King Rat (6 page)

“Oh, for the love of God,” Peter Marlowe said irritably. “Do you think I’m queer too?”

“No,” the King said calmly. “I don’t mind if you are. Just as long as I know.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“It sure as hell sounded like it,” the King said with a grin. “Lovers’ quarrel?”

“Go to hell!”

After a minute the King said tentatively, “You known Sean long?”

“He was in my squadron,” Peter Marlowe said at length. “Sean was the baby, and I was sort of detailed to look after him. Got to know him very well.” He flicked the burning end off his cigarette and put the remains of tobacco back in his box. “In fact he was my best friend. He was a very good pilot - got three Zeros over Java.” He looked at the King. “I liked him a lot.”

“Was — was he like that before?”

“No.”

“Oh, I know he didn’t dress like a woman all the time, but hell, it must have been obvious he was that way.”

“Sean was never that way. He was just a very handsome, gentle chap. There was nothing effeminate about him, just a sort of… compassion.”

“You ever seen him without clothes on?”

“No.”

“That figures. No one else has either. Even half naked.”

Sean was allowed a tiny little room up in the theater, a private room, which no one else in the whole of Changi had, not even the King. But Sean never slept in the room. The thought of Sean alone in a room with a lock on the door was too dangerous, because there were many in the camp whose lust swept out, and the rest were full of lust inside. So Sean always slept in one of the huts, but changed and showered in the private room.

“What’s between you two?” the King asked.

“I nearly killed him once.”

Suddenly the conversation ceased and both men listened intently. All they could hear was a sigh, an undercurrent. The King looked around quickly. Seeing nothing extraordinary, he got up and climbed through the window, Peter Marlowe close behind. The men in the hut were listening too.

The King peered towards the corner of the jail. Nothing seemed to be wrong. Men still walked up and down.

“What do you think?” the King asked softly.

“Don’t know,” said Peter Marlowe, concentrating. Men were still walking by the jail, but now an almost imperceptible quickening had been added to their walk.

“Hey, look,” Tex whispered.

Rounding the corner of the jail and heading up the slope towards them was Captain Brough. Then other officers began to appear behind him, all heading for various enlisted men’s huts.

“Got to mean trouble,” Tex said sourly.

“Maybe it’s a search,” Max said.

The King was on his knees in an instant, unlocking the black box. Peter Marlowe said hurriedly, “I’ll see you later.”

“Here,” the King said, throwing him a pack of Kooas, “see you tonight if you like.”

Peter Marlowe raced out of the hut and down the slope. The King jerked out the three watches that were buried in the coffee beans and got up. He thought a moment, then he stood on his chair and stuffed the three watches into the atap thatch. He knew that all the men had seen the new hiding place but he did not care, for that could not be helped now. Then he locked the black box and Brough was at the door.

“All right, you guys, outside.”

Peter Marlowe was thinking of nothing except his water bottle as he shoved through the sweating hive of men forming up on the asphalt road. He tried desperately to remember if he had filled the bottle, but he could not remember for sure.

He ran up the stairs from the street towards his hut. But the hut was already empty and a soiled Korean guard already stood in the doorway. Peter Marlowe knew that he would not be allowed to pass, so he turned back and ducked under the lee of the hut and up the other side. He ran for the other door and was beside his bunk with his water bottle in his hand before the guard saw him.

The Korean swore at him sullenly and walked over and motioned for him to put the water bottle back. But Peter Marlowe saluted with a flourish and said in Malay, which most of the guards understood, “Greetings sir. We may have a long time to wait, and I beg thee, let me take my water bottle with me, for I have dysentery.” As he spoke he shook the bottle. It was full.

The guard jerked the bottle out of his hands and sniffed it suspiciously. Then he poured some of the water onto the floor and shoved the bottle back at Peter Marlowe and cursed him again and pointed at the men on parade below.

Peter Marlowe bowed, weak with relief, and ran to join his group in line.

“Where the hell have you been, Peter?” Spence asked, dysentery pain adding to his anxiety.

“Never mind, I’m here.” Now that Peter Marlowe had his water bottle he was giddy. “Come on, Spence, get the bods lined up,” he said, needling him.

“Go to hell. Come on, you chaps, get into line.” Spence counted the men and then said, “Where’s Bones?”

“In hospital,” Ewart said. “Went just after breakfast. I took him myself.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”

“I’ve been working in the gardens all day, for Christ sake! Pick on someone else!”

“Keep your blasted shirt on!”

But Peter Marlowe wasn’t listening to the curses and chatter and rumors. He hoped that the colonel and Mac had their water bottles too.

When his group was accounted for, Captain Spence walked along the road to Lieutenant Colonel Sellars, who was in nominal charge of four huts, and saluted. “Sixty-four, all correct, sir. Nineteen here, twenty-three in hospital, twenty-two on work parties.”

“All right, Spence.”

And as soon as Sellars had all the numbers from his four huts, he totaled them and took them up the line to Colonel Smedly-Taylor, who was responsible for ten huts. Then Smedly-Taylor took them up the line. Then the next officer took them up the line, and this procedure was repeated throughout the camp, inside and outside the jail, until totals were given to the Camp Commandant. The Camp Commandant added the figures of men inside the camp to the number of men in hospital and the number of men on work parties, and then he passed the totals over to Captain Yoshima, the Japanese interpreter. Yoshima cursed the Camp Commandant because the total was one short.

There was an aching hour of panic until the missing body was found in the cemetery. Colonel Dr. Rofer, RAMS, cursed his assistant, Colonel Dr. Kennedy, who tried to explain that it was difficult to keep a tally to the instant, and Colonel Rofer cursed him anyway and said that that was his job. Then Rofer apologetically went to the Camp Commandant, who cursed his inefficiency, and then the Camp Commandant went to Yoshima and tried to explain politely that the body had been found but it was difficult to keep numbers accurate to the second. And Yoshima cursed the Camp Commandant for inefficiency and told him that he was responsible — if he couldn’t keep a simple number perhaps it was about time another officer took charge of the camp.

While the anger sped up and down the line, Korean guards were searching the huts, particularly the officers’ huts. Here would be the radio they sought. The link, the hope of the men. They wanted to find the radio as they had found the one five months ago. But the guards sweltered as the men on parade sweltered, and their search was perfunctory.

The men sweated and cursed. A few fainted. The dysenteric streamed to the latrines. Those who were very sick squatted where they were or lay where they were and let the pain swirl and consummate. The fit did not notice the stench. The stench was normal and the stream was normal and the waiting was normal.

After three hours the search was completed. The men were dismissed. They swarmed for their huts and the shade, or lay on their beds gasping, or went to the showers and waited and fumed until the water cooled the ache from their heads.

Peter Marlowe walked out of the shower. He wrapped his sarong around his waist and went to the concrete bungalow of his friends, his unit.

“Puki mahlu!” Mac grinned. Major McCoy was a tough little Scot who carried himself neatly erect. Twenty-five years in the Malayan jungles had etched his face deeply — that and hard liquor and hard playing and bouts of fever.

“Mahlu senderis,” Peter Marlowe said, squatting happily. The Malay obscenity always delighted him. It had no absolute translation into English, though “puki” was a four-letter part of a woman and “mahlu” meant “ashamed.”

“Can’t you bastards speak the King’s English for once?” Colonel Larkin said. He was lying on his mattress, which was on the floor. Larkin was short of breath from the heat and his head ached with the aftermath of malaria.

Mac winked at Peter Marlowe. “We keep explaining and nothing can get through the thickness of his head. There’s nae hope for the colonel!”

“Too right, cobber,” Peter Marlowe said, aping Larkin’s Australian accent.

“Why the hell I ever got in with you two,” Larkin groaned wearily, “I’ll never know.”

Mac grinned. “Because he’s lazy, eh, Peter? You and I do all the work, eh? An’ he sits and pretends to be bedridden — just because he’s a wee touch of malaria.”

“Puki mahlu. And get me some water, Marlowe!”

“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir!” He gave Larkin his water bottle. When Larkin saw it he smiled through his pain.

“All right, Peter boy?” he asked quietly.

“Yes. My God, I was in a bit of a panic for a time.”

“Mac and me both.”

Larkin sipped the water and carefully handed the water bottle back.

“All right, Colonel?” Peter Marlowe was perturbed by Larkin’s color.

“My bloody oath,” Larkin said. “Nothing a bottle of beer couldn’t cure. Be all right tomorrow.”

Peter Marlowe nodded. “At least you’re over the fever,” he said. Then he took out the pack of Kooas with studied negligence.

“My God,” said Mac and Larkin in one breath.

Peter Marlowe broke the pack and gave them each a cigarette. “Present from Father Christmas!”

“Where the hell you get them, Peter?”

“Wait till we’ve smoked them a bitty,” Mac said sourly, “before we hear the bad news. He’s probably sold our beds or something.”

Peter Marlowe told them about the King and about Grey. They listened with growing astonishment. He told them about the tobacco-curing process and they listened silently until he mentioned the percentages.

“Sixty-forty!” exploded Mac delightedly. “Sixty-forty, oh my God!”

“Yes,” said Peter Marlowe, misreading Mac. “Imagine that! Anyway, I just showed him how to do it. He seemed surprised when I wouldn’t take anything in return.”

“You gave the process away?” Mac was appalled.

“Of course. Anything wrong, Mac?”

“Why?”

“Well, I couldn’t go into business. Marlowes aren’t tradesmen,” Peter Marlowe said, as though talking to a child. “It’s just not done, old boy.”

“My God, you get a wonderful opportunity to make some money and you turn it down with a big fat sneer. I suppose you know that with the King behind the deal, you could have made enough to buy double rations from now until doomsday. Why the hell didn’t you keep your mouth shut and tell me and let me make —“

“What are you talking about, Mac?” Larkin interrupted sharply. “The boy did all right, and it would have been bad for him to go into business with the King.”

“But —“

“But nothing,” Larkin said.

Mac simmered down immediately, hating himself for his outburst. He forced a nervous laugh. “Just teasing, Peter.”

“Are you sure, Mac? My God,” said Peter Marlowe unhappily. “Have I been a fool or something? I wouldn’t want to let the side down.”

“Nay, laddie, it was just my way of joking. Go on, tell us what else happened.”

Peter Marlowe told them what had happened and all the time he wondered if he had done something wrong. Mac was his best friend, and shrewd, and never lost his temper. He told them about Sean, and when he had finished he felt better. Then he left. It was his turn to feed the chickens.

When he had gone Mac said to Larkin, “Dammit — I’m sorry. I’d no cause to fly off the handle like that.”

“Don’t blame you, cobber. He’s got his head in the sky. That boy’s got some strange ideas. But you never can tell. Maybe the King’ll have his uses yet.”

“Ay,” said Mac thoughtfully.

Peter Marlowe carried a billycan filled with scraps of leaves that had been foraged. He walked past the latrine area until he came to the runs where the camp chickens were kept.

There were big runs and small runs, runs for one scraggy hen and a huge run for one hundred and thirty hens — those that were owned by the whole camp, whose eggs went into the common pool. The other runs were owned by units, or a commune of units who had pooled their resources. Only the King owned alone.

Mac had built the chicken run for Peter Marlowe’s unit. In it were three hens, the wealth of the unit. Larkin had bought the hens seven months ago when the unit had sold the last thing it possessed, Larkin’s gold wedding ring. Larkin had not wanted to sell it, but Mac was sick at the time and Peter Marlowe had dysentery, and two weeks earlier the camp rations had been cut again, so Larkin sold it. But not through the King. Through one of his own men, Tiny Timsen, the Aussie trader. With the money he had bought four hens through the Chinese trader who had the camp concession from the Japanese, and along with the hens, two cans of sardines, two cans of condensed milk and a pint of orange-colored palm oil.

The hens were good and laid their eggs on time. But one of them died and the men ate it. They saved the bones and put them into a pot with the entrails and feet and head and the green papaya that Mac had stolen on a work party and made a stew. For a whole week their bodies had felt huge and clean.

Larkin had opened one can of the condensed milk on the day they had bought it. They each had a spoonful as long as it lasted, once a day. The condensed milk did not spoil from the heat. On the day that there was no more to spoon, they boiled the can and drank the liquor. It was very good.

The two cans of sardines and the last can of condensed milk were the unit’s reserve. Against a very bad run of luck. The cans were kept in a cache, which was constantly guarded by one of the unit.

Peter Marlowe looked around before he opened the lock on the chicken coop and made sure there was no one near who could see how the lock worked. He opened the door and saw two eggs.

“All right, Nonya,” he said gently to their prize hen, “I’m not going to touch you.”

Nonya was sitting on a nest of seven eggs. It had taken a great amount of will for the unit to let the eggs remain beneath her, but if they were lucky and got seven chicks, and if the seven chicks lived to become hens or cocks, then their herd would be vast. Then they could spare one of the hens to sit permanently on a clutch. And they would never have to fear Ward Six.

Ward Six housed the sightless, the men blinded by beriberi.

Any vitamin strength was magic against this constant threat, and eggs were a vast source of strength, usually the only one available. Thus it was that the Camp Commandant begged and cursed and demanded more from the Overlord. But most of the time there was only one egg per man per week. Some of the men received an extra one every day, but by then it was usually too late.

Thus it was that the chickens were guarded day and night by an officer guard. Thus it was that to touch a chicken belonging to the camp, or to another, was a vast crime. Once a man had been caught with a strangled hen in his hand and had been beaten to death by his captors. The authorities ruled it was justifiable homicide.

Peter Marlowe stood at the end of his run admiring the King’s hens. There were seven, plump and giants against all others. There was a cock within the run, the pride of the camp. His name was Sunset. His sperm grew fine sons and daughters and he could be had for stud by any. At a price: choice of litter.

Even the King’s hens were inviolate and guarded like the others.

Peter Marlowe watched Sunset nail a hen into the dust and mount her. The hen picked herself off the dust and ran about clucking and pecked another hen for good measure. Peter Marlowe despised himself for watching. He knew it was weakness. He knew he would think of N’ai and then his loins would ache.

He went back to the henhouse and checked to see that the lock was tight and left, holding the two eggs carefully all the way back to the bungalow.

“Peter, mon,” Mac grinned, “this is our lucky day!”

Peter Marlowe found the pack of Kooas and divided them into three piles. “We’ll draw for the other two.”

“You take them, Peter,” Larkin said.

“No, we’ll draw for them. Low card loses.”

Mac lost and pretended sourness. “Bad cess to it,” he said.

They carefully opened the cigarettes and put the tobacco in their boxes and mixed it with as much of the treated Java weed as they had. Then they split up their portions into four, and put the other three portions into another box and gave the boxes into Larkin’s keeping. To have so much tobacco at one time was a temptation.

Abruptly the heavens split and the deluge began.

Peter Marlowe took off his sarong, folded it carefully and put it on Mac’s bed.

Larkin said thoughtfully, “Peter. Watch your step with the King. He could be dangerous.”

“Of course. Don’t worry.” Peter Marlowe stepped out into the cloudburst. In a moment Mac and Larkin had stripped and followed him, joining the other naked men glorying in the torrent.