Chapter Forty-nine – The Art of War

WILD DOG RIVER BY GREG BARRON

Crossing the salt pans by moonlight, Liang encountered a landscape he could never have imagined, growing up in a village near the River Tanjiang. It was stark and white, gouged through in places by dry watercourses. Two more horses had stumbled to exhaustion, and the rest wore bloodied flanks from the whip.

Liang turned to watch the shadowy shapes of the Guild fighters, just a short distance behind now, having thrown all stealth aside as they descended from the hinterland to that coastal plain. They had whooped and sung, driving their horses on with shouts and wild cries.

Recognising that the moment he had anticipated for so many days had finally arrived, Liang ordered that the packhorses be moved to the front of the party. Then he positioned the staunchest fighters, including himself, at the rear.

The Guild horsemen came at a full gallop, like phantoms in the moonlight over that ghostly plain. Liang had been a fighter all his life, but had never been in a battle. He told himself that fear was natural, and he fought to keep his mind clear.

Reaching one of the shallow eroded gullies that cut through the pans, Liang saw his opportunity. ‘Dismount,’ he shouted, ‘we will delay them here.’ Then, to Gam, determined to see him avoid the fray. ‘Get the horses out of the way. We cannot afford to lose them yet.’

With just six of his men, Liang took cover behind the lip of earth. He carried no rifle, only a revolver, which he raised and steadied on the raised earth in front of him. It was not a long-range weapon, but with a rifled barrel, and a powerful .450 calibre projectile, it was accurate enough at this distance.

The Guild riders paused when they saw Liang and his men in their defensive positions. There were so many of them – four times the number of Liang’s little band. One of them discharged his rifle, with a flash of brilliant orange. The gunman’s face was imprinted in Liang’s eyes – his forehead elongated by the shaved hair above.

He watched, in seeming slow motion, as Chen Ye let out a cry and shouldered his weapon, a tongue of flame flaring from the muzzle as he did so. Return fire came from the enemy group. The air filled with the stink of black powder.  

Liang studied the Guild fighters as they paused in their advance. There was one man who stood out from the others. The colour of his blue tunic was visible even in the night. It was the man he had seen from his hiding place up in the hills – surely the ranking officer.

Liang called for Chung Shih, the best marksman amongst them. He pointed out the officer.

‘You see that man?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shoot him for me.’

As the younger man planted his elbow, and prepared to take the shot, a passing bullet passed stingingly close to Liang’s ear, making him duck. Through it all, Chung Shih retained his concentration. He fired. The officer went down, whether badly or lightly struck Liang had no idea. The effect on the other members of the Guild party, however, was dramatic. There were several cries of alarm, and men dropping from their horses.

 Liang took a risk, and raised himself over the barrier. ‘Be warned,’ he shouted with all the force of his lungs. ‘Go back. What we have is rightfully ours, and we will die to protect it.’

There was a chorus of yells in response, but Liang did not waste time in repartee. ‘Gam, bring up the horses,’ he cried, knowing that they had to take advantage of the grief and confusion of the enemy.

The horses, however, were frightened and tired, and they nickered, whinnied and one or two bucked. The Sheathed Sword party rode off with the last man in line only halfway into his saddle.

Within half a li, Liang stopped and turned, able to see that the Guild party were again giving chase. Up ahead, however, he could see higher ground – a ridge at the end of the salt flats. Not only did it offer a real defensive position, but as they rode nearer, and the first strands of tinder-dry grass brushed the horses’ legs, the dry growth gave Liang an idea.

Earlier in the day Liang had recalled the gentle but powerful words of the poet, Li Shangyin. Now his mind turned to the harsh, often brutal advice of the great tactician Sun Tzu, in his text The Art of War, read and absorbed by Liang years earlier.

There is a proper season for making attacks with fire, and special days for starting a conflagration. The proper season is when the weather is very dry; the special days are those when the moon is in the constellations of the Sieve, the Wall, the Wing or the Crossbar; for these four are all days of rising wind.

Liang glanced up at the sky and grinned to himself. The moon was clearly in the last of those constellations, and the weather was unquestionably dry.  

They came over the crest of the hill, and Liang felt a wind, coming off the sea, full of scents of hope and home, in his face. Up ahead he could discern five hills rising from the plain, and beyond it a river.

Another line of Master Sun’s advice came to him.

When you start a fire, be to windward of it. Do not attack from the leeward.

‘They will be on us again in minutes,’ said Chen Ye, bringing his mount alongside. ‘We should stop and defend ourselves on the high ground.’

‘Not yet,’ said Liang, ignoring the insolence in the woodsman’s eyes. ‘Follow me.’ He rode on only a short way, however, to the foot of the slope. There he dismounted and called the men together. Chen Ye, like the others, remained on his horse, looking down, while Liang kneeled.

 The matches had come all the way from China, made of sticks of pine wood, dipped in a mixture of sulphur and potassium chlorate. There were three left in the box. They had been hard used on the journey, both sea and land. The first spat and sparked but did not ignite.

The second seemed to catch for a moment, then extinguished, leaving the smell of sulphur in the air. The third, lit straight away, and he held it to the dry grass, that did not so much burn as explode into flame. He held light bunches of grass to the flame, and these he used to extend the front.

In what seemed like moments flames were leaping up the hillside, burning fiercely. Gam’s face was shining, lit by the red light of the flames. ‘You are very clever,’ he called to Liang. ‘The Guild men will surely all be burned to death.’

Liang shook his head. ‘Some might, but very few. The rest will run ahead of the flames and regroup. This will delay, but not stop them.’

Remounting, as the flames leapt to the heavens, fanned by wind and heat, Liang shouted to his men, and he urged his horse to the best speed it could manage. He’d given them breathing space, and he had a plan. The first stage of this was to ignore Master Sun’s next piece of advice: When the force of the flames has reached its height, follow it up with an attack, if that is practicable; if not, stay where you are.

We will do neither, Liang said to himself. We will run. And then we will play a trick that might truly save the gold and most of the men.

***

The horses were scarcely able to keep up a walk now, no matter how badly they were thrashed. The ride, therefore, took longer than Liang had hoped. Finally they reined in beside the fifth, and to all appearances the most easily defensible, of the hills. Liang dismounted at the base, and called the men in.

‘Now listen. We have only a short time in which to act. We will leave all the horses, and two men on this hill. Their job is to hold the position while the others carry the gold away.’

‘That is a lot of weight,’ scoffed Chen Ye.

‘It is manageable for a short distance.’ Liang had already thought this through. Nine men would have to carry a little over 500 taels of gold each – about as much weight as a young pig. It would be hard work, but the river was not far from here.

‘The two men will be killed,’ commented Chen Ye.

‘Perhaps,’ said Liang. ‘Unless we can bring reinforcements back from the Kingfisher. We will throw the dice to decide.’

The fire on the hills to the west was dying off as it reached the crest, and was no longer able to race upwards. The Guild would regroup and follow soon. Working quickly, goaded by Liang’s sharp orders the men unloaded the gold, distributed it into nine piles and led the horses, near-perishing from lack of water and ill-treatment, up the first slope of the hill, where there was a flat area, perfectly defensible.

With the horses tethered, the group gathered.

‘Who has dice?’ Liang called.

Two ivory cubes the size of fingernails appeared, each with six faces, the numbers embossed with dots. In the usual way, all the dots were painted black apart from the ones, and fours – the most auspicious numbers – which were red.

‘One throw,’ said Liang. ‘The two men with the lowest scores stay.’ He caught Chen Ye’s eyes. ‘We will all throw, including myself.’

They knelt in a rough circle in the dust, with just enough moonlight to illuminate the dice. Liang threw first. A two and a three. Five of a possible twelve. He said the number aloud and passed the dice to the next man.

‘Eight.’

‘Seven.’

Chung Shih threw a twelve, the highest possible number, and the relief on his face was palpable.

Next was one of the older men – an experienced campaigner of quiet manner and deep, wise eyes. ‘Two.’

They all stared at the single, red eyes on the dice. Some sighed deeply. The double one – an important throw in some games, but a death sentence here tonight.

When his turn came, Gam picked up the dice.

Liang bellowed. ‘No. You are not a fighter. You do not take part.’

No one argued, and the youth stepped back.

When all the men but Gam had thrown, Liang’s five was the second lowest. Unless the final man – Chen Ye – threw a four or lower, Liang was destined to end his life on this desolate hill.

The woodsman’s son took up the dice and threw. A two and a one. Three. His eyes lowered, dark and hooded by the night.

Liang wondered if this was the moment when Chen Ye might challenge his authority. ‘When we reach the Kingfisher we will hurry back with more men,’ he promised.

‘Perhaps,’ said Chen Ye. ‘But most likely we will be dead by then. We will kill as many of those devils as we can first. Killing is the only thing that I feel like doing now.’

The nine fortunate men said their farewells, then walked to the gold in its canvas packs. Some lifted the burden easily, others with groans, but none would admit that they could not manage the weight.

‘Lead the way,’ Liang said to Gam, and the men, burdened with the gold, their weapons, and any personal possessions they could not bear to part with, followed in a silent and grieving file, for they were leaving friends and comrades to die on that hill.

***

‘No,’ said Kat. ‘We are not going anywhere. You need to rest, and so do I. Besides, every hero needs allies. The more the better.’

‘I’m not a hero,’ I said.

Tommy’s little campfire had burned down to a bed of glowing coals. I could see old fish bones and mussel shells amongst the ashes. He kept a tidy camp, with the boughs of paperbarks providing not just shade, but storage.

‘You’re a hero to me,’ said Kat. ‘You’ve taken these people on, alone. But you need allies, as I said. Look at Achilles, without Patroclus he would never have defeated Hector, and even Hercules had different people to help him – Iolaus was one.’

I smiled again, but couldn’t respond.

Kat walked down to the pool and knelt to wash her face and hands. I watched her, one arm on the rifle that lay across my lap. She walked back and squatted in front of me. ‘Put that thing down and stand up. I want to have a look at your stitches.’ I did as she asked, leaned the rifle against the nearest tree, and stood still while she unbandaged me, revealing the wound low down in my back. She clucked with mild concern. ‘There’s some redness around the sutures still, but they are holding.’ I heard a note of pride in her voice. ‘Is it troubling you at all?’

‘Not really.’

‘The stitches need to stay in for another few days, maybe a week.’

She checked the wound in my shoulder too, which was covered now with a hard scab.

‘I still think that we should go,’ I said. ‘I don’t want a shootout with Nolan and his mates here.’

Kat bandaged me back up, and gripped my hand hard. ‘You’ve taught yourself not to trust people. You didn’t even trust me at first – you thought I was in on the whole thing for a while there. Tommy has a scar where those blokes tried to shoot him – doesn’t that mean he’s on your side?’

‘Maybe.’

Despite my thoughts, we settled back down in front of the hearth.

‘By the way,’ Kat said. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking. Maybe everyone is looking in the wrong place. Constable Hoi reckons that the gold was buried at the fifth hill, because of this Wuxing thing – the transformative energy. But what if this Yeuen Liang was actually talking about water rather than earth. The river maybe.’

‘There’s only one river though,’ I said. ‘Not five of them.’

Kat frowned, ‘Islands maybe? Are there five islands in the river?’

‘There isn’t even one as far as I’ve seen.’

‘Rock bars?’

I squinted. ‘That’s a possibility? There was one just down from the Wild Dog Camp. Then another one where we crashed the Vanguard.’

‘Might there be three more?’ Kat asked.

‘Upstream? There could easily be. Tommy would know … if he comes back.’

After that we dozed for a while. I hadn’t wanted to, but it was warm in the shade, and leaning back on the grass seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I woke sweating, sensing a change. I sat up, and the boy was there. We hadn’t heard him come. He just appeared. He was alone. Unarmed.  

‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘You got some sleep. Good.’ He grinned, ‘I’ve never seen Nolan so pissed off. All that mob – they’re flappin’ around like bats lookin’ for you – some of the others are diggin’ up that hill like crazy buggers – looks like they found some bones an’ that got them all excited.’

‘Tommy,’ I said. ‘Do you know how many rock bars there are along this river?’

The boy didn’t even have to think. He held up all the fingers of his right hand.

Kat and I locked eyes.

‘Can you take us to the fifth one?’

‘Now?’

I shrugged, ‘Might as well.’

©2024 Greg Barron

Continued next Saturday. Read previous chapters here.

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