King Rat (7 page)

Their bodies welcomed the sting, lungs breathed the cooled air, heads cleared.

And the stench of Changi was washed away.

After the rain the men sat enjoying the fleeting coolness, waiting until it was time to eat. Water dripped from the thatch and gushed in the storm ditches, and the dust was mud. But the sun was proud in the white blue sky.

“God,” said Larkin gratefully, “that feels better.”

“Ay,” said Mac as they sat on the veranda. But Mac’s mind was up country, at his rubber plantation in Kedah, far to the north. “The heat’s more than worthwhile - makes you appreciate the coolness,” he said quietly. “Like fever.”

“Malaya’s stinking, the rain’s stinking, the heat’s stinking, malaria’s stinking, the bugs’re stinking and the flies’re stinking,” Larkin said.

“Not in peacetime, mon.” Mac winked at Peter Marlowe. “Nor in a village, eh, Peter boy?”

Peter Marlowe grinned. He had told them most of the things about his village. He knew that what he had not told them, Mac would know, for Mac had lived his adult life in the Orient and he loved it as much as Larkin hated it. “So I understand,” he said blandly and they all smiled.

They did not talk much. All the stories had been told and retold, all the stories that they wanted to tell.

So they waited patiently. When it was time, they went to their respective lines and then returned to the bungalow. They drank their soup quickly. Peter Marlowe plugged in the homemade electric hot plate and fried one egg. They put their portions of rice into the bowl and he laid the egg on the rice with a little salt and pepper. He whipped it so that the yolk and white were spread evenly throughout the rice, then divided it up and they ate it with relish.

When they had finished, Larkin took the plates and washed them, for it was his turn, and they sat once more on the veranda to wait for the dusk roll call.

Peter Marlowe was idly watching the men walk the street, enjoying the fullness in his stomach, when he saw Grey approaching.

“Good evening, Colonel,” Grey said to Larkin, saluting neatly.

“Evening, Grey,” Larkin sighed. “Who’s it this time?” When Grey came to see him it always meant trouble.

Grey looked down at Peter Marlowe. Larkin and Mac sensed the hostility between them.

“Colonel Smedly-Taylor asked me to tell you, sir,” Grey said. “Two of your men were fighting. A Corporal Townsend and Private Gurble. I’ve got them in jail now.”

“All right, Lieutenant,” Larkin said dourly. “You can release them. Tell them to report to me here, after roll call. I’ll give them what for!” He paused. “You know what they were fighting about?”

“No, sir. But I think it was two-up.” Ridiculous game, thought Grey. Put two pennies on a stick and throw the coins up into the air and bet on whether the coins come down both heads, or both tails, or one head and one tail.

“You’re probably right,” Larkin grunted.

“Perhaps you could outlaw the game. There’s always trouble when —“

“Outlaw two-up?” Larkin interrupted abruptly. “If I did that, they’d think I’d gone mad. They’d pay no attention to such a ridiculous order and quite right. Gambling’s part of Aussie makeup, you ought to know that by now. Two-up gives the Diggers something to think about, and fighting once in a while isn’t bad either.” He got up and stretched the ague from his shoulders. “Gambling’s like breathing to an Aussie. Why, everyone Down Under has a shilling or two on the Golden Casket.” His voice was edged. “I like a game of two-up once in a while myself.”

“Yes, sir,” Grey said. He had seen Larkin and other Aussie officers with their men, scrambling in the dirt, excited and foul-mouthed as any ranker. No wonder discipline was bad.

“Tell Colonel Smedly-Taylor I’ll deal with them. My bloody oath!”

“Pity about Marlowe’s lighter, wasn’t it, sir?” Grey said, watching Larkin intently.

Larkin’s eyes were steady and suddenly hard. “He should’ve been more careful. Shouldn’t he?”

“Yes, sir,” Grey said, after enough of a pause to make his point. Well, he thought, it was worth trying. To hell with Larkin and to hell with Marlowe, there’s plenty of time. He was just about to salute and leave when a fantastic thought rocked him. He controlled his excitement and said matter-of-factly, “Oh, by the way, sir. There’s a rumor going the rounds that one of the Aussies has a diamond ring.” He let the statement linger. “Do you happen to know about it?”

Larkin’s eyes were deepset under bushy eyebrows. He glanced thoughtfully at Mac before he answered. “I’ve heard the rumors too. As far as I know it isn’t one of my men. Why?”

“Just checking, sir,” Grey said with a hard smile. “Of course, you’d know that such a ring could be dynamite. For its owner and a lot of people.” Then he added, “It would be better under lock and key.”

“I don’t think so, old boy,” Peter Marlowe said, and the “old boy” was discreetly vicious. “That’d be the worst thing to do — if the diamond exists. Which I doubt. If it’s in a known place then a lot of chaps’d want to look at it. And anyway the Japs’d lift it once they heard about it.”

Mac said thoughtfully, “I agree.”

“It’s better where it is. In limbo. Probably just another rumor,” Larkin said.

“I hope it is,” Grey said, sure now that his hunch had been right. “But the rumor seems pretty strong.”

“It’s not one of my men.” Larkin’s mind was racing. Grey seemed to know something — who would it be? Who?

“Well, if you hear anything, sir, you might let me know.” Grey’s eyes swooped over Peter Marlowe contemptuously. “I like to stop trouble before it begins.” Then he saluted Larkin correctly and nodded to Mac and walked away.

There was a long thoughtful silence in the bungalow.

Larkin glanced at Mac. “I wonder why he asked about that?”

“Ay,” said Mac, “I wondered too. Did ye mark how his face lit up like a beacon?”

“Too right!” Larkin said, the lines on his face etched deeper than usual. “Grey’s right about one thing. A diamond could cost a lot of men a lot of blood.”

“It’s only a rumor, Colonel,” Peter Marlowe said. “No one could keep anything like that, this long. Impossible.”

“I hope you’re right.” Larkin frowned. “Hope to God one of my boys hasn’t got it.”

Mac stretched. His head ached and he could feel a bout of fever on the way. Well, not for three days yet, he thought calmly. He had had so much fever that it was as much a part of life as breathing. Once every two months now. He remembered that he had been due to retire in 1942, doctor’s orders. When malaria gets to your spleen — well, then home, old fellow, home to Scotland, home to the cold climate and buy the little farm near Killin overlooking the glory of Loch Tay. Then you may live.

“Ay,” Mac said tiredly, feeling his fifty years. Then he said aloud what they were all thinking. “But if we ha’ the wee devil stone, then we could last out the never-never with nae fear for the future. Nae fear at all.”

Larkin rolled a cigarette and lit it, taking a deep puff. He passed it to Mac, who smoked and passed it to Peter Marlowe. When they had almost finished it, Larkin knocked off the burning top and put the remains of tobacco back into his box. He broke the silence. “Think I’ll take a walk.”

Peter Marlowe smiled. “Salamat,” he said, which meant “Peace be upon thee.”

“Salamat,” Larkin said and went out into the sun.

As Grey walked up the slope towards the MP hut, his brain churned with excitement. He promised himself that as soon as he got to the hut and released the Australians he would roll a cigarette to celebrate. His second today, even though he had only enough Java weed for three more cigarettes until payday the next week.

He strode up the steps and nodded at Sergeant Masters. “You can let ‘em out!”

Masters took away the heavy bar from the door of the bamboo cage and the two sullen men stood to attention in front of Grey.

“You’re both to report to Colonel Larkin after roll call.”

The two men saluted and left.

“Damn troublemakers,” said Grey shortly.

He sat down and took out his box and papers. This month he had been extravagant. He had bought a whole page of Bible paper, which made the best cigarettes. Though he was not a religious man, it still seemed a little blasphemous to smoke the Bible. Grey read the scripture on the fragment he was preparing to roll: “So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. And then his wife said…”

Wife! Why the hell did I have to come across that word? Grey cursed and turned the paper over.

The first sentence on the other side was: “Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?”

Grey jerked upright as a stone hissed through the window, smashed against a wall and clattered to the floor.

A piece of newspaper was wrapped around the stone. Grey picked it up and darted to the window. But there was no one near. Grey sat down and smoothed out the paper. On the edge of it was written: Make you a deal. I’ll deliver the King on a plate — if you’ll close your eyes when I trade a little in his place when you got him. If it’s a deal, stand outside the hut for a minute with this stone in your left hand. Then get rid of the other cop. Guys say you’re an honest cop so I’ll trust you.

“What’s it say, sir?” Masters asked, staring rheumy-eyed at the paper.

Grey crumpled the paper into a ball. “Someone thinks we work too hard for the Japs,” he said harshly.

“Bloody bastard.” Masters went to the window. “What the hell they think’d happen if we didn’t enforce discipline? The buggers’d be at each other’s throats all day long.”

“That’s right,” said Grey. The ball of paper felt animated in his hand. If this is a real offer, he thought, the King can be felled.

It was no easy decision to make. He would have to keep his side of the bargain. His word was his bond; he was an honest “cop,” and not a little proud of his reputation. Grey knew that he would do anything to see the King behind the bamboo cage, stripped of his finery — even close his eyes a little to a breaking of the rules. He wondered which of the Americans could be the informer. All of them hated the King, envied him - but who would play Judas, who would risk the consequences if he were to be discovered? Whoever the man was, he could never be such a menace as the King.

So he walked outside with the stone in his left hand and scrutinized the men who passed. But no one gave him a sign.

He threw the stone away and dismissed Masters. Then he sat in the hut and waited. He had given up hope when another rock sailed through the window with the second message attached: Check a can that’s in the ditch by Hut Sixteen. Twice a day, mornings and after roll call. That’ll be our go-between. He’s trading with Turasan tonight.

That night Larkin lay on his mattress under his mosquito net gravely concerned about Corporal Townsend and Private Gurble. He had seen them after roll call.

“What the hell were you two fighting about?” he had asked repeatedly, and each time they had both replied sullenly, “Two-up.” But Larkin had known instinctively that they were lying.

“I want the truth,” he had said angrily. “Come on, you two are cobbers. Now why were you fighting?”

But the two men had kept their eyes obstinately on the ground. Larkin had questioned them individually, but each in his turn scowled and said, “Two-up.”

“All right, you bastards,” Larkin had said finally, his voice harsh. “I’ll give you one last chance. If you don’t tell me, then I’ll transfer you both out of my regiment. And as far as I’m concerned you won’t exist!”

“But Colonel,” Gurble gasped. “You wouldn’t do that!”

“I’ll give you thirty seconds,” Larkin said venomously, meaning it. And the men knew that he meant it. And they knew that Larkin’s word was law in his regiment, for Larkin was like their father. To get shipped out would mean that they would not exist to their cobbers, and without their cobbers, they’d die.

Larkin waited a minute. Then he said, “All right. Tomorrow —“

“I’ll tell you, Colonel,” Gurble blurted. “This bloody sod accused me of stealing my cobbers’ food. The bloody sod said I was stealing —“

“An’ you were, you rotten bastard!”

Only Larkin’s snarled “Stand to attention” kept them from tearing each other’s throats out.

Corporal Townsend told his side of the story first. “It’s my month on the cookhouse detail. Today we’ve a hundred and eighty-eight to cook for —“

“Who’s missing?” Larkin asked.

“Billy Donahy, sir. He went to hospital this a’ernoon.”

“All right.”

“Well, sir. A hundred and eighty-eight men at a hundred and twenty-five grams of rice a day works out at twenty-three and a half kilos. I always go up to the storehouse myself with a cobber and see the rice weighed and then I carry it back to make sure we got our bloody share. Well, today I was watching the weighing when the gut rot hit me. So I asked Gurble here to carry it back to the cookhouse. He’s my best cobber so I thought I could trust him —“

“I didn’t touch a bloody grain, you bastard. I swear to God —“

“We were short when I got back!” Townsend shouted. “Near half a pound short and that’s two men’s rations!”

“I know, but I didn’t —“

“The weights weren’t wrong. I checked ‘em under your bloody nose!”

Larkin went with the men and checked the weights and found them true. There was no doubt that the correct amount of rice had started down the hill, for the rations were weighed publicly every morning by Lieutenant Colonel Jones. There was only one answer.

“As far as I’m concerned, Gurble,” Larkin said, “you’re out of my regiment. You’re dead.”

Gurble stumbled away into the darkness, whimpering, and then Larkin said to Townsend, “You keep your mouth shut about this.”

“My bloody oath, Colonel,” Townsend said. “The Diggers’d tear him to pieces if they heard. An’ rightly! Only reason I didn’t tell them was that he was my best cobber.” His eyes suddenly filled with tears. “My bloody oath, Colonel, we joined up together. We’ve been with you through Dunkirk an’ the stinking Middle East, and all.through Malaya. I’ve knowed him most of my life and I’d’ve bet my life —“

Now, thinking about it all again in the twilight of sleep, Larkin shuddered. How can a man do such a thing? he asked himself helplessly. How? Gurble of all men, whom he had known for many years, who even used to work in his office in Sydney!

He closed his eyes and put Gurble out of his mind. He had done his duty and it was his duty to protect the many. He let his mind drift to his wife Betty cooking steak with a fried egg on top, to his home overlooking the bay, to his little daughter, to the time he was going to have afterwards. But when? When?

Grey walked quietly up the steps of Hut Sixteen like a thief in the night and headed for his bed. He stripped off his pants and slipped under the mosquito net and lay naked on his mattress, very pleased with himself. He had just seen Turasan, the Korean guard, sneak around the corner of the American hut and under the canvas overhang; he had seen the King stealthily jump out of the window to join Turasan. Grey had waited only a moment in the shadows. He was checking the spy’s information, and there was no need to pounce on the King yet. No. Not yet, now that the informer was proved.

Grey shifted on the bed, scratching his leg. His practiced fingers caught the bedbug and crushed it. He heard it plop as it burst and he smelled the sick sweet stench of the blood it contained - his own blood.

Around his net, clouds of mosquitoes buzzed, seeking the inevitable hole. Unlike most of the officers, Grey had refused to convert his bed to a bunk, for he hated the idea of sleeping above or below someone else. Even though the added doubling up meant more space.

The mosquito nets were hung from a wire which bisected the length of the hut. Even in sleep the men were attached to each other. When one man turned over or tugged at the net to tuck it more tightly under the soaking mattress, all the nets would jiggle a little, and each man knew he was surrounded.

Grey crushed another bedbug, but his mind was not on it. Tonight he was filled with happiness — about the informer, about his commitment to get the King, about the diamond ring, about Marlowe. He was very pleased, for he had solved the riddle.

It is simple, he told himself again. Larkin knows who has the diamond. The King is the only one in the camp who could arrange the sale. Only the King’s contacts are good enough. Larkin would not go himself directly to the King, so he sent Marlowe. Marlowe is to be the go-between.

Grey’s bed shook as dead-sick Johnny Hawkins stumbled against it, half-awake, heading for the latrines. “Be careful, for God’s sake!” Grey said irritably.

“Sorry,” Johnny said, groping for the door.

In a few minutes Johnny stumbled back again. A few sleepy curses followed in his wake. As soon as Johnny had reached his bunk it was time to go again. This time Grey did not notice his bed shake, for he was locked in his mind, forecasting the probable moves of the enemy.

Peter Marlowe was wide awake, sitting on the hard steps of Hut Sixteen under the moonless sky, his eyes and ears and mind searching the darkness. From where he sat he could watch the two roads - the one that bisected the camp and the other that skirted the walls of the jail. Japanese and Korean guards and prisoners alike used both roads. Peter Marlowe was the north sentry.

Behind him, on the other steps, he knew that Flight Lieutenant Cox was concentrating as he was, seeking the darkness for danger. Cox guarded south.

East and west were not covered because Hut Sixteen could only be approached by north or south.

From inside the hut, and all around, were the noises of the sleep — dead-moans, weird laughs, snores, whimpers, choked half-screams mixed with the softness of whispers of the sleepless. It was a cool good night here on the bank above the road. All was normal.

Peter Marlowe jerked like a dog pointing. He had sensed the Korean guard before his eyes picked him out of the darkness, and by the time he really saw the guard, he had already given the warning signal.

At the far end of the hut, Dave Daven did not hear the first whistle, he was so absorbed in his work. When he heard the second, more urgent one, he answered it, jerked the needles out, lay back in his bunk, and held his breath.

The guard was slouching through the camp, his rifle on his shoulder, and he did not see Peter Marlowe or the others. But he felt their eyes. He quickened his step and wished himself out of the hatred.

After an age, Peter Marlowe heard Cox give the all-clear signal, and he relaxed once more. But his senses still reached out into the night.

At the far corner of the hut, Daven began breathing again. He lifted himself carefully under the thick mosquito net in the top bunk. With infinite patience, he reconnected the two needles to the ends of the insulated wire that carried the live current. After a backbreaking search, he felt the needles slip through the worm-holes in the eight-by-eight beam which served as the head crosspiece of the bunk. A bead of sweat gathered on his chin and fell on the beam as he found the other two needles that were connected to the earphone and again, after a blind tortured search, he felt the holes for them and slipped the needles cleanly into the beam. The earphone static’d into life. “. . . and our forces are moving rapidly through the jungle to Mandalay. That ends the news. This is Calcutta calling. To summarize the news: American and British forces are pushing the enemy back in Belgium, and on the central sector, towards St. Hubert, in driving snowstorms. In Poland, Russian armies are within twenty miles of Krakow, also in heavy blizzards. In the Philippines, American forces have driven a bridgehead across the Agno River in their thrust for Manila. Formosa was bombed in daylight by American B-29’s without loss. In Burma, victorious British and Indian armies are within thirty miles of Mandalay. The next news broadcast will be at 6 a.m. Calcutta time.”

Daven cleared his voice softly and felt the live insulated wire jerk slightly and then come free as Spence, in the next bunk, pulled his set of needles out of the source, Quickly Daven disconnected his four needles and put them back in his sewing kit. He wiped the gathering sweat off his face and scratched at the biting bedbugs. Then he unscrewed the wires on the earphone, tightened the terminals carefully, and slipped it into a special pouch in his jock-strap, behind his testicles. He buttoned his pants and doubled the wire and slipped it through the belt-loops and knotted it. He found the piece of rag and wiped his hands, then carefully brushed dust over the tiny holes in the beam, clogging them, hiding them perfectly.

He lay back on the bed for a moment to regain his strength, and scratched. When he had composed himself he ducked out of the net and jumped to the floor. At this time of night he never bothered to put his leg on, so he just found his crutches and quietly swung himself to the door. He made no sign as he passed Spence’s bunk. That was the rule. Can’t be too careful.

The crutches creaked, wood against wood, and for the ten millionth time Daven thought about his leg. It did not bother him too much nowadays, though the stump hurt like hell. The doctors had told him that soon he would have to have it restumped again. He had had this done twice already, once a real operation below the knee in ‘42, when he had been blown up by a land mine. Once above the knee, without anesthetics. The memory edged his teeth and he swore he would never go through that again. But this next time, the last time, would not be too bad. They had anesthetics here in Changi. It would be the last time because there was not much left to stump.

“Oh hello, Peter,” he said as he almost stumbled over him on the steps. “Didn’t see you.”

“Hello, Dave.”

“Nice night, isn’t it?” Dave carefully swung himself down the steps. “Bladder’s playing up again.”

Peter Marlowe smiled. If Daven said that, it meant that the news was good. If he said, “It’s time for a leak,” that meant nothing was happening in the world. If he said, “My guts’re killing me tonight,” that meant a bad setback somewhere in the world. If he said, “Hold my crutch a moment,” that meant a great victory.

Though Peter Marlowe would hear the news in detail tomorrow and learn it along with Spence and tell other huts, he liked to hear how things were going tonight. So he sat back and watched Daven as he crutched towards the urinal, liking him, respecting him.

Daven creaked to a halt. The urinal was made out of a bent piece of corrugated iron. Daven watched his urine trickle and meander towards the low end, then cascade frothily from the rusted spout into the large drum, adding to the scum which collected on the surface of the liquid. He remembered that tomorrow was collection day. The container would be carried away and added to other containers and taken to the gardens. The liquor would be mixed with water, then the mixture would be ladled tenderly, cup by cup, onto the roots of plants cherished and guarded by the men who grew the camp’s food. This fertilizer would make the greens they ate greener.

Dave hated greens. But they were food and you had to eat.

A breeze chilled the sweat on his back and brought with it the tang of the sea, three miles away, three light-years of miles away.

Daven thought about how perfectly the radio was working. He felt very pleased with himself as he remembered how he had delicately lifted a thin strip off the top of the beam and scooped beneath it a hole six inches deep. How this had all been done in secret. How it had taken him five months to build in the radio, working at night and the hour of dawn and sleeping by day. How the fit of the lid was so perfect that when dust was worked into the edges its outline could not be seen, even on close inspection. And how the needle holes also were invisible when the dust was in them.

The thought that he, Dave Daven, was the first in the camp to hear the news made him not a little proud. And unique. In spite of his leg. One day he would hear that the war was over. Not just the European war. Their war. The Pacific war. Because of him, the camp was linked with the outside, and he knew that the terror and the sweat and the heartache were worth it. Only he and Spence and Cox and Peter Marlowe and two English colonels knew where the radio actually was. That was wise, for the less in the know, the less the danger.

Of course there was danger. There were always prying eyes, eyes you could not necessarily trust. There was always the possibility of informers. Or of an involuntary leak.

When Daven got back to the doorway, Peter Marlowe had already returned to his bunk. Daven saw that Cox was still sitting on the far steps, but this was only usual, for it was a rule that the sentries did not both go at the same time. Daven’s stump began to itch like hell, but not really the stump, only the foot that was not there. He clambered up into his bunk, closed his eyes and prayed. He always prayed before he slept. Then the dream would not come, the vivid picture of dear old Tom Cotton, the Aussie, who had been caught with the other radio and had marched off under guard to Utram Road Jail, his coolie hat cocked flamboyantly over one eye, raucously singing “Waltzing Matilda,” and the chorus had been “Fuck the Japs.” But in Daven’s dream, it was he, not Tommy Cotton who went with the guards. He went with them, and he went in abject terror.