A Town like Alice

resthouse."
    She looked at him in wonder. "Do people think of me like that? I only did what anybody could have done."
    "That's as it may be," he replied. "The fact is, that you did it."
    She flew on down to Kuantan next day. Someone must have told the crew of the aircraft about her, because the Malay stewardess came to her after half an hour and said, "We're just coming up to Kuala Telang, Miss Paget. Captain Philby wants to know if you would care to come forward to the cockpit and see it." So she went forward through the door and stood between the pilots; they brought the Dakota down to about seven hundred feet and circled the village; she could see the well and the new atap roof of the washhouse, and she could see people standing gazing up at the machine. Fatimah and Zubeidah and Mat Amin. Then they straightened up and flew on down the coast, and Kuala Telang was left behind.
    The Bowens met her at the airstrip, which is ten miles from the town of Kuantan; Wilson-Hays had sent them a signal that morning. They were a friendly, unsophisticated couple, and she had no difficulty in telling them a little about the Australian soldier who had been tortured when they were sitting in the DC's house, where Captain Sugamo had sat so often, over a cup of tea. They said that Sister Frost was now in charge of the hospital, but it was doubtful if there was anybody now upon the staff who was there in 1942. They drove down after tea to see Sister Frost.
    She received them in the matron's room, very hygienic and smelling strongly of disinfectant. She was an Englishwoman about forty years of age. "There's nobody here now who was on the staff then," she said. "Nurses in a place like this-they're always leaving to get married. We never seem to keep them longer than about two years. I don't know what to suggest."
    Bowen said, "What about Phyllis Williams? She was a nurse here, wasn't she?"
    "Oh, her," the sister said disparagingly. "She was here for the first part of the war until she married that man. She might know something about it."
    They left the hospital, and as they drove to find Phyllis Williams Mrs Bowen enlightened Jean. "She's a Eurasian," she said. "Very dark, almost as dark as a Malay. She married a Chinese, a man called Bun Tai Lin who runs the cinema. What you'd call a mixed marriage, but they seem to get along all right. She's a Roman Catholic, of course." Jean never fathomed the 'of course'.
    The Bun Tai Lins lived in a rickety wooden house up the hill overlooking the harbour. They could not get the car to the house, but left it in the road and walked up a short lane littered with garbage. They found Phyllis Williams at home, a merry-faced, brown woman with four children around her and evidently about to produce a fifth. She was glad to see them and took them into a shabby room, the chief decorations of which were a set of pewter beer-mugs and a large oleograph of the King and Queen in coronation robes.
    She spoke very good English. "Oh yes, I remember that poor boy," she said. "Joe Harman, that was his name. I nursed him for three or four months-he was in a state when he came in. We none of us thought he'd live. But he got over it. He must have led a very healthy life, because his flesh healed wonderfully. He said that he was like a dog, he healed so well." She turned to Jean. "Are you the lady that was leading the party of women and children from Panong?" she asked. "I thought you must be. Fancy you coming here again! You know, he was always wanting to know about you and your party, if anybody knew the way you'd gone. And of course, we didn't know, and with that Captain Sugamo in the mood he was nobody was going to go round asking questions to find out.
    She turned to Jean. "I forget your name?'
    "Paget. Jean Paget."
    The Eurasian looked puzzled. 'That wasn't it. I wonder now, was he talking about someone different? I can't remember now what he called her, but it wasn't that. I thought it would have been you."
    "Mrs Frith?"
    She shook her head. "I'll remember presently."
    She could not tell them very much more than Jean knew already. The Australian had been sent down to a prison camp in Singapore as soon as he was fit to travel; they heard no more of him. They thought that he would make a good recovery in the end, though it would be years before the muscles of his back got back their strength if, indeed, they ever would. She knew no more than that.
    They left presently, and went down the garbage-strewn lane towards