“Well, brother,” he asked, as Kuei Jen stepped into the sparsely decorated room, “what brings you here so late in the day?”
Li Kuei Jen embraced his brother warmly. “The truth is, I need your help, Han.”
“My help?” Han Ch’in laughed “Have you debts, little brother?”
“Only one. And that is to my husband.”
Han Ch’in made a sour face. “We owe him everything, neh? He’s been so generous, after all. These quarters, for instance...”
“Forget that We are to move into the castle, as his guests.” “We?” Han Ch’in stared at him a moment, then, in a quieter voice: “What has happened, Kuei Jen? Has there been an attempted coup?” “No. But there might be, unless we intercede.”
Han Ch’in laughed scornfully. “You think you and I can influence events? No. If anything, our intercession would only make things worse. These Americans hate us. They hate everything we stand for. Don’t you understand that yet?” “I understand full well, yet we must try. We know things you and L Oh, and father, too. We know how to govern. How to ride the tiger. These things were bred in us. Are in our blood.”
Han Ch’in sighed. “Things must be bad.”BLOOD AND IRON “Bad enough. A million men dead, four million prisoner.” “Gods! When?”
“He returned from the battlefield earlier this afternoon. No one knows . . .” “Everyone knows. You can be sure of it How can you keep a thing like that a secret?”
“We can try. Egan has called a full meeting of his Advisory Council. They are
sitting even as we speak. In the meantime he has called for a total media
blackout”
“And you think they’ll obey him?”
“He has given Colonel Chalker the job.”
“Ah ...” Han Ch’in nodded thoughtfully. Chalker had a reputation for ruthlessness, and as newly-appointed head of Egan’s Internal Security Force, he was not known for his restraint in carrying out orders. “Then your husband means to fight” “You thought he wouldn’t?” Kuei Jen put out his hand and touched his brother’s arm. “You thought him an excellent soldier once.” “And a pig-headed, stubborn fool.”
“You were friends.”
Han Ch’in looked down. “Yes. But that is in the past The things he said to me
...”
“You must forgive him, Han.”
“Forgive him? What, and lose face? Never!”
But Kuei Jen was insistent “You must. Think of your children, Han. Is your face worth their lives?”
Han Ch’in met his eyes, his voice quiet now, subdued. “As ever you are right, little brother. You have an instinct for these things.” He smiled, then reached out to hold his brother’s arm. “No doubt it is the woman in you ...” Kuei Jen looked back at his brother, smiling now, letting the immense pride he felt show in his face. “Let me tell you clearly, Han. You would lose no face in my eyes. Besides, this is our chance to show these Hung Mao what we’re made of, neh?”
“And what is that, Kuei Jen?”
“Blood and iron, elder brother. Blood and iron.”
CHAPTER-5
HOMECOMING
Stepping down from the cruiser, Daniel looked about him, conscious of how familiar and yet how strange the Camp seemed after all this time. Massive black walls rose up on all four sides, great circular gateways set into the centre of each, their huge wooden doors studded with brutal metal bolts. The central yard was cobbled, two parallel lines of steel cutting directly across from the North Warren to the Outer Gate, while above all, six great blockhouses - watch towers - loomed, dark and threatening.
Daniel shivered. Three months. It wasn’t long, and yet it had seemed an eternity.
And what had they found out about him that they didn’t know already? Nothing. At least, nothing worth knowing.
De-briefing, they’d called it
Torture was another word for it
The long rectangle of the exercise yard was empty. Or almost so. The Camp Commandant, Schutz, stood not twenty metres away, between the railway lines, two of his senior guards lined up just behind him.
So the bastard was still here, was he?
Daniel smiled. That was one thing about de-briefing. If you survived that you could survive anything, even another spell back here. “Mussida!” the Commandant barked. “Fall in!”
He fell in, legs apart, hands folded behind his back. After all, what point was there in disobeying orders? One foughtHOMECOMING when one had to fight, not over such stupid, petty things. But he could see how the Commandant thought even this a minor victory. Daniel smiled inwardly. Let him think what he wants. When it’s important, hell discover how things really are between us.
He let himself be marched, quick-pace, across the cobbles, over the massive iron rails that cut across the yard, through a huge, circular doorway - “Camp Eickeclass="underline"
East Warren” on the noticeboard above the arch - and into the tunnel. And as the darkness closed about him, redolent with the smell of unwashed boys, so the past flooded back.
Home, he thought Or as near home as he had ever known.
“So what did they do to you, Daniel? What did they do?’ The voices were unending. Whispering voices in the darkness of the long dormitory, wanting to know, always to know, more and more, gloating - so it seemed - on the details of his ordeal.
They tried to break me. They tried to crush my spirit. To destroy whatever it was they had created in me. But they failed. They couldn’t break me. They could only kSl me.
But they hadn’t killed him, and now he was back. The oldest of them now. A veteran of five tours.
“Quiet now,” he said, wanting only to sleep. “I’ll tell you everything in time.”
But they could not be quiet They wanted to know. “There’s a new boss,” one of them said suddenly. “In the North Warren. A boy named Raeto.”
“Oh?” Daniel had turned to face the wall, meaning to ignore them, but this was interesting. “What’s he like?”
“A bastard!”
And there was laughter at that To be a “boss” in the Camp, one had to be a bastard. It went without saying. Only the biggest bastards became “bosses”. It was why Daniel had never been a boss. Equally, he had never served a boss. After a while the bosses had known to leave him well alone. But a new boss might be different. A new boss might have ideas.”Is he strong? Cunning? Cruel?” “All of those things,” one of the boys - Tom, he thought it was - answered him from the darkness. “On his first day here he killed a boy. Strangled him in the showers.”
“Yes, but he buggered him first!”
There was some laughter at that, but it was uneasy laughter. Most there knew what Daniel thought of such cruelty.
“And since then?” Daniel asked, turning to lay on his back “Ten, maybe twelve boys have been killed by him,” Tom said, becoming the spokesman for them all.
It was not many, really, not when you thought how many boys died of simple exhaustion, or malnutrition, or disease. Still . . . “And the Commandant does nothing?” he asked.
“Nothing,” came the answer from a dozen or so throats.
“I see.”
There was silence, then, “Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“We’re glad you’re back”
“Ben? Ben, are you there?”
Shepherd turned from his workbench, surprised. He’d thought himself alone in the house. “Catherine?”
He heard her footsteps on the narrow wooden steps. A moment later her head popped round the door.
“I hope you don’t mind. I’d heard...” Her face gave a little moue of sympathy. “Ifs true,” he said, dropping the pen onto the page and straightening up to face her. “She’s left me. Not before time I guess.”
Tin sorry. I guess it must have hurt.”
He shrugged, then went across and held her to him briefly, greeting her. As she moved back slightly, she smiled at him. “You know, it’s really nice to see you, Ben.”