South by Java Head. Alistair MacLean
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was stretching out her hands for the child, more footsteps were heard approaching from the left. Not the measured steps of soldiers, nor the crisp clickety-clack of women’s heels, but a shambling, shuffling sound such as very old men might make. Or very sick men. Gradually there emerged out of the rain and the darkness a long, uncertain line of men, weaving and stumbling, in token column of twos. They were led by a little man with a high, hunched left shoulder, with a Bren gun dangling heavily from his right hand. He wore a balmoral set jauntily on his head and a wet kilt that flapped about his bare, thin knees. Two yards away from Parker he stopped, shouted out a command to halt, turned round to supervise the lowering of the stretchers—it was then that Parker saw for the first time that three of his own men were helping to carry the stretchers—then ran backwards to intercept the straggler who brought up the end of the column and was now angling off aimlessly into the darkness. Farnholme stared after him, then at the sick, maimed and exhausted men who stood there in the rain, each man lost in his suffering and silent exhaustion.
“My God!” Farnholme shook his head in wonder. “The Pied Piper never had anything on this bunch!”
The little man in the kilt was back at the head of the column now. Awkwardly, painfully, he lowered his Bren to the wet ground, straightened and brought his hand up to his balmoral in a salute that would have done credit to a Guards’ parade ground. “Corporal Fraser reporting, sir.” His voice had the soft burr of the north-east Highlands.
“At ease, Corporal.” Parker stared at him. “Wouldn’t it—wouldn’t it have been easier if you’d just transferred that gun to your left hand?” A stupid question, he knew, but the sight of that long line of haggard, half-alive zombies materialising out of the darkness had had a curiously upsetting effect on him.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I think my left shoulder is kind of broken, sir.”
“Kind of broken,” Parker echoed. With a conscious effort of will he shook off the growing sense of unreality. “What regiment, Corporal?”
“Argyll and Sutherlands, sir.”
“Of course.” Parker nodded. “I thought I recognised you.”
“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Parker, isn’t it, sir.”
“That’s right.” Parker gestured at the line of men standing patiently in the rain. “You in charge, Corporal?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“Why?” The corporal’s fever-wasted face creased in puzzlement. “Dunno, sir. Suppose it’s because I’m the only fit man here.”
“The only fit——” Parker broke off in mid-sentence, lost in incredulity. He took a deep breath. “That’s not what I meant, Corporal. What are you doing with these men? Where are you going with them?”
“I don’t rightly know, sir,” Fraser confessed. “I was told to lead them back out of the line to a place of safety, get them some medical attention if I could.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the intermittent firing. “Things are a little bit confused up there, sir,” he finished apologetically.
“They’re all of that,” Parker agreed. “But what are you doing down here at the waterfront?”
“Looking for a boat, a ship, anything.” The little corporal was still apologetic. “‘ Place of safety’ was my orders, sir. I thought I’d have a real go at it.”
“A real go at it.” The feeling of unreality was back with Parker once again. “Aren’t you aware, Corporal, that by the time you get anywhere the nearest place of safety would be Australia—or India?”
“Yes, sir.” There was no change of expression on the little man’s face.
“Heaven give me strength.” It was Farnholme speaking for the first time, and he sounded slightly dazed. “You were going to set out for Australia in a rowing-boat with that—that——” He gestured at the line of patient, sick men, but words failed him.
“Certainly I was,” Fraser said doggedly. “I’ve got a job to do.”
“My God, you don’t give up easy, do you, Corporal?” Farnholme stared at him. “You’d have a hundred times more chance in a Jap prison camp. You can thank your lucky stars that there isn’t a boat left in Singapore.”
“Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t,” the corporal said calmly. “But there’s a ship lying out there in the roads.” He looked at Parker. “I was just planning how to get out to it when your men came along, sir.”
“What!” Farnholme stepped forward and gripped him by his good shoulder. “There’s a ship out there? Are you sure, man?”
“Sure I’m sure.” Fraser disengaged his shoulder with slow dignity. “I heard its anchor going down not ten minutes ago.”
“How do you know?” Farnholme demanded. “Perhaps the anchor was coming up and——”
“Look, pal,” Fraser interrupted. “I may look stupid, I may even be stupid, but I know the bloody difference between——”
“That’ll do, Corporal, that’ll do!” Parker cut him off hastily. “Where’s this ship lying?”
“Out behind the docks, sir. About a mile out, I should say. Bit difficult to be sure—still some smoke around out there.”
“The docks? In the Keppel Harbour?”
“No, sir. We haven’t been near there tonight. Only a mile or so away—just beyond Malay Point.”
* * *
Even in the darkness the journey didn’t take long—fifteen minutes at the most. Parker’s men had taken over the stretchers, and others of them helped the walking wounded along. And all of them, men and women, wounded and well, were now possessed of the same overwhelming sense of urgency. Normally, no one among them would have placed much hope on any evidence so tenuous as the rattle of what might, or might not have been an anchor going down: but, so much had their minds been affected by the continuous retreats and losses of the past weeks, so certain had they been of capture before that day was through, capture and God only knew how many years of oblivion, so complete was their sense of hopelessness that even this tiny ray of hope was a blazing beacon in the dark despair of their minds. Even so the spirit of the sick men far exceeded their strength, and most of them were spent and gasping and glad to cling to their comrades for support by the time Corporal Fraser came to a halt.
“Here, sir. It was just about here that I heard it.”
“What direction?” Farnholme demanded. He followed the line indicated by the barrel of the corporal’s Bren, but could see nothing: as Fraser had said, smoke still lay over the dark waters … He became aware that Parker was close behind him, his mouth almost touching his ear.
“Torch? Signal?” He could barely catch the lieutenant’s soft murmur. For a moment Farnholme hesitated, but only a moment: they had nothing to lose. Parker sensed rather than saw the nod, and turned to his sergeant.
“Use your torch, Sergeant. Out there. Keep flashing until you get an answer or until we can see or hear something approaching. Two or three of you have a look round the docks—maybe you might find some kind of boat.”
Five minutes passed, then ten. The sergeant’s torch clicked on and off, monotonously, but nothing moved out on the dark sea. Another five minutes, then the searchers had returned to report that they were unable to find anything. Another five minutes passed, five minutes during which the rain changed from a gentle shower to a torrential downpour that bounced high off the metalled roadway, then Corporal Fraser cleared his throat.
“I can hear something coming,” he said conversationally.
“What? Where?” Farnholme barked at him.
“A rowing-boat of some sorts. I can hear the rowlocks. Coming straight at us, I think.”
“Are