Free The Lazarus Gate by Mark Latham Page A

with their oriental comrade watching. The big man was grappling, trying to take hold of my arms so that the small man could slash at me with his blade, but they did not find it easy. I set my jaw and determined to show the celestial what I had learned back in his lands.
    A massive fist clubbed its way towards me, and I drove it aside and into the red-brick wall with a flick of my cane, before lashing out with a kick at the small man’s hand. His knife skittered across the flagstones and he had barely time to turn to face me before I drove my forehead into the bridge of his nose, dropping him to the ground like a sack of stones, blood smeared across his face. The big man growled, and glowered at me. The oriental stepped forward, eyeing me menacingly.
    ‘You only make this harder on yourself,’ the celestial said, in a strong accent that betrayed him to my trained ear as Chinese.
    I pulled off my overcoat and slung it atop the nearest wall, and placed my hat on the ground. Taking up my cane as though it were a sabre, I faced my opponents.
    ‘I’ve fought bigger, stronger men than you all around the Empire,’ I said, with as much bravado as I could muster. ‘You will not leave this fight unscathed.’
    As soon as the words had left my lips, I doubted their veracity. The Chinaman pulled a long, flat blade from his jacket and grinned. I took a pace backwards despite myself. The assault began; the Chinaman launched himself forwards, more dancing than fighting, twirling and slashing with his wicked knife, and lashing out with foot and fist faster than I could follow. I parried his blows in the style I had learned in the East, with cane and raised shin, and I took heart when I saw the look of surprise on my opponent’s face. Unfortunately, my assailant was far more practised than I in his exotic fighting style, and although I fended him off I could not connect with my own blows.
    I was slowly but surely forced backward along the alleyway, and I remembered that the policeman I had seen earlier was in that direction. Perhaps he would even be walking back this way on his plodding route. If I could reach the main street relatively unscathed, I could make a dash for it and raise the alarm.
    That was when the scrawny man, whom I had foolishly believed out of the fight, recovered his senses. From his prone position on the ground he scrabbled forwards, slashing at me with his small knife, and cutting me on the thigh. As I felt the dart of pain in my leg, I involuntarily shifted my weight and failed to block an incoming kick from the Chinaman, which sent me clattering against the brick wall of the alley. Then the big man was on me. Large, rough hands seized my arms. I threw myself at him in desperation, pounding him against the brick wall, but he was too strong and it was too late—the Chinese thug was kicking at me before I knew what was happening, and I retched and spluttered as a kick to my stomach sent the wind out of me. The big man took a cue from his compatriots and slammed me headfirst into the opposite wall, before throwing me to the ground. I remember the three of them raining blows upon me, as I curled into a defensive position to shield myself from the worst of it. Then the Chinaman’s face was level with mine, and he grinned at me with malice.
    His knife was raised to my face. I could smell his breath, rank and stale and laced with gin, and his eyes seemed to peer into my very soul. He muttered something to me, but I was in a daze. I had taken several blows to the head, and it is hard now to recall anything beyond that point. Instead of the Chinaman, I could see only Maung. Instead of the claustrophobic London back-alley, I saw the squalid, bare-earth prison cell where I had been long confined in Burma. It was as if it were real; just for a moment, I was back there, and I was terrified that I had never left, and that my sudden release and subsequent return home had been a terrible nightmare—a consequence of a broken