He took the rifle, and led the way. Ahmat, kris drawn, followed him. The Dutchman had explained how the time had been figured out and the fuse cut in accord; yet the impending explosion kept him from being as deliberate in retreat as in approach. His brief, intensive training had not been sufficient to curb impatience an instant longer than necessary. Ahmat never did fully realize the self-discipline which had controlled van Stappen in this first attempt.
Simultaneously, the two stopped and froze in place.
A sentry whose beat was at right angles to that of the one who had been finished was approaching from the left. He now had the advantage of the wind. He may have been accustomed to hailing the man on the other beat. There was no explaining why he halted, wary, alert; veteran’s intuition was as good an explanation as any.
Maybe the bayonet gleam of the captured rifle which van Stappen had not had time to cover with his body as he flattened.
“Why doesn’t he mew like a baby?”
Only van Stappen had the answer to that.
The sentry said something in Japanese.
“That rifle!” Ahmat told himself, and worked his kris free.
Van Stappen made a choking sound, something like the sentry who had eaten half a yard of steel. The Jap repeated his query, presented his bayonet, advanced slowly; no rookie, barging into something strange. Not this man.
A stirring and gurgling. Gravel rattled.
The Dutchman was playing up the disabled comrade act. Ahmat knew that this would be bad. Even with a surprise lunge with the kris, when the Jap had his attention fixed on the man lying with the rifle, would ten to one result in a shot. Even one report would be fatal. It was still quite a distance to the boat.
Then the air compressed and the earth shook; Ahmat felt both as he heard the rumble, behind him, and saw in the water before him the reflection of the flash. Fragments whistled.
The premature blast was helping, he told himself as he yelled fiercely, and leaped up, blade hissing.
The rifle blazed. Its flame fairly blinded Ahmat, and the muzzle blast shook him savagely, but he felt his kris bite in. Van Stappen was up, and then he dropped. So did the sentry. And all this was plain, since fire leaped up the side of the tank, and ignited gasoline surged out and over the path and into the surf. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand gallons of it, rushing out as fast as the ripped plates allowed.
CHAPTER VII
Sirens screeched. Sentries fired alarm shots. Men yelled the alarm. Bells jangled. Searchlights lanced the harbor; the ships were on the alert, since the docks were in danger. Barges were already surrounded by floating fire.
“I’m all right,” van Stappen panted, “get going, get going!”
He flung away the rifle, and clutched his side. Ahmat, covetous, snatched the weapon and overtook the wounded man.
He felt naked in the ruddy glare. The light was now like that of a red sunset. Fire engines raced about. There were rumbling explosions. Ships cut their mooring and put out into the roads.
Ahmat could not believe it when he and the Dutchman reached darkness and the prahu, and without having been spotted. It was good to look back at the hell they had made. And then, as Ahmat made ready to shove off, van Stappen lurched headlong into the boat and lay there.
When Ahmat began to ply his paddle, the Dutchman sat up, seized the other, and dug in. “If you’d not yelled, he’d’ve got me square, I was trying to stop him without a shot, and—”
He coughed, and though clutching the leaf-bladed paddle, he nearly fell overboard. Ahmat pulled him back.
Then, “There is no God but God! Behold the sun rises in the west, verily the dawn and its redness!”
Van Stappen sat up, and made motions with the paddle.
“Dawn! Dawn! Allah could, but—but—He wouldn’t want to! Against the rules, you know. His own rules.” Then, as the sheet of fire spread, far off, far off, the Dutchman croaked hoarsely, “The fleet, lots of it, all of it—the planes too—” There was a sound from the west, and now Ahmat could catch it, for the uproar of Sabang was well behind him.
“Not planes,” he corrected. “Thunder now, earthquake sound.”
What Ahmat heard was the grumble and roar of shells, eight-inch and ten-inch, and larger, racing on ahead of the muzzle blast of the guns which had reddened the western horizon.
And then the flames of Sabang geysered up in a tall pillar. The shells had landed, dead center. The simultaneous explosions made a wave of sound which nearly knocked him over.
“Dead center!” the Dutchman yelled. “They were sneaking up, I expected them some time tonight; and they saw our fire—” Bit by bit, Ahmat began to get it: the lone spy, the one man commando, planning his destruction so as to make it perfect for the ships in case they did come to Sabang according to plan. Fire alarms, sirens, confusion; the Jap spotters wouldn’t hear the carrier-borne planes until too late.
Ahmat heard them, and saw them swoop down, and heard the concussion of the bombs they planted from mast-height, taking the ships silhouetted, mercilessly exposed by the blaze of Sabang. Intent on the danger of floating flame, the town had been caught off guard by the greater peril.
Bombers made pass after pass. Fighters hosed and raked the air-field runways, tracers made curves of red and green.
Then, looking toward the mainland, Ahmat saw flame, upstream.
“They’re getting—Kota Raja—too—go home—your people—need you—”
“Don’t paddle, I’ll do it,” Ahmat yelled.
He dug in. This was no sightseeing trip. The blasts terrified him. The screech of shell fragments and bomb fragments and the pieces of structural steel torn apart and scattered like straw were too much for any Malay farmer. Verily, Allah was using fire, his especial weapon, and he might be angry with men who blasphemously toyed, in their small way, with fire.
“I betake me to the Lord of the Sunrise—” He began, and then the grandfather of all explosions knocked him overboard.
When he came up, he saw that the prahu was swamped. He did not see van Stappen. He circled, yelled, squinted as he tried to get into position so that the far off flames of Sabang would silhouette van Stappen; but he saw only water. Another flare made him duck. He was afraid of flying fragments. A flaming plane made a seaward comet, and though it vanished a mile or so away from Ahmat, he finished the invocation he had started, moments ago: “—for refuge from the evils which he hath created—”
No van Stappen.
“Behold,” Ahmat said, “what it did to me and I was not wounded. Am I God that I can find this man in Satan’s own sea?”
So, not trying to right the capsized prahu, he made for shore; and it was not far to go.
He had lost everything but his kris, and the clothes he wore. And now the dangers of his home town seemed petty, and its inconveniences trifling; and while his people would learn what had happened to Sabang, he had to tell them about van Stappen’s hand in the destruction. He’d forgot all about Hagawa.
It was close to dawn when he came to the village. Mists rose from the rice terraces. But there was no smell of cooking from the houses. People milled and chattered. And then he saw Zeynab, and Saoud, and the eiders.
They stared, and then remembered to salute him; and he returned the peace. “Where is Mr. Hagawa?”
Everyone looked confused. There was a crossing of glances. Zeynab stepped forward and showed him a chopper. “That son of dogs,” she said, “sneaked out late at night, to tell what there was to be told, and even though you ordered us to protect him—you big fool, why not protect your people?”
And then her voice cracked and she began to cry, and begged his forgiveness, and added, “But I didn’t chop him till he was well out of the village, he left the place of protection!”
Ahmat straightened up. “Well done, sitti.” He whipped out the kris. Despite sea water, the runnels of th
e blade were caked with blood, for the scabbard had protected it. “We also struck, I and the Dutch Moslem.”
“Where is he?”
“The sea belongs to Allah, and the sea took him. Now in the old days, when pestilence struck a village, it was burned, and its people moved elsewhere. Are we less than our ancestors? So set all this afire—after we’ve packed up our rice—we go into the hills until the Dutch Sultana’s men come back again and again—Wallah, that one who served her was a man among men—wait till you hear—”
Saoud came up, as Ahmat watched Zeynab hasten to pack up. “Women, my friend,” the old man said, “have always run things somewhat, but never entirely, and Allah made them as they are, and doubtless it is good. Now tell me of the slayings you and the servant of the Sultana made last night.”
Ahmat sniffed the breeze and smelled the smoke of Kota Raja, a few miles away. “No one has time to think of Mr. Hagawa. We have time, some time, not too much, but still enough. Bismillahi, it was in this wise that the Dutchman and I trapped the first soldier—” And others came to listen. Zeynab, balancing a bundle of household goods on her head, wedged herself next to Ahmat. With a bit of managing, he’d become a good mayor and a good husband and better yet, everyone was proud of him.
PASSAGE TO MEKKA
Originally appeared in Short Stories, May 10 1945.
Rahim came running from the rice terraces which overlooked the Sumatran village of Kota Alim. “The Inspector,” the boy gasped, “he broke from the stockade last night, the Japs didn’t miss him till late this afternoon, the soldiers are looking in every kampong, they’ll shoot anyone who hides them, and they pay a hundred guilders to anyone who catches them.”
“Them?” asked Yakub, sharply eyeing his son.
“Aywah! Inspector Hydrick and another Dutchman.”
The news began spreading even before Rahim had told the end of it. Already, the volcanic peaks cast their long shadows across the bay, and after a few minutes of dusk, blackness masked the village. Except for the cordon of troops watching the trails into the mountains which commanded Lampong Bay, the Japanese search had ended for the day, but in Kota Alim, the natives’ hunt was just beginning, As for Yakub, he took no part. He sat in his house, thinking about it, and of Inspector Hydrick’s chances, and the odds in favor of the Dutchman blundering into Kota Alim, whose people he had so rigidly ruled. This might be the hand of Allah.
Presently, Rahim came in to tell his father, “Someone hides in the straw stack, a dog sniffs at it.”
Yakub quit chewing his cud of betel. He listened to the ransacking of sheds and the beating of bamboo clumps. “If he escaped last night,” Yakub said, more to himself than to the wide-eyed boy, “he may have been hiding here all day. Who else knows?”
“I was alone when I saw.”
Alimah had come to the front. Yakub studied his wife’s face for a moment, but could not read her thought. “What say you, sitti?”
“The long-nosed Dutchman is not our friend, but he is the enemy of our enemies.”
“He is a danger to our people.”
“Oh. So you’d sell him for a hundred guilders?”
“I take refuge with Allah! But it’s easier for Hydrick to go back to live in a cage than for some of us not to live at all. Rahim, go tell the elders, let them look.”
“That was wise,” Alimah said, when Rahim had left, “but does your wisdom make you happy? We should help him. Allah loves the generous.” Alimah seated herself on the floor beside him. “And you are going on a pilgrimage to Mekka. Those dog-loving Japs promised to let the pilgrims go in a steamer and now you’ll have to sneak out in a tiny prahu, you may never get across the water! Now, Hydrick, he was a hard man, but he never lied to us. Did he?”
Yakub chewed both grudge and betel nut.
Alimah persisted, “I know our villagers shouldn’t blame you because Suzuki teaches the boys heathen manners and makes little Japs of them, only they do blame you, and the power is with Allah! But don’t take your grudge out on Hydrick. Look, Yakub, when you come back from the pilgrimage, you won’t be mayor, but you’ll be a haji, you’ll be the only pilgrim for miles around—give Hydrick a chance.”
Yakub spat. “Dutch or Jap, what difference?”
But when he had come to hope that it was all a false alarm, and that he would not have to choose between helping the Inspector, or turning him over to the Japs, there was the sound of men moving with needless caution. Then a shapeless dark cluster of villagers crowded into the dim light of the peanut oil lamp, and Yakub saw among them two tall strangers in ragged and mud-caked dungarees. One was Hydrick, gaunt and sallow, half starved for months, and freshly clawed by thorns.
This was the enemy, the infidel who saw no difference between manslaughter and the violation of a law as trivial as the one prohibiting cockfighting except on holidays. Hydrick held his head high, and at its usual truculent angle, just as he had when, after meeting the invaders, he had returned under guard, to face the derision of Yakub and the villagers he had once arrested. His mouth, broad and tight, was stubborn as ever; it still matched the set of his long jaw.
He said, “You found us, so I’m sure they would have when they came to look.”
The other, shorter than Hydrick, and dark, and thin-faced, said to Yakub, “We can go to the hills instead of being caught here. That will keep you out of trouble.”
The villagers said, “You are still mayor, Yakub, do with these men as you please, that is adat, that is fitting.”
Hydrick understood, and smiled. “That is adat. So tie our hands and turn us over, and take the reward, and everything is even.”
In the faces of his people Yakub could see that once more, Allah loved him. He drew a deep breath. “Inspector, I sail for Mekka in a prahu, and Dawad, you remember, you jailed him for fighting? He goes with me. If he still knows how to navigate by the stars, and if the sea does not hate us, it will be well. And if you are not afraid, then go with us.”
“The Japs, or else the Indian Ocean in an open boat?”
“Aywah! Let God and the sea judge between us.”
The Dutchman said to his companion, “It won’t be fun, Van, but I’m for it.” The other nodded, and Hydrick went on, “Where’s the boat?”
Yakub grinned wickedly. “Until the soldiers have searched everything and passed on, we can’t get to the bay. So tonight I must hide you, and perhaps uncomfortably.”
In the morning, Mr. Suzuki, the school teacher, arrived with the search party. “I am sure Honorable Mayor will volunteer to take responsibility of cooperation,” the bland little man murmured.
All of which told Yakub that Suzuki had not forgiven him for his outburst against having the local schoolboys bow to a statue in honor of Japanese soldiers fallen in the “liberation” of Sumatra.
“Try the roofs,” Yakub suggested, and then prayed that the wily Japs would not look in the opposite direction.
The soldiers swarmed up bamboo ladders, to bayonet the heavy thatch, while others went indoors; and as he watched the search, moving from house to house, Yakub felt Suzuki’s eyes, alert for any sign of worry.
And Yakub had cause for concern, since the captain of the search party, taking half the detachment, was covering another quarter of the rambling village. There wasn’t a chance in a thousand that they’d stumble across the Dutchmen, yet time and again, a yell, a harsh command in the language he could not understand, all but caught Yakub off guard; for one apprehensive glance could betray him.
They forked and fairly winnowed a straw heap. They set villagers to emptying a granary. As long as all were busy, it was not so bad; the danger would come when all but a few points had been covered, giving idle soldiers a chance to blunder into what they had not been able to find.
“Watch the dogs, Suzuki-san,” Yakub advised.
He spent uneasy minutes wondering if there had been any m
ockery in the smiling answer, “Too many stranger, dog-sniffing meaningless.”
One of the buffaloes lying in the shade opened his eyes, and grumbled. The surly beast objected to the noise, and to the presence of strangers. He shook his head and got up. The increasing heat reminded him of the comforts of the wallows. Already, several of his fellows were submerged.
The search had taken far longer than Yakub had expected. The brute’s uneasiness was becoming dangerous. Everything depended on his choice of pools. Suzuki was asking, after the manner of the Thought Police, “Yakub-san, what are you thinking of? What sentiments on Greater East Asia?”
The buffalo took a few more paces, and toward the fatal pool. To drive him away would arouse suspicion. To let him go—but there was nothing Yakub could do but pray for himself, his people, and Hydrick. Tension made his senses so acute that, behind him, he plainly heard Alimah whisper to their son.
And then Rahim, laughing and yelling, ran forward to his playmates loitering in the street. “Let’s have a parade, like in Palembang! I’ll ride, and you be soldiers.” He mounted the buffalo, prodded him with a stick. The brute grumbled, but obeyed, and the game was on. “The Junior Order of Enlightenment,” Yakub said to Suzuki, “maybe it is better than I thought.” He knew that the Jap had not understood what had happened.
* * * *
That night, the fugitives came from hiding. They had been lying in the muddy water of a wallow, submerged except for their faces, which had been camouflaged by buffalo skulls over which hide had been stretched to mask the bones.
Half an hour later, Yakub and Dawad made sail. They had scarcely said, “Bismillahi!” when Yakub learned that the chances of survival were better than he had hoped; Hydrick, opening a waterproof tobacco pouch, showed him maps torn from a school atlas, a small compass, and a watch. “These will make navigation easier,” the inspector said. “But that buffalo wallow took the place of the danger you thought we’d face at sea. That game I’d not counted on when we came to your kampong.”
“Mashallah! You came on purpose, not lost in the dark?”
E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action Page 31
