by Jack Higgins
“What was it they called him after that unpleasantness in Malaya?” de Beaumont said gently. “The Butcher of Perak?”
The glass into which Anne Grant was at that moment pouring whisky splintered sharply against the floor. She stood gazing fixedly at de Beaumont, a puzzled expression on her face, then crossed quickly to her father-in-law.
“What does he mean?”
Hamish Grant patted her hand.*You’re sure it’s the same man?”
De Beaumont shrugged. “The circumstances can hardly be coincidental, Admittedly, until today I had only seen his photograph, but it’s a distinctive face. Not the sort one forgets easily.”
“But what is it, Hamish?” Anne demanded.
De Beaumont was clearly embarrassed. “Perhaps it would be better if I went. Forgive me for having cast a shadow on what otherwise has been a truly delightful evening, but as a friend I felt that I had no choice but to tell you what I knew of this man.” *You were quite right.” Hamish Grant got to his feet. “I’m very grateful to you. We’ll see you again soon, I hope?”
“But of course.”
The General sat down again and de Beaumont and Anne moved into the hall. “I’ll get Jagbir to run you down to the jetty in the station wagon,” she said.
De Beaumont shook his head. "No need. A fine evening. The walk will do me good.”
When he raised her hand to his lips it was limp and unresponsive. He picked up his coat, opened the door and smiled. “Good night, Anne.”
“Good night, Colonel de Beaumont,” she said formally, and the door closed.
He stood on the top step, a slight smile on his face. She was annoyed because he had brought to light something discreditable in Mallory’s past and that annoyance could only be the automatic reaction of a woman already deeply involved, which was interesting.
He moved down the steps towards the main gate and Jacaud stepped out of the bushes. “What happened?”
De Beaumont shrugged. “Patience, my dear Jacaud. I have set things in motion. Now we must await developments.”
A foot crunched on gravel and Jacaud pulled him quickly into the shadows. A moment later Mallory walked by and went towards the house.
“What do we do now?” Jacaud whispered. “Return to St. Pierre?”
De Beaumont shook his head. “The night is young and interesting things have yet to happen. I think we will go down to the hotel and sample some of our good friend Owens contraband brandy. We can await developments there.”
He chuckled gently and led the way out through the gates to the narrow dirt road, white in the gloaming.
“Who was he, Hamish?” Anne said calmly. “I want to know.”
“Neil Mallory?” Hamish shrugged. “An outstanding paratroop officer. First-rate war record, decorated several times. Afterwards, Palestine, Malaya, a different kind of war. He went to Korea in “51 was wounded and captured somewhere on the Imjin. Prisoner for two years.”
“And then what?”
“From what one can make out he was the sort of man people were rather afraid of, especially his superiors. A little like Lawrence or Orde Wingate, God rest his soul. The sort of desperate eccentric who doesn’t really fit in where peacetime soldiering's concerned.”
“De Beaumont said he was a colonel? He must have been very young.”
“Probably the youngest in the army at the time. He wrote this book A New Concept of Revolutionary Warfare for the War Office in 1953. It aroused a lot of talk at the time. Most people seemed to think he’d turned Communist. Kept quoting from Mao Tse-tung's book on guerrilla warfare as if the damned thing were a bible.”
“What happened?”
“He’d been promoted lieutenant-colonel after the Korean business. They had to find him something to do so they sent him to Malaya. Things weren’t too good at that time. In some areas the Communist guerrillas virtually controlled everything. They gave Mallory command of some local troops. It wasn’t really a regiment. Not much more than a hundred men. Recruiting was bad at the time. Little stocky Malayan peasants straight out of the rice fields. I know the type.”
“Did they make good soldiers?”
“In three months they were probably the most formidable jungle troops in Malaya. Within six they’d proved themselves so efficient in the field they’d earned a nickname: "Mallory’s Tigers".”
“What happened in Perak?”
“The climax of the drama, or the tragedy, if you like, because that’s what it was. At that time Perak was rotten with Communist guerrillas, especially on the border with Thailand. The powers-that-be told Mallory to go in and clean them out once and for all.”
“And did he?”
“I think you could say that, but when he’d finished he’d earned himself a new name.”
“The Butcher of Perak?”
That’s right. A man who’d ordered the shooting of many prisoners, who had interrogated and tortured captives in custody. A man who was proved to have acted with a single-minded and quite cold-blooded ferocity.”
“And he was cashiered?”
The General shook his head. “I should imagine that would have involved others. No, they simply retired him. Gave the usual sort of story to the newspapers. Took the line that he’d never really recovered from his experiences in Chinese hands and so on. Nobody could argue with that and the whole thing simply faded away.”
She sat staring into the fire for several moments, then shook her head. “The man you describe must have been a monster, and Neil Mallory isn’t that, I’m sure.”
He stretched out a hand and covered hers. "You’re attracted to him, aren’t you?” She made no reply and he sighed. “God knows it was bound to happen. A long time since Angus went, Anne. A long, long time.”
The door opened and Jagbir appeared, Mallory at his shoulder. “Mr. Mallory is here, General.”
Hamish Grant straightened in his chair, shoulders squared, and said calmly, “Show Colonel Mallory in, Jagbir.”
Mallory paused just inside the room, his face very white in the soft light, the strange dark eyes showing nothing. “Who told you?”
“De Beaumont,” the General said. “When he was head of French Military Intelligence in Algiers in “59 they had a general file on people like you. I understand you were running guns out of Tangiers to the F.L.N. Is that correct?”
For the moment Mallory was aware only of a feeling of profound relief. That de Beaumont should recognise him from the North African days was unfortunate, but at least the front he had used in Tangiers had obviously been accepted and that was the main thing.
“Does it matter?” he said. “My past, I mean?”
“Good heavens, man, I’m not interested in what you got up to in Tangiers. It’s what happened in Perak that I want to know about.”
“And suppose I say that’s none of your damned business?”
The old man stayed surprisingly calm, but Anne moved forward and touched Mallory on the sleeve. “Please, Neil, I must know.”
Her eyes seemed very large as she gazed up at him, and he turned abruptly, crossed to the French window and went down the steps of the terrace outside.
He stood at the wall above the inlet in the desolate light of gloaming, and, below, the lights of a ship out to sea seemed very far away.
He was tired, drained of all emotion, aware out of some strange inner knowledge that whatever a man did came to nothing in the final analysis.
A step sounded on gravel behind him. When he turned, Hamish Grant and his daughter-in-law were standing at the bottom of the steps. They moved to the table, the old man lowered himself into one of the chairs and Anne Grant approached Mallory.
For a long time she stood peering at him, her face in shadow, and then she swayed forward, burying her face against his chest, and his arms went round her instinctively.
The old man was silhouetted sharply against the pale night sky and the sea, hands crossed on top of his stick, rooted into the ground like some ancient statue.
“
Right, Colonel Mallory,” he said in a voice that would brook no denial, “I’m ready when you are.”
CHAPTER NINE
THE BUTCHER OF PERAK
lieutenant gregson paced nervously up and down, smoking a cigarette, trying to look as unconcerned as the half-dozen Malay soldiers who squatted in the long grass talking quietly. At the edge of the clearing the body of a man was suspended by his ankles above the smouldering embers of a fire, the flesh peeling from his skull.
The smell was nauseating, so bad that Gregson could almost taste it. He shuddered visibly and wondered what was keeping the Colonel. He was only twenty-two, slim with good shoulders, but the face beneath the red beret was fine-drawn, the eyes set too deeply in their sockets.
He heard the sound of the Land Rover coming along the track and snapped his fingers quickly. There was no need. The soldiers had risen as one man with the easy, relaxed discipline of veterans and stood waiting. A moment later Sergeant Tewak pushed his way into the clearing, followed by the Colonel.
Mallory wore a paratrooper’s beret and a camouflaged uniform open at the neck, no badges of rank in evidence. He stood staring at the body, dark eyes brooding in that strange white face, and restlessly tapped a bamboo swagger stick against his right knee.
When he spoke his voice was calm. “When did you find him?”
“About an hour ago. I thought you might want to see him exactly as they left him.”
Mallory nodded. “Leave Sergeant Tewak in charge here. He can bring the body into Maluban in your Land Rover. You can come back with me.”
He turned abruptly into the jungle and Gregson gave the necessary orders to Tewak and followed. When he reached the Land River Mallory was already sitting behind the wheel and Gregson climbed into the passenger seat.
The Colonel drove away rapidly and Gregson lit a cigarette and said carefully, “I hope you’re not blaming yourself in any way, sir?”
Mallory shook his head. “He was a good soldier, he knew the risks he was taking. If they’d accepted him we’d have learned a hell of a lot. Probably enough to have put them out of business in the whole of Perak. But they didn’t.”
Remembering the pathetic, tortured body, the stench of burning flesh, Gregson shuddered. “They didn’t give him much of a chance, did they, sir?”
“They seldom do,” Mallory observed dryly. “There are one or two chair borne flunkeys in Singapore who could have learned something this afternoon. Unfortunately they never seem to come this far in.” He took a cigarette from his breast pocket, one hand on the wheel, and lit it. “There was a signal from H.Q. while you were away. They’re sending me a plane Friday. There’s to be an enquiry.”
Gregson turned quickly. “The Kelantang affair?”
Mallory nodded. “Apparently the papers got hold of it back home.” He slowed to negotiate a steep hill. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Gregson said angrily. “There isn’t a guerrilla left in Kelantang. The Tigers have had more success in six months than any other unit since the emergency began.”
“They don’t like my methods,” Mallory said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Neither did I, at first, but I know now that it’s the only way. If you don’t fight fire with fire you might as well pack up and go home.”
“And they won’t let us do either,” Mallory said. “Britain never likes to let go of anything. That’s my Irish father speaking and he had the best of reasons for knowing.”
The Land Rover went over a small rise as it emerged from the jungle, and beneath them, beside the river, was Maluban. There were perhaps forty or fifty thatched houses on stilts, the saw-mill and rubber warehouse on the far side of the jetty.
It was very still, the jungle brooding in that quiet period before night fell, and as Mallory took the ^Land Rover down into the village a whistle sounded shrilly and the workers started to emerge from the mill.
He braked to a halt outside his command post, a weathered, clapboard bungalow raised on concrete stilts, saluted the sentry and ran up the steps briskly. Inside, a corporal sat at a radio transmitter in one corner. He started to rise and Mallory pushed him down.
“Anything?” he asked in Malayan.
“Not since you left, sir.”
Mallory moved to the large map of the area which was pinned to one wall. He ran a finger along the course of the river. “Jack must be about there now. A good forty miles.”
Gregson nodded and indicated a small village to the southwest. “Harry should be at Trebu by nightfall. Between them they’ll have swept most of the western side of the river.”
“Without turning up a damned thing. What’s our effective strength here at the moment?”
“Including Sergeant Tewak and the six men bringing in the body, a dozen. Eight men in the sick-bay and all genuine.”
“You don’t need to tell me.” Mallory picked up his swagger stick. “Mr. Li's giving a dinner party tonight. I’ll probably be there till midnight. Call me if anything turns up.”
“Something special?”
Mallory nodded. “He’s got a journalist staying with him for a few days. A woman called Mary Hume.”
“Isn’t she the one who used to be an M.P.?”
“That’s right. One of these professional liberals who spend their time visiting the trouble spots and kicking the poor old army up the backside in print.”
“Never mind/ Gregson said. “Old Li’s food is always interesting.”
“Some consolation.” Mallory moved to the door, turned and, for almost the first time since Gregson had known him, smiled. “Friday – that’s just three days. Not much time to clean up Perak, eh?”
When he had gone Gregson went back to the map. There was a hell of a lot of country and he knew in his bones that the patrols they had out along the river were wasting their time. There were perhaps sixty Chinese guerrillas in Perak, certainly no more. And yet they were enough to terrorise an entire state, to fill the people themselves with such fear that all hopes of co-operation were impossible.
And on Friday the Colonel was to fly to Kuala Lumpur to face an enquiry that could well lead to his court-martial and disgrace. Gregson cursed softly. If only Mallory could have flown out with the news that he and his Tigers had done it again. Had destroyed the last effective guerrilla band in the north. That would have given them something to think about at H.Q.
He went into the bedroom at the rear, poured himself a drink and stood on the verandah looking across the small strip of rough grass that was the garden. A loose board creaked and he turned and saw Suwon, Mr. Li’s secretary, coming up the steps.
She was perhaps twenty and her skin had that creamy look peculiar to Eurasian women, her lips an extra fullness that gave her a faintly sensual air. Her scarlet dress was of heavy red silk, slashed on either side above the knee, and moulded her ripe figure.
He grinned crookedly and raised his glass. “Surprise, surprise. I thought you’d be at the party.”
“I will be later,” she said. “But I wanted to see you.”
“Now that’s most flattering.”
He moved close and she held a hand against his chest. “Please, Jack, this is serious. The wife of Sabal, the ferryman, has just been to see me. She’s scared out of her wits.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“They’ve been hiding a wounded terrorist at their house for three days now, under the usual threats. He was shot in that patrol clash on the other side of the river last week. His friends took him to Sabals house because of its isolation. You know where it is?”
Gregson's stomach was hollow with excitement and when he put down his glass his hand was shaking. “About half a mile upriver. So they’ve decided to hand him over?”
She shrugged. “If the man doesn’t have medical treatment soon he’ll die. Sabal is a Buddhist. He couldn’t let that happen.”
"You’ve told no one else?”
She shook her head. “I’ve no des
ire to become a target. You know how easily these things leak out. That’s why I came the back way.”
He buckled on his belt and revolver. "No one will know who tipped me off, I promise you that.”
“It’s Sabal and his family I’m really worried about.”
“No need to be. I’ll only take a couple of men with me. Make it look like a routine call.” He kissed her lightly on the mouth. “You’d better get going. They’ll be looking for you at dinner. And not a word about this to anyone. I’d like to surprise the Colonel.”
He went out through the other room and she heard his voice raised as he called to the duty corporal, A few moments later the Land Rover drove away. She stood there, a shadow slanting across her eyes like a mask. It was as if she were waiting for something. Only when the sound of the engine had finally died into the distance did she turn and walk away.
A moth fluttered despairingly beside the oil lamp and shrivelled in the heat. What was left of it fluttered to the table. Mr. Li brushed it away and reached for the decanter. It was obvious that he had European blood in him. His eyes lifted slightly at the corners, but they were shrewd and kindly, the lips beneath the straight nose well formed and full of humour.
“More brandy, Mrs. Hume?”
She was in her early forties, her greying hair cut short in the current fashion, still attractive in her simple print dress, a kashmir shawl around her shoulders against the cool of the evening.
She pushed her glass across and Mr. Li continued, “You have no idea of the pleasure it gives me to entertain a British Member of Parliament in my own home.”
“I’m afraid you’re a little out of date, Mr. Li,” she answered lightly as Suwon came in with the coffee. “I’m no longer interested in politics. Simply a working journalist on an assignment.”
“To discover for yourself the state of things in the border country?” Mr. Li smiled. “How fortunate that Colonel Malory agreed to accept my hospitality during his stay. I am sure there can be no greater authority on the troubled times through which we are passing.”