Sleepless in Bangkok

by Ian Quartermaine

  “It’s all down to timing. I’ll take the hand brake off at exactly the right moment, then we’ll push this lump of metal over the hill,” Steven explained, optimistically.

  Steven pulled a disposable lighter from his shirt pocket. “Like a boy scout, I’m prepared. I bought a ten baht disposable lighter in Chiang Mai.”

  Gunn still did not look impressed. But having no other plan that might make any sense, Steven lit the gasoline soaked shorts with his disposable lighter and stuffed the smouldering garment into the jeep’s gasoline tank. Gunn made ready to push against the vehicle as Steven quickly walked to the driver’s side. Taking a deep breath, he lodged his shoulder against the jeep’s door.

  Preparing to release the hand brake as he started to shove the vehicle forward over the edge of the escarpment before the rag ignited the gasoline tank, Steven commenced his chancy demolition exercise. “This is what you might call a jeep sized Molotov Cocktail,” he said, blankly.

  Gunn’s expression suggested that she didn’t really want to know that.

  “Let’s rock the jeep to and fro and get some momentum going,” Steven shouted as he released the hand brake.

  Gunn added her strength and gave the jeep a heave as the flame from the burning rag was about to mate with the petroleum tank. But a ridge of earth prevented the wheels of the jeep travelling onward and over the escarpment.

  “Sod’s law,” Steven said. “Push harder before we both go up in flames. Just one last push should do it,” he yelled, as he desperately thrust his shoulder against the side of the vehicle in an attempt to bounce its suspension. “Fuck, another big heave or we’re done for.”

  Steven and Gunn desperately thrust their shoulders against the side of the heavy vehicle, attempting to bounce the jeep’s suspension to gain greater impetus.

  Slowly but surely, the front wheels of the jeep started to roll off the dirt road and onward over the side of the escarpment.

  Three distinct explosions from the grenades attached to the jeep’s broken wing mirror, confirmed that the first part of the plan had worked. The plume of fire that shot into the air from the forest below as the burning rag torched the jeep’s gasoline tank, confirmed the second.

  Steven and Gunn just managed to throw themselves clear as the jeep disappeared over the escarpment, and his shorts plus the Castrol Corporation, totalled the vehicle completely.

  Like a hailstorm from hell, a free firework display followed by a shower of debris, completed the event.

  “Guy Fawkes Night or the Fourth of July with a vengeance,” Steven commented, as he lifted his head up from his position spread-eagled on the grassy bank adjacent to the rough dirt road. .

  “It’s amazing what exploding shorts and the Castrol Company can accomplish,” Gunn said, dryly. “Remind me to make a more thorough investigation of your demolition plans in the future,” she added as she lay prostrate on the ground beside him. “I nearly wet myself.”

  Happy to be alive, Gunn’s ironic observation was followed by a relieved smile.

  Like a British gentleman, Steven held out his hand to help Gunn up.

  87

  Back To the Bush

  Montgomery-Fairfax remained silent and still out of his mind in the back seat of the remaining jeep. Filtering down from the sky, a shower of dust made the usually fastidiously dressed senior civil servant look like a down and out bag lady asleep on a park bench.

  “Hardly a figure of sartorial elegance,” Steven said as he checked to see if Rupert was OK. “If your gay friends at Whitehall could see you now.”

  In his state of delirium, Rupert did not reply. Gunn joined her demolition contract partner. “Poor cunt needs treatment badly,” she advised in cultured tones.

  “You’ve learnt colloquial English really well,” Steven commented, with deep irony.

  “Thank you,” Gunn replied.

  Steven changed the subject in case Gunn realised

  he was taking the piss and he got further in her bad books. “We have to get out of here. Let’s hope the exploding jeep trick fools the bad guys,” Steven said, more in hope than certainty. “I’ll drive Kronsky’s jeep into the bush if you’ll get some branches and cover over the tracks.”

  To avoid leaving any clues, Gunn walked a dozen yards into the jungle before sawing some branches from a tree with her small stiletto knife. Acting like a suburban housefrau, she made something resembling a brush. Waiting until Steven drove the jeep into the undergrowth, she carefully covered the tracks.

  88

  Another Jungle Jaunt

  Steven aimed the camouflaged vehicle towards the undergrowth and into the jungle. Before they’d driven a dozen yards, Rupert yelled out for his mother.

  “Shit, I wish he wouldn’t do that,” Gunn exclaimed as she almost jumped out of her skin.

  “He’s getting incoherent and rambling over his past. Right now it appears as if mummy has just shoved off and left him in his upper class boarding school for the first time. Probably the start of all his troubles,” Steven explained. “Poor sod never had a chance. Glad I never had the benefit of a public school education.”

  Bumping and jerking over ant hills and fallen foliage, overhanging branches hit the windscreen as the jeep painfully made its way through the heavy undergrowth. As the branches eventually released themselves from the constraints of the window frame, they thwacked through the air like a cat-of-nine-tails, forcing the occupants to duck.

  “Push Rupert down on the floor before he loses his head as well as one of his fingers,” Steven said. “Now I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the cat-o-nine-tails. Hundreds of years ago, one of my ancestors was a corporal in the British Navy and was obliged to administer it.”

  “British Navy hit sailors with animals? ”Very cruel for cat as well as people,” Gunn said. “Cats have nine tails in your country? In Siam, cats have no tail at all.”

  Whether Gunn’s deadpan remark was serious or not, Steven was uncertain. Despite her high IQ and farang blood, Thai cultural differences did sometime intervene to confuse matters.

  “Culture shock. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut,” Steven said under his breath.

  “Patronising chauvinist,” Gunn said as she deduced approximately what Steven had just mumbled.

  Steven changed the subject. “If we don’t get a broken axle or a broken head, we’ll be fortunate,” he said, pessimistically. “I hope you know which direction we’re going in.”

  “Just keep your eyes on the jungle ahead,” Gunn replied. “I’ve got a compass and a map, and if we keep going east we’ll eventually reach an alternative road travelling south. But it will be slow work in these conditions. We might run across an isolated hut or small village on the way. Maybe buy medical supplies for MontgomeryFairfax. Why he have two fucking family names? Make too much talk.”

  Despite her confusion regarding the ambiguities of pseudo upper class English name traditions, Gunn appeared to have everything under control. Steven accepted her authoritative explanation regarding the topography of the regions bordering her country of birth.

  89

  Shagged

  The sun’s rays ceased to filter through the trees as night fell. Steven brought the jeep to a halt. “I’m exhausted, and we won’t be able to see anything at night so we’d better make camp here in this clearing,” Steven said as he got out of the jeep and stretched his legs.

  Gunn said nothing, just got out of the jeep and started collecting sticks for a fire.

  “Just make a small fire, we don’t want to announce our presence any more than we have to. So just a trickle of lighter fuel,” Steven advised. “We’ll have to keep warm together in the jeep.”

  “Your friend Rupert is still out of his head,” Gunn said as she walked over to the jeep and gave MontgomeryFairfax a cursory glance.

  “I’ll see if I can get him to eat or drink something,” Steven said, as he walked over to join Gunn. “But I think he’s too far out of his head. We’ll try
and get him to take a little water and an aspirin. Nothing else to give him. Let’s hope we find a small village or a house before long. Just might be able to buy some medical supplies”.

  Steven knelt down by the small fire Gunn had started. “I’m shagged,” he said.

  “What shagged mean?” Gunn asked.

  “Just an army saying. It means tired,” Steven explained.

  “You bullshit, Steven Hunt. It mean tired all right but tired from too much fucking. I heard farang say that before. You very bad man, I think.”

  Gunn smiled. She was not admonishing Steven, just lightening the mood after the traumatic events that had recently taken place.

  “I don’t know how beautiful young Eurasian girl is going to take this, but we’ll have to sleep together in the jeep tonight or neither of us will be up to driving tomorrow. “ Steven waited for a reaction but none was forthcoming. “As Rupert’s in the back we will have to share the front. I don’t fancy spending the night in a sleeping bag in the bush. Too many snakes.”

  Steven and Gunn had no alternative but to remain close that night whether they liked it or not, the small size of the jeep’s interior dictating events. But both were quietly pleased with their intimate proximity - for affection as well as warmth, in the cold night air.

  “I should be used to the cold coming from England, but I’m not,” Steven advised

  “Do all Englishmen complain so much?” Gunn asked.

  “Only about the weather and when they are cold,” Steven replied. “But with British weather we have a right.”

  “Rupert sick and burn with fever and we both lucky to be alive, yet you complain about cold. Not important in this context,” Gunn stated with great clarity of thought.

  “Are all Eurasian girls so clever?” Steven asked.

  “Only when cold,” Gunn replied, a hint of a smile on her tired but attractive face.

  Gunn’s clarity of thought impressed as it simultaneously put Steven in his place, and he turned to look at his smart and beautiful young companion.

  Gunn felt Steven’s gaze and turned towards him, affection and respect reflected in her expression. But neither wished to make the first move after the intrigue and deceptions of the past. One of them might lose face!

  90

  Snakes Alive

  The following morning as dawn etched its way through the thick jungle foliage, a shaft of light hit Steven’s face. As he awoke, his gaze zeroed onto a dark, slithering web of venomous snakes huddled together on the bonnet of the jeep.

  Steven shook Gunn to wakefulness. “We had some unexpected visitors in the night. Afamily of cold blooded pit vipers decided to take advantage of the warmth from our overheated engine.”

  Instinctively, Gunn reached for the Berretta inside her leather handbag. Leaning out of the window to avoid shattering the windscreen, she aimed the pistol at the poisonous creatures. Suddenly she stopped.

  “Start the engine, a gun shot might alert the warlord and the rest of our friends if they’re still in the vicinity,” Gunn whispered as she computed the negative potential of her initial intention.

  As Steven turned the key in the ignition, the bonnet vibrated and the deadly pit vipers slithered from the jeep into the undergrowth below.

  “I’m not taking a leak around here, I’ve got a phobia about snakes. If anyone wanted to interrogate me, just bring on the snakes. I’d tell them everything,” Steven admitted.

  “So much for superhero Steven,” Gunn said. ‘Whatever, keep your snake away from me.” Gunn laughed at her own little joke.

  Dirty and covered in vomit, Rupert remained semiconscious in the back seat of the jeep. Steven held his nose.

  “Christ, Rupert smells like shit. And I think that’s exactly what it is. He’s wet himself a few times as well. Can’t do anything about it now, we’ll have to wait until we get somewhere remotely civilised.”

  Steven took a closer look at Rupert’s hand. “Jesus, his hand stinks to high heaven. Fuck, the rag seems to be moving. It is, the rag’s moving.”

  Showing little emotion, Gunn leant back over the front seat of the jeep and carefully unwound the piece of filthy cloth wrapped around Rupert’s hand. The stump where the crude amputation had taken place was crawling with maggots eating the puss. Gunn rewound the makeshift bandage as Rupert quietly sobbed.

  “The maggots will eat the poison, so we will leave them there. Fortunately your friend is halfway out of his head, so will not feel the pain so much. But we must find a place to cross back into Thailand. We’ll have a better chance of finding a friendly house or village there. Someone will have bandages and an antibiotic.”

  91

  Elephant Shit Points the Way

  The diversion through the forest led Steven and Gunn away from the unofficial crossing point where their friends, the ferry man and his family, made their meagre living.

  But they still had to cross water to get onto the Thai side of the Lao border, and as the jeep with Steven, Gunn and Rupert emerged from the jungle, a river prevented them travelling further.

  Steven and Gunn got out of the jeep and looked across the water to the opposing bank.

  “We’re in deep shit if we can’t get across,” Gunn said.

  “Thanks for the clue,” Steven said.

  Gunn looked curious. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Shit. In Thailand elephants are supposed to be lucky, and I spy elephant shit. Where elephants cross so can an all-terrain vehicle,” Steven advised.

  Steven and Gunn walked closer to the water’s edge and knelt down to assess the situation.

  “The dry season has lowered the water level and sand banks will help our wheels get a grip. We’ll get pretty wet though. Better tie Rupert to his seat. Don’t want him floating off on his own, I don’t think he can swim.”

  “OK boss,” Gunn said with a hint of insubordination.

  “Enough of the dumb insolence or I’ll have to discipline you,” Steven said.

  “Sounds interesting,” Gunn replied.

  “No time now though,” Steven advised with just a hint of a smile.

  The spot where the water was lowest, was utilised by elephants to move illegally logged timber across from the rainforests of the Golden Triangle. The booty was then loaded onto trucks on the Thai side. A multinational enterprise, officials on both sides of the river took their cut.

  Global warming had contributed to periodic bouts of low rainfall, and temporary drought in the north east allowed the all-terrain vehicle to re-cross the band of water separating Thailand from the official and unofficial nation states to the north.

  After a few hours of tortuous progress through dusty tracks and dense forest, the jeep finally emerged from the undergrowth.

  “Don’t ever let me curse a dirt road again,” Steven stated as their speed increased from three to thirty miles an hour.

  92

  Civilisation

  Around a bend in the track, two open-sided, traditional Thai houses came into view. Standing outside one of the houses, a middle aged woman dressed in a traditional patoong - a wrap round garment resembling a sarong - carried a small boy dressed in a vest top. She smiled and greeted her visitors with a respectful wai.

  Steven and Gunn returned the courteous Siamese gesture.

  “Can I be of assistance?” the woman asked.

  “Your English is excellent,” Steven commented.

  “Cop khun ka, thank you,” the women said. “I am a nurse in Bangkok and come into contact with many farang. Visit young son every three months. Cannot support family growing rice and vegetables, so work in city most of time. Mamma, mamma (grandmother) look after child when away. She is working in the fields right now.”

  “A nurse, that’s a piece of luck,” Steven said to Gunn. “Rupert’s future seems to be getting brighter.”

  “The farang in the back seat is ill. Do you have any bandages and possibly an antibiotic we can purchase?” Gunn asked.

  “Have,” the woman
replied as she glanced towards Montgomery-Fairfax sitting in the back of the mud spattered jeep. “Will help sick man.”

  The kindly Thai woman momentarily shrank back as Rupert’s obnoxious stench caught her unawares.

  I’m afraid both ends of his bodily functions have run amok,” Steven advised.

  Overcoming their nausea, Steven and Gunn half dragged, half carried Rupert into the woman’s modest house.

  93

  Wash and Brush Up

  The feeling returned to Rupert’s arm as the middle-aged Thai nurse scraped the maggots away from his open wound, washed his disfigured hand and applied some antiseptic.

  Screaming in pain, Montgomery-Fairfax struck out at the woman helping him. Steven placed Rupert in a neck lock until the blood supply to his brain reduced and he slumped back in his chair.

  “Not strong enough but maybe help,” the kindly nurse said as Rupert came to enough to sip from a glass of water and swallow an antibiotic capsule.

  “One tablet every four hours. But man need hospital soon or might die. You need to reach Chiang Mai as soon as possible. But eat food or soon you need hospital.”

  The small child sat contentedly on Gunn’s lap as the Thai nurse prepared a meal.

  “Mamma already,” Steven remarked, smiling. “You’ll have a baby of your own soon, with your Thai husband.”

  “I tell you before, no husband or man of any nationality,” Gunn said with a serious expression. “I believe you,” Steven replied.

  “You seem troubled,” the Thai woman said as Steven helped her feed Rupert a little rice and some vegetables. “All is not well?”

  “Thai people have a highly developed sixth sense,” Steven replied. “You are correct. There are some very bad men seeking our hides. But I wouldn’t have thought they’d have risked crossing the Mekong into Thailand. Then again...........”