They heard the movements coming nearer, then whispers. Question, swift answer. Holding his breath, Alan thought the voices sounded like women, Chinese women. They waited — cat and mouse — expecting whoever it was to try to make a break either front or back. Ben was covering the back of the hut; they could see the front through the window.
There were sounds of at least two people coming along the passage towards the open lounge door. Alan bit his lip and sighted his rifle at the open doorway at chest height. He held his breath and stood, rifle steady, waiting to fire at the first sighting.
A girl’s voice called in excellent English with just the touch of Chinese inflection, ‘Please do not shoot, we wish to surrender.’
Alan saw the end of his rifle sight waver a little. He controlled it, stood firm. He remembered the stories of tricks played by communists, fatal deceptions.
‘We have our hands up,’ the girl added as she edged into the room, pushing it wider with her foot for an older, smaller Chinese woman to follow her in.
There was something different about this girl, Alan thought, as she led the way into the room. She moved with a freedom more associated with a Western woman, a longer, striding step, though the older woman had the sliding walk which always seemed to mark a more deferential Eastern approach.
‘Pleeze,’ the older woman said with no other request attached than that the girl had made.
‘My mother is Mrs Guisan,’ the girl said.
‘Who is Mrs Guisan when she’s at home?’ the sergeant asked.
‘The wife of the old manager of Rinsey,’ Alan supplied.
‘Huh! I may have bells on the other. We’d better put ‘em with the other prisoners.’
‘Just a minute, Sarge, I may be able to prove what they say.’
The sergeant looked very sceptical and as the women went to lower their arms he made a meaningful upward jerk with his rifle barrel. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Where did this furniture come from?’ Alan asked.
‘It is mine!’ the older woman said with some dignity.
‘It was stolen by ... It was stolen and brought here.’
‘By?’ he persisted.
‘By my son,’ she admitted, ‘my son Josef.’
‘He’s a traitor!’ the younger woman stated vehemently.
Her mother said something low and condemnatory in Chinese and the girl’s answer in the same language clearly indicated she did not care and it was the truth.
He reached for the pocket of his shirt, managed to undo the button in the sweat-soaked material with one hand and drew out the photograph. ‘Keep them covered, Sarge.’ He laid down his gun and unwrapped the small photograph. ‘who is that?’ he asked.
‘That Elizabeth,’ the girl said, regarding him as if he was part magician, part God. ‘How you have her photograph?’
‘She gave it to me.’
‘She here in Malaya? Not at Rinsey!’
‘Yes, she’s here and at Rinsey.’ Alan warmed to the girl as her face showed astonishment and delight, and thought for a moment she was going to throw her arms about his neck. She regarded him with the air of one diving into a new relationship with a stranger, the slightly roguish expression of one who was viewing the boyfriend of her girlfriend for the first time.
‘The Hammonds are back at Rinsey?’ the older Chinese woman asked and went on with rising disbelief and enthusiasm, ‘Mr Hammond, Mrs Hammond, Miss Elizabeth, Miss Wendy.’ Then her face suddenly clouded. ‘But no, no, or Josef would have told us — if he had known.’
‘He would have known,’ her daughter said stonily.
Alan glanced at his sergeant as Ben called from outside, ‘Any trouble?’
‘We’d better take them back to where the prisoners are,’ the sergeant decided before going to the door and shouting back, ‘Just two women, check there’s no one else in the back.’
Just two women, Alan thought, who had a lot of heartache to come as they learned the extent of Josef Guisan’s infamy. He felt a greater sympathy for the mother, who seemed determined to defend her son at all costs. Suddenly remembering the girl’s name, he opened his mouth to say it, when there was the sound of running footsteps and shouts at the far end of the camp.
‘They’ve found — ’ Alan began, but the sound of extended and excessive shooting was heard, coming nearer. There were shouts, orders and counter-orders. He looked at his sergeant.
Mackenzie gestured to the women. ‘Get down!’
The young one hesitated. ‘Lee,’ Alan shouted, ‘get down!’
The two disappeared beneath the solid bed and Alan thought they wouldn’t find a better place than that this side of Ipoh.
‘Come on, don’t think they’ll go anywhere.’
‘Stay under the bed,’ Alan instructed as his sergeant left the room. ‘Liz would never forgive me if anything happened to you two now we’ve found you.’
He followed his sergeant out to see at least two different units of English soldiers come pouring from the jungle, retreating, it seemed, dropping back to the huts, a hail of fire following them.
Sturgess came weaving and running low across to their side. ‘The police have got them pinned down on the road, and Unit Seven have their escape route plugged — they’ve got to come back this way!’
Alan pulled a low bamboo chair on to its side on the verandah. The sergeant crouched in the doorway, while Sturgess spread the news to the others in his unit. The last Alan saw of him was as he zigzagged his way back to the far side of the camp.
The firing increased in fury and they could hear the shattering explosions of hand grenades, still at the far side of the camp, then the stuttering of automatic fire came nearer. He heard the sergeant mutter, ‘Wish I had a couple of Bren gunners.’
Danny, he remembered, had been a Bren gunner. He was missing this lot. Lucky bastard! Alan thought as several bandits came running to the camp. One’s arm was raised and a grenade went off at the side of the compound; another had some kind of automatic and as Alan took aim the man sprayed the whole bungalow front with fire.
Alan felt a strange hot feeling across his head. He felt peeved more than anything. His hand still hurt from securing the crate, and this as well seemed too much. He clenched the sore hand into a white-knuckled fist. Then he relaxed, fingers outstretched, as he saw Danny smiling and surrounded by a great light coming towards him. He smiled back and tried to get up and go to meet him.
Chapter Sixteen
‘We shouldn’t leave Anna alone at Rinsey — not overnight, anyway,’ Liz said, standing at the front window of the Wildons’ bungalow.
‘No.’ Blanche’s tone was of reluctant agreement. ‘I wish now I’d gone with Aubrey to KL.’
‘You’d have been a hindrance, darling, believe me. Half the information Aubrey’ll get will be from the gossip in men’s clubs and the best part of all that’ll pass in the bog!’
Liz thought only Joan could get away with a remark like that to her mother — well, Joan and possibly George Harfield. She wondered if this was why her mother was friends with these two disparate people; they dared tell her the truth.
‘And if we’re going to motor back in daylight, we’ll have to leave soon.’ Liz added.
‘He might also pick up some news of this big op that the major’s been on,’ Joan added. It sounded an innocuous enough remark, but Liz glanced at her sharply and, finding her adopted aunt’s gaze on her, felt her colour rise.
‘He’s obviously all right, though,’ Joan went on, reassuringly smiling, ‘it’s in the newspaper.’ She riffled through the pages on the desk near the window. ‘Here you are ... ’ She read snatches of the text, “Largest operation of the emergency so far ... hundred troops raided area headquarters jungle camp ... captured two terrorists, one man and one woman, who have been taken to Ipoh for interrogation. Four other terrorists dead ... two identified on the wanted list.”’ She paused and looked up. ‘We lost one man killed, one man missing — so I presume you would say two men dead. Major Sturgess, it says, is working with the police at Ipoh, so he’s obviously safely returned.’ She stopped and smiled at Liz. ‘That’s some comfort.’