‘Ira! Baby! I miss you.’

The girl massaged the young man with her voice. Blanche turned and walked silently back to the lounge and her shoes. Standing at the window again, she closed her eyes and imagined the pleasure of shaking Li Min until her perfect white teeth rattled.

A few moments later Ira stood silently in the doorway. ‘I feel nauseous.’

‘You did well,’ she assured him. ‘Really — I listened.’

‘My cook’s disappearance seems to be a mystery to everyone.’

‘Perhaps just some stupid coincidence. Let’s pray it doesn’t upset anything.’

‘I’m uneasy about you staying, Blanche.’ He joined her at the window. ‘It all looks so peaceful but if there’s to be a real showdown ... ’

‘There is, I assure you, and when it happens I’m going to be here. I just hope it’s not too much longer, or our mutual friend may become really suspicious about my prolonged presence or my car’s prolonged absence.’

Ira glanced at her as if he too wondered about that.

‘Chemor’s just keeping himself and my car out of the way at one of the streetside cafes until he sees the army moving in. Then he’ll follow in — I hope.’

Ira swore. ‘I wish it’d get on and happen. What’ll be the first sign, d’you reckon?’

They were speculating when Ira suddenly stopped talking, raised a stilling forefinger and listened intently. They could soon make out the sound of heavy lorries grinding up the path into the mining complex. Army lorries, three-tonners, came quickly into view with soldiers sitting along the side seats beneath the obligatory protective netting. Ira and Blanche exchanged jubilant glances and hurried outside.

From the vantage point of the bungalow, they saw the soldiers jumping down from the lorries and running to encircle groups of workers or going towards the village. Following came police vehicles and Chemor in the Hammonds’ Ford. There were already soldiers at all the gates, roads and paths around the mine, rifles at the ready. Edwin had been as good as his word; those men had certainly melted unobserved into their positions — but where were the survivors he had promised to roll into Bukit Kinta?

There was much shouting and Blanche saw that the men were being brought from the dredgers and the workplaces and the women and children from the village, and all urged into lines. She saw the unmistakeable black-trousered figure of Li Min in the gateway of the kampong, saw her turn and run back towards a hut. Two soldiers broke into a run after her but Chemor overtook them and caught the girl before she reached the hut’s verandah. The soldiers went on while Chemor, gripping the struggling girl, brought her back to where the workers and villagers were being gathered. He released her, throwing her away from himself in the manner one releases a fighting cat.

So much was happening at once. Blanche recognised John Sturgess leading two men off towards the tin-roofed mine buildings, while one lorry still seemed to have a reserve of men just sitting still.

Where were her survivors?

She searched the milling throng and saw Inspector Aba strutting up and down the crowd of Malays and Chinese, shouting, ‘Identity papers! Everyone have ready! Now!’

‘In line! In line! Everyone in line,’ someone else ordered.

The shouting both intimidated and created confusion, so the workers and the families shuffled and circled around raising dust, making it seem even hotter than it already was, before they were finally sorted into some kind of line order.

Li Min and several men brought at gunpoint from the village were herded to the head of one line and kept under special guard. Sturgess was there, joined by the inspector. Sturgess lifted a hand towards the soldiers still in the lorry; Blanche followed the gesture, obviously some directive.

It was at this moment that Blanche saw Liz. Her daughter emerged from the middle of the soldiers still seated in the lorry. Standing up totally exposed on the back, she looked all around. Blanche found herself shaking her head in delight and wonderment as she watched her daughter’s glance sweep sky and hills. Otherworldly like her father, taking in the view first!

Blanche waved furiously as a young red-bearded man came from the front passenger seat to help her down.

Liz became suddenly aware of a woman near George’s bungalow waving like a mad thing. She recognised her mother with a shock of combined love and guilt. ‘Mother, what are you doing here?’ She ran to greet her.

Blanche held her arms wide for her daughter and saw as Liz ran to her the set of Neville’s head, the way the eyes focused on her now to the total exclusion of the screaming, shouting tension that was all around them — like her father, and because of that so very precious.

‘Liz!’ She clasped her daughter to her, registering the extra thinness of her body as she held her tight. ‘Thank God! Thank God!’

‘Mother! Forgive me for going off like that! I must have put you through hell.’ Liz saw new lines about her mother’s mouth, etchings of determination, she thought, or worry she had caused.

‘Hell, yes,’ Blanche confirmed, ‘but more because I watched you go.’

It took a moment for the implication to register. ‘You watched ... when Lee and I?’

Blanche nodded.

Liz threw herself into her mother’s arms afresh. ‘You really did understand.’

‘I did,’ she said and, thinking of George, added, ‘I do.’

‘I found him!’

Blanche grasped Liz’s hand as she finally recognised Alan beneath the beard and gripped his hand too. ‘We mustn’t lose anyone again, I can’t afford the heartache. So where is Lee and … ?’

‘Safe, but she must stay hidden for a bit longer,’ Alan said beneath the hubbub going on so close to them. ‘The major wants to make sure there are no hidden arms and have every-thing secure before he plays his trump card. If you come nearer to the lorry but don’t look down to the floor … ’

‘I’ll take Mr Harfield’s list over to the inspector,’ Ira decided, sounding as if he wanted no part of another intrigue. He walked purposefully towards the watchful lines of men, women and wide-eyed children.

‘Mrs Guisan! Lee!’ Blanche stage-whispered as she came close to the backboard of the lorry. The eight soldiers looked at her and some smiled, but none looked down at the blankets that lay on the floor between their feet.

‘Mrs Hammond! I glad hear you after all these years.’

The small, smothered voice was husky, anxious. ‘This is Mrs Carl Guisan speaking to you.’

From another age, Blanche thought.

‘And Lee!’ a lighter voice said. ‘We have to wait to be called out. Tell us what is happening.’

‘Thank God you are both safe,’ Blanche said, standing as casually as she could, gripping the hands of her two young people and pretending she was talking to them.

‘The major’s got several men body-searching the lines of people,’ Alan told the hidden women.

‘You wouldn’t think they could hide much,’ Liz commented, looking at the women’s sarongs and the thin cotton shorts and shirts most of the men were wearing.

One of the soldiers on the lorry clicked his tongue and commented, ‘We found a bandoleer of ammunition wrapped around a baby at one village.’

‘They’re reaching the real suspects now,’ Liz said, watching closely as the searchers moved in on Li Min and the men in her group. The guards raised their rifles at the suspects’ chests, ready to fire at the least hint of trouble.

‘There’s some defiance,’ Blanche confided to Lee and her mother. ‘They want the men in the group to raise their hands higher.’

‘Up! Up! Up!’ The orders came louder and louder, men poked with their rifles to enforce the order — and then there was consternation and shouting.

‘What’s happened?’ Liz’s question was echoed all around. The lines of people craned forwards, some of the soldiers stood up and there were muffled enquiries from the floor of the lorry.