‘He would have known,’ her daughter said stonily.
Alan glanced at his sergeant as Ben called from outside, ‘Any trouble?’
‘We’d better take them back to where the prisoners are,’ the sergeant decided before going to the door and shouting back, ‘Just two women, check there’s no one else in the back.’
Just two women, Alan thought, who had a lot of heartache to come as they learned the extent of Josef Guisan’s infamy. He felt a greater sympathy for the mother, who seemed determined to defend her son at all costs. Suddenly remembering the girl’s name, he opened his mouth to say it, when there was the sound of running footsteps and shouts at the far end of the camp.
‘They’ve found — ’ Alan began, but the sound of extended and excessive shooting was heard, coming nearer. There were shouts, orders and counter-orders. He looked at his sergeant.
Mackenzie gestured to the women. ‘Get down!’
The young one hesitated. ‘Lee,’ Alan shouted, ‘get down!’
The two disappeared beneath the solid bed and Alan thought they wouldn’t find a better place than that this side of Ipoh.
‘Come on, don’t think they’ll go anywhere.’
‘Stay under the bed,’ Alan instructed as his sergeant left the room. ‘Liz would never forgive me if anything happened to you two now we’ve found you.’
He followed his sergeant out to see at least two different units of English soldiers come pouring from the jungle, retreating, it seemed, dropping back to the huts, a hail of fire following them.
Sturgess came weaving and running low across to their side. ‘The police have got them pinned down on the road, and Unit Seven have their escape route plugged — they’ve got to come back this way!’
Alan pulled a low bamboo chair on to its side on the verandah. The sergeant crouched in the doorway, while Sturgess spread the news to the others in his unit. The last Alan saw of him was as he zigzagged his way back to the far side of the camp.
The firing increased in fury and they could hear the shattering explosions of hand grenades, still at the far side of the camp, then the stuttering of automatic fire came nearer. He heard the sergeant mutter, ‘Wish I had a couple of Bren gunners.’
Danny, he remembered, had been a Bren gunner. He was missing this lot. Lucky bastard! Alan thought as several bandits came running to the camp. One’s arm was raised and a grenade went off at the side of the compound; another had some kind of automatic and as Alan took aim the man sprayed the whole bungalow front with fire.
Alan felt a strange hot feeling across his head. He felt peeved more than anything. His hand still hurt from securing the crate, and this as well seemed too much. He clenched the sore hand into a white-knuckled fist. Then he relaxed, fingers outstretched, as he saw Danny smiling and surrounded by a great light coming towards him. He smiled back and tried to get up and go to meet him.
‘We shouldn’t leave Anna alone at Rinsey — not overnight, anyway,’ Liz said, standing at the front window of the Wildons’ bungalow.
‘No.’ Blanche’s tone was of reluctant agreement. ‘I wish now I’d gone with Aubrey to KL.’
‘You’d have been a hindrance, darling, believe me. Half the information Aubrey’ll get will be from the gossip in men’s clubs and the best part of all that’ll pass in the bog!’
Liz thought only Joan could get away with a remark like that to her mother — well, Joan and possibly George Harfield. She wondered if this was why her mother was friends with these two disparate people; they dared tell her the truth.
‘And if we’re going to motor back in daylight, we’ll have to leave soon.’ Liz added.
‘He might also pick up some news of this big op that the major’s been on,’ Joan added. It sounded an innocuous enough remark, but Liz glanced at her sharply and, finding her adopted aunt’s gaze on her, felt her colour rise.
‘He’s obviously all right, though,’ Joan went on, reassuringly smiling, ‘it’s in the newspaper.’ She riffled through the pages on the desk near the window. ‘Here you are ... ’ She read snatches of the text, “Largest operation of the emergency so far ... hundred troops raided area headquarters jungle camp ... captured two terrorists, one man and one woman, who have been taken to Ipoh for interrogation. Four other terrorists dead ... two identified on the wanted list.”’ She paused and looked up. ‘We lost one man killed, one man missing — so I presume you would say two men dead. Major Sturgess, it says, is working with the police at Ipoh, so he’s obviously safely returned.’ She stopped and smiled at Liz. ‘That’s some comfort.’
‘He has his uses, I suppose … ’
‘Come on, Liz, more than that, surely?’ Joan urged.
‘Well, at least he’s on our side!’ Blanche interjected.
‘It didn’t feel like that when we first met him in Singapore,’ Liz reminded her.
Blanche stood up and stretched. ‘That seems like several lifetimes ago,’ she said, adding thoughtfully, ‘and in a way it is. Neville’s, plus these soldiers that have just lost their lives.’
‘What’s the matter, Liz? You suddenly look terrible.’
Joan went to catch the girl’s arm.
‘I ... ’ She sat down in the nearest chair. ‘I just hope it’s no one we know.’
‘How could it be?’ Blanche asked, suddenly alerted by the sound of a vehicle sounding a horn for the front gates to be opened by the guards. ‘Unless,’ she added, on her feet and making for the door, ‘it was that boy who was stationed with us. Alan somebody. I never caught the name of any of the others.’
‘Cresswell,’ Liz added quietly to her mother’s back as she went out to meet Aubrey.
Joan stood looking at her, then stooped and caught her hands. ‘Oh, my dear! I thought it was the major who had caught your eye. He seemed to think so — you’ve certainly caught his!’ She glanced after Blanche. ‘Your mother doesn’t know,’ she surmised, searching the girl’s face. ‘N-o-o.’ The negative included both the knowledge that Blanche would definitely not approve and that she saw the same implacable determination in Liz.
‘An approaching impasse, I think.’ She patted Liz’s hands and whispered, ‘Don’t look so awful, darling, we’ll find out about your Alan Cresswell.’ She stood up to greet her husband as he and Blanche came back into the room.
‘Aubrey, darling! All right?’ Joan kissed her husband on the cheek.
He nodded and, looking searchingly both at his wife and all around the room, asked, ‘And here?’
‘Perfectly fine, darling. No enemy activity and all the tappers are in, everything secure. We’re just hanging on what you have to tell us.’
He tossed his hat on to the table and helped himself to a stiff gin and tonic.
‘Did you see the high commissioner?’ Blanche asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, he’s away, next in command, but it was apparently arranged to take George to KL because he’ll have a better chance of his case coming up much quicker and there will be less chance of any local prejudice against him.’
‘Local prejudice! What the hell do they mean?’
‘Blanche, you have to understand this girl is of a family who have worked for the Bukit Kinta mine for years, generations! That a girl like this should accuse him is very emotive. If it had been a stranger ... ’
‘I don’t see it makes any difference. If the little tart is a prostitute, anyone could have beaten her up.’
‘The trouble is, my dear, that there is absolutely no evidence that she is or ever was a prostitute. There is no record of George receiving a message begging him to go to that house of ill repute in Ipoh. It’s just George’s word against all the evidence, which I have to tell you is pretty damning.’
‘The evidence is a put-up job, isn’t it? George Harfield has been a thorn in the side — ’ she paused momentarily and tut-ted at her own cliché — ‘of the communists ever since the war. He told them he’d bury them up to their necks if he found any of them caching away English arms supplies then and he’s been the target for all kinds of attacks. Look at his headman, Rasa, look what they did to him!’
‘M’dear, this is what makes it so much worse for him. His barrister says the prosecution are likely to bring these things up and use them as evidence to say how damned unlikely it would be for a girl born and brought up at Kampong Kinta to be a communist sympathiser.’
‘I don’t see that counts. All youngsters kick against the parental traces however they’re brought up!’ Blanche argued.
‘Not sure that’s politically true,’ Joan said, shaking her head. ‘Generations of our village folk back home used to vote Conservative whether it was a lord or a cabbage who stood in their constituency.’
‘This is more about ideals, isn’t it? About fairer shares for all,’ Liz said quietly.
‘For God’s sake!’ Blanche exploded. ‘What it’s about is a man being set up by some fanatic who’s prepared to let herself be beaten up to trap an enemy to her cause.’
‘Her cause is her ideal,’ Liz emphasised. ‘People have to have ideals to be prepared to suffer.’
‘Probably sees herself as a martyr,’ Joan confirmed.
‘But we all agree the evidence is contrived.’ Blanche was pacing the floor now, throwing her arms wide to appeal to her audience.
‘But,’ Aubrey said with infinite patience, ‘it is difficult to deny that evidence when it was the police who were in fact the ones who found George at the girl’s side, actually with his hand on her shoulder.’
‘He was sent for urgently — the girl had been missing.’
‘Yes, yes, we know this because it is what Harfield says — but it all seems to work against the man. It seems the girl was in the same room all the time she was “missing” and a white man was seen going in and out — and there are witnesses prepared to say it was Harfield they saw.’
‘Paid witness!’ Blanche asserted.
‘Possibly,’ he began and as Blanche glared at him, amended, ‘Most probably, even most certainly — but I saw the photographs of the girl’s injuries.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t see any jury doubting the attack or the rape.’
‘Well, George Harfield didn’t do it! I’d stake my life on that,’
‘What makes it worse is that in her statement the girl says she always thought of Mr Harfield as a second father or a favourite uncle. She trusted him.’ He rose and sighed deeply, taking Blanche’s glass from the table and his own for a refill. ‘I saw George, you know. He says she’s a damned convincing actress.’
‘The girl!’ Blanche suddenly shouted. ‘The girl! What is her bloody name anyway?’
‘Li Min,’ Aubrey told her quietly.
‘Li,’ Blanche repeated, ‘that’s appropriate anyway.’
‘I’m afraid I agree with Harfield’s advocate; unless we can find some evidence that definitely links the girl with the communists, the man’s defence is very thin.’
‘We will then,’ Blanche said as if to herself. ‘We will then.’
‘I wondered if you heard anything more about Major Sturgess’s last jungle operation?’ Liz asked. Her voice sounded high, thin, quite unnatural. ‘There’s so little in the paper.’
‘He’s safe, saw him briefly. Called at Ipoh on the way, why I’m late really. He’s helping interrogate prisoners, and ... er, he does have a funeral, unfortunately. One of his own unit, I understand.’
Liz felt as if someone had swept her whole world away. ‘Do you know who it was?’ she asked, voice no more than a whisper.
‘Sorry, I never asked. Did you think you might know ... ?’
‘Liz wondered if it might be any of the men who were stationed at Rinsey, that was all.’ Joan came to her rescue.
‘Possibly,’ Aubrey said. ‘Quite possibly.’
‘Could we find out?’ Joan asked and, as Aubrey opened his mouth again, caught Liz’s eye and added sharply, ‘Don’t say “possibly”, darling, I don’t think our nerves could stand it. Just tell me if you could find out?’
‘I suppose ... ’ he said languidly.
‘We’d better make tracks,’ Blanche said. ‘come on, Liz. I’ll see what I can find out at Bukit Kinta and be in touch. Thanks for everything.’
‘I’ll tell your man you’re ready.’ Aubrey went to find the crack-shot Malay tapper they had brought with them as guard.
‘Remember, don’t stop for anyone or anything,’ Joan reiterated the emergency code of safety, ‘and, darling — ’ she caught Liz’s hand — ‘I’ll make him get through to KL as soon as you’ve gone, and the second I find out anything I’ll let you know.’
Aubrey went to the barbed-wire gates and helped his guard open them, waving their guests on their way. Joan stood on the verandah waiting. Aubrey came and slipped his arm around her waist.
‘Two unhappy people,’ she commented.
‘Umm. Neville, bad show, coming out and never seeing him again.’
‘Don’t think I meant Neville, really, darling. Young Liz has a crush on that young guardsman, the signaller you remember they had billeted on them at the time Neville’s body was found. Could be a problem if her mother has to know.’
‘Not sure it will,’ Aubrey said thoughtfully. ‘He’s either the one killed or the one missing. I particularly remember Sturgess mentioning his signaller, seemed to be preying on his mind a bit.’
‘Oh; dear!’
‘I tell you something else, Blanche is going to have a shock about that Harfield chap. He’s going to go to prison for a long time.’
‘You don’t think he’s guilty!’
He shook his head but said, ‘All the evidence points that way — and no other. If they’ve set him up they’ve made a damned good job of it.’
*
Liz drove the Ford at speed as the twilight was swiftly replaced by darkness.
‘We should have left earlier,’ her mother stated.
Liz might have retaliated if she could have found room in her mind for anything else but Alan. One missing, one dead. What had Joan said, ‘so I presume you would say two dead’? Two dead out of ten that had stayed so briefly at Rinsey, two dead in one unit out of the whole operation. That couldn’t be fair.
‘Liz! For God’s sake, take your time. There’s no point in us killing ourselves!’
‘You worry too much, Mother.’
‘You’re frightening our guard to death.’ She turned round to the Malay who, while gripping his rifle, was endeavouring to stay still long enough on the back seat to keep a lookout for possible roadblocks or people trying to flag them down. ‘He’s pale yellow around the gills now. And it’s not going to get any darker now it is dark.’
‘You begin to sound like George Harfield and his clichés!’
‘He’s certainly on my mind,’ Blanche admitted, gripping the overhead panic handle as they hurtled around another corner. ‘Liz! keep a sense of proportion or we’ll all either be travelsick or dead!’
Liz had to make a real effort to drive more slowly, consciously making her foot lift from the accelerator a little — and then feeling they were creeping along. Speed seemed the only thing that made any impact on her sensibilities, a kind of consolation for not being able to take any action that might help. Until she knew ... what could she choose to do?
She supposed she could make assumptions, use logic. She could work from what she knew. She knew she loved Alan totally. She knew that to be without him would be to know the rest of her life was over, useless.
It seemed unbelievable to her that he could possibly have been killed and she had not known, had not had some premonition. She remembered darkly that Alan himself had said he felt doom-laden from the moment he had left England, then he had met her and obviously the feeling had been all nonsense. She blinked, bit her lip as tears welled.
The lights of the car picked up something or someone at the jungle edge. Was it a figure of a man? Tall, hefty, wearing a peaked cap, carrying a rifle. He was gone in the same second, so she was not sure.
The next moment she was jamming on the car brakes as she was confronted by a torrent of water over a huge rock. She looked up at the curtain of falling water as they hurtled towards it, and remembered being under the waterfall with Alan.
‘For God’s sake!’ Blanche cried, while in the back their guard gave out a whimpering cry of relief as the car stopped a hand’s span from the outjutting rock indicating the turn for Rinsey.