‘Chikusho!’ exclaimed Ishikawa. ‘There isn’t a road with five miles of that place!’
‘But there’s a river,’ Mitsumoto pointed out. ‘Isn’t that close to where Lieutenant Shimada is patrolling?’
Takada got back on the radio. ‘Azure Dragon calling Black Turtle, Azure Dragon calling Black Turtle. Come in, Black Turtle… please advise of your present coordinates.’
There was a pause while Shimada checked his map and read them. Takada then relayed them to Mitsumoto, who checked them against his own map. ‘He’s half an hour away from where those men were spotted in the padi fields. Give him the coordinates.’
‘Azure Dragon to Black Turtle, please proceed to the following map reference…’ Takada relayed them to Shimada. ‘Five British soldiers and a woman spotted by a reconnaissance plane in that locality in the past quarter of an hour. Take one alive if possible…’
* * *
The forty-foot motor launch came nosing down the river, a Japanese army flag fluttering from the little mast above the open wheelhouse, a soldier with a Nambu machine gun lying prone on the roof of the trunk cabin. Clearly a civilian vessel pressed into military service, the launch had a faintly dilapidated, careworn look about it. A Japanese officer stood at the helm, and six soldiers in steel helmets sat in the stern with their backs to the gunwales.
Watching from the doorway of one of the stilt houses at the water’s edge, Torrance swore when it became obvious the launch would not bypass the kampong after all, and hastily withdrew his head. He glanced at the Malay woman behind him, her face taut with fear, her arms hugging two young children – a boy and a girl – close. Torrance raised a finger to his lips, enjoining silence.
Pressing an eye to a gap between two slats of bamboo, he saw the launch pull alongside the little wooden jetty. The officer cut the engine, and two soldiers jumped ashore, quickly looping the bow-fast and stern-fast around two posts.
The officer disembarked with the other four soldiers, leaving only the machine-gunner on the launch, keeping the stilt houses covered from the cabin roof.
The officer shouted orders. Crêpe-soled boots hammered on the boardwalk floating below the houses. Torrance could hear someone climbing to the veranda of the house he was hiding in. He backed across the room to the far wall, next to where the Malay woman cowered with her children. Which was very much putting them all in harm’s way, but there was no other exit. Torrance could not think what to do but delay the shooting as long as possible, hoping for a miracle. The bamboo strips would offer no protection against bullets. He kept the barrel of his Thompson levelled at the doorway, expecting to see a Japanese face framed in it at any moment.
When the shooting started, it came from the next house: Torrance recognised the hammer of Grant’s Bren. The Japanese who had been climbing up to the veranda of the house Torrance was hiding in at once dropped back to the boardwalk and started to cross to the next house to investigate. Torrance crawled across to the doorway. On the roof of the launch’s cabin, the machine-gunner was swivelling his Nambu towards Grant’s house. Bracing the Thompson to his shoulder, Torrance fired a couple of bursts. Red blotches appeared on the machine-gunner’s olive-green uniform, then he rolled sideways off the roof of the cabin to land in the river with a splash.
Torrance could hear the crack of Rossi and MacLeod’s Lee-Enfields, firing from behind one of the fishing boats drawn up on the shore at the far end of the village. The Japanese had all gone to ground, however. Ducking out through the low doorway, Torrance emerged on to the veranda and leaned over the railing, looking left and right. Two dead Japanese sprawled on the boardwalk in front of Grant’s house, a third had taken cover behind one of the pilings supporting the house Torrance was in. Torrance fired a burst straight down through the top of his helmet. The Japanese fell away from the piling and measured his length on the boardwalk, his face streaked with blood. An officer was climbing to the veranda in front of Grant’s house. As he peered in through the opening, the Bren chattered again. The officer slumped, his pistol falling from his fist and bouncing off the boardwalk to splash in the river.
Grant glanced across at Torrance with a quizzical expression.
‘I think that’s it,’ said Torrance. ‘I only saw eight of them.’ He crossed on to the jetty and was about to board the launch when he saw a ninth Japanese emerge from the trunk cabin. Torrance brought up his Thompson and squeezed the trigger. He fired two rounds before his magazine was empty: one tugged at the Japanese’s sleeve, the other missed altogether, and then he was fumbling in one of his utility pouches for a fresh magazine while the Japanese braced the butt of his Arisaka rifle to his shoulder and took careful aim.
MacLeod lobbed a grenade. It hit the Japanese full in the face, making him stagger, his shot going wide. He worked the bolt of his rifle, drawing a fresh bead on Torrance, and then Rossi was there, his Lee-Enfield punching a hole through the Japanese’s helmet, the Arisaka falling from his hands as blood ran from under his helmet and he slumped back against the gunwale.
Torrance threw himself flat on the jetty, waiting for MacLeod’s grenade to explode. After ten seconds that seemed like ten aeons, it became clear that whatever else was going to happen, MacLeod’s grenade was not going to explode any time soon. Torrance raised his head cautiously to peer over the gunwale and saw the grenade lying on the deck. He understood at once why it had not exploded. Climbing into the launch, he picked it up and tossed it back to MacLeod.
‘You forgot to pull the pin.’
‘Sorry,’ said MacLeod. ‘I guess I got overexcited.’
‘Never mind. It had the desired effect. If the desired effect was to save my life. And we get to capture the launch intact.’
Kerr joined Rossi and MacLeod on the jetty. ‘Where’s the doc?’ Torrance asked him.
‘A couple of the Japs were only wounded,’ explained Rossi. ‘She’s patching them up.’
‘Is she!’ Torrance drew his bayonet and threw it to Grant, who caught it deftly by the haft. ‘Tell the doc to come here, and see to those wounded Japs.’
Grant nodded and headed back to the boardwalk.
‘He’s no’ gaunae…?’ asked MacLeod.
‘Sooner or later, more Japs are gonna come looking for this launch,’ explained Torrance. ‘If they come to this village and find Japanese corpses, Japanese blood, cartridge cases, anything that might give them the least reason for suspecting the villagers helped us…’
Rossi nodded. ‘I’ll tell the village headman. What about the corpses?’
‘Bring them on board. We’ll chuck ’em in the river once we get into midstream. With any luck the current will carry them far from here before anyone finds them.’
There was a wireless in the wheelhouse. Torrance switched it on and tuned it in until he heard music: Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra playing ‘’Tain’t What You Do’. In a couple of minutes, Kerr, Rossi, Grant and MacLeod were stacking corpses in the launch’s stern to a jive rhythm.
The song came to an end. ‘Hello, Singapore,’ a Japanese man’s voice said in excellent English. ‘Penang calling. How do you like our bombing? Don’t worry, it will soon be over. You won’t hear it on the BBC, but we’ve conquered all of Malaya now except for Johore, and that will soon follow. We’ll be knocking at your door before you know it—’
Torrance could not believe the British Army was doing so badly against the Japanese. The bloody Japs, of all people! He flicked the ‘off’ switch.
‘Oi! I was listening to that!’ said Kerr. ‘They might have told us something useful.’
‘You’re not gonna believe that load of old cobblers, are you? It’s all propaganda, innit? That probably means we’ve got ’em on the run.’
Rossi finished telling the village headman to tidy up, tossed a fistful of spent cartridges into the river, cast off the mooring lines and scrambled over the gunwale.
At the helm, Torrance flicked a couple of switches and the engine purred into life. He put the helm hard over
to turn the launch before heading downstream.
‘D’you know what you’re doin’?’ asked Kerr.
‘For crying out loud, Primsie, how hard can it be? Turn the wheel left to go left and right to go right. This lever’s the accelerator, and that’s about it. It’s easier than driving a car ’cause you don’t have to worry about the clutch.’
‘Aye. No brakes either, mind.’
Rossi searched through the drawers in the binnacle and pulled out a chart. ‘Anyone know where we are?’
‘No, but I reckon this river must lead us out into the Strait of Malacca somewhere south of Port Swettenham,’ said Torrance. ‘We’ll head downstream until we reach the sea, then follow the coast down to Singapore.’
‘Anything I can do?’ asked Sheridan.
‘See if there’s a stove in the cabin,’ suggested Torrance. ‘I could murder a cuppa.’
As soon as she had gone below, Grant and MacLeod started lifting corpses between them and heaving them over the transom. Some crocodiles which had been sunning themselves on a mudflat stirred, running down to the river and arrowing through the water to where the bodies floated.
‘That’s one way to get rid of the bodies,’ chuckled Torrance.
As a crocodile sank its jaws into one of the corpses, the Japanese suddenly came back to life, thrashing about in the water and screaming, until the crocodile submerged, dragging its victim down with it. ‘Bloody hell, Titch!’ protested Torrance. ‘I thought you were going to make sure they were all dead?’
Grant looked green about the gills. ‘I thought I had!’
The sun was setting over the Malacca Strait by the time the launch crossed the bar at the mouth of the river. As the deck began to pitch on the chop of the open sea, Torrance opened up the throttle wide.
‘You might want to throttle back a little,’ suggested Rossi.
‘What for? The faster we go, the sooner we get to Singapore.’
‘Assuming we’ve got enough fuel in the tank to get us that far. I reckon we’ve got at least a couple of hundred miles to go, and I don’t know how many miles to the gallon this boat does, but I’m sure it’s just like a motor car – the faster we go, the more fuel we’ll burn up.’
‘Good point.’ Torrance throttled back to eight knots, which seemed like a reasonable cruising speed.
There were two sets of bunk beds in the cabin, so for the next six hours, they took it in turns to sleep or spell one another at the wheel; all except Kerr, who spent the voyage kneeling at the gunwale, spewing up his guts. ‘Och, ye widnae think he haled from the same country as Captain Kidd and John Paul Jones, would you?’ sighed Rossi.
It was a chill night, and a gusting wind blowing up the strait chased ragged bands of cloud across a moonless, star-studded sky. Some time after one o’clock, they spotted the lights of a settlement off the port bow.
‘Malacca,’ said Rossi, studying a chart by the light of the binnacle. ‘It must be.’
Torrance tapped the fuel gauge. ‘I don’t suppose you happened to notice if there’s any spare fuel cans on board, did you?’
‘There aren’t. Why?’
‘Judging from the rate this needle’s moving, if that’s Malacca, I don’t think we’re going to make it as far as Singapore.’
‘Bloody hell! How far can we get?’
Torrance glanced at the chart. ‘Pontian Kecil, if we’re lucky.’
‘Pontian Kecil?’ Rossi searched for it on the chart. Torrance helped him by pointing it out. ‘That’s all right. If Johore State hasn’t fallen to the Japs yet, Pontian Kecil should still be safely behind our lines.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘What’s yon light?’
Following his gaze, Torrance saw a light winking at them in the darkness astern. ‘Must be a ship signalling us.’
Rossi found a pair of binoculars and levelled them astern.
‘What’s he saying?’ asked Torrance.
‘How should I know? I’m no’ a bloody signaller.’
‘He’s telling us to heave to and prepare to be boarded,’ said Kerr.
‘You know Morse?’ Torrance asked in surprise.
‘Aye. Don’t you?’
‘No. I’m impressed. I didn’t think you were good for anything. Should we do it?’
‘Do what?’ asked Rossi.
‘Heave to.’
‘What if it’s a Jap ship?’
‘What if it’s one of ours? That could be our last chance of safety!’
‘Do you really think a Royal Navy ship is a place of safety in these waters, after what happened to the Prince of Wales and the Repulse?’
‘You make an excellent point.’ Torrance opened the throttle wide and the launch surged forward. ‘Are we leaving them behind?’
‘Difficult to say,’ said Rossi, glancing aft again.
After another ten minutes, there was no doubt in any of their minds. ‘They’re gaunae catch us, aren’t they?’ said Rossi.
‘The only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not our fuel will hold out until they’ve brought us within range of their guns,’ agreed Torrance.
‘I’m surprised we’re no’ in range of their guns already.’
‘They’re not going to waste naval shells on a little tub like this, are they? They’ll wait until we’re in range of their pom-poms and then let us have it.’
‘Do the Japanese have pom-poms?’
‘How the hell should I know? They’ve got a pistol that looks a hell of a lot like a Luger and an MG that looks a hell of a lot like a Bren. I’d be surprised if they didn’t have something that looks a hell of a lot like a pom-pom.’ Torrance consulted the chart. ‘What’s our present position?’
Rossi indicated one of the marks he had made on it.
‘What’s this town here?’ asked Torrance.
‘Batu Pahat.’
‘That’s about twelve miles away, innit? If our top speed is twelve knots, and we’ve got an hour’s worth of fuel left, that should be enough to get us to Batu Whatsit.’
‘Mebbe, mebbe not. It depends on a lot of things.’
‘Such as?’
‘Whether or not the tide’s on the ebb. If it is, the current will be against us.’
‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’
‘Aye, but it makes it more likely we’ll run out of fuel before we reach Batu Pahat. Then there’s the question of how cleanly the engine’s running, and how foul our bottom is. It all depends on how long ago the previous owner last had it scraped.’
‘I can’t speak for your bottom, Lefty, but mine’s as clean as a whistle.’
‘Aye, well, I’ll take your word for it.’ Rossi glanced at the chart again. ‘If we can reach Batu Pahat, there’s a river there. Whoever’s chasing us, I’ll bet they’ll no’ follow us across the bar.’
The next hour passed with agonising slowness. The ship chasing them continued to signal them periodically, without ever seeming to get any closer.
Torrance tapped the fuel gauge. ‘Oh, bollocks!’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Rossi
‘I don’t think we’re gonna make it to Batu Pahat. We’re running on fumes as it is.’
‘We canna be far off,’ said Rossi. ‘Maybe we’re already south of the British lines. Head for the shore and find a place where we can land.’
Torrance thought he could make out the shore perhaps half a mile to port, a band of shadow darker than the rest of the surrounding night.
Then a light as bright as day engulfed the launch, pinning it in the night like the glare of an angry god. Torrance was aware of bullets flying through the air around him, glass shattering in the wheelhouse, wood splintering.
Sixteen
Torrance spun the helm to starboard. Darkness returned as they veered out of the searchlight’s beam, but then it swung round and seized them again.
‘Titch, Jimmy, get your arses on deck, lacas!’ shouted Torrance
Grant emerged from the hatch with the Bren in his hands. MacLeo
d followed him on deck. ‘What happened?’
‘We’ve been invited to tea at Buckingham Palace,’ said Torrance. ‘What the hell d’you think happened? See what you can do to put out that searchlight.’
Rossi and Grant crouched at the transom and levelled their guns. Rossi squeezed off a round, worked the bolt of his Lee-Enfield, fired again. Grant let rip with the Bren. The searchlight continued to pinpoint them in its glare and Torrance flinched as another burst of machine-gun fire smashed through the one remaining pane of glass.
The water up ahead looked paler than the surrounding darkness. Torrance’s heart leaped: it must be shoal water, he thought, they were approaching a beach. But there were no breakers. The searchlight’s beam picked out a curtain of rain. He steered for it. He need not have bothered: moving up the strait, the rain engulfed them moments later. The torrential downpour hammered against the deck and the roof of the wheelhouse. Torrance motored the launch deeper into it, until the beam seemed to have lost its intensity, then steered a slowly arcing course to starboard. The beam still followed him, until he made a sharper turn. With the beam off them, he turned the launch’s prow away from the ship chasing them, and arced around to port again. He glanced at the fuel gauge: the needle was well into the red. Behind them, he saw the searchlight’s beam stabbing here and there through the rain in search of them, but well away from the launch’s position.
Soaked to the skin, Rossi retreated into the wheelhouse, wiping his rain-slicked face. ‘I think we’ve lost them.’
Torrance peered through the broken glass of the window. The rain reduced visibility to less than fifty yards. He checked the compass in the binnacle. They were on an easterly heading that by his reckoning would take them inshore.
Sheridan emerged from the hatch. ‘I think we may be sinking,’ he told Torrance.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Three inches of water sloshing around the cabin-sole.’
‘It never rains but it pours!’ The engine started to splutter. ‘Oh, Christ, no!’ Torrance throttled back. ‘Not now! Don’t give up on me now!’
The Name of Valour Page 18