There was a pause as he registered the expression on Blanche’s face. The last time either she or Anna had seen the girls was about nine o’clock the night before, she told him, and neither of them had actually seen the Sakai at all.
‘You mean you’ve let your daughter go off into the jungle? Why, I ... I can hardly believe such — ’
‘Such what?’ Blanche prompted, her natural assertiveness at last coming to her aid, overwhelming the guilt.
He was going to say ‘such carelessness’ and that was really what he felt, such casual disregard for Elizabeth’s safety. He substituted ‘foolhardiness’.
‘Lis is enamoured of this young man. One tends to go halfway round the world for that kind of foolhardiness.’
‘She
thinks
she is ... ’ Sturgess could not bring himself to say the word. ‘Whereas
I
know it has to be just calf-love, moonstruck calf-love.’
‘
You
know! How would you know?’ Blanche was at once astonished and furious. ‘I presume you will allow that I know more about
my
daughter than a comparative stranger.’
‘We all know more about Elizabeth than strangers do,’ he agreed.
‘Do
we
indeed!
I
had assumed I knew more about my daughter than
you
did.’ She was furious to have got herself into such a stupid argument and astonished to see that he did not realise she meant
he
was the stranger. ‘Unless there is something I am not aware of?’
He frowned. ‘Well, no ... not at all.’
‘I can assure you my daughter is for better or worse in love with this young guardsman, and I have no doubt she is at this moment fighting her way through whatever jungle hazards lie between her and him. I am not saying I wouldn’t be happier if you, the doctor here and all your men were with her. I am saying I understand the feelings that made her take off secretly, without waiting for you.’
The doctor nodded agreement. ‘You have daughters?’ she asked.
‘And sons,’ he replied, his eyes twinkling.
‘Behave like dogs when a bitch is on heat sometimes, I guess,’ she said, watching to see how much the remark chosen to shock Sturgess succeeded. It obviously staggered his sensibilities, whereas the doctor gave a great hoot of laughter at the unexpected comment, but did not risk an answer.
‘They are at least half a day’s travel ahead of you,’ she stated pointedly, ‘though I see you have a tracker.’
‘The girl’s gone too, I suppose, Lee Guisan?’
‘Your witness is with my daughter. That is my consolation, that and the knowledge the Sakais have of the jungle in all its moods’. She paused as thunder again echoed around the nearby hills. ‘Lee and Liz are closer than most sisters.’
‘They haven’t seen or had contact with each other for years,’ Sturgess commented.
‘The deep bond was immediately renewed, I assure you,’ Blanche replied coldly to the sardonic remark.
Sturgess did not speak again but marched outside.
‘Makes me feel he’s never without a mental cane to slap in the palm of his hand,’ the
doctor
commented ruefully, watching him go. ‘But he’s a good officer, perhaps because of that.’
Blanche pushed a long and mild gin sling into the doctor’s hand, then stood by his side to observe Sturgess instructing his Dyak tracker. ‘Someone’s drilled all the humanity out of him.’ She shook her head sadly. He looked as if he was drilling a troop of men at the Guards Depot at Caterham Barracks. The Dyak obviously felt much the same for he gave a fair imitation of a good Guards’ salute, longest way up, shortest way down. Although they had issued the tribesman with army shorts and shirt, his blowpipe and quiver made the ritual ludicrous.
‘The modern army,’ the doctor quipped, adding ‘Cheers!’ as he downed his drink and promised to keep a good lookout for both the girl and the young man.
The major came back some minutes later and it seemed to Blanche there was some kind of petulant satisfaction in his voice as he said, ‘It will all take longer now, of course.’
The doctor was beginning to show less and less liking for his officer’s company. ‘Shall I go and tell the men to stand by?’
Sturgess nodded brusquely. ‘Right!’
Left alone, they avoided each other’s eyes in an uneasy silence. ‘Can I offer you a quick drink? Or tea, or whatever?’ Blanche asked formally.
He shook his head.
‘To say the least, I sense your disapproval, but you know one can’t order affections — least of all one’s daughter’s.’
‘But you could curtail her actions.’
Good God! she thought. Won’t the man let it drop? She turned so she faced him squarely and saw disappointment on his face. My God! He wants Liz. He wants to — what did he say? — curtail her actions!
‘Well, yes,’ she began her answer in very measured tones, ‘all parents can do that, I suppose.’ There was something in this man that made her again want to shock him off his godlike male pedestal and she went on, ‘And many husbands, too, try it on, I suspect. But love is a bit of a vagrant. It doesn’t take kindly to rules and boundaries.’
‘As a child I was told that rules and discipline were all that stopped children growing into rampant weeds, the bad growing over and smothering the good.’
‘And where did love come in?’ Blanche asked so softly she was not sure he would hear, for now she began to feel sorry for this man. She could imagine the lovelessness of his upbringing. Probably started with a nanny. Nannies if they were good were very, very good, but if they were bad they truly were horrid. Then public school, Sandhurst probably, the army.
Sturgess felt like being honest and admitting love had not come often into his life — but owning up to being less than in total control of all areas was something he was trained not to do. A wife would complete the world’s picture of what a man should be; the career, the home, the wife and family. That was the role he saw for Liz.
‘Love doesn’t win wars,’ he said, ‘and this one’s not over — and as far as we know there may no longer be another contender.’
‘I don’t think,’ Blanche said slowly, thinking that she was at last seeing him as clearly as Liz did, ‘that will make much difference to your chances.’
‘That is your opinion. I hope in the near future to have the pleasure of making you change it.’
She took a moment to remember that this man was going out to try to find and bring back Liz. She hoped he did not think it entitled him to lay some kind of claim on her. She had to frame her words very carefully, she decided.
Her pause gave John Sturgess the chance to smile and bow and for them both to register the sound of yet another vehicle coming to the gates.
‘No one else is due,’ Sturgess commented.
‘I’m expecting someone,’ Blanche said, following as he walked out and adding under her breath, ‘and it is my house.’ But it was a police jeep that had arrived.
Inspector Aba shook hands with John Sturgess and bowed to Blanche. ‘I have bad news,’ he began, ‘I think we should go inside and sit down.’
‘My daughter Liz?’
‘No, no.’
‘Lee Guisan?’
‘No.’
‘Who then, or what then?’
As they reached the verandah chairs, Inspector Aba signalled for Anna to come forward as if she were a waitress in a restaurant. ‘A drink for mem,’ he said, and turned back to Blanche. ‘I have just come from the Kose estate ... ’ he began.
‘Joan?’ An awful fear swept over Blanche, her friend so late. ‘Joan?’ she repeated.
‘I am sorry, Mrs Hammond. Both Mr and Mrs Wildon have been killed, shot dead, very quick, and the bungalow fired.’
‘Christ!’ she murmured like a paternoster, waving away the drink the inspector took from Anna and pressed upon her.
‘Mrs Hammond, Blanche ... ’ John Sturgess came forward. ‘I’m so — ’
‘Go and save my daughter,’ Blanche interrupted.
The strange world was sometimes light but mostly dark, with unintelligible sounds, sometimes like language, sometimes like the wind or the waterfall. Alan strained to keep the sound of water, it seemed to mean much more than anything else, and yet the effort made him weary.
Light or sound, never both together, came in flashes as if his brain had loose connections which occasionally sparked across a void.
Then he was vaguely aware of slipping away from the rim of consciousness, sliding away with a vague feeling of unease as if it was something he should not do, a kind of self-indulgence.
Pa Kasut boiled roots in great hollowed bamboo stalks and told his women they must keep the soldier’s lips and mouth moist with the solution all the time. Then he looked above the high peaks and saw the signs of a great wind bringing the greatest rains. He sent his son Bras to look for Sardin and the soldier’s woman to bring them quickly to the hill camp.
At first light on the third day Sardin drew the girls’ attention to the man coming beaming towards his fellow, teeth shining momentarily white even through the sheeting monsoon. Standing exhausted, soaked, heart labouring, Liz realised that the storm worried this man about as much as rush-hour traffic bothered a Londoner. The two Sakais shouted to each other above the din of the rain, just as two Cockneys might shout across Oxford Street at sale time.
She watched the new man come nearer and just wanted the whole experience over. If Alan was dead, she too wanted to be dead — and that moment felt like a reasonable time to want to go, while she felt so absolutely awful in mind and body. Poor Lee, now making the journey for the second time, was slumped to the ground. Every time they stopped, Lee, fast reaching breaking point, her legs buckling under her, just fell on the spot. Liz knew her friend laboured on only for her sake, and she only for Alan, for the hope that he was still alive.
Then, as her pounding heart managed to push more blood over her brain, she realised that the arrival of another Sakai who had obviously come to meet them might mean they were near the end of their journey.
‘Sardin,’ she gasped, ‘ask him if the soldier is still alive.’
The man, whose name she learned was Bras, understood her. The smile vanished but the answer was that he was alive but sleeping deeply the way he had been the whole time Bras had helped carry him up to their hill camp. He pointed almost vertically up into the air. Lee groaned.
‘How long will it take us?’ she asked.
‘Seven hours,’ Sardin answered, but then, glancing at Lee, he corrected himself. ‘Two days.’
‘No!’ Liz was overcome by a terrible fear that she would reach the hill camp
just
too late, that just for the want of one last supreme effort Alan would slip away without her having the chance to talk to him. ‘No,’ she repeated, ‘I’ll go on with Bras and you stay with Lee and come in two, three days, take time for Lee to rest.’
The two Sakais talked rapidly together in their own tongue that she could not follow, but after a moment, they nodded.
‘Lee, darling, do you mind if I leave you with Sardin? Would you understand?’
Lee smiled ruefully. ‘Wish I had boyfriend,’ she gasped, ‘make me like god, walk forever.’
‘You want come now?’ Bras asked.
‘Yes.’ She took Lee in a gentle embrace, kissing both her cheeks and pushing her hand up under the soaked, jet-black hair, easing it from her friend’s neck. ‘You will come on to the hill camp? Sardin thinks your mother may be there by now.’
‘I shall see you there,’ Lee confirmed and waved her on her way.
They had not been travelling long before Liz was consumed with wonder that Bras could travel with such ease yet cover so much ground. She felt like a small child trailing behind an officious nurse in an endless hospital corridor, the pace seeming ever to increase.
The green corridor grew rockier as they climbed for a time, following minor watercourses re-created by the recent storms. Then they travelled against the natural lie of the land, walking up and down the hills, ignoring the valleys.
Bras appeared to sense her unspoken comment for he turned and grinned. ‘Quickest way,’ he said, then added, as if it made his credentials as a guide indisputable, ‘I go cinema Ipoh one time.’
With no breath for conversation, she widened her eyes at him and nodded, genuinely impressed. She wondered what Bras had seen and what he would have made of a film like
Tarzan
and the Western version of a jungle.
She had the greatest admiration for the steady pace he could keep up, whatever the terrain. It was a great relief when they reached and followed the banks of a river which had the look of swirling whisked chocolate. The walking was easier and she tried not to look as the water roared past her right shoulder, tearing great chunks of soil from the banks and spinning them into the dizzying swirl of its waters.
As time went on, her exhaustion made her stumble more and more often. When she faltered or slipped down to hands and knees, she forced herself up, drove herself on, saying ‘Alan’ with every footstep, ‘Alan, Alan.’ In the back of her mind the words ‘beyond endurance’ were wanting to take over. She drowned them out with the repeated mantra, ‘Alan, Alan, Alan,’ more quietly sobbed than spoken.
Once for a few blessed strides they crossed quite a board beaten track, but before relief could take over Bras plunged across and into the jungle on the other side. But it was easier than before because they were travelling alongside a large water pipe — the need to pipe water anywhere seemed ludicrous at that moment when it gushed and gurgled in every crevice.
Now she felt she fairly flew along, with the padding footsteps of an athlete. It was suddenly quite intoxicating and she didn’t hurt any more. She recognised the state as ‘second wind’. Bras, seeing her keeping up, increased his pace. She felt as if everything around her was dropping away. This, she thought, was not second wind, this was more like being a kite, snaring over the ground. she had no feeling of her feet on the ground though she was going forwards. She felt drugged, her heart seemed to be beating gently, her head seemed wonderfully clear. After a time she giggled.
The Sakai turned curiously to look at her, and immediately eased his pace. Slowing down made the pain and heat return into her feet and ankles; exhaustion flooded back while her heart pumped deafeningly. Now she moved in a different trance, a pain-ridden state where only the thought of seeing Alan at the end of the journey kept her going. Soon, she was beyond thought, she was all pain, hot aching agony which began in the burning soles of her feet and seared up her legs in waves. On, on, on, she pushed herself forwards.
Suddenly she found herself struggling against some obstruction. She raised her arms as if fending off foe, before words and gentle restraint made her pause. It was a woman, whose voice she struggled to recognise. Liz saw an elderly Chinese standing before her. She felt total despair that this frail woman should be able to stop her and bar her way. ‘Excuse me,’ she gasped as if to negotiate this new barrier she must be polite, move round.
‘Miss Elizabeth? It is Miss Elizabeth! Where is my Lee?’
Shock of recognition sent goose pimples over her over-heated body and her knees failed spectacularly. The woman knelt quickly before her, then, as her breathing eased, Liz leaned forward into the woman’s arms. ‘Oh! Mrs Guisan! It’s you!’ Liz sobbed with exhaustion, Ch’ing because the girl was a woman and had not recognised her.
‘Lee’s coming. I just came quicker.’ She paused. With heart-stopping anxiety she asked, ‘Alan? The soldier?’
‘Rest a moment,’ Ch’ing said, looking at the young woman’s torn clothes and scratched arms and legs telling of the headlong race to arrive in time.
‘No!’ She struggled to her feet again, swaying. A little group of fascinated Sakai women and children watched and parted as Ch’ing led her the rest of the way to a large hut built just below the brow of the hill. The hut sides were hinged to the roof and propped up on poles to allow every cooking breeze to blow through.
She could see the bed as she approached, the still figure on it. The thin, thin, figure with a Sakai grandmother dipping her finger into a bowl and moistening his lips. Her heart leaped as in the caring she saw he survived, he was not dead ... but as she drew nearer her traitor mind added ‘yet’.
She ached with the sadness of hardly recognising the young man who seemed to have been replaced by a bearded emaciated man many years older. Sparsely fleshed, even gaunt before, now the angles of jaw were hidden by a sandy growth of beard much lighter than his hair but the cheek bone was acute — and across the top of his head was a smoothly healed scar. For some stupid illogical reason she remembered the shot-off crepe sole of Josef’s sandal, how her bullet had torn a clean semi-circular swathe through the white rubber.
She wanted to run her hand soothingly over the wound, take him up into her arms and forcibly bring him back to life. Instead she went down on her knees gently, like one preparing to pray, and took his hand, cradling it between hers, kissing the inert fingers.
‘Alan, I’m here now. It’s Liz. You’ll be all right now. Of course you will.’ She cradled the hand by her cheek and anxiously sought the movement between the hollowed ribcage as he breathed — it was so slight.
She woke with a start, finding her head on the bed over her arm, her legs collapsed under her. ‘Alan! We’re still fine.’ She straightened, reassuring him, recollecting herself. ‘Just waiting for you to open your eyes to see me. It’s Liz, Alan.’ She glanced to the far side of the bed, where the old Sakai woman nodded approval as she continued to smear Alan’s lips from the bowl. Ch’ing too was there by her side.
‘Come and eat,’ Ch’ing said, hand on her shoulder. ‘You need strength too.’
‘I can’t leave him.’
‘Then I bring you food here.’
She did eat ravenously, once begun, of a meal of roasted semolina root, like the most delicious floury potatoes, with game, rice, fresh-cut pineapple. Then Pa Kasut had a bed brought in so she might rest alongside Alan when she wanted to.
‘I want to thank you so much for all you have done,’ she told the old man. She put her hands together in the Chinese fashion and bowed her thanks to him.
He rocked a little on his heels, looking quite embarrassed and overwhelmed. Walking round to the far side of the bed, he re-established his composure by ordering the old woman to go and refill her bowl with the liquid he had brewed.
Liz thanked her when she returned and asked if she might take over the duty of moistening Alan’s lips. The Sakai woman showed her how to introduce tiny drops into his mouth. Once Liz introduced too much and he swallowed with a gigantic and unnatural effort, then coughed. She thought she might have killed him. She was much more cautious after this.
The liquid was clear and bright like spring water. It was curiously heart-wringing to be physically near him yet knowing he was unaware. Gently she traced his smooth lips between the unfamiliar beard and moustache and felt the action more like one indulged in by lovers in English meadows full of long-stemmed buttercups. She fantasised that he only feigned sleep and might suddenly snap at her fingers. ‘You promised always to make me laugh. I mean to keep you to your word.’
Experimentally she tasted the liquid herself and was reminded of a kind of gripe water used in the nursery; it tasted partly sweet, partly alcoholic. She put the finger from her own lips to his in a kind of reverent kiss.
She watched and talked to him, sensitive for the least response. Once she thought his eyes moved beneath his eyelids as if he was dreaming.
‘Where are you, Alan? Come back to me! Alan, it’s Liz. I waited for you at the bungalow, waited a long time ... ’ She told him about the mat and the cushions, about the flowers and the butterfly.
Ch’ing came to sit with her and they talked, including him in the conversation, trying to pull at his mind, tug his memory.
‘His father died unexpectedly — like mine,’ Liz said. ‘It created a bond between us to talk about this.’
‘Your father dead?’
‘Oh, Ch’ing, you didn’t know’?’
She told the story as simply as she could. Ch’ing’s eyes never left her face and when all was told, she uttered two words which were fair trial and honest verdict, ‘My Josef.’
She rose soon afterwards and when Liz would have gone with her she shook her head and motioned towards Alan. ‘I all right,’ she said, ‘back soon.’
Liz watched her go. She walked out and towards the hut the Sakais had allotted for the women visitors, an old, bent, solitary woman in the moonlight, her shoulders eloquent of this new burden of knowledge. A son who had murdered a man who had done him nothing but good, a man who, Liz knew, had regarded himself more as an uncle than as the employer of the man’s father.
Beyond the hut Ch’ing entered, Liz could hear the Sakais calling to each other. She was surprised how loudly some of the men talked to each other. When they were on the edges of others’ habitation they appeared shy, but here in their own home they were obviously joking and chattering with spirit and humour.
Alone with Alan she put her hands on his shoulders, leaning gently down to kiss his lips. ‘They say a kiss without a moustache is like a meal without salt,’ she whispered to him, then kissed his forehead and eyes. Just the way her father had once roused her from sleep to leave early for a holiday. Kindly but firmly his tones had reached into her sleeping mind; now her voice must reach into Alan’s. It was like an intercession as she talked on and on, pleading for the darkness to let his mind go, let him back into life.