Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard [118]
‘Where did you get that? The Lunghua drops belong to us!’ He screamed in Chinese at the peasant women, suspecting them of complicity in this theft. ‘Tulloch…! They’re stealing our Spam!’
He unlocked the gates, intending to wrest the can from Jim, when there was a shout from the watch-tower. The man with the binoculars stepped down the ladder, pointing to the fields beyond the Shanghai road.
Two B-29s appeared from the west, their engines droning over the deserted land. Seeing the camp, they separated from each other. One flew towards Lunghua, its bomb doors opening to reveal their canisters. The other altered course for the Pootung district to the east of Shanghai.
As the Superfortress thundered over their heads, Jim crouched beside the Chinese peasants. Armed with the rifle and bamboo clubs, Price and three of the Britons ran through the gates and set off across the nearby field. Already the sky was filled with parachutes, the blue and scarlet canopies sailing down into the paddies half a mile from the camp.
The engine noise of the B-29 softened to a muffled rumble. Jim was tempted to follow Price and his men, and offer to help them. The parachutes had landed behind a system of old trenchworks. Losing their bearings, the Britons ran in all directions. Price climbed the parapet of an earth redoubt and waved his rifle in a fury. One of the men slipped into a shallow canal, and waded in circles through the water-weed, while the others ran along the mud walls between the paddies.
As Tulloch watched them despairingly, Jim stood up and stepped past him through the gates. The Packard mechanic loosened the heavy pistol in his holster. The sight of the falling parachutes had aroused him, and the string-like muscles of his arms and shoulders trembled in a cat’s cradle of excitement.
‘Mr Tulloch, is the war over?’ Jim asked. ‘Really over?’
‘The war…?’ Tulloch seemed to have forgotten that it had ever taken place. ‘It better be over, lad – any time now the next one’s going to begin.’
‘I saw some communist soldiers, Mr Tulloch.’
‘They’re everywhere. You wait till Lieutenant Price gets to work on them. We’ll park you in the guardhouse, lad. Keep out of his way…’
Jim followed Tulloch across the parade ground, and together they entered the guardhouse. The once immaculate floor of the orderly room, polished by the Chinese prisoners between their beatings, was covered with dirt and refuse. Japanese calendars and documents lay among the empty Lucky Strike cartons, spent ammunition clips and the tatters of old infantry boots. Against the rear wall of the commandant’s office were stacked dozens of ration boxes. A naked Britisher in his late fifties, a former barman at the Shanghai Country Club, sat on a bamboo stool, separating the canned meat from the coffee and cigarettes. He packed the bars of chocolate on the commandant’s desk, and brusquely threw aside the bundles of Reader’s Digests and Saturday Evening Posts. The entire floor of the office was covered with discarded magazines.
Beside him, a young British soldier in the rags of a Seaforth Highlander’s uniform was cutting the nylon cords from the parachutes. He tied the ropes into neat coils, then expertly folded the blue and scarlet canopies.
Tulloch gazed at this treasure house, clearly awed by the fortune that he and his companions had amassed. He pushed Jim from the door, concerned that the sight of so many bars of chocolate would derange the boy.
‘Don’t dwell on it, son. Eat your Spam in there.’
But Jim was staring at the magazines heaped on the floor at his feet. He wanted to tidy them up, and hoard them for the next war. ‘Mr Tulloch, I ought to go back to Shanghai now.’
‘Shanghai? There’s nothing there except six million starving coolies. They’ll cut off your foreskin before you can say Bubbling Well Road.’
‘Mr Tulloch, my mother and father – ‘
‘Lad! Nobody’s mother and father are going to Shanghai.