State of Siege

4

He did not recognise me at once. His pistol holster was unfastened and his hand went to it quickly. At the same moment he called sharply to the soldiers in the corridor. As he levelled the pistol, two of them ran in through the doorway. They had the long chopping-knives called parangs in their hands, and as soon as they saw me they started forward with a shout.

I had opened my mouth to tell him who I was, but it all happened so quickly that I was still gagging over the words when he yelled to the two men to halt. They were within a yard of me with their parangs raised to strike, and their teeth clenched in the mad killing grimace. Another second and he could not have stopped them hacking me to pieces. As it was, they stood there dazed, their faces gradually regaining a stupid sort of sanity as they lowered their arms.

Suparto came towards me, thrusting them aside.

“What is this?” he demanded. “Why are you here?”

I was so unnerved that it did not occur to me that those should have been my questions. Idiotically, I started to explain about hearing someone climbing on to the terrace. He cut me short.

“The owner of this apartment is in Makassar.”

“I know. He lent it to me.”

He swore, stared at me bitterly for a moment and then motioned to the two soldiers to stand back.

They retreated, awkwardly as if they had been reprimanded. I was coming to my senses again now and realised that there was something unfamiliar about their uniforms. The trousers were of khaki drill, but it was not the same khaki that I had seen on other troops in the city. And both men were wearing a sort of yellow brassard on the left arm. So was Suparto.

“Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Who is here with you?”

“A woman.”

He moved past me swiftly to the bedroom door and went in.

Rosalie stood in the centre of the room. She was turning back the sleeves of my dressing gown. As she swung round to face him, her hands dropped to her sides, but she made no other movement.

“Your name?” he said.

“Rosalie Linden, tuan.”

He turned the light in the bedroom on, then looked from one to the other of us.

“You can see we’re both quite harmless, Major,” I said.

“Possibly. But your presence is inconvenient. Are you armed?”

“There’s a revolver in that case under the bed.”

He looked at Rosalie. “Pull the case out. Do not open it.”

As she obeyed, he called in the N.C.O. and told him to take the revolver. Then he looked at me, his lips tightening.

“Armed men enter your apartment in the middle of the night and steal your property. Yet, you say nothing, you make no protest. Why, Mr. Fraser?”

“The men are wearing uniforms and this is Selampang, not London.”

“You do not even ask questions?”

“That would be a bit pointless, wouldn’t it?”

“Because you think that you already know the answers?”

I knew that it was dangerous to go on pretending to be stupid. I shrugged. “Less than forty-eight hours ago you were in Tangga, Major. You didn’t come here by sea or air and those men outside are not Government troops. I presume then that they are General Sanusi’s, that you are in sympathy with his aims, and that the long-awaited day has arrived. No doubt you’ve taken over the radio station below and will shortly begin broadcasting the good news to the rest of the country. Meanwhile, other troops are occupying the central telegraph office, the telephone exchange, the power station and the railroad station. The main body of your forces is taking up positions surrounding the police barracks, the ammunition dump, the forts defending the outer harbour and the garrison …” I hesitated. I had remembered something.

“Yes, Mr. Fraser?” His face was very still.

“Most of the garrison moved out today on manoeuvres.”

“The moment, of course, has been carefully chosen.”

“Of course. However, I’m a foreigner, and it’s no concern of mine. Now that you’ve satisfied yourself that there is nobody up here who could possibly do anything to interfere, I take it that you will allow us to go back to sleep again.”

He considered me coldly. “I like you, Mr. Fraser,” he said at length; “and I am sorry to see you here. At the moment, however, I am wondering if I have a sufficient excuse for allowing you to remain alive.”

“You need an excuse? We’re no danger to you, for God’s sake!”

“As I have said, your presence is inconvenient.”

“Then let us go somewhere else.”

“I regret that that is impossible.”

I said nothing and looked across at Rosalie. She was still standing by the open suitcase. I went over to her, put my arm round her shoulders and made her sit down on the edge of the bed.

Suparto seemed to hesitate; then he beckoned impatiently to the N.C.O. and nodded in our direction.

“These two persons,” he said, “will remain in this room. Post a sentry on the terrace. They may go one at a time to the bathhouse, but they will go by the window. This door will remain locked. If either attempts to leave without permission, they are both to be killed.”

The N.C.O. saluted and eyed us sullenly.

Suparto looked at me. “You understood what I said?”

“Yes, I understood. May I ask a question?”

“Well?”

“Was I right? Is this part of a coup d’état?”

“The National Freedom Party of Sunda has taken over all the functions of government and assumed control of the country.”

“That is what I meant.”

“The so-called Democratic Government of the colonialist traitor, Nasjah, has proved unworthy of the people’s confidence.” He was speaking Malay now, and as if he were addressing a public meeting. Behind him, the N.C.O. nodded approvingly. “The guilty will be punished. The Unbelievers will be destroyed. Colonial influences will be eliminated. The Faithful will rally to the standard of Islam. As soon as the emergency is over, elections will be held. But order must be maintained. Hostile elements will be wiped out ruthlessly.”

“Do we count as hostile elements?”

“It might be thought so.” He lapsed into English again. “At present the decision is my responsibility. Later, it may be different. My superior officers, who will arrive here shortly, are sensitive men and the presence of Unbelievers at such a time may not be tolerated. In your own interests, I would advise you to be as silent and unobtrusive as possible.”

“I see. Thank you, Major.”

“I can promise you nothing.”

With a nod he turned and went out of the room. The N.C.O. shut the door and the key turned in the lock. A moment later a soldier appeared on the terrace outside the window, peered in and then sat down with his back against the attap screen and his machine pistol cradled in his lap.

I looked down at Rosalie and she smiled uncertainly.

“Why does he like you?”

“I don’t know that he really does. He has no special reason that I know of. That is the officer who was up at Tangga, the one with the jeep.”

“Oh. Perhaps if you explained how discreet you had been, he would let us go.”

“I don’t think so. We know too much.”

“What do we know?”

“That this is their headquarters. He spoke of other officers who will arrive. That’ll be General Sanusi and his staff, I suppose. They knew Jebb was away. Having ear-marked this place for their headquarters, they may even have arranged that he should be. It’s logical enough. There aren’t many buildings in the city as strong as this one, and Sanusi would naturally want to be near the radio station. He’ll be using it quite a bit, I imagine.”

“Do you think that they will kill us?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think they will.” Her tone was quite even and matter-of-fact.

“Why should you think that?”

“They kill very easily. During the war of liberation I saw them. Men like that major. They smile and then they kill. For them it is easier to kill than to have doubts, to be uncertain.”

She stood up and then went over and switched off the light. Outside on the terrace, the sentry turned his head quickly. Rosalie crossed to the window and drew one of the curtains so that the man could see only half the room. He stirred, and I moved across to watch him. He was waiting to see if the other curtain would also be drawn. When it was not, he relaxed.

Rosalie had taken off my dressing gown and dropped it on the chair. The strong moonlight was visible even through the curtains, and I could see her standing there running her hands over her body as if she had never touched it before. Then she realised that I was watching her and laughed softly.

“I saw the men with the parangs,” she said; “and I knew that if they killed you, they would also kill me, because they would not have been able to stop. So, I was ready to die. Now, I am alive again.”

I went over to her. I think I meant to make some futile apology for having brought her there, but instead I kissed her.

From far away across the city there came a sudden rattle of machine-gun fire. The sentry got up and went to look out over the parapet. We stood behind the curtain, listening. There were several more bursts of fire and one or two small explosions that might have been from mortars. After about ten minutes, the firing ceased and there was an uncanny silence. It was broken by a murmur of voices from the square below, and a series of crashes as the windows of the Air Terminal offices were knocked out. I guessed that the ground floor was being fortified against a counter-attack. Once, a truck whined and clattered along on the other side of the square, but otherwise the streets seemed to be deserted. A little before five, there was a glow in the sky from a fire which Rosalie thought might be in the neighbourhood of the police barracks, and, soon after, a single explosion just heavy enough to make the windows vibrate. It could have been a small demolition charge of some kind.

When the first bout of firing had ceased, we had feverishly hurried into our clothes, as if we had overslept and were late for an appointment. There was, I suppose, a logical need for haste; Suparto had warned us to expect further visitors; but I think that the true reason was less rational. Until that moment, what we had been facing had been like a nightmare; terrifying, yet also unreal. The sound of firing had sharply disposed of the unreality, and we were left with our fears. Our scramble for our clothes was a scramble for cover of a different sort. We wanted to feel safer. In fact, we only felt hotter. After a time, we sat on one of the beds, and smoked and listened and sweated and suffered the twin ills that afflict everyone who finds himself on a battlefield: the knot of fear in the stomach, and the desperate desire to know what is really going on.

Thanks, no doubt, to the treachery of Suparto and others like him, Sanusi’s army had been able to make its approach march in secrecy, and to mount an attack at a moment when the capital was almost unguarded. Surprise having been achieved, it seemed unlikely that General Sanusi would have much difficulty in the early stages. Nothing we had heard so far suggested that he had encountered anything more than token resistance, and very little of that. Probably, he was already in complete control. The testing time for him would come when the Government forces counter-attacked; if they counter-attacked, that is; if there were not too many Supartos in their ranks.

I remembered the snatch of conversation I had overheard in the garden of the New Harmony Club. “We must have all,” the General had said. “Then it must be delayed until the second day,” had been Suparto’s reply. All what? Reinforcements? Arms? Hostages? And what was it that had to be delayed? A movement of troops? The assassination of the President? The offer of an amnesty? I worried at the questions as if the answer really mattered. It was more agreeable to do that, than to reflect that what was going to happen on the second day was possibly of only theoretical interest to Rosalie and me.

It was nearly six o’clock when the sky lightened and then flushed with the sudden glow of the equatorial dawn. For the past half-hour there had been sounds of activity from the square below. Several cars had driven up and there had been sharp words of command. There had been a murmur of voices from the next room also. It had been difficult to distinguish what was said. We heard some isolated phrases: “… medical service … damage to installations … rice distribution … police situation … guns fire out to sea … transport arrangements … hour of curfew …” And then someone switched Jebb’s radio on.

For several minutes there was only the crackling of static. The set was near the open living-room window and we could hear it plainly. Then, as the station carrier wave started up, the static faded and presently the usual Soeara Sunda recognition signal, five notes played on the bamboo xylophone, came on. Rosalie seemed to find the sound reassuring. I did not.

Whether the insurgents had forcibly rounded up the engineers and were now standing over them below with guns, or whether they were relying on sympathisers among the technical personnel was immaterial. The fact that they already had the station on the air was an impressive demonstration of efficient staff-work. If their other arrangements were working as smoothly, the possibility of an early change in the situation was remote. I wondered what had happened to Nasjah and his followers. Had they managed to get away, or had they been taken by surprise and hacked to pieces in their homes?

At six thirty the xylophone sound ceased and a man’s voice gave the station identification. This was followed by the announcement, repeated three times, of an important government statement and a request to stand by. At six forty-five the same voice read out the statement.

It began with a recital of the “crimes” committed by the Nasjah Government, and then went on to say that, in order to save the nation from the colonialist vultures gathering over its helpless body, the People’s National Freedom Party had taken over the functions of government. The Nasjah gang had run away. Insignificant bands of their adherents, incited by foreign agents, might make isolated attempts to resist the authority of the new government; but these would quickly be eliminated. In the capital, order had been restored and all was calm. However, as a precaution against reactionary elements and to protect life and property, certain temporary security measures had been ordered by General Sanusi, head of the People’s National Freedom Party.

There followed a list of ordinances, amounting in effect to a declaration of martial law, and an intimidating series of instructions to provincial mayors. It was stated finally that, within the next few hours, General Sanusi would himself broadcast a message of hope and encouragement to the loyal people of Sunda from his secret headquarters. Meanwhile, they should stay quietly in their houses. Groups of more than three persons assembling in the streets would be treated as hostile and dealt with accordingly. Admittedly, this was harsh, but if the people were to be protected against the Godless forces of reaction, harshness was necessary. All loyal, right-thinking men would understand the necessity. Through discipline the way lay open to freedom.

The voice stopped. A few seconds later the recognition signal began again.

The sunlight was pouring on to the terrace now. At that time yesterday I had lain half-awake on the spare bed in the living room, trying to ignore the sounds of traffic coming up from the square below. Today, there was scarcely a sound. Now and again a vehicle drove up to the Air Terminal entrance, but apart from that the square was silent. Like a wary animal, the whole city seemed to have gone to ground. Six floors down, in the roadway, a soldier hawked and spat, and the noise interested the soldier on the terrace sufficiently to make him look down over the balustrade.

“Freedom!” said Rosalie sharply. She used the Sundanese word “merkeda” and made it sound like a curse.

She was sitting in the chair behind the drawn curtain, the sunlight casting the pattern of the material across her face. I could not see her eyes, but her hands were gripping the arms of the chair tightly and her whole body was tense.

I shrugged. “All political parties use that word.” I paused, then added: “Why don’t you lie down and try to get some rest?”

She did not answer, and after a moment or two I went over and put my hand on her shoulder. As I touched her, she sobbed and began to cry helplessly. I put my arm round her and waited. When I felt that the worst of it was over, I led her to the bed and made her lie down. Then, I went back to the chair, took my shirt off and wondered what it was she did not like about freedom. In the next room the recognition signal stopped again and the voice began to repeat the earlier announcement.

I was quite sure that she had gone to sleep, but, as the announcement ended, I heard her sigh and looked over at her.

She was watching me.

“There is something I wish to say,” she said.

“Go to sleep. You will feel better.”

She shook her head. “It is about my father. I did not tell you the truth. I said that he died in a Japanese prison camp. That is not true.”

“Is he alive then?”

“No. He died, but not in that way.”

I waited.

For a moment or so she stared at the ceiling, then she went on. “My father was in a camp in Siam. When he came back, we went outside the city to a small place where my father owned a plot of land. We thought that for us it would be safer where there were other Eurasian families, because of the way the pemoedas hated us.”

“Pemoedas?”

“That is what we called the young soldiers of the liberation army. Anyone who was not Sundanese they wanted to kill. When the Amboina troops left, there was nothing to stop them. Even the police were afraid of them, or perhaps they did not care.”

She paused, and then went on slowly. “One day, a lot of them came in trucks. They had guns, and they made everyone in the village leave their houses and stand in the square while they searched the houses. They said that they were looking for hidden arms, but they were really looting. They took everything of value that there was and put it in the trucks. Then, one of them saw my father. Some of the other men in the village had made him stand among them so that he would not be noticed, but this pemoeda saw him and shouted to the others that he had found a Dutchman. The others came running up. Some of them were boys of fifteen or sixteen.” She drew a deep breath. “They took my father, and tied him by the wrists to a hook at the back of one of the trucks. They said that he should stay there until there was nothing left of him but his hands. Then they drove the truck fast up and down the road and round the square in front of us. And while my father was battered to death, the pemoedas clapped and laughed and ran along behind the truck shouting ‘Merkeda! Merkeda!’ ”

She stopped, still staring up at the ceiling.

“Why did you say that he’d died in a prison camp?” I asked.

“That is something that everybody understands. Sometimes I almost believe it myself. It is easier to think of.”

Her eyes closed. When I went over to her a few minutes later I saw that this time she was really asleep. The voice on the radio in the next room finished the second reading of the announcement and the bamboo xylophone began again.

I needed to go to the bathhouse. I picked up a towel, went to the window and snapped my fingers. The sentry turned quickly and raised his gun.

I explained what I wanted. He said something that I did not catch; but he nodded, too, so I went along the terrace. I had left my shaving things in the bathhouse, and by the time I had finished there, I felt less depressed. I have always sympathised with those legendary Empire-builders who changed for dinner in the jungle. When I came out, I did something which I would not have done when I had gone in. Although the sentry was watching me, I walked over to the balustrade of the terrace and looked down into the square.

There were even more troops there than I had imagined; over a hundred, I thought, split up into squads of about a dozen. Rough barricades had been erected at the four entrances to the square, and the squads manning them either sat on the ground smoking or lounged in nearby doorways. Between the trees on the edge of the gardens, four machine guns had been set up covering the approaches, and parked in the centre under tarpaulins were two anti-tank guns. They looked like old British two-pounders. I had always been given to understand that Sanusi’s army had no artillery of any description. Possibly two-pounders had not been reckoned as artillery; possibly the situation had changed.

The sentry was fidgeting, so I went back to the bedroom, bowing to him politely on the way.

Rosalie was still asleep. I got out some new slacks and a clean shirt and changed into them. Then, I considered another matter.

I had taken a bottle of water into the room the previous night, but most of it was now gone; and the water from the bathhouse main could not safely be drunk without boiling it first. There were bottles of drinking-water in the refrigerator; but that was in the kitchen and therefore inaccessible. And there was the matter of food. With some people fear creates a craving for food; but with most, I think, it has the opposite effect. It has with me. But I knew that, if we survived the next few hours, a moment would come when food would become really necessary. I also knew that when the men murmuring in the next room grew hungry, they would soon eat what was in the refrigerator. It would be as well to see if I could appropriate a little of it, some fruit and eggs, perhaps, before that happened.

I went to the window, beckoned the sentry over and explained what I wanted. He stared back at me resentfully. I had begun to repeat my request when, without a change of expression, he suddenly drove the muzzle of the gun he was holding straight into my stomach.

I staggered back, doubled up with pain; then one of my feet slipped on the polished wood floor of the room, and I fell forward on my knees, retching helplessly. The sentry began to shout at me. The noise woke Rosalie. She saw the sentry standing over me with his gun raised, and cried out. That brought the men in the next room out on to the terrace.

There were two of them, both officers. While I struggled to get my breath, I was dimly aware of the sentry’s voice telling them what Suparto’s orders had been. As Rosalie helped me up, one of them came into the room.

He was a squat, bow-legged, dark-complexioned man with a jagged wound scar on his neck. He looked down at me angrily.

“It is ordered you stay here,” he said.

I managed to find the breath to answer. “I only asked if I might get some food and drinking-water from the kitchen.”

“If you attempt to escape you will be shot.”

“I wasn’t attempting …” I did not trouble to finish the sentence. I could see by his eyes now that he had not understood what I had said. If I translated it into Malay, he would know that I knew, and therefore lose face. It was better to keep quiet.

He still glowered at us though, waiting for the next move.

“The soldier did not understand,” I said carefully.

He hesitated. He had got that all right and was now fumbling among his English sentences for a suitable reply. I felt Rosalie stir and gripped her arm to stop her from speaking. At last, he shrugged.

“It is ordered you stay here,” he repeated, and went out on to the terrace.

“What really happened?” Rosalie asked.

I told her. She made no comment, but I could see that she thought I had been stupid. I knew it myself, now. Because I had been able to bathe and shave, because the sentry had not prevented my going to the balustrade to look down into the square, because I had been able to change into clean clothes and feel for a few minutes like a rational European, I had made the mistake of behaving like one. As a result, I had a bad pain in the stomach; worse, I had reminded the men in the other room of our existence, which was what Suparto had expressly warned me not to do.

“We can’t go without water,” I said defensively.

“We have water. There is still some in the bottle.”

“That won’t last long.”

“I am not thirsty now.”

“But you will be later. And hungry, too.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well, there you are.”

“We shall not die of thirst or hunger,” she said.

I had no answer for that. She was not being ironical. She was merely expressing a Sundanese point of view. In lush Sunda nobody dies of thirst or hunger; only of disease or violence. There is no winter for which to prepare, no drought to fear. The harvests are not seasonal as we understand the term. Tread a seed into the warm, rich earth and shortly you will have a tree heavy with fruit. Survival is achieved not by taking thought for the future, but by manipulating as best one can the immediate present. By thinking like a European, by anticipating bodily needs instead of waiting passively for them to present themselves, I had modified unfavourably the present situation of the bodies in question.

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at the smear of black grease that the gun had left on my shirt. Rosalie had moved away. Now she returned and sat down beside me. She had a box of Kleenex and a can of lighter fluid that Jebb had left on the dressing table. She began to wipe off the grease.

“It seemed a reasonable thing to do,” I said.

“These are not reasonable people.”

“I know that now.”

“Why do you think that I told you about the pemoedas who killed my father? I know these people. Mostly they are quiet and gentle. In the kampongs you will see a boy of twelve run to his mother and suck her breast when he is frightened or hurt. They smile a lot and laugh and seem happy, though they are also sad and afraid. But some are like those madmen nobody knows about, who have devils inside them waiting. And when there are guns to fire and people to kill, the devils come out. I have seen it.”

“Do you think that Major Suparto has a devil?”

“Perhaps. But he does not wish to kill you. I do not know why. But his advice was good. If they do not see you or hear you, they do not think of you, and you are safe.”

I said nothing. In the silence, the sound of the radio xylophone in the next room became distinct again. The five notes were in the form of a scale. Doh-ray-me-soh-lah. What was the name of it? The pentatonic? Ah yes. If only they would play it descending for a change; or play the Japanese National Anthem; that used the same scale. After all, it was the Japanese who had originated the signal.

It ceased abruptly. I waited for the announcement to begin again. There was a long silence. The men in the next room were no longer talking. The sentry was staring at the living-room door. Then, there was the hiss of a disc recording surface and a rendering of the Sunda battle song. This was different from the Republican National Anthem, which was a westernised song, composed, it was said, by the Dutch saxophone-player who led the Orient Hotel orchestra. The battle song was chanted by male voices to the accompaniment of drums, many small cymbals and one cumbersome string instrument that was twanged like a zither. Gedge, who was interested in such matters, said that the battle song was not really native to Sunda, but had been imported from the Spice Islands. However, in Sunda it was supposed to evoke memories of the old warrior sultans and the early struggles against the colonial powers. The reason it had not been used as a national anthem was that, even to the most sympathetic western ears, it had no identifiable melody, and a national anthem that could only be played in Sunda would, it had been felt, cause the Republic’s representatives abroad to lose face.

The noise went on for three or four minutes. During it, I glanced at the sentry on the terrace. The battle song did not seem to have evoked any patriotic emotions in him; he was busy lighting a twig-like cheroot. When the music stopped, however, he looked up expectantly.

The announcer came on and gave the station identification twice. There was another pause, then another man began to speak. He announced himself as Colonel Roda, Secretary of the National Freedom Party and new Minister of Internal Security. Shortly, he said, we would hear the voice of the new Head of the State. General Sanusi, he went on, was a great patriot, a true son of Islam, who had fought against the colonial usurpers in the name of the Republic, believing that by doing so his country would be made free to follow its destiny as a political unit, and at the same time conform to the forty-two precepts of An-Nawawi. So, he had attempted to serve the Republic. But evil men had made it impossible to serve as Allah had commanded that a man should serve, with his whole heart. Questions had arisen in his mind. He had taken to his heart the first precept, which stated that actions are to be judged only in accordance with intentions. The intentions had been plainly bad. Therefore the actions were bad. He had gone further. He had examined the men at the heart of the Republic with eyes unclouded by alcohol. He had turned to An-Nawawi again for guidance and there, in the sixth precept, had been the knowledge he had sought. “Is it not a fact,” the holy man had written, “that there is in the body a clot of blood, and that if it be in good condition, the whole body is also?” Certainly! And was it not also written that if the clot of blood be in a rotten condition, so also was the whole body? Was not that clot of blood the very heart? Indeed, yes. Therefore, the heart must be purified. With other true Believers he had taken to the hills to prepare for the act of purification that had now been accomplished. As a result, a new era of peace, discipline and happiness had come to Sunda. Let all offer prayers for the author of this good fortune, Boeng General Kamarudin ben Sanusi.

There was a brief pause, a moment of rapid whispering, and then Sanusi began to speak.

He had a soft, pleasant voice which he used slowly and deliberately, as if he were none too sure of the intelligence of his audience.

He began by recalling the high hopes with which the Republic had been founded, and went on to describe the way in which the Nasjah Government had falsified those hopes. Power without Godliness had led to corruption. Corruption had led to the breakdown of the democratic machinery set up by the Constitution. Unconstitutional action had become necessary if the country were not to fall into anarchy, and become dominated, either by more powerful neighbors, or by the forces of colonialism which still threatened all the young nations of South-East Asia. And when the safety of the Republic was threatened, there was no time for legal quibbling. If your brother’s house caught fire while he was working in the fields, you did not wait until he returned so that you could ask his permission before you poured water on the flames. If a hungry leopard came looking for food in your village, you did not call a council meeting to discuss what should be done.

And so on. It was, in effect, the speech of every military dictator who seizes political power by force of arms, and seeks to justify himself.

He went on to proclaim the suspension of the authority of parliament (until such time as it was considered advisable to order new elections) and the establishment of a new People’s Army of Security (Tentara Keamanan Ra’jat), recruiting for which would begin immediately. All young men should offer their services. A delegation of the National Freedom Government was already in New York awaiting orders. Today it would be ordered to request recognition of the new Government from the United Nations. Prompt recognition would be sought also from friendly Indonesia, and from the other powers represented at the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung.

Finally, there were the carefully worded threats. The transfer of power which had taken place had been swift and complete. Inevitably, however, a few small areas remained in which, through lack of efficient communications, control was not yet fully established. Inhabitants of such areas were cautioned against giving aid to disaffected political elements, or to troops still bearing arms against the newly constituted Government of National Freedom. Reprisals would be taken against villages committing such offences against the new military ordinances, and collective fines would be imposed. All troops and police were required to signify their adherence to the new Government forthwith. Failure to do so would be interpreted as a hostile act. Terms of a political amnesty would shortly be announced, but no mercy would be shown to those whose loyalty was suspect. He concluded: “The killing of a true believer is not lawful but for one of three reasons: that he is an adulterer, an avenger of blood, or because he offends against religion by splitting the community. Remember that. But if a man shows himself faithful, then, so far as I am concerned, his life and property will be protected. His only account will be with Allah Ta’ala. Long live our glorious country!”

The battle song was played again. The men in the next room began talking excitedly. I looked at the time. It was eight o’clock. Less than twenty-four hours earlier I had been told that Sanusi was a man who did not like to take chances. Now he was the head of the state. I wondered what sort of man he really was.

There was one thing I did know. The voice of Sanusi was not the voice of the General I had heard talking to Suparto in the garden of the New Harmony Club two nights ago.