South by Java Head. Alistair MacLean

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 you sure?” Farnholme tried to listen over the drumming of the rain on the road, the hissing it made as it churned the surface of the sea to a white foam. “Are you sure, man?” he repeated. “I can’t hear a damn thing.”

      “Aye, I’m sure. Heard it plain as anything.”

      “He’s right!” It was the big sergeant who spoke, his voice excited. “By God, he’s right, sir. I can hear it, too!”

      Soon everybody could hear it, the slow grinding creak of rowlocks as men pulled heavily on their oars. The tense expectancy raised by Fraser’s first words collapsed and vanished in the almost palpable wave of indescribable relief that swept over them and left them all chattering together in low ecstatic voices. Lieutenant Parker took advantage of the noise to move closer to Farnholme.

      “What about the others—the nurses and the wounded?”

      “Let ’em come, Parker—if they want to. The odds are high against us. Make that plain—and make it plain that it must be their own choice. Then tell them to keep quiet, and move back out of sight. Whoever it is—and it must be the Kerry Dancer—we don’t want to scare ‘em away. As soon as you hear the boat rubbing alongside, move forward and take over.”

      Parker nodded and turned away, his low urgent tones cutting through the babble of voices.

      “Right. Take up these stretchers. Move back, all of you, to the other side of the road—and keep quiet. Keep very quiet, if you ever want to see home again. Corporal Fraser?”

      “Sir?”

      “You and your men—do you wish to come with us? If we go aboard that ship it’s highly probable that we’ll be sunk within twelve hours. I must make that clear.”

      “I understand, sir.”

      “And you’ll come, then?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Have you asked the others?”

      “No, sir.” The corporal’s injured tone left no doubt about his contempt for such ridiculously democratic procedures in the modern army, and Farnholme grinned in the darkness. “They’ll come too, sir.”

      “Very well. On your head be it. Miss Drachmann?”

      “I’ll come, sir,” she said quietly. She lifted her left hand to her face in a strange gesture. “Of course I’ll come.”

      “And the others?”

      “We’ve discussed it.” She indicated the young Malayan girl by her side. “Lena here wants to go too. The other three don’t care much, sir, one way or another. Shock, sir—a shell hit our lorry tonight. Better if they come, I think.”

      Parker made to answer, but Farnholme gestured him to silence, took the torch from the sergeant and advanced to the edge of the dock. The boat could be seen now, less than a hundred yards away, vaguely silhouetted by the distant beam of the torch. Even as Farnholme peered through the heavy rain, he could see the flurry of white foam as someone in the sternsheets gave an order and the oars dug into the sea, back-watering strongly until the boat came to a stop and lay silently, without moving, a half-seen blur in the darkness.

      “Ahoy, there!” Farnholme called. “The Kerry Dancer?”

      “Yes.” The deep voice carried clearly through the falling rain. “Who’s there?”

      “Farnholme, of course.” He could hear the man in the sternsheets giving an order, could see the rowers starting to pull strongly again. “Van Effen?”

      “Yes, Van Effen.”