“As you will have guessed by now, Mr. Nicolson, Farnholme remained safely in the pantry during the fight because he was sitting with two million pounds in his lap and wasn’t going to risk any of it for any old-fashioned virtue of courage and honour and decency. I remained in the dining-saloon because I wasn’t going to fire on my allies — and you will recall that the only time I did — at the sailor in the conning-tower of the submarine — I missed. A very convincing miss, I’ve always thought. After the initial attack no Japanese ‘plane attacked us on the Viroma, when we were clearing the boat — or afterwards: I had signalled with a torch from the top of the wheelhouse.
“Similarly the submarine did not sink us — the captain wouldn’t have been very popular had he returned to base and reported that he had sent two million pounds worth of diamonds to the bottom of the South China Sea.” He smiled, again without mirth. “You may remember that I wished to surrender to that submarine — you adopted a rather hostile view-point about that.”
“Then why did that ‘plane attack us?”
“Who knows?” Van Effen shrugged his shoulders. “Getting desperate, I suppose. And don’t forget that it had a seaplane in attendance — it could have picked up one or two selected survivors.”
“Such as yourself?”
“Such as myself,” Van Effen admitted. “Shortly after this Siran found out that I hadn’t the diamonds — he searched my bag during one of the nights we were becalmed: I saw him do it and I let him do it, and there was nothing in it anyway. And it always lessened my chances of being stabbed in the back — which happened to his next suspect, the unfortunate Ahmed. Again he chose wrongly.” He looked at Siran with unconcealed distaste. “I suppose Ahmed woke up while you were rifling his bag?”
“An unfortunate accident.” Siran waved an airy hand. “My knife slipped.”
“You have very little time to live, Siran.” There was something curiously prophetic about the tone of Van Effen’s voice, and the contemptuous smile drained slowly from Siran’s face. “You are too evil to live.”
“Superstitious nonsense!” The smile was back, the upper lip curled over the even white teeth.
“We shall see, we shall see.” Van Effen transferred his gaze to Nicolson. “That’s all, Mr. Nicolson. You’ll have guessed why Farnholme hit me over the head when the torpedo boat came alongside. He had to, if he was to save your lives. A very, very gallant man — and a fast thinker.” He turned and looked at Miss Plenderleith. “And you gave me quite a fright, too, when you said Farnholme had left all his stuff on the island. Then I realised right away that he couldn’t have done that, because he’d never have a chance of going back there again. So I knew you must have it.” He looked at her compassionately. “You are a very courageous lady, Miss Plenderleith. You deserved better than this.”
He finished speaking, and again the deep, heavy silence fell over the council house. Now and again the little boy whimpered in his uneasy sleep, a small frightened sound, but Gudrun rocked and soothed him in her arms and by and by he lay still. Yamata was staring down at the stones, the thin aquiline face dark and brooding, seemingly in no hurry to move off. The prisoners were almost all looking at Van Effen, their expressions ranging from astonishment to blank incredulity. Behind them stood the guards, ten or twelve in all, alert and watchful and their guns ready in their hands. Nicolson risked a last quick look out through the lighted doorway, felt the breath checking in his throat and the almost unconscious tightening of his fists. The doorway and the lighted oblong beyond it were completely empty. McKinnon had gone. Slowly, carelessly, easing out his pent-up breath in a long soundless sigh, Nicolson looked away — and found Van Effen’s speculative eyes full upon him. Speculative — and understanding. Even as Nicolson watched, Van Effen looked sideways through the door for a long, meaningful moment, looked back at Nicolson again. Nicolson felt the chill wave of defeat wash through his mind, wondered if he could get to Van Effen’s throat before he spoke. But that would do no good, it would only postpone the inevitable. Even if he killed him — but Nicolson knew he was fooling himself, he hadn’t a chance, and even if he had, even to save themselves, he could do Van Effen no harm. He owed Van Effen a life — Peter’s. Van Effen could have freed himself very easily that morning — the clam hadn’t been all that large. He could have let Peter go and released himself by the use of both his hands: but he had elected, instead, to stand there in agony with the child in his arms and have his leg badly mauled and cut … Van Effen was smiling at him, and Nicolson knew it was too late to stop him from speaking.
“Beautifully done, wasn’t it, Mr. Nicolson?”
Nicolson said nothing. Captain Yamata lifted his head and looked puzzled. “What was beautifully done, Colonel?”
“Oh, just the whole operation.” Van Effen waved his hand. “From beginning to end.” He smiled deprecatingly, and Nicolson could feel the blood pounding in his pulse.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yamata growled. He rose to his feet. “Time we were going. I can hear the truck coming.”
“Very well.” Van Effen flexed his wounded leg stiffly: with the clam bite and the shrapnel wound in his thigh it was almost useless to him. “To see your colonel? tonight?”
“Inside the hour,” Yamata said briefly. “tonight Colonel Kiseki entertains important headmen and chiefs in his villa. His son lies dead, but duty crushes grief. Crushes it, I say, not kills it. But the sight of all these prisoners will lighten his saddened heart.”
Nicolson shivered. Someone, he thought wryly, walking over his grave. Even without the almost sadistic anticipation in Yamata’s voice, he had no illusions as to what lay in store for himself. For a moment he thought of all the stories he had heard of Japanese atrocities in China, then resolutely pushed the thought away. An empty mind on a razor edge was his only hope, he knew, and that no hope at all. Not even with McKinnon out there, for what could McKinnon do except get himself killed. The thought that the bo’sun might try to make good his own escape never crossed Nicolson’s mind. McKinnon just wasn’t made that way . . . Van Effen was speaking again.
“And afterwards? When the colonel has seen the prisoners? You have quarters for them?”
“They won’t need quarters,” Yamata said brutally. “A burial party will be all that’s required.”
“I’m not joking, Captain Yamata,” Van Effen said stiffly.
“Neither am I, Colonel.” Yamata smiled, said no more. In the sudden silence they could hear the squeal of brakes and the blipping of an accelerator as the truck drew up in the middle of the kampong. Then Captain Findhorn cleared his throat.
“I am in charge of our party, Captain Yamata. Let me remind you of international wartime conventions.” His voice was low and husky, but steady for all that. “As a captain in the British Mercantile Marine, I demand—–”
“Be quiet!” Yamata’s voice was almost a shout, and his face was twisted in ugliness. He lowered his voice until it was almost a whisper, a caressing murmur more terrifying by far than a roar of anger. “You demand nothing, Captain. You are in no position to demand anything. International conventions! Bah! I spit at international conventions. These are for the weak, for simpletons and for children. The strong have no need for them. Colonel Kiseki has never heard of them. All Colonel Kiseki knows is that you have killed his son.” Yamata shivered elaborately. “I fear no man on earth, but I fear Colonel Kiseki. Everyone fears Colonel Kiseki. At any time he is a terrible man. Ask your friend there. He has heard of him.” He pointed at Telak, standing in the background between two armed guards.
“He is not a man.” All Telak’s left side was ridged and lumped in long streaks of coagulated blood. “He is a fiend. God will punish Colonel Kiseki.”
“Ah, so?” Yamata said something quickly in Japanese, and Telak staggered back as a rifle butt jabbed cruelly into his face. “Our allies,” Yamata purred apologetically, “but they have to be educated. In particular, they must not speak ill of our senior army officers … At any time, I said, Colonel Kiseki is a terrible man. But now that his only son has been killed . . .” He allowed his voice to trail off into silence.
“What will Colonel Kiseki do?” There was no trace of emotion, of any feeling in Van Effen’s voice. “Surely the women and children——“