“Easy, take it easy. I know it must have been rotten. And the British were the worst, weren’t they?”
“Yes, yes they were.” She was hesitant. “Why do you say that?”
“When it comes to empire-building and colonialism we are the world’s best — and the world’s worst. Singapore is the happy hunting ground of the worst, and our worst is something to wonder at. God’s chosen people and with a dual mission in life — to pickle their livers in an impossibly short time and to see to it that those who are not of the chosen remain continually aware of the fact — the sons of Ham to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the end of their days. Good Christians all, of course, and staunch pillars and atten-ders of the church — if they can sober up in time on the Sunday morning. They’re not all like that, not even in Singapore: but you just didn’t have the luck to run into any of the others.”
“I didn’t expect to hear you say that.” Her voice was slow, surprised.
“Why not? It’s true.”
“That’s not what I mean. It’s just that I didn’t expect to hear you talking like — oh, well, never mind.” She laughed, self-consciously. “The colour of my skin is not all that important.”
“That’s right. Go on. Give the knife a good twist.” Nicolson ground out his cigarette beneath his heel. His voice was deliberately rough, almost brutal. “It’s damned important to you, but it shouldn’t be. Singapore’s not the world. We like you, and we don’t give two hoots if you’re heliotrope.”
“Your young officer — Mr. Vannier — he gives two hoots,” she murmured.
“Don’t be silly — and try to be fair. He saw that gash and he was shocked — and ever since he’s been ashamed of showing that shock. He’s just very young, that’s all. And the captain thinks you’re the cat’s pyjamas. ‘Translucent amber,’ that’s what he says your skin’s like.” Nicolson tut-tutted softly. “Just an elderly Lothario.”
“He is not. He’s just very, very nice and I like him very much.” She added, inconsequentially: “You make him feel old.”
“Nuts!” Nicolson said rudely. “A bullet in the lungs would make anyone feel old.” He shook his head. “Oh, lord, there I go again. Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to snap at you. Daggers away, shall we, Miss Drachmann?”
“Gudrun.” The one word was both his answer and a request, and completely innocent of any hint of coquetry.
“Gudrun? I like it, and it suits you.”
“But you don’t — what is the word — reciprocate?” There was mischief now in the husky voice. “I have heard the captain call you ‘Johnny.’ Nice,” she said consideringly. “In Denmark it is the kind of name we would give to a very little boy. But I think I might manage to become used to it.”
“No doubt,” Nicolson said uncomfortably. “But you”
“Oh, but of course!” She was laughing at him, he knew, and he felt still more uncomfortable. “‘Johnny’ in front of the members of your crew — unthinkable! But then, of course, it would be Mr. Nicolson,” she added demurely. “Or perhaps you think ‘sir’ would be better?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Nicolson began, then stopped short and found himself echoing the girl’s barely audible laughter. “Call me anything you like. I’ll probably deserve it.”
He rose to his feet, crossed to the front of the hollow where the Muslim priest was keeping watch, spoke briefly to him then moved down the hill to where Van Effen was keeping watch over the one serviceable lifeboat. He sat there with him for a few minutes, wondering what point there was anyway in guarding the boat, then made his way back up to the hollow. Gudrun Drachmann was still awake, sitting close by the little boy. He sat down quietly beside her.
“There’s no point in sitting up all night,” he said gently. “Peter will be all right. Why don’t you go to sleep?”
“Tell me straight.” Her voice was very low. “How much chance have we got?”
“None.”
“Honest and blunt enough,” she acknowledged. “How long?”
“Noon tomorrow — and that’s a very late estimate. The submarine will almost certainly send a landing party ashore first — or try to. Then they’ll call up help — but probably the planes will be here at first light anyway.”
“Perhaps the men from the submarine will be enough. Perhaps they won’t require to call up help. How many—–”
“We’ll cut them to ribbons,” Nicolson said matter-of-factly. “They’ll need help, all right. They’ll get it. Then they’ll get us. If they don’t kill us all by bombing or shelling, they may take you and Lena and Miss Plenderleith prisoner. I hope not.”
“I saw them at Kota Bharu.” She shivered at the memory. “I hope not too. And little Peter?”
“I know. Peter. Just another casualty,” Nicolson safd bitterly. “Who cares about a two-year-old kid?” He did, he knew; he was becoming more attached to the youngster than he would ever have admitted to anybody, and one day, had Caroline lived—–
“Is there nothing we can do?” The girl’s voice cut through his wandering thoughts.
“I’m afraid not. Just wait, that’s all.”
“But — but couldn’t you go out to the submarine and — and do something?”
“Yes, I know. Cutlasses in teeth, capture it and sail it home in triumph. You’ve been reading the wrong comic books, lady.” Before she could speak, he stretched out and caught her arm. “Cheap and nasty. I’m sorry. But they’ll be just begging for us to do something like that.”
“Couldn’t we sail the boat away without being heard or seen?”
“My dear girl, that was the first thing we thought of. Hopeless. We might get away, but not far. They or the planes would get us at dawn — and then those who weren’t killed would be drowned. Funny, Van Eifen was very keen on the idea too. It’s a fast way of committing suicide,” he ended abruptly.
She thought for a few more moments. “But you think it’s possible to leave here without being heard?”
Nicolson smiled. “Persistent young so-and-so, aren’t you? Yes, it’s possible, especially if someone were creating some sort of diversion elsewhere on the island to distract their attention. Why?”
“The only way out is to make the submarine think we’re gone. Couldn’t two or three of you take the boat away — maybe to one of these little islands we saw yesterday — while the rest of us make some kind of diversion.” She was speaking quickly, eagerly now. “When the submarine saw you were gone, it would go away and——”
“And go straight to these little islands — the obvious place to go — see that there was only a few of us, kill us, sink the boat, come back here and finish the rest of you off.”
“Oh!” Her voice was subdued. “I never thought of that.”
“No, but brother Jap would. Look, Miss Drachmann——”
“Gudrun. We’ve stopped fighting, remember?”
“Sorry. Gudrun. Will you stop trying to beat your head against a brick wall? You’ll just give yourself a headache. We’ve thought of everything ourselves, and it’s no good. And if you don’t mind now I’ll try to get some sleep. I have to relieve Van Effen in a little while.”
He was just dropping off when her voice came again. “Johnny?”
“Oh lord,” Nicolson moaned. “Not another flash of inspiration.”
“Well, I’ve just been thinking again and—–”
“You’re certainly a trier.” Nicolson heaved a sigh of resignation and sat up. “What is it?”
“It wouldn’t matter if we stayed here as long as the submarine went away, would it?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Answer me please, Johnny.”
“It wouldn’t matter, no. It would be a good thing — and if we could hole up here, unsuspected, for a day or so they’d probably call off the search. From this area, at least. How do you propose to make them sail away, thinking we’re gone? Going to go out there and hypnotise them?”
“That’s not even a little bit funny,” she said calmly. “If dawn came and they saw that our boat was gone — the good one, I mean — they’d think we were gone too, wouldn’t they.”
“Sure they would. Any normal person would.”
“No chance of them being suspicious and searching the island?”
“What the devil are you getting at?”
“Please, Johnny.”
“All right,” he growled. “Sorry again and again and again. No, I don’t think they’d bother to search. What are you after, Gudrun?”
“Make them think we’ve gone,” she said impatiently. “Hide the boat.”
“‘Hide the boat,’ she says! There’s not a place on the shores of this island where we could put it that the Japs wouldn’t find in half-an-hour. And we can’t hide it on the island — it’s too heavy to drag up and we’d make such a racket trying that they’d shoot the lot of us, even in the darkness, before we’d moved ten feet. And even if we could, there isn’t a big enough clump of bushes on this blasted rock to hide a decent-sized dinghy, far less a twenty-four foot lifeboat. Sorry and all that, but it’s no go. There’s nowhere you could hide it, either on sea or land, that the Japs couldn’t find it with their eyes shut.”