by Eric Ambler
There were even more troops there than I had imagined; over a hundred, I thought, split up into squads of about a dozen. Rough barricades had been erected at the four entrances to the square, and the squads manning them either sat on the ground smoking or lounged in nearby doorways. Between the trees on the edge of the gardens, four machine guns had been set up covering the approaches, and parked in the centre under tarpaulins were two anti-tank guns. They looked like old British two-pounders. I had always been given to understand that Sanusi’s army had no artillery of any description. Possibly two-pounders had not been reckoned as artillery; possibly the situation had changed.
The sentry was fidgeting, so I went back to the bedroom, bowing to him politely on the way.
Rosalie was still asleep. I got out some new slacks and a clean shirt and changed into them. Then, I considered another matter.
I had taken a bottle of water into the room the previous night, but most of it was now gone; and the water from the bathhouse main could not safely be drunk without boiling it first. There were bottles of drinking-water in the refrigerator; but that was in the kitchen and therefore inaccessible. And there was the matter of food. With some people fear creates a craving for food; but with most, I think, it has the opposite effect. It has with me. But I knew that, if we survived the next few hours, a moment would come when food would become really necessary. I also knew that when the men murmuring in the next room grew hungry, they would soon eat what was in the refrigerator. It would be as well to see if I could appropriate a little of it, some fruit and eggs, perhaps, before that happened.
I went to the window, beckoned the sentry over and explained what I wanted. He stared back at me resentfully. I had begun to repeat my request when, without a change of expression, he suddenly drove the muzzle of the gun he was holding straight into my stomach.
I staggered back, doubled up with pain; then one of my feet slipped on the polished wood floor of the room, and I fell forward on my knees, retching helplessly. The sentry began to shout at me. The noise woke Rosalie. She saw the sentry standing over me with his gun raised, and cried out. That brought the men in the next room out on to the terrace.
There were two of them, both officers. While I struggled to get my breath, I was dimly aware of the sentry’s voice telling them what Suparto’s orders had been. As Rosalie helped me up, one of them came into the room.
He was a squat, bow-legged, dark-complexioned man with a jagged wound scar on his neck. He looked down at me angrily.
“It is ordered you stay here,” he said.
I managed to find the breath to answer. “I only asked if I might get some food and drinking-water from the kitchen.”
“If you attempt to escape you will be shot.”
“I wasn’t attempting…” I did not trouble to finish the sentence. I could see by his eyes now that he had not understood what I had said. If I translated it into Malay, he would know that I knew, and therefore lose face. It was better to keep quiet.
He still glowered at us though, waiting for the next move.
“The soldier did not understand,” I said carefully.
He hesitated. He had got that all right and was now fumbling among his English sentences for a suitable reply. I felt Rosalie stir and gripped her arm to stop her from speaking. At last, he shrugged.
“It is ordered you stay here,” he repeated, and went out on to the terrace.
“What really happened?” Rosalie asked.
I told her. She made no comment, but I could see that she thought I had been stupid. I knew it myself, now. Because I had been able to bathe and shave, because the sentry had not prevented my going to the balustrade to look down into the square, because I had been able to change into clean clothes and feel for a few minutes like a rational European, I had made the mistake of behaving like one. As a result, I had a bad pain in the stomach; worse, I had reminded the men in the other room of our existence, which was what Suparto had expressly warned me not to do.
“We can’t go without water,” I said defensively.
“We have water. There is still some in the bottle.”
“That won’t last long.”
“I am not thirsty now.”
“But you will be later. And hungry, too.”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, there you are.”
“We shall not die of thirst or hunger,” she said.
I had no answer for that. She was not being ironical. She was merely expressing a Sundanese point of view. In lush Sunda nobody dies of thirst or hunger; only of disease or violence. There is no winter for which to prepare, no drought to fear. The harvests are not seasonal as we understand the term. Tread a seed into the warm, rich earth and shortly you will have a tree heavy with fruit. Survival is achieved not by taking thought for the future, but by manipulating as best one can the immediate present. By thinking like a European, by anticipating bodily needs instead of waiting passively for them to present themselves, I had modified unfavourably the present situation of the bodies in question.
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the smear of black grease that the gun had left on my shirt. Rosalie had moved away. Now she returned and sat down beside me. She had a box of Kleenex and a can of lighter fluid that Jebb had left on the dressing table. She began to wipe off the grease.
“It seemed a reasonable thing to do,” I said.
“These are not reasonable people.”
“I know that now.”
“Why do you think that I told you about the pemoedas who killed my father? I know these people. Mostly they are quiet and gentle. In the kampongs you will see a boy of twelve run to his mother and suck her breast when he is frightened or hurt. They smile a lot and laugh and seem happy, though they are also sad and afraid. But some are like those madmen nobody knows about, who have devils inside them waiting. And when there are guns to fire and people to kill, the devils come out. I have seen it.”
“Do you think that Major Suparto has a devil?”
“Perhaps. But he does not wish to kill you. I do not know why. But his advice was good. If they do not see you or hear you, they do not think of you, and you are safe.”
I said nothing. In the silence, the sound of the radio xylophone in the next room became distinct again. The five notes were in the form of a scale. Doh-ray-me-soh-lah. What was the name of it? The pentatonic? Ah yes. If only they would play it descending for a change; or play the Japanese National Anthem; that used the same scale. After all, it was the Japanese who had originated the signal.
It ceased abruptly. I waited for the announcement to begin again. There was a long silence. The men in the next room were no longer talking. The sentry was staring at the living-room door. Then, there was the hiss of a disc recording surface and a rendering of the Sunda battle song. This was different from the Republican National Anthem, which was a westernised song, composed, it was said, by the Dutch saxophone-player who led the Orient Hotel orchestra. The battle song was chanted by male voices to the accompaniment of drums, many small cymbals and one cumbersome string instrument that was twanged like a zither. Gedge, who was interested in such matters, said that the battle song was not really native to Sunda, but had been imported from the Spice Islands. However, in Sunda it was supposed to evoke memories of the old warrior sultans and the early struggles against the colonial powers. The reason it had not been used as a national anthem was that, even to the most sympathetic western ears, it had no identifiable melody, and a national anthem that could only be played in Sunda would, it had been felt, cause the Republic’s representatives abroad to lose face.
The noise went on for three or four minutes. During it, I glanced at the sentry on the terrace. The battle song did not seem to have evoked any patriotic emotions in him; he was busy lighting a twig-like cheroot. When the music stopped, however, he looked up expectantly.
The announcer came on and gave the station identification twice. There was another pause, then another man began to speak. He announc
ed himself as Colonel Roda, Secretary of the National Freedom Party and new Minister of Internal Security. Shortly, he said, we would hear the voice of the new Head of the State. General Sanusi, he went on, was a great patriot, a true son of Islam, who had fought against the colonial usurpers in the name of the Republic, believing that by doing so his country would be made free to follow its destiny as a political unit, and at the same time conform to the forty-two precepts of An-Nawawi. So, he had attempted to serve the Republic. But evil men had made it impossible to serve as Allah had commanded that a man should serve, with his whole heart. Questions had arisen in his mind. He had taken to his heart the first precept, which stated that actions are to be judged only in accordance with intentions. The intentions had been plainly bad. Therefore the actions were bad. He had gone further. He had examined the men at the heart of the Republic with eyes unclouded by alcohol. He had turned to An-Nawawi again for guidance and there, in the sixth precept, had been the knowledge he had sought. “Is it not a fact,” the holy man had written, “that there is in the body a clot of blood, and that if it be in good condition, the whole body is also?” Certainly! And was it not also written that if the clot of blood be in a rotten condition, so also was the whole body? Was not that clot of blood the very heart? Indeed, yes. Therefore, the heart must be purified. With other true Believers he had taken to the hills to prepare for the act of purification that had now been accomplished. As a result, a new era of peace, discipline and happiness had come to Sunda. Let all offer prayers for the author of this good fortune, Boeng General Kamarudin ben Sanusi.
There was a brief pause, a moment of rapid whispering, and then Sanusi began to speak.
He had a soft, pleasant voice which he used slowly and deliberately, as if he were none too sure of the intelligence of his audience.
He began by recalling the high hopes with which the Republic had been founded, and went on to describe the way in which the Nasjah Government had falsified those hopes. Power without Godliness had led to corruption. Corruption had led to the breakdown of the democratic machinery set up by the Constitution. Unconstitutional action had become necessary if the country were not to fall into anarchy, and become dominated, either by more powerful neighbors, or by the forces of colonialism which still threatened all the young nations of South-East Asia. And when the safety of the Republic was threatened, there was no time for legal quibbling. If your brother’s house caught fire while he was working in the fields, you did not wait until he returned so that you could ask his permission before you poured water on the flames. If a hungry leopard came looking for food in your village, you did not call a council meeting to discuss what should be done.
And so on. It was, in effect, the speech of every military dictator who seizes political power by force of arms, and seeks to justify himself.
He went on to proclaim the suspension of the authority of parliament (until such time as it was considered advisable to order new elections) and the establishment of a new People’s Army of Security (Tentara Keamanan Ra’jat), recruiting for which would begin immediately. All young men should offer their services. A delegation of the National Freedom Government was already in New York awaiting orders. Today it would be ordered to request recognition of the new Government from the United Nations. Prompt recognition would be sought also from friendly Indonesia, and from the other powers represented at the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung.
Finally, there were the carefully worded threats. The transfer of power which had taken place had been swift and complete. Inevitably, however, a few small areas remained in which, through lack of efficient communications, control was not yet fully established. Inhabitants of such areas were cautioned against giving aid to disaffected political elements, or to troops still bearing arms against the newly constituted Government of National Freedom. Reprisals would be taken against villages committing such offences against the new military ordinances, and collective fines would be imposed. All troops and police were required to signify their adherence to the new Government forthwith. Failure to do so would be interpreted as a hostile act. Terms of a political amnesty would shortly be announced, but no mercy would be shown to those whose loyalty was suspect. He concluded: “The killing of a true believer is not lawful but for one of three reasons: that he is an adulterer, an avenger of blood, or because he offends against religion by splitting the community. Remember that. But if a man shows himself faithful, then, so far as I am concerned, his life and property will be protected. His only account will be with Allah Ta’ala. Long live our glorious country!”
The battle song was played again. The men in the next room began talking excitedly. I looked at the time. It was eight o’clock. Less than twenty-four hours earlier I had been told that Sanusi was a man who did not like to take chances. Now he was the head of the state. I wondered what sort of man he really was.
There was one thing I did know. The voice of Sanusi was not the voice of the General I had heard talking to Suparto in the garden of the New Harmony Club two nights ago.
5
Ten minutes after the end of the speech there was a stir in the next room and talk ceased. In the quiet that followed, I heard Suparto’s voice out in the corridor. Then, there were footsteps and the door of the apartment closed. A moment or two later, Suparto and two other men walked out of the living room on to the terrace.
I had never seen a picture of Sanusi, but he had been described to me once and it was not hard to recognise him. In a country where maturity is reached early and the average expectation of life is low, a man of forty-eight is almost elderly and generally looks it. Sanusi did not. The close-cropped hair showing beneath his black cap was grey and his cheeks were cadaverous, but his body was lean and muscular and he moved with an alert grace that was anything but elderly. His companion, whom I took to be the sanctimonious Colonel Roda, was plump by comparison and had long black hair bulging from under his cap. I could not see his face. His uniform shirt was soaked with sweat and he was carrying a leather document case.
Suparto followed them over to the balustrade, and waited while they looked out over the city. Sanusi was smoking a cheroot, and after a moment or two he pointed with it down into the square and said something which I did not hear. There was no hint of triumph in his attitude, no suggestion that he found it pleasant to contemplate the city he had conquered; he was simply a military commander casting an eye over his defences.
Rosalie was getting worried by my standing so near to the window. The sentry could not see me because I was hidden from him by the one drawn curtain, but she was afraid that if the men further along were to turn round suddenly, I should be seen watching them. I knew that she was right and moved away.
It was as well that I did so, for almost immediately they began to move along the terrace in our direction. I saw the shadow of the sentry move as he straightened up.
“An ultimatum,” Roda was saying; “surrender of the forts within an hour on reasonable terms or total destruction. Surely, Boeng… ”
“No.” It was Sanusi’s voice and, as he spoke, the footsteps ceased. “They will surrender anyway when they are hungry enough. But if you offer them terms now and they refuse, you will have to attack. We shall certainly lose men and I cannot spare them. In any case, it does not trouble me. A few stupid gunners shut up in forts with guns they cannot point at us. Let them stay there until they starve. What is important is to find out what we have to expect from the enemy at Meja. Which way are they moving? Which of their units can we be sure of? These are the uncertainties I do not like.”
They began to move towards us again.
“We know the units loyal to you, Boeng.” This was Suparto.
“We know those who promised loyalty, but how many will commit themselves to us before the result is certain?”
“All,” said Roda.
“If we had only one plane for reconnaissance…” Sanusi began and then broke off. He was level with the bedroom window now and had seen the sentry. “Why is this m
an here? We do not need him.”
I took Rosalie’s hand.
“He is guarding two prisoners, Boeng,” said Suparto evenly. “They were in the apartment when it was requisitioned for your use.”
“Prisoners? Are they hostile?”
“No, Boeng. But it would be unwise to release them yet. Your whereabouts must remain secret at present.”
“That is true,” said Roda. “There must be no failure of security. That is Suparto’s responsibility. The enemy would be glad to talk to such people.”
“Who are they?”
“One is an Engishman. He has been the consulting engineer up at the Tangga River dam. He is a good technician and an employee of the Colombo Authority. I thought that you would wish him to be treated with consideration.”
“You said two prisoners,” put in Roda.
“The other is a woman, an Indo”-he used the slang term for Eurasian-“from the New Harmony Club.”
There was a silence. Rosalie’s hand lay absolutely still in mine.
“The apartment,” Suparto continued, “is owned by an Australian pilot. He had lent it to the Englishman. Admittedly, it is a disagreeable situation.”
“They should have been handed over to the troops for disposal,” Roda said irritably. “If…” He paused.
In the next room the telephone had begun to ring. One of the men there answered it. The call was for the General.
Sanusi turned away to go into the living room. “The matter is unimportant,” he said; “it can be considered later.”
A moment or two after, we heard him curtly answering the telephone. I looked at Rosalie. Her whole body was rigid.
“You see, now,” she whispered; “I am the danger to you.”