by Jean Chapman
It had the air of an order but one he was pleased to obey.
‘Our nurse,’ she continued in a conversational tone, giving him time only to nod rather than voice his acceptance, ‘tells me that Josef has been hiding at her house since the search for Neville was intensified and has been using it also to make contact with his Red friends.’
‘I think you can take the word of the workers that are returning to Rinsey, who think Guisan is gone for good,’ George told her.
‘But he escaped!’ Blanche protested.
‘But the men see Rinsey fortified, soldiers around and Josef Guisan as a wanted man. They’ll feel as safe here as anywhere these days, and they want to earn some money.’
Alan remembered Major Sturgess’s ominous threat that he had not finished with Guisan yet.
‘Did you see the marks on Anna’s face? That woman loved and looked after him when he was a little boy! How could he? I’ll hang for that man before I’m through here,’ Blanche vowed.
Liz looked sharply across at her mother. Alan thought he read her anxiety; how long would that be, before her mother was ‘through here’?
‘Will you go back to live in England, Blanche?’ George asked as if he too was questioning the exact meaning of the same words.
Blanche lined her knife and fork up very precisely on her plate, then straightened the fork and spoon still on the table. ‘There’s a lot still to be done here, and I suppose I mustn’t assume that Rinsey is mine. Neville could have left it to our children.’ she paused and glanced over to Liz. ‘There’s Wendy in England, and ... Liz here. Actually I’m not too sure I care what happens to me now.’
There was a few seconds’ awkward pause, a swift searching of faces, but before anyone could come up with a suitable reply, Li Kim came in to clear the plates. The silence continued as George’s cook carried in a platter of individual crème caramels and loaded baskets of fruits and nuts.
‘The men who have already arrived are eager to get back to work,’ George added as a belated postscript to their topic. ‘There are trees planted just before the war that have never been tapped — the yield should be enormous.’
‘I could organise the tappers and do the plantation bookkeeping, I’ve watched it all so often,’ Liz offered. ‘I honestly do know how it’s done.’
‘The men also want to form themselves into a kind of security force. I could set up a roster of guards.’
‘I’d appreciate that, George; in fact, I appreciate all the work you’ve done. Lending us Li Kim, but we have to ... ’ She made a brave attempt at a gesture of moving on, though her arms lifted as if weighted with lead and did not match the smile she conjured, too bright, too brittle. ‘I know when Liz came here she wanted to make her life at Rinsey — ’ Blanche looked across at her daughter, — ‘while I certainly did not, but things have changed.’ She paused and gave a short ironic, laugh, ‘For the worse, of course, but — ’ she blew a speculative smoke ring before stubbing out her quarter smoked cigarette.
‘I think we have to carry on here at Rinsey as Daddy would have wanted to do — for the time being, anyway. We’ll decide big issues later.’ Liz’s tone was controlled but then she jumped up and went round the table to put her arms around her mother.
Blanche gave her daughter a swift hug and a kiss, then rose. ‘Excuse me, George, and ... ’ she nodded to Alan. ‘Please finish your meal, Liz, all of you,’ she added and left the dining room — but striding out, head up. In the silence that followed they heard the master bedroom door firmly close.
*
The next morning very early Alan wondered if the invitation to eat with the Hammonds included breakfast. He strolled hesitantly around the corner of the bungalow, and stopped as he saw Liz near the grave.
She had on pale lime-green slacks and a matching short-sleeved blouse. The colour suited her, he thought, gave her a Peter Pan look — or perhaps standing over her father’s grave like that he should think of her as one of the ‘lost boys’.
He watched her from a distance for some time, then drew a little nearer. She still stood so quiet and contemplative that he was not sure she had heard him come. He saw there were fresh scarlet frangipani blossoms on the mound; their fragile blood-redness spilled on the soil expressing an emotional shock like another death.
‘You were right about the tree,’ she said quietly without looking up. ‘He feels right here. He loved this country and the people. Anna, he loved old Anna. Though of course she wasn’t old when we were babies ... ’ She paused as if taking breath, then went on again quickly. ‘It’ll be a good thing, Anna and her grandson being here. It’s made my mother busy again. She was busy all through the war; when Daddy was away she created and ran a market garden, did I tell you that? It’s right she should be busy again now.’
He watched her, hardly listening. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Something’s happened.’
She looked up at him then and her bottom lip looked fuller, as if she was going to cry. ‘Major Sturgess rang last night. He’s coming back in just two days’ time.’
‘Ah!’ he breathed out his understandings. He wanted to leap to her side, comfort and hold her, to be close in their mutual disappointment, but felt inhibited by the chance of being seen from the bungalow — yet why should he care now? He compromised by moving to her side and taking her hand into his discreetly while it still hung by her side.
By mutual consent they turned and walked from the garden along the path towards the wireless hut.
‘Did he say anything else?’ he asked.
‘It was George who spoke to him. George is a bit upset because the army won’t let him go “on this one”. In any case there’s some trouble at his mine, the daughter of one of his foremen has gone missing — that’s all I know.’
It was enough. A few moments ago Alan had stood with his heart lifting at the mere sight of this girl, now his time with her was curtailed, condemned to a quick end. Two days. It would be so easy for this time, this emotion, this love all to pass away without being marked. He was afraid of the curious inertia an allotted span could inflict; one could watch the feeling go like a tropical sunset, blazing, glorious, unbelievably beautiful, and be left blinking in the dark at dazzles existing only inside one’s own eyes.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
‘That we shouldn’t waste any time.’ He felt his colour rise at his own words, they sounded apt but plain and crudely put after his thoughts. ‘I mean,’ he tried to express himself more elegantly, ‘we must use every minute to get to know each other properly.’
She gave him a long, curious look, as if she was both looking at him and beyond him. ‘And to plan how to keep in touch when you do have to leave,’ she said.
They neared his hut and could hear the chopping of bamboos and the chatter of the men.
‘They’ve started rebuilding their quarters,’ she stated. ‘I didn’t realise.’
‘Came at first light to tell me,’ he confirmed, ‘the four tappers who came to the funeral … ’
She nodded. ‘The police have exonerated them of any involvement with the terrorists. They want to bring their families inside the security fencing as soon as possible.’
‘Pity they couldn’t wait another two days,’ he said ruefully as they reached the doorway of his hut and two of the tappers came by carrying the parangs they used for cutting the thick bamboos.
A third man called to the first two, who turned back and acknowledged his request for a greater quantity of wood, then smiled and nodded to Alan and Liz, friendly, deferential to Liz — and intrusive.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘we are going to have to use our initiative. What time do they all stop work and go to bed?’
‘I’ve a better idea,’ she told him. ‘You know the place to the east where George has made a concealed exit under the wire?’
He nodded but wondered if she knew quite what she did to him standing so close, looking so cool and determined, a smaller, darker, more compac
t, infinitely more lovable version of her mother, like a dryad.
‘Can you meet me there in an hour?’
He nodded, then, unable to resist her nearness, he took her arm and gently pulled her the last few paces so they were out of sight inside his hut. He pushed the door to with his foot and kissed her quickly. She had not expected the swift kiss and her mouth was slightly open, he felt her teeth under his lip.
‘I feel as if I’ve joined the Secret Seven on Children’s Hour or something,’ he whispered. Something in the ineptitude of the kiss made him feel so very young, gauche, but he delighted in her laugh.
‘Alan, I ... ’
‘I love you,’ he breathed.
‘And I love you.’
A greeting was called nearby and George Harfield answered. A moment later they were standing discreetly apart as George came to the hut door.
‘Oh, you’ve beaten me to it,’ he said to Liz, then paused and added, ‘I mean, coming to tell this young man his breakfast’s ready.’ He hooked a hand on Alan’s shoulder. ‘Look, I have to leave after breakfast, but I’ve organised a twenty-four-hour guard roster. You’ve eighteen men back now,’ he told Liz. ‘They’re fair flocking back.’ He grinned and winked before slapping the young guardsman on the shoulder. ‘You’ve got a brave chap here,’ he said, before turning and leaving them.
‘Did he see?’ Liz wondered.
‘Even if he guessed, I don’t think he would say anything to anybody else, not even to his friend Robbo. I think he’s too straightforward for that. He’d tell me off to my face if anything.’
An hour later he felt sure a court martial would be his fate if anyone did say anything about this liaison, this planned jaunt beyond the bounds of safety.
He took his rifle; if they were going out beyond the wire he was not risking being caught unarmed. He still felt uneasy about the man he had seen jumping down through the flames of the hut. He’d had the luck of the devil to escape, and Alan had an illogical fear that Josef Guisan might somehow make his way back to Rinsey. He had come before, several times, it seemed.
Alan wondered just what Liz had in mind; the waterfalls were too far for such a tryst. What they needed was somewhere secluded, safe and nearby.
He was quite out of sight of the workers and the huts as he approached the section of the wire which had been underrun by a short, reinforcement tunnel. This emergency escape route in case of out-and-out siege ran out into the undergrowth beyond the cleared area immediately beyond the perimeter wire. It was just like an escape tunnel from a prisoner-of-war camp, the only difference being that these ‘prisoners’ had voluntarily built their own compound.
‘Alan.’
The soft voice behind him made him spin sharply round. ‘You’ve gone by.’
He turned back to the small store hut which contained the bungalow end of the tunnel. ‘I was looking for you.’
‘I’m here.’ She looked solemnly up at him from where she had moved the boxes covering the trap door, raised it and was standing with her feet on the rungs of the home-made ladder leading down into the roughly wood-lined tunnel. ‘come on before I’m missed,’ she urged. ‘We won’t have too long today.’
‘Is outside the wire going to be any better than inside?’ he asked as he followed, closing the trap behind himself. ‘It could be more dangerous.’
‘And more exciting,’ she said as she switched on the small torch she carried. Bent low ahead of him she made rapid progress while he was somewhat hampered by his height and the rifle.
‘Hold on,’ he whispered. ‘I feel like Alice and this rabbit hole’s not big enough.’
‘No, I’ll be Alice,’ she hissed back at him, ‘the hair ribbons will suit me better. You can be the White Rabbit.’
‘OK’ he said in a mock-resigned tone, ‘but you know what rabbits are like.’
He bumped into her as she came to a halt, gasping with sudden laughter and for some reasons switching off the torch.
‘This is an emergency situation,’ she told him. ‘We’re not supposed to be ... giggling.’
‘I’m not,’ he said truthfully, ‘just stating fact, ma’am.’
‘Are we saving the batteries? It’s not that far, is it?’
He heard her tut. The torch was switched on again and they went another twelve paces.
Seeing solid earth in front of them, he caught her arm. They had reached the end of the escape route. Holding his rifle ready before him, he eased up the trap very carefully. Between the vegetation, sunlight seared into their darkness. He peered all around but could see nothing but soil and ferns. A real rabbit’s-eye view, he thought, but it was not the moment for more quips; he did want her to take him seriously.
When he could neither see nor hear anything untoward he pushed the trap right up and found they had emerged in a patch of thick undergrowth some fifteen yards beyond the fortifications. He could just see the high barbed wire stretched between the tall posts, the lights high on the corners and inside the long, low bungalow, quiet but embattled. He leaned down, took Liz’s hand and helped her up. Together they closed the exit and re-covered it with soil and ferns.
‘Come on, this way,’ she said. She led the way out of the undergrowth, careful not to tread down more than was essential to their passage, and quickly led him to where an overgrown but still plain path crossed their way. She turned away from the direction of her home.
He stayed her once to listen, but the busy noise of parrots and other birds in nearby trees suggested that no one had been around for some time.
They soon came in sight of a building he had not seen before. She ran up the rickety steps to the verandah and turned back to him with the air of an estate agent displaying a prize property.
‘Our old manager’s home,’ she explained. ‘No one will look for us here.’
Chapter Twelve
To Alan the place looked as if it had grown up with the vegetation, some parts even seemed supported by the trees that grew pressed right against its walls. The jungle soon claimed back its own spaces, he thought. In the same instant he remembered the terrorists who had melted from path to beluka in seconds. Bounding up to the verandah, he silently indicated she should stand aside and he would go first.
‘But ... ’ she protested.
He put his fingers to his lips and went slowly forwards, rifle at the ready.
By the time he had made his way over the creaking timbers and was inside, he was convinced that no one was hiding there nor had anyone been there very recently. He had learned from listening to Chemor that it was the smell that gave men away as much as anything. All this place smelled of was of man’s neglect and of nature’s busyness.
There was much debris blown in by the monsoon winds and rain. The dust had been piled in some corners and fanned out like raised ribs on old wood in others, and a banana palm intruded its leaves through a window frame.
A movement at another window made him lift his rifle again, but it was no more than a breeze moving the remnants of a blind in a single flap like a derogatory dismissal. It did not endear the place to him. He wondered if he wouldn’t have been prejudiced anyway because presumably the Guisan family had lived here.
He had certainly not expected such privacy. This wasn’t going to be anything like the stolen moments in a shop doorway or by a field gate, which was all most young people back home managed. If he had known Liz several years, courted her for one or two and been engaged for another, then, he felt, it would have been all right.
He glanced at her covertly, thought of his own homely mother compared with Blanche, and wondered if people of Liz’s class were more free in their lovemaking. There had always been stories of the antics of the wealthy leaked by the disgraced maid or sacked man-servant.
Not that he was sure the Hammonds were quite in that class, but he wondered if he could handle this situation, this place. At the same time he was aware that he had pushed into his pocket the rubber sheaths the army supplied before jungle patrols as a protecti
on against the ever invasive leeches.
‘Of course, it wants cleaning up.’ She kicked a few dry fern fronds away to the side of the room.
He saw her disappointment at his negative reaction to this place she had brought him to.
‘We’re not exactly going to set up house here,’ he said gently.
‘No, but if we’re to meet here just ... ’
‘For a day to two.’ He propped his rifle against the wall and went nearer to her.
‘It might not be just for a day or two. Just because John Sturgess is coming, doesn’t mean you’ll go immediately.’
‘It means ... ’ he paused, reaching for her to ease the sudden desolation in her face. She came to him quickly, clinging around his waist.
‘It means — ’ he began again.
‘Sssh! Don’t think about meanings.’
‘But ... I ... I ’ He was quite unable to express either meanings or feelings as she held him so close he felt moulded to her delightful curves. He had a vague feeling that he might be drowning for a million thoughts were trying to crowd in before he was utterly lost.
‘People don’t do this kind of thing,’ he heard himself say. ‘It should all take time.’ He had a picture of village courtship as he knew it, the self-conscious separate stroll beyond the houses, the first holding of hands, touching of arms, the kiss, the attempt of the hand towards a budding breast. Even students had intellectual discussions as they eyed each other. ‘Not so quickly,’ he added, throwing the words out like a last lifeline, and was glad none of his peers could overhear such a lame remark.
‘Things do happen like this, love at first sight. In wartime and on the films all the time.’
‘The films!’ He gave a humph of indulgent laughter, then was very serious. ‘This is real life.’
‘Very real,’ she said just as solemnly. ‘I know — and neither of us knows how long it will last.’
‘I feel as if you’re saying my lines.’ Every throb of his heart, every pulse pressure, every nerve ending, was urging him to make love to this girl.