by Eric Ambler
“You are very kind.”
“Those who serve us well will be well rewarded. Do not forget that, Mr. Fraser.”
“I have every reason to remember it, General.”
“Ah yes. We made a bargain. It shall be kept.”
Roda grinned again. “Deal gently therefore with the infidel,’ ” he quoted facetiously; “ ‘and grant them a gentle rest.’ ”
Sanusi frowned at the blasphemy but continued to look at me. “By this time tomorrow, Mr. Fraser, I shall have moved my headquarters and the security considerations which have compelled us to detain you here will no longer apply. You and the woman will then be free to leave. You agree, Major?”
“Of course, Boeng.” Suparto’s face was completely impassive.
“Meanwhile, the Major will see that your detention is not made too disagreeable.”
“Thank you, General.”
“We keep our promises, you see.”
With a proud lift of his chin, he strode on out of the office. Roda, with a nod to me, followed.
Suparto looked at me. “You see? It was as well that you reported yourself.”
“Was it? I can see why you find them easy to despise.”
He shrugged. “At least you will get a comfortable night’s sleep.”
He led the way out of the office. We went back along the corridor, through the swing doors and up to the apartment.
The man by the telephone was asleep. The bow-legged officer kicked him to his feet as Suparto entered.
Suparto looked round, then went over to the radio and switched it on. The announcer had begun to read a communique issued by National Freedom Party headquarters claiming that calm and order had been restored in all provinces. Suparto switched it off again.
“This morning,” he said, “an enemy bomb damaged the radio power supply. At the request of Boeng Sanusi, the tuan here repaired the damage and restored the power. Our Boeng has congratulated the tuan on his loyalty and skill, and given strict orders that both he and the woman with him should be treated with the greatest politeness and respect. They will remain in this apartment, but a guard on the terrace will no longer be necessary. Is it understood?”
There was a murmur of agreement. Suparto walked over to the drink table, picked up a bottle of whisky, and went out on to the terrace.
I followed.
Outside the living-room window he stopped and called the guard over. When the man came he dismissed him.
“You will not be so foolish as to try to leave the apartment, I hope, Mr. Fraser?”
“All I want to do is to rest.”
He put the bottle of whisky into my hand. “We have no use for this,” he said; “perhaps it will help you to sleep.”
He turned on his heel and went inside again.
I walked along the terrace.
Rosalie had heard our voices and was standing by the window waiting for me. As I approached, she switched on the light.
My appearance must have been a shock to her; it was a shock even to me when I saw myself in the mirror; but she did not say anything. She was waiting for me to make the first move.
I put the bottle down and kissed her. She held on to me for a moment, then she smiled.
“I heard what the Major said. Was it true?”
“More or less. Anyway, we have a reward. We are to be treated with consideration. You see, the sentry has already gone.”
“Does it mean they will let us go?”
“Well…” I hesitated. “Not yet. I’ll tell you about it in a minute. I must clean myself up first.”
She was watching me closely, and I knew that I was not going to be able to pretend to her for very long. I turned away as if to take my shirt off and saw that there were bowls of food and fruit on the table.
“You haven’t eaten,” I said. “I asked them to send it up for you.”
“Do you think I would eat when I did not know what had happened to you?”
“The rice will be cold,” I said stupidly.
She did not answer. She was still wondering what it was that I had not told her. I looked round the room. In some way she had managed to get rid of the plaster dust and rubble and make the place tidy. I wanted to comment on the fact, but I could not get the words out.
I sat down on the edge of the chair and started to unbutton my shirt. As I did so, she knelt down in front of me and took off my waterlogged shoes. I fumbled with the shirt. My fingers were scratched and sore, and one of the buttons caught in a loose thread. In a weak rage I tore it free. She looked up, and then, with a murmured apology, began to help me. Every stitch of clothing I had on smelt of oil and sweat and dirty water. When I had undressed, I gathered it all up and threw it out on to the terrace.
She smiled. “While you are bathing I will get out some clean things.”
Luckily there was still plenty of water left in the bathhouse; I had to soap myself several times from head to foot before I could get rid of the smell of oil.
When I got back to the room, she had switched off the top light so that there was not so much glare, and had put the bedside lamp on. There was a set of clean clothes ready for me on my bed, and also a neatly folded batik sarong.
“I can wash some of our clothes,” she explained, “but I cannot iron them. You have only those white trousers clean and two more shirts. There are some of Roy’s things there, but they will not fit you. Perhaps it is foolish to think of such things now but…”
“No. You’re quite right. Anyway, a sarong will be more comfortable. Up in Tangga I often wore one.”
“You do not object that it is one of mine?”
“Object? It’s a beauty.”
She watched me critically while I put it on.
“There are, perhaps, more suitable materials for a man,” she said at length; “but it does not look effeminate.”
“Good. Have you another one for yourself?”
“Oh yes. But while you were not here and the guard was outside, it was better that I looked as European as possible. In batik I look more Sundanese.”
“Then look Sundanese.”
She smiled, and, going to the other end of the room, began to take off her dress. In the next room they switched on the radio.
I opened the bottle of Jebb’s whisky that Suparto had given me, and poured out two drinks. I drank one straight down. Then I refilled the empty glass and took it over with me to my bed. The bruise on my stomach was beginning to be painful and I lay down gingerly. When I was stretched out flat, however, the muscles began to relax, the pain went and a delicious drowsiness began to steal over me. In the next room a voice on the radio was announcing that General Sanusi would shortly address a message to the world. I closed my eyes.
There was something moving against the fingers of my right hand and I half opened my eyes. Rosalie was gently removing the glass that I had been holding. Her hair was down over her shoulders, the sarong was fastened at her waist and she had a narrow scarf draped loosely over her breasts like a country woman. She looked beautiful. I remained still and watched while she placed the glass gently on the bedside table. Then, she glanced at me and saw that I was not asleep. She smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. I took her hand.
“There’s something I’d better tell you,” I said.
“I know, but you are very tired. Sleep first.”
“Sanusi said that by this time tomorrow he would have moved his headquarters, and that we would be free.”
“And does he not mean it?”
“Oh yes, he means it, but there are things he doesn’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“He’s in a trap. It was all a trap; the garrison leaving the city unprotected; promises from men he thought he could trust that they would bring over their troops to his side; assurances that the country was waiting for his leadership, appeals to his vanity, warnings that if he hesitated he would be lost; anything to trick him into coming down from the hills with all his men so that the Government tanks and gun
s could move in and cut him to pieces. Well, it’s worked. Tomorrow he thinks that he’ll be moving over into the Presidential Palace. He won’t. He’ll be fighting for his life, here, and I don’t imagine that he has any chance at all of winning.”
She had been looking down at my hand. Now, her eyes looked into mine. “How do you know this? Who told you?”
“You may be better off if you don’t know.”
“Major Suparto.” It was a statement, not a question. I said nothing.
“They might still get away to the hills.”
“Not very many of them. And none from this building, I think. They know where Sanusi is, all right.”
“It will be bad again for us here.”
“I’m afraid it will.”
She took my hand and, leaning forward over me, held it against her breast so that my fingers touched one of the nipples. I felt it harden, and she smiled.
“You see,” she said, “I am not afraid.”
She pressed my hand, and then moved away. “You must sleep now, and I think I will sleep, too.”
She lay down on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. I watched her face for a while, and then my eyes closed. After a moment or two, I heard her say my name.
“Yes, Rosalie?”
“Perhaps we should wear our clean clothes tomorrow.”
7
The attack on the city began just before dawn.
I thought at first that it was the voices of the men in the living room that had awakened me. Some sort of argument was going on, and another man was speaking on the telephone. He kept repeating the word “impossible.” The argument seemed to be about someone named Dahman who had moved his troops without authority.
Then, I became aware of an irregular thudding that sounded as if, somewhere in the building below us, the wind was slamming a heavy padded door. Only there was no wind.
I opened my eyes and saw Rosalie standing by the window. There were lights flaring in the sky behind her. I sat up and gasped as I realised how sore my body was. She looked round. I got off the bed carefully and went over to the window.
Rosalie was looking over towards the bay. As I joined her, two cones of orange flame stabbed the darkness there. The sound took about three seconds to reach me, and, as it thudded against the windows, there were two more flashes. This time I caught a momentary glimpse of the shape behind them, and knew why the forts commanding the sea approaches to Selampang had not surrendered to Sanusi. The Sundanese navy consisted of only five ships: one lighthouse tender, three small patrol vessels and the flagship, an elderly destroyer which the Government had bought from the British and re-named Semangat. I had seen her in Port Kail. She had four 4.7-inch guns.
She was firing into an area to the left of the racecourse, and you could see the flashes of the bursts reflected on the smoke drifting away from earlier ones. Rosalie said that the barracks were in that direction.
“What should we do?” she added.
“There’s nothing we can do.”
She came back with me and we lay together on my bed, listening. Two men from the next room had gone out on the terrace now and were discussing the situation in low tones.
“What will happen?” Rosalie asked.
“I don’t know enough about it. I suppose these people have established some sort of defence line on the outskirts. If so, the other side, with their tanks and guns, will find the weakest spot and blast their way through. This naval bombardment is just the preliminary softening up. I suppose it’s meant to impress the civil population, too. But it’s the tanks and guns that will decide the thing. Unless Sanusi has tanks and guns to fight back with, there’s nothing he can do to stop them. I’m certain he has no tanks.”
“Has he guns?”
“There are a couple of anti-tank guns down in the square. I suppose he has a few more dotted about the city. I don’t know how old the Government tanks are, but unless they are very old indeed, the shot that those guns fire won’t even knock a dent in them. They might stop a light armoured car, but nothing heavier.”
“What will happen, then?”
“That depends on how hard these people fight.”
“But you said they cannot win.”
“I don’t think they can. It’s only a question of how long it takes to defeat them.”
She was silent for a moment, then she said: “To kill them all, you mean?”
“Most of them, anyway.”
“They might surrender.”
“They might, yes. Let’s hope they will.”
“Yes, let us hope.” She must have guessed from my tone that I did not think that there was much likelihood of it. The Government were certainly not going to let Sanusi get out of the trap once he was in it, and Sanusi would not be such a fool as to believe in any promises they might make. Besides, when street-fighting began and men began to kill at close range, it became difficult to surrender.
I was remembering a Fusilier sergeant I had met in Burma. It was some weeks before we went into Mandalay. My company had been clearing a forward airstrip and were waiting to be flown out to another job. This sergeant had come out from the Eighth Army in Italy, and because we had both been in the desert with Auchinleck, we had started talking. He had had experience of street-fighting against the Germans, and had later become an instructor on the subject. He had developed a passion for it that even he, I think, suspected to be a trifle unhealthy. All the same, he could not wait to get into Meiktila and try his skill on the Japanese.
“It’s an art, sir, rushing a building,” he had told me eagerly; “a bleeding art. They can’t stop you if you know how. You just have to get near enough first. That’s the dodgy bit. There’s usually plenty of cover, though, shell holes, ruins and that, but you’ve got to have patience. Crawl, dig your way there if you have to, but don’t start until you’re within thirty yards of a window. Then go mad. Put a four-second grenade in first and follow it. By the time you’re there they’ll be wetting themselves, if they’ve got anything left to wet with. Then, you go through the whole house. Quick as lightning. Every room. First a grenade, and then yourself. Doesn’t matter what’s there. Doesn’t matter who’s there. Then, comb it out with your machine pistol. If it’s a soft house, put a burst up through the ceiling and catch them bending. But don’t stop for a second. Be as quick as lightning. First a grenade, and then yourself with the old machine pistol, trigger happy. Don’t be afraid of anything. They’re more frightened of you than you are of them because you’re attacking. Blind ’em and then hit ’em with everything. And when you run out of ammo, still keep going while they’re dazed. Knife, shovel, the lot! Keep going and there’s nothing that can stop you, sir. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. I know.”
I felt sure that he did know.
The sky lightened, and then the sun rose.
We went to the window again.
A pall of smoke hung over the area where the barracks were. The destroyer had ceased firing and was lying there innocently on the smooth, sparkling surface of the bay. There were some bursts of light automatic fire and one or two faint thuds that might have been two-pounders in action. The radio in the next room had been switched on. The station was transmitting a recording of Sanusi’s “foreign policy” speech of the previous night, translated into Hindustani. I realised that the station had probably been transmitting in various languages all through the night, and wondered vaguely what sort of output Osman was getting from the generator. Down in the square there was a sound of trucks being started and driven off.
“I am hungry,” Rosalie said.
“So am I.”
We divided the cold rice between us and then ate some fruit. While we were eating, the destroyer’s guns opened up again, but this time we took no notice. I thought that I could imagine what was going on. In the darkness their shooting had not been too good. As a result, when the tanks and infantry had moved in, they had met with more opposition than they had expected. The guns had been called upon to put down some p
roperly observed fire before the attack was resumed. I told Rosalie this fiction as if it were fact.
She said: “How do you know?”
“That is how these things happen. Soon, the General will issue a communique. He will say that an enemy attack on the outer defence ring was beaten off with heavy losses to the enemy and at practically no cost to the defence. But he will also announce a tactical withdrawal to previously prepared positions of greater strength, in order to straighten the line.”
“What does that mean?”
“It is the language of retreat. We shall be having plenty of it soon, I think…”
We both heard the planes at the same moment. As we dived for the floor, one of the men on the terrace began shouting orders to the machine-gunners on the roof. I started to drag the rug over our heads and then, remembering that there was no glass left to worry about now, dropped the rug and pulled the curtains aside.
“There,” said Rosalie.
I saw them then. They were the three planes which had bombed us the previous day, but now they were flying at over six thousand feet. There was a noise like a pneumatic drill over our heads as the machine guns on the roof opened fire, and a few more bits of plaster fell from the ceiling. They had one of the things mounted almost directly above us. As the gunner traversed, a shower of ejected cartridge cases came tinkling down on to the terrace. The gunners must have known that, at that range, they could not have hit a house, but they went on firing just the same.
Something began dropping from the planes. It looked for a moment like a load of incendiaries. Then, the black dots in the sky seemed to split up and stop falling, and I realised that it was leaflets that were being dropped. The men in the next room realised it at the same moment and ran out on to the terrace, staring up and exclaiming excitedly.
The Sundanese Air Force may not have been very good at hitting its targets with bombs, but with leaflets it was superbly accurate. A minute after the drop, the sky above the Van Riebeeck Square was filled with them, evenly distributed and fluttering down in perfect formation. Suddenly, the men on the terrace began running about wildly, capering up and down, snatching at the air as the first of the leaflets came within reach. It was a fantastic spectacle. Two of them, intent on the same leaflet, cannoned into one another as the paper swooped capriciously over the edge of the balustrade. There were shrill cries of protest, and Rosalie began to giggle uncontrollably.
