Текст книги "The Red Pavillion"

Автор книги: Jean Chapman

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Four

The inner fury Sturgess had felt for Blanche Hammond’s stupidity in allowing Liz and his witness to go off into the jungle was somewhat tempered by the frustration of his own scout’s unexplained disappearance. Entap had been difficult to control but Sturgess was convinced he would never have deserted.

In the end Sturgess led his party off with the definite feeling that he was moving to some kind of climax, not only in this particular campaign but in his own life. It felt curiously like a last trial, a last labour set by some gods – and if he fell down in this, he must be a complete failure.

He was thankful to have Sergeant Mackenzie with him. The rest of his group were unknown quantities, and the good and dapper doctor had made it clear he was not happy without a tracker. The doctor had unofficially ‘mentioned’ the matter to Chemor, but he still regarded himself as under instruction from his former employer. ‘My job stay with the mem and Rinsey,’ he insisted.

Sturgess had been incensed by the attempt at interference and had announced quite bluntly that the decision was his and they would go – time was of the essence – and Chemor would, as George Harfield had ordered, definitely stay put at Rinsey.

Briefing the doctor that his work harassing the Japs had equipped him with much jungle knowledge, he saw from his face that this statement had to be proved to be believed. The doctor made him feel very much like a patient being given good advice to which he was refusing to listen.

What he had not revealed, as they cut into the jungle towards the river named Sungei Woh, was that he had stayed with the Sakais on several occasions when trekking through their territory to blow up Japanese installations, to sever their lines of communications, or just hiding out.

But the best lead he had was personal knowledge of Heng Hou. Even in the war, John had not trusted this burly Chinese, who had, if not watched, taken more than his fair share of camp rations and had been disliked by many of his fellows. He had shot to leadership as the communists formed the jungle platoons after the war and, like many another communist leader, ruled by intimidation. His own men were frightened of him, and the civilian population, particularly the gentle and easily intimidated Sakais, were terrified of him.

John calculated that, deprived of his ‘luxurious’ jungle camp and his supplies, he would first take out his revenge and spleen locally. Anyone who stood in his path would be slaughtered as Aubrey and Joan Wildon had been. Even so, he guessed Hou would not yet have moved far. Josef had promised him his sister, and Hou could be as devious and persistent as any monkey hiding a banana in its armpit while holding out a hand for more.

He would be looking for a hiding place not too far from paths to local kampongs which could be plundered for food, especially the dried fish and coffee which Hou had a particular taste for. Hou’s appetites were his driving force.

John had hoped to take Hou quickly – and had wanted the Chinese girl, Lee, as bait. He had planned secretly to lay ambush around the Rinsey area, having leaked the information that the former jungle-camp girl was there.

Inwardly he brooded that he felt a bloody fool on three counts. He had seen the woman he had thought his devoted wife in Australia with another man’s son on her hip. He had found a young woman he would have liked as a successor running off into the jungle after one of his own guardsmen, and now one of the best trackers he had ever known had somehow been lured away and most likely murdered.

Sturgess vengefully attacked the tree ferns and creepers growing up from the jungle floor like giant performing snakes. He had not expected to have the added task of trying to track and protect Elizabeth Hammond. He felt she had acted like a little fool; if Cresswell had survived and was with the Sakais, he had no doubt sooner or later news of him would filter out. It had a feeling of demotion to realise that Liz had fallen for a conscripted guardsman, while Blanche Hammond was motoring to Ipoh to visit Gcorge Harfield at every opportunity.

Sturgess severed a particularly sturdy liana stem. George was a good enough chap – the very best. He got on with life, stood no bloody nonsense; one of nature’s gentlemen, you might say, but regarded few social niceties.

As the days passed, Sturgess’s self-questioning and the tormented energy it gave him did not abate. Perhaps, he decided as he supervised the laying of tripwires around their resting area, he would do better to forswear women for ever, just pay for services. His father had said that was all marriage was —another way of paying for services.

The next morning, he smelled smoke. It was some distance away but he drew his party’s attention to the sign. Soon he could discern the lingering smell of cooking. If this was a communist overnight camp, they were feeling fairly secure.

He followed his nose and soon they came to a small clearing, in the centre of which was a kicked-out campfire. This had been rather inadequately dealt with and wisps of smoke still came from the blackened circle.

The major knew he was not of the calibre of any native tracker, but it was impossible for men to use the jungle without leaving signs. He was sure he was on the track of the right group of communists. The very nature of their careless camp, and the haphazard way they had lain during the night, told of thugs on the make rather than campaigners for a cause.

The tracks he followed became confused as they traversed and sometimes followed better-defined tracks. Before dark overtook them again, they could all smell smoke and cooking odours, and soon they began to see traces of the smoke trapped beneath the dripping, dense canopy. John realised this was no meagre campfire; this much smoke must be from several fires – a largish Sakai settlement or even a Malay kampong near the river.

He called a halt and discussed with Sergeant Mackenzie and the doctor the way they would deal with it. ‘We’ll assume there are communists in the houses, perhaps even holding some of the villagers hostage. So cautious approach with men keeping ambush positions on the main paths.’

The sergeant nodded his approval. ‘Want me to take a couple of men and circle to the far side?’

‘We’ll move off as soon as we can see, then, when we approach, you two men, and you, doc?’ He questioned the other officer with a nod. The doctor nodded briskly back. ‘You lot hare around to cover the far side. Shoot for their legs if they don’t stop when challenged. Meantime we’ll have grub up early and then move in a little closer tonight.’

They ate quickly, the men ravenous but quickly satisfied with the hard tack biscuits and chunks of corned beef, washed down with sterilised water from their canteens. They were tired, eager to move those last few hundred yards so they could rest up for the night.

As Sturgess led the way to what must be a good-sized jungle kampong, a worm of apprehension stirred deep in his stomach. This smoke was neither cooking fire nor bonfire, though it might be both. He found Mackenzie at his elbow, and they exchanged glances. ‘Tell the men to stay here. We’ll go forwards and look.’

They waited to see the men well concealed by the pathway, then moved cautiously forwards on their own. They had walked some hundred yards farther when both men froze. Someone was coming towards them along the same path. Instantly they stepped out of sight, watching and waiting.

A desolate-looking yellowy-brown village dog came hesitantly towards them, his nose pointing first to one, then the other. They waited a moment or two more, then, sure the dog was alone, stepped cautiously out.

‘Come on, old chap,’ John said softly. ‘Let’s go and see if we can find your master.’ The dog very companionably fell in behind the two men, though when they reached the bank of the Sungei Woh where the village must lie, for they could see a row of fishing stakes in the river, it refused to follow them farther. Mackenzie urged it on with a wave of his hand but it lay down and put its head flat on its paws. It was at that moment Sturgess became sure they were going to find disaster ahead.

Walking farther along the river path, they could see what looked like an extension of the fishing stakes, but these poles were black. ‘Bugger!’ Sturgess breathed.

‘Poor bastards.’ Mackenzie echoed the sentiment as they went slowly forwards to the burned-out village where only the uprights of the houses had survived.

They looked all around. Some possessions the terrorists had no use for were scattered beyond the range of the fire, while in the ashes of the largest hut were burnt corpses. ‘Five, perhaps six,’ Mackenzie said, then corrected, ‘Five and a child.’

They reconnoitred the area thoroughly.

‘There’ll be other villages farther along this river,’ Sturgess mused, wondering about their fate. ‘We’ll move upriver quickly tomorrow, see if we can forestall the bastards.’

The sergeant took off his pack and extended the entrenching tool, half spade, half pick. It was part of the personal choice of equipment he carried, whereas Sturgess always brought along a Sten gun as well as his revolver. The sergeant began to dig at the edge of the clearing. ‘You want to fetch the others up, sir?’ he suggested, adding, ‘Pity this is their first bit of action. Some of ‘em are just wee bairns.’

The major ordered a brew up and an extra meal of bully-beef stew when the job was done. ‘A bit more smoke’s not going to make any difference,’ he said as he handed his tin of cigarettes around.

It was a sober group of men who finally settled for that night. Sturgess rigged tripwires at both ends of the place he chose just beyond the village. Some of the young guardsmen had now seen the grotesque attitudes of violent death for the first time. The dog came slinking in and lay with its back against Sturgess’s boot. He let it stay.

At first light they again moved forwards, Sturgess pushing them at speed for some four miles. Then he ordered caution; the riverbank was beginning to be more trodden, beluka rather than jungle edging the path. He went ahead and before long could see a Malay kampong. Its houses had been established a long time with platform and toilets built out over the river.

He moved away from the track and bellied forwards so he could see the centre of the houses. Pulling out his binoculars, he examined each house in detail.

Crossing the doorway of the largest hut he was sure he saw the shadowy figures of men who were not somehow right for this jungle village. He concentrated hard and at last caught the image he had half registered the first time: men with rifles on their shoulders, eating from plates as they strode about indoors.

‘Got you, you buggers,’ he mouthed, wishing he could glimpse that burly, square Chinese, just pin down exactly where Heng Hou was, but his style would be sitting down being waited on.

Nothing, Sturgess promised himself, would be allowed to go wrong on this operation. ‘You or me,’ he vowed.

He withdrew to his group, excitement and urgency in his voice as he detailed his plans. He would take four men and the sergeant and go to the far side of the village; the doctor would take charge of the remaining men.

‘Allow us half an hour to be round the other side.’ He paused and glanced at his watch. ‘It is now eight forty-nine. We all move in at nine-thirty precisely. The largest hut in the middle, its facilities backing right over the river, is the main target. Shoot anyone with a rifle who doesn’t surrender immediately. Don’t let any of the bastards get away.’

Sturgess stationed himself nearest the village, two men strung out to left and right, with Mackenzie keeping watch at the rear so they would not be surprised by any CTs wandering into the kampong from their side. As he pushed his sleeve back to watch the final seconds – nine twenty-nine and – there was a noise behind him. He turned to see his sergeant standing in the middle of the path signalling to him. The signal was a cupped fist to the mouth and a bend forwards as if using a blowpipe. It meant Sakais were coming from their side. He signalled back, using the flat of his hand in a stopping motion. He glanced again at his watch; nine thirty. Nothing more he could do. Turning back to the sergeant, he stabbed a finger at his watch, then waved Mackenzie forwards.

They moved in towards the village and Sturgess was only too aware that he had deliberately placed the doctor and his men nearer the village so that the communists would be alarmed first from that side and run into him and his men’s fire. Now he had one or more Sakais at his back.

He let his sergeant move ahead of him, wondering if he might warn this native arriving at the worst possible moment. Then, emerging from the jungle, he saw not just a Sakai but behind him a tall red-bearded figure. ‘Christ! Cresswell!’ he hissed – and the women must be with them. He fairly danced on the spot for one totally disconcerted moment, then, knowing his sergeant would go on and do his job, he ran towards the party, shouting, ‘Cresswell, bandits ahead. Take cover, and stay down!’

Turning again, he ran back towards the kampong without any caution now, disregarding the communists’ triplines which activated bundles of tins near the huts. There was shouting ahead, and then the shooting began, with the blood-chilling rattle of automatic fire.

A man with a gun of some kind came running towards him. Sturgess shot him between the eyes, jumped over his body and ran on, and suddenly he was on the edges of a battle. He dropped to the ground, for gunfire was coming from several of the huts. Mackenzie was obviously trying to edge his men in nearer to the main hut, but even as he did so, Sturgess from his position at ground level saw a burly figure jump from the latrine platform at the back into the river.

He thought it seemed a fitting outlet for Hou, but then began to fret as he realised his men were pinned down by at least two punishing automatics – one from Hou’s escape but and another from a man who must have been posted as lookout up a tree.

Raising his Sten gun, Sturgess aimed first at the man in the tree, who was not aware of this latecomer to the action. His burst of fire scattered the foliage and brought the man falling like a gigantic fruit from the boughs. The others could deal with the man in the hut doorway; he wanted the top man.

He fell back along the path a few yards and made for the river. There was no sign of the man or which way he had gone, but, knowing Hou, it would be away from the trouble. Unfortunately, that was towards where Liz Hammond was.

The major hoped Cresswell was still keeping everyone hidden, and he hoped the terrorist leader might stay on the far bank, but there were rocky outcrops on that side and Hou knew the area. Sten gun raised ready, the barrel constantly sweeping ahead and across the far side of the river, the major moved quickly.

Suddenly ahead he saw Cresswell leaping out of the jungle and running away from him, towards where he heard a cry for help, the scream of a girl.

Sturgess ran into the scene. Hou, hair still streaming from his emergence from the water, held Lee by the hair, her head pulled back, throat exposed. He had a long, thin knife poised at her jugular; in a second she could be dead. Liz Hammond supported an old woman, while two Sakais stood irresolute.

‘Drop guns and go back,’ Hou screamed at Cresswell and the major. ‘Drop guns!’ He pressed the knife. Lee made a strange, gurgling scream and a small trickle of blood ran down her neck. ‘Next time!’ Hou promised.

The two dropped their guns close to their feet, Sturgess lowering his to the ground by its strap. Hou snarled, ‘Kick near! Near me!’

Sturgess looked at Cresswell, then at his own Sten gun. The two had understood each other before in the home of the Hammonds’ old amah; Sturgess hoped his man understood now. Hoped he remembered a much publicised incident when a soldier had banged on a door with the butt of a Sten gun and the quick-reaction gun had gone off and shot the soldier behind.

He silently applauded the young man, who pretended to stagger as he went to kick his rifle forwards, giving Sturgess a further few seconds to calculate his move. Cresswell miskicked again; this, Sturgess knew, was as far as any delay could go. Hou growled again and lifted Lee off her feet, but now Cresswell got his foot behind the rifle properly and pushed it forwards towards the communist.

The animal-like growl was repeated and John knew he could delay no longer. He swung his foot back and kicked the metal butt of the Sten as hard as he could. The gun responded as he had hoped, and fired. In the split second of the shot he was diving forwards, as was Cresswell. The major pushed his hand up with all the calculation of a man trained in both assassination and defence, forcing the knife away from Lee’s throat. He felt the girl pulled away, then Cresswell was on the other side, helping him pin the savage, screaming man down. Suddenly Liz was standing over all three men, holding the Sten gun pointing unwaveringly at Hou’s forehead.

‘You’d make a good regular soldier, Cresswell,’ the major said across Hou’s body as they each hung on to one of Heng Hou’s arms. ‘Pleased to see you made it.’

Alan grinned. ‘Thanks, sir, it is mutual. We’d have walked straight into this lad and his party.’

The pleasantries having been exchanged, they both realised that Lee was sobbing hysterically and shouting, ‘Kill him! Kill him! I’ll never be safe while he’s alive.’

‘He has only to move and I’ll do just that,’ Liz promised. ‘Don’t worry, Lee, he’s going nowhere.’

Once the group had rounded up the communists left alive and Hou had been secured to Lee’s partial satisfaction, there was quite a reunion.

Pa Kasut came forward and greeted John Sturgess like a returning prodigal son, and as recognition slowly dawned John stood shaking his head in disbelief.

‘It can’t be!’ he exclaimed. ‘The Japs never got you!’ His eyes went then to Bras standing grinning broadly next to him. ‘This is your boy! The young man who – ’

‘You save from tank,’ Pa Kasut said, and for a moment the joy of reunion was overlaid by the trauma of a remembered incident. ‘Now we save this man for you.’ He indicated Alan.

‘Yes,’ Sturgess said simply. He took stock of the tall, red-bearded young man with a long flash of white mixed in with his darker hair and he saw a man, old in experience, pain – and love, he thought, looking from him to Liz, who stood close by his side. He could sense that their togetherness was unassailable. He held out his hand to Alan and wondered whether he deserved to have the younger man take it.

Alan did not smile but he did take the hand offered to him. ‘Sir,’ he said gently. Sturgess shook it hard, then, turning, put his free hand on the old Sakai’s shoulder and announced to the assembled group, ‘Of course you know what Pa Kasut means – it’s “Old Boot”, tough as old boots! That’s how this jungle hero got his name.’

Liz was surprised when, after they had all smoked together, the Sakais prepared to go back to their hill camp. She had not expected to part with their company so soon. They stood in line to shake hands and bid them goodbye. She felt a great affection for them and knew there was nothing she or Alan could ever do to repay them. They had nothing the Sakais needed. Sturgess gave them a tin of cigarettes, which Pa Kasut gave to Sardin – he of the trip to the cinema, Liz remembered.

As they set out again, Lee insisted on always walking behind the prisoners, so as to be sure Heng Hou was secure. She got a little braver as they neared the main roads, pulling at his ropes to be sure they were still tight.

‘His growl has gone now,’ she said triumphantly, ‘now he just ... ’ She skipped in front of him, glowered and pulled faces at him to Ch’ing’s consternation and disapproval.

‘I’ll feel happier when he’s in gaol where he belongs,’ Liz said grimly, wondering if the terrorist would be taken to the same gaol where George Harfield was incarcerated. It would be a strange irony.