South By Java Head Read Online Free PDF Page B

for the first tune, 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 it's 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 to-night. 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

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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