Dead in the Dog

Tom had to agree, though his ever-present Geordie conscience nagged him later that night, as he lay in the chalet, listening to the chirp of the cicadas and the occasional screech of a monkey. This ‘emergency’ – for the Government stubbornly refused to call it a ‘war’ because of its effect on planter’s insurance premiums – was no fun for a hell of a lot of people. The previous day, he had taken blood samples from three very ill soldiers, young men like himself, called up for National Service, who had come in from a week’s patrol in the jungle. The lads had had to sleep in water in the swamps, contaminated by rat’s urine, which had infected them with the leptospirosis germ. It could be fatal, as could the many cases of malaria which he saw on blood-slides in the laboratory every day. Amoebic dysentery, hepatitis, scrub typhus, encephalitis and a host of other tropical nasties lurked to disable or even kill the vulnerable squaddies. Though the terrorist attacks seemed to have passed their zenith, there was always the danger of a road or rail ambush and the hand-to-hand combats in the ulu and the deep jungle still took its toll of young lives. As he lay listening to Alec snorting in his sleep, Tom thought that only a quirk of fate prevented him from being one of those lads with Weil’s disease. If he had not got his scholarship to medical school, he might well have been on that jungle patrol, instead of living well in an Officers’ Mess, able to have a romantic weekend with attractive nursing officers. With this philosophical guilt revolving in his head, he soon fell asleep, to dream of drizzle-soaked pavements and the corner chip shop in a cold and miserable Gateshead.

On Sunday, they arrived back at the hospital in the early evening, before darkness fell, as part of the road back from Lumut was in a ‘black area’ and was under curfew outside daylight hours. Tired from too much sun and exertion, they scattered to their messes and their rooms, to get washed and dressed for dinner.

In the RAMC Mess, most gravitated to the anteroom for a beer and a nostalgic chat about the weekend, to the annoyance of those who had had to stay behind and look after the hospital.

‘When’s the Old Man back?’ asked Percy.

Morris signed Number One’s chit for his Tiger before replying.

‘He’s coming up on the night train, but I’ll bet he’ll be holding Morning Prayers as usual, so don’t think of staying in bed.’

The discussion settled, as it often did, on to the colonel’s strange behaviour. Major Martin, the senior physician was there, as his wife had gone off to the Cameron Highlands for a week and he came to eat in the Mess. He seemed genuinely worried about the state of Desmond O’Neill’s mental health.

‘Damned difficult situation, with him outranking us all and being the CO,’ he said gravely. ‘But I think there’s something seriously amiss with him. If it was you behaving like that, Alf, I’d get the Command Psychiatrist up from Singapore and give you a going over!’

‘Why don’t you do a dummy run on Percy Loosemore?’ said Peter Bright acidulously, having suffered much from the dermatologist’s sarcastic humour about his personal affairs.

Clarence Bottomley’s languid accents cut off Percy’s retort.

‘Joan Parnell was telling me that Matron’s concerned about the colonel’s antics, too. It seems he’s been lurking around their mess and the QAOR’s billet at dead of night. When she tackled him about it, he claimed he was concerned about prowlers!’

‘And this business of the armoury is strange,’ cut in Tom Howden. ‘One of my Malay technicians came to me on Friday and asked if I could do anything about the postings. I was going to see you about it, Alf.’

The Administrative Officer grunted. ‘I already know the problem, Tom. What did your MOR want?’

‘He said that two of his pals, who had been on a lot of night duty at the arms kote, had suddenly been posted off to BMH Kamunting, though one had only come down from there two months ago. The other has a wife and kids living in the kampong near here and it was making life very difficult for them.’

‘What’s going on, Alf?’ asked Eddie Rosen. ‘You must have authorized the moves.’

Morris sighed. ‘I tried to put the colonel off, but he insisted. It was he who demanded that they went. I couldn’t get any proper explanation from him, just some blather about weapons security after all the recent trouble.’

John Martin shook his head sadly. ‘The man’s acting very oddly, especially since his wife went away. This business with the Quartermaster is another example, he seems to be getting more and more paranoid.’

As usual, Percy Loosemore seemed to have the best information about this particular problem.