King Rat

Jones took out his cigarette box and began to roll a cigarette. “Would you like one?” he said, the boy face jowled and strangely sick and tentatively smiling.

“No thank you.” Grey hadn’t had a smoke for four days and he needed one.

“We can sort this out,” Jones said, his boyishness and good breeding returning. “Perhaps someone has tampered with the weights. But the amount is insignificant. I can easily get other weights, correct ones—”

“So you admit that they’re crooked?”

“I’m only saying, Grey—” Jones stopped. “Get out, Blakely. Wait outside.”

Immediately Blakely turned for the door.

“Stay where you are, Blakely,” Grey said. Then he glanced back at Jones, his manner deferential. “There’s no need for Blakely to go, is there, sir?”

Jones studied him through the smoke, then said, “No. Walls don’t have ears. All right. You’ll get a pound of rice a week.”

“Is that all?”

“We’ll make it two pounds per week, and half a pound of dried fish. Once a week.”

“No sugar? Or eggs?”

“They both go to the hospital, you know that.”

Jones waited and Grey waited and Blakely sobbed in the background. Then Grey began to leave, pocketing the weight.

“Grey, just a minute.” Jones took two eggs and offered them to him. “Here, you’ll get one a week, along with the rest of the supplies. And some sugar.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Colonel. I’m going to go down to Colonel Smedly-Taylor and tell him what you said and I’m going to show him the weights—and if there’s a borehole party, and I pray there will be one, I’m going to be there and I’m going to shove you down, but not too fast, because I want to see you die. I want to hear you scream and see you die, for a long time. Both of you.”

Then he went out of the hut into the sun, and the heat of the day hit him and the pain ripped through his insides. But he willed himself to walk and started slowly down the hill.

Jones and Blakely at the door of the supply hut watched him go. And both were terrified.

“Oh, Christ, sir, what’s going to happen?” Blakely whimpered. “They’ll string us up—”

Jones jerked him back into the hut, slammed the door and backhanded him viciously. “Shut up!”

Blakely was babbling on the floor and tears were streaming down his face, so Jones jerked him up and smashed him again.

“Don’t hit me, you’ve no right to hit—”

“Shut up and listen.” Jones shook him again. “Listen, damn you to hell. I’ve told you a thousand times to use the real weights on Grey’s inspection day, you bloody incompetent fool. Stop sniveling and listen. First, you’re to deny that anything was said. You understand? I made no offer to Grey, you understand?”

“But sir—”

“You’re to deny it, you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. We’ll both deny it and if you stick to the story I’ll get us out of this mess.”

“Can you? Can you, sir?”

“I can if you deny it. Next. You know nothing about the weights and neither do I. You understand?”

“But we’re the only ones—”

“You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Next. Nothing took place here except that Grey discovered the false weights and you and I were just as astonished. You understand?”

“But—”

“Now tell me what happened. God damn you, tell me!” Jones bellowed, towering over him.

“We—we were finishing the check, and then—then Grey fell against the weighing machine, and the weights got knocked over, and—and then we discovered the weights were false. Is that all right, sir?”

“What happened next?”

“Well, sir.” Blakely thought a moment, then his face lit up. “Grey asked us about the weights, and I’d never seen that they were false, and you were just as surprised. Then Grey left.”

Jones offered him some tobacco. “You’ve forgotten what Grey said. Don’t you remember? He said, ‘If you give me some extra rice, a pound a week, and an egg or two, I won’t report this.’ And then I told him to go to hell, that I would report the weights myself and would report him too, and I was beside myself with worry about the false weights. How did they get there? Who was the swine?”

Blakely’s little eyes filled with admiration. “Yes, sir, I remember distinctly. He asked for a pound of rice and an egg or two. Just like you said.”

“Then remember it, you stupid fool! If you’d used the right weights and held your tongue we wouldn’t be in this mess. Don’t you fail me again or I’ll put the blame on you. It’ll be your word against mine.”

“I won’t fail, sir, I promise—”

“It’s our word against Grey’s anyway. So don’t worry. If you keep your head and remember!”

“I won’t forget, sir, I won’t.”

“Good.” Jones locked the safe and the front door of the hut and left the area.

Jones is a sharp man, Blakely persuaded himself, he’ll get us out of this. Now that the shock of being discovered had worn off he was feeling safer. Yes, and Jones’ll have to save his own neck to save yours. Yes, Blakely my man, you’re smart yourself, smart to make sure you’ve got the goods on him, just in case of a double-cross.

Colonel Smedly-Taylor scrutinized the weight ponderously.