‘Pomelos,’ Tom muttered, remembering the name. The word sounded odd in the silence. The guards bristled, startled by the sound of his voice. They stiffened and pointed their rifles at him.
The Ripper turned and barked to them in Japanese. They relaxed, letting the guns drop.
Tom waited to be dragged off the lorry, but they left him sitting on the bench as they jumped down and stood to attention beside the vehicle.
It was then that he saw Harry and Ian. They were being pushed at gunpoint out of the wooden hut. They were almost unrecognisable from the men who had set off into the jungle just two days before, full of hope. They were both shackled at the ankles, chains between their legs. Ian stooped as he walked. There were so many cuts on his face that his features were obscured. His eyes were swollen and red, and his nose looked as though it was broken. He wore only a loincloth, and his torso, too, was a mass of wheals. He walked as if in a dream, staggering and swaying.
Harry looked even worse. There was a huge gash on one side of his head, oozing blood. Blood had seeped down his neck and shoulders and had dried there in a dark brown mess. Like Ian, he was covered in bloody gashes. He was limping as if he were lame. Shock and fear cut through Tom. What had the poor devils been through? And what did the Japs have in mind for them now. There was an idea in the back of his mind, but it was so dreadful he could not bring himself to acknowledge it.
The Ripper jumped down from the driver’s cab. He screamed something to one of the guards, who jumped on the back of the lorry and dragged out the two shovels. It was now clear why they had brought along the shovels.
Tom watched in horror as the guard pushed the shovels towards Harry and Ian. The Ripper strutted in front of them and pointed to the ground under the pomelo trees.
‘Dig!’ he yelled at them. ‘You dig!’
They both began to dig. They made slow and painful progress. It was obvious that neither man had any strength left. But this did not seem to bother their captors. They sat down on the ground to watch, as if it was street entertainment. They lit cigarettes and lounged there, laughing at the struggle of the two prisoners. Harry and Ian collapsed several times. When this happened, one of the guards would leap up and pull him to his feet, shoving the spade back into his hand and yelling, ‘Dig! Dig!’
Tom watched, transfixed, as two oblong trenches were slowly and painfully made on the ground before Harry and Ian.
On an impulse he stood up. ‘Ian! Harry!’ he yelled in a cracked voice. ‘I’m here. You’re not on your own. We’ll get out of this.’ He knew his words were pointless, but he needed to let them know he was there.
At first he thought they hadn’t heard him, but then Ian slowly turned his head in Tom’s direction. He was frowning, searching with swollen eyes, looking for Tom but unable to see where he was. Then the Ripper screamed, ‘Shut up! Sit down!’ and one of the guards leapt onto the lorry and pushed Tom down with the rifle butt. Another guard gave Ian a kick, and slowly Ian turned back to his gruesome task.
Helpless, Tom watched, while the guard held a rifle to his head. After Harry and Ian had been digging for some time, the sky darkened and there was a sudden clap of thunder. He felt the warm rain drench him as he stared at his friends. Ian and Harry slowed down, almost to a standstill.
The Ripper scrambled to his feet. ‘Work! Work! No stop!’
They worked on, but the earth had turned to mud and sludge, and the trenches had filled with water.
But by the time the two shallow graves had been dug, the rain had stopped and the tropical sun was once more streaming through the branches.
Then the Ripper stepped forward and pushed Harry and Ian against the trunks of the trees. He yelled his orders to the guards, who lined up in front of the truck, their rifles drawn.
The Ripper proceeded to put blindfolds on the men. However, Ian and Harry both pushed the blindfolds off their eyes. The Ripper shrugged and stepped away, and it was then that Ian lifted his head and saw Tom. Their eyes met. And Ian did a strange thing. He lifted his right arm and saluted Tom with sharp military precision. Tom, in turn, pushed the rifle aside and stood up in the truck, clicked his heels together and saluted back. He fixed his eyes on Ian’s face. He owed it to him to be strong. He would show these bastards he wasn’t scared. He held the salute, unaware that his face was contorted, that tears were streaming through the drying blood and dirt on his cheeks.
The Ripper screamed his final orders in Japanese, and the guards opened up their rifles. The sound of gunfire ripped through the clearing.
7
Laura stared at the stranger in her bed. She reached out a tentative hand to touch his arm, but the needle marks on his arms brought to mind the advertising hoardings she had seen on every street corner, showing granite gravestones engraved with ‘RIP’ and warning of AIDS. Instead, she grabbed his bony shoulder through the covers and shook him. He rubbed his eyes. His fingernails were lined with dirt and bitten raw.
‘Hey! Cool it, will you?’
‘Who the hell are you? This is my bloody flat.’
‘I’m Rory, Luke’s mate,’ he said groggily. ‘You’re Laura, right? We met at
