by Eric Ambler
The officer looked at Hallett uncertainly.
Hallett said: “Maybe they brought two sticks of dynamite this time.”
The officer grinned. “Tuan, it will take more than two sticks to blow up the power station.”
Hallett chuckled, but said nothing more. He had confirmed an earlier suspicion.
He went back to his car and drove through into the Inner Zone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
KEITH WILSON, Her Britannic Majesty’s Honorary Vice-Consul in Labuanga, had been born in Shanghai. When he was eight, his parents had sent him ‘home’ to school in England. When he was eighteen, he had returned to the Far East. Most of his working life had been spent in Borneo and Malaya. He looked and, in a sense, was a typical middle-class, pipe-smoking Englishman. His wife had died in a Singapore internment camp during the war, and he had never remarried. The ruling passion of his life was cricket, and his only complaint against Labuanga was that there were not enough cricketers there to form two teams. He had a powerful radio receiver and spent much of his spare time listening to broadcast cricket commentaries on the Australian and B.B.C. short wave services. He held that the political stability of India and Pakistan owed as much to the legacy of cricket as to the existence of the British-trained Indian Civil Service. When not on the subject of cricket, he had an agreeable sense of humour. He also had the insight necessary to translate obscure Malay and Chinese jokes into meaningful English. The Halletts, who had read their Somerset Maugham, referred to him, not unaffectionately, as ‘The Taipan’.
He answered Hallett’s telephone call promptly. “I tried to get you at the Subramaniams’,” he said. “They told me you were on your way back. Are you at home now?”
“Yes.” Hallett could hear the breathing of the switchboard operator listening to their conversation, and knew that Wilson could hear it, too. “What about a drink?” he asked.
“Fine. Why don’t you come over here and enjoy the view?”
“Be with you in a couple of minutes.”
Wilson’s apartment was on the top floor of the oil company’s building and overlooked the western half of the city. That was the area in which the power station was situated. Earlier, when the firing had started, he had been able to see through his binoculars a sparkle of tracer bullets in that direction. By the time Hallett telephoned, however, the firing had almost ceased. He had switched the radio over to battery operation, and was listening to the voices on the garrison communication frequency when Hallett arrived.
“What do you make of it, Keith?” Hallett asked.
“As far as I can gather, the Faithful sent a strong force in to take over the power station, and the army got in first. The Faithful took up encircling positions. Now they’re all just sitting there. I don’t understand it. If they wanted to dynamite the place, why didn’t they use a small party and their usual hit and run tactics?”
“Why indeed?”
Wilson was lighting another candle. Something in Hallett’s voice made him look up. “Any ideas?”
“A hunch. You know the night defence plan. The moment there’s an attack alarm, the main body concentrates in the Inner Zone. No dispersal of forces. All that’s left outside is the mobile column. Where’s tat now?”
“Holding the power station.”
“Which is on the opposite side of town from the jail.”
“What about it?”
“That power station attack could be a diversion. The Faithful could be going for the jail to spring Major Sutan.”
Wilson thought for a moment. “It’s a possibility,” he said finally. “Do you think Sutan’s worth it to them?”
“He’s an important member of the Committee. Besides, if they do nothing, don’t they lose face?”
Wilson thought again. “If they did get inside that jail,” he said, “what they’d do there wouldn’t be very nice.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Once they started killing …”
“Yes. You know I tried to call our Consul in Medan earlier. I wanted him to go to the Area Commander and get Mrs. Lukey moved out of here. They wouldn’t put me through. Said the line was down.”
“I know. They gave me the same treatment. I’d made up my mind to fly over there in the morning if necessary. As it is …”
“What do we do? Call General Iskaq and request him to move troops out to the jail just in case?”
Hallett frowned. “I don’t know. Let’s think. Supposing he did take the idea seriously enough to send part of the garrison out there. Is that necessarily better for our people ? Supposing the troops were given orders to shoot all prisoners in the case of an attack. It’s happened before. Supposing someone like Major Gani decided to use them as hostages. Look at it another way. The more fighting there was, the more killing there would be after the fighting was over. After all, the jail doesn’t matter to us, only those three persons inside it.”
“I gather you’re against requesting reinforcements,” said Wilson dryly.
“I’m against hypothetical reinforcements in that hypothetical situation.”
Wilson switched the radio off. “Well, it may be hypothetical, but I must confess you have me worried. Mrs. Lukey’s a highly-strung woman. Anglo-Indian, you know. Even with your Mrs. Nilsen to help, she’s in a pretty bad state. I didn’t like leaving her there today.”
“Do you think she knows anything they want to know?”
Wilson hesitated before he said: “I’m afraid she might do.”
Ross Hallett nodded. Mrs. Lukey was a British subject and, common humanity aside, no concern of his. He thought about the Nilsens, who were his concern. To Fran he had referred to them as ‘rogue tourists’. They had been irresponsible and stupid ; more irresponsible and more stupid than the booziest oil-driller spoiling for a fight. So far, he had been able to view their predicament with a certain amount of detachment. Now it was beginning to frighten him. Men like General Iskaq and Major Gani were not easily deterred from violence by the fear of diplomatic consequences. The Nilsens could be murdered that very night, and he would be powerless except to protest and listen to polite expressions of regret.
“I’m going out to the jail,” he said. “Do you want to come with me?”
“What are we going to do?”
“Ask to see the prisoners.”
“At this time of night? They won’t let us.”
“No, but we’ll be there. It can’t do any harm and, if there is going to be trouble, it just might do some good.”
“Then we ought to put on a show. Flags on our cars, neckties, lots of protocol.”
“Whatever you say, Sir Anthony.”
They had to make a wide detour to avoid going through the Inner Zone, and approached the section in which the jail was situated from the Chinese quarter to the south of it. It was probably that which saved them. If they had been coming from the Inner Zone, they would almost certainly have been fired upon before they had had time to identify themselves.
As Hallett’s car was the more imposing, it had been agreed that he should lead the way. Skirting the Chinese quarter there was a deep drainage canal that was bridged in only two places. He was driving very slowly over the ruts and potholes of the approach road to one of the bridges, when something he saw in the headlights made him pull up quickly. He heard Wilson stopping behind him.
They were about fifty yards from the narrow earth ramp which led up to the bridge. At the foot of the ramp was an overturned cart completely blocking the way. Hallett got out of his car, Wilson joined him.
“What do you think, Keith?”
“We could probably move it out of the way between us.”
“Think we ought to try?”
“I don’t know. Does it look like an accident to you?”
“Pretty funny sort of accident.”
On one side of the road there were a few small houses, but they were in complete darkness. The only sounds were those of crickets and of the car engines idling.
“What abou
t leaving the cars here with the lights on and going a bit closer to have a look?”
“Okay.”
They walked forward into the beam of the headlights, heard the quick rustle of sandalled feet, and saw the long shadows of the men behind them flickering across the road ahead. As they swung round and stopped with their hands in the air, the men closed in.
II
It had been mid-afternoon when Voychinski had been taken away, and Greg had immediately used the opportunity to get some sleep.
It had been dark when he had wakened. Voychinski had not returned. After a while, a guard had come in with food and water. With it had been a package from Hallett containing a carton of cigarettes, two paper-backed novels, a tube of Entero-Vioforme, and a note saying that he hoped to secure further amenities the following day. The package had been opened and most of the cigarettes stolen. Greg had given one of the remaining packs to the guard, and received in return a cup of weak tea. His watch had been taken from him with the rest of his personal belongings, and he had had no means of telling the time. It had been about two hours later, it seemed, when the lights had gone out. He had thought that this must be part of the jail routine. Then, through the grille in the cell door, he had seen oil lamps being brought to light the corridor.
The cells had been left in darkness. As he could no longer read, he had gone to sleep again.
To Dorothy the power failure had brought a curious kind of relief.
Some time after nightfall, Mrs. Lukey had been brought back to the cell sobbing incoherently. It appeared that after being questioned for over two hours by Major Gani, she had been taken to another room and confronted by Captain Voychinski. Already, he had been so badly beaten by his guards that he was scarcely able to stand; then, in front of her, they had knocked him down and kicked him until he became unconscious. After that, she had been taken out and warned, meaningly, that her own interrogation would shortly be resumed. Meanwhile, she should try to remember useful facts.
Dorothy had done her best to calm her; but without success. It had been all she could do to remain calm herself. If they could beat Captain Voychinski, they could beat Greg. The American Consul had said that Greg would not be physically harmed; but how could he be sure? These horrible little madmen might do anything.
“But what do they want to know ?” she had asked. “Mr. Hallett said he was going to tell Greg to make a full statement.”
“There is another shipment already on the way.” Mrs. Lukey had hesitated. “They want to know about that.”
“Did you know about it?”
“Yes, I knew.”
“Did you tell them what they wanted?”
“I told them what was in the shipment. That is all I know. But they want the route so that they can intercept it. They said that if I did not know the route myself, I must tell them who did know.”
“What did you say?”
Mrs. Lukey raised her panic-stricken eyes to Dorothy’s. “I told them Captain Voychinski knew.”
“And does he?” Dorothy was beginning to feel sick.
“He might.” The eyes pleaded for understanding and forgiveness. “I could not help it. I had to say something or they would have beaten me.”
And then the lights had gone out, and Dorothy had no longer had to watch Mrs. Lukey’s eyes and wonder if, the next time she were questioned, she would become desperate enough to implicate Greg as well as Captain Voychinski.
There were two beds in that cell. After a while, Dorothy said: “It looks as if we’re not going to have any more light. I think we ought to try to get some sleep.”
“They will be coming for me again.”
“If you don’t listen for them, maybe they won’t.”
“I could not sleep.”
“Try.”
A few minutes later Mrs. Lukey began, in a quiet, ladylike way, to snore.
Dorothy dozed fitfully. Hours seemed to go by. She was half awake, half asleep, when she heard a sound like a huge air-filled paper bag bursting somewhere near at hand. A moment later the sound came again. This time the bed shook a little. Mrs. Lukey woke up and started to whimper,
III
Only convicted prisoners serving sentences of less than ninety days, and suspects on remand or awaiting trial, were held in Labuanga jail. It was built round two small quadrangles which were used as exercise yards; one for the male prisoners, one for the female. Separating the two quadrangles was the so-called ‘control section’. This contained the guards’ quarters, some interrogation rooms, a kitchen and the head jailer’s office. A high outer wall enclosed the whole compound. The main gates, two in-posing slabs of iron-braced teak, were opposite the control section entrance.
What Dorothy had heard were the explosions of two P.I.A.T. mortar bombs, stolen some months earlier from a British Army ordnance depot in Kuala Lumpur, and purchased from the thieves by Captain Lukey. They were fired, with some accuracy, from a projector which looked like a truncated Lewis gun, and the first one hit the junction of the gates just by the drop bar. Two of the brackets which supported it snapped, and a piece of the flying metal wounded one of the duty guards. The second bomb completed the work. The drop bar fell to the ground and one of the gates swung open. The unwounded guard was too dazed by the blast of the explosions to do more than stare as the attackers poured in. Then, as he turned and started to run, he tripped and fell to his knees. An instant later, a parang sliced down into the muscles of his neck, and he slid forward to die.
The grilles at the entrance to the control section were less imposing than the outer gates, but more efficient. A Very pistol was fired to give the P.I.A.T. crew light to aim by, but the bomb only bent and jammed the long sliding bolts. A second bomb aimed at the hinges was equally unsuccessful. By this time, too, the defenders had come to their senses. A flare was lobbed from the roof of the building on to the road, and a burst of rifle fire from behind the grille forced the P.I.A.T. crew to take cover behind the outer wall where they could do no more damage. The flare from the roof was now followed by grenades. Caught in the narrow space between the outer wall and the jail itself, the attackers began to suffer casualties.
However, they were well-trained and ably led. The surprise attack having failed, they set about blasting their way in. With the aid of smoke grenades and covering fire from across the road outside, more men were rushed through the broken outer gates. They had orders to work round the sides of the building, deal with the defenders on the roof, and then dynamite their way through from the rear.
Inside the control section, Major Gani, whose interrogation of Voychinski had been interrupted at an interesting point, was on the telephone to General Iskaq at his headquarters in the Inner Zone.
“No, sir,” he was saying, “I cannot tell you how strong the attacking force is. It is impossible to estimate. But they are well armed, with machine-guns and an anti-tank weapon of some kind. Our guards are armed with only rifles and grenades. It is imperative that you send armoured cars and troops.”
“Anti-tank weapons?”
“They burst open the main gate with two shots.”
The General hesitated. Only four of his ten obsolete armoured cars were at that moment capable of taking the road. The rest had mechanical trouble of one sort or another. Three, which were awaiting spare parts from Italy, had been out of commission for months. The thought of exposing even one of the effective cars to the fire of anti-tank weapons made his heart sink.
He put a touch of impatience into his voice. “Unless they destroy the outer wall first, they cannot use such long-range weapons against the building. The jail is of brick. Every window is barred. You have the main gate covered. Why do you need more troops?”
“These guards are not troops/’ Major Gani replied. He knew that he had made a mistake in mentioning the anti-tank weapons, and tried to regain the initiative. “I must remind you, sir,” he went on quickly, “that we are holding important prisoners here. This is an attempt to free them.”
&nb
sp; “Of course. But they will not be freed.”
“Then send troops, sir.”
“They will not be freed,” the General repeated sharply. “Better if they should all be killed.”
“You authorise me to kill those five prisoners, sir, including the American and British subjects?”
“It would be the insurgents who would be held responsible. But that will not be necessary. We will keep them. Has the white man talked yet?”
“No, sir. He …”
Somewhere overhead a grenade burst, and slabs of plaster fell down from the ceiling of the head jailer’s office from which Major Gani was speaking. As the plaster dust billowed up, he heard the General asking if they had been cut off.
He managed to croak into the mouthpiece, “Send troops,” before the dust forced him to start coughing; then, he hung up. If the General were left wondering what had happened, so much the better. The troops would be dispatched with more urgency.
He had misread the General’s thought processes. The General was a hard man to stampede. So far, only about half of the available Party men had been armed with weapons from the intercepted shipments, and they had very little ammunition. Subsequent interceptions would no doubt improve that position, but, until they did, the ‘militia’ was not effective. As far as the General was concerned, the Inner Zone plan was still in force. That meant that the garrison did not dissipate its small strength by chasing off in all directions to fight wherever the rebels chose to attack. The thrust at the power station was obviously a diversion for the attempt on the jail; but that knowledge changed nothing. The power station was difficult to defend. The jail was virtually a stronghold. Gani was an Intelligence officer, unused to battle and therefore over-anxious. His reckless demand for armoured cars showed that. He must learn that there was more to soldiering than he had realised. The experience might make him more respectful.