the night comers 1956

Author:Eric Ambler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-09-29T19:58:39+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

SUPARTO LED the way back to the stairway and we began to walk down.

“Was this your idea?” I demanded.

“No. It was the General's.”

''Do you agree with it?"

“I am not in a position to agree or disagree. But I think he has had worse ideas.”

I glanced at him, but he did not seem to be aware of having said anything odd.

“What's the extent of the damage?”

“That you will have to discover for yourself. There are two of the station engineers below. Perhaps they will be able to help you.”

“Station engineers? Why can't they do the job themselves?”

“That is a polite way of describing them. They know how to operate the transmitter, which switches to press, which dials to turn, but they are not technicians. They know nothing about the generator except how to start it.”

“But somebody on the staff must know.”

“Possibly, but we have only certain members of the staff with us. The sympathisers.”

“You're in control of the city. Can't you round up the others?”

“The three senior technicians are all Chinese. We have sent patrols into the Chinese quarter with instructions to find the men, and they may eventually succeed. But not today, and perhaps not tomorrow either. The General cannot wait.”

“Why not? What's so important about the radio? I shouldn't have thought that there were very many people in the country with short-​wave receivers.”

“It is not the people inside the country who matter to the General. It is the impression outside that he is concerned about. Later today he proposes to broadcast again in English. His speech will be addressed to the cities whose good opinion matters most to him at the moment: Djakarta, Singapore, Canberra and Washington. The speech, part of which you have already heard, will be issued to the world Press correspondents here at a special conference afterwards.”

“What do you mean, 'part of which I have already heard'?”

“Surely you did not believe that so much eloquence could be unrehearsed? To you, to any European, that much is certainly obvious. Come now, Mr Fraser, admit it. You must at least have wondered.”

He was smiling slyly at me. It was an invitation to share a joke and I distrusted it deeply.

I said non-​committally: “I had other things to wonder about.”

“Ah yes. But you see why it is so important that the station should be working properly. If the General does not speak to the world, the world may think that he cannot speak, that he is not yet really in control and that they had better withhold their gestures of friendship until they see more clearly who has won. The General attaches great importance to the power of radio propaganda. He believes that it can be of decisive political importance.” There was a distinctly critical note in his voice.

I said: “And you do not?”

“I think that the realities of power are important too.”

“You make the General sound a bit naive.”

“Not naive, Mr Fraser. Simple, like all great men.”

We had been picking our way down the rubble-​strewn stairs. Now we were at the ground floor.

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