State of Siege

“Is that the flag of truce?”

“Yes, Colonel tuan.”

“It must not be shown here. Can you drive?”

“No, Colonel tuan.”

Aroff looked non-plussed. “Neither can I.”

“I’ll drive if you like, Colonel.”

For the first time he looked at me directly. After a moment’s thought, he nodded. “Good.” He told the staff captain to go and dismiss the driver. “When men see a flag of truce,” he added to me, “they begin to think of safety. After that it is hard to make them fight. The driver would have come back here and told them.”

As we walked towards the jeep, a shell from the destroyer burst among the trees across the square and sent a lot of torn-off branches spurting up into the air. Another bombardment had begun. I remembered that I had not tried to send a message to Rosalie; but it was too late to do anything about that now. Another shell landed near one of the gun positions. As my ears returned to normal, I could hear a wounded man screaming.

“A waste of ammunition,” Aroff remarked dourly. “Nearly two hundred rounds and what have they done with them? Six men killed and twenty wounded. It is absurd.”

Absurd or not, they had also made a mess of some of the buildings in and around the square. One of the streets I tried to drive along was completely blocked by fallen rubble, and we had to make a detour. It was not easy. The area now being defended by Sanusi’s troops was not much more than a quarter of a mile across in some places, and twice we had to reverse out of streets which had come under enemy fire. At several points, buses and trucks had been turned on to their sides and teams of civilians, women as well as men, were being forced by squads of troops to drag the vehicles broadside on to form tank obstacles. I saw no other civilians on the streets and the shops were all shuttered. Once, I caught a glimpse of a child’s face at a window, but I was too busy driving to look about me much.

The police barracks were opposite the telephone exchange in a long, straight road that began somewhere in the Chinese section and ended at the airport. About two hundred yards short of the barracks, we came to a canal crossing with a cinema on one corner and a barricade of overturned cars across the roadway. There was a two-pounder behind one of the cars, and in the deep storm drains on either side of the road a couple of machine-gunners. As I pulled up at the barricade, an officer who looked like a recently promoted N.C.O. moved out of a doorway and hurried over.

Aroff returned the man’s salute casually.

“Have you been notified of the arrangements, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, Colonel tuan.”

Aroff looked up at the bullet-scarred walls of the godown that stretched along one side of the road.

“You were under fire here until when?”

“Until ten minutes ago, Colonel tuan.” He pointed with pride to the empty cases lying on the ground behind the two-pounder. “And they did not have it all their own way. The armoured car they sent did not like our gun.”

“Did you destroy the armoured car?”

“Ah no, tuan.” He smiled tolerantly, as if at a foolish question. “But they did not return for more. They have brought up a tank now.”

“Where are the rest of your men?”

“On the roof of the godown, tuan.”

Aroff looked at his watch. “We have five minutes, Mr. Fraser. We must discuss the situation.”

He climbed out of the jeep, and I followed him as he walked over to the barricade. The staff captain seemed about to follow, then he thought better of it and began to talk to the lieutenant.

Aroff peered through the gap between two of the overturned cars which the gunners were using as an embrasure, and motioned to me to do the same. The crew squatting in the shade of one of the trucks looked up at us drowsily.

Except for a dead dog lying just beyond the canal, the road between the barricade and the police barracks was empty. The only visible sign of life in the ramshackle apartment houses which flanked it was a line of washing strung between two of the windows; but the sound of gunfire was comparatively distant now, and I could hear a man coughing in one of the houses. Outside the police barracks, in the centre of the road, and with its gun pointing directly at us, stood a medium tank.

Aroff was watching me as I straightened up.

“Are you a soldier, Mr. Fraser?”

“I was in the British army.”

“An officer?”

“Yes, in the Engineers. Why?”

He drew me away and we walked back along the road for a few yards. When we were out of earshot of the gunners, he stopped.

“Should that tank you see there decide to move along this road, Mr. Fraser, what do you think will happen?”

“How do you mean?”

“Do you see anything here to stop it?”

“Not a thing. The two-pounder’s shot will bounce off it. It’ll just push this road block out of the way and drive on. Unless, that is, you’ve got an anti-tank mine under that crossing.”

“We have no mines.”

“And no other anti-tank weapons?”

“Here, none.”

“Then there’s nothing to stop it.”

“Exactly.” He produced the document from his pocket, and held it out to me. “Do you wish to read this?”