and…’ Then he stopped. ‘Wait a moment, there is something funny here.’
‘What?’
‘Well, it is just so…These plants…’ He crouched down, then looked round at me quickly. His lips had begun to curve into a smile, but his eyes were wide and I could literally see colour draining from his face. ‘This is a field,’ he said.
I froze. ‘A field?’
‘Yes. Look at the plants.’
‘But it can’t be a field. I mean, these islands are…’
‘The plants are in rows.’
‘Rows…’
We stared at each other.’ Jesus Christ,’ I said slowly. ‘Then we ‘re in deep shit.’
Etienne started running back towards me.
‘Francoise.’
‘She’s…’ My mind was filling with too many thoughts to answer the question. ‘…Coming,’ I eventually replied, but he had already passed me and was crouching over the slope.
‘She’s not there!’
‘But she was just behind me.’ I jogged to the ridge and looked over. ‘Maybe she slipped.’
Etienne stood up. ‘I will go down. You look here.’
‘Yes…Right.’
He began slithering down the mud, then I saw the yellow flash of her T–shirt in some trees further along the edge of the plateau. Etienne had already slid halfway down the slope and I threw a pebble at him to get his attention. He swore and began making his way back up.
Francoise had come out into the plateau, tucking her T–shirt into her shorts. ‘I needed the bathroom,’ she called.
I waved my hands frantically, mouthing at her to keep her voice down. She cupped a hand by her ear. ‘What? Hey! I have seen some people further up the mountain. They are coming this way. Maybe they are from the beach, no?’
Hearing her, Etienne called from down the slope, ‘Richard! Make her be quiet!’
I sprinted towards her. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, and then I’d reached her and was pushing her to the ground.
‘Shut up!’ I said, clamping my hand to her mouth.
She tried to squirm out of my grip and I pressed harder, bending her head back on her shoulders. ‘This is a dope field,’ I hissed, carefully enunciating each word. ‘Do you understand?’
Her eyes bulged wide and she started snorting through her nose. ‘Do you understand?’ I hissed again. ‘It’s a fucking field.’
Then Etienne was behind me, pulling at my arms. I dropped Francoise and, for a reason I still don’t understand, I lunged for his neck. He twisted behind me and wrapped his arms around my chest.
I tried to struggle but he was too strong. ‘You idiot! Let me go! There are people coming!’
‘Where are the people?’
‘On the mountain,’ Francoise whispered, rubbing her mouth. ‘Higher.’
He looked up to the second plateau. ‘I can’t see anyone,’ he said, easing his hold on me. ‘Listen. What is that?’
We all went silent but I couldn’t hear anything except blood pounding in my ears.
‘Voices,’ said Etienne quietly. ‘You can hear it?’
I strained to listen again. This time I found it, distant but getting clearer.
‘It’s Thai.’
I choked. ‘Fuck! We’ve got to run!’ I clambered to my feet but Etienne dragged me back down.
‘Richard,’ he said, and through my fear some part of me registered surprise at the calm expression on his face. ‘If we run we will be seen.’
‘So what do we do?’
He pointed to a dark copse. ‘We hide in there.’
¦
Lying flat against the earth, peering through the mesh of leaves, we waited for the people to appear.
At first it seemed that they would pass us out of sight, then a branch cracked and a man stepped into the field, close to where Etienne and I had been standing a few minutes before. He was young, maybe twenty, with a kick-boxer’s build. His chest was bare and etched with muscle, and he wore military trousers – dark-green and baggy, with pouches sewn into the legs. In his hand was a long machete. Slung over his shoulder was an automatic rifle.
I could feel Francoise’s body pressed against mine – she was trembling. I looked round, somehow thinking I might calm her, but I could feel the tightness in my face. She stared at me, eyebrows raised as if she wanted me to explain. I shook my head helplessly.
A second man appeared, older, also armed. They stopped and exchanged a few words. Though they stood more than twenty metres away, the curious looping sound of their language carried perfectly over the distance. Then another man called out from within the jungle and they set off again, vanishing over the ridge, down the slope we’d originally come from.
¦
Two or three minutes after their sing-song chatter had faded away, Francoise suddenly burst into tears. Then Etienne started crying too. He lay on his back and covered his eyes, his hands bunched into fists.
I watched the two of them blankly. I felt in limbo. The shock of discovering the fields and the tension while we’d been hiding had left me empty. I just knelt on the ground, sweat running from my hairline and down the side of my face, and thought of nothing.
Finally I managed to gather my wits. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Etienne was right. They didn’t know we were here, but they might find out soon.’ I reached for my bag. ‘We’ve got to leave.’
Francoise sat up, wiping her eyes on her mud-streaked T–shirt. ‘Yes,’ she muttered. ‘Come, Etienne.’
Etienne nodded. ‘Richard,’ he said firmly. ‘I do not want to die here.’
I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t think what to say.
‘I do not want to die here,’ he repeated. ‘You must get us out.’
? The Beach ?
20
Falling Down
I must get them out? Me? I couldn’t believe my ears. He’d been the one who’d kept his head when the dope guards were coming. I’d lost my shit. I felt like saying, ‘You fucking get us out!’
But just by looking at him I could tell he wasn’t about to take control of the situation. And neither was Francoise. She was gazing at me with the same scared, expectant expression as Etienne.
So, not having a choice, it ended up being me who took the decision to go on. In one direction there were gunmen, walking along the tracks we had ignorantly assumed were made by animals. Perhaps they were even on the way to the beach and would find a chocolate-wrapper or footprints that would betray our presence. In the other direction we didn’t know what we might find. Maybe more fields, maybe more gunmen, maybe a beach full of westerners, and maybe nothing at all.
Better the devil you know is a cliche I now despise. Hidden in the bushes, shivering with fright, I learnt that if the devil you know is the guard of a drug plantation, then all other devils pale in comparison.
¦
I have almost no recollection of the few hours after leaving the plateau. I think I was concentrating so hard on the immediate that my mind couldn’t afford space for anything else. Maybe to have a memory you need time for reflection, however brief, just to let the memory find a place to settle.
What I do have is a couple of snapshot images: the view from the pass looking back on the dope fields below
