South by Java Head

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Beyond anger lies fury, the heedless, ungovernable rage of the berserker, and beyond that again, a long, long step beyond the boundary of madness, lies the region of cold and utterly uncaring indifference. When a man enters that region, as few ever do, he is no longer himself, he is a man beside himself, a man outwith all his normal codes and standards of feeling and thought and emotions, a man for whom words like fear and danger and suffering and exhaustion are words that belong to another world and whose meaning he can no longer comprehend. It is a state characterised by an abnormally heightened clarity of mind, by a hyper-sensitive perception of where danger lies, by a total and unhuman disregard for that danger. It is, above all, a state characterised by an utter implacability. It was in such a state that Nicolson found himself at half-past eight on the evening of that day in late February, seconds only after McKinnon had told him that Gudrun and Peter were gone.

His mind was clear, unnaturally so, swiftly weighing up the situation as far as he knew it, balancing the possibilities and the probabilities, racing ahead and formulating the only plan that could offer any hope at all of success. His weariness, the sheer physical exhaustion, had dropped from him like a falling cloak: he knew the change was psychological, not physiological, that he would pay heavily for it later, but it didn't matter, he was oddly certain that no matter what the source of his energy, it would carry him through. He was still aware, remotely, of the severe burns on his legs and arms, of the pain in his throat where the Japanese bayonet had bitten in so deeply, but his awareness was no more than an intellectual acknowledgment of these burns and wounds, they might well have belonged to another man.

His plan was simple, suicidally simple, and the chances of failure so high that they seemed inevitable, but the thought of failure never entered his mind. Half a dozen questions fired at Telak, the same at McKinnon and he knew what he must do, what everyone must do if there was to be any hope at all. It was McKinnon's story that settled the problem for him.

The council house had blazed so fiercely, had gone up with such incredible speed, for one reason only ― McKinnon had saturated the whole windward wall with the contents of a four-gallon can of petrol. He had stolen this from the Japanese truck within a couple of minutes of its arrival ― the driver had kept careless watch and was now lying on the ground, less than ten feet away ― and he had been just on the point of setting fire to it when a patrolling sentry had almost literally stumbled across him. But he had done more than steal the petrol, he had tried to immobilise the truck. He had searched for the distributor, failed to find it in the darkness, but had located the carburettor intake fuel line, and the soft copper had bent like putty in his hands. It seemed unlikely, impossible rather, that the truck could get much more than a mile on the cupful of fuel that remained ― and it was four miles to the town of Bantuk.

Quickly, Nicolson asked Telak for co-operation, and got it at once. With his father and several of his tribesmen dead, neutrality no longer existed for Telak. He said little, but what little he did say was bitter and savage and concerned with nothing but vengeance. He nodded immediate compliance to Nicolson's request that he provide a guide to lead the main party ― only seven now, all told, under the leadership of Vannier ― via the main road to Bantuk, where they were to seize and board the launch, if this could be done in absolute silence, and rapidly translated to one of his tribesmen, giving him the rendezvous. He then ordered half a dozen of his men to search the dead Japanese soldiers lying around the kampong and to bring all their weapons and ammunition to a central spot. A tommy-gun, two automatic rifles and a strange automatic pistol proved to be still serviceable. Telak himself disappeared into a nearby hut and emerged with two Sumatran parangs, honed to razor-sharp edges, and a couple of curious, elaborately-chased daggers, ten inches long and shaped like a flame, which he stuck in his own belt. Within five minutes of the destruction of the council house, Nicolson, McKinnon and Telak were on their way.

The road to Bantuk ― no road, really, but a graded jungle path barely six feet wide ― wound tortuously in and out among palm-oil plantations, tobacco plantations and evil-smelling swamps, waist deep and infinitely treacherous in the darkness. But the way Telak led them that night skirted the road only once, crossed it twice, penetrated straight through swamps and paddy fields and plantations, arrow-straight for the heart of Bantuk. All three men were hurt, and badly: all of them had lost blood, Telak most of all, and no competent doctor would have hesitated to immobilise any of the three in hospital: but they ran all the way to Bantuk, across impossible, energy-sapping, heart-breaking terrain, never once breaking down into a walk. They ran with their hearts pounding madly under the inhuman strain, leaden legs fiery with the pain of muscles taxed far beyond endurance, chests rising and falling, rising and falling as starving lungs gasped for more and still more air, the sweat running off their bodies in streams. They ran and they kept on running, Telak because this was his element and his father lay dead in the village with a Japanese bayonet through his chest, McKinnon because he was still mad with rage and his heart would keep him going until he dropped, Nicolson because he was a man beside himself and all the pain and labour and suffering was happening to someone else.

The second time they crossed the road they saw the Japanese truck, not five yards away in the darkness. They didn't even break stride, there could be no doubt that it was abandoned, that the Japanese had taken their prisoners with them and hurried on on foot towards the town. And the truck had managed to travel much farther than they had expected before it had broken down, at least half-way towards Bantuk, and they had no'means of knowing how long ago the Japanese had left it. Nicolson was coldly aware that their chances now were all the poorer, very slender indeed. All of them knew it, but not one of them expressed the thought, suggested that they might ease their killing pace, even if only a fraction. If anything they lengthened their strides and pounded on even more desperately through the darkness.

More than once, after the sight of that truck, pictures flashed into Nicolson's mind of how the Japanese soldiers must be treating their prisoners as they hurried them on fearfully along the jungle path. He had visions of rifle butts, maybe even bayonets, prodding viciously into the sick old captain, stumbling in sheer weakness and weariness, and into Gudrun as she, too, stumbled along in the darkness, cruelly handicapped by the crippling weight of the little boy in her arms ― even after half a mile, a two-year old can become an intolerable weight. Or maybe she had dropped young Peter, maybe they had abandoned the little boy in their haste, left him by the side of the jungle, left him surely to die. But the mentor watching over Nicolson's mind that night never let these thoughts stay with him long. They stayed long enough only to spur him on to even greater efforts, never long enough for obsession and ultimate weakness. Throughout all that interminable lurching, gasping run in the darkness, Nicolson's mind remained strangely cold and remote.

It had turned cold, the stars had gone and it was beginning to rain when at last they reached the outskirts of Bantuk. Bantuk was a typical Javanese coastal town, not too big, not too little, a curious intermingling of the old and the new, a blend of Indonesia of a hundred years ago and of Holland ten thousand miles away. On the shore, following the curve of the bay, were the crazy, ramshackle huts erected on long bamboo poles below the highwater mark, with their suspended nets to trap the tidal catch of fish, and half-way along the beach a curved breakwater hooked far out into the bay, sheltering launches and fishing vessels, the tented prahus and the double outrigger canoes too large to be dragged up past the fishing-huts. Paralleling the beach, behind the huts, stretched two or three straggling, haphazard rows of straw-roofed wooden huts as found in the villages in the interior, and behind that again was the shopping and business centre of the community, which led in turn to the houses that stretched back into the gentle valley behind. A typical Dutch suburb, this last, not perhaps with the wide, lined boulevards of Batavia or Medan, but with trim little bungalows and the odd colonial mansion, every one of them with its beautifully kept garden.

It was towards this last section of the town that Telak now led his two companions. They raced through the darkened streets in the middle of the town, making no attempt at con-cealment, for the tune for concealment was past. Few people saw them, for there were few abroad in the rain-washed streets. At first Nicolson thought that the Japanese must have declared a curfew, but soon saw that this was not the case, for a few coffee shops here and there were still open, their smocked Chinese proprietors standing under the awnings at the doorways, watching their passing in an impassive silence.

Half a mile inland from the bay, Telak slowed down to a walk and gestured Nicolson and McKinnon into the sheltered gloom of a high hedge. Ahead oœ them, not more than fifty yards away, the metalled road they were now standing on ended in a cul-de-sac. The bounding wall was high, arched in the middle, and the archway beneath was illuminated by a pair of electric lanterns. Below the archway itself two men were standing, talking and smoking, each leaning a shoulder against the curving walls. Even at that distance there was no mistaking the grey-green uniforms and hooked caps of the Japanese army, for the light was strong. Behind the archway they could see a drive-way stretching back up the hill, illuminated by lamps every few yards. And beyond that again was a high, White-walled mansion. Little of it was visible through the archway, just a pillared stoop and a couple of big bay windows to one side, both of them brightly lit. Nicolson turned to the gasping man by his side.

"This is it, Telak?" They were the first, words spoken since they had left the kampong.

"This is the house." Telak's words, like Nicolson's, came in short, jerky gasps. "The biggest in Bantuk."

"Naturally." Nicolson paused to wipe the sweat off his face and chest and arms. Very particularly he dried the palms of his hands. "This is the way they would come?"

"No other way. They are sure to come up this road. Unless they have already come."

"Unless they have already come," Nicolson echoed. For the first time the fear and anxiety swept through his mind like a wave, a fear that would have panicked his mind and an anxiety that would have wrecked his plans but he thrust them ruthlessly aside. "If they've come, it's already too late. If not, we still have time in hand. We may as well get our breath back for a minute or two ― we can't go into this more dead than alive. How do you feel, Bo'sun? "

"My hands are itching, sir," McKinnon said softly. "Let's go in now."

"We won't be long," Nicolson promised. He turned to Telak. "Do I see spikes above the walls?"

"You do." Telak's voice was grim. "The spikes are nothing. But they're electrified all the way."

"So this is the only way in?" Nicolson asked softly.

"And the only way out."

"I see. I see indeed." No words were spoken for the next two minutes, there was only the sound of their breathing becoming shallower and more even, the intervals between breaths lengthening all the time. Nicolson waited with an almost inhuman patience, carefully gauging the moment when recovery would be at its maximum but the inevitable reaction not yet set in. Finally he stirred and straightened, rubbing his palms up and down the charred remnants of his khaki drills to remove the last drop of excess moisture, and turned again to Telak.

"We passed a high wall on this side about twenty paces back?"

"We did," Telak nodded.

"With trees growing up behind it, close to the wall?"

"I noticed that also," Telak nodded.

"Let's get back there." Nicolson turned and padded softly along in the shelter of the hedge.

It was all over inside two minutes, and no one more than thirty or forty yards away could have heard the slightest whisper of sound. Nicolson lay on the ground at the foot of the high wall and moaned softly, then more loudly, more pitifully still as his first groans had attracted no attention at all. Within seconds, however, one of the guards started, straightened up and peered anxiously down the road, and a moment later the second guard, his attention caught by an especially anguished moan, did the same. The two men looked at one another, held a hurried consultation, hesitated, then came running down the road, one of them switching on a torch as he came. Nicolson moaned even more loudly, twisted in apparent agony so that his back was to them and so that he could not be so quickly identified as a Westerner. He could see the flickering gleam of bayonets in the swinging light of the torch, and an edgy guard would be just that little bit liable to prefer investigating a corpse to a living enemy, no matter how seriously hurt he might appear to be.

Heavy boots clattering on the metalled road, the two men slithered to a stop, stooped low over the fallen man and died while they were still stooping, the one with a flame-shaped dagger buried to the hilt in his back as Telak dropped off the high wall above, the other as McKinnon's sinewy hands found his neck a bare second after Nicolson had kicked the rifle out of his unsuspecting hand.

Nicolson twisted swiftly to his feet, stared down at the two dead men. Too small, he thought bitterly, far too damned small. He'd hoped for uniforms, for disguise, but neither of these two uniforms would have looked at any of the three of them. There was no time to waste. Telak and himself at wrists and ankles, one swing, two, a powerful boost from McKinnon in the middle and the first of the guards was over the high wall and safely out of sight, five seconds more and the other had joined him. Moments later all three men were inside the grounds of the mansion.

The well-lighted pathway was flanked on both sides by either high bushes or trimmed trees. On the right-hand side, behind the trees, was only the high wall with the electric fence on top: on the other side of the drive-way was a wide, sloping lawn, bare in patches but well-kept and smooth, dotted with small trees irregularly planted in circular plots of earth. Light reached the lawn from the drive-way and the front of the house, but not much. The three men flitted soundlessly across the grass, from the shadowed shelter of one tree to the next until they reached a clump of bushes that bordered the gravel in front of the portico of the house. Nicolson leaned forward and put his mouth to Telak's ear.

"Ever been here before?"

"Never." Telak's murmur was as soft as his own.

"Don't know about any other doors? Never heard if the windows are barred or live-wired or fitted with intruder alarms?"

Telak shook his head in the darkness.

"That settles it," Nicolson whispered. "The front door. They won't be expecting visitors, especially visitors like us, through the front door." He groped at his belt, unhooked the parang Telak had given him and began to straighten up from his kneeling position. "No noise, no noise at all. Quick and clean and quiet. We mustn't disturb our hosts."

He took half a pace forward, choked a muffled exclamation and sank back to his knees again. He had little option. McKinnon, for all his medium height, weighed almost two hundred pounds and was phenomenally strong.

"What is it," Nicolson whispered. He rubbed his burnt forearm in silent agony, certain that McKinnon's digging forefingers had torn off some of the skin.

"Someone coming," McKinnon breathed in his ear. "Must have guards outside."

Nicolson listened a second, then shook his head in the gloom to show that he could hear nothing. For all that he believed the bo'sun ― his hearing was on a par with his remarkable eyesight.

"On the verge, not the gravel," McKinnon murmured. "Coming this way. I can take him."

"Leave him alone." Nicolson shook his head strongly. "Too much noise."

"He'll hear us crossing the gravel." McKinnon's voice sank even lower, and Nicolson could hear the man coming now, could hear the soft swish of feet in the wet grass. "There'll be no noise. I promise it."

This time Nicolson nodded and gripped his arm in token of consent. The man was almost opposite them now, and in spite of himself Nicolson shivered. To his certain knowledge this would be the soft-spoken Highland bo'sun's fourth victim that night, and only one of them, so far, had managed to get even a breath of sound past his lips. How long one could live with a man ― three years in this case ― and not really get to know him…

The man was just a foot past them, head turned away as he looked towards the two lighted windows and the far-off murmur of voices from behind them, when McKinnon rose to his feet, noiseless as a wraith, hooked hands closing round the man's neck like a steel trap. He was as good as his word. There was no noise at all, not even the faintest whisper of sound.

They left him behind the bushes and crossed the gravel at a steady, unhurried walk, in case there were still some guards in the grounds to hear them, mounted the steps, crossed the portico and walked unchallenged through the wide open double doors.

Beyond lay a wide hall, softly lit from a central chandelier, with a high, arching roof, walls panelled in what looked like oak, and a gleaming parquetry floor, finely tesselated in jarrah and kauri and some light-coloured tropical hardwoods. From either side of the hall, wide, sweeping staircases, a darker-coloured wood than that of the walls, curved up to meet the broad, pillared balcony that ran the full length of both sides and the back. At the foot of either stairway was a set of double doors, closed, and between them, at the back, a third, single door. All the doors were painted white, lending an incongruous note to the dusky satin of the walls. The door at the back of the hall was open.

Nicolson gestured to McKinnon and Telak to take up position one on either side of the double doors to the right, then padded cat-footed across the hall to the open door at the back. He could feel the cool, hard floor under the pads of his feet; that gruelling cross-country run must have torn off most of what charred remains of canvas soles had been left him after he had carried Van Effen out of the burning council house. His mind registered it automatically, but disregarded it, just as it disregarded the pain of the raw, burnt flesh. There would come a time for suffering, but that time was not yet. That feeling of ice-cold indifference coupled with its razor-edged calculation was with him still, more strongly than ever.

He flattened himself against the far wall, cocked his head in listening, his eyes turned towards the open doorway. At first he could hear nothing, then faintly he caught the far-off murmur of voices and the occasional chink of crockery. The kitchens and the servants' quarters, obviously ― and if the men behind these double doors were eating, and they might well be, this being about the hour of the late evening meal, servants would be liable to be coming down that long passage and across the hall at any moment. Nicolson slid noiselessly forward and risked a quick glance round the edge of the door. The passage was dimly lit, about twenty feet in length, with two closed doors on either side and one at the far end, open, showing a white rectangle of light. There was no one to be — seen. Nicolson stepped into the passage, felt behind the door, found a key, withdrew it, stepped back out into the entrance hall, pulled the door softly shut behind him and locked it.

He recrossed the hall as softly as he had come and rejoined the others at the white-painted double doors. Both men looked at him as he approached ― McKinnon still grim and implacable, his surging anger well under control but ready to explode at any moment, Telak a ghastly, blood-smeared sight under the lights, dusky face drawn and grey with fatigue, but revenge would keep him going for a long time yet. Nicolson whispered a few instructions in Telak's ear, made sure he understood and waited until he had slipped away and hidden himself behind the right-hand staircase.

There was a low murmur of voices from behind the double-doors, a murmur punctuated by an occasional guffaw of laughter. For a few moments Nicolson listened with his ear to the crack between the two doors, then tested each in turn with an infinitely gentle pressure of a probing forefinger. Each yielded an almost imperceptible fraction of an inch, and Nicolson straightened, satisfied. He nodded at McKinnon. The two men lined up the guns at their sides, muzzles just touching the white-painted woodwork in front of them, kicking the doors wide open and walked into the room together.

It was a long, low room, wood-panelled and parquet-floored like the hall, with wide bay windows, mosquito-curtained. The far wall of the room had another, smaller window, and the two doors in the left wall had a long, oaken sideboard between them, this last the only wall furnishing. Most of the floor space was taken up by a U-shaped banqueting-table and the chairs of the fourteen men who sat around it. Some of the fourteen were still talking, laughing and drinking from the deep glasses in their hands, oblivious of the entrance of the two men, but, one by one, the sudden silence of the others caught the attention of those who still talked, and they too fell silent, staring towards the door and sitting very still indeed.

For a man allegedly mourning the death of his son, Colonel Kiseki was making a magnificent job of dissembling his sorrow. There was no doubt to his identity. He occupied the ornate, high-backed chair of honour at the top of the table, a short, massive man of tremendous girth, with his neck bulging out over his tight uniform collar, tiny, porcine eyes almost hidden in folds of flesh, and very short black hair, grey at the temples, sticking up from the top of his round head like the bristles of a wire brush. His face was flushed with alcohol, empty bottles littered the table in front of him and the white cloth was stained with spilt wine. He had had his head flung back and been roaring with laughter when Nicolson and McKinnon had entered, but now he was sitting hunched forward in his chair, tightly-gripping fists ivory-knuckled on the arms of his chair, the laughter in his puffy face slowly congealing into an expression of frozen incredulity.

No one spoke, no one moved. The silence in the room was intense. Slowly, watchfully, Nicolson and McKinnon advanced one on either side of the table, the soft padding of their feet only intensifying the uncanny silence, Nicolson to the left, McKinnon advancing up by the wide bay windows. And still the fourteen men sat motionless in their seats, only their eyes slowly swivelling as they followed the movements of the two men with the guns. Half-way up the left-hand side of the table Nicolson halted, checked that McKinnon had his eye on the whole table, turned and opened the first door on his left, let the door swing slowly open as soon as it had clicked, swung noiselessly round and took a silent step towards the table. As soon as the door had clicked an officer with his back to him, his hand hidden from McKinnon on the other side, had started to slide a revolver from a side holster and already had the muzzle clear when the butt of Nicolson's automatic rifle caught him viciously just above the right ear. The revolver clattered harmlessly on to the parquet floor and the officer slumped forward heavily on to the table. His head knocked over an almost full bottle of wine and it gurgled away in the unnatural silence until it had almost emptied itself. A dozen pairs of eyes, as if mesmerised by the only moving thing in that room, watched the blood-red stain spread farther and farther across the snow-white cloth. And still no one had spoken.

Nicolson turned again to look through the now open door. A long passage, empty. He shut the door, locked it, turned his attention to the next. A cloak-room lay behind this, small, about six feet square and windowless. This door Nicolson left open.

He went back to the table, moved swiftly down one side of it, searching men for weapons while McKinnon kept his tommy-gun gently circling. As soon as he had finished searching he waited until McKinnon had done the same on his side. The total haul was surprisingly small, a few knives and three revolvers, all of the latter taken from army officers. With the one recovered from the floor that made four in all. Two of these Nicolson gave McKinnon, two he stuck in his own belt. For close, concentrated work the automatic rifle was a far deadlier weapon.

Nicolson walked to the head of the table and looked down at the grossly corpulent man sitting in the central chair.

"You are Colonel Kiseki?"

The officer nodded but said nothing. The astonishment had now vanished, and the watchful eyes were the only sign of expression in an otherwise impassive face. He was on balance again, completely under control. A dangerous man, Nicolson thought bleakly, a man whom it would be fatal to underestimate.

"Tell all these men to put their hands on the table, palm upwards, and to keep them there."

"I refuse." Kiseki folded his arms and leaned back negligently in his chair. "Why should I――-" He broke off with a gasp of pain as the muzzle of the automatic rifle gouged deeply into the thick folds of flesh round his neck.

"I'll count three," Nicolson said indifferently. He didn't feel indifferent. Kiseki dead was no good to him. "One. Two――-"

"Stop!" Kiseki sat forward in his chair, leaning away from the pressure of the rifle, and started to talk rapidly. Immediately hands came into view all round the table, palms upward as Nicolson had directed.

"You know who we are?" Nicolson went on.

"I know who you are." Kiseki's English was slow and laboured, but sufficient. "From the English tanker Viroma. Fools, crazy fools! What hope have you? You may as well surrender now. I promise you――-"

"Shut up!" Nicolson nodded at the men sitting on either side of Kiseki, an army officer and a heavy-jowled, dark-faced Indonesian with immaculately waved black hair and a well-cut grey suit. "Who are these men?"

"My second in command and the Mayor of Bantuk."

"The Mayor of Bantuk, eh?" Nicolson looked at the mayor with interest. "Collaborating well, I take it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Kiseki looked up at Nicolson through narrowed slits of eyes. "The mayor is a founder, a member of our Greater East Asia co-prosperity――-"

"For heaven's sake, shut up!" Nicolson glanced round the others sitting at the table ― two or three officers, half-a-dozen Chinese, an Arab and some Javanese ― then looked back at Kiseki. "You, your second in command and the Mayor remain here. The rest into that cloakroom there."

"Sir!" McKinnon was calling softly from his place by one of the bay windows. "They're coming up the drive now!"

"Hurry up!" Again Nicolson jammed his rifle into Kiseki's neck. "Tell them. Into that cloakroom. At once!"

"In that box? There is no air." Kiseki pretended horror. "They will suffocate in there."

"Or they can die out here. They can take their choice."

Nicolson leaned yet more heavily on the rifle and his forefinger began to whiten on the trigger. "But not until you go first."

Thirty seconds later the room was still and almost empty, three men only sitting at the head of the banqueting-table. Eleven men were jammed into the tiny cloakroom, and the door was locked against them. McKinnon was pressed flat to the wall close by one of the open double doors, and Nicolson was in the open doorway that led into the side passage. He was placed so that he could see the entrance to the double doors through the crack between his own door and the jamb. He was also placed so that the rifle in his hand was lined up on the centre of Colonel Kiseki's chest. And Colonel Kiseki had had his orders. He'd had his orders, and Colonel Kiseki had lived too long, had seen too many desperate and implacable men not to know that Nicolson would shoot him like a dog even on the suspicion, far less the certainty, that he was being double-crossed. Colonel Kiseki's reputation for cruelty was matched only by his courage, but he was no fool. He intended to carry out his orders implicitly.

Nicolson could hear young Peter crying, a tired, dispirited wail, as the soldiers crossed the gravel and mounted the steps to the portico, and his mouth tightened. Kiseki caught his look and his muscles tensed in expectancy, waiting for the numbing crash of the bullet, then saw Nicolson shake his head and visibly, consciously relax. And then the footsteps had crossed the hall, halted at the doorway, then advanced again as Kiseki shouted out an order. A moment later the Japanese escort ― there were six of them altogether ― were inside the room, pushing their prisoners in front of them.

Captain Findhorn was in the lead. A soldier held him by either arm, his legs were dragging and he was ashen-faced and drawn, breathing quickly, hoarsely and in great pain. As soon as the soldiers halted they released his arms. He swayed once backwards, once forwards, his bloodshot eyes turned up in his head and he crumpled and folded slowly to the floor, fading into the merciful oblivion of unconsciousness. Gudrun Drachmann was directly behind him, Peter still in her arms. Her dark hair was tangled and dishevelled, the once-white shirt ripped half-way down her back. From where he stood, Nicolson couldn't see her back, but he knew the smooth skin would be pock-marked with blood, for the soldier behind had his bayonet pressed into her shoulders. The impulse to step out from behind the door and empty the automatic rifle's magazine into the man with the bayonet was almost overwhelming, but he crushed it down, stood where he was, still and quiet, looking from Kiseki's impassive face to the smudged, scarred face of the girl. She, too, Nicolson could see now, was swaying slightly, her legs trembling with weariness, but she still held her head proudly and high.

Suddenly Colonel Kiseki barked an order. His men stared at him, uncomprehending. He repeated it almost immediately, smashing the flat of his hand down on the table before him, and at once four of the six men dropped the arms they were carrying on to,the parquet floor. A fifth frowned in a slow, stupid fashion, as if still unwilling to believe his ears, looked at his companions, saw their arms on the floor, opened his hand reluctantly and let his rifle crash down on the floor beside the weapons of his comrades. Only the sixth, the man with the bayonet in Gudrun's back, realised that something was very far wrong. He dropped lower into a crouch, glanced wildly round then collapsed to the floor like a stricken tree as Telak came up feather-footed from the hall behind him and smashed his rifle down on the unprotected back of the soldier's head.

And then Nicolson and McKinnon and Telak were all in the room, Telak herding the five Japanese soldiers into a corner, McKinnon kicking the double doors shut and keeping a wary eye on the three men at the table, Nicolson unashamedly hugging the girl and the young boy still in her arms, smiling his delight and immense relief and saying nothing, while Gudrun, stiff-backed and straight, stared at him, for a long, long moment in uncomprehending wonder and disbelief, then sagged heavily against him, her face buried in his shoulder, murmuring his name over and over again. McKinnon was looking at them from time to time, grinning hugely, all the savage anger gone from his face. But he didn't look at them for more than a fraction of a second at a time, and the muzzle of his gun never wavered from the three men at the top of the table.

"Johnny, Johnny!" The girl lifted her head and looked at him, the intensely blue eyes now shining and misted, rolling tear-drops cutting through the dark smudges on her cheek. She was shivering now, shivering from reaction and from the cold of her wet rain-soaked clothes, but she was quite oblivious of all that. The happiness in her eyes was something that Nicolson had never seen before. "Oh, Johnny, I thought it was all finished. I thought that Peter and I ― ― "She broke off and smiled at him again. "How in the world did you get here? I ― I don't understand. How did you?"

"Private aeroplane." Nicolson waved an airy hand. "It was no trouble. But later, Gudrun. We must hurry. Bo'sun?"

"Sir?" McKinnon carefully removed the smile from his face.

"Tie up our three friends at the head of the table there. Their wrists only. Behind their backs."

"Tie us up!" Kiseki leaned forward, his fists clenched on the table top. "I see no need ―― "

"Shoot 'em if you have to," Nicolson ordered. "They're no use to us any more." He thought it as well not to add that Kiseki's usefulness was yet to come but feared that the knowledge of his intentions might provoke the man to an act of desperation.

"Consider it done, sir." McKinnon advanced purposefully towards them, tearing down several mosquito curtains as he passed. Twisted, they would make excellent ropes. Nicolson turned away from Gudrun after seeing her and Peter into a chair, and stooped low over the captain. He shook him by the shoulder and Findhorn finally stirred and wearily opened his eyes. Aided by Nicolson he sat up, moving like a very old man and gazed slowly round the room, comprehension slowly dawning on his exhausted mind.

"I don't know how on earth you did it, but well done, my boy." He looked back at Nicolson, inspected him from head to toe, wincing as he saw the cuts and savage burns on his chief officer's legs and forearms. "What a bloody mess! I hope to God you don't feel half as bad as you look."

"Top of the world, sir," Nicolson grinned.

"You're a fluent liar, Mr. Nicolson. You're as much a hospital case as I am. Where do we go from here?"

"Away, and very shortly. A few minutes, sir. Some little things to attend to first."

"Then go by yourselves." Captain Findhorn was half-joking, wholly earnest. "I think I'd rather take my chance as a prisoner of war. Frankly, my boy, I've had it, and I know it. I couldn't walk another step."

"You won't have to, sir. I guarantee it." Nicolson poked an inquiring toe at the bag one of the soldiers had been carry- 'ing, stooped and had a look inside. "Even brought the plans and the diamonds right here. But then, where else would they bring them? I hope, Colonel Kiseki, that you hadn't set your heart too much on these?"

Kiseki stared at him, his face expressionless. Gudrun Drachmann drew in a quick breath.

"So that's Colonel Kiseki!" She looked at him for a long moment, then shivered. "I can see that Captain Yamata was right enough. Thank God you got here first, Johnny."

"Captain Yamata!". Kiseki's eyes small enough normally in the folds of fat, had almost vanished. "What happened to Captain Yamata?"

"Captain Yamata has joined his ancestors," Nicolson said briefly. "Van Effen shot him almost in half."

"You're lying! Van Eifen was our friend, our very good friend."

"'Was' is right," Nicolson agreed. "Ask your men here ― later." He nodded to the group still cowering under the menace'of Telak's rifle. "Meantime, send one of these men to collect a stretcher, blankets and torches. I needn't warn you what will happen if you try any foolish tricks."

Kiseki looked at him impassively for a moment, then spoke rapidly to one of his men. Nicolson waited until he had gone then turned again to Kiseki.

"You must have a radio in this house. Where is it?"

For the first time Kiseki smiled, displaying a magnificent collection of gold inlays on his front teeth.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mr.― ah――-"

"Nicolson. Never mind the formalities. The radio, Colonel Kiseki."

"That is the only one we have." Grinning more broadly still, Kiseki nodded towards the sideboard. He had to nod. McKinnon had already lashed his wrists behind his back.

Nicolson barely glanced at the small receiver.

"Your transmitter, Colonel Kiseki, if you don't mind," Nicolson said softly. "You don't depend on carrier pigeons for communication, do you?"

"English humour. Ha-ha. Very funny indeed." Kiseki.was still smiling. "Of course we have a transmitter, Mr.― ah ― Nicolson. At the barracks, our soldiers' quarters."

"Where?"

"The other end of the town." Kiseki had the appearance of a man actually enjoying himself. "A mile from here. At least a mile."

"I see." Nicolson looked thoughtful. "Too far ― and I very much doubt my ability to march you into your own barracks at the point of a gun, destroy a transmitter and get out again ― not without getting myself killed in the process."

"You show signs of wisdom, Mr. Nicolson," Kiseki purred.

"I'm just not suicidally minded." Nicolson rubbed his stubble of beard with a forefinger, then looked up at Kiseki again. "And that's the only transmitter in town, eh?"

"It is. You'll have to take my word for that."

"I'll take your word for it." Nicolson lost interest in the matter, watched McKinnon finish tying up the other officer with an enthusiastic heave that brought a sharp exclamation of pain, then turned as the soldier sent off by the colonel returned with stretcher, blankets and two torches. Then he looked back at the head of the table, first at Kiseki, then at the civilian by his side. The mayor was trying to look indignant and outraged, but only succeeded in looking scared. There was unmistakable fear in his dark eyes, and there was a violent tic at the corner of his mouth. He was sweating freely, and even the beautifully cut grey suit seemed to have become suddenly limp… Nicolson switched his glance back to Kiseki.

"The mayor is a good friend of yours, I take it, Colonel?" He could see the look in McKinnon's eyes as he busied himself with the mayor's wrists, the look of a man anxious to be gone and impatient of this talk, but he ignored it.

Kiseki cleared his throat pompously. "In our ― what is the word? ― capacities as commander of the garrison and the representative of the people we naturally―――"

"Spare me the rest," Nicolson interrupted. "I suppose his duties bring him here quite often." He was looking at the mayor now, a deliberately contemptuous speculation in his eyes, and Kiseki fell for it.

"Comes here?" Kiseki laughed. "My dear Nicolson, this is the mayor's house. I am only his guest."

"Indeed?" Nicolson looked at the mayor. "You speak a few words of English perhaps, Mr. Mayor."

"I speak it perfectly." Pride momentarily overcame fear.

"Excellent," Nicolson said dryly. "How about speaking some now?" His voice dropped an octave to a calculated theatrically low growl: the mayor didn't look as if he would take much terrifying. "Where does Colonel Kiseki keep his transmitter in this house?"

Kiseki swung round on the mayor, his face suffused with anger at being tricked, started to shout something unintelligible at him, stopped short in mid-torrent as McKinnon cuffed him heavily over the ear.

"Don't be a fool, Colonel," Nicolson said wearily. "And 250

don't insist on treating me like a fool. Who ever heard of a military commander, especially in a red-hot, troubled area such as this is bound to be, having his communications centre a mile from where he is himself? Obviously the transmitter's here, and just as obviously it would take all night to make you talk. I doubt if the mayor's willing to make such sacrifices for your precious co-prosperity sphere." He turned to the frightened looking civilian again. "I'm in a hurry. Where is it?"

"I will say nothing." The mayor's mouth worked and twisted even when he wasn't speaking. "You can't make me talk."

"You're not even kidding yourself." Nicolson looked at McKinnon. "Just kind of twist his arm, will you, Bo'sun?"

McKinnon twisted. The mayor screamed, more in anticipatory fear than in any real pain. McKinnon slackened his grip.

"Well?"

"I don't know what you were talking about."

This time McKinnon didn't have to be told. He jerked the mayor's right arm high up until the back of his wrist was flat against the shoulder-blade. The mayor shrieked like a pig at the approach of the poleaxe.

"Upstairs." The mayor was sobbing with pain and fear ― chiefly fear. "On the roof. My arm ― you've broken my arm!"

"You can finish tying him up now, Bo'sun," Nicolson turned away in disgust. "Right, Colonel, you can lead the way."

"My gallant friend here can finish the job." Kiseki spat the words out. His teeth were tightly clenched and the expression on his face boded ill for the mayor should they meet again in different circumstances. "He can show you where it is."

"No doubt. But I would prefer you to come. Some of your men might be wandering about with machine-guns and I'm quite sure they wouldn't hesitate to shoot the mayor and myself full of a lot of little holes. But you're a foolproof life insurance." Nicolson transferred his rifle to his left hand, pulled one of the revolvers from his belt and checked that the safety-catch was off. "I'm in a hurry, Colonel. Come on."

They were back inside five minutes. The transmitter was now a havoc of twisted steel and shattered valves, and they had encountered no one, coming or going. The mayor's screams appeared to have attracted no attention, possibly because of the closed doors, but more probably, Nicolson suspected, because the staff were well accustomed to such sounds emanating from Kiseki's rooms.

McKinnon had not been idle in his absence. Captain Findhorn, covered with blankets and holding a rather fearful Peter Tallon in his arms, was lying comfortably on the stretcher on the floor. A Japanese soldier squatted at each of the four corners of the stretcher, and closer inspection showed that they hadn't much option: the bo'sun had tied their wrists securely to the handles. The mayor and Kiseki's second in command were tied together by a short length of rope linking their right and left elbows respectively. Telak's victim still lay on the floor and Nicolson suspected that he would be there for a long time to come. There was no sign of the sixth man.

"Very nice indeed, Bo'sun." Nicolson looked round approvingly. "Where's our missing friend?"

"He's not really missing, sir. He's in the cloakroom there." Ignoring Kiseki's scowls and protests, McKinnon was busy securing him to the mayor's left elbow. "It was a bit of a job getting" the door shut, but I managed it."

"Excellent." Nicolson took a last look round the room. "No point in waiting any longer, then. Let's be on our way."

"Where are we going?" Kiseki had his feet planted wide, his huge head hunched far down into his shoulders. "Where are you taking us?"

"Telak tells me that your personal launch is the finest and fastest for a hundred miles up and down the coast. We'll be through the Sunda Straits and into the Indian Ocean long before the dawn comes."

"What!" Kiseki's face was contorted in fury. "You're taking my launch! You'll never get away with it, Englishman, you'll never get away with it." He paused, another and even more shocking thought occurred to him and he lunged forward across the parquet floor, dragging the other two behind him and kicking out at Nicolson in berserk anger. "You're taking me with you, damn you, you're taking me with you!"

"Of course. What else did you think?" Nicolson said coldly. He stepped back a couple of paces to avoid the flailing feet and jabbed the muzzle of his rifle, none too gently into Kiseki's midriff, just below the breast-bone. Kiseki doubled up in agony. "You're our one guarantee of a safe-conduct. We'd be madmen to leave you behind."

"I won't go," Kiseki gasped. "I won't go. You can kill me first, but I won't go. Concentration camps! Prisoner-of-war of the English! Never, never, never! You can kill me first!"

"It won't be necessary to kill you." Nicolson pointed out. "We can tie you, gag you, even take you on a stretcher if we have to." He nodded at the cloakroom door. "Plenty of cheap labour in there. But it would only complicate matters. You can come on your feet or you can come on a stretcher with a couple of bullet holes in your legs to quieten you down."

Kiseki looked at the pitiless face and made his choice. He came on his feet.

On their way down to the jetty they met no Japanese soldiers, no one at all. A windless night, but the rain was falling heavily, persistently, and the streets of Bantuk were deserted. At long, long last, luck was turning their way.

Vannier and the others were already aboard the launch. There had been only one man on guard, and Telak and his men had been as silent as the night. Van Effen was already asleep in a bunk below, and Walters was just about to begin transmission. Forty-four feet long and with a fourteen-foot beam, the launch gleamed and shone even in the rain and the darkness and was ready for instant departure.

Willoughby took over the engine-room and almost drooled with sheer joy at the sight of the big, immaculately kept twin diesels. Gordon and Evans loaded another half-dozen drums of fuel oil on to the deck aft. And McKinnon and Vannier were already making a round of the larger vessels behind the breakwater, checking for radio sets, smashing the magneto of the only other launch in the harbour.

They left at exactly ten o'clock at night, purring gently out into a sea as smooth as a mill-pond. Nicolson had begged Telak to accompany them, but he had refused, saying that his place was with his people. He had gone up the long jetty without as much as a backward glance, and Nicolson knew they would never see him again.

As they moved out into the darkness, the four Japanese soldiers, still lashed to the stretchers, ran pell-mell up the vanishing jetty, shouting at the tops of their high-pitched voices. But their cries were abruptly lost, drowned in a sudden clamour of sound as the launch rounded the point of the breakwater, the twin throttles jammed wide open, and headed south-west under maximum power towards Java Head and the Indian Ocean beyond.

They rendezvoused with H.M.A.S. Kenmore, a Q-class destroyer, at half-past two in the morning.