King Rat

The wind rustled the leaves. Crickets grated monotonously. Mosquitoes swarmed around them. Hut lights began to cast harsh shadows and the moon sailed in a velvet sky.

“Don’t worry, old chum,” Peter Marlowe said compassionately. “Everything’s going to be all right.” He did not flinch from the fear he saw in the King’s eyes.

“Is it?” the King said in torment.

“Yes.” Peter Marlowe hesitated. “You’re sorry it’s over, aren’t you?”

“Leave me alone. Goddammit, leave me alone!” the King shouted and turned away and sat on the coconut stump.

“You’ll be all right,” Peter Marlowe said. “And I’m your friend. Never forget it.” He reached out with his left hand and touched the King’s shoulder, and he felt the shoulder jerk away under his touch.

“’Night, old chum,” he said quietly. “See you tomorrow.” And miserably he walked away. Tomorrow, he promised himself, tomorrow I’ll be able to help him.

The King shifted on the coconut stump, glad to be alone, terrified by his loneliness.

Colonels Smedly-Taylor and Jones and Sellars were cleaning their plates.

“Magnificent!” Sellars said, licking the juice off his fingers.

Smedly-Taylor sucked the bone, though it was already quite clean. “Jones, my boy. I have to hand it to you.” He belched. “What a superb way to end the day. Delicious! Just like rabbit! A little stringy and somewhat tough, but delicious!”

“Haven’t enjoyed a meal so much in years,” Sellars chortled. “The meat’s a little greasy, but by Jove, just marvelous.” He glanced at Jones. “Can you get any more? One leg each isn’t very much!”

“Perhaps.” Jones picked up the last grain of rice delicately. His plate was dry and empty and he was feeling very full. “It was a bit of luck, wasn’t it?”

“Where did you get them?”

“Blakely told me about them. An Aussie was selling them.” Jones belched. “I bought all he had.” He glanced at Smedly-Taylor. “Lucky you had the money.”

Smedly-Taylor grunted. “Yes.” He opened a wallet and tossed three hundred and sixty dollars on the table. “There’s enough for another six. No need to stint ourselves, eh, gentlemen?”

Sellars looked at the notes. “If you had all this money hidden away, why didn’t you use a little months ago?”

“Why indeed?” Smedly-Taylor got up and stretched. “Because I was saving it for today! And that’s the end of it,” he added. His granite eyes locked on Sellars.

“Oh, come off it, man, I don’t want you to say anything. I just can’t understand how you managed to do it, that’s all.”

Jones smiled. “Must have been an inside job. I hear the King nearly had a heart attack!”

“What’s the King got to do with my money?” Smedly-Taylor asked.

“Nothing.” Jones began counting the money. There were, indeed, three hundred and sixty dollars, enough for twelve Rusa tikus haunches at thirty dollars each, which was their real price, not sixty dollars as Smedly-Taylor believed. Jones smiled to himself thinking that Smedly-Taylor could well afford to pay double, now that he had so much money. He wondered how Smedly-Taylor had managed to effect the theft, but he knew Smedly-Taylor was right to keep a tight rein on his secrets. Like the other three Rusa tikus. The ones that he and Blakely had cooked and eaten in secret this afternoon. Blakely had eaten one, he had eaten the other two. And the two added to the one he had just devoured was the reason that he was satiated. “My God,” he said, rubbing his stomach, “don’t think I could eat as much every day!”

“You’ll get used to it,” Sellars said. “I’m still hungry. Try and get some more, there’s a good chap.”

Smedly-Taylor said, “How about a rubber or two?”

“Admirable,” said Sellars. “Who’ll we get as a fourth?”

“Samson?”

Jones laughed. “I’ll bet he’d be very upset if he knew about the meat.”

“How long do you think it’ll take our fellows to come to Singapore?” Sellars asked, trying to conceal his anxiety.

Smedly-Taylor looked at Jones. “A few days. At the most a week. If the Japs here are really going to give in.”

“If they leave us the wireless, they mean to.”

“I hope so. My God, I hope so.”

They looked at one another, the goodness of the food forgotten, lost in the worry of the future.

“Nothing to worry about. It’s—it’s going to be all right,” Smedly-Taylor said, outwardly confident. But inside he was panicked, thinking of Maisie and his sons and daughter, wondering if they were alive.

Just before dawn a four-engined airplane roared over the camp. Whether it was Allied or Japanese no one knew, but at the first sound of the engines the men had been panic-stricken waiting for the expected bombs that would rain down. When the bombs did not fall and the airplane droned away, the panic built once more. Perhaps they’ve forgotten us—they’ll never come.

Ewart groped his way into the hut and shook Peter Marlowe awake. “Peter, there’s a rumor that the plane circled the airfield—that a man parachuted out of it!”

“Did you see it?”

“No.”

“Did you talk to anyone who did?”