Directly ahead were the brown rice paddies that the Indian clerk had described. Irrigation ditches and dikes from the river’s edge made straight patterns of numerous fields, with the paddies all but blending with the swampy river bank. A number of crude pirogues were drawn up at the end of the trail they had followed from town.
The strange, empty silence was the same here as in town.
Beyond the marshes, which could only be crossed by using one of the pirogues, was a small pier and a wide, squat basha under towering teak trees. A mist rose from the paddies as the sun dipped behind the mountainside and turned everything to a vague gray, softening the edges of the scene.
“Do you think that’s the place?” Merri asked, pointing at the distant basha.
“Probably,” Durell said. “It must be Luang-shi’s.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” she asked.
“Just a moment.”
He could not define what troubled him. The scene was too quiet, as if the valley waited for something that lurked in the forest beyond the paddies. In the rice fields, men and women should have been working at this moment; but but no one was there, and Durell’s uneasiness deepened sharply.
“Do you see anything?” Merri asked.
“I wish I did.”
But there was no point in further delay. Merri got into one of the pirogues and Durell pushed it out into the marsh, using the single crude paddle to drive them forward. From down in the boat, Durell's view of the swamp and the rice fields was abruptly cut off, and he could not see farther than each successive dike as they glided silently by.
His sense of danger clamored in the back of his mind with increased persistence. Was it a trap? He looked at Merri Tarrant’s straight back, the determined poise of her head. She stared at the distant basha of Luang-shi as if determined to make Simon appear by sheer will. Durell drove in the paddle harder, and the pirogue surged ahead.
Abruptly a machine gun began hammering from the trees beyond the basha.
A man yelled in the distance, unseen, on a high sustained note that was abruptly cut off.
The machine gun’s, slugs stitched a zig-zag pattern across the surface of the marsh, spouting gouts of mud and water several feet in the air.
“Oh, God, what—” Merri began.
“Get down,” Durell snapped. He drove the crude paddle deeper into the water. “Quick!”
She turned a white face toward him, then flattened in the bottom of the pirogue. The machine gun stopped. A man yelled again. Then, as they passed a long dike between the last two rice fields, Durell saw the khaki-uniformed, helmeted troops of Nambum Ga rise and fire a ragged volley toward the teak trees behind Luang-shi’s basha. One of the men, an officer, saw their pirogue and waved and shouted something in an excited voice. Durell drove the boat on faster. They were only thirty yards from the basha now, and he could only see the tops of the trees beyond the upturned roof eaves. A man in a white suit came running out on the landing and looked toward the woods. The machine gun hammered again and the man fell into the water and disappeared.
“I thought Ingkok wasn’t going to fight,” Merri whispered.
Durell nodded grimly. “So did I.”
He risked a backward glance and saw the khaki-clad men splashing across the rice paddy toward the jungle, moving against the machine gun. A grenade exploded somewhere in the fringes of bamboo along the river’s edge. Rifle fire crackled sporadically. The next moment Durell sent the pirogue up against the dock and jumped out into the waist-deep water.
It was not the best of situations, he thought tightly. He did not know if the appearance of his pirogue had started the Lahpet Hao’s fire—the machine gun had not been aimed at them—but the fact remained that the basha where they now stood was directly between the opposing forces. He took out his gun and turned to Merri.
“Stay here. Whatever you do, don’t get out of the boat. The pier will give you some shelter.”
She nodded, her face pale. “If Simon is in there—”
“I’ll try to get him out.”
None of the enemy could be seen as he waded cautiously behind the low pier to the steps that led up to the isolated basha. He ventured a backward glance and saw that Ingkok’s men were advancing, running and crouching, along a dike that led toward the teak trees. The machine gun hammered and the men ducked and dropped, some falling into the water and remaining there. The mist over the march made visibility poor. Reaching the steps, Durell ran up and flattened himself against the woven reed wall of the house.
“Simon!” he called.
There were dim, rat-like scurryings from inside. He swore softly and called Simon’s name again. He could see nothing in the narrow slot of the opening to the basha. Somebody whispered inside, and there were more footfalls, but no one came out.
From the woods came the sudden thump-swish-whoom! of a knee mortar handled by the Lahpet Hao. The shell burst far behind them, in the most distant rice field. The concussion sent up a great fountain of mud, green vegetation and water; but it was enough to halt Ingkok’s men at the last dike.
“Simon!” he called a third time.
There was no answer. A second mortar shell landed in the rice paddies closer to Ingkok’s thin line of troopers. He wondered briefly what could have changed the Burmese’s decision to surrender without a fight to the terrorists, and then dismissed the question. There was nothing to do but go inside the basha.
He dove in abruptly, without warning. The darkness inside, in contrast to the misty evening without, seemed absolute. A man loomed up in front of him, a Chinese with terrified eyes, shouting something. Durell slammed him aside and saw a gun clatter to the floor; he kicked it away and flattened against the wall inside the doorway.
The place reeked of opium fumes, food, stale and sweaty bodies. In a moment he made out some low tables and chairs with rice bowls on them, a few couches, and a wide area of mgs and carpeting that was covered with sprawling, unconcerned bodies. A small boy chattered something to him from a comer where he crouched in fright. From outside came a third burst of mortar fire, and then the stitching of the machine gun sounded again. A fat, naked brown woman sat up from among the opium smokers on the mgs and pointed to him and smiled dreamily, her eyes out of focus, her teeth ruined by the habit of chewing betel nut. She called out to him a soft query and twitched her shoulders to make her huge breasts jiggle in invitation. There were two or three other women, too far gone in their chugged dreams to be roused by the sound of battle going on outside. But most of the clientele were native men, sprawled in various stages of escape, their dreamy eyes regarding Durell’s abrupt appearance with no trace of curiosity or real interest.
He swung back to the Chinese who had tried to intercept him in the doorway. “Luang-shi?”
The man nodded, babbled something, looked at his gun on the floor and decided to ignore it.
“I’m looking for Simon Locke. Is he here?” Durell asked.
The man did not understand English. He made negative gestures, shaking his head anxiously, pointing to the door. He was plainly frightened out of his wits. Durell scooped up his gun and walked toward a doorway in the back of the main room. The Chinese followed, saying something in a pleading voice. The naked fat woman got up on her knees and tried to block Durell’s way, her body moving obscenely while she giggled and called to him. He stepped around her and through the doorway into a back room.
“Hello, Cajun.”
Simon Locke spoke quietly from a cot against the wall in the dark cubicle. A young native girl knelt at his feet, preparing an opium pipe for him over a tiny spirit flame that burned in a bowl. Her face was expressionless as she twirled the tiny black bead over the blue flame, getting it ready for the long pipe at hand.
“Get up, Si,” Durell said. “You’re coming out with me.” “Too late for that.” Locke pointed to the girl and grinned. “She’s fixing my second.”
“Merri is outside. There’s fighting all around us.”
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p; “Merri? Fighting?”
“Can’t you hear it?” Durell snapped angrily. “Do you want me to go out and bring her in here?”
“Christ, no! Merri? What did you want to bring her here for?”
“She was worried about you—afraid you were in trouble.”
Locke grinned tightly. “And so I am, eh?”
Durell reached over and took the thin wire with its bead of opium on the end from the girl’s hand and threw it into a comer. The girl only looked at him with blank brown eyes and did not protest. A grunt came from Simon and the gaunt man sat up, ran a shaky hand through his bristly white hair.
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you, Cajun,” he whispered. “I told you I was no good. It’s all right for this part of the world, but I couldn’t very well take my habit home with me, could I?”
“You can break the habit. Get on your feet.”
Locke did not move. “It’s too late for me, Cajun. Forget it and take Merri away from here, huh?”
“I doubt if she’ll go, without you. And if we stay another five minutes, we’ll all be killed,” Durell snapped.
As if to verify his words, there came the shattering blast of a mortar shell that exploded somewhere nearby, behind the basha. The house shuddered, and dust filled the dark, gloomy air of the room. Simon Locke stared open-mouthed and clung to the cot for support.
“The Lahpet Hao?” he whispered.
“Ingkok is fighting back—but I don’t know why. He refused to do so, a couple of hours ago.”
“He’ll get clobbered,” Locke whispered. “What happened?”
“I told you, I don’t know. Come on, now, Simon.” Locke stood up gingerly, as if unsure of the solidity of the floor under foot. His thin face was promptly covered by a heavy dew of perspiration. His body trembled.
“I can’t make it.”
“You’ve got to.”
“Let me lean on you, then.”
Durell took most of the tall man’s weight on his shoulders and started for the door of the main room. Somebody ran out of the front of the basha ahead of him. It was Luang-shi, the Chinese proprietor. Durell saw the man’s small figure outlined against the jade surface of the river for a moment as he plunged out on the dock, and then the Lahpet Hao machine gun rattled and Luang-shi slipped and twisted around like a flailing rag doll and fell from the dock into the water.
The fat, naked woman among the opium smokers giggled.
Simon began to shake violently.
“We can’t go out there.”
“Do you want to leave Merri out in it alone?”
“She shouldn’t have come,” Locke groaned.
Everything was silent outside for the moment. Durell did not repeat the Chinaman’s mistake, however. He slid carefully out of the door, hugging the plaited bamboo wall, and stepped sideways to the right until he could look down the edge of the small pier to where Merri waited for them in the pirogue. Locke followed shakily behind him.
Merri’s pale face seemed to crumple when she looked up and saw them. And before Durell could shoot a warning, she stood up in the pirogue.
Instantly the machine gun slammed and chattered across the hazy water between the pier and the nearby teak woods. Splinters flew viciously from the wooden planking in a quick, spiteful spray. Merri screamed and fell from the pirogue.
Durell had no chance to stop what followed. Simon Locke gave an anguished cry and bolted out onto the pier to find her. The machine gun yammered again, but this time a grenade punctuated its sound. Locke stumbled and fell to one knee and toppled from the pier, half into the boat. Merri was all right. She stood up in the waist-deep water and cried out to him and tried to help him to his feet. Blood stained Simon’s shirt front. His face looked ghastly.
Durell slid from the basha’s steps to the water without regard for the enemy fire now, and splashed toward Locke and Merri. The sound of fighting and screaming men came from the woods, and from the tail of his eye he saw that Ingkok’s men had had sense enough not to retreat across the rice paddies with the mortar threatening them. Instead, they had chosen the safest thing to do—charge forward to close with the enemy in the woods.
“Simon—oh, God, Simon,” Merri whispered.
“Are you all right?” Durell asked her.
“Yes, I wasn’t hit. But Si—”
“Here, let’s get him into the pirogue.”
Simon was not unconscious. His wound, Durell saw, was a long bum around his ribs, but the bullet had only broken the skin along a thin strip of flesh. It looked bloodier and far uglier than it was.
“Can you sit up now?” Durell rapped.
“Sure,” Locke gasped. “Thanks, Cajun, for coming after me.”
Durell said, “I’ve got to find Eva now. Did she come this far along the way with you?”
Locke looked surprised through his pain. “Eva? I haven’t seen her at all.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Of course. What would I take her here for?”
Durell stared at him. “I didn’t know. But I had a few ideas about it. Perhaps I was wrong.” He drew a deep breath and stared at the trees. The Lahpet Hao were pulling out, still unseen, retreating up the river bank. The sound of firing rapidly diminished. Durell looked across the hazy rice paddies to the beginnings of the town beyond the marsh. He felt exhausted. “Come on, then. We’ll go back to the Circuit House.”
Half an hour later, Durell left them at the hotel. The return trip along the river’s edge and the alleys of Nambum Ga provided no obstacles, once they were beyond the marsh. Simon Locke found the strength to help himself when they got out of the pirogue, and he insisted on walking the distance back to the Circuit House. Merri was unusually quiet as she helped Durell guide Locke to their bedroom. The two armed soldiers had returned to the lobby and broke off their conversation with the Indian clerk when they entered. The clerk seemed surprised
to see them again. One of the soldiers told Durell in stilted English that Pra Ingkok wanted to see him.
“I’ll come at once,” Durell said. “I want to see him, too.” He looked at Merri and Simon. “Can you fix a bandage for Si? The clerk here can probably dig up some antiseptic you can use.”
“Yes, sir,” the clerk said. “I have some sulfa packets—” “Give them to Miss Tarrant.” Durell looked sharply at the Indian. “Has Mrs. Hartford returned?”
“No, sir.”
He turned to the two armed guards then and went out with them.
Five minutes later, Merri Tarrant closed the door to the room she shared with Eva and stared at Simon, who sat ruefully on the edge of the bed. The barren room was softened by the late afternoon shadows, and for a moment she considered lighting the kerosene vapor lamp; then she decided against it. She touched her hair, pushing the short curls off her forehead, and sighed, leaning back against the door.
“Oh, Simon, you big fool,” she whispered.
He nodded, staring at her. “I know.”
“What am I going to do with you, Simon?”
“The best thing you could do would be to forget about me, once and for all.”
“How many pipes did you really have?”
“Just one. Honestly.”
“Did you really need it, now—enough to take such a risk?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure of anything any more, pet. Listen, I had the hell scared out of me when you fell off that dock. I thought they’d hit you.”
“Not me. I’m still going to get my ticket back to Manhattan. Nothing’s going to stop that.”
“You’re right, of course. I won’t argue with you about it any more.”
“The only thing is,” she whispered slowly, “I’m not sure I want to go now.”
She began to tremble in reaction. She couldn’t help herself. The way her legs shook, she felt as if she were going to fall to the floor then and there. She put a hand over her mouth, and then to her humiliation, she felt the warm slide of tears running down her che
eks. She heard Simon say, “What? What are you saying, Merri?” But his voice seemed to come from a long distance away. Then he started up from the bed toward her, and winced at the pain the movement caused in his wound, and she told herself to control everything for just a little longer. She straightened up and walked toward the bed.
He stared at her, curiosity mingled with awe. “What’s the matter with you, Merri? I thought you were the Iron Lady herself.”
“So did I. It seems I’ve been mistaken.”
“Merri, I—”
“Shut up and let me take care of you.”
He continued to regard her with wonder as she bent over him and took off his shirt and made him he back on the big bed. Then she took the towel from the room and went into the lavatory and wet it and returned and washed the blood from his ribs. The wound did not look at all bad then. She poured the contents of the sulfa pack all over the area of skin, and then wondered about bandaging. She tore strips from the sheets at the foot of the bed and began to wind them carefully, with surprising gentleness, over the wound and Simon’s shoulder. She worked quickly and expertly, afraid she might come apart again at any moment.
“Merri?” he whispered.
“I told you, shut up.”
“Pet, I’m sorry.”
“That’s easy to say.”
“Look, if I promise—”
“I don’t ever want you to promise me anything again. Si.”
“All right.”
“I’m just stuck with you, that’s all,” she said.
“What do you mean? You’re going back to New York and—”
“When I heard that machine gun and saw you fall, when I saw you run out into its fire just because you thought I was hurt and you were crazy enough to come running to save me—well, it was like the end of the world for me.”
Assignment Burma Girl Page 13