The couple might, of course, go out by way of Chungking; Lanny might send a wireless message to the American Embassy, appealing for help, and doubtless the embassy would arrange for the pair to be brought out on the return trip of some government plane. But then they would miss Russia, and it would be an admission of defeat. The Chungking officials would scold them, and would confiscate all Laurel’s notes about Yenan, and probably those about the rest of China, on the ground that she had shown herself a hostile person, and had broken Chungking’s stringent regulations.
Lanny began inquiring about camels, and supplies needed for a crossing of the Gobi. Laurel still had most of the gold sovereigns sewed up in her belt; but how could one get in touch with the Mongolians, to hire a camel train, and to find out if their government would permit an expedition to pass through? And what were the chances of the Japs raiding across any part of the route? How far could they be helped by the Yenan government? And so on.
At this point there came, quite literally, a windfall; at any rate an airfall. One of Laurel’s student friends told her that a strange plane had arrived on the previous evening, and Lanny hurried to the airport to find out about it. Sure enough, there was a two-engine plane, apparently a small transport; he couldn’t be sure, because soldiers were guarding it and wouldn’t let anybody near. Lanny tried to question one of the airport men who knew a little English, but the man wouldn’t talk. All very hush-hush, and Lanny wondered, could it be an enemy plane which had got lost and run out of gas?
He got the story by appealing to one of the military officers whom he had met on the evening of his speech about the T.V.A. The plane was flown by a Frenchman who claimed to have saved it from capture in a raid of the Japs in Hopeh Province. According to the man’s story, he had been flying for a commercial concern, and they had stored the plane until the time when business might be resumed. Hearing that enemy raiders were approaching the place, the Frenchman had thrown some extra tins of fuel into the plane and taken off in a hurry. He had tried to land at a field in Central Government territory, but had been fired upon, and so he had decided to try Yenan. The authorities here were dubious about him, suspected him as a spy or saboteur, and had locked him up for the present.
Lanny got permission to interview the man, and found him a typical product of the Paris boulevards; cynical, clever, aware of all the worst facts of the world. Jean Fouché was his name, and he was, of course, delighted to meet someone who knew his argot and could talk about old times. Lanny made sure that he really was what he claimed to be, a man without the slightest interest in Chinese politics, who had flown all over the country for high pay and with no thought but to get back to Paris with the money in his pockets. He took Lanny for the art expert and rich man’s son, and asked what he thought these Red salauds would do to him, and would they confiscate the plane? Before the talk was over he suggested, with a sly wink: “Wouldn’t you like to buy it, Mr. Budd?”
Lanny’s answer must have surprised him. “If I bought it, would you be able to fly me to Ulan-Bator?”
III
Lanny took the problem direct to Mao Tse-tung, who denied that he was a dictator, but who might have something to say about it all the same. The American explained that he had no idea what would be the attitude of the Border Government to a refugee plane, whether they would confiscate it or buy it; all he wanted out of it was a trip across the Gobi desert. He wanted to get to Moscow without having to ask favors of Chungking, and without risk of having his wife’s precious notes confiscated. If she reached New York with those notes intact she could write articles whose propaganda value to Yenan would exceed the price of many planes, Lanny Budd, old-time Pink, knew how to put matters to the Party chairman of a People’s government. He added that he had such sympathy with that government that he would expect to pay a generous fee for the service.
The People’s Council, or the General Staff, or whoever it was that decided such matters, took two days to debate the project. Then a polite young official—how polite they all were, and how young!—announced the news to Mr. Lanny Budd. The People’s government would be pleased to transport him and his wife to Ulan-Bator for the actual cost of the gasoline, which was unfortunately very high; they estimated it at eight thousand Chinese dollars, which was four hundred American dollars. The young official named the sum deprecatingly, as if he would be ready to cut it in half if Mr. Lanny Budd had shown any sign of displeasure; but Lanny answered promptly that the sum appeared most reasonable and he would be happy to pay it in gold. He was asked when he would like to make the trip, and replied that he and his wife would be ready at five minutes’ notice. He was told that the decision would depend upon weather conditions; also, that the Ulan-Bator airport would be notified by wireless of the proposed flight.
“The pilot and the co-pilot will be our own,” remarked the official, significantly; and this Lanny had expected. They wouldn’t take any chance that M. Fouché might like Ulan-Bator and decide to remain. Lanny ventured to ask what was going to happen to the man, and the reply was that he had already been released and provided with useful work—but of a sort that wouldn’t take him anywhere near the airport! Lanny didn’t ask if the man was to be paid for the plane; an old-time Pink knew the Communist formula, “the socialization of the instruments and means of production and distribution”—and assuredly a transport plane was covered by the last word of that formula. The Yenan theoreticians had recently decided that they were fostering private enterprise in order to destroy feudalism, their first and most real enemy; but they would probably not feel bound to apply that new directive to an airplane of dubious origin.
IV
The travelers packed their few belongings—less what they gave to their friends. They had a sad time saying good-by; the faithful Han wept, and said that the light of his life was going out. Lanny gave him the Newcastle address and told him to write when circumstances permitted. Their friends all promised to write—there would be peace again someday, and Free China would build a new world, so wonderful that everybody in America would want to fly to see it!
A cart took them to the field before dawn, and with their sheepskin coats on and their blankets wrapped about their legs they settled themselves for a long flight. Their baggage included two bottles of water and a lunch consisting of boiled rice, slices of spiced mutton, and two large pickled cucumbers. As soon as there was light enough to see by, the plane took off, and they soared past the tall pagoda which was supposed to keep off enemies. Soon after the sun was up they were above the Great Wall, which they had heard about since childhood but never expected to see. It was wide enough for several horsemen to ride on abreast; from the air it looked like the parallel cables of a suspension bridge, hung from tower to tower over the unending hills of North China. They had been told that there were fourteen hundred miles of it; undoubtedly it was one of the mightiest works of man—but it hadn’t succeeded in keeping the Mongols out of this country.
On the other side was Inner Mongolia, now partly in Jap hands; but they saw no enemy, and the vast sky was empty. They passed over the Yellow River, the Hwang-ho, which makes a great double bend here. Now and then they passed over villages and saw peasants working, but the peasants seldom looked up. The Chinese were moving into this country, driven westward by the Japs, and the Mongols were moving out before the Chinese. The spade was mightier than the thundering herd.
This plane had not been built for anybody’s comfort, but to carry freight. It had no heating arrangements, and no fuel to waste. Its walls transmitted every sound, and the roar of well-worn engines made it necessary to shout if you wanted to be heard. Extra tins of gasoline were lashed fast to the floor, and the rest of the space was at the disposal of the passengers; they could stand and look out of the windows, first one side and then the other, pointing out anything of interest. They were over Outer Mongolia now, the great Gobi desert; bare wastes of wind-driven sand, sometimes piled into hills with rocks sticking through.
Somewhere in these i
mmense spaces the Andrews expedition had discovered the dinosaur eggs, perhaps the most sensational event in the history of archaeology, or geology, or whatever science it is which deals with ancient eggs. That had been while Lanny was making love to Marie de Bruyne on the Coast of Pleasure; and now, even if the spot had been marked, he couldn’t have seen very much from the height of a quarter of a mile. There is nothing more monotonous than looking down upon a desert, unless it is looking down upon an empty ocean. The map showed a caravan route through the Gobi, but they saw no trace of it, and no signs of life; they soon got tired of standing on their feet, and lay down and wrapped themselves in blankets against the cold.
Lanny thought, and his thoughts were not entirely pleasant. This was a two-seater plane, and on all such planes the practice was that while the pilot drove, the co-pilot took the altitude of the sun, and figured the wind drift and other factors which made up what the Pan-Am people called the “Howgozit.” But up in front there sat two Chinese who looked like schoolboys, and had neither instruments nor charts. What were they doing? Just guessing? Or did they know this desert so well that they could distinguish one chain of sandhills from another? The pilot hadn’t claimed any such knowledge; he had just said, with a cheerful grin: “I take you!”
Ulan-Bator couldn’t be such a great city that you could see it from a considerable distance. And suppose you missed it, and started circling around looking for it? There would be a margin of daylight, for the trip was estimated to take only six or eight hours, depending upon the wind. But would there be a margin of gasoline? And suppose you had to come down in this desolate and terrifying waste? There were places that looked level, but how could you be sure what ridges might show up in the sand when you got near? And if you landed on such ground could you ever take off again? What would happen to you, with only a limited supply of food and water? Could you stand the cold of one of these desert nights? If one of the deadly sandstorms hit you, the plane might be buried and you would almost certainly be lost. They were not hot winds, such as blew from the Sahara and sometimes made life miserable in Southern France and Spain; they were winds that came from Siberia and the Arctic. Lanny suddenly decided that he had been taking too many chances with his valuable bride.
V
She was lying on her back, the most comfortable position on a hard floor. She was wrapped in a blanket, and the cold of mid-morning was not too great. Her duffelbag, partly emptied, was serving as a pillow, and her eyes were closed; he thought she was asleep, and he sat for some time watching her with loving thoughts. There was reason to believe that the great miracle of nature had taken place within her body, and Lanny thought about that, always with awe. It wouldn’t be his first experience of the emotions of fatherhood; his thoughts wandered away to the other side of the world, where his first child would soon be celebrating her twelfth birthday. He had sent her a cablegram from Manila, and Robbie was supposed to have let her know the news from Hengyang.
He looked at his wife again, and saw that her lips were moving. He thought she was talking in her sleep, and laid his ear close to her lips, with the idea that she would be amused to know what she had been saying. Her tone was always gentle, not meant to compete with twin motors of a transport plane. But he could hear her voice and somehow it sounded different. He leaned still closer, and made out the words. This is what he heard:
“I am not really malicious, and I wish you to be happy. I was not meant for him. I didn’t know enough, and I suppose I was top eager. Men don’t like that. Mother warned me, but I wouldn’t listen. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter now. Take good care of him, Laurel, he is really a kind man. He thinks too well of himself, but you can remedy that a little, perhaps.”
The voice fell silent; and Lanny thought: “Oh, my God! Lizbeth!” Straightway, as usual, came the skeptical idea: “Or is it Laurel’s dream?” Anyhow, it was a phenomenon, and an old-time psychic researcher wouldn’t fail to seize the opportunity. He put his lips close to his wife’s ear and said, loud enough to be heard but not enough to wake her: “Is that you, Lizbeth?”
“Yes,” came the reply.
“This is Lanny. Do you want to talk to me?”
“I was always glad to talk to you, Lanny.”
“Where are you?”
“I am in the spirit world.”
“Are you happy?”
“I am always happy. I still love you, Lanny. It can’t be wrong now.”
“I am glad to hear that. I always wanted you to be happy.”
“I know that. You never said anything unkind to me.”
This sounded to the hearer like the standard patter of the séance room. He wanted something more evidential, so he asked: “Can you tell me what happened to you?”
“It is very tragic, Lanny, and I don’t like to talk about it.”
“All your friends will be anxious to know, Lizbeth; your mother especially.”
“The Japanese got the Oriole; they sank her with one shell, and we had no time to get into the boats.”
“Everybody on board was lost?”
“Everybody. They steamed away and left us.”
“When was this?”
“The morning after we left Hongkong. They sank many ships.”
“Is your father with you?”
“Yes. Tell mother that we are both well.”
“Is there any special message for your mother? Something that will convince her it was you speaking.”
“Nothing will convince her, I fear; but you can try. Tell her that the mice have made a nest in the rag doll that used to be my playmate and that is now in the old gray trunk in the attic.”
“Will you come to your mother and speak to her, Lizbeth?”
“I will try, but I am not sure I can do it.”
“Will you come and talk to Laurel some more?”
“I cannot promise. I am very tired now. I have been talking a long time.”
The voice faded away; and Laurel sighed gently several times, as was her way in coming out of a trance. This was, so far as Lanny knew, the first time she had ever gone into a spontaneous trance; but of course it might have happened many times without her realizing it. He was curious to know if she would realize it now; he chose to take this as a problem in psychology, rather than to reflect upon the tragic story he had heard. Just now was surely not the time to tell Laurel such news—if it was news.
When she opened her eyes, he leaned to her ear and asked: “Were you asleep?”
“I suppose so,” she replied. She was always slightly dazed after a trance.
“Did you have any dream?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember any.”
“Lie still for a while and see if you can recall anything.”
He let her alone, and thought about that strange experience. It was the old story with him; he couldn’t be sure whether to think this was actually the spirit of Lizbeth Holdenhurst or whether it was a product of Laurel’s own subconscious mind, playing with the problem of what had happened to the yacht. It was a fact that not a day had passed since the eighth of last December that his wife hadn’t said to him something to this effect: “Oh, what do you suppose has happened to the Oriole? And when shall we be able to find out?” He had told her that they might find wireless service from Ulan-Bator; so no doubt she had the subject prominent in her mind. The idea of a shell from a Japanese war vessel and what it would do to a yacht had been discussed by them many times. The words supposed to be spoken by Lizbeth were in character; but why shouldn’t they be? Laurel had known her cousin from the cousin’s infancy; and if Laurel the author had set out to write a dialog with her rival for Lanny Budd’s love it would certainly have been “in character.” When the dream mind has a mind to, it can be just as realistic as the literary mind; and apparently the trance mind is equally well endowed. Lanny had read much about “spontaneous trances,” and knew that some mediums went into them frequently.
Now he said: “Can you remember any dream?”
“I
can’t recall a thing,” she answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Your lips were moving, and I thought you must be having a dream.” He said no more, for the roar of the engines took all pleasure out of conversation. He wrapped his blanket about him and lay down, closing his eyes and going over every word the “spirit” had said, so as to be sure of retaining it.
VI
The Chinese schoolboys were better guessers than Lanny had feared, and none of the passenger’s forebodings was realized. Shortly after noon the pilot turned and shouted, and they leaped up and ran to the front. “Ulan-Bator!” Sure enough; through the clear air over the snowbound landscape they could see far-distant buildings. The passengers stood watching the welcome sight draw steadily closer. It was much more of a city than they had expected; they had looked for a scattering of conical Mongol tents called yurts, and there were these in great numbers, but also modern buildings, including a theater capable of seating several thousand persons. The Soviets had been here—and wherever they came you would find means of entertaining and instructing the masses.
There was a large airport, with planes in revetments. The arrival circled once, so as to give those in control an opportunity to observe the plane through glasses and make sure it was the one which had been scheduled. A year or so ago there had been a treaty between Russia and Japan, by which it was agreed that Outer Mongolia was in the Soviet sphere; but doubtless the authorities wouldn’t take chances, and the pilot apparently didn’t want to take any either. They circled, and waggled their wings in friendly fashion.
They came down to a three-point landing, skidded slightly in the snow, and then came to rest. Men came running, some of them soldiers. They saw the door open and two travel-worn tourists appear in the entrance, raising their clenched right fists and announcing: “Amerikansky tovarische!” When the questioning began they shook their heads vigorously, exclaiming: “Nyet, nyet Russky!” That probably wasn’t right, but it was what Lanny recalled from visits, one a decade ago and the other two decades ago.