their disapproval of our arrival. The headman bustles out full of importance to meet us. He wears a cast-off singlet as a symbol of status. ‘Selamat pagi, Tuan’ he greets me in Malay. Most male abos who have had contact with civilisation speak a smattering of this language. ‘Selamat pagi, penghulu’, I reply, offering him a cigarette which he accepts with eagerness. He beams as he notes the blue bands on our hats. ‘Newseelant? Orang Maori?’ he enquires and I nod. He gabbles to his wife in their Temiar dialect and she and the other women bustle about fetching leaves full of the fragrant baked tapioca root. The boys accept the food and offer cigarettes to all and sundry, from babes in arms upwards. We buy Chinese cigarettes in town at 3d for twenty for just such an occasion. Naked little goblins of children with distended bellies rush about poking inquisitively at the soldiers' packs. The women squat in shy groups in the shadow of their huts. The young ones, those in their teens, are quite shapely and boys discuss their form in a down-to-earth way as they would a good-looking horse and make the off-colour jokes which soldiers do. The old women, and anyone over twenty-five is old because of the hard life they lead, are leathery and worn, with pendulous flaccid breasts and tired expressions. They puff on tobacco rolled in green leaves and talk incessantly. The boys barter for fish traps, blowpipes or spears and keep their eyes open for any sign that terrorists might have been using this village. The headman and I talk of the weather and the crops—about everything in fact except the thing we're here for. Gradually the odd indirect question. ‘Ta’ tahu, tunan' says the headman, shaking his head until I fear it will fall off. It is nearly always the same. Finally we take our leave after a round of effusive and insincere farewells and fulsome compliments. For a few minutes we have talked in our normal voices then we are back in the jungle and the silence closes in. It is oppressive, almost physical in its intensity and the degree to which one can feel it. So the monotonous business of patrolling goes on, yet we are happy, the Maori especially. For the Maori was born to hunt and fight and the blood of the warrior is in our veins. There is a mystic but quite indefinable feeling of returning to something which is part of the soul of our people. For months we have patrolled—searching …standing silent as statues