A Town like Alice

a distance, wondering if they had been quite wise to allow anything that made the women laugh so much.
    On the next day she sent a telegram by runner to Kuala Rakit to be dispatched to Wilson-Hays asking him to send the jeep for her, and a day or two later it arrived. She left in a flurry of shy good wishes with some moisture in her eyes; she was going back to her own place and her own people, but she was leaving three years of her life behind her, and that is never a very easy thing to do.
    She got back to the Residency at Kota Bahru after dark that night, too tired to eat. Mrs Wilson-Hays sent her up a cup of tea and a little fruit to her bedroom, and she had a long, warm bath, putting off her native clothes for the last time. She lay on the bed in the cool, spacious room under the mosquito net, rested and growing sleepy, and what she thought about was Ringer Harman, and the red country he had told her of round Alice Springs, and euros, and wild horses.
    She walked with Wilson-Hays in the garden of the Residency next morning after breakfast in the cool of the day. She told him what she had done in Kuala Telang; he asked her where she had got the idea of the washhouse from. "It's obvious that's what they need," she said. "Women don't like washing their clothes in public, especially Moslem women."
    He thought about it for a minute. "You've probably started something," he remarked at last. "Every village will want one now. Where did you get the plan of it-the arrangement of the sinks and all that sort of thing?"
    "We worked it out ourselves," she said. "They knew what they wanted all right."
    The strolled along by the river, brown and muddy and half a mile wide, running its way down to the sea. As they walked she told him about the Australian, because she could talk freely about that now. She told him what had happened. "His name was Joe Harman," she said, "and he came from a place near Alice Springs. I would like to get in touch with him again. Do you think I could find out anything about him in Singapore?"
    He shook his head. "I shouldn't think so, not now that SEAC is disbanded. I shouldn't think there's any record of prisoners of war in Singapore now."
    "How would one find out about him, then?"
    "You say he was an Australian?"
    She nodded.
    "I think you'd have to write to Canberra," he said. "They ought to have a record of all prisoners there. I suppose you don't happen to know his unit?"
    She shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't."
    "That might make it difficult, of course-there may be several Joe Harmans. I should start off by writing to the Minister for the Army-that's what they call him, the head of the War Office. Just address your letter to the Minister for the Army, Canberra, Australia. Something might come of that. What you want is an address where you could write to him, I suppose?"
    Jean stared across the river at the rubber trees and coconut palms. "I suppose so. As a matter of fact, I've got an address of a sort. He used to work before the war on a cattle station called Wollara, near a place called Alice Springs. He said that they were keeping his job open for him there."
    "If you've got that address," he observed, "I should write there. You're much more likely to find him that way than by writing to Canberra."
    "I might do that," she said slowly. "I would like to see him again. You see, it was because of us that it all happened…"
    It had been her intention to go back to Singapore and wait there for a boat to England; if she had to wait long for a cheap passage she intended to try and find a job for a few weeks or months. Malayan Airways called at Koto Bahru next day, and the Dakota landed at Kuantan on the way down to Singapore. She spoke to Wilson-Hays again that evening after dinner.
    "Do you think there would be a hotel or anything at Kuantan if I stopped there for a day?" she asked.
    He looked at her kindly. "Do you want to go back there?" he asked.
    "I think I do," she said. "I'd like to go and see the people at the hospital and find out what I can."
    He said, "You'd better stay with David and Joyce Bowen. Bowen is the District Commissioner; he'd be glad to put you up."
    "I don't want to be a nuisance to people," she said. "Isn't there a resthouse that I could stay in? After all, I know this country fairly well."
    "That's why Bowen would like to meet you," he remarked. "You must realize that you're quite a well-known person in these parts. He would be very disappointed if you stayed at the