Even though the sun was only just rising, the temperature in the punishment pit was already uncomfortable. Trickles of sweat were running down his forehead and into his eyes. Every time he drew breath he almost retched from the acrid smell of vomit and faeces.
He peered through the bamboo slats of the cage around the top of the hole and watched the familiar routine of men standing in line and being counted by the guards. If anyone was not standing to attention correctly he was punished with a slap or a kick.
Tom noticed a few of the men glancing in his direction. Colonel Scott and Captain Strang were both pleading again with the Ripper in front of the guardhouse, gesticulating and pointing in Tom’s direction. The Ripper just dismissed them harshly. They wandered away, shaking their heads.
When the men queued at the cookhouse for breakfast, Tom waited for his plate of rice and cup of water; a guard shoved them into Tom’s pit through the bamboo slats. Once again, most of it spilled down the sides of the hole.
‘How is my friend?’ said Tom. The guard hesitated, eyeing him suspiciously.
Tom nodded towards the pit where they had put Archie. The guard stared at him for a moment, his face expressionless. Then he said, ‘No talk … No talk,’ then gestured running a knife across his throat. He slammed the corrugated iron back down on top of the bamboo and stomped away.
Tom tried to force himself to eat the food, but the rice was full of weevils and little stones, and was barely cooked. He gagged repeatedly whilst forcing it down his throat.
He watched the other men collect their tools from the sheds and set off on the long march to the railway cutting. And then, he heard a clap of thunder and the sudden sound of rain hitting the tin roof above him. It was deafening. The water began to seep through the top of the pit and trickle down the sides. The pit began to fill up with filthy stinking water. Soon Tom was standing up to his ankles in it.
He thought about the men struggling towards the cutting, slipping in the mud, soaked to the skin. He remembered how much worse the conditions at work became when it rained, and how, despite the tropical heat, it was impossible to get dry. The thatched roofs of the atap huts leaked at night as men lay shivering on their bunks.
The rain reached a crescendo and then eased off. Steam began to rise from the clearing. Tom wondered how Archie was bearing up. He glanced around and, seeing that there were no guards nearby, he called Archie’s name. He waited for a response, but there was none. He tried a few more times, and still heard no sound from the direction of Archie’s hole. Tom did not want to contemplate what might have happened to him.
‘Perhaps he’s asleep,’ he said to himself, not really believing his own words.
He knew he needed to put Archie out of his mind. He would go mad with worry otherwise. He forced himself to think about something else.
His mind wandered back to Joy. To the day when the two of them had gone to the beach together. Joy had carried her shoes and clung onto his arm, shrieking with a mixture of fear and pleasure, urging him to come out as the waves had lapped at her skirt.
‘Next time we should bring our bathing costumes and swim,’ he said as they walked back up the beach. She fell silent for a few moments.
‘I’m afraid I can’t swim,’ she finally admitted with woeful eyes.
‘Never mind, you can still splash around in the waves … And I could try teaching you. Would you like that?’
She brightened straight away and beamed up at him. ‘I’d like that very much.’
So the following weekend they had driven out towards one of the deserted beaches near Gertak Sanggul on the southern side of the island, stopping at a roadside food-stall on the way to pick up a lunch of fried rice wrapped in banana leaves and some bottles of soft drink.
When they reached the beach, Tom slipped into his trunks and spread out the towels as Joy got changed behind the bushes. She seemed to take a long time, and as she emerged she was tugging at the shorts of the old-fashioned bathing suit, pulling them over her legs modestly. Tom couldn’t resist a quick glance, taking in her slim brown thighs and the way the costume clung to her firm skin. He looked away quickly though, not wanting to embarrass her further.
He took her hand, and they walked together into the gently lapping waves and were soon wading deeper, pushing through the water with their thighs. But Joy began to pull back.
‘It’s cold!’
‘Believe me, Joy. It’s not really cold at all,’ he said laughing, ‘You’ll soon get used to it. This is nothing.’ He remembered shivering in his trunks as he had swum in the rain on Brighton beach one English summer’s day.
He held her hand tightly and she followed him deeper until the water swirled and eddied around their waists.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘Let’s try. You need to bob down so your shoulders are underwater. Then put your hands together in front of you like this, and push forwards through the water. Look. I’ll show you,’ and letting go of her hand he had demonstrated pushing off and taking a first stroke. Hesitantly at first, Joy did the same, her teeth chattering, a look of profound concentration fixed on her face. She crouched down and pushed forwards
