Free Dangerous Waters by Rosalind Brett Page B

fields. Men and women worked, ankle deep in water, lifting weeds which floated sluggishly away. They stood up and viewed the passing canoe, stared because the occupants were white. Pete called greetings and was answered with eager courtesy. Terry had read about the gentle Malays and their polite good humor, but she hadn ’ t imagined the qualities would be so rooted in a whole race. Those youths who had wrecked the train at Vinan must have been utterly terrified of cholera sweeping through the villages, as had happened thirty years ago; they hadn ’ t set about the destruction viciously, but merely made train and rails unserviceable for many months, till the danger which threatened from outside was past. To think that a matter of a few days ’ difference in her time schedule would have got her through on the train from Vinan to Penghu! She would have travelled by an earlier steamer, there would have been no negligent stranger strolling the deck. She wouldn ’ t have met Pete Sternham.
    With mixed feelings, she glanced at him from under the wide brim of the straw hat. Through the sun-glasses he appeared to be burned even darker than yesterday, his bones were more angular, his dark eyes keener and more deep-set. Since leaving Vinan he had changed from a dependable but nonchalant type into a rather formidable individual who nevertheless performed his duty down to the last careful fold of the plastic cover over their luggage.
    Now the swamps and the rice fields were behind them, the river narrowed alarmingly, till there was scarcely room to use the paddles. They were shut in by trees, had to push through vines which hung from locked branches and drifted their green tips over the fast-running water. The canoe hit a rock and slewed, Pete caught at branches and steadied the craft, hung on.
    “ Can I help? ” she asked quickly.
    “ I ’ ll have to turn the boat so that I can see where I ’ m going. If you can turn round in your seat and use one of those bamboos at the bottom of the boat, you ’ ll be able to push the vines aside. Don ’ t be hasty about it—I ’ ll paddle slowly. Keep a sharp look out for anything stony or woody. We mustn ’ t lose the canoe. ”
    It was the first time she had been able to help him on the river. As soon as he had reversed the canoe, she turned her body, ignored the sudden drag at the tender skin of her waist, and shoved the bamboo stick forward. She took off the hat and glasses, shook back hair which felt like soggy string and concentrated on the task he had given her, thrusting a way through the thick river growth. At first it was easy, but she noticed they were gradually being drawn along at greater speed and boulders appeared here and there in a channel of water which was no more than five feet wide and obscured by weeds. They caught up with a floating log and a mass of torn branches, got through somehow and were swept on. Now Pete was using a paddle to slow them down. He had to plunge it into the mud and hang on, straining with all his muscle to keep the canoe from cannoning into the trunks and rocks which were close enough to touch on each side.
    If Terry had had time she would have looked about her and shivered with awe. They were in a ravine between steep, jungle-clad cliffs whose growth met overhead. It was like racing without volition through a dim green tracery of forest growth, far under the earth ’ s surface.
    She shouted suddenly. “ Pete! There ’ s a tree across the river! ”
    He shot to his feet and grabbed at a handful of the vines about his head. Terry clung to snake-like tendrils, and after a long, wrenching moment the canoe was nosed into the mud between tree roots. Pete leapt from the canoe and tied up, swung his body round a couple of trees and viewed the giant mahogany which had crashed diagonally and lay only eighteen inches above the water. Terry was close beside him. She stared, appalled, at the massive barrier.
    “ What do we do? ” she whispered.
    “