Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [113]
For whatever reason, the Japanese made no move to brush them away. No doubt he knew that his own life was over, that the Kuomintang forces about to reoccupy Shanghai would be eager to deal with him.
The Japanese raised his wooden stake. Like a sleeper waking from a dream, he hurled it into the nettles. As Jim flinched, he reached into the waist-pocket of his flight overalls and drew out a small mango.
Jim took the yellow fruit from the pilot’s calloused hand. The mango was still warm from his body. Trying to show the same self-discipline, Jim forced himself not to eat. He waited while the pilot stared at the concrete runway.
With a last cry of disgust, the pilot stepped forward and cuffed Jim on the head, waving him towards the perimeter fence as if warning him away from contaminated ground.
34
The Refrigerator in the Sky
The sweet mango slithered around Jim’s mouth, like Mrs Vincent’s tongue in his hands. Ten feet from the perimeter fence, Jim sat on a Mustang drop-tank that had fallen into the grass beside a flooded paddy field. He swallowed the soft pulp, and chewed at the stone, scraping away the last of the pith. Already he was thinking of the next mango. If he could attach himself to this young Japanese pilot, run errands for him and make himself useful, there might be more mangoes. Within a few days he would be strong enough to walk to Shanghai. By then the Americans would have arrived, and Jim could present the kamikaze pilot to them as his friend. Being generous people at heart, the Americans would overlook the small matter of the suicide attacks on their carriers at Okinawa. When peace came, the Japanese might teach him to fly…
Almost drunk on the mango’s milky sap, Jim slid to the ground, his back against the drop-tank. He stared at the level surface of the flooded paddy, deciding to be serious with himself. First, could he be sure that the war was really over? The Eurasian in the white shirt had been suspiciously offhand, but he was only concerned to steal the furniture and cars stored at the stadium. As for learning to fly, a kamikaze pilot might not be the ideal instructor…
A familiar drone crossed the August sky, a threat of engines. Jim stood up, almost choking on the mango stone. Straight ahead, some eight hundred feet above the empty paddies, was an American bomber. A four-engined Superfortress, it flew more slowly than any American plane that Jim had seen throughout the war. Was it about to land at Lunghua Airfield? Jim began to wave to the pilot in the glass-domed cockpit. As the Superfortress swept overhead, its engines shook the ground with their noise, and the derelict aircraft at the edge of the landing field began to tremble together.
The doors of the bomb-bays opened, revealing the silver cylinders ready to fall from their racks. The Superfortress drummed past, the higher pitch of one of its starboard engines cracking the air. Too weak to move, Jim waited for the bombs to explode around him, but the sky was filled with coloured parachutes. Dozens of canopies floated gaily on the air, as if enjoying the August sun. The vivid parasols reminded Jim of the hot-air balloons that the Chinese conjurors sent soaring over the gardens of Amherst Avenue at the climax of the children’s parties. Were the pilots of the B-29s trying to amuse him, to keep up his spirits until they could land?
The parachutes sailed past, falling towards Lunghua Camp. Unsteadily, Jim tried to focus his eyes on the coloured canopies. Two of the parachutes had collided, entangling their shrouds. A silver canister dragged its collapsed parachute and plummeted to the ground, striking a canal embankment two hundred yards away.
Making a final effort, before he had to lie down for the last time among the derelict aircraft, Jim stepped through the sugar-cane into the flooded paddy. He strode across the shallow water to a submerged bomb