Less than twenty yards inland, just before they had reached the belt of forest, they had struck* a well-defined path, running north-east and south-west between the woods and the sea. Automatically, without even looking at one another, they had turned south-west: it wasn’t until they had gone some distance that Nicolson realised why they had done it: in the long run, the south represented ultimate escape and freedom. Less than half a mile from where they had left the others, the beach to their left curved away to the west and north-west, following the lower horn of the bay: but the path had carried straight on across the base of the promontory, leaving the scrub and bushes and penetrating deep into the rain-forest itself.
Ninety minutes and three miles after leaving the beach Nicolson called a halt. They had just struggled through a thirty-yard patch of watery swamp that had taken them almost up to the armpits, and both men were exhausted. The effort, the sheer labour involved in their grotesquely slow-motion wading through these swamps was energy-sapping enough for men who had had little to drink and almost nothing to eat for a. week: but even worse was the steaming jungle, the oppressive’ heat, the enervating humidity that stung and blinded their eyes with sweat.
Safe on a patch of firm ground, Nicolson sat and leaned his back against a thick tree-trunk. He wiped some mud off his forehead with the back of his left hand — the right still clutched the gun — and looked at Vannier, who had slid down almost full length on the ground, a forearm across his eyes, his chest rising and falling, deeply, quickly.
“Enjoying yourself, Fourth? I bet you never thought your Second Mate’s ticket was a licence for traipsing through the Indonesian jungles?” Unconsciously, almost, he kept his voice down to a gentle murmur: the jungle, and everything about it, breathed hostility.
“Bloody awful, isn’t it, sir?” Vannier stirred, groaned softly as some aching muscle rebelled, then tried to smile. “These tree-swinging Tarzans you see in films give you a quite erroneous idea of how progress is made through the jungle. Me, I think this damn’ path here just goes on for ever and ever. You don’t think we’re travelling in circles, do you, sir?”
“Possible enough,” Nicolson admitted. “Haven’t seen the sun all day, and it’s so blasted thick overhead that you can’t even see lightness in the sky. We could be going north, south, or west, but I don’t think so. I think this path will come out again to the sea.”
“I hope you’re right.” Vannier was gloomy, but not depressed. Looking at the thin, sun-darkened face, with the now too-prominent cheekbones and the blistered, resolute mouth, Nicolson thought that, in the past few days, the furnace of privation and experience had cast Vannier in a completely different mould, changing him from an irresolute, uncertain boy to a toughened, determined man, a man aware of newfound resources and unsuspected capacities, a man well worth having by his side.
A minute, perhaps two, passed in silence, a silence marred only by the diminishing sound of their breathing and the sodden dripping of water in the leaves of the trees. Then, abruptly, Nicolson stiffened, his left hand reaching out to touch Vannier warningly on the shoulder. But the warning was unheeded. Vannier, too, had heard it, was drawing his legs under him and rising steadily, noiselessly to his feet. Seconds later both men were standing behind the trunk of the tree, waiting.
The murmur of voices and the soft pad of footsteps on the matted jungle floor came steadily nearer, the owners of the voices still hidden by the curve in the trail, less than ten yards away. They would have to wait till the last moment before identifying the approaching men, but it couldn’t be helped. Nicolson looked swiftly round for a better place of hiding but there was none. The tree-trunk would have to do, and behind the tree-trunk they would wait. The approaching men • — it sounded as if there were only two of them — might be Japanese. Even muffled by his shirt-front, the click of the Colt’s safety-catch sliding off sounded unnaturally loud: a month ago he would have shrank from the thought of shooting unsuspecting men from ambush; a month ago . . .
Suddenly the approaching men had rounded the bend in the trail and were in full view. Three men, not two, and certainly not Japanese, Nicolson realised with quick relief. Relief and a vague surprise: subconsciously he had expected, if not Japanese, Sumatran natives dressed in the scanty minimum the climate demanded and carrying spears or blow-pipes: two of the newcomers were dressed in denims and faded blue shirts. Even more upsetting to preconceived notions was the rifle the eldest of the three carried. But it didn’t upset the steadiness of the Colt in his hand. Nicolson waited until they were only ten feet away then stepped out into the middle of the path, the pistol barrel lined up motionless on the chest of the man with the rifle.
The man with the rifle was quick. A break in mid-stride, a flicker of the seamed brown eyes under the straw hat and the long snout of the rifle was swinging up as the left hand reached down for the barrel. But the young man by his side was even quicker. His sinewy hand darted out and clamped down on the barrel of the other’s rifle, checking its upward sweep, and he answered the surprise and anger in the other’s face with quick, sharp words. The elder man nodded heavily, looked away and let the gun droop till its muzzle almost touched the ground. Then he muttered something to the young man, who nodded and looked at Nicolson, eyes hostile in a calm, smooth face.
“Begrijp U Nederlands?”
“Dutch? Sorry, I don’t understand,” Nicholson lifted his shoulders in incomprehension, then looked briefly at Vannier. “Take his gun, Fourth. From the side.”
“English? You speak English?” The young man’s tongue was slow and halting. He was peering at Nicholson with eyes suspicious but no longer hostile, then his glance lifted an inch or two above Nicolson’s eyes and he suddenly smiled. He turned and spoke rapidly to the man by his side, then looked at Nicolson. “I tell my father you are English. I know your hat. Of course you are English.”
“This?” Nicolson touched the badge on his uniform cap.
“Yes. I live in Singapore” — he waved his hand vaguely towards the north — “for almost two years. Often I see English officers from ships. Why are you here?”
“We need help,” Nicolson said bluntly. His first instinct had been to temporise, make sure of his ground, but something about the quiet dark eyes of the young’ man changed his mind: not he realised wryly, that he was in any position to temporise anyway. “Our ship has been sunk. We have many sick, many hurt. We need shelter, food, medicines.”
“Give us back the gun,” the young man said abruptly.
Nicolson didn’t hesitate. “Give them back the gun, Fourth.”
“The gun?” Vannier was apprehensive, and looked it. “But how do you know—–”
“I don’t. Give them the gun.” Nicolson thrust the Colt into his belt.
Reluctantly, Vannier handed the rifle back to the man in the straw hat. The man snatched it, folded his arms over his gun and stared off into the forest. The young man looked at him in exasperation, then smiled apologetically to Nicolson.
“You must excuse my father,” he said haltingly, “You have hurt his feelings. Men do not take guns from him.”
“Why?”
“Because Trikah is Trikah, and nobody dare.” The young man’s voice held a blend of affection and pride and amusement. “He is the headman of our village.”
“He is your chief?” Nicolson looked at Trikah with new interest. On this man, on his capacity to make decisions, to lend or refuse aid, all their lives might depend. Now that he looked closely, Nicolson could see in the lined brown face, grave and unsmiling, the authority, the repose one would associate with the ruler of a tribe or village. Trikah, in appearance, was very like his son and the boy who stood some distance behind them — a younger son, Nicolson guessed. All three shared the low, wide forehead, intelligent eyes, finely chiselled lips and thin, almost aquiline nose: they had no negroid characteristics whatsoever, were almost certainly of unmixed Arabian descent. A good man to help you, Nicolson thought — if he would help you.
“He is our chief,” the young man nodded. “I am Telak, his eldest son.”
“My name is Nicolson. Tell your father I have many sick English men and women on the beach, three miles to the north. We must have help. Ask him if he will help us.”
Telak turned to his father, spoke rapidly in a harsh staccato tongue for a minute, listened to his father, then spoke again. “How many are sick?”