♦
I was mildly put out that the rafters didn’t make the same mistake as I had with Étienne and Françoise – walking to each end of the arrival beach before realizing that the only way to get around the island was to go across it. But this was more than compensated by another, far more serious, mistake they made.
Actually, I knew they were about to make the mistake even before it had happened. Firstly, they hadn’t properly hidden their raft – only dragging it up beyond the high-tide mark – and secondly, they chatted loudly as they walked. In German, I noticed with grudging respect. (Grudging respect for Zeph and Sammy rather than the Germans, obviously.) To me, this clearly suggested one thing: they were entirely unaware of any need for caution. Mister Duck, who had rejoined me when the group turned inland, noticed it too.
‘Not very perceptive,’ he said, just under an hour into the trek.
I nodded, putting a warning finger to my lips. I didn’t want to talk because we were following them so closely. Not closely enough to see them through the thick foliage, but always close enough to hear.
‘If they carry on like that they’ll get caught,’ he continued, undeterred.
I nodded.
‘Maybe you should do something, don’t you think?’
‘No,’ I whispered. ‘Now shut up.’
I was a bit perplexed by Mister Duck’s concern, but no more than that. The next time he opened his mouth I put the warning finger to his lips instead of mine, and he got the message.
So anyway. That was the rafters’ big mistake, not being very perceptive. When they came to the first plateau, not one of them realized they were in a field.
∨ The Beach ∧
83
I Know Abou’ Tha’
Sammy whooped, just as he’d whooped six months ago, running through the rain on Ko Samui. And he shouted, ‘This is way outa fuckin’ line, man! I’ve never seen so much fuckin’ weed! This is more weed than I’ve ever fuckin’ seen!’ Then he started ripping up big handfuls of leaves and throwing them in the air, and the other four started whooping and throwing leaves in the air too. They looked like million-dollar bank-robbers throwing their loot around. Completely out of control. Completely dead meat. It was ten a.m. The guards would have been patrolling for two hours at least, and if they hadn’t heard them crashing through the jungle, they’d heard them now.
By a twist of fate, nothing intentional about it, Mister Duck and I were hiding in the same bush that I’d hidden in with Étienne and Françoise. It certainly gave the scene an extra edge. Watching Zeph and Sammy was like watching myself – what could have come to pass six months ago if not for Étienne’s cool head – and I felt a peculiarly vivid blast of empathy for Scrooge. Perhaps Mister Duck is my Ghost of Christmas Future, I remember thinking, as my stomach knotted with the memories of my fear. But I was also buzzing. It looked like the problem with our uninvited guests was about to be solved, and as if that wasn’t enough, I was also going to find out what happened when the dope guards caught someone. Better than that, I was actually going to see it.
Not that I’d want anyone thinking I was without pity for them. I didn’t want Zeph and Sammy on the island and I knew it would be convenient if they were to disappear, but it didn’t have to be this way. Ideal scenario: they arrived, I had a couple of days tracking them as they found their way across the island, then they gave up at the waterfall and went back home. I would have had my fun, and there’d have been no spilt tears and no spilt blood.
Zeph bled like a stuck pig. When the guards had appeared, he’d begun walking straight over towards them like they were old friends. To my mind an inexplicable thing to do, but that’s what he did. He still hadn’t seemed to realize what was going on, even though the guards all had their guns off their shoulders and were jabbering in Thai. Maybe he thought they were part of the Eden community, or maybe he was so shocked that he just didn’t click how much trouble he was in. Either way, as soon as he got close, one of the guards smashed him in the face with the butt of his rifle. I wasn’t surprised. The guard looked very nervous, and just as confused by Zeph’s strange behaviour as me.
After that there were a few seconds of silent staring across the heads of the dope plants, Zeph taking little backward steps as he cupped the blood spilling out of his nose. It seemed as if each of the two groups was as bewildered as the other. The rafters were having to make a considerable mental adjustment, Eden to Hell in the space of a few seconds. The dope guards seemed stunned that anyone could be so stupid as to walk into their plantation and start ripping it to pieces.
It occurred to me, during this brief interlude, that most of the guards were more like country boys than experienced mercenaries, with scars from sharp corals rather than from knife fights. A bit like the real VC. But I’m sure these observations would have been of small interest to Zeph and Sammy, and in this case I think it made the guards more dangerous than they might otherwise have been. Maybe someone more experienced wouldn’t have panicked and smashed Zeph’s face in. Isn’t there a saying: the only thing more dangerous than a man with a gun is a nervous man with a gun? If there isn’t, there should be. Once the short period of staring was over, the guards flipped. I read it as a panicky reaction to the situation. They just waded in and began beating the shit out of what were now their uninvited guests, and not mine.
I suppose they might have been battered to death right there and then, but just as I was beginning to feel that the scene was getting too unpleasant to watch, another bunch of guards arrived, and this lot appeared to have a boss. I’d never seen him before. He was older than the others and had no automatic rifle – only a pistol, still in its holster. Traditionally a mark of power amongst gunmen. One word from him and the beating stopped.
Beside me, Mister Duck reached over and clutched my arm. ‘Rich, I think they’re going to be killed.’ I frowned at him and mouthed, ‘Quiet.’
‘No, listen,’ he persisted. ‘I don’t want them killed.’ This time I shut him up not just with my finger but my whole hand. The guards’ boss had started talking.
♦
He spoke in English. Not flawlessly by any means. Not like a Nazi POW camp commandant who appreciates English poetry and says to his prisoners, ‘You know, we are much alike, you and I.’ But good enough.
‘Who are you?’ he said, very loud and clear.
A deceptively tricky question. What do you say? Do you formally introduce yourself, do you say ‘no one’, do you beg for your life? I thought Sammy handled it very well, considering he’d just had his front teeth knocked out.
‘We ‘re travellers from Ko Pha-Ngan,’ he replied between tight gasps for air, involuntarily dribbling as he spoke. ‘We were looking for some other travellers. We made a mistake. We didn’t know this was your island.’
The boss nodded, not unkindly. ‘Ve’y big mistake.’
‘Please, we’re very…’ Gasp. ‘Sorry.’
‘You alone now? Any frien’ here now?’
‘We’re alone. We were looking for a friend. We thought he was here, and we know we made a mist…’
‘Why you look for frien’ here?’
‘Our friend gave us a map.’
The boss cocked his head to the side. ‘Wha’ map?’