King Rat

There were courses in languages and art and engineering—for among the original hundred thousand men there was at least one man who knew any subject.

The knowledge of the world. A great opportunity. Broaden horizons. Learn a trade. Prepare for the utopia that would come to pass once the goddam war ended and things were back to normal. And the university was Athenian. No classrooms. Only a teacher who found a place in the shade and grouped his students around him.

But the prisoners of Changi were just ordinary men, so they sat on their butts and said, “Tomorrow I’ll join a class.” Or they joined and when they discovered that knowledge comes hard they would miss a class and another class and then they would say, “Tomorrow I’ll rejoin. Tomorrow I’ll start to become what I want to be afterwards. Mustn’t waste time. Tomorrow I’ll really start.”

But in Changi, as elsewhere, there was only today.

“You really want to join my class?” Vexley repeated incredulously.

“You sure we won’t be putting you to any trouble, sir?” the King asked cordially.

Vexley got up with quickening interest and made a space for them in the shade.

He was delighted to see new blood. And the King! My God, what a catch! The King in his class! Maybe he’ll have some cigarettes … “Delighted, my boy, delighted.” He shook the King’s extended hand warmly. “Squadron Leader Vexley!”

“Happy to know you, sir.”

“Flight Lieutenant Marlowe,” Peter Marlowe said as he also shook hands and sat down in the shade.

Vexley waited nervously till they were seated and absently pressed his thumb into the back of his hand, counting the seconds till the indentation in the skin slowly filled. Pellagra had its compensations, he thought. And thinking of skin and bone reminded him of whales and his pop-eye brightened. “Well, today I was going to talk about whales. Do you know about whales?—Ah,” he said ecstatically as the King brought out a pack of Kooas and offered him one. The King passed the pack around the whole class.

The four students accepted the cigarettes and moved to give the King and Peter Marlowe more space. They wondered what the hell the King was doing there, but they didn’t really care—he’d given them a real tailor-made cigarette.

Vexley started to continue his lecture on whales. He loved whales. He loved them to distraction.

“Whales are without a doubt the highest form that nature has aspired to,” he said, very pleased with the resonance of his voice. He noticed the King’s frown. “Did you have a question?” he asked eagerly.

“Well, yes. Whales are interesting, but what about rats?”

“I beg your pardon,” Vexley said politely.

“Very interesting what you were saying about whales, sir,” the King said. “I was just wondering about rats, that’s all.”

“What about rats?”

“I was just wondering if you knew anything about them,” the King said. He had a lot to do and didn’t want to screw around.

“What he means,” Peter Marlowe said quickly, “is that if whales are almost human in their reflexes, isn’t that true of rats, too?”

Vexley shook his head and said distastefully, “Rodents are entirely different. Now about whales…”

“How are they different?” asked the King.

“I cover the rodents in the spring seminar,” Vexley said testily. “Disgusting beasts. Nothing about them to like. Nothing. Now you take the sulphur-bottom whale,” Vexley hastily launched off again. “Ah, now there’s the giant of all whales. Over a hundred feet long and it can weigh as much as a hundred and fifty tons. The biggest creature alive—that has ever lived—on earth. The most powerful animal in existence. And its mating habits,” Vexley added quickly, for he knew that a discussion of the sex life always kept the class awake.

“Its mating is marvelous. The male begins his titillation by blowing glorious clouds of spray. He pounds the water with his tail near the female, who waits with patient lust on the ocean’s surface. Then he will dive deep and soar up, out of the water, huge, vast, enormous, and crash back with thundering flukes, churning the water into foam, pounding at the surface.” He dropped his voice sensuously. “Then he slides up to the female and starts tickling her with his flippers …”

In spite of his anxiety about rats, even the King began to listen attentively.

“Then he will break off the seduction and dive again, leaving the female panting on the surface—leaving her perhaps for good.” Vexley made a dramatic pause. “But no. He doesn’t leave her. He disappears for perhaps an hour, into the depths of the ocean, gathering strength, and then he soars up once more and bursts clear of the water and falls like a clap of thunder in a monstrous cloud of spray. He whirls over and over onto his mate, hugging her tight with both flippers and has his mighty will of her to exhaustion.”

Vexley was exhausted, too, at the magnificence of the spectacle of mating giants. Ah, to be so lucky as to witness it, to be there, an insignificant human …