The Steel Tsar Read Online Free PDF

and he pursed his lips. Then he nodded. “You will stay with us until ten men fall ill and are cured and five women and five male children,” he said, lowering his eyes.
    I guessed that he was trying to hide any hint in his eyes that he might be getting the best of the bargain.
    “Five men,” I said.
    “Ten men.”
    I spread my hands. “I agree.”
    * * *
    A nd that was how I came to spend more weeks than I had planned in a remote and faintly hostile little Javanese fishing village, for the headman, of course, had tricked me.
    The men proved disappointingly healthy and the women and children seemed constantly sick of minor complaints so that, with my limited medical knowledge, I treated many more people than had been called for in the original bargain, but I never seemed in sight of making up the male quota. The headman had realized at once that he was on to a good thing and it was soon evident that even when the men did fall sick they did not report to me but stuck to their usual methods of cure. At least two died while I was there. They were prepared to forego any attention from me so that I should continue treating the women and children.
    For all that, I was scarcely angry. The routine was an anodyne to my weary brain and I lost myself in it. My awareness of any reality beyond the confines of the village grew steadily more vague. Chaos had come again to the outside world, but the day-to-day life of the village was the model of simple order and I might have lived my life there if the outside world had not, at last, intruded.
    Looking back, I understand that it was inevitable, but I was surprised when it happened.
    One morning I saw a cloud of dust in the distance. It seemed that the sand of the beach was being disturbed, but I could not distinguish the cause of the disturbance.
    Then as the dust cloud came closer I realized what it meant and I ran to hide in the doorway of a hut.
    The dust was thrown up by the tyres of military cars—big, square utilitarian things with heavy-duty steam turbines driving their massive wheels. And the military cars were crammed with Japanese soldiers. Almost certainly they had conquered the whole island by now and, as certainly, had heard some rumour of my presence in the village. They were coming to investigate.
    It was at this point that I decided to sail for Australia. There was nowhere else to go.
    * * *
    A lthough I had failed to fulfill my original bargain with the headman, I still had the moral right to do what I did, for I had dealt fairly enough with the villagers. And I would leave what there was of my medical kit behind for them.
    Taking only a petrol can full of water, I crept down to the shore, using a jetty as cover. Then I waded to one of the outboards and began to untie it. All the villagers were watching the oncoming cars and it was my only chance to escape. I started to push the boat slowly towards the open sea while the villagers ran about in excitement at the arrival of their new masters.
    I was lucky. A current soon caught the dugout and carried it more rapidly away from the shore. At last the villagers saw me, realized what was happening just as the Japanese cars drew up in the village square. I was now some distance out and having trouble trying to climb into the dugout without upsetting it.
    The villagers began to gesticulate and point towards me. With a heave I managed to get into the wildly rocking boat and tried to get the battered outboard going.
    It fired after only three false starts. I adjusted the tiller and headed for the open sea, noticing with satisfaction that there were two spare cans of fuel stowed amidships.
    I heard pistol shots, then rifle shots.
    Then a machine-gun started up and bullets buzzed about my ears and struck the water all around me. I kept changing course and at one point did a complete circle and headed in the opposite direction to Darwin, my proposed destination, hoping that this would confuse them when they came to radio their