State of Siege

“It is eleven o’clock. Mina and Roy will not leave for two hours yet. You have had a long journey today. I think you must be very tired.”

“I’ve enjoyed this evening, but now, yes, I am tired.”

“Then you should go and sleep.” She smiled as I hesitated. “We can meet again tomorrow if you wish.”

“Yes, I’d like to do that. Roy’s going to Makassar tomorrow morning and I know no one else in this place. No one, that is, that I want to see.” I hesitated again. We had stopped and she was looking up at me.

“What is it you wish to say?”

“There is my side of the bargain too.”

“I do not think we need to talk about that. You will be here for two, three days. When you leave you will give me a present of money. If we have not liked each other, you will give it in contempt. If we have liked each other, it will make the parting easier. In any case you will be generous.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, I am sure.”

That was all that was said. She took my arm and, in silence, we continued the circuit of the compound. It was a fine night and I suddenly felt peaceful.

We were walking along the path that ran parallel to the lane beyond the boundary fence, when I saw a light flickering through the bamboo thicket ahead of us.

“What’s that light?” I asked.

“There are some old kampong houses there. When the Dutch people were in the bungalow, that is where the servants lived. But I did not think that they were used now.”

The stone surface of the path had ended and we were walking on soft earth that deadened the sound of our footsteps. Then we heard voices ahead, and our pace became slower. One of the voices was Mrs. Lim’s and neither of us, I think, wanted to encounter her just at that moment. I was about to suggest that we turn back, when she began to shout at the top of her voice.

“And I say they can’t! Do you want us all murdered? You’re out of your bloody mind!”

A man said something quickly. Mrs. Lim uttered a sort of gasp, as if she had been hit, and then began to weep.

Rosalie’s hand tightened on my arm. Suddenly, there was a faint clatter of feet on wooden steps and then the sound of someone, Mrs. Lim presumably, hurrying back towards the bungalow.

For a moment we stood there uncertainly. We had half turned to go back; but the shortest way back to the bungalow was straight ahead, and there seemed no point now in retracing our footsteps. We walked on.

The servants’ houses were among some palm trees on the far side of a rough track that led from a gateway on to the lane. It was wide enough for a bullock cart and had probably been used as a sort of tradesmen’s entrance. The houses were built on teak piles, and the frames were substantial enough, but the attap walls had suffered in the monsoons and both places looked derelict. The light, which looked as if it came from a kerosene vapour lamp, was in the house farthest away from the track, and it shone through the tattered walls. A low murmur of men’s voices came from within. There seemed to be four of them. By the steps up to the verandah of the nearer house stood a jeep.

Jeeps are common enough in that part of the world. It was a bracket welded on to the side that made me stop and look at it. Quite a number of the ex-army jeeps had that bracket; it had been fitted originally to support a vertical exhaust pipe when the jeep was water-proofed for driving out of a landing-craft; but this one was bent in a vaguely familiar way. I glanced down at the number.

In a place where you depend on mechanical transport for practically every move you make, even a highly standardised vehicle like a jeep acquires character, has its own subtle peculiarities, its special feel. You prefer some to others, and because they all look the same you learn to differentiate between them by their numbers.

I knew the number of this one only too well. I had already seen it once that day. It had been standing outside Gedge’s office.

I must have made a startled movement, for Rosalie looked up at me quickly.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Wait here a moment.”

The house with the light was about twenty yards away. I walked towards it. At that moment my intention was to go in and ask what the hell a jeep from the Tangga Valley project was doing down in Selampang. Luckily, by the time I had covered half the distance, I had come to my senses and stopped. It had been about eleven a.m. when I had last seen the jeep in Tangga, and yet here it was just over twelve hours later in Selampang. It could not have come by sea in that time. It could not have come by air. That meant that it had been driven down two hundred miles by road. Which meant, in turn, that it had been passed quickly and safely through every road block manned by the insurgents in Sanusi’s area, as well as the outposts manned by the Selampang garrison. That meant that the person who had been in it was someone to stay well away from at that moment; and that applied to his friends, too.