We got to Man Ying just as the curfew bell was ringing. I was ahead of the other two and warned the gatekeeper that my two companions were coming. A few people gathered around and asked why I had returned. I did my best to tell them, and the news soon spread. I was then met by the priest and some notables. Among them was the young man from the YMCA.
The French priest took us all back to the Mission, where we occupied the same places that we had vacated previously. There was no doubt that the episode had shaken us all. I asked Bland how much money he still had. He answered that he only had a few rupee coins and that was all. Lacey had nothing. I had the sixty rupees rolled up in a piece of blue paper tucked in the inside pocket of my jacket.
We expected to hear some reports of the man that I had at least injured, but there were none. It was said that the local authorities had been out into the surrounding hills in search of our goods and pony, but nothing came of it and after a short time no mention of it was heard again.
We hung around the Mission. I was not feeling too well. I was hoping that I had not got a bout of malaria coming on. The priest advised me to stay in bed after he had taken my temperature. It was on the second day I was in bed that news came to us of a small number of British soldiers at a village called Tiu-Tien, two days’ march away to the south. I told Bland and Lacey to try and find out more about them, so they both went to the YMCA, in whom I had little trust now. News must have travelled fast, for they brought back a message, written on rough paper: ‘We are at Tiu-Tien. Come if you wish. J. Friend.’
I was at that moment not fit to walk down the road, let alone walk for two and a half days in the jungle. But Bland and Lacey said that they were going back into town to get more news. I paid no attention to this. After all, we had been here, sitting still for nearly a week. So, I just laid back and rested.
My fever had now begun to really get hold of me, and when my companions returned I could not keep a limb still. They told me that they were setting off early the next morning and that they had got someone to show them the way. I was a little shocked at this, and the words that Bland had said came back to me, about me not leaving him and that if I was ever in the same situation, he would stay with me. Well, was it not similar?
I just covered my head with the thick blankets that the priest had laid on me. I was now shaking from head to toe, but I tried to sleep. I dimly remember the two of them coming to me and drawing back the blankets and saying, ‘Farewell, see you when you get better.’
I know that I was in no immediate danger and neither were they. So they, at least Bland, did not have to dash off. And what about Lacey? What sort of reception would he get from the others? This went over and over in my mind.
During the rest of the day, the priest brought me hot fluids, as that was all I could manage, plus some drops of medicine that he gave me at intervals.
I was awakened by a hand shaking me by the shoulder. It was dark, and I was standing at the doors in the courtyard of the Mission. A Chinese man and woman led me back to the priest. He in turn led me back to my bed. It seemed that I had woken in my feverish sleep and tried to go to my companions.
It was on the third day that the fever broke and I was able to get up and go for a short walk into town with the help of the French priest. There I had a talk with the young man at the YMCA. I did not trust him fully at first until I asked him what had become of his ‘guide’. He was puzzled and informed me that neither he nor his colleagues had sent us a guide. When he told me this, I began to have some faith in him again. He told me that when I made up my mind to go he would see to it that no harm came to me on the journey to my friends.
Two days later I set off with two genuine guides to whom I was introduced at the YMCA. With the fever still in me I was feeling a little weak and found it difficult to keep up with them, and now and then they stopped and waited for me to catch up.
It was about five in the afternoon when we entered quite a large village. There the two men led me to a dingy-looking house. Through the door we entered a large room with cubicles arranged around the walls. In the cubicles were bunks in three. Upon these bunks men were either asleep or smoking opium pipes. The air was full of blue smoke as the half-drugged men on the bunks sucked on their pipes.
A large-built woman came forward as we entered and spoke to my two guides. I did not hear what was said, but she turned to me and said in what seemed a foreign tongue to follow her. She led me to a bunk that was not occupied, neither the upper or lower. I was in a cubicle on my own. Then she asked me in Mandarin, ‘Do you want food?’
I answered ‘Yes,’ and thanked her.
‘Do you want tea and a bed for the night also?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I answered, thanking her again.
She returned after a short time with a steaming bowl of rice and a bowl of curried vegetables. ‘Do you want spoon or chopsticks?’ she asked.
‘Wor you kuaizi,’ I answered, meaning chopsticks. This made her raise her eyebrows. She went quickly to get them, and I had a small audience watch me eat until she made them move away.
No one bothered me. The woman came once and asked whether I wanted any more blankets to cover me. Of my two guides I saw nothing.
It was still dark when the woman awoke me with some hot green tea. An oil lamp on the wall burned. I asked her if I could wash, and she brought me a cloth and showed me to the well outside.
Before leaving, I thanked her and asked how much I owed her, but she refused any money and wished me a safe journey. I set off with my two guides, who soon began to leave me behind. This time they did not wait for me to catch up, so I was left on my own.
I did not hurry, but just strolled along in my own time at my own slow pace. I just kept following the Taiping River on my left hand side.
There were times when I lost sight of the river completely, when the track veered away and went into the thick jungle and ran alongside paddy fields. Here I asked the workers planting rice if I was on the right track for Tiu-Tien, and they assured me that I was.
Another track forked onto the one I was on and with it came a young Chinese youth of about fourteen. At first he walked behind me, keeping his distance and not trying to go past. After some time I waited and let him come abreast of me and asked if he was going to Tiu-Tien. He answered no. He was carrying a long bamboo pole across his shoulder, and from the end of it hung two large baskets, with a small pig in one basket and rice and vegetables in the other. He told me that he had been to a market in a village some ten miles away to buy the goods he was carrying, and was taking them back to his own village which was about three more hours walking.
After walking for some time the youth said that he would find me shelter for the night at his village. I had told him where I was heading and he said that I would not reach Tiu-Tien until the next day. I then let him take the lead and followed him. It was getting dark when we turned off the main track and took a fork which led us into quite a large built-up area. Once again we had to pass through a gate in the wall that surrounded the village. The youth then led me to a whitewashed house. This, too, had a wall around it. The youth knocked on a large door in the wall. After a short wait, the door was opened and a very tall woman dressed in royal blue and black costume came into view. On her head was a tall hat of the same colours, making her look even taller.
The youth went forward and spoke to her, leaving me standing away from the door. She peered at me and seemed to be measuring me up and down. She then bent down and said something to the youth who went inside. The door was closed behind him and the woman, leaving me standing alone.
After what seemed a long time the door opened again and the youth came out less his baskets, and told me to follow him. He led me through some trees to a Buddhist pagoda. Before entering, he motioned for me to take off my boots and socks, which were by this time well-worn and barely covered my feet. I left them on the steps and entered behind him.
Inside I could hardly believe my eyes. The floor was of very highly planed polished teakwood which would not have been out of place in any large dancehall in Britain. From the ceiling hung glass chandeliers lit by oil lamps that reflected the light ten thousand times over. Around the walls were different poses of the Buddha. At the far end and away from the door was a twelve-foot-high Buddha in the sitting position with legs crossed and the hands on the lap. This Buddha was covered with pure gold, and in the centre of the forehead was a large red stone that now and then caught the light of the chandeliers as they moved in the slight breeze, which also made the glass tinkle in an uncannily tuneful way.
I was taking in all this wonderment when the youth drew my attention to a Buddhist monk who seemed to have come from nowhere. He was dressed in the usual orange robe and had the usual shaven head. His eyes were slanted and dark, and he was slimly built and slightly shorter than me.
I had removed my hat on entering. I stood with my feet together, put my hands together and bowed slightly in the manner that we had been taught to greet people of the Orient. The monk returned my greeting in the same manner and motioned me to sit. We sat cross-legged facing each other. The youth left us alone.
The monk spoke to me in a strange language. I told him in Mandarin that I did not understand him. From his manner and the shaking of his head, I guess that he did not understand me either. So we tried sign language. He asked where I had come from, and I managed to make him understand that I had walked from Burma and was on my way to join my friends at Tiu-Tien.
The youth returned with a basket and a kettle which he gave to the monk. The youth spoke in the strange language to the monk and motioned towards me. He then turned to me and said in Mandarin, ‘The Great Lady has sent you food and drink and she hopes that you will sleep well and have a good journey tomorrow.’ He retreated to the door of the pagoda, bowed and said, ‘Zaijian, Yinggelanren, Zaijian.’ (‘Goodbye, English, Goodbye.’)
I bowed my head to him and answered, ‘Zaijian,’ before he turned and disappeared into the blackness outside.
The monk helped himself to the food first before offering me the basket. The kettle contained green tea, which the monk poured out into two small teacups that had no handles. The food was piping hot, so was the tea. I ate everything and drank all the remaining tea in the kettle.
After my meal, I rose and walked around, still amazed at the magnificent splendour of the interior of the pagoda. The monk brought me a mat and a blanket for my bed.
There was some kind of fear about sleeping in the pagoda, but at the same time I was very glad that I had not been forced to sleep out in the jungle that night. I awoke several times to have a look around, but all was silent and the lights were on all through the night. I arose when it was light outside, rolled up the mat and folded the blanket and sat waiting for the monk to appear.
I thanked the monk as best as I could, and then he walked to the steps to watch me as I put on my boots. He stood on the steps and pointed towards a path that went between the trees and said, ‘Tiu-Tien.’ Again I thanked him and turned towards the path. I looked back and he was still standing on the steps. I waved at him until the trees blocked the view.
It must have been about six thirty when I left the pagoda. I had been walking for about three hours and had not taken any rests as I did not know how far I had to go to reach my destination. I did not want to spend a night in the jungle. Being on my own, I was courting trouble and I did not like the look of the countryside anyway.
The path led me away from the river and up onto some high ground. I had just climbed a small hillock and was making my way down when I saw at the side of the track a small mound of earth with a rough cross at one end. Upon the cross hung a bush hat. The hat swung around and back in the slight breeze. For a moment I stood still, and then walked a few steps closer. I knew the hat. It was Jock Johnson’s. I took the hat from the wooden cross and looked at the words that had been roughly cut out. It was Jock’s name, rank and the abbreviation of our unit. There was no date. For a moment I was unable to move. I just stared down at the mound of earth. I replaced the hat and sat nearby. The last words that he had said to me before leaving came back to me. ‘I’ll see you in China.’ The beer parties, football matches and dances that we had enjoyed together all went before my eyes as I sat there. I rose to my feet, took a last look at the mound of earth, and with a lump in my throat walked away.
I had been walking about another half an hour when, coming round a sharp bend and near the river bank, I met Lacey and a Chinese.
‘Hello, Fred,’ Lacey greeted me, ‘I thought you would be about here.’
‘Hello,’ I greeted him, ‘but how did you know I was coming?’
‘Oh, we had two men come to us yesterday,’ he replied, ‘they told us that you were on your way here.’
He turned and walked with me. For a time we were both silent. The picture of Jock’s grave was still in my mind and, of course, Lacey being the first person I saw did not help matters.
At last I broke the silence. ‘How far is this place?’
‘About four miles and it’s terrible,’ he replied quickly.
‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Well, in the first place,’ he began, ‘it’s in the stinking swamps, and secondly they can’t get any decent food there,’ he said bitterly.
‘Well, why have they gone there?’ I asked, looking at him.
‘They got ambushed by some bandits. The two Indians got killed and Friend got wounded,’ he went on.
I stopped walking, and he stood facing me. ‘Blimey!’ I shouted, ‘And what about the others?’
‘Ginger and Ballantyne are down with the squirts,’ he continued. ‘They’ve caught a bug and also have something else wrong with them, and now Bland has gone down with the squirts as well.’
‘Bloody hell!’ I swore, ‘Not already!’
As I began to walk again, I said, ‘It sounds a grim place to me.’
Lacey fell in beside me as we went along the path. After a while, he said, ‘Did you see Jock’s grave?’
I turned my head sideways to look at him, but he was looking at the ground. When I answered, ‘Yes, I saw it!’ his head came up and turned to look at me. I looked him in the eyes and went on, ‘That’s one for you to carry on your back. One that we know of.’
We walked on in silence after that, until we came in sight of a wooden building through some mangrove trees that grew quite thickly. ‘That’s it there,’ said Lacey, pointing his finger in the direction of some more buildings that had come into view.
The ground underfoot had become soggy, and the path wound in and out of the thickly growing trees. On each side of the track was dank green smelly water. We had to jump across this to make it to the path that led us to the buildings. As we neared the wooden double-tiered huts I could see that they were broken down and hardly fit to live in. Some of them had been half pulled down already. There were about six buildings in all.
I had to ask myself the question, why of all places had Friend come here? Surely, I thought, everyone would have been better off, both for food and health reasons, to make for higher ground. I had made this assessment even before I had got into the buildings.
Lacey led the way up a rickety flight of stairs to the second floor, turned to the right and entered a long room. In the middle of the room, lying on some dirty straw and covered by some old blankets, were Ginger and Ballantyne. At the side of the room, against a window, Bland lay on another bale of dirty straw. Next to him were spaces for two more beds.
I went first to where I could see Ginger’s red hair poking from the blanket. He did not know that I was there until I pulled back the blanket from his head. His eyes opened wide at seeing me. His white face glistened with sweat and looked whiter surrounded by the red of his beard and uncombed rough red hair. His blue eyes softened when he said, ‘Hello, Fred.’ His voice was not the voice of the Ginger I had known with the laughing Yorkshire accent. It was that of a weak tired man.
Ballantyne must have heard us, and pulled back the blanket from his head. His face too was the colour of parchment, set against his black hair and beard. ‘Hello, Fred,’ he greeted me in a weak sickly voice with the barest trace of Scottish accent. ‘How nice to see you again.’
‘Hello,’ I greeted both of them, ‘and what the hell is holding you two down? Come on, let’s have you up and about like you used to be,’ I joked. But they did not laugh, not even a grin. They both rolled over onto their backs as I sat between the two of them.
‘Come on, lads, tell me all about yourselves.’ I tried to draw them out, but for a moment they lay still and silent, looking up at the roof.
Then Ginger began. ‘Fred, we’re sorry about the messages and the signs. We wanted to leave some and make signs for you to follow, but Johnny said that it would be a giveaway and anyway,’ – he paused – ‘he didn’t think you would get through.’
‘That figures,’ I said.
‘Friend got in with some Chinese bloke, who asked him to escort some refugees eastwards.’
‘How many?’ I cut in.
Ginger took another breath, ‘About three hundred.’
‘The stupid bastard,’ I muttered half to myself. ‘Go on,’ I urged Ginger.
‘The bandits were waiting for us, dug in, on some high ground. Their two first shots killed the Indians.’
‘Stop,’ I almost shouted. ‘Don’t tell me, they were the two front scouts!’
‘How did you know that, Fred?’ asked Ginger, raising his head.
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Carry on.’
Ginger dropped his head back and went on. ‘The whole bleeding lot panicked and got in our way. After the first two shots, we couldn’t do a thing.’ He paused again. ‘Ballantyne and I tried to get on the flank and fire into the side of them, but we heard Friend shouting. We went back and found that he had been hit.’ Another pause. ‘He told us to bring him back to this place. We had lost everything, the mule and all.’ He hesitated again. ‘Bally was the only one who hadn’t put his money in with the rest on the mule.’
‘Where are your rifles now?’ I asked, looking around the room.
‘The Chinese army came and took them from us,’ replied Ginger.
‘Who had Jock’s Tommy-gun when you were ambushed?’ I asked.
‘Nobody,’ answered Ginger.
‘How come?’ I asked.
‘Well, when Jock died,’ Ginger went on, ‘Friend dismantled it and threw it away. He said we wouldn’t need it.’
Ballantyne then spoke up for the first time. ‘I told him not to throw it away, but he wouldn’t listen.’
‘How stupid can a man get?’ I asked myself out loud. ‘Just one burst from it and the bandits would probably have run.’
The talking had done Ginger a little good for there was some colour coming back into his face, and he was now sitting up.
‘Tell me what happened to Jock?’ I asked, looking at one of the walls.
‘When Johnny decided to turn south,’ Ginger began, ‘Jock played merry hell with Friend. He said that we were not playing fair with you in not leaving any signs and messages of where we were heading. Jock was going to turn back and try to locate you, but he got that fever.’ Ginger stopped and swallowed hard. There were tears in his eyes as he went on. ‘Do you know, Fred? It’s very funny, but right up to the end Jock kept on calling for you.’
I sat in silence looking at my feet. A lump had come into my throat. Ginger continued talking. ‘He said that you were the only one who could save him. That is why, Fred, I’m very glad that you have come.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what help I can give you, except get you to come out of these filthy beds and get moving around. When did you have a decent meal last?’
Ballantyne raised himself up on one arm and said, ‘We have been here for three weeks, and all we had to eat is just rice and what looks like cabbage.’
‘How much money did you say you had, Bally?’ I asked the Scot.
‘Two thousand rupees in ten notes,’ he replied.
I put out my hand. ‘Give me ten, and I’ll go and bring back some fresh fruit and other stuff for you to eat.’
‘I haven’t got it, Fred,’ he said. ‘Johnny took it all off me. He said he was to have charge of everything.’
‘He did what?’ I shouted. ‘He had no right to take that money from you. The colonel gave you that money for yourself, to do what you like.’
Bland had now come and joined us, and I asked him, ‘What do you think about this lot, Bill?’
‘Well, he shouldn’t have taken all of it. That is a fact,’ he replied.
‘Were you two fit when he took the money?’ I asked the two of them.
‘Yes, we were,’ they both answered.
‘And he wasn’t, I suppose?’ I asked.
‘No! Far from it,’ Ginger came back. ‘He had been hit in the eye and hand. We had to lead him!’ Ballantyne nodded in agreement.
I glanced at both Bland and Lacey. There was a smirk on Bland’s face, while Lacey just shook his head and looked down.
‘And where is Sergeant Friend?’ I asked.
Bland answered, ‘He’s in the room across the veranda.’ He pointed his finger. ‘He never comes in here. He stays there all on his own.’
I got to my feet, walked out and went into the room opposite. The sergeant had his back to me. He was looking out of an open window. He never moved. He must have heard me enter, for my boots made enough noise, but he stood still. From behind him I could see that he had got his arm in a black sling.
I went to him on the right hand side. ‘Hello, Sergeant,’ I greeted him.
He half turned, and I could see that he had also got a black patch over one eye. It looked comical, but I did not laugh or even smile. ‘Oh, so you got here at last then!’ he snapped, as though I had been late on parade.
‘Yes, Sergeant, I got here,’ I snapped back, ‘and it’s no thanks to you!’
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked, going red in the face.
‘I mean the messages and signs that you promised to leave for us,’ I came back at him.
‘Er-oh-er, I ran out of paper,’ he stammered.
‘What about verbal messages then?’ I snapped.
‘Well, er, I couldn’t trust the villagers, could I?’ he stammered again.
‘And I suppose you couldn’t even trust Father McGovern, either, could you, Sergeant?’ I asked him slowly, and watched his face as he tried to find an answer.
He never answered my question but turned to me fully and said, ‘Look, you don’t have to stay here, if you don’t want to.’
I went closer to him, and almost putting my face into his, said, ‘Sergeant, I’ll go when I cannot help them, those two in there, any more.’
‘They’re alright,’ he said casually. ‘They don’t need your help.’
‘I’ll decide that, Sergeant!’ I threw back at him.
He turned back towards the window. For a moment there was a silence.
‘You have some money belonging to Ballantyne, I believe?’ I asked him.
He turned and almost screamed at me. ‘I have got no money belonging to him. It belongs to me! He lost all his money on the mule.’ His face was scarlet.
‘Well, Sergeant, from what he tells me, you have two thousand rupees of his, and I want ten rupees now,’ I said, being a little cheeky, ‘so that I can go and get some fresh food for them to eat.’
‘Oh no, you will not, I shall not give you any money to go and spend,’ he glared at me with his one good eye. ‘They are getting quite sufficient to eat.’ He turned back and faced the window.
‘Is that your final word?’ I asked.
‘Yes, it is!’ he snapped.
‘Alright, Sergeant,’ I said, ‘but if those two men die here, it will be through your stupidity and selfishness.’
I turned and walked to the door. I then stopped and turned back to him. ‘Oh, and by the way, what happened to Jock’s Tommy-gun?’ I asked.
I had taken him by surprise. Again he began to stammer. ‘Oh-er, the spring broke, so I threw it way. Yes, that’s right, the spring broke, and I dumped it.’
I chuckled loudly and walked out.
On my return to the other room, Ginger and Ballantyne wanted to know what had transpired between me and Friend. I told them of his attitude towards giving up any of the money, and that I had my own views on why he wanted to hold on to the cash. I asked, ‘Have you any money between you?’ Both men answered that they had got none. I wanted to hang on to the few rupees I had just in case I did make a move and go off on my own, a thought that had crossed my mind often while walking alone. I asked where Smith, the other man of the party, was, but Ginger and Ballantyne assured me that he did not have any money either. I turned to Bland and Lacey and asked how much we could muster between us.
‘I have five rupees,’ Bland answered.
Lacey said, ‘I’ve got nothing, you know that, Fred.’
I took out the blue paper roll from my pocket that contained the sixty rupees. With Bland’s five that made a grand total of sixty-five rupees. Turning again to the two sick men, I asked, ‘Who is the best person to go to in Tiu-Tien, who may help us?’
‘There is a man who owns the bread and cake shop. He always gave us a few cakes and things until Friend stopped us going there,’ Ginger informed me.
‘Bloody hell!’ I swore. ‘Has he been fixing bleeding bounds as well? Come on! Take me to Tiu-Tien,’ I said to Bland and Lacey.
We had to walk a mile and a half to reach Tiu-Tien, which was a similar sized town to Man-Ying. It was a new town built when it was decided to abandon the old one – where the lads were staying – because of so much fever and disease.
We found the bakery quite easily, and the cheerful-looking, middle-aged man inside answered my greetings with a smile. Two or three local women were in the shop making purchases. The man asked me to wait on one side.
As soon as the shop emptied he asked what he could do for me. From my pocket I took out one of the five rupee notes and spread it before him. I asked him if he would give me Chinese yuan in exchange for it. He looked at it for a few moments and then shook his head. In a pitiful and pleading voice I said, ‘Wor-mun-yow jung-gwor-chien, liang-gor, ying-gwor-bing, sher-dah-dien, boo-how, ta-mun-yow-cher-fan, nee-gay-wor-shing-shur?’ (‘We want Chinese money to buy food for two English soldiers who are very sick. Will you give it to us?’)
For a moment he stood and looked at the three of us. He looked down at the rupee note and back at me. Suddenly he nodded his head and waved his hand for me to follow him into the back of the shop.
I did not expect above two and a half yuan, but when I showed my gratitude at three yuan he put into my hand another half yuan. At this gesture, I almost kissed him. His face broke into a big smile at the way I embraced him, and he led me back into the shop. There he began sorting over a number of cakes from a tray, wrapped them in paper and handed them to me. I asked him how much, but he waved his hand, saying, ‘Wor-boo-yow-chien.’ (‘I want no money.’)
After thanking him we found a stall where they sold meat. Picking out a long thick piece, I asked the woman seller how much. ‘One and a half yuan,’ she answered. I shook my head and said that it was too dear. The woman then turned and pointed to another piece. ‘One yuan,’ she said. I then began to tell her about our two sick friends. At last she gave me the larger piece for one yuan. From there we went to the fruit stall. Here again I told the same story and got more for our money.
We returned to the sick men. First I made them eat a raw egg each. Then I gave them a couple of cakes. Smith, Bland and I cut up the meat and potatoes and put the whole lot into one big pot. We cooked the cabbage separately. When the stew was ready we got two bamboo bowls and poured some of the thick rich soup into them and took them to Ginger and Ballantyne. ‘Here you are,’ I said, ‘soup for starters.’ After they had finished that we got plates of rice and onto it we dished out the stew. For sweets we chopped banana and cakes. The amazing thing was that they ate everything. They said that it was the first time in weeks that they had really fancied what had been put in front of them.
After the meal Ginger asked if we could help him get on his feet. Bland and I duly obliged, only too glad to see he was making some effort.
It certainly proved my point that all they wanted was at least one good meal a day. After that we went down to town every day, but as is usual we began to be a nuisance and we could hardly get anything as time went on. We became known as the English beggars.
I went to the sergeant and once again pleaded with him to spend some of the money that he kept, but he flatly refused to even listen to what I had to say.
I told Bland and Lacey that I was intending to make my way back to Man Ying, try to pass the place where we had been ambushed, and push northwards on our original plan. They both readily agreed to come with me. So, after our evening meal I went to the sergeant and told him of our intentions. I also reminded him of the colonel’s last words to us, that should any man jeopardise the rest, then he was to be given twenty-four-hour grace, and then left behind. I said that we had given them all the time stated, as he had done when he left Bland and me. He fully agreed to this, wished us ‘all the luck’ and hoped that we would meet again in India. I told him that we would be off at dawn the next day.
We said our goodbyes the next morning to Smith, Ginger and Ballantyne. We then went to the sergeant to say goodbye. It was barely light. He got up from his bed and to my surprise he shook me by the hand. ‘Good luck,’ he said smiling, ‘and watch out for the saubur. He is a big man and the leader of the bandits around here. It was him who ambushed us.’
‘Where does he hang out?’ I asked.
‘Oh, anywhere between here and Man Ying,’ he said with a grin on his face.
I wondered why he was grinning when he said that.