Inside the man's clothes I found a small billfold and inside the billfold an identification card.
"Major Su Han Kow of the Chinese Army," I read aloud to Rita. "I'll bet the rest are Chinese Army too, tricked out to look like bandits."
"But why?" Rita asked. "Why attack the lorry?"
"I don't know why," I answered. "But I do know he was radioing somebody for help and we'd better get the hell out of here."
"Didn't Chung Li guarantee our safety to Yenki?" Rita asked. "Maybe they really are bandits. Maybe they attacked a small group or a staff car and stole that identification card and the field radio."
"Maybe," I had to admit. But bandits don't usually go around attacking military units. Most of them wouldn't even know how to work a field radio. I had no answers once again, only suspicions. We'd reached the lorry and I rummaged around in the dash compartment. I found what I'd hoped was there, a map of the area. The little river with which we'd been playing tag wound its way right into Yenki.
"That settles it," I said. "We leave the truck and go by river." Carlsbad's stretcher, built of heavy canvas with a wood frame made a compact little raft of its own and Rita and I carried it into the water. The river was warm and not terribly deep near shore. Guiding the stretcher with Carlsbad on it, we stayed near land, walking most of the time, swimming some. As the river moved close along the road for almost a mile we swam out to midstream, holding each side of the stretcher and guiding our patient along the watery path.
I saw army trucks and motorcycle troops moving along the road. And then I saw a band of men, roughly dressed as the hill bandits had been. But they moved like soldiers with snap and precision. I was glad we hadn't tried to go on in the lorry.
We swam toward the shore again as the river left the roadside and rested for a while. Then we moved on till the sky began to lighten. I found a large clump of trees overhanging the river and screened from the road. We pulled Carlsbad and the stretcher to one of the low-hanging trees. He was breathing steadily but was otherwise unchanged. Rita and I lay down on the soft marsh grass under the,thick leaves of the tree as the sun came up.
"We'll stay here till dark and then move on" I said. "I think well make Yenki before morning."
"I'm going to let my clothes dry out, even if they get wet again," Rita said and I watched as she stripped and put her things on the grass. Her body was full-breasted, with long graceful legs and softly rounded hips. She lay back against the green of the grass and as she looked at me her blue eyes darkened.
"Come here beside me" she said. I put my clothes on the grass beside her and lay down with her. She moved into my arms, pressing her body against mine. She fell asleep that way almost instantly. I lay awake a while longer and tried to reconstruct what had taken place.
The attack on the lorry had been deliberate and planned. I had to admit that Rita's explanation was a possibility. They could have been bandits with stolen identity cards and stolen equipment. But they also could have been a Chinese Army Intelligence unit operating in disguise. I smelled Chung Li's fine oriental hand in it someplace. I looked down at the lovely girl in my arms, breathing softly against my chest, and closed my eyes. The sun filtering through the thick leaves and the heat became a lulling blanket. I fell asleep thinking what a helluva strange world this was to be naked with a gorgeous girl in your arms, under a tree in Manchuria, with somebody out to kill you.
I slept, more tired than I'd realized, and woke only when I felt Rita stir and move from my side. I looked up to see her at the river's edge, washing her face in the clear, warm water, looking like something out of a seventeenth century painting. It was late afternoon and I heard the sounds of crickets. We could have been lolling around a country river in Ohio. I sat up on one elbow and Rita turned at the sound. She got up and walked toward me and as I watched her approach I felt desire stirring, rising. Her eyes looked down at me, moving up and down my body, lingering, and suddenly she dropped to her knees. Her hands pressed into my flesh and she buried her face against my abdomen.
She looked up at me for a moment, then lowered her head once again. Her lips nibbled across my body, inflaming, arousing, and she seemed moved by an inner urgency. She toyed and caressed me and as she did her own excitement grew until she was quivering, her lovely body moist and wanting. I pulled her roughly up but she fought away from me to continue what was giving her so much pleasure. Suddenly she flung herself atop me, her hips heaving and thrusting and I turned over with her as she buried her head against my shoulder, stifling the cries that were rising from her.
I moved in her slowly, then faster, feeling the surges of her wild ecstasy that my every motion brought. Then she rose up and her teeth bit into my flesh as she cried out with abandon. I held her there, flesh into flesh. Life's physical symbol of being, welded into moments of passion. Finally she fell back onto the grass and her eyes found mine.
We lay there together a long time, watching darkness come over the land like a slowly descending curtain. Then we rolled our clothes up in a tight pack together and put them atop Carlsbad on the stretcher. Rita's eyes were haunted with sadness every time she looked at him. It was harder for her than for me. All she had was the pain and sorrow for him. I was comforted by my angry determination.
When the night finally came, we slipped into the river again and made our way forward. The trip was free of problems until we reached Yenki. I saw the runway lights of the airfield outside the village. The river bordered one side of the field, and it was now less than an hour before dawn. The field itself was unguarded, I saw, as we pulled the stretcher up onto the bank and got into our clothes.
"Do you think the plane is still here?" Rita asked. "When we didn't arrive yesterday it might have left."
I grinned at her. "Maybe it was never here at all. Anyway, I'm not taking a chance on another "accident." You stay here. I'm going to find us an airplane."
The hangars were directly in front of me, lined up along the rear of the field. I ran, crouched over, casting an eye at the first streaks of gray in the sky, to the nearest of the hangars. A side door was open and I slipped through. Three small planes were there. They'd be useless to us; I went to the second hangar. It was a repair shop with parts and pieces of planes scattered around.
The third hangar proved more fruitful. It held an old Russian TU-2 light bomber, piston-engined, a vintage plane. But it was plenty big enough and had the range we needed to make Japan, I climbed into the cockpit for a fast look. Everything seemed to be in order, but I couldn't be sure till I turned her on and I couldn't do that till the last moment.
I went back for Rita and Carlsbad, scouting the edge of the hangars, flattening myself against a wall as a small fuel truck chugged past with two Chinese in khaki jump suits. After it passed, I continued hugging the deep shadows at the walls of the hangars. It was definitely getting light, and fast. I ran the short distance to the edge of the field and Rita rose to meet me. She started to pick up one end of the stretcher when I stopped her.
"Leave it," I said. "It'll slow us down too much." I picked up Carlsbad's limp form and slung him over my shoulder. It wasn't exactly prescribed treatment for patients with brain injury and in a coma but it was the best I could do. With Rita beside me, Wilhelmina in one hand and carrying Carlsbad, I started back for the hangar, once again skirting along the back edges of the big walls.
We made it to hangar three and the old TU-2, all right. I'd just carried Carlsbad into the stripped-down cabin and put him on the floor when I heard the hangar door being opened. Rita was still outside, at the bottom of the movable steps I'd placed alongside the plane. Through the nose window I saw three Chinese mechanics in white coveralls as the main garage door went up. They saw Rita at the same time and went for her. She tried to turn and run, slipped on a circle of grease and went skidding to the concrete floor. The three Chinese had her at once and were yanking her to her feet. I didn't want noise, not yet, anyway. I saw a heavy wrench on the floor of the pilot's cabin, grabbed it and jumped.