Bamboo Guerillas
Author: Guy N. Smith
Date: 1977-01-01 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: Malaya was about to fall to the Japanese, and a group of nurses had been taken prisoner by the notorious Colonel Sika. 'Jungle' Carter knew they faced sadistic torture, even a hideous death. It was up to him and his band of Chinese guerillas to rescue them from Sika's clutches - but in a hostile jungle where the heat and fever caused nearly as many deaths as the fighting itself, it would be a desperate and bloody struggle.
Publisher: Black Hill Books

Bamboo Guerillas - Kindle Version 1.0

(c) Guy N Smith 1977 - 2010

Published by Black Hill Books, October 2010

ISBN : 978-1-907846-076

First Published by New English Library (NEL) September 1977.

Converted to Ebook from original paperback by Scan2Ebook.com

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Contents

Title

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

The End

Chapter One

7 January 1941. The atmosphere was heavy and a storm was raging about ten miles north of Kuala Lumpur.

The two men stood in the window of the nissen hut watching the lightning flashing and listening to the rolling thunder coming nearer by the second. The one was tall and powerful, his exposed flesh tanned to the colour of mahogany by the scorching Malayan sun, sweat running freely down his clean-cut face. The other was short and stocky, a powerful man in his early thirties, chewing hard on the stem of an unlit pipe.

‘The Japs are just down the road, sir,’ the latter muttered for the third time without receiving any response from his companion.

‘By “just down the road”, Captain Cole,’ the tall colonel sighed and turned to him with a wry smile, ‘you mean that you have heard the rumour that they have broken through at Slim, and our troops are retreating to Tanjong Malim.’

‘Not just a rumour, sir,’ Captain Cole replied grimly, ‘a fact. The bridge at Tanjong Malim has already been blown up, and our chaps are heading back to Singapore.’

‘I know.’ Colonel Carter lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply. ‘We'll have to evacuate Kuala Lumpur. Two or three days at the most and they'll be here.’

‘They'll never take Singapore,’ Cole said optimistically. ‘It's impregnable. Malaya high command said so.’

‘Malaya high command has said an awful lot of things,’ Carter's lips were pressed together tightly. ‘Like the organisation of resistance groups in case Malaya fell. All talk. They were confident the Japs would never break through. Now it's everybody back to Singapore for a last-ditch stand. Of course, the Nips won't take Singapore … like hell! Well, some of us are going, and some of us are staying. I just wondered what you preferred to do, stay here with us in the jungle and hit the little yellow bastards where it hurts most, or go back to Singapore. The choice is yours. If you join in the retreat you may be able to escape to Sumatra, Java or Australia - if you don't get bombed or torpedoed on the way. If you stay here with us, well … I don't need to tell you what happens to you if the Japs get you. It's up to you.’

The smaller man was silent for some moments, lighting his pipe and blowing out clouds of smoke whilst he weighed up the pros and cons of the choice which lay ahead of him.

‘Who's staying, Colonel?’ he asked at length. ‘I mean, you haven't had much chance to get anything organised, have you?’

‘Not really.’ Carter was watching the lightning as though it was the most important thing in the world to him. ‘Very little, in fact. I've had to leave most of it to Li Chu.’

‘But he's nothing but a murdering Chinese bandit,’ Cole gasped. ‘He'd slit your throat for a packet of fags.’

‘But he hates the Japs,’ Carter smiled faintly. ‘And whilst there are Japs to be killed he'll be a loyal guerilla. On top of that he knows the jungle like you know your own patch of garden back home. He's worth twenty stay-behind British officers. All the same I need a second-in-command, and I would prefer to have you. Sanders, the sapper, will be joining us. Apart from that, the force will consist of Chinese and Malays. Li Chu will recruit them. Half of them are shit scared of his reputation. He knows a few little tricks that even the Japs haven't thought about.’

‘I've heard,’ Cole grimaced. ‘There's a story about a girl who tried to betray him once, and … well, they say he's a bloody cannibal, sir!’

‘I wouldn't be at all surprised,’ Carter grinned. ‘But as long as he confines his liking for human flesh to the Japs I'm not going to worry. He's got the hideout all set up for us although at the moment it's just a map reference to me. It's about fifteen miles north of here. We'll have to make our own way there. Sanders and I will be going and if you want to come along, like I said before, it's up to you.’

‘I'll come with you, sir,’ Cole said, continuing to stare out of the window. ‘When do we start?’

‘As soon as this fucking storm has passed.’ Hugh Carter slapped Cole on the back. ‘It won't be a casual stroll, I'll warn you. We might get lost in the jungle, you'll get covered in leeches, mosquitoes will bite every inch of exposed flesh, and the Japs will be heading this way. Mostly they'll stick to the roads, so we'll have to go the hard way, through the jungle.’

‘I'm not too worried about the conditions,’ Cole laughed. ‘And besides, I never did like the idea of retreat. I suppose …’ he frowned as a sudden thought struck him, ‘We won't be listed as deserters or anything like that, sir?’

‘I've cleared it with high command,’ Carter replied and ground the butt of his cigarette beneath his heel. ‘They said go ahead if you want. A kind of sop to their conscience for not having got their fingers out before, I reckon. Anyway, you make sure you are back here before nightfall. Remember that we'll have to travel light. You'll need a tommy gun, pistol and ammunition, a couple of grenades, a parang, ground sheet, no blankets, provisions for five days, and your salt and sterilising tablets. I'm just praying that Li Chu has managed to get all the provisions and everything else we'll need after that - otherwise the whole exercise will be pointless.’

Sanders, the third member of the group, was small and wiry, a loner by nature who spoke little. He acted as though he merely tolerated the presence of the other two despite their higher rank, but would have preferred to have made the journey alone.

The storm had passed an hour or more ago, leaving muddy pools and soaking wet undergrowth in its wake. A half-moon shone in the clear sky above, and there was just sufficient light for the party to discern the silhouettes of objects in front of them. They moved slowly, Carter in the lead, followed by Sanders with Cole bringing up the rear.

‘We'll follow this woodcutter's track for as far as it goes,’ Carter said. ‘Once it begins to veer off our course we'll have to tackle the jungle. There's to be no talking and no smoking, and keep your eyes and ears on the alert the whole time. At the first hint of trouble, take cover, and no shooting unless we're actually spotted by the Japs. Our main objective is to reach the hideout, and only then can we start taking the Nips apart.’

They walked in silence for the next couple of hours and apart from the chattering of a disturbed gibbon it was as though the jungle was completely devoid of life. The trees towered symmetrically above them, the bases covered with creeping vines, the ground a carpet of rotting vegetation.

‘Like bein' in Westminster Abbey,’ Sanders grunted as much to himself as to anyone else. ‘Gloom and silence. Gives you the bleedin' creeps!’

Nobody replied and they pressed on until at last the track which they had been following veered sharply at right angles.

‘This is it,’ Hugh Carter said quietly and drew his parang and slashed an obstructing sapling out of the way with one blow. ‘This is where the real jungle starts. There's a road about a mile from here which we can travel parallel to, but we'll have to keep to the jungle.’

As they entered the jungle, so their progress slowed down until at one stage they seemed to be making absolutely no headway at all. The night was bitterly cold as opposed to the heat of the day, but they scarcely noticed it as they fought their way through.

‘Christ!’ Cole muttered as he struggled to cut a path with his parang, ‘this is bloody murder. What time do we kip?’

‘We'll snatch an hour or two after daybreak,’ Carter grunted. ‘Once we're in sight of the road. At least then I'll know whether we're on the right track or not.’

Dawn came, then full daylight, although in the jungle it was merely a lessening of the gloom. They hacked and sweated, pausing more frequently to rest now, their bodies crying out for sleep. A constant fear nagged Hugh Carter, and he resisted the temptation to consult his compass every few seconds. Suppose he had made a mistake. Suppose the compass was a duff one, and they were heading in the opposite direction. Their provisions would run out, and then ... Everything depended upon him, if they didn't make it then the blame would rest on his own shoulders.

Then with a sigh of elation and relief he saw that he had not gone wrong. ‘There it is, there's the road!’

They stood and stared, leaning against the mighty trunks of the towering trees, shading their eyes with their hands as the sudden bright sunlight dazzled them.

The road lay below them, the edge of the jungle sloping steeply down towards it, less than thirty yards away.

‘Somebody's coming!’ Cole's ears had picked up a distant sound beyond the first bend. A chattering of voices.

‘Get down,’ Carter hissed, dropping back into the vegetation. At once they began to smear mud on their faces and bare arms.

The voices came nearer, and then the watchers had their first glimpse of a platoon of Japanese soldiers. There must have been about fifty of them in all, clad in ill-fitting uniforms, the peaks of their caps pulled down over their faces.

Every one of them was mounted upon a bicycle, riding haphazardly yet somehow avoiding colliding amongst themselves. Tommy guns were either lashed to the handlebars or else slung on their backs. They talked and laughed loudly, full of confidence at what they considered to be the fall of Malaya.

‘We could wipe out the lot from 'ere,’ Sanders muttered. ‘A few bursts of fire, and a grenade or two …’

‘But we're not going to,’ Carter whispered firmly. ‘Our objective is to join up with Li Chu, and until then we don't want them to have the slightest hint of any resistance movement.’

The soldiers passed, and the silence rolled back.

‘Come on,’ Carter struggled to his knees. ‘We'll press on for another hour or so, and then we'll get some sleep.’

Before they finally struck their first camp they saw three more companies of Japanese soldiers pass below them. There was no attempt made at stealth or order and quite obvious that the enemy did not expect to meet up with any opposition.

At last the three British soldiers decided to rest and chose a small clearing in the midst of the undergrowth bordering the road. Spreading out their groundsheets they lay down, sleep already beginning to engulf their exhausted bodies. There was no need to post a sentry. Carter knew that the Japs would keep to the road, and it was unlikely that any of them would make a foray into the jungle.

It was after midday when they awoke. The heat was oppressive and steam rising from the ground all around them.

‘Fucking hell!’ Sanders sat up and began slapping at his bare arms. The exposed flesh appeared to be totally covered with purple blotches.

‘Leeches,’ Carter snapped, grimacing as he saw that both himself and Cole were covered. ‘Don't panic. Burn them with cigarettes. If you try and pull them off, you'll risk terrible infection.’ Fighting back the urge to vomit the three men began removing the clinging leeches and applied antiseptic to the wounds. After a brief respite whilst they ate a handful of biscuits and drank from their water bottles, they moved on.

‘When d'you reckon we'll be there?’ Cole voiced a question that had been troubling him since they had hit the thickest jungle.

‘Can't say,’ Hugh Carter replied. ‘We're on the right track, anyway. Depends how many delays we meet with. Maybe three or four days.’

The other two groaned.

Towards mid-afternoon they were forced to move away from the road and strike a course into the heart of the jungle once more. Parangs slashed, and sweat rolled from their faces. Their clothing became damp, clinging to their bodies, and all the time they were removing leeches from their skin. Somehow the parasites managed to make contact without the men being aware of their presence.

Twice the party was forced to dive into thick cover as they heard voices in close proximity. Once they caught a glimpse of some Chinese and a Malay.

‘Probably friendly,’ Carter whispered once they had passed and were out of earshot, ‘but we can't risk it. The last thing we want is gunfire to bring the Japs scouring the area.’

It was about an hour before sunset when they arrived at the fringe of a large clearing. They crouched in some hibiscus bushes, surveying the scene which lay in front of them.

The clearing was about two hundred yards long by a hundred wide, with half-a-dozen huts occupying the centre. Smoke spiralled skywards from a heap of ashes, and two or three Chinese were to be seen moving about.

‘A kampong,’ Carter whispered, ‘a village occupied by Chinese merchants known as towkays. They've probably got a fertile strip of land somewhere where they grow tobacco, rice and bananas to trade with other kampongs. Well risk it, and talk to them. They might have some information that will be useful to us.’

The Chinese stared expressionlessly as the three men emerged from the edge of the jungle. Two more appeared in the doorways of huts, followed by an older woman and two teenage girls.

An elderly man in soiled and tattered clothing strode forward to meet them. Carter smiled, and held up his hand by way of a greeting. He hoped that his smattering of Chinese would be enough for him to be understood.

‘We are British soldiers,’ he said. ‘We are tired and hungry.’

‘You are welcome to stay the night,’ the old man smiled faintly, ‘but you must go first thing tomorrow. The jungle is not safe. The Japanese would punish us for offering you shelter. They passed through here yesterday, but they were too busy to linger with the likes of us towkays. Once they have taken Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, they will be back. There is no more freedom in Malaya.’

Hugh Carter and his companions were shown to an empty hut, and shortly afterwards one of the girls brought them a huge bowl of eggs, fish, and rice. She placed it on the floor, and then withdrew gracefully.

They ate in silence, and just as they had finished the headman shuffled in through the door.

‘My wife objects to your presence here,’ he began. ‘But I have assured her that you will be leaving in the morning. She fears the wrath of the Japanese. Everybody fears the Japanese. They wiped out a Malay village about five miles from here for no reason. They just like to kill … slowly. Some of the young men were nailed to trees, and left to die. Others were put to the sword or shot. They were the lucky ones. The women came off worst. Those who were left alive after the soldiers had gone, killed themselves.’

Carter was silent, smoking thoughtfully. An uneasy thought was nagging at his brain.

‘About six months ago,’ he said, ‘the British built a hospital near Tanjong Malim. There were about twenty nurses there, British and Australian. Did they get out with the troops?’

‘I do not know for sure,’ the headman paused and dropped his gaze. ‘The jungle has so many rumours these days …’

‘What rumours?’

‘I heard from some towkays that the nurses refused to join the retreat. There were patients who could not be moved. The Japanese took the hospital. They shot all the patients. The nurses, well I do not know.’

‘The bastards!’ Sanders growled. ‘These Nips like European women for one reason only. And when they've finished with 'em ...’

Suddenly the headman looked up, his face showing signs of anger and alarm.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ the headman asked Hugh Carter. ‘All the British troops have retreated, yet you are heading into Japanese-occupied territory.’

‘Well,’ Carter realised that their mission must be only too obvious to the Chinese. To lie would only create suspicion and distrust. ‘We're going to have a crack at the Japs ... in our own way. We're on our way to join up with Li Chu.’

‘Li Chu!’ the Chinaman's complexion blanched beneath his yellowed parchment-like skin. ‘He is worse than the Japanese. His men plunder and torture, carry off women, and -’

‘And I'm hoping he'll confine all such activities strictly to the Japanese,’ Hugh Carter smiled. ‘We're going to give them a dose of their own treatment and see how they like it.’

The headman nodded.

‘I wish you luck,’ he moved towards the door. ‘But you must be gone in the morning.’

Chapter Two

In spite of their tiredness, sleep did not come easily to the three men. The food and brief rest seemed to have revitalised their bodies.

‘D'you think this fucking war will ever be over?’ Cole asked, reaching for his pipe and tobacco.

‘It will one day, one way or the other,’ Carter replied. ‘Then it's back to civvy street for all of us.’

‘You sound as though you like war,’ Cole muttered, ‘floundering about in impenetrable jungles, Japs all around, and getting eaten alive by leeches.’

‘Not exactly,’ the colonel chuckled in the darkness. ‘But it isn't always like that. You have to take the rough with the smooth. Civilian life is just one long monotonous existence. I worked in a bank up until 1939. No chance to think for yourself or make decisions. You just go by a book of rules, and so long as you abide by them you'll have a regular pay cheque for the rest of your life. The army's much the same … until you get out to a place like this. Here it's up to you. You make the right decision and you live, the wrong one and you die. I've no dependants, so nobody'll miss me if I don't make it back.’

They chatted on until the weariness surged softly back, and they fell into a deep sleep. Their next recollection was of the old Chinese shaking them gently, and the smell of freshly boiled fish assailing their nostrils.

‘It is morning,’ he said, ‘here is food, and then you must be on your way.’

An hour later they left the village. Only the headman came to see them off, and it appeared that nobody else had stirred yet. This was the leisurely way of life which the towkays knew. The coming of the Japanese would alter all that.

The heat seemed even more oppressive than on the previous day. The jungle was thicker now, the paths few and far between. They were forced to take turns in the lead with their parangs, their progress slower than ever. Much time was taken up with the removal of leeches.

At midday they stopped to rest, drinking the last of the water supplied by the towkays and then refilling their bottles from a brackish pool. Carter ensured that sterilising tablets were put into each container.

The afternoon was one of sheer hell, their fatigue beginning to tell. Parangs were wielded with less force, and they stumbled and fell more frequently. There was no sign of human or animal life around them except for the occasional passing of a hornbill above the trees, flitting to and fro like some remnant of prehistoric bird life.

Hugh Carter leaned against a tree, and consulted his compass and map.

‘We're not too far away as the crow flies. Christ, how I wish we were bloody crows!’

That night camp had to be made in the jungle. A fire was made for the first time since they had set out, dead bamboo shoots being used for kindling. There was little chance of the flames being noticed except by anybody in the immediate vicinity, and any smoke which filtered above the treetops would not be noticeable in the darkness.

Sanders constructed a few booby traps a short distance from the site, setting tripwires attached to grenades in order to dispense with sentry duty.

They ate before the fire, and then prepared to sleep. As the flames died down they were suddenly aware of the cold. They began to shiver.

‘We're paying the penalty for travelling without blankets,’ Hugh Carter muttered. ‘We couldn't have carried them, though, not with having to hack our way through the jungle.’

They rolled themselves up in their groundsheets, and attempted to sleep. The freezing night air seemed to penetrate their very bones. They almost wished it was time to be up and sweating again.

Suddenly, Carter and Cole were aware of a shaking and grunting coming from the direction of the huddled shape that was Sanders the sapper.

‘Hey!’ Carter raised himself up on his elbows. ‘Are you OK, sapper?’

The colonel's greatest fear was that Sanders had already contracted a fever.

‘Sanders,’ he snapped. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I'm a bleedin' sight warmer than you two,’ the other chuckled.

‘There's one sure way to keep warm. Learnt it when I used to go mountaineering, and we was forced to sleep out in the open. Do me a favour though, don't interrupt me again!’

Shortly after daylight they were on the move again. Parangs hacked at the dense saplings, and the battle against the leeches continued.

‘I reckon we must be reasonably close to the hideout now,’ Hugh Carter said as they paused to drink sparingly from their canteens. ‘There's a steep hill in front of us. That'll be tough going, but once over that it's only about a mile to where Li Chu should be camped.’

Half an hour later they emerged on to a rough track. The way ahead of them had already been forged through the dense jungle. Severed saplings lined the way.

‘Recently cut, too,’ Carter mused. ‘Look you can see the sap's still oozing out. Better not take any chances.’

Parangs were sheathed, and tommy guns unslung. It was a relief to be able to move forward without having to cut their way through the undergrowth.

‘The track's going uphill.’ Carter turned to the other two. ‘The very track we should have cut for ourselves!’

Within a couple of hours they judged that they were at the summit of the hill for the path wound down in front of them, twisting and turning so that they were unable to see more than twenty yards or so at a time.

Suddenly, men seemed to rain out of the overhanging branches. Carter was flung on to his face, powerful hands securing a stranglehold around his neck. Sanders and Cole were flattened, their tommy guns wrenched from their grasps before they had a chance to use them.

Unceremoniously, the three soldiers were dragged to their feet. Their attackers numbered eight in all, every one of them clad in ill-fitting British army clothing, automatic pistols and knives held at the ready.

‘They're Chinese!’ Carter yelled to his two companions. ‘They must be Li Chu's men.’

‘My name is Colonel Carter,’ he said to their leader in broken Chinese. ‘Take me to your leader, Li Chu.’

‘Jungle Carter.’ The men looked at each other. ‘This is the man Li Chu said would come.’

The soldiers were allowed to walk ahead of the Chinese down the steep hillside, but their weapons were not returned. The bandits would only take the word of their infamous leader as gospel, and until Li Chu spoke they were taking no chances.

The slope began to level out, and soon they were crossing a flat tract of jungle. A road had been cut through the trees and undergrowth, much wider now until finally it opened out into an area of some three or four acres which had obviously been levelled out only recently.

A number of huts formed what at first appeared to be just another kampong, but the men who spilled out of the dwellings at the approach of the party were certainly no towkays. Every one of them wore ill-fitting army clothing, camouflaged jackets, steel helmets, but preferred to walk barefooted. Automatic pistols, rifles, tommy guns, knives and grenades adorned each man like an overloaded Christmas tree. They swaggered with pride, fingering their weapons as they walked.

‘This is the place, all right,’ Carter muttered to Sanders and Cole. ‘Li Chu's men are kitted out and ready for action. And here comes the man himself.’

The bandit leader stepped out of one of the huts. He was much taller and more heavily built than the average Chinese. His head was completely shaven, his slitted eyes were closer together than Nature had intended, and his upper lip was adorned with a pair of huge black mustachios. He wore a khaki battledress jacket, but had preferred to retain his own baggy saffron trousers and cracked sandals beneath. His features broke into a broad grin.

‘Jungle Carter!’ he spoke English fluently, having been brought up in Singapore. ‘It is good to see you. Very Good. I had given up hope of you coming this last couple of days, and was preparing to go into action. I lacked the services of a sapper, but my men would have learnt by trial and error. When one blew himself up the next would not have made the same mistake.’

He turned to the group of Chinese and Malays who had clustered around.

‘Get back to your work, you rabble!’ he yelled. ‘There are matters I must discuss with our friends, and I do not wish to be disturbed.’

As the men turned sullenly away, Li Chu motioned to Carter and his companions to enter the hut. As their eyes became accustomed to the gloom they saw that it was not the makeshift abode which it had appeared from the out-side. The bandit had spared nothing to set himself up in luxury. A carpet covered the floor, and Carter noted with a wry smile the ornately carved rocking chair which had mysteriously disappeared from military headquarters in Kuala Lumpur some weeks previously. Bottles of whisky and brandy were set out on a table in the corner, and as the three of them seated themselves on some chairs, Li Chu poured generous measures into tin mugs and handed them to his guests.

‘To the Japs,’ he raised his own mug to his lips, ‘the fucking bastards!’

‘Well, we're heartily glad to be here,’ Carter sighed. ‘We had to come the hard way.’

‘Japs are everywhere,’ Li Chu replied. ‘My men brought two soldiers in this morning.’

‘Alive?’

‘To begin with,’ he chuckled evilly, ‘and for some quite considerable time afterwards. I had hoped they would last longer, but,’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘they are the same as other men when they come under the treatment.’

‘What did you do to them, you old bastard?’ Carter asked.

‘I merely wondered if the small Japanese penis would stretch to the length of that of other nationalities,’ the bandit leader winked. ‘They will not, gentlemen, take it from me.’

Cole blanched. Sanders guffawed.

‘And Kuala Lumpur?’ Li Chu was suddenly serious. ‘Has it fallen yet?’

‘The evacuation of troops was about to begin when we left,’ Carter replied. ‘By now the Japs must be occupying it as a stepping stone to Singapore, and then Malaya will have fallen.’

‘The bastards are due for a surprise,’ Li Chu grinned confidently. ‘I have drawn up a map of the jungle for you to study. They will not find us here except by accident. There are bridges and railways to be blown up, personnel to be annihilated on the roads, convoys to be ambushed -’

‘Now hold on,’ Carter leaned forward. ‘What about the hospital near Tanjong Malim?’

‘Oh, they took that,’ Li Chu shrugged his shoulders. Hospitals did not interest him. ‘I saw the ruins with my own eyes. They burnt it to the ground.’

‘And what about the nurses?’ Jungle Carter snapped. ‘There were twenty or so stationed there who stayed behind to look after the patients.’

‘No doubt they're at the camp,’ the bandit replied, taking another swig of brandy.

‘What camp?’

‘The prison camp,’ he shook his head. ‘Have you not heard of it? It is about as well hidden as this place, deep in the jungle, and under the command of Colonel Sika.’

‘Colonel Sika?’

‘All Japs are bastards,’ the other's knuckles showed white around his mug, ‘but this feller, he's the king of bastards!’

‘Sounds pleasant,’ Carter's fears for the safety of the nurses were mounting. ‘Fill me in on him, Li Chu.’

‘A month ago nobody had heard of him,’ Li Chu said, ‘and now all the peasants in Malaya, and even his own men, quake at the very mention of his name. So long as somebody suffers he is happy, even if it is his own men. On top of this he is a sex maniac. All his tortures are based on sex ... in one form or another. I'd like to meet him one day.’

‘You might get your chance sooner than you think,’ Carter murmured.

‘I doubt it,’ Li Chu smiled blandly. ‘He never goes outside the barbed wire confines of this vile camp of his.’

‘That's what I mean,’ Hugh Carter took his time over selecting and lighting a cheroot from the box on the table. ‘We can postpone the assignments on bridges, roads, and railways for the moment. Our first job is to get those nurses out ... before it's too late!’

‘Nurses!’ Li Chu spat in contempt. ‘This is a man's war, colonel. What are a few nurses, more or less? Our job is to attack the Japs, and …’

‘Well, you can start by attacking this prison camp of Colonel Sika's,’ Carter snarled. ‘And cut out this patriotic stuff, Li Chu. You aren't bothered whom you kill, even though you do hate the Japs, so long as there's loot in it for you and your men. Unless you cooperate with me, the three of us will walk right out of here, and trust to luck to make our own way to Java or Sumatra, and you can stew in your own bloody juice!’

‘You'd never get out of this camp,’ the other hissed, his narrow eyes blazing with anger. ‘My men would pull your pricks out by the roots, and -’

‘Then you'd have no sapper, and nobody with any knowledge of military warfare, Li Chu,’ the colonel retorted. ‘You think you're a bloody general or something? Well, you're not. You're a jungle bandit, and I'll guarantee that without us Colonel Sika would have got you within a month!’

Li Chu rose to his feet, his hands gripping the desk. The fury built up inside him, and then subsided. He sank slowly back into the rocking chair.

‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘We'll have a go at Colonel Sika's camp. But we haven't got much time to waste. Jap troops are pouring into Malaya daily, and the sooner we start on them, the better.’

‘First thing tomorrow morning.’ Hugh Carter could not conceal his relief at the outcome of their encounter. ‘You'd better send a scout out to Sika's place. Find out the strength of it, how many guards there are, whether the nurses are in fact there, and the siting of the machine gun turrets. When we make our play it's got to be right first time, not only for our sakes, but for the nurses as well. We won't get a second chance!’

Chapter Three

Colonel Sika's notorious camp was crude but effective. His boast was that it had been constructed in less than a week under his own supervision. Trees and scrub had been felled, the wood being used for posts to mark the perimeter. The barbed wire fence was fully fifteen feet high, and there were two machine gun turrets which commanded a view of the entire area.

His own quarters had been built with far more care than either those of his men or the prisoners' hovels. Two rooms fitted out with much of his own furniture transported all the way upcountry. Ample drink and cigars filled the sideboard in his living room.

He had been assigned twenty soldiers. He had asked for fifty, but his superiors had said that it was not necessary in a remote place such as this where he would be scarcely aware that a war was going on. He had pointed out that there would be villages in the area to be massacred, but had been politely reminded that the Japanese Army would take care of such clearing up operations once Malaya had fallen.

Nevertheless, within a week of taking up his duties he had sent patrols out into the jungle.

‘We must teach these people a lesson,’ he had fumed at his soldiers from the verandah of his “residence”. ‘Bring me prisoners. What is the use of having a prison camp without prisoners?’

Two days later his men had returned battle-grimed but jubilant. Sika watched from the window of his living room as some thirty prisoners were herded in through the gates. His eyes widened with lust as he saw the twenty dejected girls, still clad in their soiled nurses' uniforms. He dismissed the ten males with a cursory glance. They would all be dead before the sun sank behind the treetops.

He did not go out on to the verandah. He could not, simply because it would have been impossible to have buttoned his erection up in his trousers. For virtually two whole days and nights he had masturbated, fantasising. That Chinese girl in the deserted kampon. She had been a virgin. Well, this countryside was full of Chinese wenches, and if he came across another virgin he would be lucky. But Europeans ... He sat and stared out of the window. The very thought of those nurses was building his emotions up to a crescendo. The dark-haired one who stood with bowed head at the front of the slouching column. He would have her in his own bed tonight. He would offer her the choice of favours instead of tortures. The latter could always come later.

A knocking on the door interrupted his thoughts. That would be his second-in-command requiring to know what Colonel Sika wished to do with the prisoners. The colonel breathed deeply in an attempt to regain his composure. The knocking came again, but he knew only too well that Samuri would not dare enter without permission.

‘Enter,’ he shouted, and almost immediately the door swung inwards.

Samuri saluted, his features impassive, giving no hint whatsoever of his innermost thoughts.

‘We have thirty prisoners,’ he announced. ‘Twenty females and ten males.’

‘So I see,’ Sika smirked blandly. ‘The dark-haired nurse I wish to interrogate myself later tonight, so no harm must befall her in the meantime. Shut all the women up in the prison hut for the moment. And the men, where did you pick them up?’

‘Four English from the hospital,’ Samuri replied. ‘They were not badly wounded and could walk, so we brought them back. The rest we killed before we burnt the building down. Then, on the way back, we met a party of Malay peasants. There were twelve of them in all. They tried to escape into the jungle. We shot four, two escaped, and we captured the remaining six. We could have killed them in the jungle, but I thought that perhaps -’

‘Yes, yes,’ Colonel Sika interrupted. ‘It was very thoughtful of you, but we have not the space to house them here. Strip the men naked, and tie them to the inside of the fence, I will come and instruct you then.’

The door closed, and Sika listened to the retreating footsteps of Samuri across the compound. The colonel was tempted to undo his trouser buttons again. His erection demanded it, but he resisted the urge. These were moments he liked to savour. He could have gone out there right away, but there was no point in rushing proceedings. Out here in Camp Sika there was nothing else to do, anyway.

He heard agonised screams coming from the enclosure, and smiling blandly, he crossed to the window. He knew what he would see. Four Englishmen and six Malays were struggling futilely as the Japanese soldiers strapped their naked bodies to the outer fence. Cruel barbs tore at backs, buttocks, and calves. One sagged forward unconscious. They had had to club him with a rifle butt. So long as he regained consciousness before the proceedings began …

The sun was beginning to dip behind the westerly boundary of trees when Colonel Sika finally emerged on to his verandah. It was cooler, and he was grateful for that. His pleasure was always marred by standing out there in the blazing heat.

A dozen soldiers stood to attention as he walked slowly across the compound. He wondered idly if they enjoyed this as much as he did. It did not matter. Only his own pleasure mattered. He noted that the Englishman on the extreme left of the prisoners was still unconscious. There was a bruise on the man's forehead where the rifle butt had descended.

‘Bring that man round,’ he barked.

A soldier hastened to obey. Behind them stood a trough of brackish water, and a bucket from which the prisoners were allowed to drink. The soldier filled the bucket, and then tipped it over the unconscious man's head. The latter spluttered, and lifted his head just in time to have it knocked back into the barbed wire by a vicious backhanded blow.

‘Now,’ Colonel Sika walked slowly down the line of spreadeagled men, his eyes focused on their loins, gloating, ‘how would you rabble like to screw a woman, eh?’

There were gasps of surprise from the captives.

‘You would, eh?’ Sika glanced over his shoulder in the direction of his faithful Samuri. ‘Fetch one of the nurses. Not the dark-haired one.’

Two men hastened to obey, and minutes later emerged from the prison shed dragging a small red-headed nurse between them. She struggled, but she was powerless.

‘Strip her off!’ Sika barked. ‘Quickly.’

The tattered remains of a uniform were ripped from the nurse's body, heedless of buttons or fasteners. She trembled in her nakedness.

‘Hold her up,’ Colonel Sika snarled. ‘Let these pigs have sight of what they are going to fuck!’

Another soldier stepped forward to assist, lifting the girl to shoulder height, her parted thighs less than a yard from the line of prisoners.

‘See,’ Colonel Sika's gaze alternated between the nurse's sex, and the gawping prisoners who seemed momentarily to have forgotten their predicament, ‘this is the woman you are going to mate with ... so get yourselves erect!’

He stood back, and waited patiently. Ten guards stood at the ready. The prisoners must not have a hint of what was going to happen otherwise they would never manage erections.

‘Come on,’ he snapped at them. ‘Who's going to be first? All so easy, eh. My men will hold her for you. Nothing to do except thrust, eh, and take your weight off the barbed wire.’

He repeated all this in Malay for the benefit of the six towkays. With bated breath he studied the ten male organs. Ah, a slight movement from one of the English. Sex was the strongest urge in the human body. Nobody knew that better than Colonel Sika.

Five minutes later he counted seven erections. Three to go. Two Malays and one of the English.

‘We can't start screwing until everybody is ready,’ he purred. ‘Come on. Hurry it up, there. You're only keeping your colleagues from their pleasure. The blonde-haired Englishman will be first. Now it's only one to go, and then we can start.’

As the last Malay's penis inflated to a state of full erection, Colonel Sika barked out an order in his native tongue. The naked nurse was hurled to one side, and lay prone in the dust with her eyes closed. Ten men gasped in surprise and horror as bayonets flashed in the sunlight, and their brief moment of sexual anticipation died as the blades sank deep into their helpless bodies. They writhed and screamed, the barbed wire tearing the skin from their backs.

Colonel Sika walked slowly down the line, gloating over the dying men, ignoring their curses. His only regret was that it had all been over so quickly. He had not given enough thought to the matter. He should have pondered over the fate of these prisoners and devised something which entailed a slower death, rather than simply raising their hopes of sex and then having them bayoneted.

The soldiers picked up the nurse who had fainted, carried her back across the compound, and slung her bodily into the filthy prison hut. Only when the last man had died did the colonel turn away and walk towards his residence. He knew that the bulge in the front of his trousers was visible to all his men, but he did not mind. It enhanced his reputation. In his fantasies he was a super stud, one whose appetite for women was insatiable, equalled only by his lust for blood and torture.

Sonia Barnes, the dark-haired nurse who had already come to the notice of Colonel Sika, looked up as the door of the prison hut was opened. Jenny, unconscious and naked, was flung inside, and then it was slammed shut again. There were no windows, and very little light filtered in through the chinks in the crude woodwork during the daytime. Now, with the coming of darkness, it was almost pitch black inside the cramped quarters.

They had heard the screams of the men, but they had not, fortunately, been able to see exactly what had caused the cries of agony that came straight from those tortured souls. The nurses had had a brief glimpse of the naked men tied, to the barbed wire fence when the guards had dragged Jenny out.

The darkness closed over them like a black curtain. Some of the girls slept blissfully through sheer exhaustion. Others were not so fortunate. Some sobbed with anguish. Then, some hours later, fear stabbed at their hearts as they heard the footsteps of the soldiers returning, and the door being unlocked. A torch dazzled them, its beam finally settling on Sonia.

‘That is the one. Bring her out!’

Soldiers trod on nurses in their haste to grab Sonia Barnes, and drag her out into the cold night air. She did not struggle. There was no point. Even if she escaped from this vile place she knew that she could never survive in the jungle. She simply resigned herself to her fate.

A Japanese supported her beneath each armpit, and she was half dragged, half carried across the compound. The searchlights on the machine gun turrets revolved steadily, lighting up the whole enclosure every few seconds, and showing the dark forbidding jungle in the background.

Sonia Barnes uttered a muffled cry of pain as her ankles were scraped on the steps leading up to Colonel Sika's verandah. The leading soldier knocked on the door.

‘Enter.’

It was the first time that she had heard the camp commandant's voice, and even that one word sent a shiver down her spine. It was so utterly dominant, and her scanty knowledge of the Japanese language, which she had picked up since coming to Malaya from Brisbane, had enabled her to understand the fear which these soldiers had for the colonel.

Escape or rescue was something that she preferred not to think about. The Japs were in control of Malaya, and she realised that even in the event of an invasion by the British the little yellow men would put all their prisoners to death before contemplating surrender. Surrender? The Japs would never surrender. Every one of them would go down fighting to the last man.

Suddenly, she was face to face with Colonel Sika. He regarded her steadily in the manner in which a mongoose would survey a helpless snake before devouring it. Her uniform was ripped open exposing the tender whiteness of her breasts. He stared at them, his eyes wide and gloating.

‘Dismiss.’

The guards hastened to leave, glad to be away from the presence of this man whose very word was death.

‘You are very attractive.’

Sonia fought back her fear and revulsion as Sika stood before her, his outstretched hands fondling her breasts, weighing them in his cupped hands as he might have done ripening fruit on a branch. She stiffened, but she was unable to drag her eyes away from his. The man was mad, and he was more dangerous than any tiger that roamed the Malayan jungles.

He walked around her, smoothing his hands down her body, squeezing her buttocks, and murmuring his approval throughout. He lifted her skirt, and pushed a probing cluster of fingers up into her crotch. For one moment she thought that she was going to faint, but by a supreme effort of willpower she remained standing upright. Seeming satisfied with his exploration of her sex, he withdrew his hand, pushed her into a nearby chair, and seated himself on the corner of the table. The outline of his erection pushing hard inside his trousers was only too obvious.

‘You are a very lucky girl,’ he smiled blandly, and she shuddered. He did not appear to notice, and continued in the same soft tone of voice that held a menace more frightening than any amount of raving and shouting could have done.

‘Your friends,’ he motioned with his hand in the direction of the prison hut, ‘are all going to die. Not immediately, of course, but over the next few weeks. It depends on their stamina how long they last, of course. Those of my men who are off duty will go to them tonight. They will not be gentle. Some of them have not had a woman for several months, and in their quest for satisfaction they are likely to do untold damage. Still, that matters not. You, my lovely, could be right out there now with soldiers lining up, waiting to take their turn with you. But, you are not. You are here with me, Colonel Sika, and your fate depends upon your cooperation.’

Sonia tried to drag her eyes away from his leering face, but it was impossible.

‘Here,’ he spread his arms wide, ‘in this very camp I am the Emperor. My power is absolute. I have no contact with the rest of the world. My word is law, and if you will be my woman then you can share this power with me.’

She just sat there, his words hammering inside her brain, her expression blank.

‘But if you refuse,’ his features hardened, he leaned backwards, ‘then your fate will be far worse than theirs!’

Colonel Sika leaned over and looked at Sonia Barnes again.

‘Well,’ he breathed. ‘I hope that will not be necessary in your case. Now, come on, give me your answer girl!’

Sonia nodded slowly, her lips trembling as she spoke.

‘I'll be your woman,’ she said.

Chapter Four

Chan was a half-caste, having both Malayan and Chinese blood in his veins. He remembered little of his childhood, and was uncertain of his parentage. Ever since he had been old enough to walk he had wandered from kampong to kampong, working in the fields for a few handfuls of rice and shelter from the monsoons and cold nights.

Now, in his own estimation, he was a Big Man. Since the day when he had met up with Li Chu and his bandits, life had taken on a new meaning for Chan. No longer did he have to wear the ragged garments of a towkay's servant. Instead, he had a brand new steel helmet, a camouflaged jacket and leather boots. But these were as nothing when compared with the tommy gun that spat a continual hail of leaden death, the .45 automatic pistol that bounced on his hip, and the small bombs that would annihilate a whole company of Japs at one explosion.

His pride had swelled when Li Chu had sent for him and given him his instructions in front of the three British army officers.

‘Go to Colonel Sika's prison camp,’ Li Chu had said, ‘and find out if the British nurses are being held there. Count the number of Japanese guards, note how they patrol the compound, and also where the machine gun turrets are situated. But do not engage in any action with the enemy. Come straight back here with your information.’

Now Chan crouched on the edge of the clearing in which the prison camp was situated. In the blackness of the night he was almost mesmerised by the revolving searchlights, watching the sentries patrol, noting the intervals at which they were replaced. It was far more exciting than playing hide-and-seek with Jap patrols in the jungle, armed with only a parang. He was on level terms with them. His tommy gun could bring the nearest machine-gunner crashing down into the compound at the press of a trigger. He could … He edged closer until he was within a couple of yards of the barbed wire fence, crouching behind a hibiscus bush that had been overlooked when the site had been cleared.

Soldiers came and went from the prison hut on the far side, and in the still night air he heard the wails and screams of women. The nurses were here all right, and a constant stream of Japs were partaking of the pleasures which the girls had to offer them. Colonel Sika's hut was in darkness.

Then Chan noticed the bloody, tattered bodies hanging from the barbed wire. He crept closer, moving a foot or so at a time when the searchlights swung away from him.

He was close to the bodies. By stretching out a hand he could have touched the nearest one. Very little cover screened him now, but he knew that by remaining motionless the guards would not see him.

Suddenly, a strangled gasp burst from his lips. The features of the dead Malay on the far end of the line were only too familiar to him. It was none other than Buki, the towkay who had provided him with work and shelter all through last winter. Buki, a good and kindly man, father of many children. The thought of so many orphans made the fury inside him seeth to bursting point. He felt in the pocket of his jacket, and eased on a hand grenade.

‘Jap bastards!’ he yelled, leaping to his feet the second that the searchlight beam had passed by him, in the same instant hurling the Mills' bomb up at the nearest machine gun post. Chan's aim was true, and the grenade caught the Japanese soldier in the turret on the shoulder, and dropped to his feet. There would, indeed, have been very little left of either man, machine gun or searchlight had Li-Chu taken the trouble to explain to Chan that the function of a grenade depended upon the removal of the pin before throwing.

As Chan paused, waiting for the result of his throw, a low burst of machine gun fire from the second turret swept the area beyond the fence. The half-caste crumpled and fell, his kneecaps shattered. The gate swung open, and half-a-dozen Japs were upon him before he had thought about using either his tommy gun or pistol.

Hands seized him, disarmed him, and dragged him across to a small solitary hut that stood alongside Colonel Sika's residence.

Chan winced at the pain in his legs, and then groaned aloud as the light was switched on and he saw the various instruments of torture which were hung neatly in rows alongside either wall. His wrists were clapped in steel manacles, permanent fixtures in the wall, and he was left to hang there. At least the weight had been taken off his shattered legs.

Two guards remained watching him, and a few minutes later further footsteps heralded the arrival of Colonel Sika. The latter was dishevelled, his black hair awry, uniform only partially fastened. There was a look of malevolence on his features. He was ruthless and cruel at all times, but none more so than when he had been interrupted during copulation.

‘What is this?’ amazement registered on his face, and his fingers tugged at the jacket of the prisoner. ‘A British Army uniform! Weapons, grenades … where did you get these from?’

Chan maintained a stoic silence. Sika bunched his fist, and with a howl of rage drove it straight into the face of the helpless man, shattering nose and teeth with one blow. Blood poured down Chan's chin, and dripped steadily on to his uniform. Still he did not reply.

‘Another stubborn one,’ Colonel Sika sighed, then grinned. His rage had evaporated as quickly as the early morning mist. He liked them stubborn. If everybody conceded under interrogation there would be little pleasure left in life.

‘Take off his lower garments!’

The two guards hastened to obey, dragging Chan's trousers from his body, exposing his splintered and bloody knees. Sika never even glanced at them. He was busy studying the array of instruments which hung from nails in the walls, deliberating in his own mind, weighing each one up, knowing exactly what he would do to his victim. Finally, he made his choice. He lifted down what appeared to be a pair of steel tongs. The handles were joined by a strong spring, and he had to use both hands to force them apart. When he released them they shot back together with such force that the vibration transmitted a tingling sensation into his hands and arms.

‘Fasten his legs wide apart.’

The soldiers obeyed instantly, and Chan groaned audibly as his broken legs were forced into a “splits” position, and then held in place by steel bands. There appeared to be manacles over all parts of the wall, and a human body could have been forcibly suspended in almost any position. This was Colonel Sika's own invention, his very own torture-chamber, far more terrible than anything that had ever been devised in the history of his nation's love of the cruel and the sadistic.

He did not give the prisoner a second chance to answer the question. All information from now onwards would be volunteered under torture, and there would be no relaxation of pain at any stage whether the victim decided to talk or not.

Chan braced his body as Sika stooped down. The half-caste bit hard on his lower lip as he felt fingers positioning his testicles, followed by a click as the handles of the tongs were forced apart. Colonel Sika grunted under the strain, and then released the tongs.

Chan screamed, one long scream that went on and on. He had never expressed a feeling of pain since he was a child. He had been taught by the towkays to suffer in silence. The hanging handles of the tongs swung against the insides of his legs as he jerked to the full extent of his manacles.

‘Who gave you these clothes and weapons?’ Sika's voice penetrated his pain-crazed brain through a red mist that refused to yield to blessed oblivion.

‘Who sent you here?’

Stubbornly Chan shook his head, and grimaced through his bloody, pain-distorted features. Colonel Sika shrugged his shoulders. The information was not really important. Probably the items had been stolen from the body of a murdered British soldier during the retreat to Singapore. In fact, the camp commander had almost forgotten the reason why this wretch of a half-caste was hanging from the wall like a rare butterfly in a collection. All that mattered was the torture, and it was far from over yet.

‘I shall return presently,’ Colonel Sika turned away and began to retrace his steps back to his residence. There was a dull ache in his loins that demanded relief. Relief such as only the lovely naked Sonia Barnes could give him.

She was lying there on the bed exactly as he had left her when he returned to the bedroom. Her eyes were closed as though she had fallen asleep, but her legs were still spread wide, and in the artificial light he could see the glistening pinkness beneath the curly dark pubic hair.

Such was his lust now that he did not stop to undress fully. Trousers around his ankles, jacket unfastened, he flung himself on to her. She gasped aloud with surprise and shock at the suddenness of his penetration, but he interpreted it as an outward show of her pleasure at the resumption of copulation. His thighs slammed forward, his tiny buttocks heaved in the air, and he began to sweat profusely as his orgasm neared.

Later he eased himself out of her, and remembered the man who was still hanging in the torture shed. He partially redressed, slouched through to the adjoining room, and opened a drawer of the desk. His fingers closed lovingly around the handle of a short-bladed knife. He tested the sharpness of the double-edged blade gently with his thumb, and chuckled.

He walked out into the compound holding the knife so that the men on guard duty could see it. They grinned back at him, trying to hide their own fear for every one of them knew Colonel Sika's circumcision knife only too well, and each feared that one day he might experience the pain of it slicing off his own foreskin.

‘That man of yours has been gone three days now, Li Chu.’ Colonel Carter paced the bandit chief's quarters restlessly, glancing at Cole and Sanders as he did so. ‘Something's happened to him for sure.’

‘He knows the jungle.’ Li Chu did not meet the other's gaze. ‘He knows every inch of it. Better than any man here. He moves with the stealth of a wild beast. They would neither see nor hear him.’

‘Unless he did something stupid,’ Carter snapped. ‘You were a fool to let him go looking like a cross between a British commando and a Christmas tree. He should have gone in the guise of a towkay, and even if the Japs had spotted him they probably wouldn't have bothered. If I'd known he was going dressed like that I would have stopped him.’

‘It is too late now,’ Li Chu was strangely subdued. ‘You are right, colonel. Something has happened to him. The Japs have got him, and there's nothing we can do about it. Our best plan is to start blowing up a few bridges and railways, and ...’

‘No!’ Carter turned to face the Chinese, his jaw jutting out, his eyes blazing. ‘We agreed that a rescue bid for those nurses took priority, and just because one of your scouts has slipped up it doesn't mean that we're going to abandon the plan.’

Li Chu looked at all three of them in turn, ‘Well, what do you intend to do, then?’

‘Someone else has got to go,’ Carter snapped. ‘My first inclination, with time running out, is to launch a full-scale attack on Sika's camp, but I know from experience that it is imperative to reconnoitre a target first. Send another man, Li Chu, and if he doesn't come back then we'll have to go in shooting.’

The Chinese rose to his feet.

‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘I will send Li Wong. He is a good scout, but not the bravest of men.’

Li Wong was far from happy with his assignment. He would have preferred to have made the trip by night, but Li Chu had insisted that speed was of paramount importance.

He travelled fast, following animal tracks and taking a number of short cuts. If anything he knew this jungle better than Chan. Chan's fate was a possible source of worry to him. The Japs must have caught him. The man had been obsessed with his uniform and weapons. He had boasted that he could defeat the whole Japanese army single-handed. Maybe he had tried it. Well, Li Wong had no such ambitions. He disliked the idea of fighting. It was better to let other men fight, and then join in the looting afterwards.

It was the hottest part of the day when he arrived at the edge of the clearing in which Colonel Sika's camp lay. A couple of sentries stood in the shade offered by the ram-shackle prison hut, but there was no other sign of life. The machine gun turrets were empty. Only after nightfall would they be manned.

Li Wong realised that he must lie and bide his time for maybe several hours. Not until after the heat of the day would the full strength of the camp be known. There was no way of telling whether or not there was anybody in that prison hut.

The heat reached its scorching peak, and then subsided a little. Li Wong lay watching, wishing that he could be away from this place.

Such was his concentration on that which lay in front of him that he had disregarded the jungle to his rear. The returning Japanese patrol moved quietly, not because they expected to surprise a lurking spy but because it was too hot to move quickly.

Li Wong whirled round, but he was too late to seek fresh cover. Four Japanese soldiers emerged from the jungle path, their pistols covering him before he had even had time to contemplate flight.

Chattering excitedly, they surrounded him. The barrel of an automatic pistol slashed his face, drawing blood, and then they were frogmarching him towards the main gate which was already swinging open.

‘So,’ Colonel Sika surveyed the Chinese who was manacled to the wall in the torture hut. ‘Another spy, eh. Something is going on, and I am going to discover what it is.’

Li Wong trembled.

‘Not so brave, this one, eh!’ Sika leered. In some ways it was a disappointment to find a victim who would not resist his hideous, depraved tortures. He glanced down at the crumpled tarpaulin lying in the corner. These fools should have cleared the last one away. The half-caste was beginning to smell.

Sika wrinkled his nose.

‘You have been sent to spy on me,’ he drove his fist hard into Li Wong's face, splintering nose and teeth in the same way that he had done to Chan.

Li Wong screamed, and began to whine.

‘Who sent you? Why?’

Li Wong shook his head, but it was only a token resistance. Sika removed the cheroot from his mouth, flicked the ash contemptuously at the prisoner, and blew gently on the glowing end. His hand seized Li Wong's jaw, slamming his head against the wall.

The Chinese was screaming again before the lighted end of the cheroot was ground into his cheek bone, spluttering slightly in the blood that had welled from his broken nose.

‘Well,’ Colonel Sika's voice was flat and emotionless, ‘who sent you to spy on my camp, and why?’

‘Colonel Carter,’ Li Wong writhed, but could not break contact with the burning cheroot.

‘And who is Colonel Carter?’

‘Jungle … Carter.’ Li Wong broke off to scream again, and only the removal of the smouldering tobacco enabled him to resume coherent speech. ‘Guerillas ... with Li Chu.’

‘Ah, Li Chu!’ Sika's eyes narrowed at the mention of the infamous Chinese bandit. ‘And what are this Colonel Carter and Li Chu planning, eh?’

The cheroot was moved close to Li Wong's cheek again, bringing forth a flow of words.

‘They ... try to rescue the nurses,’ he blurted out.

‘Ah, the nurses,’ Colonel Sika placed the butt of the cheroot back between his lips, and drew hard upon it. His brain worked fast. Of course, he could extract full details of the guerilla camp from this miserable wretch. However, he had not the troops available to launch an attack upon it. He could radio the information to his superiors, but some jumped-up general would take all the credit. No, there was a much better way.

‘I am going to let you go, my friend,’ he signalled to the two guards to unfasten the astounded guerilla. ‘I am going to allow you to walk right out of here, and return unmolested to Li Chu and Colonel Carter!’

Li Wong collapsed on the floor in a faint as his manacles were removed.

Chapter Five

'Good God!' Jungle Carter leapt to his feet as a couple of Malays half carried Li Wong into Li Chu's hut. The Chinese scout crumpled to the floor, and lay there.

‘He is not too badly hurt,’ a brief inspection by the bandit chief revealed no more than a broken nose and teeth, and a burned cheek, ‘but he is badly frightened … which is not surprising where Li Wong is concerned!’

Li Wong grimaced under the biting sarcasm.

‘Well,’ Li Chu snapped. ‘What did you find out? What happened to you? Speak up, you snivelling kampong curl.’

Li Wong groaned, and covered his face with his hands.

‘They caught me,’ he wailed. ‘Colonel Sika himself did this to me.’

‘Well if this is Colonel Sika's work,’ the bandit laughed scornfully, ‘it looks as though he invited you to take tea with him. Sika does much worse to his prisoners ... on other parts of their bodies!’

‘He let me go,’ Li Wong trembled, and half considered flight, but changed his mind when he saw the two Malays guarding the doorway. ‘He let me go … so that I could bring a message to you and Colonel Carter.’

‘You treacherous dog!’ Li Chu dragged the cringing Chinese up on to his knees. ‘You talked. Not only were you foolish enough to get yourself caught, but you also told them about ourselves and Carter.’

‘Hold it!’ Hugh Carter was just in time to prevent Li Chu from driving his huge clenched fist into the scout's face. ‘Ease up, Li Chu. Let's hear what he has to say.’

Li Wong gulped, and continued, looking up fearfully at the bandit leader.

‘He says,’ Li Wong gulped, ‘that you, and Colonel Carter, and all your bandits are to surrender yourselves to him at the camp tomorrow night before the sun goes down, and …’

‘The insolent pig!’ Once again Carter was just in time to prevent the enraged Li Chu from striking the man who cringed before him.

‘Go on,’ Carter snapped. ‘Let's hear it.’

Li Wong trembled, his slitted eyes widening and rolling, ‘He says that if you do not come, one of the nurses will be raped, and put to death slowly. Another the next night, and so on until either all the nurses are dead or else you are his prisoners!’

‘Well, he'd better get on and kill the nurses, then,’ Li Chu snarled, his evil features twisted with rage, ‘because I'm not surrendering my men to save a bunch of women.’

‘Calm down,’ Carter nodded for Li Wong to get up. ‘Let's not lose our heads. I'm sure we can solve this one.’

‘We can,’ Li Chu spat, ‘by staying right here. For every nurse he kills we'll blow up a bridge, and kill a score of the little yellow bastards!’

Hugh Carter declined to remind Li Chu of his own colour.

‘Now listen,’ Carter turned to face Li Chu, Cole and Sanders. ‘We are in a fortunate position in so much that it seems that Sika did not interrogate Li Wong thoroughly. He presumes that being British I'll be prepared to die for these nurses, and talk Li Chu into dying with me. Sika doesn't know our strength, nor that we have two other British soldiers in our band. He thinks we're just a raggle-taggle bunch of bandits trying to wage a haphazard war.’

‘So?’ Li Chu's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Carter looked him straight in the face, ‘So, you and I surrender to Sika, Li Chu, along with twenty of your men. He'll think he's got us, and he won't be expecting the assault which Sanders, Cole, and the remainder of your men will launch. We'll really catch him with his trousers down, and …’

‘Never!’ Li Chu roared, banging the table with his clenched fist. ‘My men will never surrender to the Japs …’

‘But you won't bloody well be surrendering,’ Carter snapped. ‘We're decoys …’

‘Nothing doing,’ Li Chu's outburst died away to sulky defiance.

‘You're yeller,’ Carter's lip curled as he exaggerated a display of contempt for the other. ‘As yeller as the Japs. Worse, in fact. You're all talk, but when it comes to action, you back down. I doubt whether you'll even have the nerve to blow up bridges and railways. That's why you need Sanders, Cole and myself … to do it for you whilst you skulk in the jungle bragging about what you might have done!’

‘Nobody calls us yeller,’ Li Chu's hand rested on the butt of the .45 automatic pistol tucked into the waistband of his oversize camouflaged trousers.

Hugh Carter deliberately turned his back on the bandits, and faced his two companions.

‘That's it, then, chaps,’ he spoke loudly so that the bandits clustering in the doorway could hear him. ‘We go it alone, just the three of us, and we don't come back here at any cost.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Li Chu pulled the colonel round to face him, ‘don't let's do anything drastic, anything we might regret. I'll talk to my men.’

Only when he could hear Li Chu's voice outside addressing the whole company of bandits did he permit himself to smile.

‘Well, it worked as far as Li Chu is concerned. The oldest trick in the world, challenging the courage of a brave man. Now it's up to his men. It all depends on whether they choose to vote with him. Whichever way it goes, though, we've got to do something to try and get those nurses out of Sika's clutches, chaps.’

A babble of conversation reached them from outside. Li Chu had spoken his piece, put it to the bandits, and now the guerillas were having their say, shouting, discussing it with each other, excitement running at fever pitch.

Finally, Li Chu came back into the hut. He nodded, and smiled at the three men.

‘My men have cast their vote,’ he announced. ‘We go. Nineteen volunteers have agreed to surrender themselves with myself and Jungle Carter to Colonel Sika … but you'd better not slip up, Carter, because if you do, what these bandits will do to you three will make Sika's efforts, look like a sampan trip down the river on a sunny evening!’

Li Chu, nineteen of his bandits, Cole and Sanders, crushed into the main hut to listen to the final briefing of Colonel Hugh Carter. The latter was ice cool and in complete command of his nerves as he addressed the assembly.

‘Briefly, this is the plan,’ he said speaking alternately in English and Chinese, pausing between sentences, and giving the listeners plenty of time to digest his words. There was no room for mistakes in an operation of this kind. ‘Li Chu, myself and the party of volunteers should arrive at Colonel Sika's camp shortly before sunset, in time, we hope, to prevent the first execution. Cole and Sanders will follow with the remainder of Li Chu's men, travelling by night, and should be in the vicinity of the camp by daybreak. It is imperative that they lie low, and on no account are spotted by the Japs. Then they must wait for a signal from either Li Chu or myself. That is important. At the first sign of a rescue party Colonel Sika will machine gun every prisoner in the camp. I don't know what kind of a signal I shall give. It is something I shall have to play as it comes, but the safety of the nurses is paramount. The rescue party can lie safely hidden within a hundred yards of the camp, with sentries posted, and one man to watch every movement within the enclosure. Of course, at the first sign of a man's execution they will come in shooting, and then it is everyone for himself. I can't be more explicit than that. Captain Cole will be in absolute command, and not a move is to be made without an order from him.’

He repeated the whole procedure slowly, and when he had finished every man present nodded his head to show that he had understood.

‘Right, we'll get moving then.’ Carter turned to Cole. ‘It's up to you now. Not only our own lives, but those of the nurses, depend on you. And, by the way, wear full uniform, and carry your identification papers. I don't hold out much hope for you if you're captured, but unless you're in uniform Sika can shoot you as spies, and he'll be quite within his rights.’

An hour later the advance column, led by Li Chu and Hugh Carter, set off in single file into the steaming jungle. They carried no armaments whatsoever.

‘I feel bloody naked,’ Carter murmured to Li Chu, but the other did not reply. The bandit leader was far from happy. Never before in his life had he contemplated sur-render, even in the role of a decoy.

‘They'll probably shoot us all on sight,’ he muttered after a while.

‘I don't think so,’ the colonel replied. ‘I rather think they'll want to have a little chat to us first!’

Half-heartedly Carter removed leeches from his exposed skin as they marched. Somehow the parasites did not seem to matter anymore. Blood ran cheaply in the jungle.

The sun was beginning to dip in the western sky when they saw the prison camp ahead of them through the trees. Li Chu paused, and the whole column came to a halt. The reception committee was in evidence. The machine gun turrets were manned, the weapons trained on that part of the jungle from which the guerillas would arrive. The compound was full of soldiers, each man at a vantage point. Some lay on the roof of the prison hut, others crouched behind crates and improvised cover. Colonel Sika was taking no chances.

‘Well,’ Carter started to move forward slowly, ‘this is it Come on.’

As they emerged from the jungle they heard the metallic clicks of safety catches being eased forward, rifle bolts pushing ammunition into chambers, and the creaking of the large wooden gate as two men pulled it open.

In single file the guerillas walked into the compound. The gate was closed. Soldiers watched intently, but none moved forward.

Carter brought his men to a halt, formed them into two ranks, and then stood at ease alongside Li Chu. For fully five minutes there was no move from the Japs.

‘The cat and mouse game has started,’ Carter whispered to Li Chu, ‘they're playing on our nerves already. Just relax.’

Finally, the door of Colonel Sika's house opened, and the camp commander walked out on to the verandah. He was dressed in full uniform, and there was a smug expression on his face.

Slowly he descended the wooden steps, and with all eyes upon him walked across the compound towards the guerillas. He did not hurry, a slight swagger in his step, knowing that all eyes were upon him, especially those of Sonia Barnes who would not be able to resist watching through the window. He came to a halt in front of Hugh Carter, and looked up at the big man.

‘So you are Jungle Carter,’ he sneered, ‘a British Army officer turned bandit.’

‘I am Colonel Carter,’ the other replied, at the same time unbuttoning the breast pocket of his jacket, withdrawing a sheaf of papers, and handing them to the Japanese officer. ‘These are my credentials.’

Sika took the papers. He studied them intently for a few seconds, hoping to convey to the watchers that he could read English as well as speak it. Then, with one sudden movement he tore the papers in half, then again, and again, finally flinging the bits into the air. They floated slowly to the ground like blossom in a spring breeze.

‘Pah!’ he grunted, ‘you are a spy.’

‘I am a British officer,’ Carter snapped, ‘and as such I demand to be treated as one, in accordance with the terms set out in the Geneva Convention …’

‘Geneva Convention!’ Colonel Sika's veins bulged in his neck and forehead, ‘you dare to talk to me about the Geneva Convention! Out here I make the rules. I am the law. I will say how you will be treated.’

With an effort Carter restrained himself. The fingers of his right hand were bunching, and it was all he could do to hold himself back. He knew full well that the satisfaction of sending this maniac sprawling to the ground would last but a few seconds. Machine guns and rifles would bark, and within seconds every single one of his party would be dead. He released his breath slowly, and knew that he had passed the first test with flying colours.

‘You are holding some twenty nurses here,’ he said evenly.

‘That is so,’ Sika was sizing up the rest of the party, a leer on his face. ‘It is almost sunset now, and too late for us to talk. We will reserve that pleasure for tomorrow. In the meantime you will all share that hut with the nurses. There are nineteen of them, and twenty-one of your bandits, including yourselves. Forty in all. It is already overcrowded in there. I cannot wish you a comfortable night.’

Colonel Sika turned on his heel, and stalked back in the direction of his house. Soldiers surged forward, hustling and pushing the Chinese in the direction of the prison hut.

‘Do not resist them,’ Carter called out noting that one or two of the Chinese and Malays were objecting to the rough handling.

‘Do as they say,’ Li Chu barked.

The men ceased to struggle.

The bedraggled and grimed nurses looked up in alarm as the door was dragged open, blinking in the sudden light, shielding their faces as though to ward off blows. Several of them were completely naked, their bodies covered with cuts and bruises. Others had made brief garments from the remains of their tattered uniforms simply to cover their breasts and lower areas. The filthy dark hut already looked overcrowded.

A sudden push in the back sent Hugh Carter stumbling amongst them. Li Chu landed on top of him. Chinese and Malays jumped inside to avoid the sharp bayonets which prodded at their rumps. As the last one somehow managed to get inside the door was closed, and they heard the unmistakable sound of a lock being turned.

‘Christ Almighty!’ Carter gasped, trying to avoid crushing the struggling panic-stricken girl beneath him. ‘This is like a tin of maggots in here, everybody crawling on top of everybody else.’

Girls were screaming. The majority of them thought that it was the Jap guards again, earlier than usual tonight, in search of depraved sexual satisfaction.

‘Listen to me,’ Carter yelled, trying to make himself heard above the din. ‘I am a British Army officer. My name is Colonel Carter. Now, will you all please be still and quiet, and listen to what I have to say!’

Slowly the noise died away. Nurses who had given up hope of ever hearing another male European voice listened in amazement. Carter waited until they were quiet before speaking, and then it was his greatest regret that he could not raise their morale by telling them of the rescue party which would now be starting out from Li Chu's hideout. It was too dangerous, though. Once the Japs heard of that it was all over. They would all be as good as dead, including Sanders and Cole who would walk straight into an ambush.

‘We've got to keep calm,’ he said. ‘These men with me are not Japs. They are Chinese and Malays all on the side of the British. It is very cramped in here, akin to the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta. There is little ventilation, and I pray that they will not leave us in here tomorrow during the heat of the day. Now, lie down in pairs, facing each other. That way you will take up a lot less room.’

Chinese and Malays positioned themselves alongside nurses. Already hands were starting to explore female bodies, the majority of the men being rejected. Most of the girls did not care if they never had sex again. One or two welcomed the attention of a race other than the sadistic Japanese.

Carter was aware of female nakedness against him. He wished he could have seen the girl. He could not even make out her form in silhouette. The atmosphere was thick and stifling, and he feared that before morning some of them would have suffocated.

Outside he heard the laughter of the Japs. The conditions inside the prison hut were affording them plenty of amusement. For once they were prepared to forego their nightly visits to the nurses. All ears were tuned into the sounds coming from Sika's devilish prison. More than one of the guards succumbed to the temptation to masturbate.

Chapter Six

‘Well, we'd better get started.’ Captain Cole murmured as the last rays of the dying sun were obscured by the surrounding trees, and the darkness was already gathering in the surrounding jungle.

‘Can't say I like the idea of all these fucking bandits carrying grenades,' Sanders grimaced. 'It only wants one curious bugger to start fiddlin' about, and none of us will reach the camp.’

‘Well, we can't do without them, so that's a chance we've got to take.’ Cole surveyed the motley company. Every one of the bandits was armed to capacity as well as carrying their packs of provisions on their backs.

‘I don't trust this Li Wong, either,’ Sanders grumbled. ‘We already know the bastard lacks guts.’

‘He's a good scout, though,’ Cole snapped impatiently, ‘and without him we'd never find our way to the camp.’

They set off down the narrow track that had been hacked out by the bandits several weeks ago. Li Wong was in the lead, closely followed by Cole and Sanders.

They walked for an hour or so in silence before Li Wong suddenly pulled up sharply.

‘What's the matter?’ Cole whispered.

‘Tiger,’ the Chinese replied.

‘Christ!’ Sanders swung his tommy gun off his shoulder.

‘Not to worry,’ Li Wong grinned in the darkness. ‘Only old tigers become man-eaters. He not worry us.’

‘Then what are you fucking well stopping for?’ the sapper growled, relief in his voice.

‘Because,’ Li Wong muttered, ‘gibbons move, too. Hornbills flutter in trees. Animal life is disturbed. Why?’

Cole felt uneasy.

‘Move cautiously,’ he warned the scout, ‘and keep your ears open.’

At one stage, about a mile further on, they had to pass several acres of land that had been cleared by tin miners before the outbreak of war. Just as they were about to move out of the stygian blackness into the faint starlight, Li Wong stopped, his one hand raised for silence, the other pointing ahead.

‘What is it now?’ Cole felt a tightening of his stomach muscles. He peered into the gloom, but his eyes had not yet adjusted to the lesser degree of darkness.

‘Japs!’ Li Wong muttered, stepping backwards and treading on the captain's toes. ‘Hundreds of them. They've made camp in the clearing. I can see two sentries from here.’

They retreated fifty yards or so down the track before they held a whispered conference.

‘What are we going to do now?’ Cole asked their guide anxiously.

‘Our way is blocked,’ Li Wong replied. ‘In order to get past them we should have to hack our way through the jungle with our parangs, and they would hear us. We must go back the way we came.’

‘We can't,’ Cole retorted. ‘Carter is relying on us. We've got to get through at all costs.’

‘What are they doing here?’ Sanders growled. ‘Yesterday, apart from Colonel Sika's lot, this part of the jungle was clear of the fuckers.’

‘At a rough guess,’ Cole replied, ‘they're scouring the area for slave labour to work on the roads and railways. This really puts the cat among the pigeons. When we get stuck into Sika's mob they'll come running, and we'll be the meat in the sandwich.’

‘We could get the bleeders,’ Sanders suggested. ‘They're all bunched together, sleepin', too. A few grenades and a burst of gunfire, and they wouldn't know what hit 'em.’

‘Agreed,’ Cole wished that Jungle Carter had been with them. ‘The big man inspired confidence in the tightest of situations. There's only one snag, though. We don't know how many more of them there are camped out in the vicinity.’

‘We'd best go back,’ Li Wong glanced fearfully in the direction of the Japanese camp.

‘No,’ Cole caught him by the arm. ‘We're not going back, Li Wong, and neither are you. We're going to see this through together.’

Li Wong shrugged his shoulders.

‘By sunup we all be dead,’ he said.

The girl called Jenny snuggled up against Carter. Suddenly, her fears had lessened. An hour ago this foul shed, reeking of urine and excreta, had contained nineteen demoralised nurses to whom rape had become a nightly routine. Now their ranks had been swelled by a British officer and a band of jungle cut throats whose hatred of their captors was unrivalled in the Far East. The fact that the Japs held the whip hand was at the moment, immaterial. It was a case of a trouble shared.

‘How have you been treated?’ Carter conversed with her in whispered tones.

‘Pretty rough,’ she replied. ‘It's hell in here during the daytime. It's a wonder that none of us have died. Somebody is sure to get fever soon … if we live that long! Then, just when it's starting to cool down those fiends come and rape us. They aren't interested in just a sexual relationship. The more they hurt you, the better they like it. There were a couple of virgins amongst us. They haven't stopped bleeding yet! God knows what's happening to poor Sonia.’

‘Who is Sonia?’ he asked.

‘Sonia Barnes,’ she muttered. ‘The senior nurse at the hospital before they took it. Colonel Sika took her on the first night, and we haven't seen her since.’

Hugh Carter grimaced in the darkness. Nurse Barnes would be going through sheer hell wherever she was. He only hoped that she had the sense to cooperate. Women were stubborn, though, even in a time of crisis. He only wished that he could have told Jenny that there was a chance of rescue. It might ruin everything, though.

The Japanese guards had fallen silent Perhaps the novelty of this latest development had worn off. Somewhere amongst this packed mass of humanity Carter could hear one of the bandits grunting and a girl moaning softly with pleasure. Somebody passed a remark in Malay which was greeted by a chorus of guttural laughter. At least one couple were enjoying themselves.

Carter was not aware that he had an erection until the girl felt at it through his trousers. It must have dug into her side as they lay squashed together. He made no move to push her away. He had gone for a long time without a woman. It was something he had come to accept. However, the nearness of Jenny's nakedness was having its effect upon him.

He wondered what she looked like. His hands began to caress her body. She was small and slim. Her breasts were full and shapely. He stroked the outsides of her thighs, and then she pulled his lips close to hers. They were warm and soft, her tongue quickly finding its way into his mouth, and entwining with his own. And all the time she continued to stroke his penis through his trousers.

Their kissing became fiercer, and as their emotions built up he felt her beginning to undo the buttons of his trousers. Christ, it was like an oven in here, he thought, even though Malayan nights are cold. He wished that he could have stripped off. He envied her nudity. There wasn't room, though. Something else, too. He didn't want to lose the respect these guerillas had for him. If it had been an all-British company it wouldn't have mattered. But these bandits were savages. They understood little except killing, looting, and sex. It would not strengthen his position for them to have him screwing in their midst.

The man lying on the other side of him shifted his position. He was aware of cupped hands over his left ear, and a whisper that was scarcely audible.

‘You fuck her good, boss,’ there was a mocking hint in Li Chu's whisper.

Carter's reply was a sharp dig with his elbow that caught the Chinese in the pit of the stomach causing the bandit to gasp aloud.

By this time, Jenny, totally unaware that the man whose eyes equalled those of the tiger in pitch blackness, had been repelled, had got Carter's member free of his trousers. She handled it with expertise, and Carter sighed with pleasure.

He slid his hands between her thighs, noting how they opened at his approach as though willing him to explore. Still they kissed, their tongues now fighting a battle of love, thrusting hard, and simulating everything else that was going to happen before very long.

‘I need you,’ she whispered, ‘more than you can ever imagine. God, how I need a man!’

‘I would've thought that you'd've had enough these last few nights,’ he kissed her tenderly with pouted lips.

‘Don't remind me of that' she groaned. That wasn't sex. It was just violence. What I need right now is a man to take me gently, and really make love to me.’

He felt at her vagina. It was warm and ready and there was no evidence of Japanese maltreatment. His fingers slid up and down her clitoris, circled the inner and outer lips, penetrated her, then continued with the clitoral stimulation.

She tensed and jerked slightly.

‘Take me,’ she whispered. ‘Now!’

He hesitated. The side-by-side position was the only feasible way, and already she was pulling his erection towards her, twisting her body to make the penetration easier for him. He felt the hot warmth of her vagina swallowing him up, and powered forward with his thighs until their pubic bones banged together. Frantically she clung to him, her gyrating hips doing all the work that was necessary. His orgasm rushed to meet hers, and then they were clinging and shuddering together. The war, the Japs, Colonel Sika and his vile prison camp were all forgotten for a few beautiful seconds.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured at last, ‘Oh, thank you.'

Then grim reality surged back.

Sonia Barnes lay looking at the naked man who lay sleeping soundly on the bed at her side. Revolt welled up inside her almost to the point of vomiting. The dawn light flooded the room, and every second she saw him clearer.

His physique was little more than that of the average European boy in his early teens. Small and slight, his potbelly rose and fell in time with his breathing. He reminded her of a repulsive bullfrog. His hunger had been fully appeased little more than an hour ago.

Sonia wondered how much more of this she could stand. Sika had talked of children, a son to succeed him. She vowed that she would never bear his child. Once she missed a period she would kill herself.

He trusted her implicitly, fondly believing in his fantasies that she loved him. On the bedside table lay his pistol and knife. It would have been only too easy. Both of them would have been dead by the time Samuri and the guards came to investigate.

She would have gone through with it had it not been for the nineteen other nurses out there in the prison hut. The Japs would exact a terrible vengeance upon them for her deed.

She had seen the British officer called Carter come in with his guerillas. Colonel Sika had boasted to her of his conquest. She had listened expressionlessly. Then she had had to hide her revulsion as he had outlined his plans for the male prisoners, the following morning. It was all a game to him, some kind of depraved sport.

He began to stir, and she closed her eyes, feigning sleep. It was no use, though. Upon waking, those tiny yellow hands, stained with innocent blood, began prising her thighs apart. His lips closed over a nipple, and he began to suckle.

‘I am too tired,’ she groaned.

‘And I am fresh and eager,’ he replied. ‘You can sleep all day if you wish, but by nightfall you must be ready for me again.’

His hardness forced its way into her again. It was painful, but she knew that far greater pain would be hers if she rejected him. He built himself up to a frenzied climax, then - withdrew and began to dress.

‘Perhaps that will be the one which will give me a son,’ he smiled blandly, fondling her nakedness once more, and then leaving her.

Sonia Barnes buried her head in the pillow and began to sob uncontrollably.

By some miracle none of the forty occupants of the prison hut had died during the night. In the faint light which crept in through the chinks in the woodwork Hugh Carter saw Jenny properly for the first time. His loins stirred faintly at the memory of all that had happened between them during the night.

Li Chu was sitting in a corner, a fair-haired girl on his lap. She had an arm around his neck, and was laughing at some joke which they shared.

‘Here they come!’

The warning was issued in hushed whispers by several of the nurses. Footsteps grew louder across the compound, a key grated in the lock, then the morning sunlight flooded the interior.

Samuri glanced around the interior.

‘Everybody still alive!’ there was a note of incredulity in his voice. ‘Well, I guarantee they won't be after today!’

Those girls who understood Japanese shivered. The men remained impassive. Li Chu sneered.

‘You!’ A pointing yellow finger singled out Hugh Carter. ‘Come with us. Colonel Sika wishes to see you. Hurry!’

Jungle Carter stood up. Briefly Jenny's hand squeezed his. Calmly he stepped over and around the other prisoners, taking his time, refusing to be intimidated by these guards.

The door was closed again. Samuri walked behind him, an automatic pistol in his hand. The other guard led the way. There did not seem to be anybody else about. Straight up the verandah steps, and then a pause whilst Samuri rapped almost hesitantly on the outer door.

‘Enter!’

Hugh Carter was pushed forward into the room almost as though Samuri was using him as a shield from the possible fury of his commander.

‘Ah, Colonel Carter,’ Sika glanced up from the table where he was breakfasting, voraciously stuffing rice and boiled fish into his mouth, spilling most of it down his uniform. ‘Sit down. Over there. You have your orders, Samuri. Go to them.’

Silence followed the closing of the door. Colonel Sika continued to eat with an appetite that was matched only by his insatiable lust for depraved sex. Finally, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked steadily at the British officer.

‘Colonel Carter,’ he smiled with his mouth, but his eyes remained cold and full of hatred for the enemy of his country, ‘today you will spend with me. A seat of honour alongside myself on the verandah. There is a day of sport ahead of us … or at least, sport as long as the participants remain capable of taking part.'

His words sent a shiver down Carter's back. Obviously there was something very unpleasant in store for everybody,

‘Do you enjoy sex, Colonel?’ Sika's eyes bored into the other's.

‘Occasionally,’ Carter replied uncomfortably.

‘Did you not take a woman last night? One of those nurses …’

‘No,’ Carter lied.

‘That was very remiss of you, colonel,’ the Jap mocked, seeming to detect the lie. ‘Well, today you will have the opportunity to watch an orgy that must surely be unique in the history of the world.’

Jungle Carter did not reply.

‘Let me explain,' Sika paused to light one of his foul-smelling cheroots, and only when it was drawing to his satisfaction did he continue. Ten of your Chinese and Malay confederates are going to perform for us ... with ten of the nurses! In the centre of this very compound in the heat of the day. It should be quite a spectacle, Colonel!’

‘You filthy swine!’ for one moment Carter thought that his self-control had snapped, but with a supreme effort he held himself in check. Colonel Sika appeared not to notice.

‘The heat will prove fatal to some of the participants,’ he purred, ‘mostly to the females. Some of them will die out there in the compound. Others will suffer sunstroke and die later. Some of the men, too, perhaps, although possibly the Chinese and Malays will have to be killed finally by more ingenious methods!’

Carter's lips were bloodless as he fought against the feeling of nausea rising inside him.

‘And those men who die will be replaced by others from the prison hut,’ Sika laughed softly, ‘and so on, until there are no more prisoners left. I had hoped to spread the sport out over at least two days, but we shall see. My own men will ensure satisfaction for the nurses should the whole thing turn out to be a non-event. And how do you think that you will fare when your turn comes, Colonel Carter?’

Sonia Barnes, who had heard every word plainly in the adjoining room, covered her face with her hands and wept silently.

Chapter Seven

‘They don't seem in any hurry to move,’ Captain Cole whispered to Li Wong as they knelt in the undergrowth watching the Japanese patrol lingering over their night camp.

‘They wait,’ Li Wong prophesied. ‘More Japs come soon, you bet.’

Cole sighed. He counted over thirty soldiers. Every minute that they lingered here meant increased danger for Jungle Carter and the nurses.

‘There's only one thing for it,’ he muttered. ‘We'll have to take them now. It would have been easier whilst they slept. We've got to get every last one of them. None must escape to tell the tale.’

He crawled back to give hasty instructions to the other guerillas.

‘Everybody in a line on the edge of the jungle,’ he ordered. ‘Use your tommy guns. Sanders will lob a grenade right into the midst of them. The moment it goes off, open fire. Right, Sanders. Sixty seconds from now.’

They waited, sweating profusely, all eyes on the sapper. He held the grenade almost lovingly in his right hand. He checked his watch. Once. Twice. His fingers closed over the pin. A faint click as it came out. His arm went back, then forward in one perfectly co-ordinated movement, the egg-like missile soaring high into the sky, seeming to hover, and then plummeting downwards, falling directly amongst the largest group of Japanese soldiers. A moment of hesitation as the men looked curiously towards the clump of weeds whence came the soft thump of the Mills' bomb as it landed, then ... boom!

Japs were thrown into the air, those not directly in the blast standing aghast. The guerillas' tommy guns began to chatter deafeningly from the edge of the jungle. Another bomb followed the first, exploding with terrific force amongst a group who were bolting for cover. Incessant machine gun fire. The only reply to the ambushing fire was a solitary pistol shot that one soldier managed to get off before a stream of bullets tore out his stomach.

Silence returned to the Malayan jungle.

‘Better make sure they're all dead,’ Cole muttered, advancing into the clearing with his tommy gun at the ready.

The Chinese and Malays were chattering with exuberance. Their tommy guns were on their backs again, and in their hands they wielded parangs and sharp knives. The mutilation was about to begin.

Cole turned his head to one side as a giant Malay plunged a knife into the stomach of a dead Japanese soldier and slit him open from groin to throat, cutting easily through the breast bone, and then with one chop beheading his victim.

Two of the Chinese were already displaying a head on a sharpened stake.

‘This has got to stop,’ Cole fought against vomiting as he seized Li Wong by the arm. ‘We can't waste time with these atrocities.’

‘Not long,’ the Chinese grinned. ‘Do not try to stop them, captain. If you do not allow them this small reward for their efforts they will not fight for you.’

Finally, the bandits wiped their bloody hands on the grass, sheathed their knives, and assembled in an orderly line. The savagery was over, and now it was time for war.

‘Make as fast a pace as you can,’ Cole ordered Li Wong, ‘and keep your eyes and ears open at the same time. The sooner we're far from here the happier I'll feel.’

Jungle Carter seated himself alongside Colonel Sika on the verandah of the latter's residence. An armed guard stood only a few feet away, and Carter noticed that both machine gun turrets were manned. Other soldiers patrolled the inside perimeter of the barbed wire fence.

The sun had almost reached its zenith. It was blazing hot, but Carter knew that it must be in excess of 120° inside that prison hut. He glanced in the direction of the jungle, wondering if Cole and the remaining guerillas were skulking in the brush. There was no way he could call them in at this stage, though. Colonel Sika's depraved orgy would have to run its course … for the time being, anyway.

Two soldiers walked towards the hut. The door grated open, and they barked their orders inside. Carter strained forward, but he could not see inside.

The nurses were first out. Ten of them, and in the lead was the red-headed Jenny, strips of torn uniform draped over her in an attempt to hide her nakedness.

Carter gripped the edge of his seat. God, he would willingly have rushed out there and died for her. But it would have been futile. It could not possibly have saved her from the fate which lay in store for her.

The nurses were lined up, and then the guards began removing every shred of tattered material from the girls' bodies. They stood in a naked line, hands clutched over their breasts, thighs pressed tightly together.

Another order was given, and the women lay down on their backs, legs stretched out in front of them. Yet another staccato command from Samuri, and ten pairs of thighs parted in unison. Their arms covered their heads in an attempt to protect themselves from the burning rays of the sun.

The guards turned away. The door of the hut was opened again. A pointed finger and a high-pitched voice singled out the male participants for the coming orgy in the sun.

Carter watched intently, counting them as they came out. Five Malays and five Chinese. In his warped humour Sika had decided on an even distribution of the nationalities which he hated most. There was no sign of Li Chu, and the British colonel heaved a sigh of relief. He couldn't explain it, but he had developed a sneaking regard for the bandit chief. That did not mean that Li Chu was going to be spared, though. There would be replacements for those that “failed”, and there was always the morrow.

The men were lined up, and then forced to kneel at the spread feet of the nurses. Samuri turned and, looked towards the verandah.

Colonel Sika gave a low maniacal laugh, and clapped his hands together sharply. That was the signal to begin!

Li Wong was nervous. Had it not been for the close proximity of Cole and Sanders, followed by the twenty murderous bandits, he would have made a run for it. He knew they would shoot him, though. They would treat him as a traitor who was changing sides. That was the way of war in the jungle. You were either for or against. There were no half measures.

Some strange sixth sense warned him that there were more Japanese soldiers in the area. He didn't know how many, a handful or an army. Finally, he resigned himself to whatever Fate had in store for him.

An hour or so later his fears became reality. Alert as the party were they had not anticipated an attack with such suddenness, or ferociousness. One moment the steaming jungle was silent, the next a Japanese soldier, an automatic pistol spurting sudden death in his hand, jumped down into the path ahead of them, tumbling out of the dense foliage of an overhanging branch, stumbling, but still firing as fast as he could pull the trigger.

‘British pigs!’ he yelled, and then added to the hail of lead with a stream of abuse in his own language.

Li Wong staggered. The first bullet took him in the groin. He doubled up, and the second smashed his teeth, ripping his throat open. He sagged to his knees, blood spurting from his open mouth, reducing his screams to a gurgle.

Cole was firing. Had he not taken that second longer to unsling his tommy gun he would no doubt have mown the lone Jap down before Li Wong had sunk to the ground. As it was, he took those extra few moments to draw his pistol. He had never been an expert marksman with a handgun, and in the heat of his battle his first shot was a yard high, and wide as well. He never had a chance to fire a second. A heavy .45 slug ploughed into his forehead, tearing a jagged gash as it slammed into his skull, spewing blood and grey matter in its wake.

Sanders was firing, his tommy gun bucking against his hip. The attacking Jap straightened up, his back arched, his fourth shot whining into the leafy ceiling above. Three of the Malays and Chinese were firing now, the narrow track a hailstorm of death.

Bullets ripped into the attacker. His distorted features were obscured by pumping blood, the stream of lead whirling him around, shattering his spine, then hurling him to the ground in a barely recognisable crimson heap.

Sanders knelt by the side of Cole. The Captain was staring upwards with glazed eyes, a gaping wound in his forehead.

The sapper transferred his attentions to Li Wong. He grimaced, and turned to the men who were crowding around.

‘We'd better get these bodies out of sight in the undergrowth,’ he ordered. ‘Strip them of all their possessions. Make it quick. The sooner we're on our way the better. There are bound to be more of the bastards about, although this maniac was probably a loner. A suicide attack. He didn't mind dying as long as he took some of us with him. More than likely he was one who escaped from that camp we shot up back there, and he was just avenging his mates.’

Sanders watched as the guerillas removed armaments and personal possessions from the three corpses, then laid them in the undergrowth just out of sight of the track. The sapper was only too well aware of the responsibility which he now faced.

‘Right, you chaps,’ he snapped. ‘I guess I'm in charge now. We've lost our guide, too. Anybody know the way to Sika's camp?’

The men looked at each other, holding a muttered conversation amongst themselves.

‘Well,’ Sanders snapped, ‘which of you is going to show us the way, then?’

‘Boss,’ a short, stocky Malay with one eye answered, ‘the men say it no good. Too many Japs. We go back. Fight them in jungle in our own way. Everybody get killed if we attack camp. They have big machine guns to shoot down from the sky at us in camp, so Li Chu say.’

Sanders swore under his breath. He was faced with eighteen armed bandits who would kill him at the slightest excuse. Already they were eyeing him up suspiciously, defiantly.

‘Look,’ he lit a cigarette, and tried to display outward calm. ‘We've come this far. It's less than three hours march to the camp …’

‘We go back,’ the Malay stated stubbornly.

‘What about Li Chu?’ Sanders growled. ‘What d'you think he'll have to say when he learns that you left him to his fate?’

‘Li Chu no leave prison camp,’ the Malay said. ‘He probably dead already.’

‘I doubt it,’ the sapper retorted. ‘Li Chu doesn't die that easily, and I don't need to tell you what he'll do when he discovers that you've run out on him. He'll scour every inch of the jungle between here and Singapore until he's found each and every one of you, and you know as well as I do what he'll do to you. Personally, if I was in your place, I'd sooner risk dying in battle.’

The bandits looked at each other uneasily. It was true that their fear of their bandit leader was far greater than any terror which they had of the Japanese.

‘Well,’ Sanders said, ‘who's going to lead us then?’

‘None of the men know this part of the jungle well, boss,’ the one-eyed guerilla shuffled his feet in embarrassment at his admission, and the sapper knew that he was telling the truth.

‘I thought Li Chu's men hacked out most of these tracks,’ he grunted.

‘Some of them,’ the bandit replied. ‘Others cut by tin miners before Japs came. Many tracks in this part. Very easy to take wrong one.’

Sanders unfolded the crude map of the jungle which he, Cole, and Carter had drawn up with Li Chu. The three officers had each kept a copy. He consulted his compass.

‘Maybe we can manage it,’ he restrained a groan as he noted the network of jungle paths. There were so many of them that even with the aid of a compass it would be only too easy to take a wrong one, and not discover their mistake for several hours. He folded up the map, and stuffed it back into his pocket.

‘You and I will lead the way, Chuli,’ he stated. ‘Now, let's get cracking.’

The sapper trembled with relief as they resumed their journey. Another hurdle had been overcome. He would take it a step at a time. He knew that the worst part lay ahead. Fortunately he was hardened to death. Already he had dismissed the loss of Captain Cole from his mind. They had never been close, and one death was nothing when compared with the thousands who were dying daily in this stupid bloody war. He had never really thought about the end of the war. It was something that would just go on and on. He had nothing to go back home for, anyway.

They came to a wide clearing. The track ahead of them divided into two, branching out in opposite directions.

Sanders consulted his map and compass once more.

‘Doesn't really matter which one we take,’ he muttered. ‘They both loop round and join up again about a mile further on.’

Three hours later they paused to rest, and every one of them realised that they had made a mistake.

‘That clearing where the trails divided,’ Sanders endeavoured to explain the workings of a map of Chuli, ‘we should have taken another of the smaller tracks about five hundred yards after we branched off. That would have brought us to the place where the trails merged again. As it is, we're heading for Christ-knows-where!’

The Malay glanced upwards at the entwining branches high above them. Here and there patches of sky were visible.

‘Be dark in an hour,’ he said. ‘Best to make camp here.’

Sanders sighed and nodded. It was logic, but he knew that by now they should have been lying close to Colonel Sika's camp, waiting patiently for a signal from Colonel Carter. Perhaps it was too late, and the nurses and guerillas were already dead.

‘Wait!’ Chuli held up a hand for silence, his head cocked to one side in a listening posture.

‘What is it?’ Sanders breathed.

‘Japs!’ Chuli muttered. ‘Plenty of them. Coming this way!’

Chapter Eight

Jungle Carter watched tensely as five Chinese and five Malays knelt before the ten naked nurses in the sweltering heat. There was silence except for the maniacal screaming of Samuri, Colonel Sika's lieutenant.

‘Get your clothes off, you filthy rabble!’ he yelled. ‘At once.’

The ten guerillas obeyed, removing their garments, and flinging them into the dust behind them.

‘Now,’ Samuri snarled, ‘you have three minutes in which to begin copulating. Any man who hasn't made it in that time will be bayoneted!’

Colonel Sika chuckled on the verandah, and producing a pair of binoculars he held them out to Carter.

‘Take a look,’ his voice was soft and deadly.

‘No thanks, I …’

‘Take a look,’ Sika snarled, ‘that is an order!’

Carter took the glasses, and adjusted the focus slightly. This vile Japanese prison commander was in his element. He could just as easily have gone out and watched from close quarters, but he obviously had no intention of doing so. From his attitude he might have been enjoying a day at Ascot. An iced drink stood on a small table at his elbow. This was a day of pleasure for him.

Hugh Carter stared with revulsion creeping over his whole body. The ten guerillas had impassive expressions on their Malayan and Chinese features, but they knew only too well what they had to do if they were to survive. They had one advantage over the nurses in that they were accustomed to the fierce heat of the day. Every one of the girls would undoubtedly be very ill with sunstroke in a matter of hours. Some would probably die out there on the compound.

Some of the bandits had attained a state of semi-hardness within the first minute, but their difficulties were being increased by the scorching rays of the sun. Sweat glistened on their bodies, their features were contorted, eyes glancing fearfully at the guards who stood nearby.

‘One minute left,’ Samuri yelled.

Miraculously, there were ten erections within the time stipulated. Colonel Sika snatched his binoculars back from Carter with boyish enthusiasm, leaning forward eagerly in his chair as though he was afraid of missing something.

Carter pressed himself back in his seat. He wanted to close his eyes, to shut it all out, but he could not. He was hypnotised by the revulsion of it all. He breathed a deep sigh of relief that all his men had attained full erections, but he knew also that this was only the start.

A party of six soldiers marched out and stood just behind Samuri. Each one carried a rifle and a fixed bayonet, and Hugh Carter realised only too well that these men were Sika's execution squad.

‘What are you waiting for, you jungle vermin?’ Samuri screamed.

The guerillas lowered themselves on to the girls, their thighs and hips jerking as they strove to penetrate them. Sika was beside himself with excitement, his own lust responding with an erection which threatened to burst its way out of his trousers.

Jungle Carter did not need the binoculars to see that his men were experiencing difficulties. They had done everything that had been asked of them.

‘Copulate!’ Samuri screamed, ‘copulate or die!’

The bandits pushed cruelly with their erections. Girls screamed and writhed. Carter's blood ran cold as he saw Jenny flaying and jerking. He felt her pain in the pit of his own stomach, and had it not been for the armed guard on the verandah closely watching him he would have throttled the life out of Sika with his bare hands. As it was, all he could do was sit and watch.

‘Good.’ Samuri walked between the sexually joined pairs, stooping and inspecting each one, obviously suspicious of a simulation. However, he was apparently satisfied with that which he saw.

The couples lay motionless, but it was evident to Carter that this did not comply with the “rules” which Sika had drawn up with his subordinate beforehand.

‘What's the matter with you?’ Samuri kicked angrily at the buttocks of the nearest Chinese, bringing a yell of pain from the girl who lay beneath. ‘You are supposed to be fucking, not just lying there. Get on with it, you curs!’

Yellow and brown backsides began to buck and heave.

‘Faster, you bastards. Faster!’

Suddenly, Samuri produced a small whip, and began to lash mercilessly at the jerking buttocks. The mass copulation was being whipped to a frenzy.

Colonel Sika breathed heavily as he studied the scene through his binoculars. Carter remained silent. He felt physically and mentally sick.

A Malay collapsed writhing on top of his partner. The whip continued to lash at the others. Orgasms were being forced. Men were convulsing, their bodies stiffening, then lying limp. Finally, they had all made it … except the girls. Climaxes for them were a physical impossibility.

‘What have you stopped for?’ Samuri screamed, wielding the lash indiscriminately in a frenzy of rage. ‘You've made it once … but you've got to make it again … and again! Either that or death!’

The guerillas gasped in astonishment and horror. It had taken an almost super human effort to ejaculate once under these conditions … but twice!

'Your lives depend upon it,' Samuri snarled. His whip was raised, but at that very instant a burst of firing shattered the sultry stillness. Four single shots, followed by bursts of tommy gun fire, came from somewhere deep in the jungle. Then silence.

‘What is that?’ Colonel Sika momentarily forgot about the atrocities being enacted on the compound in front of him. He jumped to his feet, looking wildly about him.

‘What is that?’ he repeated.

‘Sounds like gunfire,’ Carter drawled, but although he was shaken he managed to remain outwardly calm. Where was the rescue party? They should have been close at hand by now, lying less than a hundred yards away, awaiting the signal which would bring them into action.

‘Who is firing?’ Sika snapped. ‘There are no soldiers in these parts.’

‘Maybe they've just arrived,’ Jungle Carter voiced his own fears.

Sika kicked back his chair, and walked quickly inside the house. In the far corner of the room stood an antiquated radio transmitter. Quickly he turned the knobs, jabbering into the mouthpiece as he did so.

Finally, he made contact, and a brief conversation ensued. Then he switched off, and instantly gave way to his feelings. A kick sent the chair spinning, an instruction booklet was hurled across the room, and only by a supreme effort did he prevent himself from smashing the radio equipment.

Inside the adjoining room the listening Sonia Barnes trembled, and prayed that he would not come to her.

‘I do not need troops here,’ he fumed. ‘I am Colonel Sika. Even the Emperor himself does not have such power as I have here. The fools! There is a war to be fought, and yet they waste time sending men to comb the jungles to locate the kampongs!’

Finally, having regained some of his composure, he went out on to the verandah again. His rage was only too evident, though, and Carter's raised eyebrows were answered with a malevolent glare.

‘Trouble?’ Hugh Carter's calmness was in itself a provocation.

‘Pah!’ Colonel Sika resumed his seat, and picked up his binoculars. ‘Incompetent fools! Ah!’

His attitude changed instantly as he noticed two of the guards holding a struggling Chinese. The first of the guerillas had failed the test of sexual endurance, a man who could probably have beaten the heat but could not overcome the other part of this grim game where death awaited every loser. A sword was raised, a scream of agony followed, and Carter averted his gaze as two of the guards thrust into the helpless man with their bayonets.

The guerilla rolled on the ground in agony, his flaying feet kicking up clouds of dust, his hands clutching at the wounds in his body, trying to stem the flow of blood.

All eyes were centred upon the death struggles of the small man, his convulsions gradually becoming weaker, his screams little more than hoarse whispers, and the blood congealing on the sun-baked ground. Everything else stopped until he was finally still.

Frantically, urged on by the fate of their colleagues, the other men were attempting to fulfil that which was expected of them. Former difficulties now became impossibilities. Several of the women had fainted, and now the scorching sun was taking its toll of the hardy jungle fighters. Some tried to fool their overseers with simulations, but the cruel Japs had anticipated this. A Malay with a physique like a young bull was hauled off an unconscious nurse, seconds later lying limp and lifeless across the first victim.

Next it was another Chinese. As he was bayoneted a couple more jumped to their feet and fled blindly across the compound. Samuri calmly drew his automatic. Two sharp reports followed, and both bandits dropped to the ground. Samuri holstered his smoking pistol, and laughed.

At length only one of the male victims was left alive, a lithe Chinese who had actually made it a second time. However, Samuri knew that only one fate lay in store for the bandit, and he was determined to bring the proceedings to an end as quickly as possible. His whip lashed cruelly across the man's jerking rump.

‘Faster, faster!’ he leered. ‘If you wish to stay alive, my friend, you have got to keep this up until sundown. Then you shall live, that I promise you!’

The Chinese did not slacken his pace. The naked nurse beneath him lay white and still. She had long since ceased to participate.

Colonel Sika watched closely through his binoculars, chuckling to himself. This was by far the best day he had had at the camp, and there were still ten men and ten girls imprisoned in the stifling hut opposite for his pleasure. This was power. Life and death were his to dispose of as and when he wished. Even the Emperor himself could do no more. For the time being he had completely forgotten about the troops in the jungle.

The Chinese was tiring. A short time later he flopped forward and lay there helplessly, awaiting his fate. Two of the guards hauled him to his feet. A third thrust with a bayonet.

‘Well, Colonel Carter,’ Sika turned and spoke to the man who sat ashen-faced at his side. ‘I hope you have enjoyed what you have seen.’

‘It was diabolical,’ the other snapped, his face white with fury, ‘even primitive man never did anything like that.’

‘It is the hallmark of a master race,’ Sika purred. ‘That is power, my friend, to be able to do anything one likes to one's fellow men. Call it invincibility. Today you have witnessed my power … as a spectator. Tomorrow, we will test your stamina. How do you think you will fare out there? Will you be able to last longer than these Malays or Chinese? It will be interesting to see.’

Hugh Carter fought off the feeling of terror that threatened to engulf him. He tried not to think about what might happen on the morrow. Only the intervention of his men who still had their freedom could save the prisoners, and already he had misgivings. That burst of firing earlier left him with a disturbed mind. Perhaps the rescue squad had been ambushed, and in that case they were all doomed.

Out in the compound some of the soldiers were wheeling a large hand cart towards the centre. Others began lifting the corpses on to it, laughing amongst themselves.

‘What's going on?’ Carter turned to Colonel Sika. ‘What are those three nurses being loaded up with the dead for?’

‘Simply because they are dead,’ Sika snapped. ‘One is bound to lose one or two during an exercise of this sort!’

Jungle Carter stood speechless, almost in a trance. His sanity threatened to snap. One of the dead nurses had a beautifully proportioned slim body, her long red hair falling over her sun-scorched breasts as they tossed her on to the cart. Jenny! The memory of the previous night sparked off his fury. His right fist clenched, and then drove upwards, the knuckles taking the Japanese commander full on the point of the jaw.

Colonel Sika's feet left the ground, and for a brief second he was airborne. His back arched, a half somersault took him to the head of the steps, and then he slid and rolled down to the compound below in an ungainly heap.

The guard on the verandah was slow to react. He stared in amazement, almost forgetting about the pistol in his hand. No one could possibly dare to strike Colonel Sika. No more than they would dare to assault the Emperor. He pushed the safety catch forward on his weapon, swung the barrel up until it rested on Carter's stomach, and then his finger tightened on the trigger.

‘Stop!’

Colonel Sika saved the British officer's life with a fraction of a second to spare. The soldier, raised on instant obedience at all times, relaxed his pressure on the trigger.

‘You fool!’ Sika's fury exploded on the frightened Japanese soldier first. ‘Had you shot this pig your body would have joined the others in that death cart!’

He picked himself up, and climbed slowly back up the steps. His whole frame trembled with rage.

‘It was nearly too easy for you, colonel,’ he hissed, ‘but not quite. I promise you one thing … your body will not be whole when it is wheeled off the compound tomorrow! Take him away, guards!’

Some soldiers, who had hastened across at the sight of their commander hurtling down from the verandah, seized Jungle Carter roughly. The flat of a sword caught him across the back of the head, causing him to stumble.

‘Steady, you fools!’ Sika snarled. ‘I want him in good condition for tomorrow!’

The morale in the prison hut was low. Carter was pushed inside, and even as he sprawled headlong the door was slammed shut and locked. For some moments he lay dazed. His head ached intolerably. He retched, and would have vomited but for the fact that his stomach was empty. It was twenty-four hours since he had last eaten, and the thought of that barrel of rotting fish and rice, the stench of which filled the hut, nauseated him.

Nurses were sobbing quietly. Nobody spoke.

He rose to his knees, and tried to discern the various silhouettes, but the darkness after the glaring sunlight outside had temporarily robbed him of his sight.

‘Li Chu,’ he croaked.

‘A fine idea, this one,’ the bandit chief spoke with contempt from somewhere close by. ‘Where are the rescuers then, Colonel Carter? Why did you not signal them, and save the lives of ten of my men … and also three of your precious nurses.’

‘I couldn't,’ Carter replied hoarsely. Those machine guns in the turrets would have mown them down.’

‘If they're still alive,’ Li Chu sneered. ‘Did you not hear the shooting in the jungle?’

‘It was too brief,’ Carter retorted. ‘Had the men been wiped out there would have been a lot more firing than that. All the same, something happened out there.’

‘And what are you going to do now?’ Li Chu asked. ‘This was your idea, against my better judgement. You got us into this, so you had better get us out of it … fast. You know what will happen to us otherwise!’

‘I'm only too well aware of what's in store for us tomorrow,’ Carter snapped. ‘Now, how are these nurses?’

‘Pam's awfully ill, Colonel,’ one of the girls answered him. ‘She was ill before they dragged her out there in the blazing sun. I think it's malaria.’

‘Then she needs attention,’ Carter made his way amongst the clustered bodies until hands guided him down to the sick nurse. She appeared to be in a coma, and was running a high temperature.

‘Did you manage to bring any medical supplies from the hospital with you?’ he asked.

‘The Japs have got them.’ The reply was bitter.

‘In that case,’ he groped his way towards the door, ‘the Japs will have to produce them. There's no time to be lost. That girl is very, very ill.’

He hammered on the door with both fists.

‘Stop that noise,’ one of the guards shouted.

‘There is a girl here who is desperately ill,’ Carter called. ‘She needs medical attention … quickly.’

‘How you British say?’ a second guard sneered. ‘Fuck off!’

‘As a British officer I demand medical attention for this girl,’ Carter yelled. ‘Fetch Colonel Sika so that I can talk to him.’

‘Fuck off,’ the first guard emulated the second one, laughing loudly as he pronounced the words. ‘Fuck off. That is how you say it, is it not? Fuck off. Any more noise, and we will give your nurses some attention.’

Carter sighed. Then the frustration smouldering within him fanned into a flame of uncontrollable rage. He hammered loudly on the door with both fists, beating at the woodwork until his knuckles were raw and bleeding. Japanese laughter rang in his ears, taunting him.

‘Colonel Carter.’

He stopped, fighting to bring himself under control as slender female hands closed gently over him.

‘Colonel Carter,’ the soft Australian accent was choked by sobs. ‘Ease up, colonel. It … it doesn't matter now.’

He sank his head on to her shoulders. God, how he hated these Jap bastards. Where the hell was Cole and Sanders?

Chapter Nine

Sanders had ordered the guerillas back into the undergrowth a few minutes before the first of the Japs entered the clearing. The leading soldier halted, and waited whilst the rest of the column joined him. It was a much bigger party than the last one, and there were close on eighty of them in all.

‘And the fuckers have decided to camp here for the night.’ Sanders groaned to Chula. ‘Our luck is really out at present Miles of bloody jungle to choose from, and we have to keep competing with the Nips for camping sites!’

‘Could we not get them, boss?’ Chuli whispered. ‘Like the last time.’

‘Too bleedin' many of 'em,’ Sanders muttered. ‘We'll have to wait until it gets dark properly. At least there's an escape route open to us which there wasn't last time.’

There was no sign of any prisoners having been taken by the Japs, and Sanders was puzzled. If their mission was to recruit slave labour for the railways and roads then they had not been very successful. Perhaps the kampongs in the area were empty, the towkays having fled deeper into the jungle.

Several of the soldiers began building and lighting a fire. Others lay down on groundsheets, and appeared to fall asleep promptly. There was very little conversation. Darkness closed in quickly.

‘There are two sentries about a hundred yards back down the track,’ Chula passed on a message to Sanders that one of the Malays brought him. ‘That is the way we must go back.’

‘Then well have to get 'em.’ the sapper grunted, ‘quietly. Your two best men, Chuli …’

‘I go,’ Chuli eased himself up. ‘Two men no trouble to Chuli. I move quietly, and …’ He drew his hand quickly across his throat, and grinned.

The Japanese sentries were not anticipating trouble. So far all forms of life had fled before them. They talked in low tones for ten minutes or so, lit cigarettes, and the watching Chula, barely five yards away, wrinkled his nostrils at the acrid fumes of the Jap tobacco. He waited patiently.

Finally, one of the soldiers wandered further up the track. This was Japanese strategy. Two lines of defence. They considered it unlikely that a foe would overpower, silently and successfully, two men stationed at intervals. In their reckoning they had not allowed for an enemy of Chuli's stealth and cunning, and also coming from the opposite direction.

The first sentry stubbed out his cigarette end, and then searched for a position in which to pass the nocturnal hours away. He decided that he was less conspicuous if he sat in the undergrowth bordering the track. Chuli froze, but could not restrain a grin. Suicide was becoming a national hobby for the Japs. This one was barely a yard from him with his back towards him.

Chula struck with the speed of a viper. One strong brown hand covered the man's mouth, preventing a sudden cry, whilst the sharp bladed knife in his other severed the jugular vein at a single slash. The only sound was the gush of spurting blood, and the dripping as it fell from the foliage to the soft carpet of dying undergrowth. That same sound could have been made by a wild animal urinating.

The second sentry presented a slightly more difficult problem in so much that he preferred to pace to and fro rather than sit down, in spite of an obvious heavy day in the jungle. Also, he took care not to stand close to the bushes which lined the track. Possibly the man had a fear of tigers.

Chula reversed his hold on his knife, delicately balancing the blade between forefinger and thumb. He knew that if he missed the alarm would immediately be raised. He dismissed the idea at once, and drew back his arm. He had never missed a target since his boyhood, and the fact that it was dark added to his confidence. He always preferred to kill at night.

The knife sped to its target with little more than a hiss, splitting the Jap's Adam's apple, and burying itself up to the hilt in his throat. The man staggered backwards, gripping the ornate handle, and wrenching it free. Blood spouted. He fell to his knees, clutching at his throat, trying to stem the flow.

Chuli did not move. There was no need. All he had to do was stand and watch the man die.

‘The way is clear.’

Sanders jumped. He had not been aware of Chuli's approach.

‘You got 'em both?’ he asked.

‘They are both dead,’ Chuli's enthusiasm for the whole mission seemed to have grown with the killings.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘We must move quickly. There will be no camp made tonight. We must put as much distance between this place and ourselves as possible for we do not know when the sentries are due to be changed. We must trust to luck that we can re-join the main track, and perhaps we shall be at our destination earlier than we thought.’

‘Well,’ Li Chu growled, ‘what are you going to do, Carter? We're as good as dead in the morning if we stay here.’

‘I'm fully aware of that,’ Jungle Carter snapped. ‘I'm racking my brain right now.’

‘Can't we do something?’ one of the nurses wailed. ‘Pam's dead, and now Alison's got a fever.’

Carter sighed. The Japanese were refusing all requests for medical aid, and he knew full well that before the sun set on the morrow very few of them would be left alive. He felt so helpless. In spite of the crude structure of the hut, and the opportunities which it presented for a mass breakout, the searchlights flashed across it every few seconds. At the first sign of any attempt to escape the machine guns in the turrets would rake the building with bursts of sudden death.

There was only one course open to them. They had to wait … for death!

Colonel Sika, on the other hand, was in a jubilant mood. His day had been fruitful in every respect except for the ache in his jaw where Jungle Carter had struck him. But that account would be paid in full the following morning. He sat before his desk, smoking a cheroot, and conjuring up in his warped mind fantasies for the morrow.

The big Chinese, Li Chu, would have his stamina and courage put to the test, but he would crack in the finish, along with Colonel Carter. He would save them until the end, a fitting climax. Only when the corpses of the remaining Chinese and Malays had been loaded on to the handcart would he order these two to be brought out. He would taunt them, and when at last they were grovelling and pleading for mercy he would give the order for them to be beheaded.

He finished his cheroot, stubbed it out in the ashtray, and then his thoughts turned to the woman who lay in his bed waiting for him to join her. She was beautiful, and she had brains. She had not rejected him as others had done in the past, preferring death to the pleasures which he had to offer them.

It was exciting just thinking about her. He had an erection, one that ached abominably and craved relief in the only way possible. Indeed, it had been like that all day, from the very moment when the ten nurses had been herded out on to the compound and stripped naked.

Slowly he stood up, and walked with some difficulty towards the adjoining door. The night was young, and many hours of pleasure lay ahead of him still.

Sonia Barnes appeared to be asleep as he entered the bedroom. She was lying facing away from him, a short nylon nightdress failing to hide her shapely body. He stood and regarded her in silence for a few moments. Everything about her was perfect. He could not find a single fault.

He began to undress, slowly at first, but once his uniform was off he fairly tore at his undergarments. His lust was at boiling point.

Naked, he stalked across to her, running a hand down the outside of the nearest thigh, and then throwing her flimsy night attire up around her waist. Roughly he pulled her thighs apart, her eyes flickering open as he did so.

He grinned.

‘I have kept you waiting too long,’ he murmured, digging his fingers into her folds of soft flesh, surprised that she was not already lubricated. Perhaps, though, she had been tired, and had been sleeping.

‘It has been a good day,’ he smiled. ‘A very good day.’

‘Did you really have to do that to them?’ she asked, attempting to disguise the revulsion which she felt for this blood-lusting sex-maniac.

‘It was imperative,’ he snapped, continuing to stimulate her as he spoke. ‘It is in your interests as well as mine. The Japanese are a superior race, and only in such a way can fear be instilled into an inferior people. We shall rule the world, and that day is not too far off. My power will be on a parallel with that of the Emperor himself. And you, my lovely, will share it all with me.’

‘Those nurses,’ she winced as he poked deeply into her, ‘their help would be invaluable to you. They are all fully trained, and …’

‘I will make no compromises,’ he snapped. ‘Once we start treating the sick we are lowering ourselves to the level of the western world.’

‘And suppose I fell sick,’ she murmured, ‘I suppose you would just sit and watch me die?’

‘You would be rushed to Kuala Lumpur,’ he replied, ‘and there you would receive the finest medical attention in the world. But, it is not likely to happen. You are healthy, and the life you will lead will not be conducive to illness.’

‘This Colonel Carter,’ she was not willing to drop the subject even though he had got all four fingers of his right hand inside her, stretching her, ‘he is a British officer, and as such he is entitled to …’

‘He is entitled to nothing,’ Sika's fingers expanded outwards, causing her to gasp. ‘He is nothing but a jungle bandit, the same as the rest of them, and he will receive the same treatment. The day of the guerilla is over. Did you not hear the firing in the jungle today? The Japanese army is combing the jungles, taking prisoners to work on roads and railways, killing all who stand in their way. At first I was angry at their intervention, but now I can see that it is for the best. I can remain here, an emperor in Camp Sika, with none to challenge my authority.’

‘I still say that the nurses would be invaluable to us,’ she said.

‘Enough of this talk,’ he tugged angrily at her pubic hair as though in retribution for her suggestion. ‘Tomorrow they will all be dead, and then you will forget about them.’

His head went between her thighs, and in many ways she was glad that he had decided to make an oral start. In that way he would not notice the expression of hatred on her face. Her body trembled, but he interpreted it as passion.

Colonel Sika took his time circling and thrusting with his tongue, revelling in the delights of such a beautiful female sex to do with as he wished. Sonia knew that she was expected to orgasm, and after about a quarter of an hour she began to simulate a climax. Her leg bicycled wildly in the air, her fists beat on the pillow. That pushing tongue inside her meant nothing to her. Her actions were merely a means by which to relieve her pent-up fury and hatred for this man who claimed her.

Finally, he slithered up her body, and began to paw at her breasts, squeezing the nipples, and gazing at them in wonderment. Their lips met. That was the part she hated most. She could turn herself off to almost everything else, even intercourse itself, but his tongue in her mouth made her want to vomit.

She was grateful that he was so much shorter than herself. That meant that during copulation it was impossible for them to kiss. He knelt up, and positioned his erection against her lower lips, grinned with delight, and powered forward with his hips. After that he was in a frenzy, thrusting madly, grunting aloud, muttering obscenities in his own language, and all the time his body was bathed in sweat.

She lay back with her eyes closed. The physical response came naturally to her, a slight movement of her own body every so often, but it did not really matter. Sika was too obsessed with his own sensations at this stage to pay much attention to her.

Her thoughts returned to the nurses. Indeed, they had never left them during the whole time that she had been made a prisoner in Sika's residence. Tomorrow the girls would die. Carter and his guerillas, too. Sonia had no wish to live on here after they had gone. Death would be preferable to that, anyway.

Squinting from beneath half-closed lids she saw the sheathed knife in its usual place on the cane table by the bedside. That was the short razor-sharp weapon which Colonel Sika referred to as his “circumcision knife”. She shuddered at the thought of the abominable atrocities it had committed.

Her mind was made up. She knew what she had to do, but she must bide her time. She sensed the spurting warmth of his first ejaculation inside her, but she knew that he would not let up yet. He would come at least another twice before he lay still on top of her and went to sleep. As always, she would worm her way from beneath him, and move as far across to the opposite side of the bed as possible so that their bodies were not in contact as they slept.

It was a long time before she felt his third ejaculation. She gave a long sigh of relief. He lay on her, and began to kiss her again. She entwined her tongue around his, knowing that whatever happened this would be the last time.

His eyes closed, and his breathing became more regular. She waited for maybe another ten minutes, and then began to edge herself from under him. She felt his sliding from her, and prayed that he would not wake.

He grunted, but his eyes remained closed. He was exhausted. Nothing would awaken him, except … Her hand reached out, and her fingers located the hilt of the small knife in the sheath. The leather was well greased, and the blade slid easily away from it.

She grimaced. The steel was dulled with dried blood. Sonia tried not to think whence it had come. It mattered not, though, for soon that same blade would be red with fresh blood. Colonel Sika's blood!

She regarded him steadily, concealing the knife in her hand in case he should suddenly awake. He was lying on his back. Every possible target was exposed. She trembled violently, but she knew that she had to go through with it.

Her greatest fear was that he would scream before he died, and that the guards would come running. There was only one way to ensure against that. She held the point of the blade less than half an inch away from his Adam's apple, gripping the hilt with both hands. She held her breath, closed her eyes, and thrust with every ounce of strength she could muster.

Sika was awake instantly, clawing in panic at his throat. She felt a warm gush of blood hit her with force. He had hold of her wrists, but she made no attempt to draw away, merely leaning forward with all her weight, pushing the knife even further, his own resistance twisting the blade.

Blood was everywhere. His evil features were obscured by a scarlet flush. His legs kicked out wildly, but somehow she held on. His movements were becoming weaker by the second, his dying gurgles barely audible.

Even when he lay motionless she did not extricate herself immediately. With his death, her fears had vanished, only to be replaced by a cold fury. She eased the knife back a few inches, and then plunged it back, twisting and hacking.

At last she withdrew the blade, wiping it clean on his chest. Her arms were dripping with his scarlet life's fluid. It ran down her breasts and on to her thighs, but she appeared not to notice it.

She thought of the nurses again, and remembered the fate of the Chinese and Malays earlier that day. Then she vomited on to the results of her carnage.

Chapter Ten

Soma Barnes did not hurry. She knew that no one would dare to disturb the sleeping quarters of Colonel Sika.

She crossed to the crude washbasin in the corner, and began to cleanse herself. Then she dressed, not once glancing in the direction of the corpse lying on the blood-soaked bed clothes. She cleaned the knife, replaced it in the sheath, and strapped his automatic pistol on to her own body. Puny armaments when faced with the prospect of machine guns and rifles, but she knew that they might come in handy.

She stood listening. Raucous laughter came from the hut that comprised the soldiers' living quarters to the left of the house. They were holding their own post-mortem on the past day's events! The searchlights circled, flashed, circled, illuminating the entire compound like monsoon lightning. A solitary sentry paced the barbed wire enclosure. She stood watching him from the window. She wondered why there were not two of them on duty tonight. Then she remembered what Sika had told her about the troops in the jungle.

Obviously, Samuri, who organised the personnel, was satisfied concerning their security.

Briefly, her thoughts turned to Samuri. He was as evil as Sika had been. All he lacked was authority. Now he would have it. He would take charge, and she tried not to think what would happen if she fell into his hands. She knew she had to act fast. There was little likelihood of Sika's bedroom being disturbed before dawn. That gave her two or three hours ... providing she wasn't captured in the meantime.

She tried to formulate a plan. At all costs she had to try and free the prisoners. They would come under a hail of machine gun fire once they broke free, but at least it was better to die that way. It would be quick and painless.

The sentry would have the key to the hut. Sika had told her as much. It was up to him to deal with any emergencies that arose, and she knew that somehow she had to get hold of that key. The searchlights were the problem.

She surveyed the compound in front of her. The soldiers' quarters were less than fifteen yards away on her left. Next to that stood the torture room, a further distance of about ten yards between the two buildings. After that it was another dozen or so yards to the prison hut. Say, forty yards to where the nurses and guerillas were held.

The searchlights continued to rotate. Suddenly, she knew how she was going to do it. The rear of the building was in shadow, and if she timed it right she knew she could make it. There were intervals of five or six seconds when neither searchlight covered a particular area. It was then that she must dash from one building to another, awaiting her opportunity before setting out on each stage of this macabre relay race.

As quietly as possible she lifted the rear window of the bedroom, checked to make sure that nobody was about, and dropped to the ground outside. In her right hand she held the heavy .45 automatic pistol. The fingers of her left were clammy where they gripped the hilt of the knife.

Her heart pounded. She welcomed the cool of the night, the fresh air after that clammy bedroom of death. The searchlights passed over, met, lit up the jungle beyond, and then passed on. She ran.

With some seconds to spare she made it to the rear of the soldiers' hut. The men inside were still laughing bawdily at some gruesome account of their atrocities. Only a thickness of wood separated her from them. She tried not to listen to their raucous jabbering.

Wait. Listen. Watch. Another dash brought her to the rear of the torture hut. A smell assailed her nostrils. Putrefying human flesh. A body lay forgotten in there. Her stomach heaved, but she knew that she could not dash blindly into the last lap of her journey. The guard leaned up against the door, his rifle by his side, smoking. Not only had Sonia Barnes got to evade the beams of the searchlights, but somehow she had to remove the Jap without bringing the occupants of the guardhouse at the run. She looked down at her pistol, and dismissed the idea. Death had to come silently to the Jap. She would have to use the knife.

The dazzling beams swung, met, passed on. It was going to be very, very difficult.

'Phew!' Sanders paused to look back at the line of the Malays and Chinese who flitted silently through the jungle darkness in his wake. His chest heaved until he thought his lungs would burst.

‘This looks like the track we missed before,’ he indicated where there was a break in the trees on his left.

‘This is the one,’ Chuli nodded. ‘So far there is no sign of a pursuit. We have made enough ground now, though. They will not catch us up.’

Their pace did not slacken as they altered course. They knew that they had to be at the camp before daylight.

Sanders pondered upon the task that lay ahead of them. The difficulty was in not knowing exactly what they were expected to do. Perhaps they were already too late, and Colonel Carter and the rest of the men were dead. It was a strong possibility. In that case their only course was to retreat to the jungle hideout. The Japs would be looking for them. In the event of a successful trip back to Li Chu's headquarters problems still faced the sapper. Should he organise guerilla activities against the Japs, or should he try and make his own way to Java or Sumatra? Right now he didn't know what he was going to do. His only course was to take things as they came.

‘Look,'’Chuli pointed ahead of them.

Sanders pulled up, peering through the Malayan gloom. A flash of light in the distance. It disappeared. Then it came again, evenly spaced every few seconds.

‘The camp,’ Chuli stated. ‘We are here, boss. Only a short distance ahead. Those are the big lights we can see.’

Sanders heaved a sigh of relief. They had made it.

‘We must go carefully, Chuli,’ he said. ‘We will approach as close as we can, taking care to keep out of the beams of those searchlights. We may have a very long wait ahead of us.’

Sonia Barnes ran swiftly and silently the moment the searchlights had passed. Seconds later she was crouching at the rear of the prison hut. The sentry had not seen her. He was still at the front.

Sounds came to her from within. Girls sobbed. Men cursed in Chinese and Malay. Restless movements. They must have been close to suffocation. She wished that she could have spoken to them through the walls, but she dared not. Firstly, she had to dispose of that sentry. It would have been an easy matter for one of the guerillas, trained to kill silently, but her only experience was in saving life. Apart from … she remembered how she had dealt with the camp commander. Even Colonel Carter could not have done a better job. Revolting as her memories were, they gave her confidence. She had slain once, and she could do so again.

She tucked the pistol into the waistband of her skirt. It was heavy, but at all costs she had to keep it out of sight. The knife she concealed in the palm of her hand. Her fingers began unbuttoning her blouse until her breasts fell into view. Creamy unblemished flesh that showed up in the darkness. She gave a low whistle.

‘Who is there?’

Her knowledge of the Japanese language was scanty, but she knew enough phrases to get by ... or so she hoped. She was trembling, her stomach muscles contracting into a tight ball as the soldier appeared round the corner of the hut, rifle held at the ready, a cigarette dangling from between his lips. She stood there, forcing herself to smile as seductively as she knew how, stroking her bosom with her free hand.

‘It is me,’ she whispered. ‘Colonel Sika's woman. The colonel is asleep. Tired out. I need a man.’

There was nothing more to say. He could either raise the alarm or …

He advanced slowly towards her, grinning. She held back a little gasp of elation as he leaned his rifle up against the wall of the hut. He chuckled, and reached out for one of her breasts. She let him fondle it, squeezing the nipple, stroking it. His other hand went down, then upwards beneath the folds of her skirt. She prayed that he would not dislodge the automatic.

His fingers found her sex, squeezing her clitoris hard, almost making her cry out aloud.

‘Can't we lie down?’ she whispered. ‘It would be much more comfortable.’

He nodded, withdrew his hands, and began to unfasten his own clothing. She saw his penis, erect and still inflating, sticking out of his trousers. He motioned to her to lie down.

‘I'll come on top of you,’ she hoped he understood.

He grinned again, and lowered himself down until he was lying flat on his back. She stood astride him, lowering her body down slowly, praying that she would strike swift and true before yet another unwilling copulation was forced upon her.

She felt his penis dig against her pubic bone. He grunted with frustration, and slid his hands forward to grasp his member, eager to penetrate her. This was her chance. It would have to be the throat again, the jugular vein if she was going to silence him effectively. She reversed the knife in her hand, leaning forward, a smile of death on her features.

The sharp blade sunk true and deep, blood spouting into the air. An expression of horror and surprise flooded the grotesque yellow features. He tried to scream, but only gurgled blood. He fought and tore at her, but she knew that she only had to hang on for a matter of seconds. If anything, it had been easier than the slaying of Colonel Sika.

She eased back, trying not to look at the corpse from which blood still welled, and wiped the knife clean on the grass. Revulsion built up inside her as she searched the pockets of his blood-soaked uniform. Cigarettes, matches ... then she found the key.

She crawled to the edge of the hut, and lay watching the searchlights. Didn't they ever let up? Dashing from cover to cover held perils enough, but in order to free the prisoners more time would be needed. Suppose the key didn't fit.

Ten minutes later she was still struggling with the problem. She returned and picked up the dead man's rifle. Every firearm would count.

Suddenly, she froze. The door of the soldiers' hut was opening. A uniformed figure was striding out on to the compound.

‘My God!’ she muttered. ‘They're going to change the sentry!’

The automatic nestled between both hands as she prepared to go down fighting. She could pick this one off easily enough. Then hell would burst loose.

The soldier stopped. Something else happened, too. The swivelling searchlight on her left came to a standstill, its powerful beam resting on a section of the jungle opposite. The man in the turret was beginning to climb down the rickety wooden ladder.

Changeover time for one of the turret sentries! She could have yelled out her relief.

There was no time to be lost, though. The other searchlight continued to rotate, but now the interval at which the compound was covered was doubled. It took thirty seconds to complete a full cycle, instead of fifteen. The man was nearly at the foot of the ladder. Once his replacement took over the beams would circulate with their original regularity.

The single light passed over the prison hut, moved on, and Sonia Barnes leapt to her feet. Half a dozen strides took her to the door. Agonising seconds were wasted as she located the keyhole, inserted the key, and twisted. The lock was stiff. She had to use both hands, and all the time the beam was coming round again.

The lock grated, the door yielded, and she threw her weapons inside, stumbling in after them, and dragging it closed behind her. Through the chinks in the woodwork the beam of the searchlight filtered on to her body. She had made it.

An excited clamouring broke out. Nurses who had cowered away, fearing a visit from their captors, clustered around her. Chinese and Malays jabbered in bewilderment.

‘What's going on?’ Hugh Carter pushed his way through the crowded hut, Li Chu at his heels.

‘You must be Colonel Carter,’ Sonia could not hold back her sobs of relief. ‘I'm Sonia Barnes.’

‘Colonel Sika,’ Carter snapped, ‘where is he?’

‘Dead,’ she replied, ‘just as the sentry round the back is. The moment somebody discovers either of them all hell's going to be let loose.’

‘Then we've got to get moving,’ Carter snapped, ‘whilst we still have the element of surprise on our side. I see you've got some weapons. Good girl. It's not much when we're faced with machine guns and a full complement of Jap guards, but it's better than nothing. Anyway, my chaps may not be too far away either.’

‘A slim chance,’ Li Chu said. ‘Take it from me, colonel, we're on our own. Still, it's better to go down fighting than to be ruthlessly slaughtered without a chance to defend ourselves!’

‘You aren't kidding,’ Jungle Carter grinned. ‘Now, we'd better get something organised fast. We've got to get out of here. They've only got to rake it with fire, and they've got the lot of us. The first thing to do is to put those machine guns out of action. Those fellers up there are sitting ducks, and I reckon I can pick 'em off before they know what's hit 'em. With the searchlights out, too, the soldiers won't have much to shoot at. All the same, inside this compound we're like rats in a trap. Now listen carefully, all of you. In about five minutes I'm going to ease that door open, and pick off the machine-gunners. Then the lights. In the confusion I'm going to try and get up to one of the turrets. If I don't make it, Li Chu, you're in charge. If our fellers have made it, they'll come in shooting. If not, then we'll have to try and break out into the jungle. Maybe there'll be time to get the gate sentry and get out … maybe not. We've got to try it, though.’

There was silence within the prison hut. Everybody was on their feet, nurses and guerillas alike, all with renewed hope in them. They knew that some of them would die. Maybe all of them. But at least this way there was a chance.

‘And when we make it to the jungle,’ Carter said deliberately refraining from using the word 'if', ‘everybody stick together. It's a long hard trek back to our hideout, but there's nowhere else to go. We've a choice between the jungle or the Japs, and personally I'd sooner take my chance with the jungle. Now, any questions?’

Li Chu was on the point of saying something, but decided against it. He didn't like the idea of trailing the nurses along with them. Women had only one use as far as the bandit leader was concerned, and a situation like this did not allow time for copulation. The nurses would slow them up. They would put the remnants of his own men at risk. Alone they might have made it. He grinned. These nurses were fodder for the answering Jap gunfire. The more of them that were mown down, the better pleased he would be.

‘Sounds OK to me,’ he said. ‘Let's get started.’

Hugh Carter passed the knife and an automatic pistol to Li Chu. The rifle he kept for himself, checking to make sure that the magazine was full, and that it was in full working order.

Slowly, he eased the door open, hoping that the slight movement would not be spotted by the Japs up in the turrets. He slid the stock to his shoulder, and brought the barrel to bear on the nearest machine-gunner.

‘Right you bastard,’ he muttered, ‘Cop this!’

He held his breath, and squeezed the trigger.

Chapter Eleven

The report crashed out in the sultry Malayan stillness, and bounced back off the surrounding jungle in time to meet that of the second shot.

The first Jap gunner pitched forward, clutching at his stomach, his head meeting with the frail wooden railing. The second one stared in amazement, his brain unable to grasp the situation. It never got the chance. The following bullet was even truer than the first, and the man slumped back in his seat, his heart ruptured by the passing bullet which was still whining its way over the Malayan jungle.

Hugh Carter fired twice more in rapid succession. The searchlights were extinguished like electric light bulbs on a fairground shooting range. He was not one to dwell on success, though.

‘Here,’ he pressed the rifle into Li Chu's hand, grabbed the .45 automatic in exchange, and set off at a run across the compound towards the machine gun turrets.

‘Good shooting, Colonel,’ Li Chu shouted after him, but Jungle Carter was already at the foot of the first rickety ladder.

The door of the soldiers' quarters burst open. The Japs had no intention of asking questions first. Tommy guns chattered, but Li Chu and his band were already lying flat, the bandit leader working the bolt of his rifle as fast as he could.

Carter was an indistinguishable silhouette clambering up the ladder, now more than half way. A soldier spotted him in the semi-gloom, and raised his pistol. Li Chu fired. The man crumpled, and sprawled headlong.

More and more soldiers were appearing on the scene.

‘Fucking hell!’ Carter looked down from his elevated position as he swung up into the turret. ‘We'll never hold them … even with this!’

Jungle Carter manipulated the machine gun so that the barrel was pointing directly downwards. He swung it, the trigger pressed. His line of fire halted the Japs as surely as a brick wall. They pulled up, eyes widening at the line of dust puffs before them.

Carter elevated the barrel a little, and fired again. This time he caught five men, spraying leaden death at them, shattering breastbones, facial features being reduced to splintered bone and bloody hanging sinews. Men sank to the ground, sprawling in different positions of death, the remainder scattering in search of cover.

He fired another burst. Now they were firing back at him, but their aim was wild. He heard the bark of Li Chu's rifle every few seconds, and he wondered how much more ammunition the bandit had left.

‘Head for the fucking gate!’ Carter yelled, but he drowned his words with his own machine gun fire. Li Chu made as though to rise, but a hail of fire from the roof of the hut opposite forced him to press himself even closer to the ground.

‘The bastards are climbing on top of the torture hut, too,’ he mused. ‘Two shots left. We ain't got a fuckin' chance. Any second Jungle Carter's goin' to come tumblin' down outa there.’

Jungle Carter knew that his only chance was to keep up a continual fire. That was the only thing that was pinning the Japs back. He looked around for a sign of more ammunition, but he could not see any. Sika had not constructed these posts with a view to withstanding a siege. They were merely for the massacre of any who might try to escape.

The magazine was running low. One more burst, and that would be it. He looked across at the other turret. It was ten yards away. There was a drop of thirty feet beneath him. So near, and yet so far.

Japs were forming a semi-circle preparatory to rushing the prisoners. They had no fear of the solitary rifle. It might get one or two of them, but they would be dying in battle, and that was fine. They were more wary of the machine gun, though. Already six men lay dead on the compound, and that was too many for a skirmish of this nature.

Then the machine gun petered out. Carter cursed, but he knew there was nothing he could do about it. Orders were being shrieked in Japanese. He recognised Samuri's voice urging his men to rush the prisoners.

The Japs rose to their feet. One fell to a rifle shot, but they ignored him. Half-crouching, weapons silent because they had been ordered to take as many of the escapers alive as possible, they closed in.

Suddenly, the night was split by a blinding burst of flame, an explosion that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth. Debris and bodies were airborne, soil showered down like a hailstorm.

Hugh Carter clung desperately to the railings of the turret, watching the body of the dead soldier slide free, and hurtle earthwards. Another explosion came only seconds after the first.

Carter hung on as he felt the turret structure begin to tilt. A third explosion seemed to come from the direction of the gate. He was falling ... falling ...

The wood which splintered beneath him broke his fall. He lay dazed and shaken, spreadeagled across the wreckage, smoke billowing up all around him, yelling and screaming, tommy guns chattering. He lay where he was. There was no sign of the machine gun, and he had also lost his automatic pistol in his fall.

Figures rushed past him. One Jap soldier looked at him, half raised a bayonet, then dismissed him as dead. The main battle seemed to be raging in the area of Colonel Sika's hut.

Of course, it was his own men, arrived at the eleventh hour. The battle was at its fiercest now. He struggled to his feet, and stooped to retrieve a pistol from a dead soldier. A Chinese guerilla lay nearby, his stomach a gaping gory hole. A Malay's head rolled a yard or more from his prostrate body.

The encounter had split the camp almost in half. The Japs were holding out from Sika's house and the other two sheds, whilst guerillas and escapees used every scrap of available cover to pour concentrated fire on to the enemy.

Someone was already scrambling up the ladder leading to the remaining machine gun post. Carter recognised the man as Chuli.

Shots rang out. Chuli faltered, clung desperately to the rungs for a second or two, and then with a scream of rage he slid earthwards, head first. Carter turned his head away, but he could not escape hearing the crack of a breaking neck.

‘We'll never get up there,’ he roared. ‘Don't anybody else try it. You're sitting ducks. Bring some grenades.’

‘Just coming up, sir,’ Sanders appeared out of the smoke carrying a couple of Mills' bombs. ‘Seems like we got 'ere just in time.’

‘Where's Cole?’ Carter snapped, looking all about him in search of the captain.

‘'E bought it, sir.’ Sanders pulled the pin from one of the bombs, and flung the missile in the direction of the huts. ‘Li Wong, too,’ both men clasped their hands to their ears as a thunderous roar rocked the whole compound. ‘Reckon we've got 'em beat, sir. There's plenty of Japs in the jungle. We 'ad a coupla narrow squeaks. That's why we're late.’

‘Where are the nurses?’ Jungle Carter ducked again as a second grenade exploded.

‘I've got some chaps lookin' after 'em,’ Sanders was more intent on bombarding the enemy than talking with the colonel. ‘We’d …’

‘We'd better get the hell outa here,’ Carter snapped. ‘We can't expose the nurses to danger. Our mission was to rescue 'em.’

‘Still, we might as well finish these fuckers off whilst we're 'ere,’ Sanders looked almost pleadingly at the other. ‘We've just about got 'em bottled up. Caught 'em nappin', eh? No point in leavin' 'em, is there, sir?’

‘No, I suppose not,’ Carter was as eager to wipe out this vile nest of cruelty as was his sapper, yet he wanted to take the nurses to safety at the same time. Still, there was no reason why he shouldn't have his cake and eat it. The nurses were comparatively safe. The Japs were making a last-ditch stand. Another quarter of an hour and it would be all over. Quarter of an hour. Time is sometimes meaningless in the Malayan jungle. On other occasions it is the difference between life and death. Whatever your decision, you are gambling.

There were shrieks from the guerillas as they slung grenades. Never had these bandits realised that death could be distributed so effectively, and with so little effort. No enemy could have withstood such an onslaught, yet Japanese soldiers do not surrender. They fight to the last man, whatever the odds.

‘There's only about six of the fuckers left in there, sir,’ Sanders grinned, and hurled another grenade. ‘Reckon it's about all over.’

Sika's wooden residence was ablaze. Thick black smoke from the tarpaulin roof billowed up into the night sky. Now the adjoining soldiers' quarters was on fire.

‘Come out or fry, you fuckin' bastards!’ Sanders stood watching the blazing buildings. The flames soared higher, the dry wood crackling, but nobody came out.

‘They prefer to stay inside and cook,’ Carter shook his head. ‘Thank God I'm not a Jap. Win or lose, it's all part of war, but as a Nip you're not allowed to lose. Death before dishonour. Anyway, we can't waste any more time here. That blaze will be seen for miles, and … hey, this is the guy I want!’

A Jap was struggling to his knees, reaching for a fallen pistol, but Carter's boot came down hard on the tiny hand. The man grunted, but it was with rage, and not fear.

‘Samuri!’ Jungle Carter laughed, ‘and not too badly hurt, either. Stunned by a grenade explosion by the look of him. Well, we're certainly taking you along, Samuri. You've an awful lot to answer for.’

Shrieks of delight came from some of the guerillas who had noticed the capture of Sika's lieutenant amidst the smoke and noise of battle.

‘Give him to us, Boss. We give him very good time.’

‘I'll bet you would,’ Carter grinned, ‘but right now he's coming with us, and I'll kill any man who dares to harm him. I want him alive and in good shape. I'm sure that there's an awful lot that Mister Samuri could tell us about the Jap movement in Malaya.’

The nurses were grouped together, lying in a bunch just inside the camp gate which now swung open freely, the far post splintered by plastic explosive.

‘We'll be moving in a few minutes,’ Carter spoke to them, his pistol still trained on Samuri. ‘A few of the boys are just finishing off the operation. Others are collecting what supplies they can find, then it's back to the jungle.’

‘Even the foulest jungle couldn't be any worse than this hole, Colonel,’ Sonia Barnes smiled weakly, the efforts of the past few hours showing plainly on her face. ‘In fact …’

Whatever she was about to say was drowned by a fresh burst of machine gun fire. A grenade exploded on the edge of the compound, flinging a couple of Malays to the ground.

‘What's going on?’ Carter whirled round. ‘The boys have got the last of the Japs bottled up in the torture hut. There's nobody left to fight. Who …’

‘Colonel,’ Samuri leered. ‘I think the boot is on the other foot now, as you say. The Japanese Army is at hand!’

‘Christ!’ Carter shielded his face automatically as another grenade burst. ‘The bloody Japs are here. They're in the jungle, all around us. Let's get moving.’

Those that heard him came running. Others were still not aware that they were being attacked from outside the compound.

Carter's main concern was for the nurses. The Japs had come from the south. The open compound gate, leading to the north, was still free.

‘Come on,’ Carter caught Soma's arm, and the other nurses jumped to their feet, ‘we've got to be moving now. And that means you, Samuri!’

The Jap shrugged his shoulders. He was confident that he would find some means of escaping once they were in the jungle. The British officer would not mistreat him. The British were soft, and they usually kept their word, some strange kind of code of honour. He didn't fancy the Malays or Chinese getting their hands on him, but in all probability he would escape very shortly.

Meekly he fell into the line of nurses. Carter was right behind him. Li Chu himself took the lead with a dozen or so guerillas bringing up the rear. Under Carter's orders, the men helped the nurses along, supporting them in their weariness. The bandits grinned at each other. The white boss would surely give them the women when they made the first camp.

At the moment, though, nothing else mattered except getting back to the hideout. They could still hear the sound of fighting in Colonel Sika's camp. Tommy guns rattled, the odd grenade went off, then eventually there was silence. The armies of the Emperor had finally decided the battle of Camp Sika.

‘So,’ a dapper Japanese colonel said surveying the smoking ruins, and nodding his approval as his men put a couple of wounded guerillas to the sword. He would have preferred to have lingered over this business of death, but time was not in his favour. ‘So, the prisoners broke out and overpowered their guards. I thought this was supposed to be the most feared camp in Malaya. Where was the security?’

‘The camp was attacked from the north, colonel,’ a young lieutenant saluted. ‘The party who killed the sentries, no doubt. It is starting to get light now. Our trackers will soon pick up their trail. They are tired, but our men are fresh after a brief rest.’

‘Good!’ Colonel Ugosaki smiled blandly in the grey dawn light. This operation was proving a nuisance to his own personal plans. He was on his way to take up an appointment in Singapore as head of the Kempei Tai. With him was the dreaded Malay Indian torturer, Itogaki. Owing to the shortage of troops they had been commanded to take charge of the jungle forces on their way down. Their appointment was premature. Singapore had not fallen. It would not be many days now, though. A month at the most and the Japanese Secret Police would be fully operative in Singapore.

Ugosaki turned away from the lieutenant, and smiled at the half-caste torturer. Itogaki had already demonstrated his skills on the towkays they had taken prisoner on the way down.

‘I should like to capture this Colonel Carter, Itogaki,’ he said. ‘A British resistance movement squashed before Singapore has even fallen. I think the Emperor would like that, and you, my friend, would extract all the information we need out of him regarding the other guerillas. Yes, it should prove most interesting. We must start right away whilst the trail is still warm.’

The nurses were exhausted. Their reserve of endurance had been used up during the breakout. Their legs would hardly support the weight of their bodies. Every few yards now they stumbled and fell, and at the end of the first half mile the column consisted of guerillas and nurses, arm in arm, reminiscent of love instead of war. Only Samuri walked alone.

Sonia Barnes leaned against Hugh Carter as they walked. She had only known the big man a couple of hours, and now she felt as though she couldn't bear the thought of being parted from him. If the Japs caught up with them, then she wanted to die with him. And if he lived, and the war eventually finished … She shook her head. It was crazy thinking as far ahead as that. One had to learn to live from day to day. It was fully light now although the overhanging branches caused a permanent gloom. It was like being in a huge cathedral, the trees resembling stone pillars that rose to the heavens above.

They would have to make camp soon. Every so often Sonia glanced up at her companion, expecting him to give the order to halt. But he forged on, lips tightly pressed together, heedless of the half-dozen or so leeches that sucked the blood from the back of his neck.

Sheer exhaustion would force them to stop soon. They had no groundsheets or bedding of any kind. Whatever kind of a bed the colonel chose to lie on, Sonia Barnes meant to share it with him. She was amazed and shocked at herself. Within the space of a few hours she had killed twice. A week ago she had been forced to submit to almost every technique of sex known in the Japanese nation. She had hated every second of it, and had vowed that if she ever got out alive she would become a nun and enter a convent, a sanctuary from lusting erections, and male selfishness.

Now her whole outlook had altered. She was determined to seduce Colonel Carter, living only for the sensations that their joined bodies would bring her. Then, with his seed in her womb, she would face anything. Even the pursuing Japs. Nothing else mattered.

‘We'll just have to strike camp,’ Carter said to Li Chu who was carrying a semi-conscious nurse in his arms like a small child.

‘Japs close,’ the bandit grunted, refusing to show any sign of exhaustion. ‘They're fresh. We're not. They'll catch us up. Another hour, maybe two, but they'll catch us.’

‘Maybe we could ambush them,’ Carter said without even a trace of conviction in his voice.

‘There are ten of them for every one of us,’ Li Chu muttered. ‘But, perhaps there is one very small chance …’

‘What is it?’ Carter was prepared to clutch at any straw now.

‘There is a tiny path that leads off some distance ahead,’ Li Chu inclined his head to the right. ‘Undergrowth screens the entrance. Room for just one person at a time to walk down it. A hundred yards, maybe less, there is a small clearing and a pool with mosquitoes and leeches, it won't be pleasant, but most likely the Japs do not know of it. If we cover our tracks at the entrance they might just miss it, and we could hide up for a while.’

‘Lead on,’ Carter grunted, ‘and let's give it a try.’

Chapter Twelve

Li Chu had little difficulty in locating the entrance of which he had spoken. A curtain of creeping vines screened it perfectly, and Carter was sure that unless their pursuers knew of it they would never find it.

Li Chu held the undergrowth apart, supporting the nurse with his free hand, and signalled to them to enter.

‘You first, Samuri,’ Carter prodded the Jap with the barrel of the automatic, ‘and one squeak out of you, and it'll be your last.’

‘We'll have to kill him,’ Li Chu said as Carter passed him. ‘He will warn them where we are ... even if it means his own death.’

Carter grimaced. It was true what the Chinese said. Samuri was a potential danger in their midst, yet he could not bring himself to kill a man in cold blood. Apart from that, he wanted to question the man.

Sonia clung to Jungle Carter as they followed the narrow winding path. It appeared once to have been hacked through the jungle, and then neglected, being allowed to overgrow again partially.

It was much darker in here than it had been on the wider track.

‘It gives me the creeps,’ Sonia muttered.

‘Not half as much as the Japs do,’ Carter whispered, his arm around her waist. ‘And this guy Samuri's our big problem.’

‘Do as Li Chu suggests and kill him.’ Sonia was amazed at her own ruthlessness. ‘It's one Japanese life against two dozen of ours.’

There was sense in her words, and Hugh Carter knew it.

Eventually, perhaps fifty yards further on, the narrow path entered the clearing of which Li Chu had spoken. The ground was bare as though vegetation could not thrive in this sunless place, surrounded by impenetrable foliage night and day. In the centre was the pool. It was no more than ten yards long, by five wide, a rectangle of black lifeless water beneath a covering of dark green scum.

‘Who's for a quick dip?’ Sanders grinned, but even the native guerillas did not appear to appreciate his jest.

‘This place is evil,’ a Chinese by the name of Chandi stated mournfully.

Carter quickly counted everybody. The company was complete. Mosquitoes hummed. Leeches were more prevalent.

‘Ugh!’ Sonia began removing the parasites off Carter's neck. ‘What a place!’

‘It's either this or the Japs,’ he grunted, and turned to Li Chu. ‘Tear off some strips of material. Anything will do. Tie up and gag Samuri. I'll feel happier then.’

‘Waste of material and labour,’ Li Chu retorted as he moved to carry out Carter's bidding. ‘Much easier to kill him.’

Hugh Carter shook his head as guerillas and nurses began making themselves as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances.

‘We may be here for quite some considerable time,’ he sighed.

The atmosphere was humid, the sweat beginning to pour from their bodies as the jungle temperature rose. The day was only just starting, but for them it would be a long night, cooped up in this foul-smelling dank place, praying that the Japs on their trail would pass by.

Samuri lay bound and gagged, his eyes closed, apparently oblivious to the leeches which sucked his blood, and the mosquitoes which competed with them for exposed areas of bare flesh.

Sonia moved closer to Carter, removing parasites from his neck, a ready-made excuse for any woman. She glanced at Samuri and winced. His face was a mass of purple blotches, leeches and mosquitoes swarming greedily on his features at the prospect of human flesh and warm fresh blood.

‘Ugh!’ she shuddered.

‘Poor swine,’ Carter muttered. ‘He had a rough choice. Either he's got to be eaten alive like that or have his throat slit by Li Chu!’

The guerillas were leering at the Jap's plight. In spite of her hatred for the man Sonia would have attempted to remove the parasites, but Carter pulled her back.

‘Don't interfere,’ he murmured. ‘We don't want a revolt on our hands. Anyway, just think what Samuri did to those guys on the compound yesterday ... not to mention the nurses. He's on a picnic by comparison.’

They lapsed into silence.

‘D'you think we'll get out of here?’ she slid her hand into his.

‘We've a chance,’ he avoided her gaze. ‘It all depends on whether this ruse fools the Japs. Even then, we've got to get back to the hideout, and that won't be easy with the jungle crawling with Japs. Like I said, though, we've got a chance.’

‘I wish we'd met under different circumstances,’ she blushed slightly. ‘I mean ... we haven't really been given a fair chance, have we?’

His arm came around her shoulders, pulling her close. Their faces brushed.

‘A friend of yours said that to me not so very long ago,’ he sighed. ‘Unfortunately, the heat and the atrocities were more than she could stand.’

‘You mean Jenny?’

He nodded, a lump in his throat.

‘Was ... was there anything between you?’ she hated herself for asking the question. It was no business of hers, but she had to know. Somehow it made a lot of difference to her. She didn't know what answer she wanted to hear. Maybe she hoped that he had succeeded in making Jenny happy at the very end.

‘We made love,’ his voice was a hoarse whisper, ‘the night before.’

‘I'm glad,’ she smiled. ‘I'm so glad, Hugh. She deserved a grain of happiness after all she had been through.’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but you've been through even worse.’

‘I hate myself for it,’ she snapped. ‘I was nothing better than a common whore, trading my body just so that I could cling on to a life that I loathed. I wish I'd died back there with some of those other girls.’

‘It wouldn't have served any purpose,’ he said. ‘Life is cheap out here, but when it's your own it's very precious. You did what you had to do, and you're still alive. Thank God!’

‘I wish I could forget it all,’ she muttered with bitterness in her voice, ‘but I guess I'll relive every second of it for the rest of my life.’

Their lips met. Suddenly, the heat, the mosquitoes, the leeches, all meant nothing to them. Only one thing mattered. They disengaged, and Carter glanced around the clearing.

Many of the bandits and nurses were asleep, exhaustion claiming their bodies, heedless of the parasites that crawled and sucked on their flesh. Samuri lay motionless, his eyes closed, accepting his fate with the stoical attitude of his race. No matter what he experienced he would never openly display pain or discomfort.

Sonia's arms went around Carter's neck, pulling him down to her. A beautiful sensation was beginning in his loins, his manhood growing and stiffening. He wanted her to feel at it through his trousers, for her to know that she had aroused him. But she made no move, her arms remaining around him. She wanted the invitation to come from him.

He clasped one of her hands lightly, and moved it down to the centre of his desire. At first she was unresponsive, her fingers merely remaining on his hardness exactly where he had put them. It was as though she was trying to summon up the courage, hideous memories of all that had passed between herself and Colonel Sika. Then her fingers began to move, slowly at first, sliding his flesh back and forth inside his trousers.

He kissed her fiercely. He wanted to strip her off, take off his own clothes, too, so that both of them could lie naked and make love, regardless of anybody else. It would have been impossible, though. Even to have exposed her breasts to the devilish insects that hummed in small clouds over the brackish water would have been criminal. The fact that he was a British officer did not enter into it now. He was a jungle bandit, no better, no worse than the motley crew who lay sleeping around him. He groaned.

‘I'm glad we got out of that camp,’ he said, ‘and even if we get no further ...’

‘I feel the same,’ she kissed him fiercely, rubbing faster and faster on his erection, ‘make me happy, Hugh. Make love to me now, and to hell with the future!’

He pushed her back, and rolled on top of her, her legs spreading so that he could lie in between them. She still had a hold on his penis, and now she was unfastening his flies. He drew his breath in sharply as her fingers at last made contact with his solid throbbing tube of flesh. Her crotch was bare, all her underwear having been left behind at the prison camp.

Sonia was taking the initiative now. She knew exactly what she wanted, but she was also determined to make it enjoyable for him as well. Holding his shaft, she worked his penis head slowly around her labia, circling the inner and outer lips, clockwise and anti-clockwise motions, then sliding him up and down, touching her vaginal lips, but fighting the temptation to bring about a penetration. They had all day, and tired as they were she was determined to make it last as long as ever possible.

Suddenly, he knew that he could not hold off his orgasm any longer. She was working him beautifully along her clitoris when he began to ejaculate. She moaned aloud as she sensed the first spurt of creamy male sperm, jerking her organ downwards immediately. He was sliding into her, warm fleshy lips splaying back, then fastening over his penis. On and on, still shooting his sperm into her until they were fully joined. Their bodies began to jerk in harmony, rolling this way and that, their groans of ecstasy louder now.

Out of the corner of his eye Jungle Carter caught sight of Li Chu. The bandit chief seemed to be the only other male awake in the camp. He was lying on his back, a fair-haired nurse astride him, his thighs and buttock muscles powering upwards so that she had to hang on like a bronco rider at a rodeo. Li Chu certainly had a way with women in spite of his ferocious countenance and ruthless cruelty.

Carter and Sonia trembled violently together. Their initial passion was spent, and now was the time to savour their relationship. They kissed again, probing gently with their tongues.

‘Sika wanted me to give him a child,’ she grimaced. ‘He could well have done the damage. I won't know for a long time yet.’

‘You might have one by me,’ he murmured. ‘There's just as much chance.’

‘I wouldn't mind that,’ she smiled.

‘Wouldn't you?’

‘No,’ she grinned, and shook her head. ‘In fact, I'm praying hard now that you've got me pregnant!’

They were silent for a time. His erection didn't soften. It was demanding another orgasm.

‘Hugh,’ she whispered as he flexed and pushed inside her. ‘What are your plans? I mean, if we get back to the hideout, what are you going to do? Maybe we could make it to Australia together. I've got a little place of my own there. At least I will have now. Pam and I shared it together. Now there'll be just me. Why don't you come back with me, Hugh?’

‘I'd like to,’ he began to thrust slowly again. ‘Tell you what. Once this bloody war's over I'll come out there to you. I've nowhere else to go. I worked in a bank, before, but I couldn't go back there.’

‘Do you have to wait until the war's over?’ Her eyes were filled with tears.

‘I've got to stay here,’ he muttered. ‘More than ever now. Nobody thought about organising the stay-behind parties until it was too late, and the Japs were in the Malayan back garden. Cole's dead. There's only Sanders and myself. We've got one helluva job to do.’

‘After the war, then,’ her voice was unsteady. ‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

He was fully aroused again now. Both of them were fully lubricated, sliding easily together, their emotions steadily building up to a crescendo again. After they had both climaxed they drifted off to sleep.

‘Boss.’

Carter jerked into wakefulness as Li Chu's hand shook his shoulder. The British officer knelt up, hastily fastening his fly buttons as he did so. It was hotter than ever, steam rising in the swampy glade like a thick fog.

‘Boss,’ Li Chu whispered. ‘The Japs are here. Along the track. Level with us now. Listen.’

Jungle Carter listened. Jabbering excited voices came to his ears. He picked up his tommy gun, and noted that Li Chu had his own weapon trained on the mouth of the narrow track where it entered the clearing.

‘We'll soon know if they find it,’ Li Chu murmured.

The others still slept. Carter did not want to awaken them unless it was obvious that their hiding place had been discovered. There was a greater chance of absolute silence whilst everybody slept.

‘They've stopped!’

Hugh Carter felt his blood run cold. The patrol had come to a halt. An officer was shouting orders, but the distance and the enshrouding undergrowth made it impossible to hear what he said.

The voices died away. Then they heard another noise. Water spraying, like the monsoon rains deluging on to the vegetation then dripping from the leaves.

‘What the hell's going on?’ Carter whispered.

Suddenly, Li Chu began to laugh silently. His whole body shook with mirth, and finally he slapped his companion on the back.

‘They have stopped to piss!’ he was almost in silent hysterics. ‘The most feared fighting force in the world has to do the same as other men. They have to ease their bladders. Pissing by numbers.’

Further shouted commands reached them through the steaming forest. Voices jabbered again. Feet were on the move.

‘Phew!’ Carter wiped his brow. ‘It looks like we fooled 'em, then, Li Chu.’

‘So far,’ the bandit had now recovered his self-composure, ‘but we must stay here for some time. At least until nightfall. When they do not catch up with us they might decide to retrace their steps back to the remnants of Colonel Sika's camp. It would be a catastrophe if we met them on the way.’

Jungle Carter nodded. He laid down his tommy gun, and began pulling leeches from his body. Blood oozed from the open wounds. He transferred his attentions to Sonia, removing some from the insides of her thighs whilst she slept. He looked around at the others, and pulled a wry face.

‘We might have given the Jap's the slip, Li Chu,’ he kept his voice low, ‘but we're up against a far more dangerous enemy. Fever. Look at those two nurses. They're sick. Very sick. And we haven't got any medical supplies at all until we get back to the hideout. I'm afraid that some of us aren't going to make it!’

Chapter Thirteen

It was plainly obvious that two of the nurses were very ill. All attempts to awaken them were greeted by delirious moans. Their bodies were on fire with a heat that did not come from the sweltering atmosphere.

‘Tell your men to make a couple of stretchers,’ Li Chu said. ‘Maybe they make camp further on.’

‘I think it would be best if we split up into two parties.’ Jungle Carter looked around at the other guerillas and nurses who were now stirring. That way we would have a better chance. ‘There's two ways back from here according to the map we drew up, Li Chu. One is a roundabout route and about three miles further. There's less likelihood of meeting up with the Japs that way. I want Chandi to take that route with the sick nurses and half of the men. You, Sanders and myself will go the most direct way.’

‘And what about him?’ Li Chu kicked out, catching the bound and gagged Samuri in the ribs.

Jungle Carter regarded their prisoner. Samuri's face was covered with leeches, mosquito bites swelling into hillocks of flesh on the Jap's features. His face was barely recognisable.

‘He can go with Chandi,’ the colonel said.

‘And I'll lay a little bet that he isn't alive when we reach the hideout,’ Li Chu grinned evilly.

‘He'd better be,’ Carter snarled, turning to face Chandi. ‘Listen to me, Chandi. If anything happens to Samuri en route, I'll have you shot, get it?’

Chandi nodded, but did not reply.

‘Now,’ Carter turned to Sanders, ‘how many sterilising tablets have you got left?’

‘Less than a dozen,’ the sapper replied.

‘Then we'll cut them in half and treat all our water bottles at half strength,’ Carter ordered. ‘That's better than nothing.’

‘I reckon them two nurses drank from the pool,’ Sanders muttered as he handed over the remains of the sterilising tablets.

‘Which explains why they're as bad as they are,’ Hugh Carter sighed. ‘You can't watch everybody, though. We'll just have to hope that we get them back in time.’

Darkness came quickly, and with it the refreshing relief of the cool of the night. Chandi set off first with his party, four men bearing the improvised stretchers on which lay the two fever-ridden nurses, Samuri walking in silence under the constant threat of an automatic pistol.

Carter looked back at his own party as they, too, prepared to face the perils of the jungle at night. Sonia Barnes looked surprisingly bright and eager. Sanders fondled a grenade lovingly. Li Chu, as usual, had an impassive expression on his face which hid his true thoughts. There were another three nurses, and ten Chinese and Malay guerillas.

‘Right,’ Carter checked his watch and compass. ‘We've got the easier route even if it is the most dangerous one. No talking or smoking, and keep your guns handy. No shooting, though, unless it's absolutely necessary for our safety. Let's go then.’

They moved off down the narrow track, passing through the curtain of vines and joining the wider one a few minutes later.

The jungle was silent almost as though it was totally devoid of all life.

Chandi's party was forced to move slowly because of the stretchers. The sick girls groaned with every movement.

‘They dead before morning.’ one of the stretcher-bearers spoke softly. ‘Easier to kill them. Kinder. We move faster and safer then.’

‘We take them with us.’ Chandi snapped.

Samuri trudged on relentlessly. Every so often the guerilla immediately behind him would kick him, or hit him across the shoulders with the barrel of a tommy gun. Never once did Samuri complain, but deep inside him his hatred seethed to boiling point. Yet, within him also smouldered a sense of satisfaction. His discomfort was only temporary, he was confident of that. He knew the principles of Japanese life. 'Hakko Ichiu' and 'Kodo'. The former meant a uniting of the whole world, whilst the second demanded complete loyalty to the Emperor. The codes were inseparable. Only by conforming to the second could the first be brought about. Japan would rule the world. Were they not part of the Tripartite Alliance with Germany and Italy? The western world could not defy them for much longer.

The two nurses on the stretchers had lapsed into an ominous silence.

‘They dead.’ the leading stretcher-bearer announced. ‘Leave them, and we move faster and quieter.’

‘They still live,’ Chandi dropped back, and leaned over each of the sick girls in turn. ‘Not for long, but they still live, and until they die you carry them.’

The remaining four nurses staggered on in silence. The hope that had flared up in their breasts earlier bad now died down. Their heads throbbed, their bodies smarted from the attacks of insects and parasites, and their movements were purely mechanical. The jungle was like a bad dream, and they feared that they would never wake up.

Twice the party stopped for a brief rest. A third nurse was unable to clamber to her feet after the second stop, and a third stretcher had to be improvised. The bandits complained bitterly, but Chandi was adamant, revelling in the authority bestowed upon him by Colonel Carter. He hoped that the nurses would cling on to life until they reached the hideout. After that it didn't matter.

Hour after hour they forged ahead, and then, just as dawn was breaking, disaster struck. Possibly exhaustion had dulled the keen senses of Chandi and his men, or maybe it was just the stealth of the enemy.

They had to cross a stretch of open ground, yet another few acres that had been cleared by tin miners, before the outbreak of war, and then abandoned.

The party was in the centre, following a well-worn narrow track when suddenly the surrounding jungle seemed to come to life. Brown uniformed soldiers with peaked hats rose from the bushes all around them. Rifles, bayonets, and tommy guns at the ready. Complete silence save for the clicking of safety catches and a snigger from Samuri.

Chandi stopped, his eyes rolling. The bearers lowered the stretchers to the ground. The three nurses who were still on their feet clung fearfully to each other.

Samuri grinned through his swollen features. His predictions were not long in coming true. He walked away from his captors towards the advancing colonel.

‘Who are you?’ Colonel Ugosaki snapped, regarding the dishevelled lieutenant through heavy horn rimmed spectacles that gave him an owlish appearance.

‘I am Samuri,’ he said. ‘Second-in-command to Colonel Sika. These people are escaped prisoners and guerillas. There is another party of them on the lower trail. They split up to try and fool you.’

Ugosaki's lower lip curled as he regarded the party. ‘You have much to answer for. However, as we must apprehend this other party the executions must take place immediately. There is little to be gained by wasting time questioning you. We can linger over that pleasure when we take your friends, as we shall do.’

He turned to three officers who stood just behind him. ‘Only a short time ago,’ his eyes glinted behind his spectacles, ‘we were lamenting the poor marksmanship of the younger soldiers. They lack practice. Set these prisoners up at the far end of this clearing. Tie them to stakes. Stripped naked, of course.’ He paused to count the prisoners. ‘There are fifteen of them in all. Select fifteen of the youngest soldiers at random. Mark their positions with more stakes at a distance of two hundred yards from the targets. I would like to have made it three hundred, but this clearing does not allow for that. The men must shoot for the hearts. They are allowed only one shot each ... to begin with!’

Ugosaki stood back to watch his orders being carried out. Soldiers busily hacked down small saplings, sharpened them, and drove them into the ground. Officers paced out the required distance of two hundred yards. Smaller stakes were hammered in here, directly opposite each of the taller ones.

The prisoners were being stripped of their clothing. Japs laughed as they pawed at the women, the three sick girls being held up with their legs pulled apart, the younger soldiers being encouraged to feel at them. Screams rang out but Ugosaki merely grinned. His men deserved a little treat now and then.

The fifteen captives were bound to the stakes. The fever-stricken nurses sagged, unconscious, only the tightness of their bonds holding them upright. The nine guerillas were silent and defiant. They were lucky. They were only going to be shot. It was fortunate, indeed, that time did not allow for torture.

Fifteen young soldiers were lined up at the smaller row of stakes. Many of them had not yet attained their sixteenth birthday. They held their rifles clumsily, embarrassed at being called upon to display their poor marksmanship. In battle it went unnoticed. The enemy were killed, and nobody asked whose bullets had slain their foes. Now it was man for target, and the squat Hanoya who stood behind them would punish poor shooting in his own way.

Hanoya glanced towards Ugosaki, and received an answering nod.

‘Take aim,’ he shouted, and the soldiers squirmed on their bellies, pressed the oversize rifle stocks against their cheeks, and took a sighting. ‘Fire!’

Fifteen shots rang out in an untidy volley spaced over two or three seconds. Powder smoke obscured the vision of the firing party, and they quavered as they watched. Hanoya, followed by Ugosaki, walking across to inspect the results of this juvenile firing squad.

Two of the guerillas, a Chinese and a Malay, were dead, an open bullet wound oozing blood from their hearts. Another Chinese writhed in agony, but refused to scream. The bullet had passed through his abdomen, and bloody entrails spilled out of the gaping hole. He would be dead in a matter of minutes.

The three nurses who had been taken from the stretchers were dead. There were no marks on their naked bodies. They had died before the order to fire had been given.

Ugosaki and Hanoya passed slowly on. Three guerillas entirely unscathed met their gaze defiantly. Chandi had a gashed artery on the inside of his thigh. Blood spurted and formed a pool on the ground with a steady swishing noise like that of a running tap. He, too, would be dead in a matter of minutes.

Hanoya lifted the bowed head of another nurse with his stick. His first impression was that she had merely fainted, but the neat wound in her neck proved that this was not the case. The girl next to her had been missed completely. The remaining one had been killed with a direct heart shot. The last two guerillas had also been killed outright.

Hanoya worked out the results on his little yellow fingers. Three guerillas and one nurse were still alive. He remembered not to count the three fever deaths in his reckoning of the marksmanship.

‘Deplorable!’ he roared at the group of young soldiers.

‘Reload and prepare to shoot again. Even if your target is already dead I want to see a heart shot!’

The young soldiers of the Emperor reloaded. This time their hands were much less steady than before. Barrels wavered. Sweat poured from yellow brows.

‘Fire!’

Another ragged barrage of shots. Hanoya went to inspect. His face clouded with rage. Only one of the guerillas had been hit, a Malay writhing with a groin injury, his lower lips bitten to ribbons as he determined not to scream. Even the previous direct hits had been totally missed this time.

‘Fools!’ Hanoya raged and shook clenched fists at the line of Jap boy-soldiers. ‘You would not hit a tank at fifty paces. Now, ten rounds each, and once the order is given to fire, keep on firing. I want these hearts shot to bloody pulp whether they still beat or not. Any man who has not secured at least two direct hits will be put on night sentry duty for the duration of our march until we reach Singapore. Then he will be disciplined further!’

Fifteen trembling pairs of hands laid ten rounds of ammunition on the ground in front of them. The firing squad wished that they could have used the repeating rifles of the advance guard, but they would not be issued with these until they had proved their ability to use the ancient single-shots.

‘Fire!’

Fifteen reports rang out almost instantaneously. Bolts were worked feverishly. For the next two minutes the firing was frenzied, soldiers pumping shots at targets that were mere silhouettes through the smoke. The reports became spasmodic. Then silence.

Hanoya stalked down the line of blood-spattered human remains. All the prisoners were dead with the exception of one. Somehow the fair-haired nurse, a well-built girl who was only just beginning to show the effects of her hardship over the past fortnight, still remained unscathed. She regarded him with wide-eyed fear. She would have screamed, but her vocal chords refused to function.

He ignored her temporarily, and gloated over the rest. The guerilla with the groin injury had had his genitals completely shot away. The soldier responsible obviously had a tendency to aim low. Two of the fever-stricken nurses had bosoms hanging in shreds. Heart wounds showed on several of the others. That was much, much better.

Hanoya turned and walked towards his inexperienced firing squad. He noted the fear in their expressions. So long as they only showed it towards himself that was all right.

‘Better,’ he sneered, ‘but not good enough by a long way. You must learn to kill with the first shot. In the jungle you seldom have time for a second. There was only one complete failure. You!’

The youth who had wasted eleven rounds of ammunition leapt to his feet, and saluted. He wished that he had died in the battle of Camp Sika. Hanoya was shaming him in front of his colleagues. Their ridicule would not be short-lived.

‘You obviously are totally useless with the rifle,’ Hanoya spoke slowly, glancing alternately at the soldier and the unharmed nurse. Already a plan was forming in the sadistic officer's brain. He hoped that Ugosaki would approve, and that the colonel would not begrudge him a few more minutes to complete the execution of these prisoners in his own inimitable manner.

Ugosaki's expression was impassive. He had enjoyed the killing as much as Hanoya had.

‘Since you have not mastered the use of the rifle,’ Hanoya turned so that all the soldiers could hear him, ‘let us see whether you are skilled with the bayonet or not. Cut the prisoner free!’

Two soldiers hastened to obey, their knives slashing through the ropes which bound the remaining nurse. She slid to the ground, but they grabbed her, and hauled her to her feet.

‘Bring the prisoner over here,’ Hanoya yelled, and then turned back to the young soldier. ‘Fix your bayonet. Do not kill her immediately. You must make her position herself for the death thrust by prodding her as you were taught during your training.’

The young Jap sweated as he fixed his bayonet in position. His hopes rose. He was being given another chance. During his recruitment period he had impressed his instructor with his use of the bayonet. He breathed more easily. He would redeem himself in the eyes of Hanoya as well as his fellow soldiers.

The nurse was flung to the ground. She lay there on her back, her eyes closed, instinctively pressing her thighs tightly together. A soldier made as if to prise them apart, but Hanoya stopped him with a curt command. The youth with the bayonet would see to that.

Hanoya glanced at Ugosaki. The colonel nodded.

‘We march in ten minutes.’ he said softly.

Hanoya smiled. So did the young soldier. There was plenty of time.

‘Proceed!’

The soldier cradled the rifle between his sweating hands. The addition of the bayonet made it seem ridiculously long and unwieldy to the onlookers, but to him it was a restoration of his confidence.

The girl opened her eyes, closed them again, and prayed that death would come quickly. The soldier grinned, and pricked her lightly on the outside of a thigh with his needle-sharp point. Just a shallow incision. Just enough for a show of blood.

She squirmed, and rolled herself up into a ball. He grinned. He would soon open her out. He slashed more purposefully this time, tearing a gash along the underside of the raised closed thighs. Her legs shot forward, and her vocal power returned. She began to scream hysterically, trying to struggle to her feet. Two more sideways slashes and blood was pouring from her partially severed ankles. She sank to the ground, sobbing and choking, clutching at her bleeding wounds.

He thrust hard and true. She screamed, her whole body clear of the ground for a second, the bayonet impaled in her to a depth of some six or seven inches.

He yanked it clear as she fell back, spraying her writhing form with still more blood. He paused, grinning.

‘The death thrust!’

It was an order, and it came from Ugosaki himself. The colonel was already wondering how much progress the other guerillas had made. There was no time to be lost.

The soldier held his weapon aloft, then a sudden downward thrust split the agonised victim's heart, bringing instant relief to her pain-ravaged body.

He struggled to free the blade. It had passed right through her, and sunk into the earth beneath. At last it came clear, almost over toppling him, and with a display of pride he began wiping it clean on her flesh.

His chest swelled with pride as Ugosaki and Hanoya nodded their approval.

‘We must move quickly,’ the colonel snapped. ‘There is much more work to do. This is only half of them!’

As the men began to assemble into single file with Hanoya at the head, Ugosaki turned to Samuri who had remained silent throughout the atrocities.

‘Tell me about the other guerillas,’ he said. ‘Who is this British officer who leads them?’

‘He is known as Jungle Carter,’ the other replied. ‘He would be dead by now had not the prisoners escaped. More of these bandits were lying in wait outside the camp, ready to attack. We were caught between two fires.’

‘And how did they escape?’ Ugosaki asked.

‘It was the woman,’ Samuri sneered. ‘Colonel Sika's woman. One of the nurses. He should have taken her when he wanted her, and then flung her back with the rest of the rabble. He didn't. He trusted her, and let her share his quarters. During the attack I went in search of him. He was dead. There was no sign of her. Somehow she managed to free the prisoners. She must be with Carter now.’

‘Then I trust that we shall find her,’ Ugosaki smiled at the thought. ‘This Sika was a fool. He thought more of sex than of the Emperor himself. He ignored “Kodo”. It was thought that his best use was in an isolated prison camp. It seems that we were wrong. His death is beneficial to the Japanese nation, but I shall not rest until this Jungle Carter and his men have been completely wiped out.’

‘Nor shall I,’ Samuri drew himself up erect. ‘Their hideout could be anywhere within fifty square miles of here. Once they reach it we shall never find them. We must, intercept them first.’

‘I am looking for men with your qualities to serve the Kempei Tai when Singapore falls,’ Ugosaki smiled. ‘Catch these people for me, and you will not regret it.’

Samuri bowed.

‘The trail they are following,’ he purred, ‘does not turn off for several miles. I know exactly where to intercept them!’

Chapter Fourteen

Dawn had broken, being vaguely discernible through the treetops above Jungle Carter and his sixteen-strong company. It was more a lessening of the gloom which enabled them to make out the objects around them than the coming of daylight, though.

‘We'd better try and make camp for a while,’ Carter was fully aware that every step required a conscious effort from Sonia Barnes and the other two nurses.

No sooner had he spoken than a volley of gunfire reached their ears. They pulled up abruptly, puzzled expressions on their faces.

‘Rifle fire,’ Carter's brow furrowed. ‘Our fellers all had tommy guns and automatics.’

There was no further shooting so they moved on. Two or three minutes later they heard the second volley.

‘Fucking queer,’ Sanders muttered. ‘Whoever is doin' all the shootin' ain't gettin' shot back at.’

Then came a more prolonged burst of rifle fire, gradually reducing to single shots, and then dying away completely.

‘It's Chandi's party,’ Li Chu grunted, ‘and they aren't doing the shooting!’

‘What d'you make of it?’ Carter asked, although he had already formed his own opinion.

‘Firing squad, Jap style,’ Li Chu grimaced. ‘Can't be anything else. We won't see Chandi again, that's for sure.’

‘Hell,’ Jungle Carter sighed. ‘The Japs took the upper trail. Swung off after they'd passed where we were hiding.’

‘Yes,’ Li Chu shook his head. ‘Both tracks join about three miles further on, and that is where they will lie in ambush for us. We can always go back ...’

‘And meet up with the next Jap patrol,’ Carter snapped. ‘We're caught between two fires, Li Chu.’

Li Chu thought for a moment.

‘There is one alternative,’ he said. ‘About two miles north of here there is a river. A kampong, too. The river flows in the direction of our hideout, and then turns off. If we were to take a couple of boats from the village to where the stream alters course, and then hack our way back through the jungle.’

‘We should arrive back at the hideout in about a week's time,’ Hugh Carter grimaced. ‘We've virtually no supplies, and -’

‘We could take what we wanted from the kampong,’ Li Chu concluded. ‘It will be very hard going, but I think you will agree that is better than Jap torture.’

‘Yes,’ Colonel Carter turned back to the rest of the party. ‘The jungle it is, then. We've no choice. I want two men to take turns hacking a path for us with their parangs. The sooner we're off this track, the happier I'll feel.’

For the next two hours they forced their weary limbs to combat the almost impenetrable jungle. Only when they were far enough from the track did Carter order camp to be made.

‘Three hours rest,’ he said, ‘and then we must make as much headway as possible before dark. I'm not chancing forcing our way through this lot in the dead of night. Sanders, set a couple of booby trap grenades. That'll save us sentry duty. Every man needs his rest.’

Sonia Barnes stretched her weary body out alongside that of Carter's. Her beautiful features were puffed up with mosquito bites, her skin blotches of blood where the leeches had taken their toll. She had almost given up the will to live. Had it not been for Hugh Carter she would have done so.

They kissed briefly. Both of them knew that they had not the strength to make love.

‘Does this village and river really exist?’ she sighed.

‘According to Li Chu it does,’ he replied, ‘and in a predicament like this I'd take his word for anything.’

It seemed to Sonia that hardly had she closed her eyes before Carter was shaking her gently awake again.

‘Time to be moving.’

The jungle steamed in the intense heat. Parangs slashed a route for the party, the men alternating the work more frequently now. Mosquitoes seemed to increase with every step they progressed, every precious yard wrenched forcibly from the undergrowth by manpower.

‘Sky gone dark,’ Li Chu muttered. ‘It rain soon.’

The bandit leader's prediction came true about half an hour later. Torrential rain gushed down, soaking their ragged clothing in a matter of seconds. The heat was gone. They began to shiver.

‘We'd better take what shelter we can,’ Carter ordered. ‘We can't go on in this.’

‘At least we'll have some fresh water,’ Li Chu grinned, spreading a piece of torn groundsheet over an indentation in the ground.

They crouched beneath the thickest bushes, screening themselves from the full force of the rain. However, it dripped on to them from the leaves, and nowhere was there any true shelter.

At last the storm passed, but the sky grew no lighter. Nightfall had arrived.

After some difficulty Li Chu managed to make a fire by using dead bamboo shoots. For a long time it smouldered and smoked, being cursed in three different languages until finally the kindling dried out, and the flame took over.

There was only one place in which to dry their sodden clothes, and that was on their bodies. Carter and Sonia huddled together. Sanders persuaded one of the other nurses that she would be warmer lying up against him, and the third female of the party, after a great deal of persuasion from Carter, who half-heartedly vouched for Li Chu's behaviour, slept in the arms of the bandit chief.

It was a miserable night for all of them, and with the coming of daylight they were only too grateful for the opportunity to stretch their cramped limbs. The canteens were filled with the rainwater which they had collected, and after breakfasting on sodden biscuits and tea, two of the Malays began to hack at the undergrowth again.

So heavy was the going now that they were forced to rest every hour, sometimes covering only as much as fifty yards between breaks.

Towards midday they struck a patch where the vegetation was not quite so thick, and made better progress.

‘Kampong quite close now,’ Li Chu announced towards later afternoon. ‘Half a mile, no more. I'll send a scout on ahead. Meanwhile we'll rest.’

It was almost dark before the scout returned. There was a worried expression on his face, and he conversed in low tones with Li Chu for some minutes.

‘The Japs have taken the kampong,’ Li Chu turned and addressed Jungle Carter. ‘The towkays have all been put to death. There's only a small force of soldiers left there, though. Ten or a dozen at the most. They're using it as an armament dump, bringing arms up river, and storing them there for the patrols to pick up.’

‘There's more Japs than mosquitoes in this part of the jungle,’ Carter fumed. ‘Nevertheless, we'll have to take the village. We'll go in after dark. We'll have to leave one of your men to look after these nurses on the edge of the jungle whilst we sort these Nips out, Li Chu.’

They ate the remainder of their rain-drenched biscuits washed down with rainwater, and then set off slowly and quietly in the direction of the Japanese-occupied Chinese kampong.

‘One thing, they won't be expecting us,’ Carter whispered to Li Chu as at last they sighted the ramshackle village on the banks of the narrow muddy river.

‘Just one sentry,’ Li Chu's remarkable eyesight picked out the single soldier slouched on the outskirts of the village, his back resting against the side of a hut. ‘He's mine.’

They waited. Li Chu disappeared into the moonless night. They kept their eyes fixed on the lone sentry. A match flared, and they saw the glowing end of a cigarette.

Suddenly, the cigarette dropped to the ground, and rolled away amidst a cloud of sparks. The soldier seemed to become airborne. His body was lifted aloft, legs kicking frantically, but not a sound did he utter. Finally, he hurtled through the air, landing in a crumpled heap some yards away. He did not even twitch a muscle.

Only then did they see Li Chu. He walked over towards the fallen sentry, kicked him viciously in the ribs, rolled him over with his foot, and then returned silently and swiftly to the watchers.

‘No bother,’ the bandit chief grinned in the darkness. ‘The bastard's neck snapped like a dead twig.’

‘Good,’ Carter snapped. ‘Now let's find where the rest of them are holed up.’

‘They're in a hut at the end of the street,’ Li Chu replied. ‘All of them. Ten. I counted them. They're mostly drunk, and they're taking turns with a Chinese woman on the floor.’

‘Let's go then,’ Carter turned to Sanders. ‘Have a grenade ready. It's a pity about the woman, but we can't take any chances trying to rescue her. She'll probably be glad to die after what they've done to her.’

They stood in the shadows watching the activity inside the hut. The door was open, an oil lamp was burning, and they were spared no detail.

The Chinese girl appeared to be unconscious, but the drunken lusting Japanese soldiers were apparently quite content with everything her body had to offer them. She lay on a mat in the centre of the single roomed dwelling, her neck and breasts bearing bloody teeth marks. A Japanese soldier knelt in between her thighs, his trousers around his ankles, one hand holding his erection, the other pulling her vaginal lips wide. He was laughing hysterically, inviting the others to come closer and view his intended rape. Their rifles leaned up against the far wall, and it was quite obvious to the watching guerillas that these men had been drinking heavily.

‘We could go in there,’ Li Chu grunted, ‘and take 'em easily. Then give 'em a dose of what Sika did to our chaps.’

‘We could,’ Jungle Carter agreed, ‘but we haven't the time to waste. Sanders, throw that grenade!’

Sanders grinned, and pulled the pin from the small bomb in his hand. Even as his arm went back the others were diving for cover.

The soldiers looked up in surprise as something landed in the furthest corner of the hut, and rolled out of sight behind a pile of blankets. However, they did not even bother to go and see what it was, their attention returning to the unconscious girl immediately. The man between her thighs decided to demonstrate his own technique of penetration. He never made it.

A shattering roar and flames, and smoke obliterated the scene inside the hut from Carter's men. The walls and roof disintegrated. They lay flat on their faces as debris showered all around them.

‘Well,’ Hugh Carter rose to his knees, ‘I guess that takes care of them. Now, let's find this armaments dump and fix that, too.’

The store of armaments, which had been transported in stages down the river by the Japs, was easily located. Li Chu's scout had noted its situation on his earlier scouting mission, two huts piled high with rifles, tommy guns, machine guns, plastic explosives and detonators.

‘All set up for us,’ Carter grinned, ‘even fuses and detonators. Well, I'll leave you in charge of this lot, Sanders. In the meantime we'll go back and collect the nurses, and fix ourselves up with some boats.’

The only river craft of any kind which the guerillas could find were half a dozen canoes pulled well up the bank of the river in case of flooding. A supply of paddles lay nearby.

‘I was hoping we might be lucky and find a sampan,’ Jungle Carter mused, ‘but we'll have to make do with these. Three to a canoe, and Li Chu to lead the way in one by himself. Come on, let's get them into the water. Sanders should be here in a moment.’

Sanders showed up five minutes later.

‘All set,’ he clambered into the last canoe. ‘The whole lot is due to go up in five minutes time, and the further we are away, the better for us. There's going to be one helluva blow!’

The party were round the first bend in the narrow sluggish river when a tremendous explosion that was the first of a series of a dozen or more shattered the stillness of the jungle night.

‘I guess that'll set the Japs back a bit,’ Carter grinned. ‘It'll take 'em weeks to replace that lot. Now, we travel by night, and pull ashore and rest by day. We can't risk meeting with Jap boats coming upstream.’

Colonel Ugosaki's rage had mounted by the hour. His men lined the jungle at the point where the upper and lower trails converged. Samuri was certain that the guerillas would show up before noon. By mid-afternoon there was no sign of them.

‘Where are they?’ Ugosaki hissed. ‘You said they would come because there was nowhere else for them to go. Perhaps they have turned back.’

‘No,’ Samuri shook his head. ‘If they did that they would have to battle with the troops who were left behind at Camp Sika. They will come, but this Colonel Carter is cunning. He has probably decided to travel at night.’

‘In that case,’ Ugosaki snapped, ‘he will find us ready for him. However, if he does not come, Samuri, you will have wasted a whole day, a valuable day that the Japanese army can ill afford to spare, a day belonging to the Emperor.’

Samuri did not reply. He knew only too well the penalty for wasting time that belonged to the Emperor.

Shortly after dark they heard the explosions reverberating through the jungle, deep resonant booms, and then an ominous silence.

‘What is that?’ Ugosaki snapped.

‘I do not know,’ Samuri lied.

He did not choose to tell the Kempei Tai colonel that the explosions could have come from only one place, the armament store at the village on the river, and there was only one possible explanation for its destruction. Samuri knew that on the morrow he would die.

Dawn broke. Gibbons chattered in the trees, mocking the soldiers, but there was still no sign of the guerillas. The sun rose.

‘You were wrong, Samuri,’ Ugosaki blinked behind his heavy spectacles, ‘and the Emperor does not tolerate fools. Neither do I!’

Ugosaki turned, and beckoned to a group of eight soldiers who had been standing expectantly nearby, leaning on their rifles.

‘Shoot this man,’ he said softly with no more emotion than if he had been giving the order to break camp.

A few minutes later eight shots rang out as one. Samuri had paid the supreme penalty for making a mistake.

Mostly the trip down river was uneventful. Two of the canoes leaked and had to be baled out continually, but this presented less effort than continually hacking one's way through the jungle.

They travelled by night and rested by day. Several times, as they lay hidden in the tangled undergrowth bordering the sluggish brown stream, they saw sampans pass. The boatmen were Chinese, but always there were Jap soldiers in evidence.

‘Easy,’ Li Chu stroked his tommy gun. ‘They'd never know what hit 'em.’

‘And we don't know how many more boats are following behind,’ Hugh Carter restrained him. ‘Our present mission is accomplished, Li Chu. We have destroyed Colonel Sika and his camp, rescued as many of the nurses as are still alive, and destroyed a valuable armament dump into the bargain. It would be stupid to ruin it all now. Our only objective from now onwards is to return to base and re-equip ourselves for the months that lie ahead, and at the moment we are very short of manpower.’

‘We'll soon recruit more,’ Li Chu grinned. ‘Chinese always ready to fight Japs. They haven't forgotten Nanking. Two hundred thousand of our people were butchered there, many of them civilians, women and children. A big score has to be settled. The Chinese are determined to avenge those murders, man for man.’

Two days later, just as the first streaks of dawn were appearing in the eastern sky, they reached the point where the river drastically altered its course.

‘This is the place,’ Li Chu announced, paddling his canoe into the nearside bank. ‘From now on we travel on foot.’

The prospect of fighting their way through the jungle again was not a pleasant one. By comparison the journey down river had been restful. They were refreshed, having eaten properly for the first time in several weeks from the provisions which they had brought with them from the village.

Three days of jungle travel, brought them in sight of Li Chu's hideout. The two Chinese who had stayed behind ran to greet them.

‘Li Chu,’ the smaller of the two clutched the bandit chief’s hand and wrung it heartily, ‘we did not expect to see you again. The jungle is swarming with Japs.’

‘Well, at least they haven't discovered our hideout,’ Carter made his way to the hut which was to be his own quarters from now onwards. Sonia Barnes followed him, knowing that it was expected of her.

Carter glanced at his diary. It was 29 January.

‘Well,’ Sonia threw her arms around his neck, their lips crushing together, ‘What are your plans now, Hugh?’

‘Firstly, a damned good rest for all of us,’ he replied. ‘Then we've got to recruit some more men. That'll take time. I reckon it'll be April before we're fully operative again.’

‘And what about us!’ there was a note of uncertainty in her voice, almost as though she was afraid to ask the question.

‘There's no hurry,’ he smiled reassuringly. ‘Of course, I'll have to try and get you and the other two out of Malaya in due course. You can't remain here in the midst of a full-scale jungle war. I'll probably get you to Java or Sumatra as soon as I've found a reliable guide to take you. From there you should be able to make it to Australia.’

‘And,’ her eyes were misty, ‘once this awful war's over ... ?’

‘I'll find you in Brisbane,’ he led her over to the pile of blankets in the corner which served as a bed, and pushed her down beneath him. ‘I promise.’

They began to undress each other. Suddenly, it was all so different. They lay naked, fondling each other and kissing. They could concentrate on love making without constantly having to remove leeches, and swot at mosquitoes during copulation.

Their emotions rose, and such was their concentration that they did not notice Li Chu peer in through the open doorway. The bandit grinned, and silently walked away in the direction of his own hut. He began to undress, his gaze focused on the petite nurse who lay sleeping before him. He wondered whether or not she would let him now that they had returned to comparative safety. He figured that she probably would, and lowered himself down beside her.

Sanders, too, was enjoying himself. The third remaining nurse was even more cooperative than she had been out there in the jungle. Jungle warfare certainly had its compensations.

Carter tuned into their one and only radio daily, following the progress of the war. In the evening of 15 February he walked slowly from his quarters, and crossed to Li Chu's hut. He coughed loudly, and waited patiently outside until the bandit and the nurse had finished and dressed.

‘Well?’ Li Chu beamed with satisfaction, but his smile faded when he noticed the other's expression.

‘Singapore has surrendered,’ Carter stated, lighting a cigarette, drawing heavily upon it, and exhaling twin streams of smoke from his nostrils.

‘It was inevitable,’ Li Chu was unmoved. ‘So?’

‘The war has begun in earnest for us,’ Jungle Carter spoke slowly. ‘Our guerilla activities are vital, not only to Malaya but to the whole of the western civilisation. Step up your recruitment plans, Li Chu. We're going to need every man we can get.’

Carter turned away, and headed back towards his own hut. He knew that Sonia would be waiting for him. Every moment they had together now would be precious because within a week she would be setting out on the first stage of her long journey back to Brisbane.

Love and war were a constant mixture of tenderness and bitterness, he decided.

The End

Thank you for purchasing this ebook.
I hope you enjoyed the read!.
Guy.

This ebook is the eighth first book to be published as part of a project to convert Guy's entire back catalogue to ebook format. Beginning July 2010 it is expected to have all books available by the end of 2011.

The list of books so far published is :

1. Werewolf by Moonlight.

2. The Sucking Pit.

3. The Slime Beast.

4. Night of the Crabs.

5. The Truckers 1 - The Black Knights.

6. The Truckers 2 - Hi-Jack!.

7. Return of the Werewolf.

8. Bamboo Guerillas.

The next book will be :

9. Killer Crabs.

"Their claws were strong enough to snap a man in half. Their shells were impenetrable, even by a six-inch naval gun. Their eyes glowed with malevolence, and as they tore their victims limb from limb they seemed to grin with sadistic delight. Never before had the world seen such an army."

To view all ebooks currently available, including the one above, please follow the link below.
View Ebook Catalogue

Best regards,

Guy and all at Black Hill Books.