The Iron Tiger Read Online Free PDF

that she had purchased in a moment of weakness in Saigon. She held it against herself for a moment in the mirror, and then smiled and started to dress. When she was ready, she pulled on a white linen duster coat against the night air, wound a silk scarf around her head and went downstairs.
     
     
The Hindu night clerk dozed at his desk, but came awake at once when she touched him lightly on the shoulder. 'I want to go to the airstrip. Can you get me a tongaT
     
     
'Certainly, memsahib. Come this way.'
     
     
He took her out through the entrance and down the steps to the street. A light, two-wheeled tonga was parked at the kerb, a magnificent affair, a beautiful, high-stepping horse between the shafts, his brass har. ness gleaming in the lamplight
     
     
The driver squatted on the pavement, chatting to an old beggar, but he sprang to his feet at once and ran forward. The Hindu desk clerk handed Janet in, gave the man his destination and then moved away.
     
     
The sky was scattered with the fire of a million stars, the moon so large that it seemed unreal like a pasteboard cut-out The wind blew in through the darkness carrying the last heat of the day across the river and she breathed deeply, wondering what the night might bring, her body shaking with a strange, nervous excitement
     
     
The airstrip was half a mile outside Juma on a fiat plain beside the river. It was not an official stopping place for any of the big air-lines and had been constructed by the RAF as an emergency strip during the war.
     
     
There was one prefabricated concrete hangar still painted in the camouflage of wartime, and the plane squatted inside, the scarlet and gold of its fuselage gleaming in the light of a hurricane lamp suspended from a beam.
     
     
Drummond leaned against a trestle table beside a wall-eyed Bengali merchant named Samil, Cheung's agent in Juma, and watched two porters load the aarrow boxes into the plane.
     
     
'What's in this one?' he asked, kicking a wooden crate that carried the neatly stencilled legend Machine Parts, F. Cheung, Esq., Sadar, Sikkim.
     
     
Samil produced a bunch of keys, unfastened the padlock which secured the lid of the crate and opened it He removed a mass of cotton waste and revealed a layer of rifles, each one still coated in grease from the factory.
     
     
Drummond took one out. It was a Garrand automatic, a beautiful weapon. He examined it closely and frowned..What about this?' He indicated the legend, United States Army on the butt plate..A bit stupid, isn't it? I don't think our American friends would be amused,.
     
     
That's what they sent me this time,' Samil shrugged. 'Surplus stock always comes cheaper, you should know that'
     
     
'Somehow, I don't think Cheung is going to like it. He raised the Garrand, took an imaginary sight out of the door and stiffened suddenly as Janet Tate moved out of the shadows.
     
     
"What in the hell are you doing here?' he demanded.
     
     
Tm sorry,. she said, her face serious. 'Hamid's gone off for the night Before he left he called and told me you were out here. I thought you might like to take me to dinner or something.'
     
     
'Exactly what I intended to do.'
     
     
The two porters had stopped working and glanced at Samil uncertainly. Drummond was still holding the Garrand in both hands, close to his chest and Janet said gravely, 'Hamid said he thought you were loading motor spares.'
     
     
He put the rifle back with the others, wiped his hands clean oa a lump of cotton waste and nodded to Samil..You finish up here. Nothing to worry about, I'll handle it'
     
     
He turned, straightening his tie. 'How did you get here?'
     
     
'I came in a tonga from the hotel. I told the driver to wait.
     
     
'Shall we go, then?'
     
     
He took her arm, aware of the stiff restraint, the tilt of her chin and knew that in some way he had disappointed her. In the tonga she sat silently in her corner, as far away from htm as possible and Drummond