King Rat

“You think there’s been a leak—someone sneaked?”

“Could be. Maybe just a coincidence.” The King bit his lip angrily.

“How about the latrine area?”

“Too risky.”

They waited. Then they saw Grey look once more over the fence towards them and walk away. They watched him until he rounded the jail wall.

“May be a phony,” the King said. “Give him a couple of minutes.”

The seconds were like hours as the sky lightened and the shadows began to dissolve. Now there was no one near the fence, no one in sight.

“Now or never, c’mon.”

They ran for the fence; in seconds they were under the wire and in the ditch.

“You go for the hut, Rajah. I’ll wait.”

“Okay.”

For all his size the King was light on his feet and he swiftly covered the distance to his hut. Peter Marlowe got out of the ditch. Something told him to sit on the edge looking out at the camp over the wire. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Grey turn the corner and stop. He knew he had been seen immediately.

“Marlowe.”

“Oh hello, Grey. Can’t you sleep either?” he said, stretching.

“How long have you been here?”

“Few minutes. I got tired of walking so I sat down.”

“Where’s your pal?”

“Who?”

“The American,” Grey sneered.

“I don’t know. Asleep, I suppose.”

Grey looked at the Chinese type outfit. The tunic was torn across the shoulders and wet with sweat. Mud and shreds of leaves on his stomach and knees. A streak of mud on his face.

“How did you get so dirty? And why are you sweating so much? What’re you up to?”

“I’m dirty because—there’s no harm in a little honest dirt. In fact,” Peter Marlowe said as he got up and brushed off his knees and the seat of his pants, “there is nothing like a little dirt to make a man feel clean when he washes it off. And I’m sweating because you’re sweating. You know, the tropics—heat and all that!”

“What have you got in your pockets?”

“Just because you’ve a suspicious beetle brain doesn’t mean that everyone is carrying contraband. There’s no law against walking the camp if you can’t sleep.”

“That’s right,” Grey replied, “but there is a law against walking outside the camp.”

Peter Marlowe studied him nonchalantly, not feeling nonchalant at all, trying to read what the hell Grey meant by that. Did he know? “A man’d be a fool to try that.”

“That’s right.” Grey looked at him long and hard. Then he wheeled around and walked away.

Peter Marlowe stared after him. Then he turned and walked in the other direction and did not look at the American hut. Today, Mac was due out of hospital. Peter Marlowe smiled, thinking of Mac’s welcome home present.

From the safety of his bed, the King watched Peter Marlowe go. Then he focused on Grey, the enemy, erect and malevolent in the growing light.

Skeletal thin, ragged pair of pants, crude native clogs, no shirt, his armband, his threadbare Tank beret. A ray of sunlight burned the Tank emblem in the beret, converting it from nothing into molten gold.

How much do you know, Grey, you son of a bitch? the King asked himself.

PART THREE

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was just after dawn.

Peter Marlowe lay on his bunk in half-sleep.

Was it a dream? he asked himself, suddenly awake. Then his cautious fingers touched the little piece of rag that held the condenser and he knew it was not a dream.

Ewart twisted in the top bunk and groaned awake.

“’Mahlu on the night,” he said as he hung his legs over the bunk.

Peter Marlowe remembered that it was his unit’s turn for the borehole detail. He walked out of the hut and prodded Larkin awake.

“Eh? Oh, Peter,” Larkin said, fighting out of sleep. “What’s up?”

It was hard for Peter Marlowe not to blurt out the news about the condenser, but he wanted to wait until Mac was there too, so he just said, “Borehole detail, old man.”

“My bloody oath! What, again?” Larkin stretched his aching back, retied his sarong and slipped on his clogs.

They found the net and the five-gallon container and walked through the camp, which was just beginning to stir. When they reached the latrine area they paid no heed to the occupants and the occupants paid no heed to them.

Larkin lifted the cover off a borehole, Peter Marlowe quickly scooped the sides with the net. When he brought the net out of the hole it was full of cockroaches. He shook the net clean into the container and scraped again. Another fine haul.

Larkin replaced the cover and they moved to the next hole.

“Hold the thing still,” Peter Marlowe said. “Now look what you did! I lost at least a hundred.”

“There’s plenty more,” Larkin said with distaste, getting a better grip on the container.

The smell was very bad but the harvest rich. Soon the container was packed. The smallest of the cockroaches measured an inch and a half. Larkin clamped the lid on the container and they walked up to the hospital.

“Not my idea of a steady diet,” Peter Marlowe said.

“You really ate them, Peter, in Java?”

“Of course. And so have you, by the way. In Changi.”

Larkin almost dropped the container. “What?”