The whole section of the hut is packed full and, as we sit up on Tari’s bed space, there is a terrific babble of conversation and laughter that eases a little as they grin and nod at the two English officers who seem to like kronchongs. Some of these Indische Jongens are contemptuous of kronchongs, regarding them as ‘native’ and low; they greatly prefer Hawaiian music and jazz; but they are surprised when we say that some of the 200-year-old kronchongs may easily last another 200 years, by which time jazz will have had several generations on the scrap heap. Tari has friends who work in the Nip cookhouse and he always has plenty of oil. On this occasion three large oil lights cast a fiery glow for several bays around. All the bed spaces are packed with sitting, standing, laughing youths, the light shining on every shade of smooth, brown skin, revealing white teeth as they chatter and laugh together in that curious language of their own.

It always takes time to tune in, and then it’s half an hour more before they’re really warmed up. We hand around cigarettes, Noel chattering in a mixture of the three essential languages, I limping in Malay and talking English with Metz. We have got to know these people so well that it’s now almost like a family gathering. The cement that binds the whole thing together, though, is the diplomat, Metz. He is a fellow of about 33, an ex-swimming champion of Java and a milk and dairy farmer in Malang. Educated in Holland, he is abreast of all the latest scientific developments in farming, but the Metz that we liked was the man who was a very shrewd judge of human beings, and who, with no bitterness in him, appreciated to the full the technological advances of Europe, but still preferred to live in Java where his hobby, apart from shooting, was the Javanese language and culture, a subject in which he was very deeply versed.