‘Of course!’ Blanche rose quickly. ‘That is what we want, for the law to take its course — and set an innocent man free!’ Outside, she exhaled an exasperated breath. ‘Now what?’
‘If we’ve got to drive to KL in a few days, let’s go and see the local car dealer. I feel in the mood for haggling,’ Liz suggested.
‘Good idea!’ Blanche agreed.
‘This girl being the daughter of the foreman?’ Liz posed the question as they walked away.
‘I know.’ Blanche’s tone was dour. ‘This I do not understand. George certainly went off one day because some girl belonging to one of his workers was missing, if you remember.’
‘It must be this same girl. There were photographs on the desk of a Chinese girl who had been dreadfully beaten. Did you see?’
Blanche shook her head. ‘I’d feel happier if I could talk to John Sturgess again. I’m not at all sure it’s going to be that easy to get into Pudu Gaol.’
‘Oh, we’ll do that all right,’ Liz answered, a little surprised her mother should doubt that. She was also more than certain she would feel happier if she could talk to Alan again.
They bought an old black Ford. The garageman looked a little ragged around his emotional edges after having dealt with these two belligerent Englishwomen.
‘I give a good deal,’ he shouted defensively as they drove away. ‘A bloody good deal!’
Three days later they had learned nothing of either Alan or the major, but finally had permission to see George in Pudu Gaol the following week.
Their personal situation seemed to mirror the frustration of the whole English business community in Malaya, caught in an inexplicable muddle, without information. Fear ruled as more and more reports of murders and atrocities reached police stations up and down the country. Planters and miners at a series of meetings displayed an unprecedented fury as their properties and loyal workers bore the brunt of the communist attacks. Their demands for weapons, protection, action, a guard on every bungalow, were dismissed as ‘alarmist’ by the High Commissioner, Mr Edward Gent.
Their faraway Attlee-led government seemed to many to be more concerned with improving relations with Red China than with the protection of Britain’s own citizens and armed forces. Self-help consequently became the order of the day. The isolated day-to-day lives English miners and planters lived had always needed vigorous resourcefulness, to which a new frustrated aggression was now being added.
The first payment for the newly begun tapping operations at Rinsey came as a boon and relief to the workers. Blanche and Liz put their profit into buying the machine gun Joan Wildon recommended — from a source they did not ask questions about.
With the new freedom of the car, Liz made it her business to take one of their tappers as shotgun rider and visit Bukit Kinta so she and her mother could make a direct report to George. Rasa’s son and Chemor were largely running the mine while they waited for a new manager to be appointed. It had never occurred to Liz until that moment that George would lose his job and his home if this trumped-up charge should ever be proved against him, unthinkable as that idea was.
Production of ore at the mine had dropped and the whole place had an air of waiting for the next disaster to strike. The morale and confidence of the workers was totally sapped without George or Rasa to guide them.
Perhaps the one positive thing they could tell George was that the scheme to drop payrolls from the air rather than risk having them ambushed and provide more funds for the terrorists was under way. Bukit Kinta was on the flying list for drops. The only casualty in their area had been the tin roof above Joan Wildon’s gun position. A wage bag containing $25,000 went hurtling down on Joan’s prize machine gun. Joan had rung Rinsey in a fine old temper. ‘I have to compensate well to the left now to hit anything, it’s a bugger!’
As Liz drove to KL she felt it was rather like going to visit someone in hospital, one tried to have a store of cheerful stories to tell the patient about the outside world. But as they drew near Pudu Gaol her heart sank; the whole edifice was so forbidding, so cheerless. The twin colonial-style spires either side of the main entrance gate seemed only to emphasise the plainness of the perimeter walls and of the barracklike blocks with small barred openings visible behind. ‘1895’ was the date emblazoned above the entrance. Liz felt it should more appropriately bear the message “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here!”
The two Englishwomen were regarded with some curiosity by the many Chinese and Malays who were also waiting for visiting time to begin. But soon the starers began to realise that, like them, the Hammonds carried bundles of food and whatever other comforts they could take into the prison. There were a few under-breath comments and one or two laughs as Liz and Blanche joined the waiting ranks.
The appointed time came and to the minute the visitors were admitted. Inside it seemed curiously calm after the bustle of the streets and the tense, nervous movements and burst of conversation there had been in the queue while they waited to see their loved ones.
Liz and Blanche found themselves siphoned off to the left with several other women. They came to three small separate areas where their menfolk sat. Liz’s heart lurched as she saw George; he looked, she thought, like an old dog, lost, kept captive where he hated to be, but still belligerent.
When he saw them approach his lips parted and his cheeks suffused with some colour. He rose to greet them with an expansive show of manners, exactly as if they were entering his sitting room. It was this more than anything else that touched her heart.
‘My dear man,’ Blanche said gently, and it seemed more comment than greeting.
‘You’re both a sight for sore eyes,’ he said, reaching out to take their hands. There were no spare chairs and George insisted Blanche should sit down while he and Liz perched on the table.
It seemed to their Western eyes a very casual approach to prison visiting until they remembered the armed guards and the huge gates. The level of chatter rose in the background until they might just as easily have been in one of the market places, with the singsong pitch of Chinese voices dominating.
Blanche was suddenly very busy with the bag she had brought and covertly, not knowing what was allowed, produced a glass, whisky and a soda syphon. She mixed the drink and handed it to George, who swore gently like a blessing, then sipped as if it were nectar.
‘Fair exchange,’ Blanche said. ‘You remember on the train when we first met?’
‘That seems a lifetime and a half ago,’ he replied, lifted the glass and drank their health.
‘There’s two bottles and a syphon in here.’ With her toe she touched one of the bags she had brought, then asked, ‘Can you tell us what happened? Inspector Aba told us so very little, the civil authorities told us less than that, and with John Sturgess away there was no one who would listen to us. Have you seen a solicitor? Why haven’t they allowed you bail?’
‘The charge is too serious. If I had done it I wouldn’t expect to see the outside world for a long, long time.’
‘We needn’t waste time discussing that,’ Blanche said. ‘Just tell us what on earth it’s all about.’
‘What it is about is a communist plot, trap. I’ve been a thorn in their sides for a long time, and this last raid on your amah’s village was the final straw. We not only captured two of their high-ranking men, we found information which we think will lead us to a big jungle camp, one capable of housing five hundred or more terrorists, one we used in the war.’
Liz glanced round to make sure they could not be overheard before asking, ‘Is this the sortie the major and Alan will have gone on now?’