‘I’m very tired, Captain. I’ve told the story several times already.’
‘One more time.’ Ghazali smiled. ‘For me.’
Elliot sighed. ‘I’ve been on holiday in Thailand.’
‘Where?’
‘Bangkok, then Pattaya Beach.’
Ghazali grinned. ‘Lots of pretty women at Pattaya, they tell me.’
‘Yes. Lots.’
‘Go on.’
‘I was sailing in the Gulf of Thailand.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes, alone. I got caught in a storm, lost my rudder and my outboard. I was drifting for several days before these people picked me up.’
‘Which explains why there is no exit stamp from Thailand on your passport.’ Ghazali removed his sunglasses and sucked the end of one of the legs thoughtfully. ‘You must be very grateful to them.’
‘I am. I injured my shoulder during the storm. They patched me up.’
Ghazali gazed at him with shrewd eyes. The story was plausible enough. It was Elliot who didn’t ring quite true. There was something about him. He didn’t look like a holidaymaker out for a sail. The weapons and kit that lay on the seabed a mile offshore might have told him more, had he known of their existence.
‘Is that why you are so keen to help this...’ He glanced at one of the passports. ‘This Ang woman and her family? Gratitude?’
‘That’s right. She told me her husband is in Bangkok. He escaped from Phnom Penh before the Khmer Rouge victory and now has US citizenship.’
‘Of course.’ Ghazali made no attempt to hide his sarcasm. ‘She has no doubt been in constant touch with him.’ He shook his head and lifted Elliot’s passport. ‘I have heard many such stories, Mistah Elliot. One grows weary of hearing the same tune.’
‘Why don’t you phone Bangkok?’
Ghazali stood up, his patience suddenly worn thin. ‘I would not waste my time, or my government’s money.’ He handed Elliot the passport. ‘You will remain here until immigration officials from Tumpat come to clear your entry into Malaysia and stamp your passport. Then you are free to return to Thailand. The border is only twenty miles from here.’
He moved towards the door. Elliot grabbed his arm. ‘Wait a minute! What about Mrs Ang?’
Ghazali pulled his arm free and glared at the Englishman. ‘Do not touch me again, Mistah Elliot. Mrs Ang and her children will be taken with the other refugees to Bidong.’
‘What’s Bidong?’
‘It is an island some way off the coast. If any country will take them, then it will be arranged by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They will find many like themselves there. Criminals and drug smugglers. These people have given us very much trouble.’
Elliot watched the captain of police climb into his waiting car and drive off. The policeman at the main door touched his arm. ‘You wait here for immigration.’
‘I know.’ He looked down to the beach and saw the first refugees wading out to the waiting launch. Serey was still squatting in the sand clutching her single bag of belongings. Ny was gazing out towards the launch. Hau spotted Elliot and waved.
As he approached them Serey rose to her feet. She knew at once from his face. ‘My passport?’
He shook his head. ‘They kept it. They say you have to go with the others.’
‘And you?’ Ny asked.
‘They’re letting me stay.’
Serey held out her hand. ‘I’ll say goodbye, then, Mistah Elliot. And thank you.’
He took her hand and shook it. ‘For what?’
‘Our lives.’
Ny threw her arms round him and pushed her face into his chest. She clung to him for several moments, long enough for him to feel her stifled sobs. Then she turned away and, taking her mother’s hand, started wading towards the launch without a backward glance. Hau stood uncertainly for a time, then he too held out his hand. Elliot shook it firmly, and the boy turned away to hurry after his mother and sister, fighting hard not to let the tears show.
Those who still remained on the beach came in turn to shake his hand: the doctor who had dressed his wounds, the captain who had saved his life. They all smiled their gratitude. And he watched them head out to the waiting boat. He had done everything he could. He knew that they did not blame him. He would tell Ang that his family were on Bidong Island. His money and his passport would buy their freedom from there. Yet still he could not turn away. The only reason he could stay and they must go was the colour of his skin, the crest on his passport. But his skin colour had not mattered to any of these people when they had saved his life. He remembered how Ny had washed out his wounds with her own urine, how she had lain with him to give him her body warmth when his fever had left him shivering. He remembered that it was Serey who had got them all safely out of Phnom Penh, that it was Hau who, along with McCue, had dragged him, bleeding, halfway across the city. He had come to rescue them, and it was they who had rescued him.
He turned and walked back across the sand and climbed the steps to the hotel. He found the American, Calvin, sitting in the lounge, smoking a cigar and reading a copy of the International Herald Tribune. Calvin turned and smiled as he approached. ‘I hear they’re letting you stay, Mr Elliot.’
‘That’s right. I wonder if you’d do me a favour?’
‘Sure.’ He folded up his paper. ‘How can I help you?’
The last of the refugees clambered aboard the launch, helped by the Malay policemen. The anchor was retrieved and the driver started the motor. The relief of only a few hours before at safely reaching land had turned now to confusion and uncertainty. A warm breeze blew from the land as the sun dipped low in a sky glowing pink in the west.
The driver gunned the motor, and was about to slip the engine into gear when one of his fellow officers tapped him on the shoulder and pointed towards the shore. A single figure was wading towards the launch. The driver released the throttle and let the engine drop back to an idle. Elliot reached the boat and, with the help of outstretched arms, pulled himself aboard. The officers looked at him uncertainly. Elliot waved a hand dismissively. ‘Don’t let me hold you back.’
Serey pushed past the others and stared up at him. ‘What are you doing?’
Elliot shrugged. ‘I guess I’m going with you.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
Bidong Island was a lump of rock that rose three hundred metres out of the sea, its steep flanks choked by jungle sweeping down to narrow coral sand beaches fringed with coconut palms. The light was fading as the Malay police launch chugged past the French ship, Isle de Lumière, which lay anchored in the bay and served as a floating hospital. As they drew closer they could see that the whole of one side of the hill had been stripped of all vegetation. A tropical island slum of three-storey shanties climbed its slopes. The frames of the wretched dwellings had been constructed from the timbers of the trees felled to make way for them. Walls were made of tin and cardboard and bark, roofs from blue plastic sheeting, or bone-coloured waterproof sacks. The smoke of countless fires drifted up in the dusk, like mist.
As the launch drew in at the jetty, they were met by the stink of human excrement and the smell of woodsmoke. A large crowd of several hundred refugees was gathered on the beach among rotting piles of refuse to watch the new arrivals. At the other end, near the jetty, an incinerator was nearing completion, paid for no doubt by meagre sums of money provided to salve the collective Western conscience. Beyond it, on an outcrop of rocks, figures crouched in silhouette, defecating into the sea near the wreck of a twenty-metre boat lying in the shallows.