A movement to the rear of the ranked guardsmen caught her eye and she saw Anna there, hands clasped, head bowed. Fear had after all not kept the bent old amah from paying her final respects. Liz stared at her and Anna saw, nodding her head as if confirming her devotion to a tuan who had often larked with her and her charges until tears of laughter ran down her cheeks — or mem had arrived. Liz remembered the hands clamped over the mouth trying to hide and stifle the laughter while the dark eyes sparkled irrepressibly above them, and she cried for Anna.
The tears splintered the symmetry of the small military funeral. Then worry for the safety of her amah and her grandson changed her grief momentarily to real concern.
A sharp authoritative command reasserted the formal ceremony and the soldiers stamped up dust as they obeyed. None of this ritual surely was right for the man Anna had come to mourn.
She and her mother had been swept along by the advice of friends like the Wildons who rang full of concern and sorrow and recommended leaving ‘their mutual friend John Sturgess’ in charge of all the arrangements. They had arrived from their regularly besieged bungalow as soon as they could.
They were as Liz remembered them, both tall, elegant, beautiful people with an air of deceptive languidity, for they threw themselves into the role of comforters with the same forthrightness as they damned all communists and swore they would never be ousted from their plantation.
John Sturgess and George Harfield had worked together to erase the painful hours along, to think ahead of all the arrangements and formalities. George had seen that everything had been done with the police and the authorities to enable the burial to take place at Rinsey. John Sturgess had secured the services of the military padre, six guardsmen, a trumpeter and extra men to guard the surrounding area.
Liz must have looked overwhelmed and appalled by the idea, for he explained with quiet certainty that it was necessary after an attack on an army burial at Cheras cemetery. Communists had targeted the ceremony from hills surrounding Kuala Lumpur and the firing party had been forced to take cover in the open grave.
As if her mind must re-establish every painful thought, she now remembered her sketch of Alan Cresswell and how she had imagined his pose right for a memorial. God! No! She shook her head wildly, censoring the thought. Joan Wildon caught and squeezed her elbow, but Liz’s concern was to find Alan in the line of guardsmen, to reassure herself of his presence.
He stood at the far end, tallest at the extremes, smallest in the middle, in true Guards fashion. Although he was, she had come to realise, no more military and warlike than her father had been. Perhaps only she could acknowledge that his help had been more telling than anyone else’s.
He had finally expressed the sentiment that decided where her father’s grave should be. Blanche had wondered about the top of the falls, but that was linked in their minds with the hidden jeep. Alan had said to Liz that wherever they decided, the place under the tree would always be of such awful significance that it would be better to allow a proper burial in the same place. ‘A kind of exorcism. That’s how I would feel, anyway,’ he had said to her.
‘I do have many good memories of my father under that tree.’ He had taken her hand and held it very tight, helping her through the idea like a kindly doctor with a difficult prognosis to make.
‘A right act to purge a wrong,’ Blanche had replied when Liz had tentatively conveyed the suggestion, instinct making her keep the source of the idea to herself. Since the arrival of John Sturgess it seemed to Liz that her mother had made a subtle relegation of George Harfield and certainly of the young conscript billeted with them.
Under the expert guidance of a tree specialist George had contacted, the big tree had been pruned of its dead leaves and some of its top branches to give it a better shape and a chance of swift re-establishment. Liz had felt an illogical, smouldering resentment as the tree had been tidied; people couldn’t be pruned and given a second chance when they had been shot in the back — with the rifle found under the body.
She had been both surprised and resentful when four of their senior tappers had materialised the day before the funeral and offered sympathy and expressions of loyalty to all the Hammond family. ‘Where have they been until now? Why weren’t they here with — ’ Joan had caught her arm before she could rush out to join her mother at the front of the bungalow.
‘These Malays might be useful to the police — they certainly should be encouraged to stay.’
‘If only to tell us why they feel it’s safe to come back now,’ her husband agreed. ‘They obviously know a damn sight more than we do.’
Her mother had lit a fresh cigarette and fired one swift question after she had received their murmured condolences: ‘Have you seen Josef Guisan?’
The question had stilled their fidgetings with their round coolie hats, but the only answer had been a minimal shaking of one head, which, when observed, was repeated with growing conviction by the others.
As a signal from the padre these same four Malays stepped forward on either side of the grave, taking the strain of the hessian straps. Liz concentrated on the figures rather than the lowering box and suddenly realised she actually knew one of the men. His face was thinner now so his ears seemed larger and more protruding, but he it had been who had taught her how to hold a tapping knife — and tears were running steadily down his cheeks.
Who had done this to them all? Who had forced them into these acts and roles they did not want to play? She could see Anna’s head bent low again now, she could feel her mother trembling by her side. She again watched the falling tears on the Malay’s face and was suddenly very angry as the straining figures took the weight, paying the strap out through their careful fingers inch by inch, lowering her father’s body down into the earth. Joan and Aubrey were right, of course, these men must stay long enough to be questioned.
The orders came for the small firing party to bring their rifles to their shoulders and ‘Fire!’ The six shots rang in unison up and above the trees, echoing mournfully in the surrounding hills. Liz felt her heart impounded by the sorrow and the jungle seemed to listen and take stock, as if some new, sad creature had entered its domain.
Then softly came the trumpet notes to mark the end for all who die untimely deaths. The grouping tiers of notes, the climbing sweetness of life’s round told and retold, completed by that long last lingering note that at once questioned eternity and expressed human hope.
As ‘The Last Post’ ended she felt her mother sway by her side, and immediately she and Joan tightened their hold, a thin line of women firm until the last echo died.
Alan, his gaze slightly off front, saw and willed them strength. The spine-jarring stamp to attention as an order rang out was as automatic as a bird responding to the tropical thermals, but his heart and mind were with the women of the Hammond family. They were becoming more important in his life with every day of his posting at Rinsey. He admired the one and loved the other. He’d heard of love at first sight, had felt immediate longings for various girls, but this he knew was different. In his mind the admission brought scoffing and laughter from his peers, but he mentally fended them off, silenced them.
He knew this was a new emotion because it hurt more, he cared more about her glance than he did about the opportunity of taking half a dozen other girls to bed, or the wrath of a dozen Major Sturgesses or his ilk. He wanted to protect her, lift this awful burden of grief from her, cherish her. He saw her in the sparkling novel magic of the jungle waterfalls and yet it was difficult to believe he had not always known her — certainly he knew he had always been waiting for her. From the Midland village where his father had been a small-time builder and undertaker, to the depths of the tropics he felt he had been chosen to come to find her.
He thought of his father and how he had prepared for village funerals, the coffin shaped, planed and sanded in the woodwork shop in the far corner of the builder’s yard. The brass furniture was selected from large drawers in the work-bench according to size and price and screwed into place, the name plate last. Then his father would lean on the finished box, running his hand along it, nodding, satisfied with the craftsmanship and giving a minute to the occupant-to-be. It was like a dedication, Alan thought, looking back. There’d be a summing-up of what his father knew about the deceased, then, after a decent pause, always the same words, ‘Ah, well! No use burdening the rest of the day with it. Life goes on.’