Tang giggled. “Ah, Lotus, is it not written somewhere that when a plum blossom falls into a pond it is the ugly frog that croaks first, not the one that loves the most? I have composed a poem on that theme which—” A second thermometer cut him short.
Lotus Lane took Bullock’s wrist and felt his pulse. “Your leg giving you any trouble?” she asked.
Bullock looked down and discovered that one of his legs was in a fat cast below the knee. Immediately it began to itch. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he said through clenched teeth. “Just tell Dr. Macpherson that Acting Sergeant Maynard Bullock of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would like to speak to him as one Canadian to another on a matter of national—” Lotus Lane popped the last of her thermometers into his mouth with an exasperated little sigh.
“The doctor’s a very busy man,” she said flatly. “So would you be with the government forces under General Lo Ding Dok creeping up from the South, with Yem Seng and his Communist rebels slinking down from the North, with Neutralists under deposed Prince Cham Pang sidling in from the West. By tomorrow we should hear the guns. I really doubt if the doctor can spare you any time.”
She collected the thermometers and left without reading them. Tang scurried after her, reciting a poem entitled, “Plum Blossoms in the Sunset Far Out on the Frog Pond.”
Finn flipped a cigarette in the air and caught it between his teeth. “Don’t let that heathen Chinee fool you, me bucko,” he warned, striking a match with his thumbnail. “Taiwan Tract and Gospel Society, my Aunt Fanny. Yesterday, scouting around for the Coke machine, I overheard him bragging to Dr. Lane that he was some kind of a Red Chinese agent. He was begging her to run off with him when his job here was done. As if a classy doll like her would spend her life making pig iron in the back yard with a runt like him.” Bullock noticed that Finn had lost his brogue. So did Finn. “Begorra,” he added half-heartedly.
Dr. Macpherson came into the room, shooing Tang ahead of him. “Yesterday I explained why you must remain in your room, Mr. Tang,” the doctor was saying. “I could lock you in, you know.”
“Love laughs at locksmiths,” insisted Tang, crawling back into bed.
Macpherson scowled at Bullock. “Well, Acting Whatever-it-is Whoever-you-are, what did you want to see me about?”
“I’d prefer to speak to you alone, Doctor,” said Bullock.
Macpherson shrugged, filled a hypodermic needle, then deftly put first Tang and then Finn to sleep. He came at Bullock with a thermometer.
“Dr. Lane just took my temperature,” protested Bullock.
“Her thermometer’s centigrade. Mine’s Fahrenheit,” muttered Macpherson, slipping home the glass tube. “Hope you’re fit to travel,” he said after a moment. “When somebody tries to do me in by lacing my string hammock with wet rawhide, it’s time for me to move on.”
Bullock’s noise sounded like “Good Godfrey.”
“Yes,” insisted Macpherson, obviously pleased by the reaction. “Yesterday I was taking my afternoon nap on the veranda as is my wont. I awoke to find myself immobile, my arms pinned to my sides, gasping for breath, and on the threshold of acute pain. Someone had laced my hammock with wet rawhide. As it dried, the rawhide contracted. I was caught in an ever-tightening cocoon of death.
“Does that shock you? Well, frankly, after twenty years devoted to the service of my fellow man I have no illusions about him at all. The more I see of him with his converging armies and wet rawhide the less I like him.” Macpherson’s eyes took on a far-away glaze. “Some day I hope to build a hospital so deep in the jungle that no one will ever find it. And shouldn’t that be every humanitarian doctor’s dream — not to have any patients?”
Bullock tore out the thermometer. “The ever-tightening cocoon of death!” he shouted.
“Ah, yes,” said Macpherson. “Well, the rawhide grew tighter and tighter. Without losing my sang froid I started the hammock swinging, timing the swings to intersect with the blades of the small oscillating fan I kept on a nearby table. At first the hammock strings withstood the blades. Then they frayed. Finally they broke and I dropped out the bottom to safety.”
“Fantastic,” said Bullock. Wait till the barracks started talking about close calls and he hit them with that one!
“Strangely enough,” mused Macpherson, “lacing a man’s string hammock with wet rawhide is a traditional way of disposing of tyrants in these parts. The Mandalasian Garotte, they call it.”
“Well, from here on in your worries are over, Doctor,” said Bullock. “I’ve orders to get you across the border safe and sound.”
“All right,” said Macpherson. “I’ve clearly worn out my welcome in Mandalasia. And I can unload you and those two other pieces of excess baggage, Mr. Tang and Mr. Finn, at the border. Now get some rest. I want you fit to travel in the morning.”
“Yours truly has the constitution of an ox,” laughed Bullock. “Ask Kingston Billy Wain wright and his gang of counterfeiters about that time they tricked me into handcuffing myself to their backwoods printing press, little thinking I’d drag it sixteen miles to my motel and my spare set of keys.” Bullock put his wrists together proudly. “See, the right one is an inch longer than—” Macpherson gave a bored yawn and the briefest of apologetic smiles. Bullock didn’t even see the hypodermic coming.
Centuries before, kings and potentates and pilgrims from all over Southeast Asia had taken the Holy Road to the sacred temple city of Batong Wat. Today the jungle has reclaimed the city. And all that remains of the Holy Road is an overgrown path and stretches of heaving cobblestones marked at intervals of roughly a day’s march by small temples intended in ages past for the traveler’s spiritual refreshment.
Macpherson headed the column, machete in one hand, accordion strapped to his back. Bullock hobbled along behind him on crutches and in full Mountie uniform. He had even browned his cast with polish from his survival kit to match his boot. Next came Tang and then Finn. In a brief cast-butting tussle Tang had won Lotus Lane’s make-up kit to carry; Finn, her medical bag. She brought up the rear, looking cool, beautiful, and unattainable.
As Bullock saw his job, he had to protect Macpherson not only from any hostile soldiers they might encounter but also from the mysterious hammock lacer as well. Unless apprehended, would-be murderers invariably tried again. Was Tang the culprit? Was the little Chinese really a Red agent? And what about Finn? Something about the Irishman didn’t quite jell. And last but not least there was Lotus Lane.
“Dr. Lane?” said Macpherson. “She’s been with me for three years. A most satisfactory assistant. A graduate of the school of hard knocks, her contempt for her fellow man is second only to my own.”
Bullock began his investigation by slowing his pace until he was abreast of Tang. “Mr. Tang,” he said, using his official voice, “where were you at the time of the murder attempt?”
“This is not Canada, Bullock,” said the little man. “Your monkey suit and funny hat mean nothing here. But as a token of good faith I will tell you.” He smiled inscrutably. “I was with the beautiful Lotus.”
“I can check that, you know,” said Bullock, deciding to let the crack about his uniform pass.
“Then why would I lie?” smiled Tang. “That leaves only one unaccounted for, doesn’t it? Our Mr. Finn, the phony Irishman. One overhears things. That his name is really Birch Bier and that he’s with the C.I.A. He urged Lotus Lane to run away with him after a certain ‘hit’ had been made. He wants them to grill hamburgers together on some New Jersey patio.” Tang quickened his pace and moved ahead.