‘I understand, your excellency,’ Osawa said.
The plane was beginning its approach to the airstrip, a thin rectangle of white on the green of the jungle, perhaps a mile from the tumbled houses and shacks of the little seaport, behind which was the cleared area of the Japanese encampment. The men who would scour the jungle and the cliff tops until the spy was found. God help you, little spy, Joan thought. And your support. God help you and keep you safe. God have mercy on you, for the kempei-tai will have none.
*
‘Did you see the plane, so low?’ Stefanie asked Clive. She and her four bearers had arrived only an hour after the plane had passed.
‘And so close I could almost see into the cockpit,’ Clive said. ‘I wanted to use my binoculars, but I was scared they’d see the reflection.’
‘Yes. We hid until they had passed. Clive, do you think they were searching for something?’
‘They were taking a close look at the country, that’s for sure. I guess they’ve figured out someone, somewhere, spotted their task force and managed to pass it on. But I haven’t seen anything worth sending since, so I’m pretty damned sure they haven’t managed to pinpoint me.’
‘Thank God for that.’
The recharged batteries were put in position, the flat ones loaded into the canvas bags which were suspended from long poles, and thus enabled a considerable weight to be shared between the shoulders of two men.
‘Here is some fresh fruit, and fish,’ Stefanie said. The plantation, fortunately, grew and caught its own food supply, because there was nothing coming in from the outside.
‘Smells great.’ The fish was already cooked, as she would not let him risk a fire up here. ‘No news of Bill?’
‘None,’ she said. ‘I do not think there will be any, now.’ She gazed at him. ‘Three days.’
It had become a pattern in the fortnight he had been here. A pattern which meant his whole life to him now. But she had given no sign of regarding him as other than a friend, and an ally — and a man much younger than herself. Besides, with Bill either dead or in hell, for him to make the slightest advance would be abominable. Even more besides, he did not know how much of what he appeared to feel for this woman was sheer loneliness, and shared danger.
But over the past fortnight she had become the most important thing in his life.
‘Three days,’ he said. ‘I’ll be counting the minutes.’
*
The Papuan panted. ‘Japanese come,’ he said.
Clearly he had run through the bush to warn her; his sarong and his flesh were both torn by thorns.
‘How soon?’ Stefanie asked, finishing her breakfast of yams and fish.
‘One hour, maybe.’
‘Many men?’
‘Not many. Two trucks and a car.’
‘Thank you, Taru,’ she said, and went up to her room.
She had known this had to happen, eventually; that it had happened so soon was a … disappointment? Her stomach felt curiously light, as she showered and perfumed herself. Preparing herself for execution?
But why should a visit from the Japanese have anything to do with Clive McGann? It was simply the coincidence of that plane, two days ago. What was really remarkable was that, having arrested Bill a month ago, they had not returned sooner, either to arrest her as well, or to tell her the fate of her husband. She must work on that principle.
She dressed with great care, putting on a frock. She wasn’t sure why, except that she wanted to look as unbusinesslike as possible. In one hour it would be mid morning in any event, so they would suppose she dressed like this every day — she and Bill had always dressed properly before the war; he had worn a dinner jacket and expected her to wear a long gown every evening. It had helped to make their lives slightly more complete.
So, suppose they were coming to tell her that Bill was dead? Had been executed? Would she break down and weep? She would not do that even if she still loved him, and she did not. They had both been aware of that for a very long time. The war had perhaps accentuated their drift apart, although to all outward appearances it had brought them closer together. Juliana had been the real link. Her presence had provided Stefanie with a friend as well as a raison d’etre. But the girl, as she had begun to grow up, could not help but become aware of the true relationship between her parents. Or rather, perhaps, the absence of one.
It had always been a decorous relationship. Stefanie, as a pretty but inhibited young spinster of twenty-three, working in an accountant’s office in Delfzil, had fallen in love with the image as well as the personality of the planter from so far away, with his sun bronzed skin and his easy good humour, and his suggestion of wealth and power — her father had been a humble ship’s chandler, and she had spent much of her girlhood looking out across the mudflats at the River Ems, the border between Germany and Holland, flowing past the great sea port of Emden on its way to the North Sea, carrying with it ships bound for every port in the world. Her imagination had flowed with it, and with the ships; she had been unutterably jealous when her elder sister Margriet had married an Australian and been taken off to live in that faraway land. And now she was being invited to travel across the world herself. She had hesitated only very briefly. If the idea of marriage and what it entailed had been distasteful, here was a man offering to make her dreams come true, and William van Gelderen was very clearly a gentleman. She had put her trust in that.
Nor had she made a mistake in her estimation of her husband’s character. Bill van Gelderen had always been the most perfect gentleman, the politest and most kindly of men — at least towards her: she was aware that he had a quick temper … it was that which had caused his arrest by the Japanese. Perhaps, had he revealed some of that temper to her, things might have been different — she might have been forced to accept his overwhelming sexual urge. But the moment he had discovered that she not only knew nothing of the subject, but was more than a little revolted by it, he had simply ceased to force himself upon her.
She might have grown to accept the things he wanted, in time, had she been allowed that time. But she had not. Bill had been in haste to regain his plantation, having been away for several months, and thus their stopover in Batavia had been of the briefest description. Stefanie had enjoyed Batavia, and Batavia had enjoyed her. She was young and pretty and vivacious, and she knew how to flirt. Flirting had been the epitome of sexual relations between men and women, up to her marriage. If, after several weeks of honeymooning at sea, she approached the matter with more caution as a married woman — now understanding something of the end product involved — this was accepted as natural, because she was a married woman. But the dances and cocktail parties and beach picnics had introduced her to the life she had anticipated.
North western New Guinea, and especially the Peg Tamrau area, had been a considerable shock. The nearest town of any size at all, Manokwari, was a hundred miles away, not very far in terms of Holland, but on the far side of the moon when the only means of getting there was by dirt track through the jungle. The nearest white family was forty miles away, on another copra plantation. And there were no other white people on the plantation at all.
And Bill had his harem. She did not suppose it was actually a harem. But he had a powerful sex drive and he wasn’t getting any satisfaction at home, and there were a hundred busty native women all happy to accommodate their master — they did not seem to have any morals at all. Stefanie had never been aware of any racial prejudices before leaving Holland — she had never thought about it. She had indeed, arrived on the plantation with every intention of making friends amongst the Papuans, and she had largely succeeded — for which, in her present circumstances, she thanked God. But she had not been able to accept that her husband would come to her fresh from a black body. When she had shown her distaste, he had left her alone. Within a month they had started using separate bedrooms.
By then, also, she had been pregnant, and this had eased the immediate problems of their mutu
al separation. Neither had considered divorce; to Stefanie’s puritan mind there was something criminal about the very idea. Marriages were made in heaven, and God must have had some idea in mind when He had made hers. It had just taken Him a long time to reveal it.
Thus a sham had begun, which had lasted fourteen years. In Juliana, Stefanie had found everything she wanted. With that comfort, she could continue to act the perfect wife, whenever business or holidays took them to Batavia or Surabaya. The van Gelderens were undoubtedly the most happily married couple in the Dutch East Indies, it was said.
The decision to send Juliana away had been taken, by her, long before there had seemed any possibility of war with Japan. It had been taken the very first time the girl had asked her mother why she and daddy did not share the same bedroom. But Bill had resisted the idea, and already there had been problems; the matter was still being debated when Holland was overrun by the Nazis. That seemed to end the discussion, in Bill’s favour. But the growing crisis in the Far East had caused Stefanie to raise it again, and this time Bill had had to agree; Aunt Margriet was safe in Sydney, and would provide a haven for the girl beyond reach of the Japanese or the Germans.
Then had arisen another cause of discussion, as to whether or not Stefanie should accompany her daughter to Australia. Oddly enough, she had not wanted to leave Peg Tamrau, certainly to live in Australia, and separated from her husband. The fact was that fifteen years of marriage, even a mostly mock marriage, had left her too set in her ways, especially her social and sexual ways. She had friends in Java whom she looked forward to seeing whenever she could, and they were not abandoning their homes and their husbands. She had her own routine on the plantation, and she had developed a genuine affection for most of the labour force. She had equally developed a very good relationship with her husband; they shared the business of managing the plantation, as she was a trained bookkeeper, and they shared much of their lives as well, reading to each other in the evenings, and enjoying their occasional social gatherings in Manokwari. If she had to endure him once or twice a month, she accepted that without ever letting him feel that she was enjoying it, and for the rest she had come to a very sensible understanding of herself and with herself. The idea of being an attractive woman — as she knew she still was — in the midst of a new community composed in the main, according to Margriet’s letters, of very masculine men, of having to make her way and find her level in such a society, was repulsive. Besides, it would have been a betrayal.
So she had stayed, and Bill had been secretly delighted with her decision, she was sure. For a few weeks they had been closer than ever before, and then the Japanese had come and taken him away. Her reaction had been shock and fear. So, she thought, had Bill’s. For a few days she had hardly known what to do with herself, had sprung up at every sound, supposing he had returned. But gradually, as she had begun to realise he might not return at all, she had found her feet, and found, too, a new persona, almost, she supposed, a new strength. She was alone, in a place she really loved, and she had to make the best of it. As mentally she had been alone for fifteen years, it was not an unacceptable situation. Guiltily, she had realised she was enjoying it.
Until the totally unexpected appearance of that young Anglo-American sailor. It had been so totally unexpected that she had taken it more in her stride than if she had some warning of what was going to happen. In ordinary circumstances, to have a relatively strange young man appear in her bedroom when she had nothing on would have had her screaming her head off. Yet the whole thing had been so matter of fact, and he had been so polite, and so earnest.
She had never hesitated about helping him. It was the first time in her life she had actually been given something important to do, and she had to suppose that this was what God had had in mind in sending her to this peculiar part of the earth in the first place. His transparent attraction to her had been embarrassing at first, but she had reminded herself that he was very young and far from home, and as he had always been a perfect gentleman it had never been a problem: over the fortnight he had been here she had come to be pleased by it, always looking forward to her visits to the clifftop, had been pleasantly anticipating tomorrow. Besides, the thought that the two of them might just have helped in the defeat of the Port Moresby invasion task force was a heady one.
And now she must pay for that triumph? Surely not so soon. But if she must, then she would. She would never betray that gallant young man who was in love with her. Because, had she been twenty years younger, she might have been able to fall in love with him.
She made herself sit down with a book, and, early as it was, had her butler pour her a gin. She did not usually drink, but she felt she might need one, today. She listened to the revving of engines in the distance as the trucks negotiated the various portholes in the dirt track which acted as a road, and called Bhutto. ‘You understand, Bhutto, that the Japanese are not to be told of the Englishman,’ she said.
‘Of course, madam,’ he agreed.
‘No matter what happens, Bhutto. He is helping us to win the war, and we must never forget that.’
‘Of course, madam,’ he said again, looking a trifle offended that she should feel it necessary to stress the matter. ‘I have already instructed the others. No matter what the Japanese may do.’
‘I do not think they will do more than ask questions,’ Stefanie reassured him. Why should they do more? she wondered. When they have me to play with.
Her stomach was light again, with a strange mixture of apprehensions. Of course she had heard of the atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese in Hong Kong, of the wounded soldiers being bayoneted in their beds and the English nurses being raped on the floors. That had been all the talk of Surabaya before the Japanese had ever got there — and it had undoubtedly played an important part in causing the British and Dutch commanders in South East Asia to surrender before their civilian populations were also exposed to the blood lust of battle crazed men; thus it might even be considered a deliberate act of policy, which had achieved its objective. And the Japanese who had taken Bill away had been perfectly polite, at least to her, no matter how they had manhandled him. They had said, ‘So sorry, Mrs van Gelderen. So sorry,’ and bowed and clicked their heels.
So why was she afraid now?
The trucks were very close, and she had to act naturally. Trucks did not come to the plantation very often. She closed her book and went on to the front verandah to look at them, watch the little men in the green uniforms leaping from the back, rifles at the ready, bayonets already fixed. One truck went immediately down to the native village, hopefully to overawe the population. The men from the other surrounded the plantation house. And two officers, who had followed the truck in a command car, came up the steps. One of them she recognised; his name was Captain Tarawa, and he had been in command of the men who had arrested Bill. He was also the man who had been polite to her. He was being polite now as well, bowed before holding out his hand. ‘Mrs van Gelderen.’
Stefanie shook hands, and glanced at the other man. She did not like his looks at all, mainly because he wore steel rimmed glasses — and carried what looked like a rubber truncheon.
‘This is Captain Osawa,’ Captain Tarawa explained.
‘Mrs van Gelderen,’ Osawa said, in good Dutch.
‘Captain.’ Stefanie shook hands again. ‘Will you come inside?’
Tarawa glanced at Osawa, who gave a brief nod. ‘Thank you,’ Tarawa said.
She led them into the lounge. ‘Would you care for something to drink?’ She pointed at her own glass.
‘What is that?’ Osawa asked, suspiciously.
‘It is Hollands gin. We, I, have only a little left. But it is very good.’
‘We will have some,’ Tarawa said.
Stefanie called Bhutto, and gave him the order. Then she sat down, crossed her knees; Osawa stared at her legs. ‘Have you come about my husband?’ she asked.
‘No, Mrs van Gelderen.’ The Japanese officers sat down al
so, and Bhutto brought them their drinks. Osawa sipped and snorted.
‘But you have news of him?’
‘T am afraid not, Mrs van Gelderen. He has been sent to Batavia.’
‘But why?’
‘I do not know that either, Mrs van Gelderen. I only obey my orders.’
‘Then why have you come?’
‘Captain Osawa has some questions he wishes to ask you.’
Stefanie looked at Osawa.
‘I am a captain in the kempei-tai,’ Osawa informed her.
‘Oh.’ Stefanie’s heart began to pound.
‘I am investigating reports that there is an enemy agent in this vicinity,’ Osawa said.
‘Enemy agent?’ Stefanie asked, as stupidly as she could. Reports? Her brain seethed. Who could have reported such a thing? Even had one of her people wished to play the traitor, and she was sure none of them would, it was at least three days into Manokwari, and no one had left the plantation since Clive’s arrival; leaving the plantation had, indeed, been forbidden by the Japanese.
‘A spy. An American spy,’ Osawa said.
‘Such a man would be unable to survive without support from traitors in the local population,’ Tarawa explained.
‘And you think I know of such a man?’ Stefanie asked.
Tarawa looked at Osawa.
‘It is possible,’ Osawa said. ‘Tell me of him.’
‘But I do not know of such a man,’ Stefanie protested.
‘I think you do.’
‘There is no evidence of this,’ Tarawa protested in turn.
‘She is lying,’ Osawa asserted.
‘There is no evidence of that, either,’ Tarawa pointed out. ‘Will you give me your word, Mrs van Gelderen, that you know of no American or English spy who may be living in the jungle in this area?’
Stefanie gazed at him. ‘I give you my word, Captain.’ He was such a nice little man — but they were on opposite sides.
The Passion and the Glory Page 14
