‘Some part of my mother in me, deep down,’ she mouthed, sitting back on her calves. ‘A lot of Daddy, the outside bits, the arty bits, but perhaps the core is Mother.’ She sighed and sat down with her legs outstretched, put her arms straight behind her and leaned back, head turned up to the sky.
She tried to review what she was certain of. It would certainly grieve her mother — and poor Anna — if she killed herself. No, she supposed, like Hamlet, she had to go on, haunted by almost the same ghosts — the murdered father, the lost lover. She rose, quickly aware she must move away from these falls; like Hamlet, she should put the temptation behind her.
As she turned and her eyes adjusted from the glare of the sun, her eyes scanned the fringes of jungle and the plantation in front of her — and a movement caught her eye. Someone or something? Someone, she decided and instinctively her hand sought her abandoned rifle. She raised it towards the rubber trees.
Then she caught a second movement — two people at least. Her heart began to thud and she recognised the irony or hypocrisy of her self-indulgence — one minute seeking a way to end her life, the next panicking to save it.
She sighted the rifle rapidly and instinctively, finger curled ready to press the trigger, as a figure stepped out from the trees directly in front of her. Liz saw it was a girl and did not fire, but nor did she lower her sight.
The girl stood very still, then called, ‘Elizabeth! Is it Elizabeth? Elizabeth, it’s me, Lee.’ The girl began to move towards her, slowly at first, then running.
‘Lee?’ Liz repeated, then recognised her beyond doubt. ‘Lee!’ She threw down the rifle and ran towards the girl, struggling like someone in dream or nightmare on ground that seemed less than solid and legs that hardly obeyed.
They threw themselves into each other’s arms crying, disbelieving, each examining the other, stroking, hugging, unable to speak, unable to let go each of the other for long, long minutes.
‘Lee! Where have you been all this time? I don’t understand.’ Liz held her at arm’s length and saw how gaunt and pale she looked, how torn were her clothes.
‘You, Liz, you ... ’ Lee looked but could not find words for how gaunt, pale and sad her friend looked. ‘You ... ’ Tears drowned the words. ‘You have to come ... ’ She swallowed, trying to stem the tears. ‘You have to ... ’ She turned and called, once, twice. In the trees Elizabeth saw the native.
‘You’ve been in the jungle travelling with the Sakais,’ Liz guessed, seeing all the evidence in Lee’s appearance.
‘The soldier with your photograph — ’
‘Alan!’ She felt as if every hair on her head rose at the words, her skin was ice cold. ‘Alan! You’ve seen him. But how ... I ... is he?’ She could not go on. ‘Lee, tell me.’
‘It’s not good news, Elizabeth,’ she said, tears streaming from her eyes as if the fault was hers. ‘I’m so sorry. He is very ill — ’
‘He’s not dead? You mean he’s not dead!’
‘The Sakais have been nursing him since the raid on our camp. But he is in a coma, Liz, I don’t think there’s much hope.’
‘I must go to him,’ she said, almost laughing with relief, with hope. No one could deny her that if he was alive! ‘Lee ... ’ She shook her head at seeing the girl she thought of as a sister restored to her. ‘Your camp? I don’t understand! I can’t believe all this — but I must go to him.’
‘This is why we have come.’
Chapter Nineteen
The emotion of the next hours was epitomised for Liz by Anna. The amah soon had an arm around each girl, alternatively beaming as if her face would split and almost bursting into tears. Liz and Lee took turns talking or burying their faces in her shoulder, stooping and snuggling like overgrown fledglings trying to return under her wings.
Blanche in the meantime came first to touch one and then the other as if reassuring herself of Lee’s presence and the safety of both girls. In between she paced up and down, raging about the infamy of Josef condemning his mother and sister to a life of drudgery and abasement, pausing as she remembered taking the squirming youngster to his father for punishment, dragging him protesting all the way from one bungalow to the other.
The ever indulgent Kurt Guisan had to her fury laughed when she described his son as a thieving magpie. And Mrs Guisan had been too weak to control him. Poor Ch’ing. ‘So your mother is … ?’ she asked again.
‘The Sakais have taken her to their village, while the soldier is farther away in a cooler hill camp.’
‘I always knew that boy was a total waster, but even I didn’t think ... ’ Blanche’s mind returned continually to Josef while at the same time trying to grasp this amazing reunion and think of the best way to deal with all its implications.
There was one thing she was quite certain about. Liz had come to life again with the news of Alan Cresswell’s survival. The boy must be given all the help he needed as soon as possible. From what Lee said, this was the presence of someone who loved him, someone to try to talk him back to life. There had been such cases, she seemed to remember, people tended in modern hospitals and continually talked to by their loved ones had survived ... But Alan Cresswell’s predicament seemed to her chillingly like Neville’s disappearance; the circumstances and the time involved were against a happy outcome. This boy’s injuries had been suffered some weeks ago, he had languished in the jungle among aborigines and been carried from one place to another. Then there was the journey back — with a Sakai, which guaranteed it would be through remote primary jungle. God alone knew how long that would take! She dreaded to think what extra heartache Liz might have coming to her.
‘You’re sure Sardin will wait until morning?’ Liz asked anxiously. ‘And that there’s nothing more we can give him?’
Lee and Liz had gone back to take him cooked rice and meat to the gates when he would not come nearer. He had carried the meal away into the trees. Later the bowl, empty except for a spray of tree orchids, had been brought in from the main gates — though shamefacedly even Chemor had to admit no one had seen it returned.
‘I have great respect for all Sakais,’ Lee said. ‘Sardin said he would wait by the big rock. He will do that.’
‘I wish we could go now,’ Liz murmured.
Lee shook her head. ‘He will not travel at night.’
‘So first light then.’
Blanche was alarmed at the thought of the two girls going off God knew where in the company of one aborigine. This needed organising — tactfully. ‘Lee, you can sleep in the old nursery, I’ll make up the bed, but first I must ring John Sturgess. He had to be told there’s chance of recovering one of his men.’
Liz felt her heart plummet. He had opposed everything she had wanted to do since she arrived back in Malaya. ‘We don’t need him, do we? We don’t want him to come. He’s so officious.’
‘But he’s also efficient — and what about a doctor? He could send an army doctor with you.’
‘We don’t want him arriving like a troop of cavalry and frightening our man off. Then no one will find Alan.’ She looked anxiously at Lee.
Lee shook her head. ‘The Sakais are clever in the jungle. They live all time by CT camp, Heng Hou, no one know until they come to help us. I think Sardin will see army but army not see Sardin until he is ready.’
‘And to take a doctor, is that a good idea? Is it worth waiting around while they fill in forms in triplicate or whatever they have to do?’
‘Can doctors bring people out of comas?’ Lee shrugged.
‘But I do feel I have to tell Major Sturgess,’ Blanche intervened gently. ‘You do understand that?’
Liz, back turned, shoulders tense, made no show of assent but neither did she protest as Blanche went to make the call in the study.