the bar and had a whisky-and-water.

He was puzzled. The girl was well educated and her clothes were expensive. She was obviously used to the best. One didn’t usually leave hotel bills unpaid for three weeks when one had a cheque-book. He began to wonder just how much was left in that bank account. He even wondered whether the cheque she had just written would bounce right back into the Russian receptionist’s face. It was a pleasant thought. The girl moved on to a stool beside him. She had fixed her face so that only an unnatural brightness in the eyes indicated that she had been crying. ‘Could I have a drink, please?’

‘Surely! A gin-sling?’ She nodded and he ordered the drink. He didn’t speak until the barman had placed the drink before her and retired to the other end of the bar to polish glasses. ‘Can you meet that cheque?’

She smiled wanly and sipped her drink. ‘Only just. A few dollars left and then…’ She shrugged her shoulders; a hopeless gesture that seemed to say she was at the end of her tether. This was the moment for the gallant gesture, Hagen thought. It suddenly occurred to him how ironic it was that of all the people in Macao she should have met him and he laughed aloud. She flushed angrily. ‘What’s so funny?’ she demanded.

He hastened to reassure her. ‘I’m not laughing at you, angel. It’s just that I’m in a pretty poor state myself at the moment. We make a nice pair.’ She began to laugh herself and Hagen remembered that he still had a little money left. Suddenly he felt reckless and past caring. He grabbed her arm and propelled her firmly out of the bar. ‘There’s one thing we can do,’ he said. ‘And that’s to have lunch. Things always look brighter after a decent meal.’

He kept up a running flow of conversation on the way to the dining-room and by the time they were seated at a table there was a smile on her face again. During the meal they talked little. She had a healthy appetite and he found himself covertly watching her at every opportunity. Once or twice she noticed his eyes and blushed. ‘That was lovely,’ she said at length. ‘I couldn’t eat another bite.’

Hagen suggested a drink on the terrace and ordered a couple of brandies before following her out there. She was seated at a table on the very edge of the terrace. Below them was Macao and the view stretched across the blue water to Kowloon and the Chinese mainland. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said, and offered her a cigarette.

She nodded and refused the cigarette. ‘It’s a lovely city. Very lovely.’ She paused as the waiter brought the drinks and Hagen suddenly sensed that she was on the verge of telling him about herself.

She still hesitated and he said, quickly, ‘Have you been here long?’

She shook her head. ‘Only the three weeks that I’ve been staying at the hotel.’ She gazed out over the harbour. ‘I should have found somewhere cheaper I suppose, but a girl on her own! It’s very difficult.’

Hagen reached across the table and placed his hand gently over hers. ‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’ he said softly. ‘I know it’s something to do with our Red friends across the water.’

She straightened up, fear on her face. ‘How do you know?’

He explained briefly. ‘So you see,’ he concluded, ‘I’m mixed up in this thing enough to get shot at. The least you can do is tell me what it’s all about.’

For a little while she stared at the table, her fingers nervously interlacing, and then she began to speak. ‘I’m from Indo-China—the North. My father was a Scot. Mother was Indo-Chinese. I went to school in India, spent the war there. Afterwards I returned to my father’s plantation. He’d been on some special service during the war, in Malaya. Things were just beginning to settle down again when the trouble started between the French and the Viet Minh.’

Hagen nodded. ‘That must have messed things up pretty badly. Especially as you were living in the North.’

‘Yes, things couldn’t have been worse. It wasn’t long before we were completely surrounded by Communist territory. At first they didn’t bother us, but then one day…’

For a moment she seemed to have difficulty in finding words. She turned her head away a little and Hagen reached across again and took her hand firmly. ‘Go on, angel. Get rid of it.’

She smiled tightly. ‘My mother. They killed my mother. Father and I had been out for the day. We got home just as three Communist soldiers were leaving. My father had an automatic rifle. He shot them.’ She gazed away out over the water, into the past. ‘He did it very expertly. He must have had quite a hard war.’

‘Finish your drink,’ Hagen told her. ‘Brandy is the best pick-me-up I know.’

She gulped the brandy too fast, choked and made a wry face. After a moment she continued. ‘Dad couldn’t forgive himself for not getting us out sooner. You see he’d been preparing for quite some time. He had a thirty-foot launch hidden in a nearby creek and we were going to go down-river to the coast and then south to Hanoi.’

‘Why had he delayed so long?’ Hagen demanded.

She traced a delicate pattern with a finger in a pool of spilled brandy. ‘Because he’d promised to take something with him and it wasn’t ready.’

Hagen swallowed some of his brandy and said, ‘Was it all that important?’

‘If you’d call a quarter of a million dollars important,’ she said calmly.

Hagen finished his brandy and put the glass down very carefully. ‘How much did you say?’

She smiled. ‘I’m not exaggerating. A quarter of a million—in gold. There was a Buddhist monastery near the plantation. The gold was theirs. They knew that sooner or later the Communists would arrive to loot the place. They decided that they’d rather see their treasure doing good in the hands of some relief organization than swelling the war chest of Ho Chi-minh.’

‘Did you say in gold, angel?’ Hagen asked.

She nodded. ‘Gold bars. That’s what caused the delay. They melted down some statues. It was the only safe way of transporting the stuff.’

‘What happened?’ Hagen demanded. ‘What did your father do with it?’

She fiddled with her glass for a little while. ‘Oh, he had it loaded into the cabin in boxes and we set off. There were just three of us. The deck-hand was our Malayan house-boy, Tewak. We reached the coast and ran into a gunboat. There was a fight. I remember my father ramming the other boat and throwing a hand grenade. I don’t know, really. It’s difficult to recall these things clearly. It was confused—and besides, he was badly hit.’ She brooded for a moment and then looked up suddenly. ‘Do you know the Kwai Marshes, just over the border from Viet Minh into China?’

Hagen nodded. ‘I know it. It’s a pest hole. Hundreds of miles of channels and reeds, lagoons and swamp. Rotten with disease.’

She nodded. ‘That’s the place. That’s where Dad took the boat. She was leaking badly. He ran her into the Kwai Marshes. She sank in a little lagoon surrounded by reeds.’ Hagen waited for the end. She sat back suddenly and said briskly: ‘After that it was simple. My father died the next day. It took Tewak and me three days to get out of the marshes. We went down the coast to Haiphong and from there to Saigon. Luckily I had a little money in a bank there.’

‘What about the gold?’ Hagen said. ‘You told the French authorities, I suppose?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I told the French. They weren’t interested in sending an expedition into Communist China to retrieve a mere quarter of a million dollars. It wouldn’t keep the war going for ten minutes.’

‘I see,’ Hagen said carefully. ‘So the gold is still there?’

She nodded. ‘Still there. I’ve tried to get a boat to take me back to the marshes. At first people were too scared to take the risk. Now, I’ve not got enough money to pay. That’s why we came to Macao.’

‘We?’ Hagen said.

She explained. ‘Tewak. He’s stayed with me the whole time. He has friends in Macao. We came here because it was our last hope. He’s been trying to borrow a boat for the past three weeks.’

Light suddenly dawned on Hagen. ‘It was Tewak who rang you last night?’

She nodded. ‘That’s right. He asked me to get a taxi at once and meet him where you found me. When I got there he wasn’t to be seen. After the taxi had left those two men appeared.’

Hagen said, ‘It looks as though the Reds don’t intend to let that gold slip through their fingers.’

‘Not if I can help it,’ she said, and for a moment her face was cold and hard.

‘You know the position where the boat sank?’ Hagen asked, casually.

‘Oh, yes,’ she told him. ‘I memorized it. One could search for ever in those marshes without it.’

Hagen stood up and leaned on the parapet, and stared out over the water into the far distance. His eyes didn’t see the ships in the bay or the ferry from Kowloon as it ploughed its way towards Macao. They saw a quiet lagoon surrounded by giant marsh reeds and a thirty-foot launch lying in clear water, and the boxes in the cabin that contained the discoloured gold bars. A quarter of a million dollars. His palms were sweating slightly and his mouth had gone dry. It could be the one stroke a man dreamed of. The big deal. No more waterfront hotels in stinking, godforsaken ports. No more smuggling and gun-running, being betrayed and twisted and double-crossed at every turn. If he could lay hands on that gold he could be set for life. He turned back to the table and she looked at him sadly. ‘Cheer up, angel,’ he said. ‘Things have been pretty rough but they’ll get better. Just wait until you’ve got your hands on all that loot. You’ll be able to live like a princess.’

She looked puzzled for a moment and then understanding came and she hastened to correct him. ‘The money for the sale of the gold is not for me.’ Hagen sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘I’ll only get a little for expenses. The rest goes to the relief organization in Saigon just as the monks and my father wanted.’

She was absolutely sincere in what she had just said. She really meant to give all that money to some crackpot relief organization. For a moment Hagen was tempted to tell her the facts of life, but that could wait until later. ‘How deep was that lagoon, angel?’ he said.

She looked surprised. ‘I couldn’t be sure but not very deep. Perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet. Why do you ask?’

He shrugged and lit a cigarette carefully. ‘I have a boat. I’ve done some pearling. I’ve also been to the Kwai Marshes.’

She gazed at him searchingly for a moment. ‘You mean you would be willing to take me to the Kwai?’ She frowned. ‘But why?’ He gazed at her steadily, hating himself, and suddenly she gave a little, breathless laugh. ‘I see, I…’ She was lost in her confusion and colour flooded her face.

Hagen squeezed her hand and firmly pushed every other consideration from his mind. He must think only of the gold. After all, it wouldn’t be too hard to pretend that he loved her. ‘I’d better be honest with you from the beginning,’ he said. ‘And then there won’t be misunderstandings or hurt. I’m known pretty well round these parts and not for the best of reasons. I’m a smuggler, gunrunner, illegal pearler. In fact, anything that pays.’ She nodded slowly and he went on: ‘At the moment my boat is in the hands of the Portuguese Customs. The funny thing is that for once I was genuinely innocent.’ For a moment he thought about ‘Inter-Island Trading Incorporated’ and his sleeping partner, Mr Papoudopulous. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Still, it was all in the game. He smiled sardonically at the girl and went on: ‘They found gold under the cabin floor. I was fined rather heavily. In fact, I didn’t have the money, so—they impounded the boat.’

‘Can you get the money?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Yes, I can borrow it from a friend, but you’ll have to agree to the payment of my expenses and the loan from the proceeds of the sale of the gold.’

She nodded eagerly. ‘Oh, yes. That will be fine. It will be well worth it.’ A puzzled frown creased her brow and she leaned across the table. ‘Mark, all those things you did. Why? I don’t understand. You don’t seem to be that kind of a man.’

He realized dispassionately that she had used his Christian name and that it had never sounded quite so well before. He grinned. ‘It’s a long and sordid story, angel. One of these days I might tell it to you, but for the moment there are more important things to consider. Tewak, for instance. I’d like to know what happened to him last night. Are you sure it was his voice on the telephone?’

She nodded emphatically. ‘He had a lisp. No one could have simulated it in quite the same way.’

Hagen decided that it didn’t look so good for Tewak. The story was beginning to take shape. The Commies had traced the girl all the way from the Kwai to Macao. They had agents in every Eastern city and it must have been pretty simple. It was natural they should go to so much trouble. After all, the gold was actually in their own territory. He decided that either Tewak had been forced to make that telephone call or, alternatively, had been known to make it and had been dealt with afterwards.

‘What’s the next move?’ Rose said.

Hagen snapped a finger at the waiter and put most of his remaining money on the table. ‘The next move, angel, will be a quick call at my hotel. From now on I don’t intend to take a step without that Colt automatic’

They left the hotel and took a taxi down to the waterfront. Hagen left Rose in the cab and ran up to his room for the automatic. As they completed the journey to the address she had given the driver Hagen checked the automatic and reloaded the clip. Rose shuddered. ‘I hate guns,’ she said. ‘I hate them.’

He patted her hand. ‘Next to the dog they’re a man’s most faithful friend.’ The cab stopped with a jolt in a deserted street and he handed her out and paid the man off.

He recognized the building. It was a seedy tenement used as a hotel by coloured seamen. It wasn’t the sort of establishment that kept a receptionist. They entered a dark and gloomy hall and before them stretched a flight of dangerous-looking wooden stairs. Hagen groped his way upwards and Rose followed behind, gripping his belt. The smell was appalling and a brooding quiet hung over the place. Hagen held the automatic in his right hand against his thigh and, with his left, held a flickering match, by which light he attempted to read the numbers on the room doors. Number eighteen was the last door in the corridor on the left-hand side and it swung open to his touch.

The room was in darkness. He paused for a moment and listened. There was utter silence everywhere. He decided to risk it and struck a match. There was a man sitting in a chair in the centre of the room. His hands were bound behind him and he was completely naked. Hagen gazed in fascinated horror at the scores of cuts and slashes that covered the body, and then his gaze travelled lower down and he shuddered with disgust as he saw what had been done. He heard Rose move into the room behind him and even as he turned to warn her to stay out she cried, ‘Tewak!’, and then she screamed. At that moment the match burned Hagen’s fingertips and he hurriedly dropped it, plunging the room into darkness again.

The girl sagged against him, half-fainting, and he quickly walked her from the room. He stood in the hall holding her close to him for a minute and then said, ‘Are you all right?’

She straightened up. ‘Yes, I’ll be fine. Really I will. It was just the shock.’

‘Good girl.’ He handed her the automatic. ‘You know how this thing works, I suppose. The safety is off. If anyone comes near you just pull the trigger. I’ll only be a short while, I promise.’

He went back into the room and closed the door behind him. He struck another match and the light was reflected in gruesome fashion from the eyes of the dead man which had turned up so that only the whites were visible. Hagen moved to the window and tore down the blanket that had been improvised as a curtain. He began to examine the room. It was not pleasant moving around with that macabre horror sitting in the centre, but he had to see if anything of interest had been left.

The room was devoid of furniture except for an old iron bedstead and the chair. There was a cupboard but it contained only a few odds and ends of clothes left there by previous occupants. Hagen finally steeled himself to examine the body closely. In any Western country the murder would have been considered the work of a lunatic, but Hagen, familiar with the Oriental mind and its refinements in cruelty and contempt for human life, drew no such conclusion. The men who had done this thing had wanted information badly. Torture was to them the obvious key to a stubborn tongue. The final mutilation looked as though it had been committed in a fit of rage after death. Hagen decided that Tewak had probably refused to talk. Sweat stung his eyes and as he wiped it away he realized why the building was so unnaturally quiet. With their usual sixth sense for trouble he knew there wouldn’t be a single seaman left in the place. He opened the door with a final glance round and stepped outside.

The girl tried to smile but only succeeded in looking sick. Hagen took the gun from her and slipped it into his pocket. ‘You need a drink,’ he said and, taking her by the arm, he hurried her from the building.

He took her to a little bar he knew nearby and they sat in the privacy of a booth cut off from the noisy world by a bead curtain. He lit a cigarette and put it into her mouth. She inhaled two or three times and seemed to be a little better. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.’ She shuddered.

The drinks came at that moment and Hagen pushed hers across. ‘Drink up,’ he said. ‘It’ll do you good. I’m not exactly soft myself but it’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.’

She smiled tightly. ‘You seem to have done nothing but rush me into quiet bars while I cry,’ she said. He smiled and gripped her hand tightly. ‘What am I going to do?’ she moaned.

‘Do you still want to go after that gold?’ he demanded. She nodded. ‘Then that’s settled. Now, the best thing for you this afternoon would be to go back to your hotel and lie down.’ She started to protest. ‘No buts,’ Hagen added. ‘I’m in command. Anyway, I’ve got a lot to arrange and you’d only be in the way.’

They left the bar and he hailed a taxi. When he paid it off at the hotel he was left almost penniless. He was going to leave her at the entrance but she begged him to come up for just a moment. The lift took them to the third floor. Her room was at the end of the corridor and she gave him the key. When he opened the door the room was a shambles. Clothing and personal effects were strewn about the place and most of the drawers had been taken out completely. ‘But why?’ she said. ‘What did they expect to find?’

Hagen pushed his hat back from his forehead. ‘The directions for finding the launch, angel. They were hoping you might be stupid enough to leave them lying around.’

‘The fools,’ she exploded. ‘What do they take me for? I know the position by heart.’

Hagen said in a satisfied tone: ‘One thing it proves. Tewak didn’t talk.’ Suddenly Rose began to curse in the same fluent manner in which she had blasted the Russian clerk. ‘Heh, hold on,’ Hagen said.

‘Oh, damn them!’ she said. ‘I’m beginning to get annoyed.’

‘No tears?’ he said.

‘They’re all used up.’

He grinned and took off his jacket. ‘Let’s get started packing your things.’

‘Why the hurry?’ she said in surprise.

‘You can’t stay here. I think I’d better take you to visit a friend of mine.’

She shrugged her shoulders and started to pack the things in her cases as he handed them to her. Within twenty minutes they were leaving the room preceded by a couple of boys carrying the luggage. The Russian was scrupulously polite and remote when making out the bill. As they turned away from the desk Hagen suddenly shouted, ‘Here, boy!’ and tossed a coin which the man instinctively caught. He stood glaring after them in fury and several people laughed. Hagen decided that the coin had been worth it.

As the taxi headed up into the residential part of Macao on the hill, Rose said curiously, ‘What is this friend of yours like?’

Hagen said casually, ‘All right, I think you’ll like her.’

‘Oh, a woman.’ There was a faint edge to her words. ‘An old friend?’

He laughed. ‘Yes, in both senses of the phrase.’ He patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry. She’s very well known. All the best people go to her house. All the best men do, anyway.’

It took several moments for the implication of his words to sink in. Rose gasped. ‘You don’t mean she keeps…’—she fumbled for words—‘a house!’

‘She certainly does,’ Hagen said. ‘The best house in Macao.’ Even as he spoke and Rose sank back in her seat, crimson with embarrassment, the taxi turned into a side road and braked to a halt outside a pair of beautiful and intricate wrought-iron gates set in a high stone wall.

3

Hagen told the taxi-driver to wait, and he and the girl walked up to the ornate iron gates. He pulled on a bellrope and after a while a huge, misshapen figured shambled up to the other side of the gates. A flat, Mongolian face was pressed against the ironwork as the owner peered short-sightedly at them. Hagen reached through and pulled the man’s nose. ‘What the hell, Lee,’ he said. ‘Don’t you remember old friends?’

The face split into a grin and the gate was hurriedly unlocked. As they passed through Hagen punched him lightly in his massive chest and said, ‘Bring the luggage in when I tell you, Lee.’ The Mongolian nodded vigorously, his smile fixed firmly in position.

As they walked up the drive towards the imposing-looking house, Rose said: ‘He’s so grotesque, like an ape Why doesn’t he speak?’

Hagen laughed. ‘The Japs cut out his tongue. He’s the bouncer here. He could break the back of any man I ever knew.’ She appeared suitably impressed and he added: ‘Just remember, angel. If you stay here that so-called ape will protect you when I’m not around. Maybe that thought will make him look a little prettier.’

A maid admitted them with a smile of welcome for Hagen, and showed them into a large reception room. Rose was fascinated by the incredible luxury of the room. There seemed to be a small fortune in Chinese objets d’art. Somewhere nearby a loud voice could be heard and then the door was kicked open and the most fantastic-looking woman Rose had ever seen stormed into the room. ‘Mark Hagen—you young hellion.’ Her voice was like a foghorn and she swept across the floor and crushed him in her arms.

She was wearing a gold kimono and black lounging pyjamas, and the colour scheme clashed terribly with vivid red-dyed hair. ‘Clara, do you still love me?’ Hagen demanded.

‘No one else, handsome.’ She kissed him enthusiastically on one cheek, leaving a smear of vivid orange, and turned and boldly regarded the girl.