"Sydney—" Dr. Aiken ignored the question—"you'd better go down and speak to the workmen. Reassure them. Get Tomasaki to help you. Ramey, you and Lake and I will talk to our visitors. All right, Sirabhar, you may come, too."
"How about me, Doc?"
Dr. Aiken glanced meaningfully toward the bandage on Barrett's head. "I think you'd better stay here and keep out of sight," he said wryly. "That—er—turban you're wearing is the weak spot in our story!"
A few minutes later they were moving forward to meet the Japanese scouting detail. Despite Dr. Aiken's assurance, Ramey's confidence was bolstered by the comforting heft of an automatic in his hip pocket. The Nipponese, over-cautious in this as all things, had sent a sizable investigating party to Angkor. Thirty squat, brown, dusty men; truculent; ready for any emergency.
Their captain made his mission known in a faltering, school-book English. An airplane had been seen to descend of the sky, please. Did the gentlemens opportune to see—?
Good gracious—an airplane? How alarming! No, the gentlemens had not seen anything out of the ordinary. Would the honorable captain care to look around for himself?
It struck Ramey that Dr. Aiken was sticking his neck out unnecessarily far. The captain barked commands, his company split into details of two and three men, wandered off in different directions. Then Ramey realized Aiken had followed the proper course. With such a wide area to cover ... with the burned ship lying a half mile off, in a field concealed by an arras of tangled bamboo ... with the Japanese not even sure the 'plane had landed in this vicinity ... the chances of their stumbling across it were extremely remote. And to have seemed any less willing to help would have been to invite suspicion.
Having done his duty, the little leader was inclined to be friendly. He stared about him with awed respect. This was a great marvel, not so? He had not known there were such sights in Cambodia. One would not suppose it from seeing the miserable hovels at Pnompenh, down the river. It was not, of course, to be comparison with the beautiful, modern buildings of Tokio and Kobe, still—
He sucked his teeth politely. "Who makes this great structures, please?"