Within the sombre jungle Chan Ah Pak the jungle fighter, member of the Malayan Races Liberation Army, felt at ease, enclosed in the womblike perpetuity of its warmth, treading familiarly the hushed temple whose vaulting pillars were spaced with almost mathematical exactness. Such regularity existed also in the other, the man-made forest of rubber, two million acres of similar trees equidistant from each other, dripping with fantastic monotony the white rain of latex from the herringbone pattern of cuts on their boles. Within that jungle, too, Chan Ah Pak walked with a roof overhead, easefully cautious for the sound of pursuit or the stillness of ambush, the manhunt that would catch and kill him one day.

From the small platform erected up a convenient tree in the rainforest he watched the other, delimited by a high barbed-wire fence. There was a special constables’ post, erected to patrol this area of the rubber estate. The post was a small wood structure housing seven young men from the Malay kampongs. There were a hundred and fifty thousand of these specials now, patrolling the rubber forests with guns.

It was true, what the specials had told him last night across the fence, their pensive smile trigger-conscious, wary still in a truce which could break at any moment; but after three months in the post they had come to terms, not wishing to be shot at. There would be an inspection of the estate today, they said, with the Tuan Manager, and the Big Tuan who looked after all the company estates, and maybe the Tuan Police Officer.

The seven were stirring more than usual. Two sat under the papaya trees in front of the barracks and furbished their rifles, laughing softly, their movements and voices restrained by the early lethargy which they carried with them from their sleepy kampongs. One was standing at the fence, a wonderful target, peering at the jungle, practising a stance he thought might impress the tuans. The others, inside the hut, were trying to make the telephone ring. Its black wire left their hut to spring from tree to tree along the estate road to the central office.

It was early yet. The estate manager did not come to this part of the estate until about ten o’clock, and with guests he might be later. Ah Pak felt comfortable in his rubber tapper clothes (standard issue kit for the Liberation Army pack), his rubber shoes, and only a revolver. His orders were to watch, to report on the group. Then his camp commandant would decide and plan the ambush tomorrow.