Eric Ambler - State of Siege

We hurried down the stairs and back to the apartment. There was no point in hurrying: I suppose that it was just a panic desire to be in familiar surroundings. As we went along one of the terraces, I could see that there were two more tanks in the square now, and that they were moving round the perimeter into positions from which they could give covering fire to the assault troops. The eighty-eights were firing at twenty-second intervals and with shattering effect. At that range they could not miss. When the first rounds had landed there had been shouts and screams from below. Now, those had stopped. After about five minutes the guns changed their targets. One of them began to take pot shots at the first-floor windows. The others started to pound the Ministry of Public Health.

There was nobody in the apartment when we returned, but I guessed that it would not be long before a general movement away from the lower floors began. I told Rosalie to put anything of special value that she had there into her handbag. My money and air ticket, and the few personal papers that I had, I stuffed into my pockets. Then, I took the pistol and a bottle of water and hid them along the terrace where they could be picked up easily when we moved out.

The din was appalling now and the whole place shook continually. Rosalie seemed more bewildered by the noise than frightened. When she had collected what she wanted to take with her and I gave her a glass of whisky, it was my hand that was shaking. I had made up my mind that the moment to move would be when the assault began. From then on, there would be little chance of anyone caring where we were; it would be everyone for himself. The trouble with me was that I could no longer see what was going on. Once or twice, a machine gun in the square had sprayed the windows of the floor below with bullets, and I knew that if I tried looking over the balustrade now I should almost certainly be seen and draw fire. So I had to sit there drinking whisky, listening and trying to imagine what was happening.

At about seven thirty there was a sudden lull, and from down in the square there came a series of small plopping bangs that sounded as if someone were letting off fireworks. A moment or two later, there was a lot of confused shouting from the floor below. I put my glass down and went out on to the terrace. As I did so, there were some more bangs. The Ministry next door was burning and the smoke from it was drifting over to mingle with the stink of shell fumes rising from below. My eyes were smarting anyway. Then, I became aware of another smell and a sudden pain between the eyes. I turned quickly and went back into the room.

“We’re going now,” I said.

“What is it?”

“Tear gas. If we get too much of it we shan’t be able to see to get up to the roof.”

As we scrambled through the gap on to the next terrace, our eyes began to stream, but I managed to find the bottle of water and the pistol, and once we were past the rubble we did not have to be so careful about looking where we were going.

I did not have to see now to know what was happening below. The bigger guns were silent, but there was incessant automatic fire and the frame of the building was transmitting an intermittent thudding that was certainly from bursting grenades. There were other sounds, too; the hoarse, inhuman screams and yells that come from men’s throats when they are killing at close quarters.

The moment the tear gas had gone in and the defenders were blinded by it, a party of assault troops in respirators had rushed the Air Terminal. Now, with grenades, machine pistols and parangs , they were clearing the ground floor and basements. Other parties would be storming the rear of the building. The business of clearing the upper floors would soon follow. First, more tear gas; then, up the stairs. “Quick as lightning. Every room. First a grenade, and then yourself. Doesn’t matter what’s there. Doesn’t matter who’s there. Then, comb it out with your machine pistol.”

I had already decided where we would go on the roof. There was no cover worth speaking of, and if the defence did last long enough to make a stand there, all we could do would be to lie flat on our faces and hope for the best. The important thing for us was to stay close to the apartment. If Suparto had remembered his promise to warn the assault troops of our presence, we wanted to be there when they arrived. The place I had chosen, therefore, was the section of parapet immediately above the apartment terrace.

We soon found it. The anti-aircraft machine gun which had showered the terrace with cartridge cases had been mounted there, and that part of the roof was strewn with empties. There was a good deal of tear gas about, but most of it seemed to be coming up from below through the ventilators, and when we got to windward of them the air was better. By leaning forward, I could see the terrace below. There was nobody there, and, as far as I could tell, the apartment was still empty. We sat down beside the parapet to dab our eyes and blow our noses and try not to listen to the massacre going on beneath us.

We had been there about twenty minutes when there was a sound of men blundering through the living room immediately below. A moment later Sanusi and Major Dahman came out on to the terrace, coughing and gasping for breath. I could hear others moaning and retching and stumbling about behind them.

It was Dahman who managed to find his voice first.

“Not here, Boeng ,” he said hoarsely.

“Where is Aroff?”

“Aroff is dead, Boeng . You saw him.”

“Yes. I shall stay here.”

“They will take you alive.”

“No, they will not do that.”

There was a commotion from the passage beyond. A man was shouting something about surrender.

“You are in command, Dahman.”

“I will return for you if I can, Boeng . But we cannot die like women begging for mercy. We must counter-attack.”

He started to cough again as he went back through the living room, but a moment later I heard him gasping out an order about assembling on the stairs. I leaned forward cautiously and looked down on to the terrace.

Sanusi was walking slowly towards the balustrade. He had a machine pistol in his hand. At the end of the terrace he stopped and looked round, drawing deep breaths and wiping his face with the back of his hand. Then, he knelt down and, putting the gun beside him on the ground, began to say his prayers.

He went through the Rakats; then, he began to intone a passage from the Koran.

“But what shall teach thee what the night-comer is? It is the star of piercing radiance. Truly every soul has a guardian over it. Let man then reflect out of what he was created. He was created of the poured-forth germs which issue from between the loins and breastbones. Well able truly is Allah, the all-seeing, the all-knowing, the all-merciful, to restore him to life, on the day when all secrets shall be searched out, and he shall have no other might or helper.”

I looked down at Rosalie. She took my hand and pressed it against her face.

He was still kneeling there when there was a series of violent explosions that felt as if they were coming from right underneath us, and somewhere not far away a man began screaming. Then, the screaming was drowned by a blast of automatic fire as the assaulting troops reached the head of the staircase.

I saw Sanusi grab the machine pistol, get to his feet and start towards the window. At the same moment a grenade burst in the living room.

The blast flung him across the terrace like an empty sack, but he was on his feet in an instant, and as he rose he pressed the trigger of the machine pistol. Someone inside was firing back, and for a few seconds the air was torn to pieces. I saw the grenade land on the terrace outside the bedroom windows just in time to drop behind the parapet. Then, there was an ear-splitting concussion, another burst of automatic fire and silence. When I dared to look down again, three men in steel helmets were walking out slowly on to the terrace.