where we were going.
I did not have to see now to know what was happening below. The bigger guns were silent, but there was incessant automatic fire and the frame of the building was transmitting an intermittent thudding that was certainly from bursting grenades. There were other sounds, too; the hoarse, inhuman screams and yells that come from men’s throats when they are killing at close quarters.
The moment the tear gas had gone in and the defenders were blinded by it, a party of assault troops in respirators had rushed the Air Terminal. Now, with grenades, machine pistols and parangs, they were clearing the ground floor and basements. Other parties would be storming the rear of the building. The business of clearing the upper floors would soon follow. First, more tear gas; then, up the stairs. “Quick as lightning. Every room. First a grenade, and then yourself. Doesn’t matter what’s there. Doesn’t matter who’s there. Then, comb it out with your machine pistol.”
I had already decided where we would go on the roof. There was no cover worth speaking of, and if the defence did last long enough to make a stand there, all we could do would be to lie flat on our faces and hope for the best. The important thing for us was to stay close to the apartment. If Suparto had remembered his promise to warn the assault troops of our presence, we wanted to be there when they arrived. The place I had chosen, therefore, was the section of parapet immediately above the apartment terrace.
We soon found it. The anti-aircraft machine gun which had showered the terrace with cartridge cases had been mounted there, and that part of the roof was strewn with empties. There was a good deal of tear gas about, but most of it seemed to be coming up from below through the ventilators, and when we got to windward of them the air was better. By leaning forward, I could see the terrace below. There was nobody there, and, as far as I could tell, the apartment was still empty. We sat down beside the parapet to dab our eyes and blow our noses and try not to listen to the massacre going on beneath us.
We had been there about twenty minutes when there was a sound of men blundering through the living room immediately below. A moment later Sanusi and Major Dahman came out on to the terrace, coughing and gasping for breath. I could hear others moaning and retching and stumbling about behind them.
It was Dahman who managed to find his voice first.
“Not here, Boeng,” he said hoarsely.
“Where is Aroff?”
“Aroff is dead, Boeng. You saw him.”
“Yes. I shall stay here.”
“They will take you alive.”
“No, they will not do that.”
There was a commotion from the passage beyond. A man was shouting something about surrender.
“You are in command, Dahman.”
“I will return for you if I can, Boeng. But we cannot die like women begging for mercy. We must counter- attack.”
He started to cough again as he went back through the living room, but a moment later I heard him gasping out an order about assembling on the stairs. I leaned forward cautiously and looked down on to the terrace.
Sanusi was walking slowly towards the balustrade. He had a machine pistol in his hand. At the end of the terrace he stopped and looked round, drawing deep breaths and wiping his face with the back of his hand. Then, he knelt down and, putting the gun beside him on the ground, began to say his prayers.
He went through the Rakats; then, he began to intone a passage from the Koran.
“But what shall teach thee what the night-comer is? It is the star of piercing radiance. Truly every soul has a guardian over it. Let man then reflect out of what he was created. He was created of the poured-forth germs which issue from between the loins and breastbones. Well able truly is Allah, the all-seeing, the all-knowing, the all- merciful, to restore him to life, on the day when all secrets shall be searched out, and he shall have no other might or helper.”
I looked down at Rosalie. She took my hand and pressed it against her face.
He was still kneeling there when there was a series of violent explosions that felt as if they were coming from right underneath us, and somewhere not far away a man began screaming. Then, the screaming was drowned by a blast of automatic fire as the assaulting troops reached the head of the staircase.
I saw Sanusi grab the machine pistol, get to his feet and start towards the window. At the same moment a grenade burst in the living room.
The blast flung him across the terrace like an empty sack, but he was on his feet in an instant, and as he rose he pressed the trigger of the machine pistol. Someone inside was firing back, and for a few seconds the air was torn to pieces. I saw the grenade land on the terrace outside the bedroom windows just in time to drop behind the parapet. Then, there was an ear-splitting concussion, another burst of automatic fire and silence. When I dared to look down again, three men in steel helmets were walking out slowly on to the terrace.
Two of them looked round warily and then began to move along towards the bathhouse, their arms at the ready. The third man went over to Sanusi’s body and shone a flashlight on it. Then, he turned and looked at the bedroom window.
“Mr. Fraser,” he called.
“We’re up here, Major,” I said.
The moon had risen. Down in the square, the dead were still being piled into trucks and driven away, so that, in the morning, when the Minister of Public Enlightenment issued a statement minimising the importance of the whole affair, no sceptical foreign newspapermen would be able to refute his casualty figures. The few surviving wounded were already in sick quarters at the garrison barracks, and therefore inaccessible. The disabled tank had been hauled on to a transporter and removed. The other tanks had retired together with the self-propelled eighty- eights. The square was being patrolled by two small armoured cars. Now and again there would be a faint rattle of fire from the outskirts of the city as stragglers or would-be escapers were rounded up and killed. The building next door had nearly burned itself out.
There were some eggs left in the kitchen and a Primus stove. While I held the flashlight, Rosalie made an omelette. I salvaged a couple of broken chairs from the chaos in the living room and we ate out on the terrace. It was not comfortable and the smoke still drifted over, but we were very hungry and did not care. We were eating the last of the fruit when Major Suparto returned.
I offered him fruit, but he declined stiffly.
“No, thank you, Mr. Fraser. I have to report to General Ishak and must leave immediately.”
“I see. Well, what’s the news?”
“I do not think that Miss Linden need feel alarmed for her sister’s safety. I am told that there is little damage in that quarter. Apart from that, I regret that the news I have for you is not good. The streets about here are forbidden to civilians at present. If you insist on leaving, I will provide you with an escort, but I do not advise it. The hotels are being searched for rebel sympathisers and many arrests are being made. Emotions have been aroused and matters are a little out of hand. You would be wiser to remain here.”
“Oh.”
“I can understand your reluctance to stay in this apartment a moment longer than is necessary, but in your own interests it is better that you do.”
“Yes. All right.”
“There are troops in this building. There is much to be done here. But you will not be disturbed. I have given strict orders. By the morning, perhaps…”
“Yes, of course. It’s good of you to come and tell us yourself.”
He hesitated. It was clear that he was desperately tired, but he also seemed ill at ease, even embarrassed. I wondered why.
“Mr. Fraser,” he said, “I may not have the opportunity of seeing you again.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You, I think, will soon be leaving Selampang.”
“If the police haven’t lost my passport in the confusion.”
“Should you have difficulties, Lim Mor Sai will arrange matters for you. If you will mention that I suggested that he should.”
“Thank you. I was forgetting he was a friend of yours. Will you be going back to Tangga?”
