South By Java Head by Alistair MacLean

Author:Alistair MacLean [MacLean, Alistair]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sterling
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

NINE

It hardly deserved the name of island. An islet, perhaps, but no more. Oval in shape, lying almost due east and west, it was no more than three hundred yards long, and about a hundred and fifty from north to south. It wasn’t a perfect oval, however: about a hundred yards along from the apex the sea had cut deep notches on both sides, at points practically opposite one another, so that the islet was all but bisected. It was in the southerly bight—Nicolson had taken the precaution of rounding the island before landing—that they had beached their boats and moored them to a couple of heavy stones.

The narrow end of the island, east beyond the bights, was low and rocky and bare, but the west had some vegetation—scrub bushes and stunted lalang grass—and rose to a height of perhaps fifty feet in the middle. On the southern side of this hill there was a little hollow, hardly more than a shelf, about half-way up the slope, and it was towards this that Nicolson urged the passengers as soon as the boat had grounded. The Captain and Corporal Fraser had to be carried, but it was only a short trip and within ten minutes of the boats’ grounding the entire party had taken refuge in the hollow, surrounded by all the food, water supplies and portable equipment, even the oars and the crutches.

A light breeze had sprung up with the going down of the sun, and clouds were slowly filling up the sky from the north-east, blanketing the early evening stars, but it was still light enough for Nicolson to use his glasses. He stared through them for almost two minutes, then laid them down, rubbing his eyes. He was aware, without being able to see, that everybody in the hollow was watching him anxiously—all except the boy who was bundled up in a blanket and already drowsing off to sleep.

“Well?” Findhorn broke the silence.

“They’re moving round the western tip of the island, sir, Pretty close inshore, too.”

“I can’t hear them.”

“Must be using their batteries. Why, I don’t know. Just because they can’t see us it doesn’t mean that we can’t see them. It’s not all that dark.”

Van Effen cleared his throat. And what do you think the next move is going to be, Mr. Nicolson?”

“No idea. It’s up to them, I’m afraid. If they had either their big gun or A.A. gun left they could blast us out of here in two minutes.” Nicolson gestured at the low ridge that bounded the hollow to the south, barely visible in the gloom even six feet away. “But with a little luck I think that’ll stop rifle bullets.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Time enough to worry about that when it happens,” Nicolson answered shortly. “Maybe they’ll try to land men at various points and surround us. Maybe they’ll try a frontal attack.” He had the glasses to his eyes again. “Whatever happens they can’t just go home and say they left us here—they’d get their heads in their hands, perhaps literally.

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