1

The first men came on a small cutter.

The water at the shore was muddy and motionless and smelled of rotting seaweed. Green waves boiled up over the reefs and beyond these stretched the warm surface of the blue sea; from it the wind blew day and night without ceasing. Above the beach stood speartipped bamboos and, behind them, towering palms. Spirited crabs dashed out from under stones and threw themselves on the tiny fish that were stranded by the waves.

The three men from the cutter conducted a leisurely examination of the near part of the island. They were watched by the disturbed and suspicious Indians who lived here with their families in a small village.

‘It looks like the kind of thing we want’, said one of the strangers. ‘The nearest island is three miles away; there are no sea lanes or air lanes nearby, and the area is generally rather quiet. It will probably please the brass; but you never know how they'll react.’

‘We won't find anything better’, said the second. He turned to the third man, who was an interpreter: ‘Tell the Indians to leave the island. Explain that they can come back in about a week.’

The interpreter, a thin man with tinted glasses, nodded and stumped off across the resisting sand to the village.

The first man opened a map case and took out an aerial photograph of the island, along with pencil and ruler; he studied the photograph for a while. ‘We can put the billets here, and the canteen next to them. The firing trenches go over there, and the dugout in that direction. They can set up their installation on that hill; it's about 550 yards from the dugout.’

‘What's the whole thing supposed to be?’, the second man asked.

The first shrugged and kept his eyes on the photograph. ‘How should I know? I'm supposed to reconnoitre the island. Somebody else brings in the equipment. That's none of our business, right?’ He sighed and tore open a package of chewing gum. ‘What heat! Where's that interpreter?’

The interpreter returned half an hour later. ‘I can't do anything with them.