CHERUB: Shadow Wave (12 page)

The coast road was blocked, so the two injured villagers were taken to the mainland in a large boat that belonged to contractors working on the hotel. Also aboard was the body of a painter, killed in a twenty-metre fall from their mobile scaffold and recovered from the jungle far behind.

The CHERUB party stayed to help the villagers. Drinking water was drawn from a standpipe linked to a deep well, but the supply was contaminated with silt, so the trainees scouted for dry timber and built a fire to boil it.

Although Langkawi was rapidly developing, with modern infrastructure and tourist resorts, this north-western tip was insulated by the expanse of jungle in which the trainees would have conducted their final exercise. Aizat’s motorboat was the village’s main connection to the mainland and the rest of Langkawi, bringing post, fuel and supplies and taking the fish they caught to the twice weekly market.

Repairing the boat was number-one priority and Kyle provided muscle for two elderly villagers. In less than two hours they’d cut and replaced damaged hull sections with timbers from one of the collapsed houses. By pure luck, Aizat had been servicing the outboard motor and it had remained dry and undamaged on the floor of his hut.

Large and Speaks worked with another group of villagers. Three of the four huts hit by the scaffold were beyond repair, so they were cannibalised and their timbers used to shore up damaged sections of the remainder.

There was no need for plumbers, electricians or carpenters because the elderly men and women had a lifetime of familiarity with homes built by their own hand. The instructors and trainees marvelled at how everyone got on with things and realised how poorly British householders would have coped in a similar situation, huddling in the church hall waiting for the insurance company.

As hours passed and the most urgent jobs got completed, human nature surfaced. Villagers bickered over what job to do next, who would sleep where and whether a note should be kept of what materials had been taken and used from the destroyed huts so that the original owners could be paid. Two women rowed viciously over a DVD player and an almost-new gas hotplate being removed from one of the damaged houses.

But the community held together. As night drew in the sun had baked a dry crust on to the silt and there was a sense of the village getting back on its feet. Three women used the trainees’ fire to steam rice and cook a huge fish curry.

The village’s mains electricity had gone down, but the supply was always erratic and Aizat set up their portable generator, linked to a string of light bulbs.

A television and satellite dish were rigged up near the fire. Tired and aching, the CHERUB party and the villagers gathered around, gawping at images of much greater devastation in Thailand and Indonesia.

Kyle had made friends with a girl of about five, who lay with her tired head resting on his thigh. He noticed how the huts and people in the village where he sat bore extraordinary similarities to the destroyed landscape littered with dead bodies on the TV screen. Some of the worst damage had taken place on the Thai coast, less than a hundred kilometres away.

The presenter on the satellite news channel spoke in Malay, so Aizat translated anything important for Kyle.

‘She just said Malaysia only suffered minor damage from shadow waves. Less than a hundred casualties reported so far. Some damage to resorts along the northern coast of Langkawi island, and tourists are all being evacuated to the mainland.’ Then he added, ‘Good bloody riddance, hope they don’t come back.’

Kyle smiled. ‘You’ve got a thing about tourists and hotels, haven’t you?’

‘The government feels villages like this are in the way of progress,’ Aizat explained, as he looked across and noticed that Wati was dozing off on the ground beside him. ‘Don’t fall asleep until you’ve eaten dinner,’ he warned her. ‘You’ll wake up hungry and then moan at me.’

As Wati rubbed dirty palms in her eyes and yawned, Kyle watched graphics on the TV screen. You didn’t need to speak Malay to understand figures on the maps: two hundred thousand-plus dead in Indonesia, thirty thousand in Thailand, more than ten thousand in Burma and untold thousands on islands across the Pacific. He’d been dragged to an Arsenal match with James once, and realised that it added up to six Highbury stadiums full of people.

The mood lightened as the women began serving bowls of fish curry and rice. Kyle wasn’t used to eating food with his fingers and there was much laughter as he dropped scalding curry-coated fish down his leg and hopped about frantically as he rubbed it off.

Out at sea a large motorboat was coming in on the tide. A group of village natives who worked on the mainland had chartered the boat after hearing about the shadow wave. Kids abandoned their curry bowls and charged out into the surf to greet parents they usually only saw once or twice a month.

Kyle’s little friend was soon in the arms of a mother and teenaged uncle, but Wati came back looking disappointed.

‘Mum works in an office in Kuala Lumpur,’ Aizat explained. ‘That lot work in the factories.’

Wati looked sad as she watched kids with their parents. Most were treated to small gifts or chocolate bars from backpacks, before dragging their parents away to show them the damaged huts.

Many told the story of how Dante and the tourists from the Starfish Hotel had gone under the roof to rescue the twins. Earlier in the day there was work to do and people had got on with it, but now Dante looked embarrassed as he became a star, posing for shots on camera phones, shaking hands and smiling self-consciously.

Kyle stared through the crackling fire as the cooks steamed a fresh pot of rice and began frying fish to bulk up the curry for the new arrivals. Apart from a couple of restless naps on the plane, he’d not slept in more than thirty hours and his muscles ached from clearing debris and lugging wood. But the sense of the community pulling together to repair their homes and resume their lives gave him a warm feeling that made him forget his tiredness.

The tide was coming in and with the coast road unlit and blocked, Large gathered Kyle and the trainees together for the drive back to the hotel. They weren’t flying out for two days, so Large promised that they’d come back and continue to help with the clean-up next morning, while Mrs Leung offered free rooms at the Starfish Hotel to anyone with nowhere to sleep.

The Land Cruiser looked rather battered. The crumpled tailgate wouldn’t open after supporting the weight of the house, so three of the trainees had to clamber over the rear seats to squat in the boot. They were about to set off when a column of headlights appeared on the road behind the village. The lead vehicle was a wheeled bulldozer.

‘Looks like they’ve cleared the road already,’ Large said admiringly. ‘They’re pretty efficient in these parts.’

Behind the bulldozer were two vans filled with police officers and an empty bus. After helping out all day, the CHERUB group were curious about the arrival of the police. They all started getting out of the Land Cruiser again and heading up the beach to see if the cops had any useful information.

A stocky police officer jumped out of the lead truck. He had four stripes on his blazer and held a loudhailer. Villagers were strolling up the beach to say hello and tell him that they were getting by and didn’t need any help, but instead of engaging them the officer yelled through the megaphone.

‘He’s telling the villagers that they have to leave,’ Mrs Leung translated. ‘All beach villages are being evacuated as a safety measure.’

Kyle was surprised by this, but he supposed that there was a slight risk of a second earthquake and it was fairly typical for people to overreact after a dramatic event.

‘I’d better go up there,’ Large said. ‘They said about tourists evacuating on the news, so I’ll see what they want us to do.’

Kyle, Speaks, Mrs Leung and most of the trainees began walking between the huts towards the road. By the time they arrived, the police chief was arguing furiously with several adult villagers.

‘The villagers don’t want to leave their land, but the police are insisting,’ Mrs Leung explained.

As the senior officer argued, more men were coming out of the back of the van. They looked decidedly unfriendly, wearing riot helmets, body armour and carrying clubs or baseball bats. Most didn’t wear uniform and they looked more like thugs for hire than police officers.

Mr Large pushed his way between the villagers and looked down at the tubby police chief. ‘You speak English?’ he asked.

‘Tourists must return to their hotels and await instructions,’ the chief said resolutely.

‘Why do these villagers have to leave?’ Large asked. ‘They’re capable of looking after themselves.’

‘Safety,’ the chief shouted, looking at Large as if he was simple-minded. ‘Governor’s emergency regulations. This is government land. The villagers must do as they’re told.’

‘This is
our
land,’ Aizat shouted furiously. ‘Our families have been here for hundreds of years.’

Several of the villagers roared in agreement. More had joined the crowd until practically the whole village was lined up facing the police.

The chief turned towards a group of his men, then pointed at Large. ‘Escort these tourists back to their hotel.’

A group stepped towards Large. He wasn’t easily intimidated, but several of them had handguns on their belts and looked like the kind of chaps who’d use them. At the same time another group of thugs had broken off and begun encircling the villagers.

‘The coach is waiting,’ the chief shouted. ‘You have five minutes to gather belongings. Anyone who resists the emergency evacuation order will be arrested and severely punished.’

Large turned back and looked at the trainees. If he’d been alone he might have put up a fight, but he had to look after his six charges.

‘Go back to the car,’ Large told them. ‘We’re leaving.’

‘The hell we are,’ Dante stormed furiously. ‘Why do they want the villagers out?’

‘Dante, you’ll do as you’re damned well told,’ Large barked.

The police chief shouted something in Malay, and Mrs Leung translated as Large began backing off.

‘He says they’ll bulldoze a hut if they don’t cooperate.’

On the edge of the crowd, several thugs began manhandling an old lady towards the waiting bus. This caused an explosion of outrage and male villagers ran towards the police. The armoured thugs charged, swinging their batons and clubs. Most of the villagers retreated, but one man stumbled and found himself down on the ground, being viciously kicked and clubbed by three men.

Large was shepherding the trainees down the beach. Kyle simmered with rage and tried to think up a plan, but it was Miss Speaks who waded into action.

Despite being unarmed she ploughed in, displaying extraordinary physical strength as she plucked two of the men clubbing the villagers off the ground and threw them towards a second group who were running to their rescue. The third man lifted a full metre off the ground as Speaks’ enormous boot kicked him in the stomach. She belted him with his own club as he hit the ground.

But just as Large had calculated before her, Speaks knew that no amount of physical strength would keep the men with guns at bay for long. She grabbed the battered villager out of the dirt and threw him easily over her back.

As Speaks ran down the beach towards the Land Cruiser and the rest of the retreating CHERUB party, Aizat picked up a large rock. It belted the unhelmeted police chief full in the face, spattering his nose and slicing his bald head. As the police chief slumped back into the sand, one man grabbed Aizat while another swung a bat, hitting him full force in the stomach.

The other thugs were swinging indiscriminately, knocking down kids and busting old women’s noses. When villagers fell, a second line of thugs fitted disposable plastic cuffs around their wrists and ankles before dragging them on to the bus.

Aizat thought he was going to die as the police chief wedged his handgun in his mouth. Instead, he ordered his colleagues to beat the boy before throwing him into a police van.

The CHERUB party, including Speaks and the man she’d saved from a beating, had reached the Land Cruiser.

‘What’s that?’ Kyle screamed furiously. ‘Why are they doing that?’

‘Why didn’t the villagers just get on the coach?’ Iona asked.

‘Tan Abdullah wants that land,’ Mrs Leung said.

‘Who?’ Kyle asked.

‘Tan Abdullah,’ Mrs Leung explained. ‘He’s been island governor for more than twenty years. You can’t build on this island without his construction firm getting a cut.’

‘Why does he want the land?’ Kyle asked.

‘Tan passed a law saying all the beaches are government land. The villages have been here for generations, but they don’t have title deeds or papers of entitlement. When he gets a chance he sweeps them away.’

‘And a tsunami evacuation is the perfect excuse,’ Kyle said, shaking his head in disgust.

‘This civics lesson is all very fascinating,’ Large shouted, as Speaks shoved the bleeding villager into the front passenger seat of the Land Cruiser. ‘But right now, we need to get out of here.’

Large threw Kyle the ignition keys.

‘We won’t all fit,’ Large explained. ‘You drive with Mrs Leung and the kids. Me and Speaks will run on behind you. It looks like the bulldozer has cleared the way so use the road once you’re clear of the village.’

‘Right,’ Kyle said, as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He looked at the bleeding man beside him before turning behind to look at the kids. ‘Are there six of you back there?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Dante agreed, as he took a last glance up at the village. It seemed that the hard core of village men had been subdued. Now the thugs were rounding up the women and kids and dragging them off towards the bus. Because of the insurrection, they weren’t even being allowed into their huts to gather up belongings.

The three-kilometre run back to the hotel was nothing for Large and Speaks and they were already running powerfully along the beach as Kyle started the engine and cut across the crusted silt before turning on to the coast road.