King Rat

“Sit down, laddie. Unless you’ve something to do.”

“I’ve nothing to do.”

Mac testily switched to Malay. “Thou speakest truly? That ‘today’ meant nothing? The spirit of my father whispered that those who are young will take risks which even the devil would pass by.”

“It is written, the scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.”

Mac studied Peter Marlowe speculatively. Is he up to something? Something with the King? Well, he thought tiredly, Peter’s already in the radio-danger up over his head, and he did carry a third of it all the way from Java.

“I sense danger for thee,” he said at length.

“A bear can take the honey of hornets without danger. A spider can seek safely under rocks, for it knows where and how to seek.” Peter Marlowe kept his face bland. “Do not fear for me, Old One. I seek only under rocks.”

Mac nodded, satisfied. “Knowest thou my container?”

“Assuredly.”

“I believe it became sick when a raindrop squeezed through a hole in its sky and touched a thing and festered it like a fallen tree in the jungle. The thing is small, like a tiny snake, thin as an earthworm, short as a cockroach.” He groaned and stretched. “My back’s killing me,” he said in English. “Fix my pillow, will you, laddie?”

As Peter Marlowe bent down, Mac lifted himself and whispered in his ear, “A coupling condenser, three hundred microfarads.”

“That better?” Peter Marlowe asked as Mac settled back.

“Fine, laddie, a lot better. Now, be off with you. All that nonsense talk has tired me out.”

“You know it amuses you, you old bugger.”

“Less of the old, puki ’mahlu!”

“Senderis!” said Peter Marlowe, and he walked into the sun. A coupling condenser, three hundred microfarads. What the hell’s a microfarad?

He was windward of the garage and smelled the sweet gasoline-laden air, heavy with oil and grease. He squatted down beside the path on a patch of grass to enjoy the aroma. My God, he thought, the smell of petrol brings back memories. Planes and Gosport and Farnborough and eight other airfields and Spitfires and Hurricanes.

But I won’t think about them now, I’ll think about the wireless.

He changed his position and sat in the lotus seat, right foot on left thigh, left foot on right thigh, hands in his lap, knuckles touching and thumbs touching and fingers pointing to his navel. Many times he had sat thus. It helped him think, for once the initial pain had passed, there was a quietude pervading the body and the mind soared free.

He sat quietly and men passed by, hardly noticing him. There was nothing strange in seeing a man sitting thus in the heat of the noon sun, cinderburned, in a sarong. Nothing strange at all.

Now I know what has to be obtained. Somehow. There’s bound to be a wireless in the village. Villages are like magpies—they collect all sorts of things; and he laughed, remembering his village in Java.

He had found it, stumbling in the jungle, exhausted and lost, more dead than alive, far from the threads of road that crisscrossed Java. He had run many miles and the date was March 11. The island forces had capitulated on March 8, and the year was 1942. For three days he had wandered the jungle, eaten by bugs and flies and ripped by thorns and bloodsucked by leeches and soaked by rains. He had seen no one, heard no one since he had left the airfield north, the fighter ’drome at Bandung. He had left his squadron, what remained of it, and left his Hurricane. But before he had run away, he had made his dead airplane—twisted, broken by bomb and tracer—a funeral pyre. A man could do no less than cremate his friend.

When he came upon the village it was sunset. The Javanese who surrounded him were hostile. They did not touch him, but the anger in their faces was clear to see. They stared at him silently, and no one made a move to succor him.

“Can I have some food and water?” he had asked.

No answer.

Then he had seen the well and gone over to it, followed by angry eyes, and had drunk deep from it. Then he had sat down and had begun to wait.

The village was small, well hidden. It seemed quite rich. The houses, built around a square, were on stilts and made of bamboo and atap. And under the houses were many pigs and chickens. Near a larger house was a corral and in it were five water buffalo. That meant the village was well-to-do.

At length he was led to the house of the headman. The silent natives followed up the steps but did not enter the house. They sat on the veranda and listened and waited.

The headman was old, nut-brown and withered. And hostile. The house, like all their houses, was one large room partitioned by atap screens into small sections.

In the center of the section devoted to eating, talking, and thinking was a porcelain toilet bowl, complete with a seat and lid. There were no water connections and the toilet sat in a place of honor on a woven carpet. In front of the toilet bowl on another mat the headman sat on his haunches. His eyes were piercing.

“What do you want? Tuan!” and the “Tuan” was an accusation.