State of Siege

8

The shelling of the area around the Van Riebeeck Square began at one o’clock.

For three hours before that, insurgent troops had been straggling back from the forward positions and occupying the block of buildings which included the Air House and the Ministry of Public Health. On my way back from the bathhouse, I had looked over the balustrade and seen two more two-pounders being manhandled through the big doorway of the Air Terminal offices below, and a truck full of wounded being driven in the direction of the Telegraf Road. The only civilians to be seen were children. Some of them stood in awe-struck silence, watching the troops; others, bolder, were playing a war game round a bomb crater and jumping in and out of the fox-holes.

A little after eleven, there were several violent outbursts of firing. They seemed to come from about a mile away to the north. Immediately after the first one, the telephone in the next room began to ring. During the half-hour that followed, there was scarcely a moment when Sanusi or Roda was not on the telephone; but for most of the time there was such a lot of noise going on outside that, although I could distinguish odd words and sentences, I could not make sense of what was being said. Eventually, Sanusi and Roda went out on to the terrace, and there was a muttered conference over a map. If the bad news was beginning to filter through to them, they clearly did not want their staff inside the room to know too much about it. In the middle of the conference, Roda was called in to the telephone again; but Sanusi remained on the terrace, fidgeting uneasily with the map and staring down into the square. After a minute or two, Roda came back and there was another furtive discussion. Some decision seemed to come out of it, for in the end Sanusi nodded, and the two men turned and walked back inside. A few minutes later the radio was switched on, and I guessed that the staff had been left to their own devices.

The official communiqué was being broadcast at intervals of fifteen minutes, and part of it was similar enough to the one I had invented earlier that morning to make us both laugh. The rest was not so amusing, however. Six persons attempting to obstruct the movements of the National Freedom Army had been shot; twenty others had been arrested on suspicion of sabotage, and were being questioned. There was a warning that persons failing to obey orders promptly, or displaying reluctance to assist the National Freedom Army in its fight against the colonialist reactionaries who were attempting to defeat the will of the people, would be liable to summary trial and imprisonment with forfeiture of all property.

Rosalie began to worry about her sister and Mina. The fighting seemed to be moving towards the quarter in which they lived, and she was afraid that, in trying to get away from it, they would run into worse trouble when the Government forces began to close in from the east. We talked about it for some time, but I made no effort to reassure her; not merely because I knew that my reassurances would be worthless, but because I hoped that the more she worried about Mina and her sister, the less she would worry about herself.

A little after mid-day there were two extra-violent explosions that brought down some more fragments of plaster, and a few moments later we saw two columns of smoke mushrooming up over the warehouses in the direction of the old town. Rosalie said that one of the oil companies had their gasoline storage tanks in that area, but the smoke looked to me more like the result of demolition charges. I thought it probable that the defenders were now trying to delay the Government’s encircling movements by blowing up canal bridges, and wondered if they yet knew that there were enemies, not friends, waiting across the line of their retreat.

I did not have to wait long for the answer. During the morning I had found a pack of cards in a drawer of Jebb’s belongings, and at intervals since then I had been teaching Rosalie to play gin rummy. We had just sat down to resume our interrupted game when there was a sound of movement from the next room and the radio was switched off. Sanusi and Roda had returned.

For a few minutes, there was a steady murmur of voices punctuated by sharp monosyllables from Roda. Suddenly, chairs grated on the tiled floor and a door closed. Then, footsteps sounded on the terrace, the curtain was pushed aside, and the staff captain whom I had seen the previous day on the floor below peered in at us.

I looked up, and he beckoned.

“You, come.”

“Where to?”

“See Boeng.”

My heart was beating too insistently for comfort; but, for Rosalie’s benefit, I put my cards down with a sigh of irritation and a word of apology before I stood up.

“You, come.” He was belligerent now.

“I am coming.”

I walked out on to the terrace and, with his hand on his pistol, he stood aside to let me pass. I took no notice of him and walked along to the living-room windows. There was no glass in them and I could clearly see the four men inside. Apart from Sanusi and Roda, there were a major and a lieutenant-colonel, both of them grey with dust and wearing steel helmets.

As before, it was Roda who took the initiative. He beckoned me in. The captain followed and stood behind me. Sanusi was sitting on the side of one of the long chairs, staring at the floor. He took no notice of me.

Roda glanced at the other two. “It was this tuan who repaired the radio power generator when a bomb damaged it yesterday. He is an engineer from Tangga.”

The lieutenant-colonel nodded absently. The major stared. Sweat had caked the dust on their faces and their eyes were swollen with fatigue.

Roda stood up. “Mr. Fraser, you will answer some questions. Some of the answers we already have, so that we shall know whether you tell the truth or not. So, be careful.”

I said nothing and waited.

“Have you seen Major Suparto today?”

“Certainly I’ve seen him.”

“When?”

“I think it was shortly before the General and you came up here, nearly an hour after the planes came over that dropped leaflets.”

“Where did you see him?”

“Here, naturally.”

“What was said?”

“He told me that the General was returning to this apartment, and that I should respect his desire for privacy by keeping off the terrace outside.”

“What else?”

“He allowed me to fetch some drinking-water from the kitchen.”

“What else?”

“Nothing more, I think. Oh yes, he mentioned that he was going to make a reconnaissance in the city.”

Roda laughed shortly. Inside the room there was a silence. Not very far off, an eighty-eight was slamming away like a pair of double doors in a gale.

Sanusi raised his head. “Was nothing else said, Mr. Fraser?”

“No, General.”

“Why should he tell you where he was going?”

“I’ve no idea, General.”

“You knew Major Suparto when he was at Tangga. Were you friendly with him there?”

“Not particularly. He was employed by the contractors as a liaison manager. His duties were very different from mine.”

“What was the opinion of Major Suparto at Tangga?”

“Very high. In fact …” I broke off.

“Go on, Mr. Fraser. Say what there is to be said.”

“I was only going to say that Major Suparto was exceptional. The Government sent quite a lot of unemployed officers to work with us there. Major Suparto was the only one of them who had any real ability.”

There was another brief silence. Sanusi looked at Roda. Roda stared back at him bitterly for a moment and then swung round to face the other two.

“You hear?” he said in Malay. “You remember the meeting at Kail? I asked then. Why should they send him to Tangga where it was so easy for him to contact us? Luck, you all said. Luck, and more. It showed that they did not have the smallest suspicion that he was one of us.” He glared round the room. “Well, now you know better. Now you know …”

“That is enough,” Sanusi broke in impatiently. “Many mistakes have been made. I did not believe that we were ready. I was for waiting another year, for letting them destroy themselves before we moved. I yielded to the Committee’s judgment.”

“A judgment based on information supplied by a traitor, Boeng.”

“I am not reproaching you. We are men, not gods, Ahmad. We cannot read souls.” Sanusi stood up and walked over to the table.

Perhaps because they were now speaking Malay they thought I did not understand. Perhaps they had forgotten me. I just stood there. They watched him as if they were waiting for an oracle, while he smoothed out a map and bent over it.

“Here are the possibilities,” he said at last. “We can try to break out of the city and regain our base.”

Roda shrugged. “That is their greatest hope, that we will try,” he said.

Sanusi eyed him coldly. “We will consider all the possibilities, Ahmad. Your advice will be asked later. The second possibility is that we attempt to hold the centre of the city.” He paused and this time Roda was silent. “The third possibility is that we negotiate with them.” He looked at the lieutenant-colonel. “Well, Aroff? Your opinions?”

Aroff wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “As to the first possibility, Boeng, I agree with Ahmad.” He spoke huskily and kept clearing his throat. “As to the second, I have no objection to dying. As to the third, I do not understand how we can negotiate anything except surrender, and for us that only means dying in a different way. I say that it is better to die like men than to die shamefully in a prison yard.”

“Major Dahman?”

“I say the same, Boeng.”

“Ahmad?”

Roda stared round at them belligerently. “Are we whipped dogs? What is all this talk of dying?”

Aroff stiffened. “Can you give us guns, Ahmad?” he snapped. “Can you give us tanks? Can you, at this late hour, persuade the men who were to have fought with us to desert General Ishak? If so, we will talk of living.”

“We are not whipped dogs,” Sanusi interposed; “and neither are we children. What is your opinion, Ahmad?”

“We should negotiate, Boeng. Consider. We are in a strong position here. They have tanks, yes, and they have guns, but they cannot stand at a distance and kill us all with high explosive. At Cassino, a few Germans held an army corps. At Stalingrad, it was the Germans who broke, not the Russkis. Ah yes, I know it is different with us. We are cut off from our supplies. Our ammunition will not last for ever. But if they want to kill us they will have to assault us, and that will be an expensive operation for them. They will prefer to negotiate.”

“For our surrender, certainly they will negotiate,” retorted Aroff; “but what terms can we expect?”

“An amnesty within two years. The terms to be witnessed by a neutral observer, the Indonesian Ambassador perhaps.”

“They would be fools to agree.”

“Why? We have a following in the country. They will not make themselves secure by killing us. Besides, think of the good impression it would create abroad.”

Aroff turned protestingly to Sanusi. “Boeng, this is madness.”

Sanusi started to say something and so did Roda. At the same instant, there was a quick rushing sound. Then, the floor jumped, a blast wave that felt like a sandbag clouted me in the chest and my head jarred to the whiplash violence of exploding T.N.T.

For a second I stood there, stupidly staring at the other men in the room who were staring stupidly at me. Then, I turned and blundered out on to the terrace. The shell had burst against a window embrasure on the floor below, and fumes and smoke were pouring up over the balustrade. As I began to cough, the staff captain pushed past me with an angry exclamation that I was too deafened to hear, and went to look down over the balustrade. Then, the fumes got him, too, and he turned away. I looked back into the room. Roda was holding the back of his hand against his forehead as if he were dazed. Sanusi was shouting something at him. I stumbled along the terrace to the bedroom.

Rosalie was sitting on my bed with her hands over her face, trembling violently. I was not feeling too good myself. If that was a sample of the shooting we could expect from the naval gunners, we were not going to last very long.

I put my arms round her and she looked up at me. The whistle of the second shell rose to a climax and we both ducked involuntarily. The burst that followed made a glass on the table tinkle against the water bottle standing beside it, but that was all. It was about three hundred yards over.

I produced the old platitude: “If you can hear it coming it’s going to miss you.”

It has never yet comforted anyone who was badly frightened, and it did not comfort her. The destroyer was firing its four guns singly, so that the bombardment was reasonably steady, but I soon realised that the first hit had been a fluke. When, after twenty minutes, the first burst of firing ceased, they had not succeeded in dropping another shell within fifty yards of the Air House. Perhaps they were not trying for it. For Rosalie, however, every round was aimed, not merely at the building we were in, but at our room in it. I moved one of the beds around so as to give us some protection from a burst on the terrace, and we lay down on the floor behind it, but I don’t think she felt any more protected.

When the lull came, however, I made her go out on to the terrace with me to see what damage had been done. There were some craters in the square, and a small building on the far side was on fire; but that was about all that was visible. In fact, the closely built-up area behind us had taken the brunt of the shelling; but there was no point in telling her that. The damage to our own building was also out of sight. As she had clearly expected to find the entire square in ruins, all this produced a very satisfactory sense of anti-climax. We kept to the bathouse end of the terrace, and saw nothing of the men in the living room. I guessed that the council of war had been resumed on the other side of the building. Rosalie had heard something of what had been said while I was there, and now I told her the rest. The possibility of negotiation cheered her up considerably. I did not say what I thought of it. When we went back into the bedroom, I was able to persuade her to eat some fruit and begin another game of gin.

It was just after three when the staff captain came for me again.

Since two, the sounds of street-fighting had steadily been getting nearer, and we had had another twenty-minute bombardment from the destroyer. This had been both worse and better than the first; worse, because the gunners had dropped the range slightly and managed to put every shell into or around the square itself; better, because Rosalie, having decided that her earlier fears had been quite groundless, proposed that we should continue our game of gin on the floor. Admittedly, it was my hands that shook now, not hers, and she who was concerned on my account when a near miss made me fumble and scatter my cards; but on the whole it was an improvement on the earlier situation.

The staff captain was more polite this time. It was Colonel Roda who wished to see me, he explained; but why, he did not know. The radio in the next room was silent, and, with a sinking heart, I wondered if the generator had broken down again. The staff captain shrugged when I suggested this; he knew nothing. I told Rosalie that if I were going to be away for any length of time, I would try to get a message to her, and then went off with him.

He led me to an office on the third floor at the back of the building. The shell that had burst on the fifth floor had gutted three offices and brought down part of the wall along the corridor, but there had been no casualties, and no structural damage of any consequence. It had short-circuited the lights, however, and Alwi was along there trying to rectify the trouble. I asked him about the generator, but he said that it was running perfectly. By the time I reached Colonel Roda’s office, I was both puzzled and worried.

The office into which the staff captain ushered me had the look of a board room after a directors’ meeting. The air was full of tobacco smoke, and there was a litter of dirty coffee cups and crumpled scribbling paper. There had been seven men in there, but now there were only two: Roda and Aroff. The latter had cleaned himself up and wore a black cap in place of the steel helmet; but he looked even wearier than before. Roda’s face was the colour of putty. It did not seem to have been a very successful meeting.

They were sitting at one end of the table reading through a document and comparing it with what was evidently the draft from which it had been typed. To my surprise, Roda waved me to a chair. I sat down as far away from them as possible and waited. When they had finished, Roda looked at Aroff inquiringly. Aroff nodded, but with the air of a man agreeing to something against his better judgment. Roda pursed his lips and turned to me.

“Mr. Fraser, we have sent for you because we believe that you may be willing to assist us.”

“Oh yes?”

“The General and I were much impressed by your co-operation in the matter of the generator. Under circumstances of the greatest difficulty, without proper assistance or equipment, you employed your skill and knowledge to such good effect that the enemy’s attempts to silence Radio Sunda were totally defeated.” He smiled.

This was fantastic. For one wild moment I thought that he was about to pin a decoration on me: the Order of Boeng Sanusi (2nd Class) perhaps. I smiled back guardedly. Aroff, I noticed, was absently studying his fingernails, as if none of what was being said were any business of his.

“That being so,” Roda continued amiably, “we do not think it unreasonable to assume that, as a British friend of Sunda, you are sympathetic to the policy and aspirations of the National Freedom Party and its leader.”

I could have thought of several brief replies to that, but by now I was curious to know what he wanted.

I shook my head doubtfully. “As a foreigner, of course, it would be a gross impertinence for me to express an opinion about a political matter.”

“Nevertheless, Mr. Fraser, we feel that you are not unsympathetic to the principles for which we stand. It is for that reason that we propose to take you into our confidence.”

“I see.” I did not see, but he evidently expected me to say something.

“Good. As you know, the Nasjah forces have counter-attacked. At this moment a battle is being fought in the streets of our city. Now, I must tell you, Mr. Fraser, that but for the activities of certain enemy agents and the unconstitutional action of the Nasjah gang in arresting many of our supporters on false charges, this battle would not be going on. We should be in complete control. As it is, Sunda is faced not merely by civil war, but also by the devastation of large areas of our capital. Mr. Fraser, we are patriots, not savages. Sunda cannot tolerate civil war. Selampang cannot be permitted to suffer needlessly. General Sanusi has, therefore, taken the initiative in proposing to General Ishak, as between equals, an armistice, during which negotiations can take place for the evacuation of all armed forces from the city and the setting up of a joint commission of conciliation under neutral supervision.”

It was not a bad bluff. If I had not talked to Suparto I might have swallowed it for a while. I glanced at Aroff. He had a knife out and was cleaning his fingernails now. I looked back at Roda.

“I wish you every success, Colonel. But I don’t see how I can help you.”

“I will explain, Mr. Fraser. We have been in telephone communication with General Ishak’s headquarters and certain conditions have been agreed for a preliminary meeting to discuss the terms of the cease-fire. That meeting will take place, under flags of truce, in front of the police barracks at four o’clock. That is in half an hour.” He paused and stirred uncomfortably.

“Yes, Colonel?”

“We asked that independent foreign observers should be present, so that any promises made or undertakings given should be properly witnessed. Consular or diplomatic representatives would have been suitable, but this was not agreed. The enemy refuse to permit accredited representatives of foreign powers to participate in what they say is a domestic political matter. They pretend that it would be contrary to protocol and an encroachment on our national sovereignty. In fact, of course, they are afraid to lose face. It has been agreed, however, that two foreign observers not of diplomatic status may attend, one for each side, providing that neither is a newspaper representative and neither of Dutch nationality. We would like you to attend for us, Mr. Fraser.”

“Me? Why me? Surely there is someone more suitable in the area you control, some business man who fulfils the agreed conditions.”

“There may be, Mr. Fraser, but we do not know where to find him at this moment. There is not much time.”

“Frankly, I don’t see why you need anyone at all.” This was pure malice. I did see. Having nothing whatsoever to offer in exchange for the terms he was asking, and merely hoping to pull off a bluff, he was doing his best to make the negotiations seem formal and portentous. If the other side were the slightest bit unsure of themselves, it was just possible, too, that the presence of neutral observers might influence their judgment.

“The procedure has been agreed,” he said coldly. He was tired of persuasion, and the fact that he would sooner be cutting my throat than asking for my co-operation was beginning to show in his eyes.

“Very well. What do I do?”

“Colonel Aroff will be our delegate. You will accompany him.”

“What are my duties?”

“Firstly, to take note of what is said.” He hesitated. “Should you feel, of course, that the other side are not viewing the situation correctly, you would be entitled to consult with their observer, and perhaps to protest.” His eyes held mine. “I am sure you realise, Mr. Fraser, that it is in everyone’s interest that an acceptable agreement is reached.”

There was sufficient emphasis on the word “everyone.” I understood now.

“May I know what terms you would accept?”

“Colonel Aroff has his instructions. He will explain them to you on the way. You should be leaving now.”

Colonel Aroff put his knife away, stuffed the document they had been studying into his pocket and stood up. Then, with a nod to me he walked out of the room. He did not even look at Roda.

The staff captain was waiting in the corridor and, as I followed Aroff out, he joined the procession. I noticed that he was carrying something that looked like a long cardboard tube in his hand. We followed Aroff down the stairs to the sandbagged entrance. There was a guard there who demanded passes before we were allowed to leave the building; Suparto having got away, the stable door was now bolted. The staff captain had the passes and we went through.

Outside in the road there was a jeep waiting which I recognised as the one from Tangga that Suparto had used. There was a soldier sitting in the driving seat. Aroff stopped and looked at the tube the staff captain was holding.

“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?”

“I think Colonel Roda made its contents clear.”

“Then we understand one another. All I have to offer them, in fact, is a small saving of effort. The rest is pretence, and, of course, they will know that.”

“What do you want me to do, Colonel?”

He shrugged. “Is it of interest to you what happens to us?”

“If there is any prospect of a cease-fire, naturally I’ll do everything I can to help.”

“Then I will make only one request to you, Mr. Fraser.”

“Yes?”

“General Ishak is a military man. If you should have to refer to Roda, please do not call him Colonel Roda. In General Ishak’s army he was a captain.”

“And General Sanusi?”

“Colonel Sanusi would be more discreet.”

“What about you, Colonel?”

He smiled slightly. “I received no promotion. But I do not think that General Ishak will regard that as a point in my favour. We shall, of course, speak Malay.”

He looked at his watch again, then turned and walked towards the jeep.

The staff captain came forward and, when Aroff nodded, he took the white flag of truce out of its cardboard wrapping and fixed it on to the windscreen of the jeep.

I saw the gunners staring at it incredulously. Then, the lieutenant shouted an order and they scrambled to their feet. Another order, and they rolled the gun back clear of the barricade. The machine-gunners helped them to swing one of the cars aside a foot or two, so that there was space for the jeep to go through.

Aroff took no notice of these preparations. He had got into the jeep and was sitting there woodenly under the flag. I went and sat beside him in the driving seat while the staff captain clambered into the back. We sat there for a moment or two, then Aroff looked at his watch again and nodded to me.

I drove through the gap in the barricade on to the road ahead.

“Slowly, Mr. Fraser,” Aroff said; “and keep to the centre.”

I needed no telling. The moment we were clear of the barricade I felt horribly exposed; I was almost sure that the tank was going to open fire on us. The white flag drooping on its stick above us seemed a totally inadequate protection. It only wanted one trigger-happy idiot to start, I thought, and every gun in Selampang would be firing at us. I had no hat and was already far too warm. As I drove, sweat began to trickle into my eyes.

The first hundred yards was the worst. After that, although I could see the muzzle of the tank’s gun dropping gradually as the gunner kept us in his sights, I knew that unless we suddenly drove straight at him brandishing anti-tank grenades, he was not going to fire. Also I could see a group of officers standing in the shade by the gate of the police barracks, waiting.

When we were within ten yards of the tank, a lieutenant in the Government uniform stepped out from behind it and held up his hand. I stopped with a jerk that made the staff captain lurch against the back of my seat.

Aroff got out stiffly and stood beside the jeep. When the staff captain and I had joined him, the lieutenant advanced and stopped in front of us.

“Follow me, please,” he said curtly.

He turned then, and we followed him past the tank and over to the gateway. The group of officers was no longer there, only two sentries who stared at us curiously. The lieutenant led the way through into the courtyard of the barracks and the two sentries closed in behind us.

There was a big sago palm in the centre, and a table and chair had been placed in the shade of it. General Ishak sat at the table. Standing behind him were four officers and a civilian. I had never seen Ishak before. He was a thin, bitter-looking man with angry eyes and one of those wispy Sundanese moustaches that look as if they have just been stuck on with spirit gum. More interesting to me at that moment, however, was the fact that just behind him, still haggard but crisp and clean in his proper uniform, stood Major Suparto. As we came up to the table, I saw his eyes flicker towards me, but he gave no sign of recognition.

Aroff stopped and saluted the General.

Ishak did not return the salute. For a moment the two men stared at one another in silence. I was standing a little behind Aroff and I could see the muscles of his jaw twitching. Ishak looked at me.

“Who is this?” I recognised the voice. It was light and ugly, and sounded as if he were trying to speak and swallow at the same time. I had heard it once before that week.

“Mr. Fraser, an engineer from the Tangga Valley project, General. He is here by agreement as an observer.”

“Very well.” He glanced at the civilian who stood next to Suparto. “This is Mr. Petersen of the Malayan Rubber Agency.”

“Dutch?” Aroff demanded sharply.

“Danish,” said Mr. Petersen. He was a stout, fleshy-faced man in the late fifties, wearing a suit as well as a tie and looking as if he might at any moment collapse from the heat. I nodded to him and he smiled nervously.

Ishak yawned. “Although why foreign observers should be necessary to witness a simple police operation is not easy to understand,” he said, and looked up at Aroff. “Well, this meeting is at Sanusi’s request. He can only wish to surrender. It remains for me to inform you about the time and place. You agree?”

“No, General. All I am instructed to discuss are the terms of an armistice.”

“What armistice? What terms?”

Aroff fumbled in his pocket and drew out the document. “I have the proposals here.”

Ishak took the document, glanced through it impassively and then passed it to a colonel, presumably his chief of staff, who was standing behind him. Suparto read it over the colonel’s shoulder. When they had finished, the colonel handed it back to Ishak. The latter glanced through it again and then looked at Aroff.

“Before you became a traitor, Aroff,” he said, “you used to be an intelligent man.” He tore the document in half and dropped the pieces on the table. “What has happened to you?”

“I am here to discuss terms, General.” Aroff’s voice was very carefully controlled.

Ishak flicked the torn paper away from him. “That discussion is ended. If you do not wish to make any personal explanation, then we will waste no more time. You may go.”

Aroff did not move. “The document, General, was intended as a basis for negotiations. It can be modified.”

Ishak shook his head. “It cannot be modified. You are not here to negotiate or to discuss terms. If you are not here to offer surrender, then we are wasting time.” He stood up. “You have five minutes to get back to your lines.”

Aroff hesitated, then he gave in. “On what terms would you accept a surrender, General?”

“I will tell you. Your masters say that they wish to avoid useless suffering and damage to property. So do I. On that point we agree. Very well. I will accept the surrender of all members of your rebel force who disarm themselves, form themselves into separate parties of not more than twenty-five, and march under flags of surrender to the square in front of the railroad station. Each party should appoint a leader who will carry the white flag, and every man must bring any food he has with him. All arms and ammunition must be left behind under guard in the Van Riebeeck square until our troops arrive there.”

“What treatment would those who surrender receive?”

“For the present they will be treated as if they were foreign prisoners of war under the terms of the Geneva Convention. Later, no doubt, after a year, perhaps, an amnesty will be granted. That is all, I think. Do those terms seem harsh to you, Aroff?”

Aroff shook his head.

Ishak smiled unpleasantly. “After what has happened, they seem to me absurdly lenient. Politicians’ terms, Aroff! You should be laughing.”

Aroff sighed. “You were good enough to say that I was an intelligent man, General. You would have more dignity if you treated me as one.”

“What more do you want, Aroff? A free pardon?”

“The list of exceptions, General. The list of those whose surrender will not be accepted.”

“Ah yes, the outlaws.” He held out his hand and Suparto gave him a paper. “Let us see. Sanusi, Roda, Aroff, Dahman … I am sorry to tell you that you are on the list. Shall I read any more?”

“If Major Suparto drew it up, I am sure it is complete.” Aroff looked straight at Suparto, and I was glad I could not see his eyes.

Suparto stared back impassively.

Ishak handed Aroff the paper. “Your masters will want to see that. They have half an hour in which to let us know that they accept our terms.”

“Terms, General?” Aroff said bitterly. “You mean a death sentence, surely!”

“No, Aroff.” Ishak’s eyes narrowed. “That sentence has been passed already. It is no longer a question of whether you all die or not, but only of how you die and of how many of your men die with you. We shall see now what value your leader puts on his men’s lives.” He turned to Suparto. “Send them back.”

Ishak began to walk towards the barrack entrance. Suparto moved after him quickly and said something. Ishak paused. I saw him glance back at me and then nod to Suparto before walking on.

Suparto came over to Aroff.

“Mr. Fraser is a foreigner and a non-combatant. Is it necessary for him to return with you?”

Aroff shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose not.”

“It is very necessary,” I said.

They both stared at me.

Suparto frowned. “Why?”

“Roda left me in no doubt that he regards Miss Linden as a hostage.”

“That is absurd.”

“It wasn’t absurd yesterday, Major. You should know that.”

“The situation is now different.”

“Not for Miss Linden. She’s still up there in that apartment. I’m very grateful to you for the suggestion, but I think I must go back.”

He sighed irritably. “This is foolishness, Mr. Fraser. The woman is not your wife.”

“Perhaps Mr. Fraser has scruples about betraying those who trust him,” said Aroff.

Suparto stood absolutely still, his face a mask. For a moment he stared at Aroff, then he nodded to the lieutenant who was waiting to escort us back to the jeep.

Aroff was smiling as he turned away.

The jeep had been standing out in the sun and the metal on it was painful to touch. I made a clumsy job of turning it between the deep drains. My movements were hampered, too, by the staff captain, who was leaning forward across the back of my seat, pleading with Aroff.

“The list, Colonel. May I see the list?”

“Not now.”

“A man has a right to know if he is to die.”

“All men have to die, Captain.”

“If I could see the list.”

“Not while they are watching us. Have you no dignity?”

“For the love of Allah, tell me.”

“Are you a renegade? Did you formerly hold a commission from the Republic?”

“You know that I did, Colonel.”

“Then you will be on the list.”

I managed to get the jeep round at last and drove back towards the barricade. Behind me, the staff captain began to weep.

From this side of the canal crossing I could see the front of the cinema. Above the portico there was a big advertising cut-out. Next week, it said, they would be showing Samson and Delilah.

When we arrived back at the square, the shelling had stopped. The Ministry of Public Health had had a direct hit on the roof, and smoke was drifting up from the smouldering débris below. Outside the Air House there was a pile of rubble that seemed to have fallen from one of the upper floors. All over the square there were men still digging in. There was an insistent racket of machine-gun fire. It seemed to be coming from somewhere only two or three streets away.

Rosalie had been alone for nearly an hour and I was worried about her. The only time Aroff had spoken since we had re-crossed the canal had been to tell m to stop so that the wretched staff captain could remove the flag of truce. When we left the jeep, I drew him aside.

“I don’t think I can be much help to you with Roda, do you, Colonel?”

He thought for a moment and then he said: “No. This captain will escort you back. I will tell Roda that I ordered it.”

“Is there any reason why Miss Linden and I should remain here?”

“None, except that you would need Roda’s permission to leave. At this moment, it would not be wise to ask for it.”

“I see what you mean.”

“Besides, where would you go? The streets would be more dangerous for you than this place, and who would take you into his house at such a time?”

“Perhaps there will be a surrender?”

He shook his head. “They will never agree. They will dream of miraculous escapes. Ishak knows that. He is only humiliating us. He means to destroy us all.”

“If it rested with you, Colonel, would you accept?”

He shrugged wearily. “If it had rested with me, I would never have attempted to negotiate. I am not so afraid of death. Now, we have lost face and will die ashamed.” He hesitated and then gave me a little bow of dismissal. “Your company has been a pleasure, Mr. Fraser.”

The staff captain left me at the door of the apartment and hurried back downstairs, presumably to make his own panic-stricken contribution to the discussion of Ishak’s surrender terms.

The door from the hall into the living room was shut. If there were any officers inside I did not want to walk in on them unexpectedly. I knocked. There was no reply; but as I opened the door I had a shock.

When I had left, the sun roof over the terrace had been propped up fairly securely, and the screens were in place. Now there was no sun roof and the screens were flattened. One of the long chairs was lying across the balustrade. I ran through on to the terrace.

The shell had landed on the terrace of one of the unfinished apartments about thirty feet beyond the barrier wall with the spikes on it, and had dislodged a whole section of the balustrade there. The barrier wall was sagging like an unhinged door, and the blast had lifted the roof off the bathhouse.

As I saw this and started towards the bedroom shouting for Rosalie, I stumbled over one of the screens. Then, I saw her running towards me along the terrace and went to meet her.

For a minute or so she clung to me, sobbing. It was only relief, she explained after a while; relief that I was back. She had really not been very frightened when the shell burst; it had been so sudden. It was right what I had told her about shells and the noise they made. She had not heard this one coming.

All this time she had been holding the water scoop from the bathhouse in her hand. Now, she explained that the cistern had collapsed into the bathhouse when the roof had lifted, and that she had been trying to transfer what was left of the water into the ewer before it all leaked away.

I went along there with her and had a look at the damage. If the cistern had been full it would have crashed through to the floor. As it was, the pipes had held it up, though one of them had fractured and was gradually draining it. I got a jug from the kitchen and between us we managed to get most of the water into the ewer. While we were doing this, I told her about the surrender offer and what Colonel Aroff had said.

She took the news calmly.

“General Ishak is a swine,” was her comment.

“You know him?”

“Everyone knows about him. Mina has a very funny scandal. He sleeps with young men, you know. They say that even so he can do nothing. When you spoke to Major Suparto, did he say anything about us?”

“I only had a word or two with him.”

“Do you think he will try to help us?”

“If he can, he will.”

She fell silent. The cistern just above our heads was vibrating to the concussion of an eighty-eight which was slamming away somewhere along the Telegraf Road. I knew that she was listening to the noise carefully and beginning to wonder about the violence it represented. She had a standard of comparison now.

“I think it’s time we had a drink,” I said.