Free The Mercenaries by John Harris Page A

these motors on auto petrol or something to save money, and it’s played hell with the valves.’
     
    Aviation petrol arrived at last, in drums on a creaking cart pulled by a couple of drowsy oxen, together with oil, and two more tents. As Kowalski was able to find them, a decent fitter’s bench followed, with rope, blocks, tackles, a Weston purchase, a new generator and as many spares as he could find. As the weather gradually began to brighten and the sun began to dry the earth, the wind blew up vast storms of yellow dust that got into their eyes and nostrils and between their teeth and forced them to erect screens over the engines.
    Between them, Ira and the tireless Sammy had the Albatros assembled when Geary and Lawn turned up again. They were flat broke and they climbed out of the taxi in a heap, minus their luggage.
    Sammy was standing on a trestle alongside the Fokker, drawing a piston from the engine, and he turned without saying a word, laid it on the bench, wapped clean rags round it, and climbed down, wiping his hands on a ball of waste cotton.
    Lawn was looking sheepish as Ira strode towards them, but Geary had a fag-end in his mouth and his face wore a mutinous expression. Ira eyed them grimly, more than ready for a fight. They’d been having trouble with the B.M.W., whose condition had reduced Sammy to a speechless fury, and not much had gone right for some time.
    Geary seemed to anticipate trouble and indicated Ellie even before Ira had come to a stop.
    ‘I don’t like working for a woman, sonny,’ he said. ‘I never worked for a woman before.’
    Ira snorted. ‘If I say so,’ he said, ‘you’ll work for an Azerbaijan-Persian pansy. And if I see you crawling off to a bar again when you should be here I cancel your contract immediately. I can recruit whole squadrons of fitters in Shanghai if I want ‘em--and all of ‘em better than you.’
    As they turned away, he touched Geary’s arm and indicated Sammy standing nearby with glittering eyes, clutching a wrench in his fist and more than willing to give back what he’d received.
    ‘One other thing, Mr. Geary,’ he said, short, stocky and distinctly hostile. ‘If you touch Sammy again--if you so much as lay a finger on him, or anyone else either--I’ll personally take you apart myself. Right?’
    Geary stared down at him for a second, defiantly, then his eyes dropped and he nodded.
    ‘Right.’ Ira gestured at the aircraft with a hand that was black-green with the thick sump-oil from the B.M.W., which had spread its dark smears on his clothes and face. ‘Now get your bloody coats off! I want these machines flying.’
    ‘O.K., son,’ Lawn said uncertainly, trying to placate him and still a little condescending.
    ‘And don’t call me “Sonny”!’
    Lawn jumped. ‘No, sir,’ he said, and without thinking threw up an instinctive salute.
    As they sullenly took off their jackets and turned towards the machines, Fagan put a heavy hand on Ira’s shoulder. ‘By the Holies,’ he said. The soldierly straightness of him! How’s that, Ellie, for handling the beer-cheapened hoddy-noddy? I know now why the English won the war.’
    Ira’s temper exploded. ‘Do you?’ he snorted. ‘Looking round at what we’ve got here, I don’t!’
    He was staring at Fagan as he spoke and the Irishman flushed. As he turned away, Ira saw Ellie looking at him out of the corner of her eye. She was standing with her feet apart, hugging her elbows in a stance she often used, the short fair curls falling over her forehead. As she caught his eyes on her, she came to life abruptly and began to walk towards the aeroplanes. Then she stopped and turned, looking back at him.
    ‘Makes a change, I guess,’ she said in a flat voice, ‘to have a guy around who knows what he wants.’
    Then she gave him a twisted smile that was not unfriendly and strolled off after Fagan.
     
    7
     
    Although Linchu was a bleak little place of mud and wattle huts, with nothing to offer a