by Jean Chapman
‘Intriguing,’ she repeated, gazing out over the verdant, burgeoning land around her home. ‘It is beautiful,’ she said as if she must confirm aloud a fact she had always known. She had spent half her lifetime in this country, and loved it as her own. Now she knew many planters felt abandoned. News from England said their plight was hardly reported in the newspapers; the Berlin airlift and the fear that America and Russia might be sliding towards war dominated the news.
She grimaced ruefully at the triple barbed-wire fences, the spotlights, each with their own unsightly batteries so that all could not be put out at once, the machine guns. Aubrey had left nothing to chance.
‘Baking, that’s the thing,’ she told herself, ‘then strip down and clean old Bertha.’ She glanced at her gun. It began to feel like the one reliable friend she had when Aubrey was away. Her houseboy was loyal enough but not bright and often when she wanted to indulge in a little cooking and thinking she employed him in the garden. She had set him to construct long lines of low attap thatched ‘cloches’ to protect her sun-shy English lettuces.
A most satisfactory cake had been turned out, almonds baked beautifully even on the top, but it was still hot when she heard Aubrey’s car coming back. She always heard the car well before the prearranged signal on the horn — long, short, long, short — which announced his safe return and was the prerequisite to the gates being opened.
She frowned as she thought the car had come on through the gates without the hooter having sounded, or had she really been so engrossed in the beautiful evenness of her almonds that she had failed to register the daily signal? The car came right up to the front of the bungalow, so she must have done.
She slipped off her apron, pulled her dress in order, fluffed up her hair, put on a smile and went to meet her darling Aubrey.
Her pace slowed as she reached the front door. The car stood just beyond the shadow of the verandah, the rainstorm so lately stopped that the sun was striking brilliant prisms of colour, blue, red, orange, yellow, on the car’s armour. She could see no one inside and glanced round, looking back to where the guards were closing the gates. Two of them seemed to be having words, arguing. Had Aubrey gone back to see what was wrong?
Then one of the men seemed to make a decision and lifted an arm to her. Even from a distance she thought he looked alarmed. Something was wrong. Where the hell was Aubrey? And there was something about their car ... something hanging from under the door.
Her heart bounded to her throat as she recognised the strip of material hanging from the passenger-side door. She had bought that blue and beige striped shirt in Airey & Wheeler’s, Piccadilly.
She turned away and was heading for Bertha as, with a sudden explosion of action and firing, all the doors of the car were thrown open. The impact of the bullets lifted and span her round. As she fell she saw Aubrey’s head and shoulders sagging from the passenger seat.
Five or six men spilled out of the car, two treading over Aubrey’s body. One made for Bertha and cut down the Kose guards as they scattered in curious slow motion with legs turned to lead as they realised their mistake.
‘Damn!’ The word formed on Joan’s lips but was never spoken.
*
As Heng Hou and his men raided the bungalow, Josef shot his way back out of the gates. He was well aware that if he was going to escape with his life he needed to do it before Heng Hou realised he had been duped. He privately thought that his mother and sister had wandered into the jungle and got lost and would probably have perished by this time. If they had found a road, though, they would undoubtedly be taken back to Rinsey; it was all his mother ever seemed to crave.
Heng Hou saw his men wrench the machine gun from its stand. Bursting into the house, he grabbed a pile of hand grenades which were arranged like fruit on a glass stand near the door. He swept the bowl to the floor, then kicked it furiously when it did not break. The cut glass rang with a clear, true note as it rebounded from the wall and rolled back toward Heng. He stepped back and shot it to smithereens.
He went through the house like an angry demon, as if furious with everything that dwelt inside, every piece of furniture, every ornament carefully chosen and placed. If he did not want it he broke it.
‘The girl! The girl!’ he screamed when they had turned over every room. ‘Bring Josef to me!’ He turned on his henchmen who stepped back a pace, pockets bulging with trinkets. Heng Hou repeated the demand and stamped his foot. ‘Search outside.’
The two in the room fell over each other in their haste to be outside. Heng sneered, then picked up the cake from the cooling tray and broke it in half, pushing it into his mouth, spitting the browner almonds to the floor.
He was plundering the kitchen cupboards when the bravest of his men came back. The square-built Chinese did not report the escape of the garden boy, just that there was no sign of Josef.
‘You want us go search outside?’
Heng Hou considered that it was dangerous to linger too long in an area they had attacked; anyway, he knew where Josef would go sooner or later. All the man could ever think of was the plantation where his father had been manager. ‘No,’ he added, ‘we’ll just go wait for him near Rinsey.’
The square Chinese face split into a grin of appreciation.
When they were ready to leave, they fired the bungalow. They dragged the Englishman clear of the car and threw him by his dead wife. ‘Long dogs!’ Heng Hou growled, then laughed at the sight of these two, tall in life, long in death. His henchmen laughed too, more outrageously than their leader, and one lifted Aubrey’s arm and placed it around Joan, because they were all terrified of falling foul of Heng Hou.
The next second their leader’s face fell into its usual lines of discontent and he gestured them back into the car before the smoke from the bungalow grew large and aroused suspicion. He poked the driver, indicating the direction towards Rinsey.
Heng Hou pondered with all the hungry sagacity of the greedy predator. Josef had nowhere to go but back to his old home. No home for him in the jungle, no home for him in the towns. Heng Hou had already made sure Josef was a marked man, for he had not trusted him for a long time.
He growled under his breath again. The fact that the man had slipped away from a raid he was personally in charge of was another reason for the unrelenting hunt he would initiate.
*
‘Mem and Tuan Wildon not come yet,’ Anna commented as she added a bowl of floating fragrant frangipangi blossoms to the long-prepared dining table.
‘I’m hoping they’ll arrive before any of the army. Think I may need some moral support.’ Blanche paused, watching as Anna went on making tiny adjustments to the mats and cutlery. ‘What do I say, Anna?’
‘You say,’ Anna said with great emphasis, ‘little as possible.’
‘In case it incriminates me,’ Blanche agreed.
‘In case gets you in trouble.’ Anna nodded vehemently. ‘You no see go, no know where gone. Just gone!’
‘I’m sure you’re right. I just wish Joan would come first so I could unburden my soul by telling the truth first.’
‘You like baby need comforter.’ Anna pretended to suck her thumb. ‘You eat, feel better. Friends not mind.’
‘No, I’ll wait. I’m just so worried about the girls.’ Next moment she swore as they heard vehicles approaching and then Chemor’s loud, harsh challenge.
‘Even the British army doesn’t get by George’s man,’ she commented.
She went to the front door to meet Sturgess. She saw there was a team of men plus a Dyak tracker. Sturgess came towards her with a slightly smaller man, who managed to look dapper even in army jungle issue. ‘Dr James Wright, Mrs Blanche Hammond.’ As the two shook hands, Sturgess announced, ‘We’re going to make a start today, get straight off. The girls will know where their Sakai is, I suppose.’
There was a pause as he registered the expression on Blanche’s face. The last time either she or Anna had seen the girls was about nine o’clock the
night before, she told him, and neither of them had actually seen the Sakai at all.
‘You mean you’ve let your daughter go off into the jungle? Why, I ... I can hardly believe such — ’
‘Such what?’ Blanche prompted, her natural assertiveness at last coming to her aid, overwhelming the guilt.
He was going to say ‘such carelessness’ and that was really what he felt, such casual disregard for Elizabeth’s safety. He substituted ‘foolhardiness’.
‘Lis is enamoured of this young man. One tends to go halfway round the world for that kind of foolhardiness.’
‘She thinks she is ... ’ Sturgess could not bring himself to say the word. ‘Whereas I know it has to be just calf-love, moonstruck calf-love.’
‘You know! How would you know?’ Blanche was at once astonished and furious. ‘I presume you will allow that I know more about my daughter than a comparative stranger.’
‘We all know more about Elizabeth than strangers do,’ he agreed.
‘Do we indeed! I had assumed I knew more about my daughter than you did.’ She was furious to have got herself into such a stupid argument and astonished to see that he did not realise she meant he was the stranger. ‘Unless there is something I am not aware of?’
He frowned. ‘Well, no ... not at all.’
‘I can assure you my daughter is for better or worse in love with this young guardsman, and I have no doubt she is at this moment fighting her way through whatever jungle hazards lie between her and him. I am not saying I wouldn’t be happier if you, the doctor here and all your men were with her. I am saying I understand the feelings that made her take off secretly, without waiting for you.’
The doctor nodded agreement. ‘You have daughters?’ she asked.
‘And sons,’ he replied, his eyes twinkling.
‘Behave like dogs when a bitch is on heat sometimes, I guess,’ she said, watching to see how much the remark chosen to shock Sturgess succeeded. It obviously staggered his sensibilities, whereas the doctor gave a great hoot of laughter at the unexpected comment, but did not risk an answer.
‘They are at least half a day’s travel ahead of you,’ she stated pointedly, ‘though I see you have a tracker.’
‘The girl’s gone too, I suppose, Lee Guisan?’
‘Your witness is with my daughter. That is my consolation, that and the knowledge the Sakais have of the jungle in all its moods’. She paused as thunder again echoed around the nearby hills. ‘Lee and Liz are closer than most sisters.’
‘They haven’t seen or had contact with each other for years,’ Sturgess commented.
‘The deep bond was immediately renewed, I assure you,’ Blanche replied coldly to the sardonic remark.
Sturgess did not speak again but marched outside.
‘Makes me feel he’s never without a mental cane to slap in the palm of his hand,’ the doctor commented ruefully, watching him go. ‘But he’s a good officer, perhaps because of that.’
Blanche pushed a long and mild gin sling into the doctor’s hand, then stood by his side to observe Sturgess instructing his Dyak tracker. ‘Someone’s drilled all the humanity out of him.’ She shook her head sadly. He looked as if he was drilling a troop of men at the Guards Depot at Caterham Barracks. The Dyak obviously felt much the same for he gave a fair imitation of a good Guards’ salute, longest way up, shortest way down. Although they had issued the tribesman with army shorts and shirt, his blowpipe and quiver made the ritual ludicrous.
‘The modern army,’ the doctor quipped, adding ‘Cheers!’ as he downed his drink and promised to keep a good lookout for both the girl and the young man.
The major came back some minutes later and it seemed to Blanche there was some kind of petulant satisfaction in his voice as he said, ‘It will all take longer now, of course.’
The doctor was beginning to show less and less liking for his officer’s company. ‘Shall I go and tell the men to stand by?’
Sturgess nodded brusquely. ‘Right!’
Left alone, they avoided each other’s eyes in an uneasy silence. ‘Can I offer you a quick drink? Or tea, or whatever?’ Blanche asked formally.
He shook his head.
‘To say the least, I sense your disapproval, but you know one can’t order affections — least of all one’s daughter’s.’
‘But you could curtail her actions.’
Good God! she thought. Won’t the man let it drop? She turned so she faced him squarely and saw disappointment on his face. My God! He wants Liz. He wants to — what did he say? — curtail her actions!
‘Well, yes,’ she began her answer in very measured tones, ‘all parents can do that, I suppose.’ There was something in this man that made her again want to shock him off his godlike male pedestal and she went on, ‘And many husbands, too, try it on, I suspect. But love is a bit of a vagrant. It doesn’t take kindly to rules and boundaries.’
‘As a child I was told that rules and discipline were all that stopped children growing into rampant weeds, the bad growing over and smothering the good.’
‘And where did love come in?’ Blanche asked so softly she was not sure he would hear, for now she began to feel sorry for this man. She could imagine the lovelessness of his upbringing. Probably started with a nanny. Nannies if they were good were very, very good, but if they were bad they truly were horrid. Then public school, Sandhurst probably, the army.
Sturgess felt like being honest and admitting love had not come often into his life — but owning up to being less than in total control of all areas was something he was trained not to do. A wife would complete the world’s picture of what a man should be; the career, the home, the wife and family. That was the role he saw for Liz.
‘Love doesn’t win wars,’ he said, ‘and this one’s not over — and as far as we know there may no longer be another contender.’
‘I don’t think,’ Blanche said slowly, thinking that she was at last seeing him as clearly as Liz did, ‘that will make much difference to your chances.’
‘That is your opinion. I hope in the near future to have the pleasure of making you change it.’
She took a moment to remember that this man was going out to try to find and bring back Liz. She hoped he did not think it entitled him to lay some kind of claim on her. She had to frame her words very carefully, she decided.
Her pause gave John Sturgess the chance to smile and bow and for them both to register the sound of yet another vehicle coming to the gates.
‘No one else is due,’ Sturgess commented.
‘I’m expecting someone,’ Blanche said, following as he walked out and adding under her breath, ‘and it is my house.’ But it was a police jeep that had arrived.
Inspector Aba shook hands with John Sturgess and bowed to Blanche. ‘I have bad news,’ he began, ‘I think we should go inside and sit down.’
‘My daughter Liz?’
‘No, no.’
‘Lee Guisan?’
‘No.’
‘Who then, or what then?’
As they reached the verandah chairs, Inspector Aba signalled for Anna to come forward as if she were a waitress in a restaurant. ‘A drink for mem,’ he said, and turned back to Blanche. ‘I have just come from the Kose estate ... ’ he began.
‘Joan?’ An awful fear swept over Blanche, her friend so late. ‘Joan?’ she repeated.
‘I am sorry, Mrs Hammond. Both Mr and Mrs Wildon have been killed, shot dead, very quick, and the bungalow fired.’
‘Christ!’ she murmured like a paternoster, waving away the drink the inspector took from Anna and pressed upon her.
‘Mrs Hammond, Blanche ... ’ John Sturgess came forward. ‘I’m so — ’
‘Go and save my daughter,’ Blanche interrupted.
Chapter Twenty-One
The strange world was sometimes light but mostly dark, with unintelligible sounds, sometimes like language, sometimes like the wind or the waterfall. Alan strained to keep the sound of water, it seemed to mean much m
ore than anything else, and yet the effort made him weary.
Light or sound, never both together, came in flashes as if his brain had loose connections which occasionally sparked across a void.
Then he was vaguely aware of slipping away from the rim of consciousness, sliding away with a vague feeling of unease as if it was something he should not do, a kind of self-indulgence.
Pa Kasut boiled roots in great hollowed bamboo stalks and told his women they must keep the soldier’s lips and mouth moist with the solution all the time. Then he looked above the high peaks and saw the signs of a great wind bringing the greatest rains. He sent his son Bras to look for Sardin and the soldier’s woman to bring them quickly to the hill camp.
At first light on the third day Sardin drew the girls’ attention to the man coming beaming towards his fellow, teeth shining momentarily white even through the sheeting monsoon. Standing exhausted, soaked, heart labouring, Liz realised that the storm worried this man about as much as rush-hour traffic bothered a Londoner. The two Sakais shouted to each other above the din of the rain, just as two Cockneys might shout across Oxford Street at sale time.
She watched the new man come nearer and just wanted the whole experience over. If Alan was dead, she too wanted to be dead — and that moment felt like a reasonable time to want to go, while she felt so absolutely awful in mind and body. Poor Lee, now making the journey for the second time, was slumped to the ground. Every time they stopped, Lee, fast reaching breaking point, her legs buckling under her, just fell on the spot. Liz knew her friend laboured on only for her sake, and she only for Alan, for the hope that he was still alive.
Then, as her pounding heart managed to push more blood over her brain, she realised that the arrival of another Sakai who had obviously come to meet them might mean they were near the end of their journey.