King Rat

But Harold had a dream, a crazy, and sometimes Grace thought, an evil dream. To get out in the world, to see the world. And he had got his position in the Singapore Bank and they had left the Black Country with Bert’s curse on their heads and his promise of the evil that would befall them in the lands of the heathens.

The heritage that had kept the foreman alive in the black early death region protected her in the prison. The generations had implanted a stoicism deep within her. Wire hard of flesh, a sense of humor, a knowledge of the passing of bad times, and utter, utter strength of certainty that “we English’ll beat these little yellow bastards, come hell or high water and won’t that be a grand day!”

“Percy, leave your sister be,” she called out nasally. “Go to sleep.”

“Yes, Ma” the boy replied, twisting in the top bunk again and kicking his sister for good measure.

When Grace had settled the argument to the shrill chorus of “Keep those damned brats quiet, how are we going to get some sleep?” she settled back once more on the lower bunk and scratched patiently at the bedbug bites.

Singapore was very hot tonight. Very hot. And dusk had just settled. And little food today, and precious little tomorrow. But that doesn’t matter, she said to herself contentedly. We’ve stayed alive so far, and these little yellow buggers weren’t about to make her lose her mind like they had a lot of the women. Praise the Lord that Percy had got over his dysentery, and Alvira hadn’t had malaria for weeks now. She could just see herself telling old Bert when the war was over and they were back in England, with her drinking a foaming pint of stout with good cheese and the pickle bottle—oh how I miss good English pickled onions—open on the kitchen table.

“Now don’t take on, Dad” she’d be saying simply, telling the whole story. “It wasn’t so bad for me and Percy and Alvira. We got by with a bit of this and a bit of that.”

She wouldn’t tell him about the strange things they’d had to eat or the fever or the blood sickness or how some of the women had lain with the guards to get food, or how she had cursed herself that she wasn’t pretty but mousey and undesirable when Alvira had been sick unto death and she would have done anything to save her. But the sickness had passed and, all in all, Alvira was growing up to be quite a young lady. “Uv corse she’s short for ’er age, but that don’t count for nothing. I never did like the tall ones,” she’d say complacently.

Grace mentally tallied her gains—her losses.

Percy was all right. For six years old he was doing fine and the best thief in the camp. That’ll stand ’im in good stead when we get out. Alvira was a good ’un, too. Her with her little blue eyes and innocent expression and thin as a rake for her four years of life, she was the decoy. Yes, she thought happily, my kids are all right. They had worked out the system themselves, and my word, weren’t the little buggers proud when they came back with something. They knew every inch of the camp. All the dirty atap huts and the two streets of houses that were barb-wired off from the rest of Singapore which the women also lived in and were also part of the camp. And they were like two of the wogs, burnt and brown and they spoke the language so well, they were just like wogs themselves. Sometimes one of the native kids’d get near the wire and give them something and they’d bring it straight back to her. Honest, they were, and brought up to know what’s right and what isn’t. They always brought it straight back to her. Then she’d always divide it up and make sure that they got the most.

She was glad that she didn’t need much food. But oh my, what I wouldn’t do for a pickled onion and a huge slice of nice rich cheddar cheese and a bottle of stout and more pickled onions.

So the kids were healthy. And she was all right. Of course it wasn’t good when the fever came, but you get used to that, and then she knew that old Mrs. Donaldson, the one who looked after her hut, would look after the kids when she wasn’t up.

Feeling the surrounding women, bunks upon bunks, she decided that she hated women. At first it’d been almost fun, trying to get set in this new life jailed up. But the women with their aches and pains and hair and “lend me this and lend me that” and the screaming and tears and things that make women cry which don’t make men cry and most of the children. Having to guard your own at the expense of others. Oh well, that’s what we’ve had to do since the Garden of Eden.

On the loss side there was herself. She knew she had never been pretty, but now, with all the sores from some unknown bug or microbe, covering her, that was not good. And how her pretty gold hair had thinned and turned lank and gray and she was only thirty. Perhaps the doctors will put the sores away when we get out. Tropical sores. Horrid. But they’re sure to have a cure.