‘Yes,’ from Sergeant Ruwaman Limbu, after checking.
After a bit of shuffling, they moved off in single file. Imbi was in the lead, then the detective. Behind him came Rance, his batman, Kamal Rai and then the leading section. At the rear came the Troop Sergeant and Mandeh.
The drivers had turned round when a civilian approached the lead vehicle. A Chinese emerged and waved his arms. In halting Malay, which the driver barely understood, he asked for a lift to the next village. Why not? The man got in and, after a while asked, ‘Bila balek?’
Why does he want to know when we’re coming back? ‘Besok pagi, pukul lapan.’ Tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock. At the next village the Chinese asked the driver to let him get out, thanked him and disappeared in the night. The driver thought no more of it.
Moving slowly, Rance’s men walked along more of an overgrown track than a normal laterite estate road. There was just enough residual starlight not to bump into the man in front. More than an hour later a blacker black loomed ahead, causing the front two men to stop. Rance bumped into Ah Wong. ‘Tuan, this is the start of the squatter area. The guide reckons the weapons are at least another three hours’ walk from here.’
Rance looked at the luminous dial of his watch. A break here will do us good. ‘How far to the nearest dwelling?’
The detective and the guide conferred. ‘Imbi here reckons at least half an hour’s walk.’
Rance made his mind up. ‘Kulé, fetch the NCOs.’
They soon came. ‘Listen. We’re in good time. We’ll have a 15-minute break here. Yes, you can light up but keep all fags cupped. Use your water bottles if you want to. Sit down and take it easy. No need for sentries.’
The NCOs went away and Rance leant over to Kamal. ‘Kamal, are you all right?’
‘Yes, Saheb. It makes an exciting change. Shikar with two legs rather than with four,’ said with a friendly giggle. ‘You have done well to bring me. I can’t say if the two Sumatrans are trustworthy but just suppose they get shot or run away scared or even captured and taken away, I’m the only one who can help you if you get lost.’
‘Yes, we are lucky to have you with us. You were born in Malaya but have you never wanted to go to Nepal? Or Darjeeling?’
‘It is not easy to travel when you’re as poor as we are,’ Kamal answered obliquely. ‘Labourers don’t get paid much. Nowhere else apart from that journey to Calcutta and back that I told you about.’
The quarter of an hour was soon up. Quiet orders were given to get ready, men were checked and the single file moved off. Weapons were only to be held in front of the body if visibility was more than ten yards. It was pitch dark for most of the time as clouds had formed and a few drops of rain fell. Sometimes they passed through an open patch of cultivation and once or twice a dog barked but mostly they moved along a narrow path through thick undergrowth. Occasionally a man strayed to the edge of the track and tripped on a tree root or stumbled on some protuberance.
Rance found himself walking like an automaton, his mind alert, almost floating through the darkness. ‘Arms dump’ sounds so grand but from what the Sumatrans and Ah Wong have said, ‘small hovel’, nothing else, is ‘arms dump’ the way to describe what we may find? And what do we do if we do find any, or many? We can’t carry them out with us. After an all-night effort we’ll be too tired. Make them unserviceable? But how? Throw away the bolts and magazines? Bend the barrels? But what with? Problem – but let’s get there first.
Plod, plod, plod, the small force, each man wrapped in his own thoughts, trudged on through the squatter area: if the daku we meet are anything like the Pathans or the Japanese, we’ll have quite a fight on our hands, thought Sergeant Ruwaman. They told us we’d be gunners but the Sarkar can’t make its mind up as we are still infantry, thought one of the Section Leaders. Other men had their own thoughts buzzing around as mosquitoes buzzed around their heads. Rance slapped one that was buzzing in his right ear and it set off a humming sound in it. Mustn’t do that or I won’t hear anything suspicious. His mind went back to his leave. He had had a letter from his Jenny just before leaving Seremban. No good getting too worked up over her. Probably can’t wait until I am entitled to a quarter in … another eight years! He bumped into Ah Wong, who had slowed his pace, and inwardly cursed. Pay attention, you fool. Keep your mind on the job!
Plod, plod, plod. In the column at times it was so dark men held on to the straps of the man in front. A muffled curse came onto lips when the man behind trod on heels. After what seemed an age, the guide suddenly stopped and whispered something to the detective. All down the line men, not realising that the man in front had stopped, bumped to a standstill.
At the front, Ah Wong whispered to Rance, ‘Imbi is frightened. He tells me that if a sentry shines a light and sees me, a Chinese, with him in the squatter area, fire will immediately be opened to kill me and the guide will also be killed as a traitor.’
Indeed the detective was a head taller than Imbi.
‘Then you get three behind me,’ Rance whispered back. ‘I’ll be right behind Imbi. Tell him not to worry. Also tell him that if he thinks that someone in front of him is about to open fire, to lie down on one side of the track. I’ll return fire even if I can’t see the target.’ Prophylactic fire might make an untrained man with a weapon run away.
The leading NCO silently came up to Rance. ‘Anything amiss, Hajur? Why have we stopped? I can’t smell any human habitation and we are not in an open piece of ground.’
‘Ustad, the guide’s frightened and I must try and calm him before we move off. Pass a message down the line for the Troop Sergeant to come to me.’
Whispering, scuffling and the noise of water bottles being used, to say nothing of the ever-present night sounds; insects clicking or shrilling, frogs croaking, the ‘chunk-chunk-chunk’ of the larger kind of nightjars calling. Many of the men were sweating as there was not a breath of breeze and the undergrowth would have smothered it had there been any.
‘Saheb. You sent for me. Here I am,’ whispered Sergeant Ruwaman Limbu.
‘Ustad. Imbi, the front guide, is frightened and will not go on with the detective behind him. Thinks that any Cheena shining a torch and aiming will immediately fire if they see another Cheena and that he, Imbi, will be killed. I will go behind him and help him along. I don’t think I’ll change him with Mandeh but I want you to be doubly sure that Mandeh stays with you and does not try to escape. This may be a trap to ambush us.’
‘I’ve thought so all along, Hajur. There is something I don’t like about him. Can’t be too careful.’
Rance moved up to Imbi and softly said to him ‘I will stay with you whatever happens.’
Imbi grunted in return.
‘Right. We’ll move off now. You, Sergeant ustad, stay here until the tail of the column reaches you and keep a close watch on Mandeh.’
Rance moved off. The others followed him. But when the end of the column reached Sergeant Ruwaman Mandeh was not with it. He had disappeared.
Mandeh knew exactly where he was. He and Imbi had been promised a large reward by the police and they had decided that their best bet was to be successful, claim the reward and, for safety’s sake, return to Sumatra. Yet, the nearer he got to the place where he and Imbi had been tied up, the more nervous he had become and the more foolhardy did the present venture seem. There was no way he could safely let Imbi know of his decision and he now thought that the odds against Imbi’s survival at the front were heavily against him. Mandeh turned round and went back the way he had come immediately the soldier at the end of the line moved forward.
Not long afterwards Rance heard a whispering coming towards him. A message from Sergeant Ruwaman? It was. ‘The other Sumatran guide has run away. Do we stop and look for him?’
‘Kulbahadur. Stay here until Sergeant Ruwaman reaches you and tell him in no way will we stop to look for him, there is no change in orders but to be doubly alert against any ambush. Got that?’
‘Saheb. I understand.’
‘Kamal,’ hissed Rance. ‘Am I right in not mentioning this to Imbi?’
‘Correct, Saheb. It will make him more afraid and he may also be tempted to run away. Also don’t tell the Cheena detective. I sense that he, too, is frightened.’
Rance asked Imbi how longer until we reach the place where the arms are and was told anything from one hour to three hours,’ Rance doubted it, thinking that he was too frightened to think properly. He probably hadn’t learnt how to tell the time by looking at a watch.
It was then half past one.
Once on the move again, Imbi put his right arm back and searched for Rance’s hand. Fumbled and found it. Grasped it. Rance involuntarily pulled his back but the grip was vice like. However hard he tugged he could not break lose.
‘Imbi, as long as you clutch my hand I won’t be able to fire my rifle.’
Imbi refused to let go and it was uncomfortable, inconvenient and sweaty but Rance bore it for, he later reckoned, about half an hour when, thankfully, the Sumatran let go, stopped and said ‘Over there. We have arrived.’
Once more the column bumped to a halt. Rance, almost under his breath, sent for his NCOs. Waiting for them to come, he listened intently. He heard a trickle of water and, in a break in the clouds, saw a small stream in front of him. The NCOs reached him. ‘Listen. We have arrived. I’ll ask Imbi to describe the place.’
To their half right about thirty paces away, the weapons had been laid out under some waterproof covering on the ground and to their half left, not quite so distant, was the shack where the two guides had been held prisoner.
Rance gave out his orders. ‘1 Section, move silently to the shack and see what you can find. Do not go straight up to it. Move round to a flank, listen and, if after five minutes you have heard nothing, draw khukris, use your torch and see if there is anyone inside. You will take the detective with you and he will arrest anyone there. Fire if you have to but remember the others are off to a flank.
‘2 Section. Take the guide with you to where he thinks the dump is. Once you have seen 1 Section’s torch, use your own to examine the ground. Look for any tracks.
‘Sergeant Ruwaman, go with 2 Section. If no one is there, wave your torch round and round. The other section will do the same if their area is empty of humans. I will stay here and use my voice to coordinate what follows. Any questions?’
There were none.
‘On your way.’ Ah Wong was standing next to him and was told in outline what was happening.
Both Section Commanders faded away, briefed their men and, apart from the odd rustle here and there, nothing was heard; an exemplary performance of professional fieldcraft. In the silence each man was conscious of his own pulse beat, the small crepitant rustle of clothing against his body and the thrill of the chase. Rance, Kulbahadur and Kamal stood quietly by the stream, straining their ears, waiting for an outbreak of shooting or the noise of a struggle as sleeping men were seized. They heard not a sound from either group.
In the hut Ruwaman’s torch beam began to probe around, licking like a lizard’s tongue into the corners. Tension broke when both sections waved their torch at about the same time. It was an absurd anti-climax. Rance broke the silence. ‘Any weapons?’
