The beriberi was back, and he was sick. Very sick. He spent more time asleep than awake. If he tried to eat, he threw up. It hurt to move and it hurt to breathe. He had been ill for weeks.

He didn’t like to be still. If he was still, the memories came back. He had to be doing something to stop them all the time. He counted the leaves on a tree. He counted every stone at his feet, or how many steps he took before he needed to be ill again. Because if he did not have his mind on numbers this inhuman fear came over him, and he did not know where he was, and he did not know what he was doing anymore.

Then he would see Miss Benson. He would remember he was here to lead her expedition. He would look at his notebook and he didn’t know what day it was. He only knew there had been Christmas, and after Christmas he had waited for his passport, and then he had made his way here, and he had a room to go to, but he couldn’t find it. And he would look at the dates in his notebook and it said leaving Brisbane on February 18, and that must be soon, but he didn’t know why so many things kept getting in the way. The police who put him in a cell.

The British consul. The blonde. A dog. There had been a dog that tried to kill him. And a gun. He had a gun. He couldn’t remember why he had stolen it. But it was the Japs that were the worst thing. They were everywhere.

And now he was running. He was running fast. He didn’t know anymore if he was asleep or awake. He was pushing his feet through the red earth of the track toward the bungalow, but it was dark ahead and he couldn’t make his feet work. They were going to fall off. His legs were falling off because of the beriberi. And the lights of the Jap tanks were getting closer. He could feel them on his back. If he didn’t get away, they would catch him and take him back to the camp, but there were snakes. There were snakes everywhere he looked.

He remembered them in Burma, coiled beneath the huts, slipping out of view, the whip of a long skin, like rope. Back then he’d found a way to bear everything. The dysentery and the lack of food and the fellows dying of cholera and the trudging for miles, and he could tell himself that the bodies weren’t dead, they were just lying in the sun, and he could say to himself he had the flame inside him, he was his mother’s special boy, he was not like the others, he was better than them, he would not get lost out there, he would not die, but what he couldn’t get away from was the snakes. There had been lads who’d chop off their heads and eat them, but he’d rather starve in a hole than see snakes.

And then there had been the chaps who’d tried to escape and been brought back, and he remembered how they were left outside the barbed wire but no one was allowed to help because they must be punished. And all night Mundic had heard them screaming. And he’d tried not to listen, he tried not to feel, but someone kept shouting, “Snakes! Snakes!” And in the morning the bodies were black and half eaten. Even though he knew the snakes couldn’t do that to a human body, the idea was pinned through his head and it was all he could think about.

And now Miss Benson had done something terrible. He had gone to the bungalow to have it out with her once and for all, and he had waited outside and he had heard the blonde screaming, and it had gone on for hours. Then he had seen Miss Benson come out of the veranda and she was covered with blood. And it was so terrible he had begun to run. He had begun to run back to Poum and he was almost there, he was running, he was running and his head was swinging, and then the car had appeared in front of him and he had no choice anymore but to fall to his feet and surrender.

The car stopped. A Jap pulled him up and put his flashlight in Mundic’s eyes, and Mundic cowered, waiting for the first strike, but it wasn’t a Jap. It was a policeman.

He said something Mundic didn’t understand.

Mundic didn’t know what to do. He showed the guy his passport and his visa, and he crawled to his knees and begged for his life. He said, “Mercy, mercy,” like they said in New Caledonia.

The policeman looked at Mundic’s passport. He studied the pages. He said, “Oui, Monsieur,” and he didn’t kick him; he helped him to his feet. He picked up Mundic’s haversack and helped him put it back on his shoulders. “Anglais?” he said. “Breeteesh?”

Mundic nodded to say he was. The fellow offered him a cigarette, then struck a match and lit it for him.

He said, “Les dames? Les dames anglaises?”

Mundic hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. He shook his head to show he wasn’t trying to escape. He said, “Non.”

“Elles sont ici?”

“Non.” His heart was going like the clappers.

“Il y a une maison?”

“Non.”

“Personne ici?”

“Non.”

The policeman shone his flashlight into the dark. He passed it over the track and the trees. Nothing moved. He nodded. He said, “Vous avez raison. Rien ici. Merci, Monsieur. Bonsoir.” He gave Mundic the packet of cigarettes to keep and then, just as he was about to walk away, something stopped him and he held out his hand. He said softly, “Monsieur, vous êtes malade, non? Vous venez avec moi? Vous êtes très malade.”

Mundic turned on his heels and staggered into the dark.