Liz laughed at her mother’s description.
Blanche sank into her seat. ‘I feel a bit like that myself already this morning — ravaged. It’s this unrelenting heat. How long does this damned train take? I forget — never mind, don’t tell me, let me be blissful in ignorance a bit longer.’
Liz pushed up the wooden shutters that served as windows and hoped that when ignorance turned to knowledge they would be rejoicing, quite mad in fact with the happiness of reunion. She watched the two-toned brown carriages begin to curve away as they moved out of Singapore station on this last stage of their journey.
They crossed the stone causeway from the island of Singapore to the peninsula of Malaya. She smiled to see her mother take out a Delderfield novel to read and, having brought a little of England with her, refuse to be distracted from it.
Liz felt an overwhelming excitement as childhood memories were relived as they stopped at minor stations. She watched locals energetically appeal for the train passengers to raise their shutters and buy from their trays of fruit, tiny highly coloured rice cakes or hand-embroidered slippers, or take tea from the char-wallahs, with their brass charcoal burners and tea kettles hanging from sturdy bamboo canes. She saw a hand come from a window and steal a cake as a tray was carried along on the vendor’s head.
This was the Malaya she remembered, the population like the ever burgeoning jungle competing for space, striving for a living in heat like the hottest of greenhouses, growth often outstripping resources. She watched the variety of faces: the Chinese more competitive, their smiles angled to prospective customers; the Malays, she thought, good-natured in the contented way of people whose generous land could grow both basic sustenance and exotica with very little help.
Although the train’s speed through the green jungle corridor created a breeze, it was hot and soporific, and she found the effort of trying to see the landscape through the shading wooden slats trying to the eyes. She was drifting into sleep when there was a tap on the door of their compartment.
They were both surprised to see George Harfield standing there with two green coconuts cupped in one huge hand. Blanche lowered her novel and frowned. ‘I hope you’re not going to offer us those!’ she said.
George Harfield laughed, quite unperturbed by her assumption or her manner. ‘This, my lady, is so tasty that not only will you want to drink the contents but you’ll be scraping out the inside with your manicured fingernails.’
She made a large dismissive gesture, but laughed at his crudeness, stating, ‘You’re the man who met Major Sturgess.’
He sat down uninvited and Liz waited for her mother’s reaction.
‘How does fresh limes, splash of gin and ice sound?’ he asked, again offering the smooth green shell of a young coconut, sliced off at the top. Usually the content offered for sale was the coconut milk itself — nice enough but tepid. Liz saw her mother swallow in anticipation and she licked her own lips at the thought of a really cold drink.
‘Ice?’ Blanche queried. ‘Well, then you’re irresistible. Do sit down.’
‘Thanks!’ Harfield grinned quite unabashed as he handed over the drinks.
It was all as he said, complete with straws into the thick-fleshed nut. Quite delicious, and after the first few deep swallows both women savoured and eked out the rest.
‘Are you some sort of a magician?’ Blanche asked.
He tapped the side of his nose and laughed as she sniffed deprecatingly. ‘Local products plus British enterprise,’ he answered, adding, ‘and I have a proposition to put to you.’ The teasing look was gone, his blue eyes suddenly stony. He sat back in the seat and openly studied both women.
‘A proposition?’ Blanche queried. ‘To discourage us from doing what?’
‘Of course Major Sturgess has sent you,’ Liz surmised.
‘Robbo, no,’ he denied. ‘We’ve talked, I know who you are, but he’s asleep now. Been through a traumatic time and travelled from the far side of Australia before flying back to Singapore.’
She wondered first how anyone could call the inflexible Major Sturgess ‘Robbo’ and secondly what the ‘traumatic time’ had involved — but George Harfield was obviously not going to enlighten them.
‘He really only knows second hand what’s going on here.’ He paused as if to make certain of his ground. ‘You are from Rinsey?’
Blanche acknowledged the last remark with a nod before asking, ‘Haven’t you just returned from England?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve only been in England for twelve weeks in the last three years. I came back immediately after the war to manage a mine for Pacific Tin. I was a young engineer here prewar, and I understand you lived here too.’ He paused. ‘I have to tell you this has suddenly become a very different country to the one you left. Can you both handle a gun?’
‘Of course,’ Blanche said brusquely. ‘Do we need to?’
Liz felt a weary anger rekindle; these men really did not know her Malaya at all. Twelve had seemed to be the age when planters’ children all learned to handle guns. Josef Guisan and she had devised competitions, shooting first at tins on tree stumps, then at pieces of liana posing as deadly snakes thrown unexpectedly from bushes. Finally they practised shooting at bundles of ferns on the ends of bamboos poked out as attacking tigers, the green target accompanied by savage roars — until Liz, startled by a bellow from an unexpected direction, had shot off the toe of one of Josef’s sandals.
‘It might be the most valuable thing you can do if you insist on going to Rinsey.’
‘It is our home,’ Liz said firmly. ‘We have friends there I grew up with, bosom friends.’
‘You make it sound as if the estate is under siege?’ Blanche probed for more information.
‘Not as far as I know,’ George answered but the tone implied it might well be, and he added, ‘My payroll delivery has been ambushed twice on the road from Ipoh to the mine. I’ve been trying to convince the powers that be that we need more guns to protect our property and our employees. The Colonial Office says there are plenty of guns in Malaya. The trouble is,’ he finished dourly, ‘they’re in the wrong hands.’
‘We have some at Rinsey,’ Liz put in.
‘I hope they’re still there,’ George said. ‘I hope everything is fine ... ’
‘But?’ Blanche prompted as he let the sentence hang doubtful of conclusion.
‘Well, I’ve met your husband several times, had drinks in Kuala Lumpar and Ipoh with him, know your neighbours, the Wildons — ’
‘Oh, they’re back?’ Blanche brightened momentarily at the thought of hospitable, amusing friends re-established on their estate.
George Harfield nodded. ‘It was Aubrey Wildon who told Robbo about the outcome of the telegram Neville had sent. They had intended to stay at Raffles and meet you but news came their tappers were being intimidated, so they rushed back to their estate.’
‘How did they know the telegram had come too late?’ Liz wondered.
‘The people in your home post office sent word you had already left.’
‘That was good of them,’ Blanche commented.
‘In the circumstances, very,’ Liz said dryly.
‘And my husband?’ Blanche asked. ‘What did the Wildons know about Neville?’
‘They saw him in Ipoh the day he sent the telegram. No one has seen him since. Later they went to Rinsey and found the message saying you were already flying out, but your husband was not there. In fact, they could find no one.’
Liz wondered who had been there when she had telephoned — of all the things they were being told, she still found that distant voice the most chilling. Had there been a stranger, a communist terrorist, standing in their lounge answering their telephone? Had he been holding her father prisoner? Or had it been Kurt or even Josef answering — being held at gunpoint as he spoke? She pushed the mounting panic of speculation aside; she must concentrate on facts.