Janwillem De Wetering - Outsider in Amsterdam

"Are you hurt, van Meteren?" Grijpstra shouted. There was no answer.

"Are you hurt?"

"I am," van Meteren's voice came back.

"We are coming," de Gier shouted. "Don't move."

"I'll swim to the hotter," Runau said and stripped. Within five minutes they were all in the hotter. Van Meteren was stretched out on the floor of his cabin. His sheepskin-lined windbreaker was soaked with blood.

Right," Grijpstra said. "I'll keep him covered while you get the bandages."

"Can I help?" Runau asked.

Grijpstra looked at the yacht, now tied up to the hotter. The surface of the lake was still calm but soon the early morning breeze would start up and small waves would be lapping against the yacht's side, flooding it slowly.

"You see if you can save your boat," Grijpstra said. "Maybe you can block the holes."

"Hey," van Meteren said.

The three men looked at the Papuan's face.

"Look in the bottom drawer," van Meteren said, pointing at the cabin's port wall. "You'll find some rubber sheeting in there I use for repairing the dinghy with, and some cleaning rags. You could twist them into the yacht's holes. She'll still leak, but not too badly."

"Go ahead," Grijpstra said to Runau.

While Runau rummaged through the chest of drawers de Gier fetched the Red Cross tin from the yacht's cabin, staying as far away as he could from the rear of the boat.

Runau joined him, with an armful of cleaning rags.

"I'll wait for you here," Runau said. "Bandage him up and men you can come and stand on the front deck while I try to do something about the holes. It would be better if Grijpstra came as well. He is nice and heavy and can stand on the front deck with you, but somebody will have to watch van Meteren."

"I was lucky," de Gier said. His mouth twitched a little.

"You mean that you didn't shoot him through the head?"

"Yes," de Gier said. "I was aiming for his shoulder but I didn't have much time."

"Maybe you weren't lucky," Runau said. "Maybe you are a good shot. Have you had a lot of practice with the carbine?"

"Yes," de Gier said. "I try to go to the rifle range at least twice a month."

"Keep it up," Runau said. "I don't think I could have hit him in the shoulder, not even when I was in training."

"Very good," van Meteren said.

"What do you mean?" Grijpstra asked.

"You are pointing your pistol at me," van Meteren said, "and I am on the floor, bleeding. A friend of mine got killed in New Guinea because he wasn't paying sufficient attention to a wounded prisoner. The man looked harmless enough, leaning against a tree and bleeding like a slaughtered pig, but he had a revolver and he shot my friend."

"Have you got a revolver?" Grijpstra asked.

Van Meteren tried to change his position and grimaced with pain. "Yes," he said, "under my armpit, very close to the wound."

De Gier had come in. He put his left hand under van Meteren's head, lifting it a little off the floor.

Grijpstra threw him a small cushion.

"That's better," said van Meteren. "Take my revolver and then we can get the jacket off. The wound isn't dangerous, I think. The lung hasn't been touched, it may be just a flesh wound but it's certainly bleeding. Perhaps you can stop the blood."

De Gier worked quietly, bandaging the wound and fastening the gauze with metal clips. He made a sling for van Meteren's arm.

Van Meteren's teeth chattered.

"Are you in bad pain?" de Gier asked.

"It's beginning to hurt now," van Meteren said.

"Shock," Grijpstra said. "Give him one of the pills from the tin."

Van Meteren swallowed the pill and de Gier poured him a mugful of tea from a thermos flask he had found in the cabin.

"I'll be all right," van Meteren said. "I have had shock before. Very hard to control. I have been knifed during a jungle patrol, didn't see the man coming. My teeth chattered for hours afterwards. They were all laughing at me but I couldn't stop."

"To be knifed isn't very funny," Grijpstra said.

"The man who knifed me got shot in the stomach," van Meteren said. "That isn't funny either. He was dead by the time we got back to camp and he had been howling all the time he was on the stretcher. A sergeant from Ambon. Very tough fellow, a commando. Most of the Indonesian commandos came from Ambon."

Runau came back.

"How's the yacht?" Grijpstra asked.

"She won't sink," Runau said, "but our friend did a neat job."

"I am sorry," van Meteren said. He looked sorry and Runau went over and patted him on the sound shoulder.

"Don't worry, friend. The yacht is insured. A bit of welding and she'll be as good as new."

De Gier had been watching van Meteren's face. The Papuan seemed much calmer now.

"You look better," de Gier said.

"So do you, de Gier," Grijpstra said. "You've got some color in your face again. Now let's get going, we'll have to get this chap to the hospital. He isn't coughing blood so his lung is probably all right, as he says, but there is a bullet in him and it should come out. Will you take the boat back for us, Runau?"

"Sir," Runau said and left the cabin.

"Nice military fellow," Grijpstra said. "Calls me Sir and all. Does as I tell him. I wish you'd behave like that, de Gier."

"You'd be in a dinghy now," de Gier said.

Van Meteren laughed.

"How did you know I was on this boat?" he asked.

"Grijpstra's idea," de Gier said. "You remember the map you have on your wall?"

"Yes," van Meteren said, "silly of me. Very silly. Never thought of it. A maritime map. I used to look at it a lot, plan all my trips on it."

"If it hadn't been the map it would have been something else. Somebody would have caught you sooner or later. The State Police were alerted and we knew what you looked like. We found Seket as well, there's always something that connects."

"How did you find Seket?" van Meteren asked.

De Gier told him.

"I couldn't help that," van Meteren said.

"Didn't say you could," de Gier said.

"No." Van Meteren grinned. "Perhaps I should have controlled my greed, but I always wanted to have a motorcycle and a Harley is the biggest motorcycle you can get. Still, you have done very well. My congratulations! It would have been nice to work with you."

"Don't be so modest," said Grijpstra, who had poured himself some tea from the thermos. "We would never have caught you. You let us catch you. You could have shot the lot of us, one by one, like sparrows on the roof of the gardenshed."

"I am not a murderer," van Meteren said.

There was an awkward silence.

"Let's have some breakfast," de Gier said and opened a cupboard at random.

"Where did you get the revolver?" Grijpstra asked and sat down close to van Meteren. He had put his pistol away after de Gier had removed the revolver and left it in Runau's care near the rudder, together with the rifle and the carbine. De Gier wasn't taking any risks. He had been very impressed by the Papuan. Beer in his eyes and a chair kicked to smithereens, within a split second from the expression of infinite sadness on the suspect's face. And the sadness had been real, which made me fast reaction even more amazing. The Papuan was dangerous, even with his wounded shoulder.

"But he didn't kill us when he had the chance," de Gier kept on thinking.

"I'll tell you," van Meteren said, "but first I'll tell you where the food is. We can have breakfast together and de Gier can prepare it."

Soon there was a smell of crisp bacon and fried eggs and fresh coffee. The boat was well stocked.

"I got the revolver in Belgium," van Meteren said when he had eaten. "A Smith amp; Wesson, like the one I had in New Guinea. You know how I got the Lee Enfield, I smuggled it through customs. I also tried to buy a jungle knife, I lost mine just before I left and I haven't been able to find another one just like it. They aren't made anymore."