The War of the Dragon Lady by John Wilcox Page B

of them moustaches. Shall I come, too?’
    ‘No. Get back and see if the ladies are all right.’
    There was little sign of chaos, however, in the small, dimly lit office of the British minister. He sat at his desk writing quietly, his severe tunic unbuttoned at the neck and a small glass of port at his elbow.
    ‘Ah, Fonthill,’ he said, standing and extending his hand. ‘Good Lord, you look a bit dusty. Take a glass of this Taylor’s ’79. I can commend it.’
    ‘No thank you, sir.’
    ‘I insist. You look hot and bothered. Now sit down and tell me what is on your mind.’ He fetched another glass from an upended suitcase and filled it. ‘Here.’
    Fonthill took it and perched on the only other chair in the room. Then he unburdened himself of his doubts: the lack of leadership, chain of command and coordination; the still-inadequate state of the defences and the paucity of firepower. Then he took a sip of the Taylor’s. MacDonald was right. It was delicious.
    The minister listened without interruption, then twisted the wax more firmly into his moustache ends, as though to marshal his thoughts.
    ‘First point,’ he said. ‘Leadership. You are quite right, there has been little of it, because our Spanish doyen has lacked the … ah … sense of purpose, shall we say, to provide it. This has now been recognised. I’ve just come back from a meeting of the corps diplomatique and I have been elected to take over the direction of the defence.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘Not exactly a general, don’t you know, but, as I told you, I did serve in the British army years ago and actually fought in a couple of campaigns in Africa. Nothing like your experience, my dear fellow, but in the land of the blind and all that, you know …’
    ‘Good. I’m delighted to hear it, sir.’
    ‘Secondly,’ he waved a languid hand to his desk, ‘I am just in the middle of setting up a system of committees to delegate authority. I have already appointed a fortifications committee, under a feller calledGamewell. A missionary, of course, but he used to be an engineer and I’ve got faith in him. These missionaries are the most resourceful people. We have appointed as military commander, Captain von Thomann, the captain of the Austrian cruiser Zenta , who is here on holiday, poor chap,’ he gave a wan and rather apologetic smile. ‘We’re diplomats, you see, and we have to appoint on seniority. Thomann is the senior officer here, so it had to be him. But he will report to me.
    ‘As for resources, I have drawn up here what we have. Our total strength of trained fighting men is twenty officers and three hundred and eighty-nine men, split into eight nationalities. This is the breakdown. Here, take a look.’ He thrust a piece of paper towards Fonthill, who read:
     
 
 
 
Officers
Men
 
 
 
British
3
79
 
 
 
Russian
2
79
 
 
 
Americans
3
53
 
 
 
Germans
1
51
 
 
 
French
2
45
 
 
 
Austrian
7
30
 
 
 
Italians
1
28
 
 
 
Japanese
1
24
    ‘Very much a mixed bag, I fear,’ said the minister, ‘but beggars can’t be choosers, what?’
    Simon frowned. ‘Quite so, sir. What about civilians? Can’t we mobilise the fit men?’
    ‘Indeed. I have already made them fall in, so to speak. There are two categories. The first is composed of ex-soldiers and sailors whobetween them have quite a bit of experience of war. There are seventy-five of these chaps, of whom thirty-two are Japanese. The second,’ his wry smile returned, ‘are rather colourful. There are fifty of ’em and they are mainly British students at the university. I call ’em “The Carving-Knife Brigade”, because they lash these … ah … culinary objects to whatever weapons they’ve got: old rifles, shotguns, one elephant gun and so on. But they’re rarin’ to go, although,’ his faint smile broadened into a grin, ‘their experience of battle is confined to one chap who once saw the trooping of the colour in St James’s Park, London.