Perhaps he would be able to say something of that to Liz — no use burdening the rest of your life with it. Love goes on. Love goes on even when life does not, he thought, and felt a twist of pain as he experienced a keen wish that his father might have made his own coffin before he died. Instead, a stranger’s hand had been destined to fashion the wood for Edgar Cresswell’s earthly remains.
His eyes hurt with the effort of looking so far sideways at the family party and he allowed his gaze to centre as he decided he did believe in destiny — he certainly believed in love.
He was glad for everyone when the ceremony was over and they could leave the graveside. He admired the way Mrs Hammond turned with great dignity and invited the four Malays who had lowered the coffin to join them at the bungalow. Blanche Hammond was like her friends Mr and Mrs Wildon, elegant and classy, confident that she knew her place and, he thought ironically, just as surely they thought they knew everyone else’s.
There was some delay as, at a word from Liz, the Malays looked around as if to ask someone else to join them, but then turned back to each other with a few hasty words and shaking heads. Then a formal procession moved away. Liz and her mother went first with the Wildons next, their height making George Harfield, who followed, look more square and bulldoggish than ever. Major John Sturgess walked by Harfield’s side, of the same ilk as the Wildons but a bitter man, Alan judged, one with a chip on his shoulder and who had certainly taken a personal dislike to him, of that he was sure. Then came the precise police inspector from Ipoh, two of his men and the army chaplain.
Li Kim, the cook from Bukit Kinta, had been put in charge of the meal laid on inside. The guardsmen had been catered for in the shack at the back where Alan had set up his radio. There were generous plates of sandwiches and Tiger beer. They piled in, pulling off their caps, propping rifles by the walls. He was pleased to be part of the chatting mess-room atmosphere they soon created, boys noisy to conceal emotions, and he knew they were sufficiently removed from the bungalow for their gossip and laughter not to be offensive.
Most of these men were eighteen, three years younger than Alan, and most of them he had sailed across with in the Empire Signal. One young man with light-red hair and a pale, freckled face had turned out to be from a neighbouring village and the two had spent much time together on the voyage reminiscing about people and places they both knew. Dan Veasey greeted him now in the melee of youths reaching for bottles of beer to replace some of the fluid they constantly sweated away.
The pair shook hands and slapped each other on the back. Dan was some eight inches shorter and Alan always told him they had added in the width of his toothy grin to make up the height requirement for the Guards regiment. It was wide enough now. ‘Ah, it’s great to see you! How y’doing, boy?’
‘Told him about the present we’ve brought him?’ a dark youth wanted to know. He was cynically nicknamed Babyface because of his acne-scarred cheeks.
‘What’s this, then?’
‘More to the point, have you told him we’ve all come to stay?’
‘Come on,’ Alan demanded, ‘what’s it all about?’
‘No, fetch him his present first,’ Babyface said.
A lot of ragging ensued, though it didn’t interfere with the rapid consumption of sandwiches and beer. Alan had a growing feeling of unease that whatever was coming would bring the idea of his prolonged stay within reach of Elizabeth Hammond rapidly to an end.
He groaned aloud and it was no hardship to make a big show of putting his head in his hands as he was presented with a model-33 radio set — the portable kind, the kind carried through the jungle on operations.
‘OK, so when do we go?’
Now the laughter at his expense settled to speculation and apprehension, then to serious consideration about their own temporary quarters. One or two went off to investigate the other nearby workers’ huts pending the arrival of another lorry which was following after dark with their kit.
‘I think the major’s used the funeral as an excuse to get us up here ready to go in. He hopes the CTs will think we’re all going back straight back to KL — the lorries will, of course, with a couple of men stuck in the back to make ‘em think we’ve scarpered. He’s cute, that Major Sturgess.’
Cute, Alan decided, was not exactly the word he would have used.
‘Don’t take much to be cuter than some of ‘em who’re supposed to be on our side. Heard about the thousand machine guns and the one ammunition clip?’ Dan asked.
This sounded like some stupid music-hall gag, and it took the teller some time to convince the group that it was true, that there was a nearby police section with a thousand guns and no clips to load the ammunition, which made the arms quite useless.
‘If you don’t believe me, ask that chap Harfield from Bukit Kinta. He’s going to try to make some clips in his workshops. I heard them talking.’
‘Nothing surprises me about this bloody place,’ a morose voice put it. ‘Your bloody toes rot off, leeches eat you alive, if malaria doesn’t get you prickly heat does.’
‘Keep taking the salt tablets, the “Paludrine” and using the blue unction,’ another advised.
The soldiers’ slang for the gentian violet so liberally painted on, rashes and bacterial infections brought howls of protest.
‘Yeah. Being so cheerful as keeps you going, ain’t it, Babyface?’
Alan was pleased to volunteer to relieve one of the outer guards left to protect the men filling in and tidying the grave; it gave him time to try to come to terms with the new situation. He walked the long way around the completed perimeter wire at the front of the bungalow and took the place of the man patrolling the side, which gave him a view of the back door as well as sight of people leaving the front and going to their vehicles.
He stood listening to the jungle, aware of anyone who approached that way, but watching the bungalow. He could hear the hum of conversation and see people passing to and fro across the open windows. He could gauge the moment when people were leaving by the pause, then the chorus of voices as some of the guests said goodbye. He saw the four Malays come out, accompanied by the inspector of police and his men. They all drove away in police jeeps.
The Wildons were the next to leave and he heard the woman raise her voice on the front porch to say, ‘They usually attack about dusk — must be back at my post, don’t want anyone else messing about with my machine gun — but we’ll be back for tiffin tomorrow.’
Alan raised his eyebrows. In a country where attacks and outrages were almost hourly and where petrol was at a premium, the Wildons could be besieged at night and come forty miles for tiffin the next day! He put a finger to his cap and gave them due acknowledgement.
The bungalow was quieter and soon it would be time for him to be relieved to make his network call. Liz had come twice to his shack at this time. He had felt the very second she had arrived, but had not immediately turned, the first time because he had not believed his intuition and the second because that secret moment of awareness had felt like holding and savouring a wonderful present he still had to unwrap.
He wondered if such a visit could be ever repeated with his mates billeting themselves in the nearby huts. Would he return to Rinsey after the jungle sortie? He had been twice into the deep jungle and each time the relief to be out of the claustrophobic trees with their canopy of leaves and strange plants that rooted and grew in the dense living ceiling had been like the lifting of a death sentence.