A Town like Alice

the entrance to a house. She said, "Your children, gunso?" and gave it to him. He took it without speaking and looked at it; then he gave it back to her and motioned to her to put it away again.
    When she had laid the jacket down she looked at him and saw that tears were oozing from his eyes and falling down to mingle with the sweat beads on his cheeks. Very gently she wiped them away.
    He grew weaker and weaker, and two days later he died in the night. There seemed no particular reason why he should have died, but the disgrace of Kuantan was heavy on him and he seemed to have lost interest and the will to live. They buried him that day in the Moslem cemetery outside the village, and most of them wept a little for him as an old and valued friend.
    The death of the sergeant left them in a most unusual position, for they were now prisoners without a guard. They discussed it at some length that evening after the funeral.
    "I don't see why we shouldn't stay here, where we are," said Mrs Frith. "It's a nice place, this is, as nice as any that we've come to. That's what He said, we ought to find a place where we'd be out of the way, and just live there."
    Jean said, "I know. There's two things we'd have to settle though. First, the Japs are bound to find out sometime that we're living here, and then the headman will get into trouble for having allowed us to stay here without telling them. They'd probably kill him. You know what they are."
    "Maybe they wouldn't find us, after all," said Mrs Price.
    "I don't believe Mat Amin is the man to take that risk," Jean said. "There isn't any reason why he should. If we stay he'll go straight to the Japanese and tell them that we're here." She paused. "The other thing is that we can't expect this village to go on feeding seventeen of us forever just because we're white mems. They'll go and tell the Japs about us just to get rid of us."
    Mrs Frith said shrewdly, "We could grow our own food, perhaps. Half the paddy fields we walked by coming in haven't been planted this year."
    Jean stared at her. "That's quite right-they haven't. I wonder why that is?"
    "All the men must have gone to the war," said Mrs Warner. "Working as coolies taking up that railway line, or something of that."
    Jean said slowly, "What would you think of this? Suppose I go and tell Mat Amin that we'll work in the rice fields if he'll let us stay here? What would you think of that?"
    Mrs Price laughed. "Me, with my figure? Walking about in mud and water up to the knee planting them little seedlings in the mud, like you see the Malay girls doing?"
    Jean said apologetically, "It was just a thought."
    "And a very good one, too," said Mrs Warner. "I wouldn't mind working in the paddy fields if we could stay here and live comfortable and settled."
    Mrs Frith said, "If we were growing rice like that, maybe they'd let us stay here-the Japs I mean. After all, in that way we'd be doing something useful, instead of walking all over the country like a lot of whipped dogs with no home."
    Next morning Jean went to the headman. She put her hands together in the praying gesture of greeting, and smiled at him and said in Malay, "Mat Amin, why do we see the paddy fields not sown this year? We saw so many of them as we came to this place, not sown at all."
    He said, "Most of the men, except the fishermen, are working for the army." He meant the Japanese Army.
    "On the railway?"
    "No. They are at Gong Kedak. They are making a long piece of land flat, and making roads, and covering the land they have made flat with tar and stones, so that aeroplanes can come down there."
    "Are they coming back soon to plant paddy?"
    "It is in the hand of God, but I do not think they will come back for many months. I have heard that after they have done this thing at Gong Kedak, there is another such place to be made at Machang, and another at Tan Yongmat. Once a man falls into the power of the Japanese it is not easy for him to escape and come back to his home."
    "Who, then, will plant the paddy, and reap it?"
    "The women will do what they can. Rice will be short next year, not here, because we shall not sell the paddy that we need to eat ourselves. We shall not have enough to sell to the Japanese. I do not know what they are going to eat, but it will not be rice."
    Jean said, "Mat Amin, I have serious matters to discuss with you. If there were a man amongst us I would send him to talk for us, but there is no man. You will not be offended if I ask you