by Jean Chapman
‘Sardin,’ she gasped, ‘ask him if the soldier is still alive.’
The man, whose name she learned was Bras, understood her. The smile vanished but the answer was that he was alive but sleeping deeply the way he had been the whole time Bras had helped carry him up to their hill camp. He pointed almost vertically up into the air. Lee groaned.
‘How long will it take us?’ she asked.
‘Seven hours,’ Sardin answered, but then, glancing at Lee, he corrected himself. ‘Two days.’
‘No!’ Liz was overcome by a terrible fear that she would reach the hill camp just too late, that just for the want of one last supreme effort Alan would slip away without her having the chance to talk to him. ‘No,’ she repeated, ‘I’ll go on with Bras and you stay with Lee and come in two, three days, take time for Lee to rest.’
The two Sakais talked rapidly together in their own tongue that she could not follow, but after a moment, they nodded.
‘Lee, darling, do you mind if I leave you with Sardin? Would you understand?’
Lee smiled ruefully. ‘Wish I had boyfriend,’ she gasped, ‘make me like god, walk forever.’
‘You want come now?’ Bras asked.
‘Yes.’ She took Lee in a gentle embrace, kissing both her cheeks and pushing her hand up under the soaked, jet-black hair, easing it from her friend’s neck. ‘You will come on to the hill camp? Sardin thinks your mother may be there by now.’
‘I shall see you there,’ Lee confirmed and waved her on her way.
They had not been travelling long before Liz was consumed with wonder that Bras could travel with such ease yet cover so much ground. She felt like a small child trailing behind an officious nurse in an endless hospital corridor, the pace seeming ever to increase.
The green corridor grew rockier as they climbed for a time, following minor watercourses re-created by the recent storms. Then they travelled against the natural lie of the land, walking up and down the hills, ignoring the valleys.
Bras appeared to sense her unspoken comment for he turned and grinned. ‘Quickest way,’ he said, then added, as if it made his credentials as a guide indisputable, ‘I go cinema Ipoh one time.’
With no breath for conversation, she widened her eyes at him and nodded, genuinely impressed. She wondered what Bras had seen and what he would have made of a film like Tarzan and the Western version of a jungle.
She had the greatest admiration for the steady pace he could keep up, whatever the terrain. It was a great relief when they reached and followed the banks of a river which had the look of swirling whisked chocolate. The walking was easier and she tried not to look as the water roared past her right shoulder, tearing great chunks of soil from the banks and spinning them into the dizzying swirl of its waters.
As time went on, her exhaustion made her stumble more and more often. When she faltered or slipped down to hands and knees, she forced herself up, drove herself on, saying ‘Alan’ with every footstep, ‘Alan, Alan.’ In the back of her mind the words ‘beyond endurance’ were wanting to take over. She drowned them out with the repeated mantra, ‘Alan, Alan, Alan,’ more quietly sobbed than spoken.
Once for a few blessed strides they crossed quite a board beaten track, but before relief could take over Bras plunged across and into the jungle on the other side. But it was easier than before because they were travelling alongside a large water pipe — the need to pipe water anywhere seemed ludicrous at that moment when it gushed and gurgled in every crevice.
Now she felt she fairly flew along, with the padding footsteps of an athlete. It was suddenly quite intoxicating and she didn’t hurt any more. She recognised the state as ‘second wind’. Bras, seeing her keeping up, increased his pace. She felt as if everything around her was dropping away. This, she thought, was not second wind, this was more like being a kite, snaring over the ground. she had no feeling of her feet on the ground though she was going forwards. She felt drugged, her heart seemed to be beating gently, her head seemed wonderfully clear. After a time she giggled.
The Sakai turned curiously to look at her, and immediately eased his pace. Slowing down made the pain and heat return into her feet and ankles; exhaustion flooded back while her heart pumped deafeningly. Now she moved in a different trance, a pain-ridden state where only the thought of seeing Alan at the end of the journey kept her going. Soon, she was beyond thought, she was all pain, hot aching agony which began in the burning soles of her feet and seared up her legs in waves. On, on, on, she pushed herself forwards.
Suddenly she found herself struggling against some obstruction. She raised her arms as if fending off foe, before words and gentle restraint made her pause. It was a woman, whose voice she struggled to recognise. Liz saw an elderly Chinese standing before her. She felt total despair that this frail woman should be able to stop her and bar her way. ‘Excuse me,’ she gasped as if to negotiate this new barrier she must be polite, move round.
‘Miss Elizabeth? It is Miss Elizabeth! Where is my Lee?’
Shock of recognition sent goose pimples over her over-heated body and her knees failed spectacularly. The woman knelt quickly before her, then, as her breathing eased, Liz leaned forward into the woman’s arms. ‘Oh! Mrs Guisan! It’s you!’ Liz sobbed with exhaustion, Ch’ing because the girl was a woman and had not recognised her.
‘Lee’s coming. I just came quicker.’ She paused. With heart-stopping anxiety she asked, ‘Alan? The soldier?’
‘Rest a moment,’ Ch’ing said, looking at the young woman’s torn clothes and scratched arms and legs telling of the headlong race to arrive in time.
‘No!’ She struggled to her feet again, swaying. A little group of fascinated Sakai women and children watched and parted as Ch’ing led her the rest of the way to a large hut built just below the brow of the hill. The hut sides were hinged to the roof and propped up on poles to allow every cooking breeze to blow through.
She could see the bed as she approached, the still figure on it. The thin, thin, figure with a Sakai grandmother dipping her finger into a bowl and moistening his lips. Her heart leaped as in the caring she saw he survived, he was not dead ... but as she drew nearer her traitor mind added ‘yet’.
She ached with the sadness of hardly recognising the young man who seemed to have been replaced by a bearded emaciated man many years older. Sparsely fleshed, even gaunt before, now the angles of jaw were hidden by a sandy growth of beard much lighter than his hair but the cheek bone was acute — and across the top of his head was a smoothly healed scar. For some stupid illogical reason she remembered the shot-off crepe sole of Josef’s sandal, how her bullet had torn a clean semi-circular swathe through the white rubber.
She wanted to run her hand soothingly over the wound, take him up into her arms and forcibly bring him back to life. Instead she went down on her knees gently, like one preparing to pray, and took his hand, cradling it between hers, kissing the inert fingers.
‘Alan, I’m here now. It’s Liz. You’ll be all right now. Of course you will.’ She cradled the hand by her cheek and anxiously sought the movement between the hollowed ribcage as he breathed — it was so slight.
She woke with a start, finding her head on the bed over her arm, her legs collapsed under her. ‘Alan! We’re still fine.’ She straightened, reassuring him, recollecting herself. ‘Just waiting for you to open your eyes to see me. It’s Liz, Alan.’ She glanced to the far side of the bed, where the old Sakai woman nodded approval as she continued to smear Alan’s lips from the bowl. Ch’ing too was there by her side.
‘Come and eat,’ Ch’ing said, hand on her shoulder. ‘You need strength too.’
‘I can’t leave him.’
‘Then I bring you food here.’
She did eat ravenously, once begun, of a meal of roasted semolina root, like the most delicious floury potatoes, with game, rice, fresh-cut pineapple. Then Pa Kasut had a bed brought in so she might rest alongside Alan when she wanted to.
‘I want to thank you so much fo
r all you have done,’ she told the old man. She put her hands together in the Chinese fashion and bowed her thanks to him.
He rocked a little on his heels, looking quite embarrassed and overwhelmed. Walking round to the far side of the bed, he re-established his composure by ordering the old woman to go and refill her bowl with the liquid he had brewed.
Liz thanked her when she returned and asked if she might take over the duty of moistening Alan’s lips. The Sakai woman showed her how to introduce tiny drops into his mouth. Once Liz introduced too much and he swallowed with a gigantic and unnatural effort, then coughed. She thought she might have killed him. She was much more cautious after this.
The liquid was clear and bright like spring water. It was curiously heart-wringing to be physically near him yet knowing he was unaware. Gently she traced his smooth lips between the unfamiliar beard and moustache and felt the action more like one indulged in by lovers in English meadows full of long-stemmed buttercups. She fantasised that he only feigned sleep and might suddenly snap at her fingers. ‘You promised always to make me laugh. I mean to keep you to your word.’
Experimentally she tasted the liquid herself and was reminded of a kind of gripe water used in the nursery; it tasted partly sweet, partly alcoholic. She put the finger from her own lips to his in a kind of reverent kiss.
She watched and talked to him, sensitive for the least response. Once she thought his eyes moved beneath his eyelids as if he was dreaming.
‘Where are you, Alan? Come back to me! Alan, it’s Liz. I waited for you at the bungalow, waited a long time ... ’ She told him about the mat and the cushions, about the flowers and the butterfly.
Ch’ing came to sit with her and they talked, including him in the conversation, trying to pull at his mind, tug his memory.
‘His father died unexpectedly — like mine,’ Liz said. ‘It created a bond between us to talk about this.’
‘Your father dead?’
‘Oh, Ch’ing, you didn’t know’?’
She told the story as simply as she could. Ch’ing’s eyes never left her face and when all was told, she uttered two words which were fair trial and honest verdict, ‘My Josef.’
She rose soon afterwards and when Liz would have gone with her she shook her head and motioned towards Alan. ‘I all right,’ she said, ‘back soon.’
Liz watched her go. She walked out and towards the hut the Sakais had allotted for the women visitors, an old, bent, solitary woman in the moonlight, her shoulders eloquent of this new burden of knowledge. A son who had murdered a man who had done him nothing but good, a man who, Liz knew, had regarded himself more as an uncle than as the employer of the man’s father.
Beyond the hut Ch’ing entered, Liz could hear the Sakais calling to each other. She was surprised how loudly some of the men talked to each other. When they were on the edges of others’ habitation they appeared shy, but here in their own home they were obviously joking and chattering with spirit and humour.
Alone with Alan she put her hands on his shoulders, leaning gently down to kiss his lips. ‘They say a kiss without a moustache is like a meal without salt,’ she whispered to him, then kissed his forehead and eyes. Just the way her father had once roused her from sleep to leave early for a holiday. Kindly but firmly his tones had reached into her sleeping mind; now her voice must reach into Alan’s. It was like an intercession as she talked on and on, pleading for the darkness to let his mind go, let him back into life.
‘The jungle is never still, Alan, always there is growth, and after the rains the young shoots grow inches overnight. Life and light, Alan. Look! Over between the trees I can see lights, tiny dancing sparks. Fireflies. I used to think they were fairies, Tinkerbell and her friends, I used to tell Lee. You remember Lee? She and her mother were at the camp, they saved you and brought you to the Sakais. Lee will be here soon. You could wake up and say thank you.’
She put her head down on the bed, cradling his hand under her breasts, talking still.
‘The fireflies have gone now, perhaps they know it’s going to rain again. Alan, I think my jungle is like the living green threads on a gigantic loom through which man ;waves his threads of good or evil. The jungle accepts all alike, hides the good and the bad. We have to be on the side of the angels, Alan, us and the Sakais, Lee and her mother, my mother. That reminds me of how I used to say my prayers. The Lord’s Prayer, then a list: “God Bless Mother, Father, Wendy, Anna, Lee and Mr and Mrs Guisan ... Josef ... ”’
Lightning flickered and crackled all around the camp, then almost immediately the rain sheeted down, making the thunder almost inaudible. She glanced up at the woven leaf roof; not a spot of water penetrated it.
No use to try to talk now. She moistened his lips again, then lay on the bed by his side. She remembered tracing his ribcage with her fingers to wake him for dinner at Rinsey — it felt like several light years ago. She wanted to put her arm across his chest but was afraid even the slightest pressure might hamper his breathing, so light, so insubstantial. She held his hand in the darkness of the storm as a blind woman might and cried tears on to it for its thinness.
In the privacy of the darkness and the noise she sobbed aloud, calling his name. She felt she could have raised her head and howled louder than the savage downpour for very loneliness.
Then in the darkness and the storm Ch’ing came struggling back. She lit a small lamp in one corner and, taking up the bowl, began the duty of keeping the patient’s lips moist, motioning to Liz to sleep.
There was something in the woman’s intention to act as night nurse that made Liz feel Ch’ing wanted to do so as some kind of act of reparation. When Liz reached across and squeezed her hand, Ch’ing gave her one agonised look, then dropped her hand for shame of her son. She went on plying this other young man with the medicine of the Sakais, as if service to this new man in the Hammonds’ lives might make some recompense.
By midday the following day Lee reached the camp. She came and sighed over the still motionless young boyfriend and in her eyes Liz saw she thought that if he did not soon recover he would never do so.
Her mother drew her away quite soon and in the privacy of the women’s hut Liz could hear the quiet keening as Ch’ing grieved for a man still alive, but lost to her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Blanche walked from the taxi towards the gaol gates. The small crowd were used now to seeing this Englishwoman among their number, but today, in black, with wide-brimmed black hat and veiled face, she created both awe and unease.
Mostly Chinese, with a healthy respect for their dead, they recognised extreme mourning and grief and fell quiet. One eventually offered a small folding seat.
‘Thank you, but no,’ Blanche said quietly. She wished they would go on with their chatter and at least pretend some kind of normality. She knew her presence weighed heavily on them every time they came, but today, straight from Joan and Aubrey’s funeral, it was as if she had cast some ghastly spell on them.
The Wildons had many friends. News of their double murder had spread around the East, bringing appalled and grieving friends and acquaintances from as far away as Java. Blanche had felt completely disoriented as she recognised faces and voices from prewar parties, bridge afternoons, tennis-club tournaments. Many had sought her out before the service and the reunions would begin with greetings and kisses, then the reminiscences: ‘The last time we met, why, it must have been … ’
Blanche felt stilted and unreal, quite unable to contribute anything to the nostalgic crowd. Her mind was on the fate of the daughter she had allowed to go off into enemy-occupied jungle and the loss of her dearest friends. After following the funeral cortege to the English section of the cemetery, she slipped away quietly, mentally apologising to her lost elegant, eloquent friends. She was aware of curious glances from other mourners, but could imagine Joan saying, ‘Go on, darling, we totally understand.’
What she needed was to talk to George Harfield. She needed his adage-ridden reas
surance, his strength.
‘Aah!’ the general sigh of relief when the gates were opened was audible. The Chinese glanced at her and hurried inside, anxious to be away from this spectrelike figure.
George was at his allotted table, rising immediately he saw her. ‘I heard about the Wildons,’ he said, catching her hands and lowering her into his visitor’s chair. ‘The bastards! God, it makes me feel so bloody hopeless!’ He held on to her hands. ‘Blanche, are you all right? You look terrible.’
‘Thanks, George.’ She gave his hand a squeeze as she added, ‘That makes me feel much better.’ And to her own chagrin tears began to run down her cheeks. ‘I don’t cry,’ she told him.
‘No, my love, I can see that.’ He paused while she blotted her cheeks and eyes. ‘You’ve come straight from the funeral. Are you alone?’
‘I came in our car with the guard.’
‘Liz?’ he queried.
She did not answer.
‘Liz didn’t go with you?’
She shook her head slowly. He found the way she dropped her eyes at his last question quite out of character. ‘So where is Liz?’ She looked up at him then and he could only think her expression was agonised. He leaned forwards and demanded, ‘Blanche! Tell me what’s happened!’
She hesitated, wondering if this was why she had come — just to unburden herself to someone. She gazed at him silently, pondering the question of his specialness to her.
‘For God’s sake don’t make me feel any more useless than I am here,’ he pressed her to go on. ‘At least I can listen — perhaps even advise.’
‘I’m sorry, George, of course I must tell you ... everything.’
He looked at her sharply. There was more than grief in this woman, more even than the after-effects of a double funeral. She told her story simply, of letting Liz and Lee Guisan go off with the Sakai, then the news of the Wildons brought by the police. ‘It felt like a punishment for being so stupid,’ she said. ‘Allowing her to go off like that.’
‘No, no. I knew about the young guardsman being missing — and I did see him and Liz together once. I thought I interrupted a kiss, now I’m sure.’
