another, I’m going to kill myself. You can take that for granted. And I’d rather you let me do it this way.”
“I know the state of mind you’re in, old man. I was in it once. And, without wishing to make a stupid comparison, I feel I’ve had as much reason as anyone on Earth to want to do it. But you see me alive. I’ve gone beyond suicide.”
“Well, I haven’t.” Yet he hesitated. “I wanted to talk to you, Bastable.”
“Then talk.”
“I can’t without this stuff.”
Once again, I shrugged. But I knew what it was to have an unbearable weight on one’s conscience. “Take a little, then,” I suggested. “Just a little. And talk. But don’t try to kill yourself, at least until you have confided in me.”
He shuddered. “Confided! What a word. You sound like a priest.”
“Just a fellow-sufferer.”
“You’re a bit of a prig, Bastable.”
I smiled. “So I’ve been told by others.”
“Yet you’re a decent sort. And you don’t judge people much. Only yourself. Am I right?”
“I’m afraid you probably are.”
“You don’t hold with socialism, do you? With my brand, at any rate.”
“What’s your brand?”
“Well, Kropotkin called it anarchism. But the word’s come to mean something very different in the public mind.”
“You don’t blow things up, then?”
Again he began to shake. He tried to speak, but no words came. I had, accidentally, struck a nerve. I moved towards him. “I’m sorry, old man. I didn’t mean...”
He drew away from me. “Get out,” he said. “For God’s sake leave me alone.”
I felt very foolish. “Dempsey. Believe me. I meant nothing serious. I was being facetious.”
“Get out!” It was almost a shout, a plea. “Get out, Bastable! The ship’s coming. Save yourself, if you can.”
“I’m not going to let you kill yourself.” I grabbed up some of the ampoules. “I want to listen, Dempsey.”
He fell back on the bed. His head hit the wall. He groaned. His body fell sideways. He had passed out.
I checked his pulse and his breathing, then I went to look for help. I recalled that there was a missionary doctor now in the hotel.
As I reached the ground floor and headed to the bar where I would find Olmeijer, I heard people near the windows begin to mutter, then to talk excitedly. The darkness outside was suddenly broken by a beam of bright light.
Olmeijer saw it. He seemed disappointed. When I reached him he muttered: “It’s the ship. It’s coming in.” He was going to lose all his customers.
I told him to send someone to look after Dempsey, and then I ran from the hotel towards the park. My intention was to guide the ship to her mast.
To my astonishment there were already uniformed men on the ground. I rushed towards one. They must have parachuted from the ship.
“Thank God you’ve come,” I said.
The nearest figure turned. I looked into the expressionless face of a captain in the Imperial Japanese Army. “Go back inside,” he said. “Tell them that if anyone attempts to leave the building it will be bombed to rubble.”
CHAPTER TEN
Lost Hopes
W e were never to discover how the Japanese had found us. Either they had traced the wireless messages or they had trailed and destroyed the rescue ship. The fact was there was nothing we could do against them.
Soon Olmeijer’s place was full of small soldiers in off-white uniforms, their politeness to their prisoners contrasting with the long bayonets fixed on their rifles. The officer had a grim, self-controlled manner, but occasionally, it seemed to me, an expression of straightforward hatred crossed his face when he looked at us. We stood with our baggage (if we had any) in the middle of the floor. The women were sent aboard first. The Japs had managed to get the mast working and had winched the ship to ground level.
It was a large, modern ship. I was surprised that they had felt they could spare it, merely to pick up a few civilians, but I guessed that it had already
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