King Rat

  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 me 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.

  “Oh God,” Daven said deep within himself, “give me the peace of Thy courage. I’m so frightened and such a coward.”

  The King was doing the thing he liked most in all the world. He was counting a stack of brand-new notes. Profit from a sale.

  Turasan was politely holdin
g his flashlight, the beam carefully dimmed and focused on the table. They were in the “shop” as the King called it, just outside the American hut. Now from the canvas overhang, another piece of canvas fell neatly to the ground, screening the table and the benches from ever-present eyes. It was forbidden for guards and prisoners to trade, by Japanese—and therefore camp—order.

  The King wore his “outsmarted-in-a-deal” expression and counted grimly. “Okay,” the King sighed finally as the notes totaled five hundred. “Ichi-bon!”

  Turasan nodded. He was a small squat man with a flat moon face and a mouthful of gold teeth. His rifle leaned carelessly against the hut wall behind him. He picked up the Parker fountain pen and re-examined it carefully. The white spot was there. The nib was gold. He held the pen closer to the screened light and squinted to make sure, once more, that the 14 karat was etched into the nib.

  “Ichi-bon,” he grunted at length, and sucked air between his teeth. He too wore his “outsmarted-in-a-deal” expression, and he hid his pleasure. At five hundred Japanese dollars the pen was an excellent buy and he knew it would easily bring double that from the Chinese in Singapore.

  “You goddam ichi-bon trader,” the King said sullenly. “Next week, ichi-bon watch maybe. But no goddam wong, no trade. I got to make some wong.”

  “Too plenty wong,” Turasan said, nodding to the stack of notes. “Watch soon maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  Turasan offered his cigarettes. The King accepted one and let Turasan light it for him. Then Turasan sucked in his breath a last time and smiled his golden smile. He shouldered his rifle, bowed courteously and slipped away into the night.

  The King beamed as he finished his smoke. A good night’s work, he thought. Fifty bucks for the pen, a hundred and fifty to the man who faked the white spot and etched the nib: three hundred profit. That the color would fade off the nib within a week didn’t bother the King at all. He knew by that time Turasan would have sold it to a Chinese.

  The King climbed through the window of his hut. “Thanks, Max,” he said quietly, for most of the Americans in the hut were already asleep. “Here, you can quit now.” He peeled off two ten-dollar bills. “Give the other to Dino.” He did not usally pay his men so much for such a short work period. But tonight he was full of largess.

  “Gee, thanks.” Max hurried out and told Dino to relax, giving him a ten-dollar note.

  The King set the coffeepot on the hot plate. He stripped off his clothes, hung up his pants and put his shirt, underpants and socks in the dirty-laundry bag. He slipped on a clean sun-bleached loincloth and ducked under his mosquito net.

  While he waited for the water to boil, he indexed the day’s work. First the Ronson. He had beaten Major Barry down to five hundred and fifty, less fifty-five dollars, which was his ten percent commission, and had registered the lighter with Captain Brough as a “win in poker.” It was worth at least nine hundred, easy, so that had been a good deal. The way inflation is going, he thought, it’s wise to have the maximum amount of dough in merchandise.

  The King had launched the treated tobacco enterprise with a sales conference. It had gone according to plan. All the Americans had volunteered as salesmen, and the King’s Aussie and English contacts had bitched. But that was only normal. He had already arranged to buy twenty pounds of Java weed from Ah Lee, the Chinese who had the concession of the camp store, and he had got it at a good discount. An Aussie cookhouse had agreed to set one of their ovens aside daily for an hour, so the whole batch of tobacco could be cooked at one time under Tex’s supervision. Since all the men were working on percentage, the King’s only outlay was the cost of the tobacco. Tomorrow, the treated tobacco would be on sale. The way he had set it up, he would clear a hundred percent profit. Which was only fair.

  Now that the tobacco project was launched, the King was ready to tackle the diamond …

  The hiss of the bubbling coffeepot interrupted his contemplations. He slipped from under the mosquito net and unlocked the black box. He put three heaped spoons of coffee in the water and added a pinch of salt. As the water frothed, he took it off the stove and waited until it had subsided.

  The aroma of the coffee spilled through the hut, teasing the men still awake.

  “Jesus,” Max said involuntarily.

  “What’s the matter, Max?” the King said. “Can’t you sleep?”

  “No. Got too much on my mind. I been thinking. We can make one helluva deal outta that tobacco.”

  Tex shifted uneasily, soaring with the aroma. “That smell reminds me of wildcatting.”

  “How come?” The King poured in cold water to settle the grounds, then put a heaped spoonful of sugar into his mug and filled it.

  “Best part of drilling’s in the mornings. After a long sweaty night’s shift on the rig. When you set with your buddies over the first steaming pot of Java, ’bout dawn. An’ the coffee’s steamy hot and sweet, an’ at the same time a mite bitter. An’ maybe you look out through the maze of oil derricks at the sun rising over Texas.” There was a long sigh. “Man, that’s living.”

  “I’ve never been to Texas,” the King said. “Been all over but not Texas.”

  “That’s God’s country.”

  “You like a cup?”

  “You know it.” Tex was there with his mug. The King poured himself a second cup. Then he gave Tex half a cup.

  “Max?”

  Max got half a cup too. He drank the coffee quickly. “I’ll fix this for you in the morning,” he said, taking the pot with its bed of grounds.

  “Okay. ’Night, you guys.”

  The King slipped under the net once more and made sure it was tight and neat under the mattress. Then he lay back gratefully between the sheets. Across the hut he saw Max add some water to the coffee grounds and set it beside the bunk to marinate. He knew that Max would rebrew the grounds for breakfast. Personally the King never liked rebrewed coffee. Itwas too bitter. But the boys said it was fine. If Max wanted to rebrew it, great, he thought agreeably. The King did not approve of waste.

  He closed his eyes and turned his mind to the diamond. At last he knew who had it, how to get it, and now that luck had brought Peter Marlowe to him, he knew how the vastly complicated deal could be arranged.

  Once you know a man, the King told himself contentedly, know his Achilles heel, you know how to play him, how to work him into your plans. Yep, his hunch had paid off when he had first seen Peter Marlowe squatting Woglike in the dirt, chattering Malay. You got to play hunches in this world.

  Now, thinking about the talk he had had with Peter Marlowe after dusk roll call, the King felt the warmth of anticipation spread over him.

  “Nothing happens in this lousy dump,” the King had said innocently as they sat in the lee of the hut under a moonless sky.

  “That’s right,” Peter Marlowe said. “Sickening. One day’s just like the rest. Enough to drive you around the bend.”

  The King nodded. He squashed a mosquito. “I know a guy who has all the excitement he can use, and then some.”

  “Oh? What does he do?”

  “He goes through the wire. At night.”

  “My God. That’s asking for trouble. He must be mad!”

  But the King had seen the flicker of excitement in Peter Marlowe’s eyes. He waited in the silence, saying nothing.

  “Why does he do it?”

  “Most times, just for kicks.”

  “You mean excitement?”

  The King nodded.

  Peter Marlowe whistled softly. “I don’t think I’d have that amount of nerve.”

  “Sometimes this guy goes to the Malay village.”

  Peter Marlowe looked out of the wire, seeing in his mind the village that they all knew existed on the coast, three miles away. Once he had gone to the topmost cell in the jail and had clambered up to the tiny barred window. He had looked out and seen the panorama of jungle and the village, nestling the coast. There were ships in the waters that day. Fishing ships, and ene
my warships—big ones and little ones—set like islands in the glass of the sea. He had stared out, fascinated with the sea’s closeness, hanging to the bars until his hands and arms were tired. After resting awhile he was going to jump up and look out again. But he did not look again. Ever. It hurt too much. He had always lived near the sea. Away from it, he felt lost. Now he was near it again. But it was beyond touch.

  “Very dangerous to trust a whole village,” Peter Marlowe said.

  “Not if you know them.”

  “That’s right. This man really goes to the village?”

  “So he told me.”

  “I don’t think even Suliman would risk that.”

  “Who?”

  “Suliman. The Malay I was talking to. This afternoon.”

  “It seems more like a month ago,” the King said.

  “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “What the hell’s a guy like Suliman doing in this dump? Why didn’t he just take off when the war ended?”

  “He was caught in Java. Suliman was a rubber tapper on Mac’s plantation. Mac’s one of my unit. Well, Mac’s battalion, the Malayan Regiment, got out of Singapore and were sent to Java. When the war ended, Suliman had to stick with the battalion.”

  “Hell, he could’ve got lost. There are millions of them in Java…”

  “The Javanese would have recognized him instantly, and probably turned him in.”

  “What about the co-prosperity sphere yak? You know, Asia for the Asiatics?”

  “I’m afraid that doesn’t mean much. It didn’t do the Javanese much good, either. Not if they didn’t obey.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “In ’42, autumn of ’42, I was in a camp just outside Bandung,” Peter Marlowe said. “That’s up in the hills of Java, in the center of the island. At that time there were a lot of Ambonese, Menadonese and a number of Javanese with us—men who were in the Dutch army. Well, the camp was tough on the Javanese because many of them were from Bandung, and their wives and children were living just outside the wire. For a long time they used to slip out and spend the night, then get back into the camp before dawn. The camp was lightly guarded, so it was easy. Very dangerous for Europeans though, because the Javanese’d turn you over to the Japs and that’d be your lot. One day the Japs gave out an order that anyone caught outside would be shot. Of course the Javanese thought it applied to everyone except them—they had been told that in a couple of weeks they were all to go free anyway. One morning seven of them got caught. We were paraded the next day. The whole camp. The Javanese were put up against a wall and shot. Just like that, in front of us. The seven bodies were buried—with military honors—where they fell. Then the Japs made a little garden around the graves. They planted flowers and put a tiny white rope fence around the whole area and put up a sign in Malay, Japanese and English. It said, These men died for their country.”