‘We’ll stay where we are,’ Elliot said.
The young Chinese scratched his head. ‘I don’t understand. Very desirable property near beach. I pull plenty string to get you new house.’
‘Why? Because I’m white?’
‘You should not be here, Mistah Elliot, with refugee. Make no sense. Plenty sickness here. Hepatitis, typhoid, tuberculosis. Could be on Bidong long time. Not healthy for white man. No resistance. Take house near beach, is better.’
Elliot shook his head. ‘We’re leaving. Tomorrow night, with a bit of luck.’
Minh nodded, understanding. ‘You make deal with Fat Bao.’
‘Yes, I make deal, Minh.’
Minh lowered his voice. ‘You be very careful, Mistah Elliot. Fat Bao dangerous man. He has no honour. You cannot trust.’
‘Thanks for the warning.’
Minh looked at him sadly. ‘You don’t take serious. I tell you, Mistah Elliot, Fat Bao he cut your throat and take your money. Thirty-five people from camp go missing since I arrive. All involve with Fat Bao and black market. They food for fishes now, I think.’
When Minh had gone, Elliot went inside and searched through the bag of their belongings. Masking what he was doing from the other occupants of the room, he lifted out a bundle of rags and unwrapped his Colt.45 automatic pistol. He checked the recoil action and the contents of the seven-round box magazine, in case of water damage. He did not want to be caught short if things went wrong.
The following day came and went under a blistering tropical sun. They went early to queue for water on the beach, but by the time they were climbing the hill again, with their eight litres, the fierce heat of the day was reflecting at them from every surface. As constant as the heat was the babble of voices, raised sometimes in laughter, sometimes in argument. All around them people worked and ate and slept and made love. There was no privacy among the washing lines strung out across the narrow alleys, but many secrets. This was a society fraught with mistrust and petty jealousies. Yet there was, too, a great comradeship. A sense of hunger and hardship shared. It was a microcosm of any slum, anywhere in the world, where optimism prevails over hopelessness. A ticket to freedom, resettlement in the West, was the equivalent of a win on the lottery.
There was no word from Fat Bao, and the day passed slowly, eating, sleeping, a constant search for escape from the heat and the flies. Night brought no relief from the heat, and for Elliot little sleep. His shoulder ached constantly, and he began to fear that the wound had become reinfected. All day, Serey’s mood had been morose. She had spoken little, and through the long hours of the night Elliot was aware that she too slept little, and even then only in restless fits.
In the morning, Elliot went to the tin-roofed medical clinic in the centre of the camp to have his wound examined. He sat waiting for nearly three hours, wide-eyed undernourished children and their mothers staring at him with bleak faces. One man, with a suppurating stump of an arm, arrived after Elliot and sat ashen-faced. The pain expressed by his eyes was past bearing, and yet he sat in silence with a seemingly endless, patient endurance. When it came to Elliot’s turn he let the man go first. But there was no room in those eyes for gratitude, only surprise amid the pain. All it cost Elliot was another twenty minutes.
Dr Nguen Xuan Trieu was a middle-aged man with a pale, educated face. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and examined Elliot’s wound with a clinical interest. His English was impeccable. ‘A bullet wound,’ he said. ‘I have not seen many of those since the war ended.’ He displayed no curiosity as to how Elliot might have come by it. Nor any sympathy. ‘How have you treated it?’ he asked.
‘It was washed out with urine, and the poison drawn out with poultices.’
‘You are lucky to be alive,’ he said. ‘I have seen men die from a scratch in these conditions. There is a little fungal infection around the new tissue growth.’ He dabbed the wound with some white cream and re-dressed it. ‘It needs proper attention. Unfortunately I do not have the facilities, or the medicines. Children are dying from malnutrition. There is meningitis and typhoid. I cannot spare antibiotics for bullet wounds.’
When Elliot got back to the shanty house, one of Fat Bao’s minions was waiting, a boy who could not have been more than fifteen. He seemed nervous of Elliot, and his eyes flickered over him warily. ‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘Midnight. On beach other side of Religion Hill.’
‘Where the hell’s Religion Hill?’
‘Ask,’ said the boy, and he hurried away down the hill, quickly obscured by the washing lines. Elliot glanced up and saw Serey watching him from the terrace.
Religion Hill turned out to be the rocky promontory where the former Presbyterian Moderator had set up his church in the wreck of a refugee boat. The beach beyond it was deserted. The midnight lights of the Vien Du, on the jetty side of the church, cast a faint glow across the white coral sands. Carried on the night breeze, the nasal voice of a girl singing some Vietnamese hit song had replaced the daytime chants of the English class: ‘Where is Buckingham Palace?’
Elliot stepped cautiously on to the beach, disturbing dozens of crabs that scuttled off into the night chasing their long shadows. Two tiny canoes no more than five feet long, crudely fashioned from fallen trees, lay side by side at the water’s edge. They were not big enough to hold a man, nor stable enough to remain upright if they could. A flashlight shone in his face, and two figures detached themselves from the shadows of the palms. ‘You Elliot?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where others?’
He couldn’t see their faces. ‘Turn that thing off.’
There was a moment’s hesitation before the light went out. Elliot blinked away the circle of black in front of his eyes. Both men were in their twenties. One had close-cropped hair and a scar on his temple. The other had long greasy hair that flopped over his eyes. The one with long hair glanced nervously, several times, in the direction of the Vien Du. ‘Where others?’ he insisted.
Elliot signalled towards the trees, and Ny and Hau emerged, followed by Serey still clutching her bag.
‘Hurry!’ whispered Long Hair. ‘Police patrol regular.’
The women and the boy fell in behind Elliot. He said, ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Hold on back of boats and swim. Straight out. Three kilometre. Boat waiting. You see light long way in dark.’
Cropped Head strode down the sand to the boats. ‘We help you push off.’
Elliot nodded to Long Hair, indicating that they would follow him. The Vietnamese shrugged and moved ahead.
The water was warm around their ankles as they pushed the boats into the shallows. Elliot remained standing at the water’s edge. ‘You go,’ Long Hair urged. ‘Quick.’
‘We’ll go when you’ve gone,’ Elliot said.
The two Vietnamese exchanged glances. ‘Okay,’ said Cropped Head. They moved reluctantly away from the boats, towards the beach. Long Hair grinned at Hau and held out his hand.
‘Good luck.’
Hau took the hand and was jerked suddenly, almost off his feet. The Vietnamese reeled him in like a fish on a line, clamping a hand over his mouth and pulling the back of the boy’s head to his chest. A blade flashed in the dark and pressed into the soft flesh of his neck. A trickle of blood appeared. Elliot stepped quickly back as the other man produced a long, thin-bladed knife from the folds of his tunic. Serey choked back a scream and grasped her daughter’s arm.
‘What do you want?’ Elliot’s voice remained steady and calm.
‘Open the bag.’ Cropped Head’s knife was shaking in his hand.
Elliot snatched the bag from Serey.
Long Hair tensed. His eyes were wild. ‘I kill the boy!’