A Town like Alice

said. "The way these bloody Nips go on. Makes you chunda."
    The first man turned back to Jean. "What happens if any of you get sick?"
    She said cynically, "When you get sick, you get well or you die. We haven't seen a doctor for the last three months and we've got practically no medicines left, so we mostly die. There were thirty-two of us when we were taken. Now we're seventeen."
    The Australian said softly, "Oh my word."
    Jean said, "Will you be staying here tonight?"
    He said, "Will you?"
    "We shall stay here," she said. "We shall be here tomorrow too, unless they'll let us ride down on your trucks. We can't march the children every day. We walk one day and rest the next"
    He said, "If you're staying, Mrs Boong, we're staying too. We can fix this bloody axle so it will never roll again, if needs be." He paused in slow thought. "You got no medicines?" he said. "What do you want?"
    She said quickly, "Have you got any Glauber's salt?"
    He shook his head. "Is that what you want?"
    "We haven't got any salts at all," she said "We want quinine, and something for all these skin diseases that the children have got. Can we get those here?"
    He said slowly, "I'll have a try. Have you got any money?"
    Mrs Frith snorted, "After being six months with the Japs? They took everything we had. Even our wedding rings,"
    Jean said, "We've got a few little bits of jewellery left, if we could sell some of those."
    He said, "I'll have a go first, and see what I can do. You get fixed up with somewhere to sleep, and I'll see you later."
    "All right"
    She went back to their sergeant and bowed to him because that pleased him and made things easier for them. She said, "Gunso, where yasme tonight? Children must yasme. We see headman about yasme and mishi?"
    He came with her and they found the headman, and negotiated for the loan of the school-building for the prisoners, and for the supply of rice for mishi. They did not now experience the blank refusals that they formerly had met when the party was thirty strong; the lesser numbers had made accommodation and food much easier for them. They settled into the school building and began the routine of chores and washing that occupied the bulk of their spare time. The news that there was no women prisoners camp in Kuantan was what they had all secretly expected, but it was a disappointment, none the less. The novelty of the two Australians made up for this, because by that time they were living strictly from day to day.
    At the trucks the Aussies got back to their work. With heads close together under the axle, the fair-haired man that Jean had talked to said to his cobber, "I never heard such a crook deal. What can we do to fix this bastard so as we stay here tonight? I said I'd try and get some medicines for them."
    They had already rectified the binding brake that had heated up the near side hub and caused the stoppage. The other said, "Take the whole bloody hub off for a dekko, 'n pull out the shaft from the diff. That makes a good show of dirty bits. Means sleeping in the trucks."
    "I said I'd try and get some medicines." They worked on a little.
    "How you going to do that?"
    "Petrol, I suppose. That's easiest."
    It was already growing dark when they extracted four feet of heavy metal shafting, splined at both ends, from the back axle; dripping with black oil they showed it to the Japanese corporal in charge of them as evidence of their industry. "Yasme here tonight," they said. The guard was suspicious, but agreed; indeed, he could do nothing else. He went off to arrange for rice for them, leaving them in charge of the private. Who was with him.
    On the excuse of a benjo, the fair-haired man left the trucks and in the half light retired behind a house. He slipped quickly down behind a row of houses, and came out into the street a couple of hundred yards down, towards the end of the village. Here there was a Chinaman who ran a decrepit bus; the Australian had noted this place on various journeys through Maran; they plied regularly up and down this road.
    In his deliberate manner he said quietly, "Johnnie, you buy petrol? How much you give?" It is extraordinary how little barrier an unknown language makes between a willing buyer and a willing seller. At one point in the negotiation they resorted to the written word, and the Australian wrote GLAUBER'S SALT and QUININE and SKIN DISEASE OINTMENT in block letters on a scrap of wrapping paper.
    He slunk back behind the houses carrying three two