She turned her face skywards. The droplets stirred the sleeping Lady Marjorie. Even the baby pursed her lips and sucked it in.
Genda had fallen asleep at the oars, and although the raindrops pelted his bare shoulders, he did not stir.
The smell of gasoline drifted up from what remained of the water. She looked at Genda, opened her mouth to ask his opinion. The rain turned heavier, the clouds darker.
Nadine took the initiative. What was left of the stinking water sullied the rising sea with a slick of blue, red and peacock green.
She tipped the drum upright again and let the rain thud in.
Genda slowly raised his head, tendrils of black hair sticking to his face as he blinked away his sleepiness.
‘It’s raining,’ Nadine shouted excitedly. She tilted her head backwards and opened her mouth, swallowing each droplet that landed on her tongue.
Suddenly, as is the way of tropical storms, the heavy downpour subsided.
Genda got to his feet and peered into the drum. Delight turned to disappointment. ‘It’s almost empty.’
‘It tasted…’
She didn’t finish what she was going to say, about the taste, the stink of the water.
He guessed what she’d done. The veins in his neck stood out like twigs. All the strain of the last few days exploded.
‘You stupid woman!’
Marjorie startled awake. The baby began to yell.
‘I thought it would go on raining,’ she shouted back.
‘Well, it hasn’t!’ Genda shook the drum. ‘There’s barely a cupful in there!’
‘I didn’t know it would stop, and what was left there tasted so awful.’
Now he shook her. ‘Do you realize what this means? Do you? Do you?’
Marjorie interrupted. ‘Stop being so silly. What’s done is done. I think you should take a look at this child. I believe it’s not very well.’
Marjorie’s tone was as it had been back in the camp, commanding but sensible.
Whilst Nadine felt Shanti’s hot little body, Genda stood in the bow of the boat, staring at the misted islands. So far they had avoided landing to replenish their stocks. They were too close to Sumatra and the places they knew had been conquered. ‘Better to push on,’ Genda said. ‘That water has to last us as long as possible, so go easy on it.’
They had gone easy, drinking right down to the stagnant, oily base.
He looked up to where the clouds had earlier formed a thunderhead. It had vanished as quickly as it had formed. The air had cleared and the first burning rays were torching the ocean.
‘We have no choice now. We have to go ashore. We need water.’
He frowned as he eyed the nearest island. Even if the Japanese were not in residence, the islanders might not be loyal to the Allied cause.
He looked at Nadine. She did not return his look but gazed into the distance, the sleeping baby making funny little snuffling sounds against her breast.
Marjorie’s pale eyes regarded him calmly. ‘What’s done is done. We always think it’s for the best at the time. Fresh water not tasting of engines would have made a nice change. It was God who turned off the tap – the faucet as you Americans say – not Nadine.’
Somehow he wanted to still feel angry, but he couldn’t. Suddenly he could see the funny side.
‘I have heard people praying for God to release them from prison, pain and dying. I have never heard Him being referred to as though He was a plumber.’ He did say it, but he was also touched that Lady Marjorie had referred to him as an American.
‘It shines through,’ she said in her matter-of-fact way. ‘You decided what was right and did it regardless of family or tradition.’
Worries about how he would explain himself if they got picked up by the Allies had crept into Genda’s mind the moment he’d untied Nadine from that stake. They’d diminished now and so had his anger at Nadine tipping the remaining water into the sea. The island and fresh water lay ahead.
Chapter Thirty
The black pumice of a long-forgotten eruption formed a crescent of breakwater between the thundering waves and the deep turquoise of a calm lagoon.
Native huts built on stilts and above the reach of snakes and sea huddled like parcels at one corner.
Men working along the waterline looked up from mending nets and repairing fishing canoes. The canoes had high prows and wide bellies. Waves rippled gently around them before spilling onto the beach.
‘Leave the talking to me,’ Genda whispered. ‘I know a little Malay – enough to get by, anyway.’
He stood tensely in the bows of the boat readying his words, his eyes fixed on the shore. He’d taken the precaution of wearing coolie clothes in the hope that he would be taken as a native, not Japanese.
Nadine rowed, visions of fresh water and food giving her the strength to go on.
A flurry of action and excitement broke out among those hammering new bits of timber onto boats. Once they’d taken in what they were seeing, they ran shouting into the sea, some brandishing the hammers they’d been working with.
Strong hands calloused by hard work clung to the bow, fingers graduating along the side.
The boat began to rock wildly from side to side. The baby began to cry.
‘Listen,’ Genda shouted in Malay. He was drowned in angry shouts.
The boat steadied, then rocked again, though only slightly. The baby cradled in her arms, Lady Marjorie stood up. Her shadow seemed almost as long as the mast.
‘Salamut!’ Her commanding voice carried above them all. Once all faces were turned to her, she spoke to them in fluent Malay. ‘I pray thee be kind to us. We are weary women without our tuans who have been killed by the Japanese. This man, although he is of enemy blood, has helped us escape. I beg thee be merciful to him and leave him to our care. He has been of much use to us and will be of more use still.’
An older man, his wrinkled face betraying his great years, walked into the surf. He addressed Lady Marjorie.
‘We do not want his kind here. One will be followed by others.’
Marjorie handed the baby to a surprised-looking Genda and stepped off the boat. The water reached her waist and although she struggled for breath she succeeded in reaching the village headman. She bowed respectfully.
‘Honoured tuan, we are but two women caught up in a conflict we had no part in. We desperately need water and a little food – coconuts would be nice – rice wrapped in palm leaves would last us quite a while.’
He eyed her cagily. ‘Can you pay for this?’
She bowed respectfully, even more deeply than before. ‘The Japanese took all we had. They are thieves and scoundrels as thee, tuan, must know well. We have nothing left but our determination. All we can do is beg that you treat us mercifully.’
The headman’s eyes narrowed as he looked beyond her to where Genda was holding the baby.
‘We do not want this man here.’
‘We can leave him on the boat with the baby,’ Lady Marjorie offered.
She overdid the usual formalities and bowed again. ‘If you will allow two humble women to come ashore.’
The headman nodded thoughtfully, turned and regained the sand. The other men waded after him before they all huddled in a group on the shore.
Nadine was amazed. ‘You know Malayan?’
Marjorie looked over her shoulder at them both and winked. ‘Lucky my husband was military attaché in Singapore for ten years. He worked hard. You don’t get knighted for no reason, you know. I had to find something to do with my time.’
Lucky indeed. The headman gave permission for all of them to come ashore, even Genda. The women were allowed to wander the village, gather coconuts and pick fruit. They also washed and changed, the village women generously donating clean sarongs. They washed their old clothes with a particular leaf that produced a soapy lather, the dark-eyed women proudly giving of their knowledge. The wash house was the women’s place. The men stayed at a distance.
; Genda had less freedom and wherever he went two men followed a few paces behind. He ignored their presence, preferring to concentrate on scrubbing the oil drum prior to it being filled with clean water. Fresh fruit, vegetables and packs of cooked rice and dried fish were stored at the stern of their tiny craft.
They stayed there for one day and one night.
‘This is heaven,’ said Lady Marjorie, relishing the luxury of lying fully stretched on the warm sand. ‘My limbs are just too long for that little boat.’
What she said was quite true. With the exception of the baby, none of them had ever been able to lie at full stretch.
Shanti still cried a lot and Nadine was getting worried.
Nadine jiggled her up and down in her arms, washed the hot little body with fresh water and fed her coconut milk. Nothing seemed to placate her for long.
Holding Shanti against her shoulder she walked along the beach to where the black pumice pointed like a huge finger into the sea.
The sun was a blood orange, staining the water with its dying rays. Tomorrow they would have to leave. The headman had insisted. But she didn’t want to go. Crossing the sea was a daunting task. They’d all talked about how they might break the journey up; hopping from one island to another once they were sure it was safe. The unspoken truth was that none of the islands were likely to be safe. If the Japanese weren’t in residence, the islanders themselves, wary of strangers, might chase them away.
The sun was still hot on her face and arms, but a cool breeze blew and the surf pounded the shore.
‘Paradise.’
Somehow she’d known he was following her so was not startled by the sound of Genda’s voice.
He stood next to her, watching the sun go down.
‘And what is the Honourable Nadine Burton thinking?’
She sighed. ‘I wish we didn’t have to leave.’
‘I know.’
‘I wish there wasn’t any war out there.’
‘But there is.’
They fell to silence.
Nadine thought of Genda’s reaction to Lady Marjorie referring to him as American.
‘Will you ever go back to Japan?’
‘I don’t think I can. In the eyes of my relatives I have dishonoured my family.’
‘Wouldn’t they want to make it up?’
‘No. They would want me to commit seppuku.’
She was frowning when she turned round. ‘What is that?’
‘Ritual suicide. Like the Romans, they would prefer me to fall on my sword. Though some might say I’ve already done that. I have chosen sides, though I’m not too sure either would fully accept me.’
‘You rescued me. That might have some bearing on their attitude.’
He smiled at her. They were the same height, had the same dark hair. The eyes were different in shape, the colours similar.
‘I’ll remember this time and this place,’ she said, turning back to the view.
‘I too appreciate beauty.’
She smiled. ‘You’re looking at me and to be quite honest I look a mess.’
He smiled, sighed and leaned back beside her.
They walked a little further, finally sitting down with their backs against the rocks, their feet dangling in the sea. The rising spray fell over them. Even Shanti’s breath seemed taken away. The child slept.
‘She feels cooler,’ she said hopefully. ‘Perhaps she’ll get better out here. The camp was no good for her.’
‘The camp was a bad place – most of the time.’ Suddenly he began to laugh.
She eyed him with a quizzical smile on her lips and waited for him to explain.
‘I was thinking,’ he said. ‘I was remembering that time when you pretended to faint and were given water and a seat in the shade.’
She raised her eyebrows in mock indignation. ‘How did you know I was pretending?’
He grinned. ‘I used to do the same when I was a boy. My brother was a bully and bigger and stronger than me. He loved swimming and would challenge me to race to a certain rock about a mile off the beach. He would always get there first, because he cheated, starting before me. Then one day I pretended to drown. A terrible thing to do. I shouted and waved my arms, then slid beneath the surface. By the time he got back to where I’d been panicking, I was already swimming underwater towards the rock.’
‘And you won?’
‘Of course.’
‘What happened to your bullying brother?’
A more melancholy look replaced his cheerfulness. ‘I understand he was killed at Midway.’
Nadine dipped her feet more deeply into the sea. She didn’t want him to be sad.
‘Joseph Smith Junior the Third, would you like to lie down with me?’
That night they slept beneath the stars. Shanti’s crying awoke them just as dawn was chasing shadows. Marjorie was warming some chicken and rice the women had given her.
‘Bliss,’ murmured Nadine, but it didn’t last.
* * *
Four days later they were over one hundred miles further east and the weather had changed.
The surface of the sea undulated with a heavy swell. The waves did not break but heaved into hills, rolling them gently down its slopes into deep gullies before rising to the summit again.
Even though there was little food in any of their stomachs, they all experienced sickness.
‘I think we’re near land,’ said Genda, swallowing his sickness and bracing his legs. ‘I can smell it.’
The tiny boat balanced on top of another surge of water.
Before the boat fell headlong into yet another gully he glimpsed a small hump of an island. The women saw it too.
‘Land. Precious land,’ said Marjorie.
Nadine’s spirits rose and the soreness of her aching stomach tightened in hope. ‘Can we make it?’
Genda eyed the onshore current with worried eyes. ‘I’m no sailor, but I feel we should stay out at sea.’
Nadine gripped the sides of the boat. ‘No! Land. Please can we set foot on land? I can’t stand this boat any longer. I feel sick. I want land!’
Genda didn’t answer. He wanted land too, but the current was strong and if there were rocks… The responsibility lay heavy.
They surged skywards on six-foot waves and more swiftly fell into their valleys. Up and down, again and again.
Nadine retched what remained in her stomach over the side of the boat.
The clouds hung low. The wind began to gust.
Genda blinked the salt spray from his eyes, wishing he knew more about the sea, the weather and what he should do. But he didn’t.
The frightened eyes of the two women veered between him and the sea. He wanted what they wanted, but should he chance it?
A storm, a tai-fun threatened: a typhoon. The boat was small and the sea was as dangerous as rocks.
The decision was taken out of his hands. No matter how fiercely he rowed, the wind and current were taking them towards the land. Surf began spilling from the tops of the waves. The wind-driven spray soaked faces already encrusted with salt.
The current was swift and strong and carried them into the lee of a headland. The little boat swerved and tossed, spinning like a top, then slowing as they gained respite and slid into calmer waters.
‘Thank God,’ called Marjorie.
Nadine hugged Shanti tightly against her breast. The child was crying again.
Genda tumbled from the boat and dragged it further up the beach. Once it was entirely on dry land, he fell flat on his face, totally exhausted.
They found a small niche in the rocks. Water dripped from a craggy overhang. First they drank, and then shivered, totally worn out.
Genda turned his face skywards, the back of his head resting on the rock, his eyes closed.
Marjorie’s head fell sideways. She too slept.
Shanti cried. Bleary-eyed and aching to rest, Nadine dipped a strip of cloth into one of the coconuts salvaged from the boat. The tiny pink lips fluttered
as a droplet of coconut milk fell on her tongue.
Nadine persisted. Shanti had always been a slow eater, almost as though she knew there wasn’t much to be had. She tried to reassure herself that Shanti didn’t take much milk anyway, but a heavy ache pressed on her chest.
‘I should never have brought you here,’ she murmured.
In her heart of hearts she knew she didn’t mean this place, this island in the middle of nowhere. She meant into this world, into this war.
Feeding her was a long and arduous task. Eventually her tired arm fell into her lap. Shanti mewed in the crook of her elbow, her eyes moving restlessly behind paper-thin eyelids.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lady Marjorie Ford-Patterson opened her eyes and gave silent thanks. The storm had abated. Branches broken by the wind surrounded them. Less angry now, the surf hissed against the sand.
In the bleary light of a silvery dawn, she looked across at her companions. They were still asleep.
They’re young, she mused. Young people have more energy when they’re awake, but they sleep more than old ladies like me.
Smiling ruefully, she reminded herself that even in her youth she’d only slept six hours on average. Now that she was older – certainly since she’d turned sixty – she slept even less.
If you’re awake, you get up. No point lying in bed. Back in Singapore it had been her habit to rise with the sun and find something useful to do. That’s what she did now.
Shanti’s clenched fists punched at the air and her mew of dissatisfaction was edging towards a fully-fledged cry.
Marjorie rubbed at her bony hips as she got to her feet and unfurled her aching spine. Her joints were always the same in the morning but got better once the warmth of the sun was on them.
She smiled down at the mewing child. Nadine was holding her slackly. If the baby had wriggled as much as some she would have slid from her grasp. But Shanti never moved much. Something was seriously wrong with the child. She’d never mentioned it to Nadine, sensing that she already knew the little scrap of humanity wasn’t destined to stay long in this world.
East of India Page 29