by Onbekend
In the sultan’s bedroom, Yashiro stared at his reflection in the mirrors on the closet doors. As always, his bright-blue eyes stared back, mocking him with their reminder of how the purity of his blood – the divine blood of the Japanese race – was contaminated by his Ainu ancestry.
A bronze art deco lamp in the form of a bathing beauty playing with a beach ball stood on the bedside cabinet. His hands still bound behind his back, Yashiro grabbed it and yanked the plug at the end of the flex from its socket. It was not easy to throw the heavy lamp with his hands bound: the only way to get any momentum was to twirl his whole body, like a Scots hammer-thrower. On the first attempt he missed the mirror altogether, and retrieving the lamp from the floor proved to be a tricky balancing act. On the second he cracked the mirror without breaking it. The frustration of the double failure filled him with anger and the anger provided enough force to ensure the mirror shattered on the third attempt; when he turned back to face it, he saw a dozen shards cascading to the carpeted floor. Crouching down, he picked up one of the shards and used it to saw through his bonds, before retrieving his dark glasses from the carpet and putting them over his eyes again.
He had not been expecting the Wren. He knew the British employed women in their armed forces – he considered it evidence of how corrupt and degenerate their civilisation had become, that they had to depend on the weaker sex – but such women were few and far between in Singapore. In fact, the only Wrens he knew of were the ones at the Royal Naval radio station at Kranji. She was probably a cipher clerk…
In which case she would know the Royal Navy’s ciphers.
And if she could be made to reveal those ciphers, the advantage it would give to Japan would make Yashiro a national hero. Let his comrades mock his blue eyes then!
The grenade had stopped giving off smoke by the time he emerged from the bedroom, and the sultry breeze blowing through the well-ventilated building had cleared the upper corridor. As he reached the top of the stairs, he heard voices in the room below, talking Japanese.
‘Shimura?’ he called down.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Yashiro. I’d be grateful if you and your men refrained from shooting me when I come down.’
‘Come down, sir. There’s no danger here.’
Several wounded men had been dragged into the reception room and Shimura’s medical corpsman was tending to them.
‘There was no one at the place where he led us.’ Shimura nodded to where Nagarkar sat with his head in his hands, perhaps having second thoughts about surrendering to the Japanese and betraying his former masters.
‘Of course not,’ said Yashiro. ‘Because they anticipated he would betray them. While he was leading you there, they were coming here to snatch the sultan.’
‘They got away with him?’
‘For now.’
‘Shouldn’t we go after them, sir?’
‘All in good time.’ Shimura turned to address Nagarkar in English. ‘How did you get across the Kranji Creek?’
‘We waded across.’
‘At what time?’
‘About eight o’clock this morning.’
‘Eight, you say?’ Shimura glanced at his watch. Like all watches in the Imperial Japanese Army, it was set to Tokyo time, which was an hour ahead of local time, so four hours had passed since the British soldiers had crossed the creek.
‘With all due respect, sir, the longer we wait, the further away those English soldiers will get with the sultan,’ said Shimura.
‘There’s no rush.’ Yashiro smiled. ‘I don’t think they’ll be crossing the creek for a few more hours.’
* * *
Shallow water lapped a few dozen yards short of where the date palms and swamp ferns ended and the mangrove trees began. ‘What the hell?’ wondered Cochrane. ‘Where did all this water come from?’
‘We must’ve taken a wrong turn,’ said Gibson.
‘I don’t think so.’ Torrance pointed to where he had left a blaze in the bark of one of the trees. ‘I done that a few hours ago. This is the way we came.’
‘Then how come it’s all flooded?’ demanded Cochrane.
‘This is a mangrove swamp,’ said Kitty. ‘Mangrove swamps flood twice a day, almost by definition.’
‘D’ye mean to tell me the Kranji Creek is tidal?’ spluttered Cochrane. ‘Oh, no!’ He started running between the bunches of gnarled, semi-submerged roots, splashing through the water. The others followed. The deeper into the mangroves they pushed, the higher the water rose. By the time they reached where the trees ended, it was up to their waists. The mangroves on the other side were just as far as they had been before, but now the mudflats had vanished and the wooden spikes sticking up out of them were submerged. It was just one smooth expanse of glassy, turgid water from one side to the other.
‘We cannae wade across that!’ wailed Cochrane.
‘Didn’t you know it was tidal?’ Kitty demanded in disbelief.
‘Mr Piggott just said we had to get here at eight, he never said nothing about no tides,’ Torrance said defensively. ‘We waded across last summer and we waded across this morning. How was we to know it was tidal? We can’t all be naval officers.’
‘Don’t let the uniform fool you, I’m not exactly a sailor,’ said Kitty. ‘But I learned about tides when I was a little girl. So this is your escape route? Across a tidal estuary that can only be crossed at low tide?’
‘How long till the next low tide?’ asked Torrance.
‘How should I know? I specialise in wireless telegraphy, not oceanography.’ Doffing her hat, Kitty ran her fingers through her dark curls. ‘Look, the tide usually comes in twice a day, right? So from one low tide to the next must be about twelve hours. What time did you cross this morning?’
‘Must’ve been about eight o’clock.’
‘Then the next low tide will be some time after eight o’clock tonight.’
‘That’s more than eight hours away!’ protested Torrance. ‘We can’t wait that long.’
‘Maybe we can swim across,’ suggested Kitty. ‘What do you think, Alex…?’ She turned to the sultan, only to find he was not there. ‘Where’s the sultan?’
‘I think we mighta left him back at the water’s edge with the Russian sheila,’ said Shapiro.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Torrance. ‘I don’t think Johnny Weissmuller and Josephine McKim need worry about any competition from those two.’
They waded back through the mangrove swamps to the water’s edge, where the sultan was entreating Irina to follow the others, without much success by the look of it. ‘It seems someone forgot to tell these geniuses that Kranji Creek is tidal,’ Kitty explained to him. ‘It’s about two hundred yards across, but I don’t think the currents are very strong. Do you think you could…?’
‘It’s been a long time since I had to swim that far,’ said the sultan. ‘I’m willing to give it a go, but…’ He gestured helplessly at Irina.
She shook her head firmly. ‘I’m terrified of water. I cannot swim a stroke.’
‘What if we cut down a branch for you to hold on to?’ suggested Quinn. ‘You wouldn’t even have to swim then, just hold on and kick your legs.’
‘I couldn’t!’
‘Then we leave her,’ said Torrance. ‘We don’t need her.’
‘I’m not going anywhere without her,’ said the sultan.
‘We can’t wait here till nightfall. Yashiro and his chums can’t be far behind. Isn’t there somewhere near here where we can get a boat?’
The sultan clapped a hand to his forehead. ‘Damn me for a fool! Why did I not think of it sooner? The people of Lubang Kotoran will lend us the use of a sampan.’
‘Lubang Kotoran? Where’s that?’
‘A couple of miles north of here, on one of the creeks that flows into the Kranji Creek.’
‘There was nothing in the plan about going to Lubang Kotoran to get a sampan,’ protested Cochrane. ‘The plan was for us to wade across the creek here.’
‘S
ometimes plans have to change, Corky,’ said Torrance.
‘I’m in command here. I decide what the plan is, and I say we wait here.’
‘Isn’t Miss Killigrew the senior officer present?’ asked the sultan.
‘The exact phrase in King’s Regs is “senior combatant officer”,’ said Gibson. ‘With all due respect to Third Officer Killigrew, I think even she would have to admit she’s no’ what ye’d call a combatant officer.’
‘Which makes me the senior officer present,’ said Cochrane.
‘Yeah, well, you blokes can stay where you are if you like,’ said Quinn. ‘But Solly and me are getting out of here.’ Shapiro nodded emphatically.
‘Like hell ye are,’ snarled Cochrane. ‘I’ll have ye both court-martialled for mutiny. Ye have to obey my orders.’
‘Listen, mate, there’s nothing in King’s Regs says we have to take orders from a sergeant who’s gone troppo.’
Cochrane squared up to him. ‘What did ye call me?’
‘You heard me: if you think it’s sensible to stay here and wait for the Japs, I say you’ve gone troppo. You’re dingbats. Off your bloody pannikin—’
Cochrane smashed a fist into Quinn’s face. The Australian fell on his backside. He was back on his feet a moment later, and would have thrown himself at the sergeant if Shapiro had not held him back by his webbing straps.
‘Let me at the Pommy bastard!’ snarled Quinn. ‘I’ll rip his bloody guts out!’
Torrance could only stand and stare. He had never seen the sergeant lose control like that. Judging from the way Cochrane had blanched, he was just as shocked. ‘Corporal Torrance!’
‘Yes, Sar’nt?’
‘I want ye to place me under arrest.’
‘Don’t be daft, Corky. Apologise to Bluey and I’m sure he’ll forget about it.’
‘I will if he lets me take a shot at him first,’ snarled Quinn. Shapiro laid a hand on his shoulder, and when Quinn glanced at him, his friend shook his head. Quinn sighed. ‘Yeah, all right.’
‘There,’ said Torrance. ‘See? No one saw a thing, Corky.’
Cochrane shook his head. ‘I struck a soldier. I want ye to place me under arrest until we get back to Tyersall Park, whereupon ye’ll turn me over to the provost sergeant and report me to the CO.’
‘Don’t be a bloody idiot, Corky. That’s a court martial offence.’
‘I’m no’ afraid to take my lumps.’
‘On your own head be it. But you can consider yourself under open arrest: we’re gonna have our work cut out for us just getting back to— Oh, you sneaky bastard, oh no you don’t!’
‘Don’t what?’ asked Rossi.
‘Don’t you see? He did that deliberately so he wouldn’t have to be in command any more. Well, you don’t get out of it that easily, Corky—’
‘Maybe it would be better if you took command, Corporal,’ said Kitty.
‘Like hell! What, you want a bloke like me to take command? A bloke who’d desert his mates, who only went back for a wounded comrade because of a couple of boat tickets he’d half-inched?’
‘No’ particularly,’ said Rossi. ‘But reet now I’d say ye’re our least worst option.’
Torrance stared at the circle of faces surrounding him. They all stared back at him expectantly. He rolled his eyes. ‘See, this is exactly why I didn’t wanna be a corporal. You accept a couple of stripes, the next thing you know, everyone’s looking at you as if you’re some kind of miracle worker who’s gonna save the day.’ He doffed his bonnet to run his fingers through his hair, and sighed. ‘Well, for Chrissakes let’s not stand here arguing any longer! Lefty, you can lead off. Bluey, you’re getaway man. Your Majesty…’ Torrance had not forgotten the sultan’s request that he address him as ‘Alex’, but he could not bring himself to do it. ‘… Third Officer Killigrew and Miss Polyakova, you three with me. The rest of you at five-yard intervals, and no talking.’
Rossi started wading through the water between the mangroves.
‘Must we go through the water?’ pleaded Irina.
‘On land we leave footprints, turn over stones and leaves, leave a trail that anyone who knows anything about fieldcraft will be able to follow,’ said Torrance.
‘But you’re leaving a trail through the water also.’ Irina indicated the turgid billows Rossi’s boots stirred up in his wake.
‘It can’t be helped. The silt will settle a lot quicker than any trail we leave on land will disappear.’
With a grimace, Irina stepped tentatively into the water. ‘How deep will it get?’
‘No higher than your waist, miss, I promise.’
They waded through the swamps, between banks of gnarled, entwined stilt roots where barnacles clustered and crabs scuttled. When the cloudy water reached Irina’s waist, she hoisted her handbag higher, taking care not to let the water ruin the leather. Then she gave a shriek.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Torrance, thinking she had had a foot bitten off at the very least.
‘Something brushed my leg!’
Torrance scowled. ‘It was probably just a fish.’
They only followed the swamp for a few hundred yards. Torrance figured that was enough to prevent Yashiro’s men from tracking them, and he did not want to get foot rot, dhobi itch or any one of half a dozen ailments you could contract from staying wet too long in a tropical climate. Once he calculated they had covered enough ground – if ‘ground’ was the right word to apply to the flooded mangroves – he caught Rossi’s attention with a low whistle. When Rossi glanced over his shoulder, Torrance pointed to his left, towards the drier ground. Rossi understood at once, and within a couple of minutes they were marching through swamp ferns beneath date palms once again.
‘Tell me, Kitty, were you one of Colonel Hamilton’s spies when we went to Phang Nga Bay last summer?’ the sultan asked Kitty.
‘Honestly? I never even heard of Colonel Hamilton before I met him on Sunday.’
‘But you admit he was the one who sent you here to try to persuade me to evacuate to Java?’
‘Since you ask, yes, I do. That’s the difference between the British government and General Tojo’s, Alex. Nowadays we try to persuade. The Taisei Yokusankai just take.’
‘Do what?’ said Torrance.
‘The Taisei Yokusankai,’ said Kitty. ‘I suppose you’d call it Japan’s Nazi Party. They’re not anti-Semites – there aren’t enough Jews in Japan to make it worth their while whipping up racial hatred against them – but they’re a pretty unsavoury bunch of thugs, nonetheless.’
The sultan held up a hand. ‘Your point is made. Allah – may He be praised and exalted! – knows, I have no cause to love the British. But I am not so naïve to suppose I will get a better deal for the people of Malaya from the Japanese.’
It might only have been a couple of miles to Lubang Kotoran, but there was no easy direct route, for their way was criss-crossed by half a dozen inlets. Sometimes they could wade across these, other times they were forced to take long detours through tangled patches of jungle. After wading though one stagnant swamp, Torrance decided they should strip off and check one another for leeches. There was no shortage of volunteers to check Irina for leeches, but she and Kitty elected to go behind some bushes to check one another in private, leaving the men to check each other.
It started to rain as the afternoon wore on, the heavy downpour characteristic of Malaya: once it started, you knew it would not stop until the small hours of the morning, and perhaps not even then. The rain drumming on the leathery fronds of the palm trees made a loud hissing noise and the curtains of rain reduced visibility to a few dozen yards. It was the warm rain of the tropics. Torrance would have preferred the cold sting of the rain of the Scottish Highlands, which had got him through many a hangover during basic training, to cut through his present exhaustion. He could hardly focus on Rossi’s figure, barely visible through the curtains of rain up ahead, as he signalled, first with his right arm stretched above his head, then clenchin
g his fist and bringing it down to his shoulder.
‘Take cover!’ hissed Torrance. ‘Everyone take cover!’
They ducked down amongst the bushes. Up ahead, Torrance saw Rossi hide behind a tree. A Malay youth in a singlet and white shorts appeared around the tree, walking straight past Rossi. The Glaswegian stepped out behind him and coughed. When the boy turned to face him, Rossi gestured with his rifle for him to precede him to where the others were crouched. Rising to his feet from behind a sago bush, Torrance levelled his Thompson, but the sultan put a hand on the barrel and gently pressed the muzzle down. ‘It’s all right, it’s Ghazali, the eldest son of one of the fishermen at Lubang Kotoran,’ he said, speaking louder than usual to make himself heard above the hiss of the rain.
Ghazali exchanged salaams with the sultan, and then the two of them were jabbering away in their own tongue, though the boy seemed to do most of the talking, gesturing back in the direction from which he had come.
‘He says there are Japanese soldiers at Lubang Kotoran,’ translated the sultan. ‘They’re expecting us.’
Thirteen
Thursday 1500 – 1800
‘How the hell did they know?’ wondered Torrance.
The sultan shrugged. ‘Ghazali says the Japanese led away all the other villagers and they’re hiding in the houses there, waiting for us. He overheard one of them say they were expecting me and the men with me to come from the north, so he managed to slip away and came to warn me they were waiting.’
‘Are there many villages on this side of Kranji Creek?’ asked Varma.
‘Ours is the only one on the creek itself, tuan,’ said Ghazali.
‘There you are, then,’ Varma told Torrance. ‘Nagarkar will have told them we crossed the creek at low tide. When they realised the incoming tide would have cut off our retreat, they simply asked themselves what they would do in our shoes. What else could we do but head for the only place where we might find a boat?’
‘Are there many boats at your village?’ Torrance asked Ghazali. ‘Boats with motors, I mean. Big enough to carry all ten of us.’