King Rat (30 page)

“Sean asked me not to accept him. Well, there’s no future in working with uncooperative talent, so I tried to have him dropped from the company. ‘Look,’ I said to the authorities, ‘acting’s a great psychological strain…’”

“’Poppycock!’ they said. ‘What harm can come of it?’”

“’The fact that he’s playing a female might warp him. If he were the slightest way inclined…’”

“’Stuff and nonsense,’ they said. ‘You damned theatrical people’ve pervert on the brain. Sergeant Jennison? Impossible! Nothing wrong with him! Damn fine fighter pilot! Now look here, Major. This is the end of it. You’re ordered to take him and he’s ordered to do it!’”

“So Frank and I tried to smooth Sean down, but he swore he was going to be the worst actress in the world, that he was going to make sure that he was sacked after the first disastrous performance. We told him that we couldn’t care less. His first performance was terrible. But after that he didn’t seem to hate it so much. To his surprise, he even seemed to like it. So we really started to work. It was good having something to do - it took your mind off the stinking food and stinking camp. We taught him how a woman talks and walks and sits and smokes and drinks and dresses and even thinks. Then, to keep him in the mood, we began to play make-believe. Whenever we were in the theater, we’d get up when he came in, help him into a chair, you know, treat him like a real woman. It was exciting at first, trying to keep up the illusion, making sure Sean was never seen dressing or undressing, making sure his costumes were always concealing but just suggestive enough. We even got special permission for him to have a room of his own. With his own shower.”

“Then, suddenly, he didn’t need coaching any more. He was as complete a woman on the stage as it was possible to be.”

“But little by little, the woman began to dominate him off stage too, only we didn’t notice it. By this time, Sean had grown his hair quite long - the wigs we had were no damn good. Then Sean started to wear a woman’s clothes all the time. One night someone tried to rape him.”

“After that Sean nearly went out of his mind. He tried to crush the woman in him but couldn’t. Then he tried to commit suicide. Of course it was hushed up. But that didn’t help Sean, it made things worse and he cursed us for saving him.”

“A few months later there was another rape attempt. After that Sean buried his male self completely. ‘I’m not fighting it any more,’ he said. ‘You wanted me to be a woman, now they believe I am one. All right. I’ll be one. Inside I feel I am one, so there’s no need to pretend any more. I am a woman, and I’m going to be treated like one.’”

“Frank and I tried to reason with him, but he was quite beyond us. So we told ourselves that it was only temporary, that Sean’d be all right later. Sean was great for morale and we knew we could never get anyone a tenth as good as Sean to play the girl. So we shrugged and continued the game.”

“Poor Sean. He’s such a wonderful person. If it wasn’t for him, Frank and I would have given up the ghost long ago.”

There was a roar of applause as Sean made another entrance from the other side of the stage. “You’ve no idea what applause’ll do to you,” Rodrick said, half to himself, “applause and adoration. Not unless you’ve experienced it yourself. Out there, on the stage. No idea. It’s fantastically exciting, a frightening, terrifying, beautiful drug. And it’s always poured into Sean. Always. That and the lust - yours, mine, all of us.”

Rodrick wiped the sweat off his face and hands. “We’re responsible all right, God forgive us.”

His cue came and he walked onto the stage.

“Do you want to go back to our seats?” Peter Marlowe asked the King.

“No. Let’s watch from here. I’ve never been backstage before. Something I always wanted to do.” Is Cheng San spilling his guts right now, the King asked himself.

But the King knew there was no value in worrying. They were committed and he was ready — whatever card came up. He looked back at the stage. His eyes watched Rodrick and Frank and Sean. Inexorably, his eyes followed Sean. Every movement, every gesture.

Everyone was watching Sean. Intoxicated.

And Sean and Frank and the eyes became one, and together the brooding passion on the stage soared into the players and into the watchers, ripping them bare.

When the curtain descended on the last act, there was utter silence. The watchers were spellbound.

“My God,” Rodrick said, awed. “That’s the greatest compliment they could ever pay us. And you deserve it, you two, you were inspired. Truly inspired.”

The curtain began to rise, and when it was completely up the awful silence shattered and there were cheers and ten curtain calls and more cheers and then Sean stood alone drinking the life-giving adoration.

In the continuing ovation, Rodrick and Frank came out a last time to share the triumph, two creators and a creation, the beautiful girl who was their pride and their nemesis.

The audience filed quietly out of the auditorium. Each man was thinking of home, thinking of her, locked in his own brooding hurt. What’s she doing, right now?

Larkin was the most hit. Why in God’s name call the girl Betty? Why? And my Betty — is she — would she — is she now, is she now in someone else’s arms?

And Mac. He was swept with fear for Mem. Did the ship get sunk? Is she alive? Is my son alive? And Mem — would she — is she now — is she? It’s been so long, my God, how long?

And Peter Marlowe. What of N’ai, the peerless? My love, my love.

And all of them.

Even the King. He was wondering who she was with — the vision of loveliness he had seen when he was still in his teens, still on the bum — the girl who’d said with a perfumed handkerchief to her nose that white trash smell worse than niggers.

The King smiled sardonically. Now that was one hell of a broad, he told himself as he turned his mind to more important things.

The lights were out now in the theater. It was empty but for the two in the landlocked dressing room.

The King and Peter Marlowe waited with growing anxiety. Shagata was long overdue.

“What a stinking night,” the King said irritably. “I’m sweating like a pig.”

They were sitting in the King’s corner and Peter Marlowe was watching the King play solitaire. There was a tension in the sultry air settling the camp from the moonless sky. Even the constant scratchings from beneath the hut were hushed.

“I wish he’d get here if he’s coming,” Peter Marlowe said.

“I wish we knew what the hell happened with Cheng San. Least the son of a bitch could’ve done was to send us word.” The King glanced out of his window towards the wire for the thousandth time. He was seeking a sign from the guerrillas that should be there — must be there! But there was no movement, no sign. The jungle, like the camp, drooped and was still.

Peter Marlowe winced as he flexed the fingers of his left hand and moved his aching arm into a more comfortable position.

The King looked back. “How’s it feel?”

“Hurts like hell, old chum.”

“You should get it looked at.”

“I’m on sick call tomorrow.”

“Lousy piece of luck.”

“Accidents happen. Nothing you can do about it.”

It had happened two days previously. On the wood detail. One moment Peter Marlowe had been straining in the swamp against the weight of the fanged tree stump, hauling it with twenty other sweating pairs of hands into the trailer, and the next moment the hands had slipped and his arm had been caught between the stump and the trailer. He had felt the iron-hard barbs of wood rip deep into his arm muscle, the weight of the tree stump almost crushing his bones, and he had screamed in agony.

It had taken minutes for the others to lift the stump and pull his numbed arm free and lay him on the earth, his blood weeping into swamp-ooze — the flies and bugs and insects swarming, frantic with the bloodsweet-smell. The wound was six inches long and two wide and deep in parts. They had pulled out most of the root daggers from the wound and poured water over it and cleaned it as best they could. They had put on a tourniquet, then fought the tree stump onto the trailer and labored it home to Changi. He had walked beside the trailer, faint with nausea.

Dr. Kennedy had looked at the wound and doused it with iodine while Steven held his good hand and he was starched with pain. Next the doctor had put a little zinc ointment on part of the wound, and grease on the rest to stop the clotting blood from melding with the dressing. Then the doctor had bandaged the arm.

“You’re bloody lucky, Marlowe,” he had said. “No bones broken and the muscles are undamaged. More or less just a flesh wound. Come back in a couple of days and we’ll take another look at it.”

The King looked up sharply from the cards as Max hurried into the hut.

“Trouble,” Max said, his voice low and strained. “Grey’s just left the hospital, heading this way.”

“Keep him tailed, Max. Better send Dino.”

“Okay.” Max hurried out.

“What do you think, Peter?”

“If Grey’s out of the hospital, he must know something’s up.”

“He knows, all right.”

“What?”

“Sure. He has a stoolie in the hut.”

“My God. Are you sure?”

“Yes. And I know who.” ,

The King put a black four on a red five and the red five on a black six and cleared another ace.

“Who is it?”

“I’m not telling you, Peter.” The King smiled hard. “Better you don’t know. But Grey has a man here.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. Yet. Maybe later I’ll feed him to the rats.” Then the King smiled and and changed the subject. “Now the Farm was one helluva’n idea, wasn’t it?”

Peter Marlowe wondered what he would do if he knew who it was. He knew that Yoshima had a plant too, somewhere in the camp, the one who gave old Daven away, the one who had not been caught yet, who was still unknown — the one who was looking for the bottled radio right now. He thought the King was wise to conceal the knowledge, then there would be no slip-up, and he did not resent that the King did not tell him who it was. But even so, he examined possibilities.

“Do you really think,” he asked, “that the meat’ll be all right?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” the King said. “Whole idea’s sickening when you think about it. But — and it’s a big but — business is business. With the twist we got, it’s a genius idea!”

Peter Marlowe smiled and forgot the hurt of his arm. “Don’t forget. I get the first leg.”

“Anyone I know?”

“No.”

The King laughed. “You wouldn’t hold out on your buddy?”

“I’ll tell you when delivery’s made.”

“When it comes right down to it, meat’s meat and food’s food. Take the dog, for instance.”

“I saw Hawkins a day or so ago.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. I certainly didn’t want to say anything and he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“He’s on the ball, that guy. What’s over’s over.” Then the King said uneasily, tossing the cards on the table, “I wish Shagata’d get here.”

Tex peered through the window. “Hey!”

“Yeah.”

“Timsen says the owner’s getting panicky. How long you going to wait?”

“I’ll go see him.” The King slipped out of the window and whispered, “You watch the shop, Peter. I won’t be far away.”

“All right,” Peter Marlowe said. He picked up the cards and began to shuffle them, shuddering as the ache rose and fell and rose again.

The King kept to the shadows, feeling many eyes on him. Some were the eyes of his guards and the rest were alien and hostile. When he found Timsen, the Aussie was in a sweat.

“Hey, cobber. I can’t keep him here forever.”

“Where is he?”

“When your contact arrives, I produce him. That’s the deal. He ain’t far away.”

“You better keep your eye on him. You don’t want him knocked off, do you?”

“You stick to your end, I’ll stick to mine. He’s well guarded.” Timsen sucked on his Kooa, then passed it over to the King, who took a drag.

“Thanks.” The King nodded up towards the jail wall, east. “You know about them?”

“’Course.” The Aussie laughed. “Tell you another thing. Grey’s on his way down here right now. Whole area’s lousy with cops and bushwhackers. I know of one Aussie gang, and I hear there’s another that’s got wind of the deal. But my cobbers’ve got the area taped. Soon as we get the money, you get the diamond.”

“We’ll give the guard another ten minutes. If he doesn’t arrive then we’ll plan again. Same plan, different details.”

“Right, mate. I’ll see you after grub tomorrow.”

“Let’s hope it’s tonight.”

But it was not that night. They waited, and still Shagata did not arrive, so the King called off the operation.

The next day Peter Marlowe joined the swarm of men waiting outside the hospital. It was after lunch and the sun tormented the air and the earth and the creatures of the earth. Even the flies were somnambulant. He found a patch of shade and squatted heavily hi the dust and began to wait. The throb of his arm had worsened.

It was after dusk when his turn came.

Dr. Kennedy nodded briefly to Peter Marlowe and indicated for him to sit. “How’re you today?” he said absently.

“Not too bad, thank you.”

Dr. Kennedy leaned forward and touched the bandage. Peter Marlowe screamed.

“What the devil’s the matter?” Dr. Kennedy said angrily. “I hardly touched you, for God’s sake!”

“I don’t know. The slightest touch hurts like bloody hell.”

Dr. Kennedy stuck a thermometer in Peter Marlowe’s mouth and then set the metronome clicking and took his pulse. Abnormal, pulse rate ninety. Bad. Temperature normal, and that was also bad. He lifted the arm and sniffed the bandage. It had a distinct mousy odor. Bad.

“All right,” he said, “I’m going to take the bandage off. Here.” He gave Peter Marlowe a small piece of tire rubber which he picked out of the sterilizing fluid with a pair of surgical tongs. “Bite on this. I can’t help hurting you.”

He waited until Peter Marlowe had put the rubber between his teeth, then, as gently as he could, he began unwinding the bandage. But it was clotted to the wound and now part of the wound and the only thing to do was rip, and he was not as deft as he should be and once was.

Peter Marlowe had known a lot of pain. And when you know a thing, intimately, you know its limitations and its color and its moods. With practice — and courage — you can let yourself slip into pain and then the pain is not bad, only a welling, controllable. Sometimes it is even good.

But this pain was beyond agony.

“Oh God,” Peter Marlowe whimpered through the rubber bite-piece, tears streaming, his breathing sporadic.

“It’s over now,” Dr. Kennedy said, knowing that it was not. But there was nothing more he could do, nothing. Not here. Certainly the patient should have morphine, any fool knows that, but I can’t afford a shot. “Now let’s have a look.”

He studied the open wound carefully. It was puffy and swollen and there were shades of yellow hue with purple patches. Mucused.

“Hum,” he said speculatively and leaned back and played with his fingers, making a steeple and looking away from the wound to the steeple. “Well,” he said at length, “we have three alternatives.” He got up and began pacing, stoop-shouldered, and then said monotonously, as though delivering a lecture, “The wound has now taken on other attributes. Clostridial myositis. Or, to put it more simply, the wound is gangrenous. Gas gangrenous. I can lay open the wound and excise the infected tissue, but I don’t think that will do, for the infection is deep. So I would have to take out part of the forearm muscles and then the hand won’t be of use anyway. The best solution would be to amputate —“

“What!”

“Assuredly.” Dr. Kennedy was not talking to a patient, he was only giving a lecture in the sterile classroom of his mind. “I propose a high guillotine amputation. Immediately. Then perhaps we can save the elbow joint —“

Peter Marlowe burst out desperately, “It’s just a flesh wound. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just a flesh wound!”

The fear of his voice brought Dr. Kennedy back, and he looked at the white face a moment. “It is a flesh wound, but very deep. And you’ve got toxemia. Look, my boy, it’s quite simple. If I had serum I could give it to you, but I haven’t got any. If I had sulfonamides I could put them on the wound, but I haven’t got any. The only thing I can do is amputate —“

“You must be out of your mind!” Peter Marlowe shouted at him. “You talk about amputating my arm when I’ve only got a flesh wound.”

The doctor’s hand snaked out and Peter Marlowe shrieked as the fingers held his arm far above the wound.

“There, you see! That’s not just a flesh wound. You’ve toxemia and it’ll spread up your arm and into your system. If you want to live we’ll have to cut it off. At least it’ll save your life!”

“You’re not cutting off my arm!”

“Please yourself. It’s that or —“ The doctor stopped and sat down wearily. “I suppose it is your privilege if you want to die. Can’t say I blame you. But my God, boy, don’t you realize what I’m trying to tell you? You will die if we don’t amputate.”

“You’re not going to touch me!” Peter Marlowe’s lips were drawn from his teeth and he knew he’d kill the doctor if he touched him again. “You’re out of your mind!” he shouted. “It’s a flesh wound.”

“All right. Don’t believe me. We’ll ask another doctor.” Kennedy called another doctor and he confirmed the diagnosis and Peter Marlowe knew that the nightmare was not a dream. He did have gangrene. Oh my God! The fear washed his strength away. He listened, terrified. They explained that the gangrene was caused by bacilli multiplying deep down in his arm, breeding death, right now. His arm was a cancerous thing. It had to be cut off. Cut off to the elbow. It had to be cut off soon or the entire arm would have to be removed. But he wasn’t to worry. It wouldn’t hurt. They had plenty of ether now — not like in the old days.

And then Peter Marlowe was outside the hospital, his arm still on him — bacilli breeding — tied with a clean bandage, and he was groping his way down the hill, for he had told them, the doctors, that he would have to think this over .. Think what over? What was there to think? He found himself outside the American hut and he saw that the King was alone in the hut and all was prepared for Shagata’s coming — if he came that night.

“Jesus, what’s with you, Peter?” The King listened, his dismay growing as the story spilled out.

“Christ!” He stared at the arm, which rested on the table.

“I swear to God I’d rather die than live a cripple. I swear to God!” Peter Marlowe looked up at the King, pathetic, unguarded, and out of his eyes came a scream: Help, help, for the love of God, help!

And the King thought, Holy Cow, what would I do if I was Peter and that was my arm, and what about the diamond — got to have Peter to help there, got to…

“Hey,” whispered Max urgently from the doorway. “Shagata’s on his way.”

“All right, Max. What about Grey?”

“He’s down by the wall under cover. Timsen knows about him. His Aussies’re covering.”

“Good, beat it and get ready. Spread the word.”

“Okay.” Max hurried away.

“Come on, Peter, we got to get ready,” the King said.

But Peter Marlowe was in shock. Useless.

“Peter!” The King shook him roughly. “Get up and get with it!” he grated. “Come on. You’ve got to help. Get up!”

He jerked Peter Marlowe to his feet.

“Christ, what —“

“Shagata’s coming. We’ve got to finish the deal.”

“To hell with your deal!” Peter Marlowe screamed, brinked on insanity. “To hell with the diamond! They’re going to cut off my arm.”

“No they’re not!”

“You’re goddam right they’re not. I’m going to die first —“

The King backhanded him hard, then slapped him viciously.

The raving stopped abruptly and Peter Marlowe shook his head. “What the hell —“

“Shagata’s coming. We got to get ready.”

“He’s coming?” Peter Marlowe asked blankly, his face burning from the blows.

“Yes.” The King saw that Peter Marlowe’s eyes were once more guarded and he knew that the Englishman was back in the world. “Jesus,” he said, weak with relief. “I had to do something, Peter, you were shouting your head off.”