King Rat

CHAPTER NINE

Six days later Max cornered a rat. In the American hut.

“Look at that son of a bitch,” the King gasped. “That’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen!”

“My God,” Peter Marlowe said. “Watch out it doesn’t bite your arm off!”

They were all surrounding the rat. Max was gloating, a bamboo broom in his hands. Tex had a baseball bat, Peter Marlowe another broom. The rest wielded sticks and knives.

Only the King was unarmed, but his eyes were on the rat and he was ready to jump out of the way. He had been in his corner, chatting with Peter Marlowe, when Max first shouted, and he had leaped up with the others. It was just after the breakfast.

“Look out!” he shouted as he anticipated the rat’s sudden dash for freedom.

Max swiped at it savagely and missed. Another broom caught it a glancing blow, turning it on its back for an instant. But the rat whirled to its feet and ran back into the corner and turned, hissing and spitting and working its lips from its needle teeth.

“Jesus,” said the King. “Thought the bastard got away that time.”

The rat was nearly a hairy foot long. Its tail was another foot in length and as thick at the base as a man’s thumb and hairless. Small beady eyes darting left and right seeking escape. Brown and dirt-obscene. Head tapering to a sharp muzzle, mouth narrow, large — very large — incisor teeth. Total weight near two pounds. Vicious and very dangerous.

Max was breathing hard from the exertion and his eyes were on the rat. “Chrissake,” he spat, “I hate rats. I hate even looking at it. Let’s kill it. Ready?”

“Wait a second, Max,” the King said. “There’s no hurry. It can’t get away now. I want to see what it does.”

“It’ll make another break, that’s what,” Max said.

“So we’ll stop it. What’s the hurry?” The King looked back at the rat and grinned. “You’re clobbered, you son of a bitch. Dead.”

Almost as though the rat understood, it made a dart at the King, teeth bared. Only the wild flurry of blows and shouts drove it back again.

“That bastard’d tear you to pieces if it got its teeth in you,” the King said. “Never knew they’d be so fast.”

“Hey,” Tex said. “Maybe we should keep it.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“We could keep it. A mascot maybe. Or when we had nothing to do, we could let it out and chase it.”

“Hey, Tex,” said Dino. “Maybe you got something there. You mean like they did in the old days. With foxes?”

“That’s a lousy idea,” said the King. “It’s okay to kill the bastard. No need to torture it, even if it is a rat. It never did you any harm.”

“Maybe. But rats’re vermin. They got no right to be alive.”

“Sure they have,” said the King. “If it wasn’t for them, well, they’re scavengers, like microbes. Weren’t for rats, why the whole world’d be a stink-pile.”

“Hell,” Tex said. “Rats ruin the crops. Maybe this’s the bastard that ate the bottom out of the rice sack. Its belly’s big enough.”

“Yeah,” Max said malevolently. “They got away with near thirty pounds one night.”

Again the rat stabbed for freedom. It broke the circle and fled down the hut. Only through luck was it cornered again. Once more the men surrounded it.

“We’d better finish it off. Next time we mayn’t be so lucky,” wheezed the King. Then suddenly he had an inspiration. “Wait a minute,” he said as they all began to close on the corner.

“What?”

“I got an idea.” He whipped around to Tex. “Get a blanket. Quick.”

Tex jumped for his bed and ripped off the blanket.

“Now,” the King said, “you and Max get the blanket and trap the rat.”

“Huh?”

“I want it alive. Come on, get the lead out,” the King snapped.

“With my blanket? You crazy? It’s the only one I got!”

“I’ll get you another. Just catch the bastard.”

They all gawked at the King. Then Tex shrugged. He and Max took hold of the blanket, using it as a screen, and began to converge on the corner. The others held their brooms ready to make sure the rat would not escape around the edges. Then Tex and Max made a sudden dive and the rat was caught in the folds of the material. Its teeth and claws ripped for an escape, but in the uproar Max rolled the blanket up and the blanket became a squirming ball. The men were excited and shouting at the capture.

“Keep it quiet,” the King ordered. “Max, you hold it. And make sure it doesn’t get out. Tex, put on the Java. We’ll all have some coffee.”

“What’s this idea?” Peter Marlowe asked.

“It’s too good to let out, just like that. We’ll have the coffee first.”

While they were drinking their coffee, the King stood up. “All right, you guys. Now listen. We’ve got a rat, right?”

“So?” Miller was perplexed as they all were.

“We’ve no food, right?”

“Sure, but — ”

“Oh my God,” Peter Marlowe said aghast. “You don’t mean you’re suggesting we eat it?”

“Of course not,” the King said. Then he beamed seraphically. “We’re not going to. But there’re plenty who’d like to buy some meat — ”

“Rat meat?” Byron Jones III’s eye popped majestically.

“You’re outta your mind. You think someone’d buy rat meat? Course they wouldn’t,” Miller said impatiently.

“Of course no one’ll buy the meat if they know it’s rat. But say they don’t know, huh?” The King let the words settle, then continued benignly, “Say we don’t tell anyone. The meat’ll look like any other meat. We’ll say it’s rabbit — ”

“There aren’t any rabbits in Malaya, old chap,” Peter Marlowe said.

“Well, think of an animal that is, about the same size.”

“I suppose,” Peter Marlowe said after a moment’s reflection, “that you could call it squirrel — or, I know,” he brightened. “Deer. That’s it, deer — ”

“For Chrissake, a deer’s much bigger,” Max said, still holding the squirming blanket. “I shot one up in the Alleghenies — ”

“I don’t mean that type of deer. I mean Rusa tikus. They’re tiny, about eight inches high and weigh perhaps a couple of pounds. About the size of the rat. The natives consider them a delicacy.” He laughed. “Rusa tikus translated means ‘mouse deer.’”

The King rubbed his hands, delighted. “Very good, old chap!” He looked around the room. “We’ll sell Rusa tikus haunches. And that ain’t gonna be a lie either.”

They all laughed.

“Now we’ve had the laugh, let’s kill the goddam rat and sell the goddam legs,” Max said. “The bastard’s gonna get out any minute. And I’m goddamned if I’m gonna get bit.”

“We got one rat,” the King said ignoring him. “All we’ve got to do is find out if it’s a male or female. Then we get the opposite one. We put ’em together. Presto, we’re in business.”

“Business?” Tex said.

“Sure.” The King looked around happily. “Men, we’re in the breeding business. We’re going to make us a rat farm. With the dough we make, we’ll buy chicken — and the peasants can eat the tikus. So long as no one opens his goddam mouth, it’s a natural.”

There was an appalled silence. Then Tex said weakly: “But where we gonna keep the rats while they’re breeding?”

“In the slit trench. Where else?”

“But say there’s an air raid. We might wanna use the trench.”

“We’ll fence off one end. Just enough to keep the rats in.” The King’s eyes sparkled. “Just think. Fifty of these big bastards a week to sell. Why, we’ve got a gold mine. You know the old saying, breed like rats…”

“How often do they breed?” Miller asked, absently scratching his pelt.

“I don’t know. Anybody know?” The King waited, but they all shook their heads. “Where the hell we gonna find out about their habits?”

“I know,” Peter Marlowe said. “Vexley’s class.”

“Huh?”

“Vexley’s class. He teaches botany, zoology, that sort of thing. We could ask him.”

They looked at one another thoughtfully. Then suddenly they began to cheer. Max almost dropped the fighting blanket amid cries of “Mind the gold, you clumsy bastard,” “Don’t let go, for Pete’s sake,” “Watch it, Max!”

“All right, I got the bastard.” Max drowned out the catcalls, then nodded at Peter Marlowe.

“For an officer, you’re all right. So we’ll go to school.”

“Oh no you won’t,” said the King crisply. “You got work to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like liberate another rat. Whichever sex this one isn’t. Peter and I’ll get the info. Now let’s get with it!”

Tex and Byron Jones III prepared the slit trench. It was directly under the hut, six feet deep, four feet wide and thirty feet long.

“Great,” Tex said excitedly. “Room for a thousand of the bastards!”

It took them a few minutes to devise an efficient gate. Tex went to steal chicken wire while Byron Jones III went to steal wood. Jones grinned as he remembered some fine pieces belonging to a bunch of Limeys who weren’t too careful about guarding it, and by the time Tex returned, he had the framework already made. Nails came from the roof of the hut, the hammer had also been “borrowed” from some careless mechanic up in the garage months ago, along with wrenches, screwdrivers, and a lot of useful things.

Once the gate was in position and neat, Tex fetched the King.

“Good,” the King said as he inspected it. “Very good.”

“Damned if I know how you do it,” Peter Marlowe said. “You work so fast.”

“You got something to do, you do it. That’s American style.” The King nodded for Tex to get Max.

Max crawled under the hut to join them. He gingerly dropped the rat into its section. The rat whirled and frantically sought an escape. When there was none to be found, it backed into a corner and hissed at them violently.

“It looks healthy enough,” the King grinned.

“Hey, we got to give it a name,” Tex said.

“That’s easy. It’s Adam.”

“Yeah, but say it’s a girl.”

“Then it’s Eve.” The King crawled from under the hut. “Come on, Peter, let’s get with it.”

Squadron Leader Vexley’s class had already begun when at length they tracked him down.

“Yes?” asked Vexley, astonished to see the King and a young officer standing near the hut in the sun, watching him.

“We thought,” began Peter Marlowe self-consciously, “we thought we might, er, join the class. If, of course, we’re not interrupting,” he added quickly.

“Join the class?” Vexley was bewildered. He was a bleak, one-eyed man with a face of stretched parchment, mottled and scarred by the flames of his final bomber. His class had only four pupils and they were idiots who had no interest in his subject. He knew that he only continued the class as a sop to indecision; it was easier to pretend that it was a success than to stop. In the beginning he had been enthusiastic, but now he knew it was a pretense. And if he stopped the class he would have no purpose in life.

A long time ago the camp had started a university. The University of Changi. Classes were organized. The Brass had ordered it. “Good for the troops,” they had said. “Give them something to do. Make them better themselves. Force them to be busy, then they won’t get into trouble.”

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 …

He rushed on: “Mating takes place about July, in warm waters. The baby weighs five tons at birth and is about thirty feet long.” His laugh was practiced. “Think of that.” There were polite smiles, and then Vexley came in with the clincher, always good for a deep chuckle. “And if you think of that and the size of the calf, just think about the whale’s jolly old John Thomas, what?” Again there were courteous smiles — the regular members had heard the story many times.

Vexley went on to describe how the calf is nursed for seven months by the mother, who supplies the calf with milk from two monstrous teats toward the ass end of her underside. “As you can no doubt imagine,” he said ecstatically, “prolonged suckling underwater has its problems.”

“Do rats suckle their young?” The King jumped in quickly.

“Yes,” the squadron leader said miserably. “Now about ambergris…”

The King sighed, beaten, and listened to Vexley expound about ambergris and sperm whales and toothed whales and white whales and goose-beaked whales and pygmy whales and beaked whales and narwhales and killer whales and humpback whales and bottle-nosed whales and whalebone whales and gray whales and right whales and finally bowhead whales. By this time all the class except Peter Marlowe and the King had left. When Vexley had finished, the King said simply:

“I want to know about rats.”

Vexley groaned. “Rats?”

“Have a cigarette,” said the King benignly.

CHAPTER TEN

“All right, you guys, sort yourselves out,” the King said. He waited until there was quiet in the hut and the lookout at the doorway was in position. “We got problems.”

“Grey?” asked Max.

“No. It’s about our farm.” The King turned to Peter Marlowe, who was sitting on the edge of a bed. “You tell ’em, Peter.”

“Well,” began Peter Marlowe, “it seems that rats — ”

“Tell ’em it from the beginning.”

“All of it?”

“Sure. Spread the knowledge, then we can all figure angles.”

“All right. Well, we found Vexley. He told us, quote: ‘The Rattus norvegicus, or Norwegian rat — sometimes called the Mus decumanus — ’”

“What sort of talk is that?” Max asked.

“Latin, for Chrissake. Any fool knows that,” Tex said.

“You know Latin, Tex?” Max gaped at him.

“Hell no, but those crazy names’re always Latin — ”

“For Chrissake, you guys,” the King said. “You want to know or don’t you?” Then he nodded for Peter Marlowe to continue.

“Well, anyway, Vexley described them in detail, hairy, no hair on the tail, weight up to four pounds, the usual is about two pounds in this part of the world. Rats mate promiscuously at any time — ”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“The male’ll screw any female irrespective,” the King said impatiently, “and there ain’t no season.”

“Just like us, you mean?” Jones said agreeably.

“Yes. I suppose so,” said Peter Marlowe. “Anyway, the male rat will mate at any season and the female can have up to twelve litters per year, around twelve per litter, but perhaps as many as fourteen. The young are born blind and helpless twenty-two days after — contact.” He picked the word delicately. “The young open their eyes after fourteen to seventeen days and become sexually mature in two months. They cease breeding at about two years and are old at three years.”

“Holy cow!” Max said delightedly in the awed silence. “We sure as hell’ve problems. Why, if the young’ll breed in two months, and we get twelve — say for round figures ten a litter — figure it for yourself. Say we get ten young on Day One. Another ten on Day Thirty. By Day Sixty the first five pair’ve bred, and we get fifty. Day Ninety we got another five pairs breeding and another fifty. Day One-twenty, we got two-fifty plus another fifty and another fifty and a new batch of two-fifty. For Chrissake, that makes six-fifty in five months. The next month we got near six thousand five hundred — ”

“Jesus, we got us a gold mine!” Miller said, scratching furiously.

“The hell we have,” the King said. “Not without some figuring. Number one, we can’t put ’em all together. They’re cannibals. That means we got to separate the males and females except when we’re mating them. Another thing, they’ll fight among themselves, all the time. So that means separating males from males and females from females.”

“So we separate them. What’s so tough about that?”

“Nothing, Max,” said the King patiently. “But we got to have cages and get the thing organized. It isn’t going to be easy.”

“Hell,” Tex said. “We can build a stock of cages, no sweat in that.”

“You think, Tex, we can keep the farm quiet? While we’re building up the stock?”

“Don’t see why not!”

“Oh, another thing,” the King said. He was feeling pleased with the men and more than pleased with the scheme. It was a business after his own heart — nothing to do except wait. “They’ll eat anything, alive or dead. Anything. So we’ve no logistics problem.”

“But they’re filthy creatures and they’ll stink to the skies,” Byron Jones III said. “We’ve enough stench around here as it is without putting more under our own hut. And rats are also plague carriers!”

“Maybe that’s a special type of rat, like a special mosquito carries malaria,” Dino said hopefully, his dark eyes roving the men.

“Rats can carry plague, sure,” the King said, shrugging. “And they carry a lot of human diseases. But that don’t mean nothing. We got a fortune in the making and all you bastards do is figure negatives! It’s un-American!”

“Well, Jesus, this plague bit. How do we know if they’ll be clean or not?” Miller said queasily.

The King laughed. “We asked Vexley that an’ he said, quote, ‘You’d find out soon enough. You’d be dead.’ Un-quote. Hell, it’s just like chickens. Keep ’em clean and feed ’em good and you got good stock! Nothing to worry about.”

So they talked about the farm, its dangers and its potentials — and they could all appreciate the potentials — provided they didn’t have to eat the produce — and they discussed the problems connected with such a large-scale operation. Then Kurt came into the hut and in his hands was a squirming blanket.

“I got another,” he said sourly.

“You have?”

“Sure I have. While you bastards’re talkin’ I’m out doin’. It’s a bitch.” Kurt spat on the floor.

“How do you know?”

“I looked. I seed enough rats in the Merchant Marine to know. An’ the other’s a male. An’ I looked too.”

They all climbed under the hut and watched Kurt put Eve into the trench. Immediately the two rats stuck together viciously, and the men were hard put not to cheer. The first litter was on its way. The men voted that Kurt was to be in charge and Kurt was happy.

That way he knew he would get his share. Sure he’d look after the rats. Food was food. Kurt knew he was going to survive if any bastard did.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Twenty-two days later Eve gave birth. In the next cage, Adam tore at the wire netting to get at the living food and almost got through, but Tex spotted the rent just in time. Eve suckled the young. There were Cain and Abel and Grey and Alliluha; Beulah and Mabel and Junt and Princess and Little Princess and Big Mabel and Big Junt and Big Beulah. Naming the males was easy. But none of the men wanted their girls’ names or their sisters’ or their mothers’ names attached to the females. Even mother-in-law names were some other man’s passion or relation of the past. It had taken them three days to agree on Beulah and Mabel.

When the young were fifteen days old, they were put into separate cages. The King, Peter Marlowe, Tex and Max gave Eve until noon to recover, then put her back with Adam. The second litter was launched.

“Peter,” the King said benignly as they climbed through the trapdoor into the hut, “our fortune’s made.”

The King had decided on the trapdoor because he knew that so many trips under the hut would excite curiosity. It was vital to the success of the farm that it should remain secret. Even Mac and Larkin knew nothing about it.

“Where’s everyone today?” Peter Marlowe asked, closing the trapdoor. Only Max was in the hut, lying on his bunk.

“Poor slobs got caught for a work party. Tex’s in hospital. The rest are out liberating.”

“Think I’ll go and liberate too. Give me something to think about.”

The King lowered his voice. “I got something for you to think about. Tomorrow night we’re going to the village.” Then he yelled to Max, “Hey Max, you know Prouty? The Aussie major? Up in Hut Eleven?”

“The old guy? Sure.”

“He’s not old. Can’t be more’n forty.”

“From where I’m at forty’s old as God. It’ll take me eighteen years to get that old.”

“You should be so lucky,” the King said. “Go see Prouty. Tell him I sent you.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Just go see him. And make sure Grey isn’t around — or any of his eyes.”

“On my way,” Max said reluctantly and left them alone.

Peter Marlowe was looking over the wire, seeking to the coast. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d changed your mind.”

“About taking you along?”

“Yes.”

“No need for you to worry, Peter.” The King got out the coffee and handed a mug to Peter Marlowe. “You want to have lunch with me?”

“I don’t know how the hell you do it,” Peter Marlowe grunted. “Everyone’s starving and you invite me to lunch.”

“I’m having some katchang idju.”

The King unlocked his black chest and took out the sack of little green beans and handed them to Peter Marlowe. “You like to fix them?”

As Peter Marlowe took them out to the tap to begin washing them, the King opened a can of bully and carefully eased the contents onto a plate.

Peter Marlowe came back with the beans. They were well washed and no husks floated in the clean water. Good, the King thought. Don’t have to tell Peter twice. And the aluminum container had exactly the right amount of water — six times the height of the beans.

He set it on the hot plate and added a large spoonful of sugar and two pinches of salt. Then he added half the can of bully. “Is it your birthday?” Peter Marlowe asked.

“Huh?”

“Katchang idju and bully, in one meal?”

“You just don’t live right.”

Peter Marlowe was tantalized by the aroma and the bubble of the stew. The last weeks had been rough. The discovery of the radio had hurt the camp. The Japanese Commandant had “regretfully” cut the camp’s rations due to “bad harvests,” so even the tiny desperation stocks of the units had gone. Miraculously, there had been no other repercussions. Except the cut in food.

In Peter Marlowe’s unit, the cut had hit Mac the worst. The cut and the uselessness of their water-bottled radio.

“Dammit,” Mac had sworn after weeks of trying to trace the trouble. “It’s nae use, laddies. Without taking the bleeding thing apart I canna do a thing. Everything seems correct. Without some tools an’ a battery of sorts, I canna find the fault.”

Then Larkin had somehow acquired a tiny battery and Mac had gathered his waning strength and gone back to testing, checking and rechecking. Yesterday, while he was testing, he had gasped and fainted, deep in a malarial coma. Peter Marlowe and Larkin had carried him up to the hospital and laid him on a bed. The doctor had said that it was just malaria, but with such a spleen, it could easily become very dangerous.

“What’s a matter, Peter?” the King asked, noticing his sudden gravity.

“Just thinking about Mac.”

“What about him?”

“We had to take him up to the hospital yesterday. He’s not so hot.”

“Malaria?”

“Mostly.”

“Huh?”

“Well, he’s got fever all right. But that’s not the main trouble. He goes through periods of terrible depression. Worry — about his wife and son.”

“All married guys’ve the same sweat.”

“Not quite like Mac,” Peter Marlowe said sadly. “You see, just before the Japs landed on Singapore, Mac put his wife and son on a ship in the last real convoy out. Then he and his unit took off for Java in a coastal junk. When he got to Java he heard the whole convoy had got shot out of the water or captured. No proof either way — only rumors. So he doesn’t know if they got through. Or if they’re dead. Or if they’re alive. And if they are — where they are. His son was just a baby — only four months old.”

“Well, now the kid’s three years and four months,” the King said confidently. “Rule Two: Don’t worry about nothing you can’t do nothing about.” He took a bottle of quinine out of his black box and counted out twenty tablets and gave them to Peter Marlowe. “Here. These’ll fix his malaria.”

“But what about you?”

“Got plenty. Think nothing of it.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so generous. You give us food and medicine. And what do we give you? Nothing. I don’t understand it.”

“You’re a friend.”

“Christ, I feel embarrassed accepting so much.”

“Hell with it. Here.” The King began spooning out the stew. Seven spoons for him and seven spoons for Peter Marlowe. There was about a quarter of the stew left in the mess can.

They ate the first three spoons quickly to allay the hunger, then finished the rest slowly, savoring its excellence.

“Want some more?” The King waited. How well do I know you, Peter? I know you could eat a ton more. But you won’t. Not if your life depended on it.

“No thanks. Full. To the brim.”

It’s good to know your friend, the King thought to himself. You’ve got to be careful. He took another spoonful. Not because he wanted it. He felt he had to or Peter Marlowe would be embarrassed. He ate it and put the rest aside.

“Fix me a smoke, will you?”

He tossed over the makings and turned away. He put the rest of the bully in the remains of the stew and mixed it up. Then he divided this into two mess kits and covered them and set them aside.

Peter Marlowe handed him the rolled cigarette.

“Make yourself one,” said the King.

“Thanks.”

“Jesus, Peter, don’t wait to be asked. Here, fill your box.”

He took the box out of Peter Marlowe’s hands and stuffed it full of the Three Kings tobacco.

“What’re you going to do about Three Kings? With Tex in hospital?” asked Peter Marlowe.

“Nothing.” The King exhaled. “That idea’s milked. The Aussies have found out the process and they’ve undercut us.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. How do you think they found out?”

The King smiled. “It was an in and out anyway.”

“I don’t understand.”

“In and out? You get in and out fast. A small investment for a quick profit. I was covered in the first two weeks.”

“But you said it would take you months to get back the money you put out.”

“That was a sales pitch. That was for outside consumption. A sales pitch is a gimmick. A way of making people believe something. People always want something for nothing. So you have to make ’em believe they’re stealing from you, that you’re the sucker, that they — the buyers — are a helluva lot smarter than you. For example. Three Kings. The sales force, the first buyers, believed they were in my debt, they believed that if they worked hard for the first month, they could be my partners and coast forever after — on my money. They thought I was a fool to give them such a break after the first month. But I knew that the process would leak and that the business wouldn’t last.”

“How did you know that?”

“Obvious. And I planned it that way. I leaked the process myself.”

“You what?”

“Sure. I traded the process for a little information.”

“Well, I can understand that. It was yours to do as you pleased. But what about all the people who were working, selling the tobacco?”

“What about them?”

“It seems that you sort of took advantage of them. You made them work for a month, more or less for nothing, and then pulled the rug from under them.”

“The hell I did. They made a few bucks out of it. They were playing me for a sucker and I just outsmarted them, that’s all. That’s business.” He lay back on the bed, amused at the näiveté of Peter Marlowe.

Peter Marlowe frowned, trying to understand. “When anyone starts talking about business, I’m afraid I’m right out of my depth,” he said. “I feel such an idiot.”

“Listen. Before you’re very much older, you’ll be horse-trading with the best of them.” The King laughed.

“I doubt that.”

“You doing anything tonight? Oh, about an hour after dusk?”

“No, why?”

“Would you interpret for me?”

“Gladly. Who, a Malay?”

“A Korean.”

“Oh!” Then Peter Marlowe added, covering at once, “Certainly.”

The King had marked Peter Marlowe’s aversion but didn’t mind. A man’s a right to his opinions, he’d always said. And so long as those opinions didn’t conflict with his own purposes, well, that was all right too.

Max entered the hut and crumpled on his bunk. “Couldn’t find the son of a bitch for a goddam hour. Then I tracked him down in the vegetable patch. Jesus, with all that piss they use for fertilizer, that son-of-a-bitching place stinks like a Harlem brothel on a summer’s day.”

“You’re just the sort of bastard who’d use a Harlem brothel.”

The King’s snarl and the raw grate of his voice startled Peter Marlowe.

Max’s smile and fatigue vanished just as suddenly. “Jesus, I didn’t mean anything. It’s just a saying.”

“Then why pick on Harlem? You wanna say it stinks like a brothel, great. They all stink the same. No difference because one’s black and another’s white.” The King was hard and mean and the flesh on his face was tight and masklike.

“Take it easy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothin’.”

Max had forgotten that the King was touchy about talking crossways about Negroes. Jesus, when you live in New York, you got Harlem with you, whichever way you look at it. And there are brothels there, an’ a piece of colored tail’s goddam good once in a while. All the same, he thought bitterly, I’m goddamned if I know why he’s so goddam touchy about nigs.

“I didn’t mean nothin’,” Max said again, trying hard to keep his eyes off the food. He had smelled it all the way up to the hut. “I tracked him down and tol’ him what you said.”

“So?”

“He, er, gave me something for you,” Max said and looked at Peter Marlowe.

“Well, hand it over for Chrissake!”

Max waited patiently while the King looked at the watch closely, wound it up and held it close to his ear.

“What do you want, Max?”

“Nothin’. Er, you like me to wash up for you?”

“Yeah. Do that, then get to hell out of here.”

“Sure.”

Max collected the dirty dishes and meekly took them outside, telling himself by Jesus one day he’d get the King. Peter Marlowe said nothing. Strange, he thought. Strange and wild. The King’s got a temper. A temper is valuable but most times dangerous. If you go on a mission it’s important to know the value of your wing-man. On a hairy mission, like the village, perhaps, it’s wise to be sure who guards your back.

The King carefully unscrewed the back of the watch. It was a waterproof, stainless steel.

“Uh-huh!” the King said. “I thought so.”

“What?”

“It’s a phony. Look.”

Peter Marlowe examined the watch carefully. “It looks all right to me.”

“Sure it is. But it’s not what it’s supposed to be. An Omega. The case is good but the insides are old. Some bastard has substituted the guts.”

The King screwed the case back on, then tossed it up in his hand speculatively. “Y’see, Peter. Just what I was telling you. You got to be careful. Now, say I sell this as an Omega and don’t know it’s a fake, then I could be in real trouble. But so long as I know in advance, then I can cover myself. You can’t be too careful.”

He smiled. “Let’s have another cup of Joe, business is looking up.”

His smile faded as Max returned with the cleaned mess cans and put them away. Max didn’t say anything, just nodded obsequiously and then went out again.

“Son of a bitch,” the King said.

Grey had not yet recovered from the day Yoshima had found the radio. As he walked up the broken path towards the supply hut he brooded about the new duties imposed on him by the Camp Commandant in front of Yoshima and later elaborated by Colonel Smedly-Taylor. Grey knew that although officially he was to carry out the new orders, actually he was to keep his eyes shut and do nothing. Mother of God, he thought, whatever I do, I’m wrong.

Grey felt a spasm building in his stomach. He stopped as it came and passed. It wasn’t dysentery, only diarrhea; and the slight fever on him wasn’t malaria, only a touch of dengue, a slighter but more insidious fever which came and went by whim. He was very hungry. He had no stocks of food, no last can and no money to buy any with. He had to subsist on rations with no extras, and the rations were not enough, not enough.

When I get out, he thought, I swear by God that I’ll never be hungry again. I’ll have a thousand eggs and a ton of meat and sugar and coffee and tea and fish. We’ll cook all day, Trina and I, and when we’re not cooking or eating we’ll be making love. Love? No, just making pain. Trina, that bitch, with her “I’m too tired” or “I’ve got a headache” or “For the love of God, what, again?” or “All right, I suppose I’ll have to” or “We can make love now, if you want to” or “Can’t you leave me in peace for once,” when it wasn’t so often and most times he had restrained himself and suffered, or the angry “Oh, all right,” and then the light would be snapped on and she would get out of bed and storm off to the bathroom to “get ready” and he would only see the glory of her body through the sheer fabric until the door had closed and then he would wait and wait and wait until the bathroom light was snapped off and she came back into their room. It always took an eternity for her to cross from the door to the bed and he saw only the pure beauty of her under the silk and felt only the cold in her eyes as she watched him and he could not meet her eyes and loathed himself. Then she would be beside him and soon it would be silently over and she would get up and go to the bathroom and clean herself as though his love was dirt, and the water would run and when she came back she would be freshly perfumed and he loathed himself afresh, unsatisfied, for taking her when she didn’t want to be taken. It had always been thus. In their six months of married life — twenty-one days of leave, being together — they had made pain nine times. And never once had he touched her.

He had asked her to marry him a week after he had met her. There had been difficulties and recriminations. Her mother hated him for wanting her only daughter just when her career was launched and she was so young. Only eighteen. His parents said wait, the war may be over soon and you’ve no money and, well, she’s not exactly from a good family, and he had looked around his home, a tired building joined to a thousand other tired buildings amid the twisted tramlines of Streatham, and he saw that the rooms were small and the minds of his parents were small and lower class and their love was twisted like the tramlines.

They were married a month later. Grey looked smart in his uniform and sword (hired by the hour). Trina’s mother didn’t come to the drab ceremony, performed in haste between air raid alerts. His parents wore disapproving masks and their kisses were perfunctory and Trina had dissolved into tears and the marriage license was wet with tears.

That night Grey discovered that Trina wasn’t a virgin. Oh, she acted as though she was, and complained for many days that, please darling, I’m so sore, be patient. But she wasn’t a virgin and that hurt Grey, for she had implied it many times. But he pretended that he didn’t know she had cheated him.

The last time he saw Trina was six days before he embarked for overseas. They were in their flat and he was lying on the bed watching her dressing.

“Do you know where you’re going?” she asked.

“No,” Grey said. The day had been bad and the quarrel of the night before bad, and the lack of her and the knowledge that his leave was up today was heavy on him.

He got up and stood behind her, slipping his hands into her bosom, molding the tautness of her, loving her.

“Don’t!”

“Trina, could we — ”

“Don’t be foolish. You know the show starts at eight-thirty.”

“There’s plenty of time — ”

“For the love of God, Robin, don’t! You’ll mess up my makeup!”

“To hell with your makeup,” he said. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”

“Perhaps that’s just as well. I don’t think you’re very kind or very thoughtful.”

“What do you expect me to be like? Is it wrong for a husband to want his wife?”

“Stop shouting. My God, the neighbors will hear you.”

“Let ’em, by God!” He went towards her, but she slammed the bathroom door in his face.

When she came back into the room she was cold and fragrant. She wore a bra and half slip and panties under the slip, and stockings held by a tiny belt. She picked up the cocktail dress and began to step into it.

“Trina,” he began.

“No.”

He stood over her, and his knees had no strength in them. “I’m sorry I–I shouted.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He bent to kiss her shoulders, but she moved away.

“I see you’ve been drinking again,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Then his rage burst. “I only had one drink, damn you to hell,” he shouted and spun her around and ripped the dress off her and ripped the bra off her and threw her on the bed. And he ripped at her clothes until she was naked but for the shreds of stockings clinging to her legs. And all the time she lay still, staring up at him.

“Oh God, Trina, I love you,” he croaked helplessly, then backed away, hating himself for what he had done and what he had nearly done.

Trina picked up the shreds of the clothes. As though in a dream, he watched as she went back to the mirror and sat before it and began to repair her makeup and started to hum a tune, over and over.

Then he slammed the door and went back to his unit and the next day he tried to phone her. There was no answer. It was too late to go back to London, in spite of his desperate pleading. The unit moved to Greenock for embarkation and every day, every minute of every day, he phoned her, but there was no answer, and no answer to his frantic telegrams, and then the coast of Scotland was swallowed by the night, and the night was only ship and sea, and he was only tears.

Grey shuddered under the Malayan sun. Ten thousand miles away. It wasn’t Trina’s fault, he thought, weak with self-disgust. It wasn’t her, it was me. I was too anxious. Maybe I’m insane. Maybe I should see a doctor. Maybe I’m oversexed. It’s got to be me, not her. Oh Trina, my love.

Trina sipped her martini and smiled the special smile that a starlet smiles to producers, particularly one that has a juicy part in a movie ready to begin production. “You’re looking very well, Mr. Durstein. Isn’t the rain miserable?”

Max Durstein was not looking at all well and he was not feeling well, hating London, hating the downpour, hating Sunday, hating the V2s that fell on London Town. He fought out of his hat and his raincoat and put them on top of the steaming pile of soaking topcoats.

A freezing squall battered the windows of the large hotel reception room that looked out on the bleak puddles of Piccadilly. He shuddered and wished himself to Los Angeles and the sun and the warmth.

“You’re looking well, Mr. Durstein,” Trina said again.

“Yeah,” he replied sourly. He was tired and his ulcers hurt and his arches had fallen and he had been given the same smile for years — but only when he had a movie on the planning boards and not when his last film had been panned — but he remembered that this little harpy had a good film under her girdle and the trade moguls had picked her as potential box office draw, and she would fit “Dolly Saunders” to a rubber glove.

He cursed under his breath, what a dreck name — Dolly Saunders! How is it possible when I pay so much money to a lousy writer that the least he could do was to invent a name that has impact. Dolly! The name made him feel sick. But, he told himself, that’s what a producer is for — to take notalent and make it talent, to take a nothing name and give it grandeur. Gotta think of a name!

He looked at Trina, not listening to her chatter, not listening to his automatic answers, but thinking of a name. The name must be a name of names. Harlan. Possible. But not enough sex. Harlan Foy? Coy Harlan?

“What’s your name?” he asked abruptly, bursting into Trina’s patter.

“Trina John.” She was astonished. Who the fat pig in hell does this slob think he is, anyway, to ask me that when the cocktail party’s in my honor to celebrate my role, Princess Zenobia, in Spears on the Volga?

“I know that,” he said testily, letting the cigarette ash join the rest of the white stains on his blue pinstripe suit. “I mean your maiden name, darling.”

“It was Trina Johnson.” Actually it was Gertrude Drains. Trina kept a sweet smile on her face but inside she was spitting blood. Gerty! She could still hear her mother calling her. Gert, wipe your nose. Gerty do this, Gerty do that. And again, after two whole years of not thinking about her mother, Trina spat a stream of curses on the smelly harpy fishwife who bore her. Thank God I got away from her, thank God!

“You were married, weren’t you?”

“Oh yes. He was a Colonel in Intelligence. His name was Grey. My present husband’s name — ”

“I know. Billy Stern, the agent.” He looked at her.

Trina was svelte and looked like a lady, but she had that so necessary quality of dirt somewhere mixed up with the lady. She dressed well. Hips okay. Legs long. Dress tight around the buttocks. Easy to bed. He was sure because Billy had indicated, round about, that she was cooperative. Christ, what a business! But no good, that’s what he’d heard.

Grey? Possible. Harlan Grey? How about Harlana Grey? No. Harlana Lunt! That’s it. Rhymes and has class to boot. Harlana Lunt! Everything, it has everything.

“Why the smile, Mr. Durstein?”

“I liked your ‘Princess,’ darling,” the producer in him was saying. “And it’s making a bundle. With luck you may be a star one day. Sell tickets, that’s the only thing that counts. You’ve got a lot of talent.”

“I’ll say,” he told himself. “But in bed you haven’t. Not according to Jules.”

“How’s Jules these days?” he asked.

“He talked a lot about you while we were shooting. A nice man, and such a talented producer. A darling.” She let her eyes mist prettily. “I think producers are so important. He helped me so much.” She let this fall, then brightened in the right way, taking care that she didn’t stand too tall in her shoes, for this Durstein was small. “I’m so happy the public is paying so much to see Spears. Jules was saying that they’ll make their costs back in the first twenty weeks.”

That’s a lie, Durstein told himself, seething. Why, that rotten little picture cost well over a hundred thousand pounds! Jules always was a liar, and a thief. And an assassin. But still, he had knifed him but good out of the Four Swords in Hell project, and the thought warmed him nicely.

“Interesting,” he heard himself saying. He was still looking at Trina. He’d take her if he could get her cheap. But Billy can be a hard trader if he knows that one of his clients has a chance. Yes, she’d fit. But how much…

“Money,” he said aloud.

“What about it, Mr. Durstein?” Trina bubbled happily as though the word was a witty remark.

“Money’s the only thing that counts in the business. Money making films.” He smiled a false-toothed smile, patted her buttocks paternally, but Trina knew that it wasn’t really paternal. And Durstein kept his hand there, just too long, just enough to let her know that he was interested. How much, depended on her. “Maybe I can do something for you in my next picture. Of course, that depends.”

His eyes were quite cold and calculating. Trina looked at them and while her face smiled, her eyes told him, it also depends on how much.

Across the smoky room, Billy was talking to Jules and his eyes were on Jules, listening to his plans for his next film, how he might be able to up Trina’s money and sweeten the part a little. But Billy’s senses were concentrating on Durstein and Trina and he was watching them closely. As to Jules, well, Jules had served his purpose and he’d be damned if he let Trina play in another of Jules’s second features. Not for five thousand. Well, for ten, maybe. But the “Dolly” role was what he wanted for Trina. Yes, he told himself, that part she’d play like a house afire. And with a little of the Billy luck, he’d get the part for her.

He saw, with cynical amusement, Durstein’s hand on her buttocks and the linger of it. Good. Don’t have to show Trina any of the tricks. That bitch learned them with her mother’s milk. When Durstein wandered away, Billy excused himself from Jules.

He walked through the crowd of neophytes and hangers-on and out-of-work actors and actresses and protégés and columnists and newspapermen, and for each he had a crack and a smile — for those of any importance. When he got to Trina, she was sipping another martini.

“Go easy on the liquor,” he warned.

In an equally low voice Trina snapped back. “Go to hell! I can drink this slop until the cows come home. If I want to drink, I’ll have a drink.”

Billy was smiling, but inside he wasn’t. “How’d you get on with the Creep?” he asked, using Durstein’s nickname. It came from way back. Durstein’s first picture. The Zombie Creeps. Made a fortune.

“Fine.” She looked across the smoke and saw that Durstein was talking to one of the columnists. “He didn’t say anything except he ‘might do something for me in his next.’” She swallowed the martini quickly and took another from the waiter as he passed. She didn’t particularly want one, but she did it to annoy Billy. One of her great pleasures in life was baiting Billy, and he hated the smell of gin so she always drank gin.

Billy looked at her, bound to her by the great mutual hatred they had for one another. “Bathe in it for all I care.”

“On your money?”

Then they began to quarrel viciously. As only a husband and wife can quarrel in a crowded place. Quarrel so that no one knows that they are quarreling or feeling the fury facaded by exterior calm.

Billy cursed himself for marrying her. But it was the only way he could make her and the only way he could get her signed. His investment had paid off. Princess had started her soaring, and there was a good chance that Durstein would give her “Dolly.”

“I don’t know what I ever saw in you.” She sipped her gin, the sweet smile on her face. Boiling inside.

“That’s easy. You saw ‘career.’ You knew I was a star maker — ”

“My ass. I got the job. I worked for it. In more ways than one. I’ve got the talent. All you did was introduce me.”

“Without me — ”

“Hello, darling,” Trina purred as Winter Smith, another bosomed starlet and another possible for “Dolly” breasted the crowd. “You look tired. You’re lucky not to be working.”

“Oh but I am, darling. I’m studying my next role. A big one. You’ll read all about it in a few days. I’m just ecstatic.”

When she had passed, Trina turned to Billy. “Bitch.” Then she picked up where they had left off. “Without you I might be better off.”

“Pity. I have your contract.” Billy was tired of the quarrel. They had always quarreled. And she was terrible in bed. Nothing. How could she look so good and act so sexy and yet be so cold was beyond his belief. But she was. “I’ll bet you gave Grey one hell of a time.”

“I did not. I loved the Colonel — ”

“Lieutenant,” he said contemptuously. “Once you begin to believe your own publicity, you’re up the creek.”

“At least he was a man.”

Trina couldn’t even remember Grey’s face. The only time she’d ever felt herself desperate for him was the day he left. When he’d thrown her on the bed and ripped her clothes off. My God, she felt weak as she remembered. If only he had continued. And beat her too. She had really wanted him that moment and wanted him as a woman had never wanted a man. But he wasn’t a man. He had just left — weak and with tears streaming down his rotten faceless face. Men! There aren’t any.

The men she had tried were nothing. And Grey, whom she felt could be a man, whom she loved as much as she could love, whom she tried in every way to force into rage enough to take her as she wanted to be taken, Grey had failed her. He had failed her. Failed to be a man.

Trina’s cold eyes were on Billy. She knew Billy was seething with rage. But he’d do nothing but quarrel. Nothing. He didn’t understand her and he never would and it was true, she had married him because he was the agent. And she would stay with him while he was the agent. That was one thing he was good at.

Then, sharp-eyed, she noticed Winter Smith with Durstein, close and intimate and huddled together. From the corner of her mouth she hissed at Billy. “You’d better go and break that up. That bitch’ll do anything to get the part.”

Billy smiled cynically as he left. “But you won’t?”

“Are you all right, Grey?” Colonel Jones asked.

“Oh, yes, sir, thank you.” Grey came to and discovered that he was leaning weakly against the supply hut. “It was — was just a touch of fever.”

“You don’t look too good. Sit down for a minute.”

“It’s all right, thank you. I’ll — I’ll just get some water.”

Grey went over to the tap and took off his shirt and dunked his head under the stream of water. Bloody fool, to let yourself go like that! he thought. But in spite of his resolve, inexorably his mind returned to Trina. Tonight, tonight I’ll let myself think of her, he promised. Tonight, and every night. To hell with trying to live without food. Without hope. I want to die. How much I want to die.

Then he saw Peter Marlowe walking up the hill. In his hands was an American mess can and he was holding it carefully. Why?

“Marlowe!” Grey moved in front of him.

“What the hell do you want?”

“What’s in there?”

“Food.”

“No contraband?”

“Stop picking on me, Grey.”

“I’m not picking on you. Judge a man by his friends.”

“Just stay away from me.”

“I can’t, I’m afraid, old boy. It’s my job. I’d like to see that. Please.”

Peter Marlowe hesitated. Grey was within his right to look and within his right to take him to Colonel Smedly-Taylor if he stepped out of line. And in his pocket were the twenty quinine tablets. No one was supposed to have private stores of medicine. If they were discovered he would have to tell where he had got them and then the King would have to tell where he got them and anyway, Mac needed them now. So he opened the can.

The katchang idju-bully gave off an unearthly fragrance to Grey. His stomach turned over and he tried to keep from showing his hunger. He tipped the mess can carefully so that he could see the bottom. There was nothing in it other than the bully and the katchang idju, delicious.

“Where did you get it?”

“I was given it.”

“Did he give it to you?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you taking it?”

“To the hospital.”

“For whom?”

“For one of the Americans.”

“Since when does a Flight Lieutenant DFC run errands for a corporal?”

“Go to hell!”

“Maybe I will. But before I do I’m going to see you and him get what’s coming to you.”

Easy, Peter Marlowe told himself, easy. If you take a sock at Grey you’ll really be up the creek.

“Are you finished with the questions, Grey?”

“For the moment. But remember — ” Grey went a pace closer and the smell of the food tortured him. “You and your damned crook friend are on the list. I haven’t forgotten about the lighter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve done nothing against orders.”

“But you will, Marlowe. If you sell your soul, you’ve got to pay sometime.”

“You’re out of your head!”

“He’s a crook, a liar and a thief — ”

“He is my friend, Grey. He’s not a crook and not a thief…”

“But he is a liar.”

“Everyone’s a liar. Even you. You denied the wireless. You’ve got to be a liar to stay alive. You’ve got to do a lot of things…”

“Like kissing a corporal’s arse to get food?”

The vein in Peter Marlowe’s forehead swelled like a thin black snake. But his voice was soft and the venom honey-coated. “I ought to thrash you, Grey. But it’s so ill-bred to brawl with the lower classes. Unfair, you know.”

“By God, Marlowe — ” began Grey, but he was beyond speech, and the madness in him rose up and choked him.

Peter Marlowe looked deep into Grey’s eyes and knew that he had won. For a moment he gloried in the destruction of the man, and then his fury evaporated and he stepped around Grey and walked up the hill. No need to prolong a battle once it’s won. That’s ill-bred, too.

By the Lord God, Grey swore brokenly, I’ll make you pay for that. I’ll have you on your knees begging my forgiveness. And I’ll not forgive you. Never!

Mac took six of the tablets and winced as Peter Marlowe helped him up a little to drink the water held to his lips. He swallowed and sank back.

“Bless you, Peter,” he whispered. “That’ll do the trick. Bless you, laddie.” He lapsed into sleep, his face burning, his spleen stretched to bursting, and his brain took flight in nightmares. He saw his wife and son floating in the ocean depths, eaten by fish and screaming from the deep. And he saw himself there, in the deep, tearing at the sharks, but his hands were not strong enough and his voice not loud enough, and the sharks tore huge pieces of the flesh of his flesh and there were always more to tear. And the sharks had voices and their laughter was of demons, but angels stood by and told him to hurry, hurry, Mac, hurry or you’ll be too late. Then there were no sharks, only yellow men with bayonets and gold teeth, sharpened to needles, surrounding him and his family on the bottom of the sea. Their bayonets huge, sharp. Not them, me! he screamed. Me, kill me! And he watched, impotent, while they killed his wife and killed his son and then they turned on him and the angels watched and whispered in chorus, Hurry, Mac, hurry. Run. Run. Run away and you’ll be safe. And he ran, not wanting to run, ran away from his son and his wife and their blood-filled sea, and he fled through the blood and strangled. But he still ran and they chased him, the sharks with slant eyes and gold needle teeth with their rifles and bayonets, tearing at his flesh until he was at bay. He fought and he pleaded but they would not stop and now he was surrounded. And Yoshima shoved the bayonet deep into his guts. And the pain was huge. Beyond agony. Yoshima jerked the bayonet out and he felt his blood pour out of him, through the jagged hole, through all the openings of his body, through the very pores of his skin until only the soul was left in the husk. Then, at last, his soul sped forth and joined with the blood of the sea. A great, exquisite relief filled him, infinite, and he was glad that he was dead.

Mema twisted violently in her sleep and then she was wide awake. It was dusk. She glanced at her watch, glad to be awake and at the same time sorry that it was not yet morning. It was only eight o’clock and she had been asleep only half an hour. It was even too early yet for the night creatures to be about. She listened. Yes, the jungle was still quiet. In an hour or so the tempo would change.

She was lying on her side, half curled up, as she always slept, on the big clean, starched bed. Surrounding her was the protective mosquito cage.

It was much more pleasant to sleep in the cage than under a confining mosquito net. It was like being in a gossamer box and the box was within the large bedroom and the bed was within the box — box within boxes, selves within selves. A mosquito cage was expensive, and only the very well off could afford one. It was expensive because the joints of the door, set in a gossamer wall, had to be perfect-fitted, fitted to exclude the tiny winged creatures, smaller than mosquitoes — the midges — that abounded. Midges were not dangerous for they did not carry malaria or other violent diseases, but even so, they were just as sleep disturbing.

It was nice to lie, half awake in the clean pure space. There was a breeze tonight, cooling. A fragrance of frangipani surrounded her, brought by the sea breeze, and mixed with it were the perfumes of the night blooming flowers in the surrounding garden. The breeze touched her, pattering the gossamer negligee against her legs. Mem liked nice things, and the negligee was beautiful and sheer and came from Paris.

She moved slightly, resting her head on her bare arm on the sweet-smelling pillow, and she looked at the man, lying soft asleep beside her. Involuntarily she touched him, liking him. She did not love him, but she liked him. And that was good. It had not always been so.

The man stirred, then opened his eyes. When he saw her looking at him, he smiled and reached over and caressed her long golden hair.

“Omae,” he said gently, “nemuri nai no ka?” concerned to find her awake.

“Hai,” she replied. “Hitotsumo nemuku arimasen.” She kissed him softly. “Anata dozo oyasumi ni natte ne.”

He did as she bade him. He turned over and went back to sleep once more.

For a while she lay back too, trying to sleep, but sleep would not come. She turned over once or twice, gently, for she didn’t wish to disturb him, then finally she gave up and got off the bed and put on her light housecoat.

She opened the door of the cage and closed it quickly lest a stray mosquito was lying in wait, then crossed the marble floor to her dressing table. She lit a cigarette and brushed her hair while she smoked. This always seemed to help to make her sleepy, but tonight the ritual did not work. As she brushed, she looked into the mirror and the mirror showed herself to herself.

Clean lines, round where they should be round, her shoulders nicely sloping and set just right to carry the breasts that still needed no bra to lift them. Flat stomach. Long legs. Long neck, a swan neck. Fair, fair skin with an English bloom to her cheeks. A delicate face, high cheek bones, unlined yet, long swaths of gold hair that curled of their own majesty. Yes, she told herself, for thirty-three, you’re still a woman to be desired.

But the thought did not wholly please her.

To shake off her mood, she slipped on the feathered mules and spilled sweet-smelling cologne on her hands and forehead, walked across the room and opened the door. Refreshed, she went across the hall and opened another door. She was about to enter when her amah came from the back of the house where the servants quarters were.

“Dost thou require anything, Mistress?” the old woman asked politely in Malay.

“No. If I do, I will call thee.”

Then Mema went into the room and closed the door softly. Angus was curled up in a ball in the center of his bed under the mosquito net, curled around the long cylindrical pillow which in the East is called a Dutch nurse. Mem crossed, a sibilant movement, to her son, happily watching him sleep. Tousled hair, very short. Good body, tall for three and a half years.

The boy yawned, then feeling eyes upon him, awoke. When he saw his mother, he smiled. “Okasa!” he piped as he had been taught. Fleetingly Mema thought that “Mummy” sounds so much better than “Okasa” which also means “Mummy.”

“Angus, doka shita no?” she asked as she tucked the net closer to the mattress. She knew he was all right, and comfortable, but she asked anyway.

“U-un,” he nodded happily. “Nandemo nai yo.” Of course I’m all right, ’cause I had ice cream for my supper, he told himself happily.

“Ja,” she told him, “Hayaku nenne shimasai ne.”

Angus was yawning and needed no gentle command from her to go back to his dreams. She waited, watching him. Often she would sit beside his bed at night when she could not sleep and gain from his tiny presence the peace that she needed to take away the bad dreams. It was a nice room and there were always fresh flowers beside his bed and his toys were scattered in the neatness of a child’s pattern which adults call chaos. But tonight Mem did not feel there would be bad dreams when at length she went to sleep. Happily she turned away and wandered past the little bed to the cot.

Always she smiled when she saw the cot, for the miniature mosquito net and the tininess of the cot and the smallness of her daughter, beneath the sheet and under the net, pleased her. Nobu was so pretty, unbelievably so. Creamy golden skin, not as golden as her father’s, and not as white as her mother’s, but just right. Black hair and dark-dark eyes, slanting pleasingly, eyes that were now tight in sleep.

She had been named Nobu, for her birth month was November. And she was fourteen months old.

Mem checked the net to see if it was tight, and made sure that the child was sleeping well. She noticed a slight flush and the wet mouth, and reminded herself to talk to the doctor tomorrow, for the child was teething. Perhaps he could do something to help the little one.

Content now that all was well, Mem went out, softly closing the door. Then, sleep still not on her, she wandered listlessly into the vast living room and turned on a lamp. She lit another cigarette.

Through the long netted windows, out through the netted veranda, she could see the garden, banks upon banks of tropical flowers, and the little path that led at length to the road. The guard was as usual at the gates — and beyond the road was the sea. A few miles east was Oasthaven, the south-most seaport on the southmost tip of Sumatra.

There was a pitcher of iced grapefruit juice, pressed from fresh fruit from their garden on a long marble table, and she poured herself a glass and took it out onto the veranda and sat in her favorite long chair, sipping it, her legs curled beneath her, and she looked out, past the palm trees, to the sea.

You’re very lucky, she told herself. Lucky to have so much — a lovely house, two wonderful healthy children, a good man to look after you and love you. Oh yes, the Colonel loves you, there is no doubt of that. No doubt. Yes, Mema Angela McCoy, nee Douglas, you are lucky.

Thinking of her name, she began to think of her life. There were two parts. From when she was born, to February 13, 1942. And from then onwards.

Mem did not want to think, alone on the veranda. But she knew she would tonight — in spite of her wish. In spite of her self promise. Perhaps it is wise to think, she reasoned, wise to think of the good and the bad. Then the dreams would leave her be.

Thirteen. Thirteen had always been her lucky number in her first life. She was born on the thirteenth, she had left England on the thirteenth for Malaya. She had met Mac on the thirteenth and she had married him on the thirteenth. But the thirteenth of February was not lucky. Or perhaps it was; it depended on how you looked at it. Even in her second life, the thirteenth was a little lucky for Nobu had been born on that day.

And as she sat on the veranda, surrounded by richness and ornaments of exquisite taste and high cost, and the zephyr wind caressed her, the turntable of her mind told Mac, who was dead but the focus of her first life, the well-rehearsed and well-told story of the second life.

“You see, Mac, it began on the thirteenth of February. Singapore fell — capitulated — on the twelfth. Our ship was off Sumatra heading out into the Indian Ocean. Then suddenly we were in the sea, and drowning, Angus and I, and Angus was in my arms. There were many planes, at first machine-gunning. Then later, I don’t know how much later, a big ship, a Japanese warship passed by. There were some of us who were picked up. Others were left, but we were picked up, Angus and I. I can’t remember much about the boat. There were only a few of us, all English, and all from the boat. The children were crying and so were the women in the little cabin. The rest of the time on the ship is a fog, until the engines stopped and we were told to go on deck. Then I saw we were in a port. The port was in flames and ships were on fire. One huge warehouse exploded and debris scattered the dockside. Overhead were Japanese planes and the wharfs were alive with Japanese ships loading and unloading. There were many bodies lying in the sun, and the smell of death was over everything. At first I thought we were in Java, but I saw a sign which said Oasthaven and I remembered that Oasthaven was in Sumatra.

“We were herded into a truck and taken to a schoolhouse under guard. When we got there, there were other women and children. I think they were mostly Dutch. Some were English. One woman with two children was from an oil field north. She said they had taken her husband away for questioning a few days ago. But he hadn’t returned. And he never did come back.

“We were in the schoolhouse for a month. Food was little and sanitation was nonexistent. One of the children died. Angus, bless him, weathered it quite well, but he had fever and we had no drugs. It was bad, sitting, watching him, knowing that a little quinine would cure him. But there was none to be had. After we had been locked up there for two months, they began questioning us. Asking us about our husbands. I told them you were in the army. I told them about our plantation in Kedah. They were very angry that you had not stayed on the plantation and were angry at me. I tried to explain to them that, in war, well, men are supposed to go to war. Isn’t that so?

“When four months had passed, five of the children had died. And two of the women. One of the women had gone mad. To save her child, we had to hold her down. I think we held her too hard, for the next day we found she was dead. Her child was only six months old, half gone with fever. I suppose watching her child, watching the child die, waiting for her to die, was too much for her. Her blood was on our hands. Then one day a young officer came and looked us over. We knew he was looking at us as women. He tempted one. She was unmarried, a sprite of a thing. We never saw her again. Her name was Gina.

“Then there was more questioning. And that was when I met Colonel Imata for the first time. Angus was in my arms and we had been taken from the big room, where we lived and ate and slept and — I suppose — died, into a smaller room in the school buildings. It was small, but it was clean, and a little like paradise. The Colonel was sitting behind a huge desk and standing beside him was a young Japanese officer whose name was Saito. The Colonel was a big man, tall for a Japanese, with iron gray hair, close cropped, and a firm well-lined face. It was a kind face I thought. Saito said that this was Colonel Imata and the Colonel wanted to ask me some questions and to sit down. They gave me a cigarette and the Colonel looked at me. Then he asked about Angus for the child was not too well at that time and fretful. He seemed gentle and helpful so I asked for medicines and fresh milk. I could not feed my child for my milk had dried up and another of the mothers was feeding him, but only when her own child was replete and then, there was not much milk left for my son. Saito translated this to the Colonel who said he would see what could be done. Then he began questioning me. When he was finished questioning there was a bottle of fresh milk and a cake of soap and a pack of cigarettes. Saito said that they were gifts from the Colonel and that tomorrow I was to return.

“Every day for a week the Colonel, through Saito, questioned me. About our life, about our plantation, about my life in England, until I thought I would go mad. Over and over the same things. But I always tried to be nice and cooperative and tell them what they wanted to know, for every day there was a bottle of milk and a little food or chocolate. Then on the eighth day, Colonel Imata asked me to be his woman. He asked me, he didn’t tell me.

“‘The Colonel says, Madam,’ Saito interpreted sibilantly, ‘that you please him. There is no need for you to stay locked up in the schoolhouse with other prisoners. The Colonel has a beautiful house and he will look after you. And, the Colonel has said, you may bring your son.’

“‘I can’t,’ I said and I said it carefully for I did not wish to offend him. ‘I am married. A married woman cannot do what the Colonel asks.’

“Saito translated this and the Colonel sighed and got up. He bowed gravely and sadly and I was taken back to the big room. There was no milk that day or food or anything.

“For a week nothing happened. We had almost no food, and we all had dysentery in varying degrees. Then Saito came and said, ‘You are to go with me!’

“‘Where?’ I asked him for I was frightened at his curtness and unusual hardness.

“‘You will soon find out,’ he said.

“I was terrified. But there was nothing I could do so I started to follow him with Angus in my arms.

“‘You are to leave the child!’

“‘No. I’ll never leave him. You’ll have to kill me if you want me to leave him here. I’ll never leave him,’” I cried at him. And I was really crying.

“Eventually, though he was angry, he allowed me to carry Angus. We went in a car to the Oasthaven hospital. Angus was dirty, and smelled. But then, that was not surprising for we had no soap and little water and my poor baby was only six months old and had dysentery. He cried all the time and that made the young Saito angrier.

“Then we were taken into the hospital. Suddenly we were in a ward and the beds were crowded with Japanese patients. Saito snapped a command and they all lined up at the foot of their beds and took off their clothes. I had never seen VD before. I had only read about it. But these patients all had the disease. It was like a nightmare, standing in the ward watching them, feeling their eyes on me and feeling their lust. Almost feeling them touch me, all these men with sores all over them. I think I would have fainted if I hadn’t had Angus in my arms.

“After an eternity Saito led me outside into the air.

“‘All whites are enemies of the Asiatics,’ he said. ‘It would be easy to give you to those men. They have need of women, as much as normal men. More so the doctors tell me. It’s a symptom of the disease,’ he added with frightening coolness.

“I said that there was such a thing as civilization and that I hadn’t done anything to anyone and that, surely, the Japanese wouldn’t do such a terrible thing to us. To me.

“‘White Imperialists, particularly English, are enemies and should be stamped out,’ he snapped. ‘You are all offal left over to be used in any way.’

“Then we got back into the car and he took me to the outside of a wire enclosure where civilians, the Dutch civilians, were kept. The women and the children. The scarecrows and nakedness and potbellied infants, potbellied with pellagra and diseased.

“When I woke up from my faint, I was back in the car and Angus was whimpering in my lap. The officer gave me something to drink and ordered the car back to our schoolhouse.

“The other women told me not to worry. The Japanese would never do such a thing. Others said, if you get the chance, don’t hesitate. After a week, I was sent for by the Colonel again. He was very kind and asked how I was. I told him, weeping, about Saito and the hospital and he was upset and shook his head and told me it was a pity, but he had no jurisdiction over me while I was in the school and that Saito was not in his command but had others who commanded him. But, Saito interpreted, if I wanted to live in the Colonel’s house, the Colonel would arrange it. He says he is sorry that you have been shown these things. ‘And,’ Saito added, ‘I am sorry too. But I have to obey orders.’

“I screamed at him that I’d never live with him and they could do what they liked but I’d never, ever, go willingly. Never. The Colonel was kind and waited till my tears and agony had stopped. Then he gave me a little food and I was sent back to the schoolhouse.

“Days went by, Angus began to weaken. I just could not see him die, and he surely was going to die. So one day I asked the guards if I could see the Colonel. But the Colonel was away. I was beside myself with anxiety and then two weeks later I was sent for. I admit I was so happy to see him. I begged him to get a doctor for Angus, I said I would do anything, but please, please get a doctor for Angus.

“‘The Colonel says,’ said Saito, ‘he does not want you to do anything against your will. He only wants to help you because he likes you. And he wants you to like him.’

“‘I do,’ I told him. ‘Please help my son.’

“I can see the Colonel so clearly that day, so neat and clean and gentle. I know I begged him to the limit of begging, and then at length he gave me a cigarette. He went over to Angus who was fitfully asleep on the couch and examined him. Then he picked up the phone and in a little while a doctor arrived. They wanted to take Angus into hospital but I wouldn’t let them take him without me. ‘I beg you,’ I said to the Colonel, ‘I beg you let me stay with him till he’s well. Then I will be better too. Look. I’m not strong and I’m tired out and I’ve lost nearly thirty pounds. Please be patient. Two weeks then I’ll be fit again. Just give me fruit and good food and let me look after Angus, please, please.’ I was on my knees to him.

“For two weeks we had a lovely room in the hospital. They gave Angus the best of attention. He had fresh milk every day and a nurse, night and day. They fed me and gave us the drugs we needed. Then the day came. A chauffeured car arrived. Saito was most polite. There was the amah in the car and she took Angus and carried him against her as soft as any mother. Then we were brought to this house. The house is large and the garden wonderful and it sits on the edge of the coast. And then that night, the Colonel came home.

“We had dinner in silence — Saito, the Colonel, and I — on the veranda. When we were drinking coffee the Colonel said something to Saito. Saito smiled at me and said, ‘Please follow me.’

“I followed him into the master bedroom. He showed me the clothes hanging in the closets, dozens and dozens of lovely things. ‘These are for you,’ he said. ‘You are to wear them and consider this house as your home. The amah is yours to hire — or fire if you wish. For your own protection you are not to leave the house without one of the guards who are permanently posted at the gates. But with the guard you are free to go, wherever you wish.’

“As he showed me the house he continued with instructions. ‘The Colonel has ordered that this is a trial arrangement. If you please each other, then the arrangement may last. And, presuming this to be a long and happy relationship, the Colonel has ordered that you are to learn Japanese immediately. As and from this date, you will speak the language of the Imperial Japanese conquerors. This is the only language, other than Malay — which you will speak to the servants — that you may speak. The child will be brought up as a ward of the Colonel’s. And I am to instruct you both in Japanese and Japanese customs.’

“When we got back to the veranda, I tried to smile at the Colonel, and whispered, ‘Thank you.’ Saito corrected me immediately. ‘You must say, Domo arigato.’

“‘Domo arigato,’ I said. These were the first Japanese words I ever spoke.

“Then the Colonel said something to Saito. Both men got up. The Colonel bowed formally and Saito said, ‘We must now bid you good evening, madam. The Colonel regrets that he must leave for Palembang tonight for two weeks. He asks that you make yourself welcome in your new home. I will be back at ten o’clock tomorrow — is that convenient? Good, — to begin your lessons. Thank you, madam.’

“The Colonel was about to go, but he changed his mind and beckoned me to follow. We went into Angus’s bedroom. He was soft asleep. The Colonel smiled happily, caressed Angus gently. Then he turned to me and gently, oh so gently, patted my cheek. When the tears spilled, he took out his handkerchief and wiped them away, and talked softly to me in Japanese and led me to the bedroom and made me lie on the bed. And he wiped away my tears as tenderly as any lover. ‘No cry,’ he said gently. ‘No cry.’ Then he pointed to himself and said haltingly, ‘No cry, Mema. Hurt Imata.’

“When he came back from Palembang it was very difficult for me. It was time to pay and I didn’t want to pay. We were alone in the house, except for the amah and Angus. He had brought a present for Angus, and a negligee for me. In my few halting words of Japanese I thanked him. Then at length we were in the bedroom. Lying on the bed. He took me, and once it had begun, it was easy to pretend and I could forget the whore that I had become. I felt nothing except disgust and hatred, but I hid it from him and he seemed happy enough. That began the pattern of life. I pretended to enjoy him. Certainly I went out of my way to try to make him happy, to see that he got the foods he wanted, the peace he wanted. I was a good pupil and Saito was pleased and the Colonel was pleased that I learned quickly. When I could speak directly to him, the Colonel told me of his hatred of war, but that it was a necessary evil, temporary but necessary. He hated radios and would not allow one in the house. So our life became a pattern and the world. And he wanted me very much, and the more he loved the more he wanted. And afterwards, when he was asleep, I used to lie awake — thanking God that he was asleep for another night — and pray to be dead. Oh, yes, I prayed for death. But at the same time I prayed for life, for this war could not last forever, and if I did die, what would happen to Angus?

“Angus loved the Colonel. I used to hate myself when I watched the Colonel playing on the floor with my son — no man could have been more a father — hating the fact that I hated to see my son so happy with the man who whored his mother.

“The Colonel adored Angus, that was the hardest thing of all to bear. Oh, I could lie under this man, pretending that I enjoyed him — I was surprised how easy it was to pretend to be ecstatic — pretending to be amused, pretending to be gay when he returned at night, but when he and Angus were playing, father and son, then I found the hurt was so huge that I could not pretend that I liked him.

“Every new tooth, every little child hurt, every little halting word was a joy to the Colonel. And soon, as the months fled into a year, I did not hate the Japanese words, and soon Japanese became to me my mother tongue.

“The war was going bad for us, the white Imperialists. At first I felt the weight of the war, and the suffering of the Allies, for the Colonel and Saito told me what was going on in the world. Saito was so happy at the Japanese conquests, and proud of the fighting ability of the Imperial Army, but the Colonel was sad and very grave. I thought, my God, the war will never end, never. This life must go on forever, and, when I was alone and Angus was asleep I used to cry and cry, until there was no cry left within my soul. Those were sad days. Then after a while, I did not want to hear the bad news. Gradually, I forgot the war, and tried to let the house and my son be my life. A defense, surely, but the only one I could think of. Africa gone, the Far East gone, the Near East gone, France gone, and England devastated — all gone to the enemy. But in my madness — I think life is insanity sometimes, don’t you? — I seemed to think or realize that these were not losses, but victories. And that I was the real enemy, and they, the Japanese, the truth seekers. Every victory led closer to the finish of war, all war, and I prayed fervently for the end of war. So it was with me and my son and the Colonel. I crawled into the safety of ‘home’ and let the world pass me by. It was enough for me. Enough.

“Then one day, after the Colonel had been playing with Angus, I found I liked him. He had saved me from the camps. Oh yes, I knew about the camps. And the deaths. So suddenly I came to like my Colonel. That night, we made love. And suddenly, I was pretending no longer. I let my body enjoy him as he enjoyed me. I kissed him, wanting to kiss him. Is that wrong? To love the man upon whom you lean? The man who was the father to your other child? Oh yes, that night I truly loved my Colonel.

“I felt no shame from that day on, and a softness filled my life. Only at night the dreams came, dreams all mixed up with starving children — can children be evil? — arms outstretched, clawing, begging for food, always food, and Angus, fat and rosy beside me, outside the fence, and all the starving rapacious child-eyes on him, tearing down the fence to get at him. And then always the fence would be torn down and we would run, Angus and I, with the talons of the children rending at his rosy flesh. Most times, I awoke before the children fell on him, and I heard his screams.

“When Nobu was born, my Colonel said that I would always be in his house. Always. He told me, now that the Japanese had conquered Australia and had already landed on the California coast, that soon the global war would be over. Then we would go to live in California where he was to be a governor.

“Once I asked him why he had picked me and why he had taken me into his house, for such an important man could, like other of the Japanese officers, have brought their wives from Japan to live with them in their new colonies. And he told me simply, that he believed that the Samurai — the elite — of which he was from time beyond history — had responsibilities over and above wives and war and life and death. He said, and his voice always gentle and calm, ‘It is our duty to have children of mixed races and to adopt, as I have adopted your white son to be my son. In the new world, the Samurai will have two families, one pure and one impure — but just as important — for the future peace of the world.’ He smiled his soft smile and continued, ‘How could my sons in Japan war with your son who is white but brought up to speak our language and brought up as pure even as my own son. Angus-san will be half Samurai, he will share my name and prestige. And Nobu, the girl child, she will marry another Samurai and her children will be of the world ruling class under the Samurai who will rule. You and I, Mem, are living, and I hope loving, for the future peace of the world.’

“It seemed a simple and true solution, and I did not want to lose my Colonel, and he promised, ‘you will live in my house in peace, forever.’

“I said once — and only once — that you, my husband, might be alive. He was angry, so very angry, and said that he had told me it would be impossible for you to be alive — hadn’t he gone to considerable trouble to find out? So you Mac, my first husband, are dead, but one day when we are all dead, perhaps I’ll see you again and tell you this story of what happened to your lucky wife.

“Oh yes, really, I am happy now. My Colonel is gentle, and a good man, and your son Angus will grow up to be a fine man and with my Colonel as his guardian, why, who knows to what heights Angus may aspire in the new world. And Nobu, surely she will have a wonderful husband and perhaps when she is old enough, why, perhaps, we can all visit England and I will be able to show her where I was born. My great grandmother was German, so the Colonel feels I will be accepted as Aryan by the Germans who conquered England last year. Another two or three years and the world will be stabilized, Germans ruling the west, the Imperial Japanese ruling the East — Asia, Australia, and America!”

Mem was drifting into thought waves, caught by the tale she told her past. But dear Mac wasn’t there to be told the tale. Abruptly, Angus stirred in his sleep, crying softly. She listened for a moment with all the concentration of a mother, mind critically alert, interpreting the cry. Sickness? Dream? But it was just a child cry and meant no danger, and soon the cries were no longer disturbing her.

It was so nice to sit quiet, drifting. “I’m so lucky,” she said softly, aloud. And the strangeness of the words held her a moment, for she had said them in English, even though she had been thinking in Japanese, for now, she always thought in Japanese.

Then once more the real words, the Japanese words, came back to her and she said aloud, just to make sure that she was truly awake — “Hai, koun desh’ta.”

First light met the blackness of the night far on the horizon. Cool air and the promise of another glorious day. She was half awake, half asleep. She did not hear the Colonel pad softly onto the veranda.

The Colonel watched her happily, his woman, the light of his life, the mother of his children, and his children to be. Gravely he saw she was awake.

“Bad dreams again, Mem?”

“Oh, no thank you. I was just sitting and thinking.” She got up automatically for it was wrong for her to sit while he stood. “I didn’t hear you come out, have you been there long?”

“No. Just a moment. Come along. I do not want you to catch a chill.” His words were gentle and softly chiding.

So Mem allowed herself to be led back into the bedroom and into the gossamer cage and she lay on the bed beside him. He sighed, resting. Now she was ready to sleep, but before she closed her eyes she smiled at him and touched his back, caressing him.

The Colonel turned his head and looked at her and caught her hand. “I love you. Mem.”

She looked deep into the mirror of his eyes, then raised herself and kissed his lips and her tresses screened them together, her to him. “I love you,” she whispered.

And as they loved each other, she felt her warmth building, building. I’m so lucky, so lucky. I thank God, I’m so lucky.

Mac opened his eyes. His blankets were soaked. His fever had passed. And he knew that he was alive once more.

Peter Marlowe was still sitting beside the bed. Night somewhere behind him.

“Hello, laddie.” The words were so faint that Peter Marlowe had to bend forward to catch them.

“You all right, Mac?”

“All right, laddie. It’s almost worth the fever, to feel so good. I’ll sleep now. Bring me some food tomorrow.”

Mac closed his eyes and was asleep. Peter Marlowe pulled the blankets off him and dried the husk of the man.

“Where can I get some dry blankets, Steven?” he asked, as he caught sight of the orderly hurrying through the ward.

“I don’t know, sir,” Steven said. He had seen this young man many times. And liked him. Perhaps — but no, Lloyd would be terribly jealous. Another day. There’s plenty of time. “Perhaps I can help you, sir.”

Steven went over to the fourth bed and took the blanket off the man, then deftly slid the bottom blanket off and came back. “Here,” he said. “Use these.”

“What about him?”

“Oh,” Steven said with a gentle smile. “He doesn’t need them any more. The detail’s due. Poor boy.”

“Oh!” Peter Marlowe looked across to see who it was, but it was a face he didn’t know. “Thanks,” he said and began to fix the bed.

“Here,” Steven said. “Let me. I can do it much better than you.” He was proud of the way he could make a bed without hurting the patient.

“Now don’t you worry about your friend,” he said, “I’ll see that he’s all right.” He tucked Mac in like a child. “There.” He stroked Mac’s head for a moment, then took out a handkerchief and wiped the remains of the sweat off Mac’s forehead. “He’ll be fine in two days. If you have some extra food — ” but he stopped and looked at Peter Marlowe and the tears gathered in his eyes. “How silly of me. But don’t you fret, Steven will find something for him. Now don’t you worry. There’s nothing more you can do tonight. You go off and have a good night’s rest. Go on, there’s a good boy.”

Speechless, Peter Marlowe allowed himself to be led outside. Steven smiled good night and went back inside.

From the darkness Peter Marlowe watched Steven smooth a fevered brow and hold an agued hand, and caress away the night-devils and soften the night-cries and adjust the covers and help a man to drink and help a man to vomit, and all the time a lullaby, delicate and sweet. When Steven came to Bed Four, he stopped and looked down on the corpse. He straightened the limbs and crossed the hands, then took off his smock and covered the body, his touch a benediction. Steven’s slim smooth torso and slim smooth legs glowed in the glittering half light.

“You poor boy,” he whispered and looked around the tomb. “Poor boys. Oh, my poor boys,” and he wept for them all.

Peter Marlowe turned away into the night, filled with pity, ashamed that Steven had once upon a time disgusted him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

As Peter Marlowe neared the American hut he was full of misgivings. He was sorry that he had agreed so readily to interpret for the King, and at the same time upset that he was unhappy about doing it. You’re a fine friend, he told himself, after all he’s done for you.

The sinking in his stomach increased. Just like before you go up for a mission, he thought. No, not like that. This feeling’s like when you’ve been sent for by the headmaster. The other’s just as painful, but at the same time mixed with pleasure. Like the village. That makes your heart take flight. To take such a chance, just for the excitement — or in truth for the food or the girl that might be there.

He wondered for the thousandth time just why the King went and what he did there. But to ask would be impolite and he knew that he only had to have a little patience to find out. That was another reason he liked the King. The way that he volunteered nothing and kept most of his thoughts to himself. That’s the English way, Peter Marlowe told himself contentedly. Just let out a little at a time, when you’re in the mood. What you are or who you are is your own affair — until you wish to share with a friend. And a friend never asks. It has to be freely given or not at all.

Like the village. My God, he thought, that shows how much he thinks of you, to open up like that. Just to come out and say do you want to come along, the next time I go.

Peter Marlowe knew that it was an insane thing to do. To go to the village. But perhaps not so insane now. Now there was a real reason. An important reason. To try to get a part to fix the wireless — or to get a wireless, a whole one. Yes. This makes the risk worthwhile.

But at the same time he knew that he would have gone just because he had been asked to go, and because of the might-be-food and might-be-girl.

He saw the King deep in a shadow, beside a hut, talking to another shadow. Their heads were close together and their voices were inaudible. So intent were they that Peter Marlowe decided to pass the King by, and he began to mount the stairs into the American hut, crossing the shaft of light.

“Hey, Peter,” the King called out.

Peter Marlowe stopped.

“Be right with you, Peter.” The King turned back to the other figure. “Think you’d better wait here, Major. Soon as he arrives I’ll give you the word.”

“Thank you,” the small man said, his voice wet with embarrassment.

“Have some tobacco,” the King said, and it was accepted avidly. Major Prouty backed deeper into the shadows but kept his eyes on the King as he walked the space to his own hut.

“Missed you, buddy,” the King said to Peter Marlowe and punched him playfully. “How’s Mac?”

“He’s all right, thanks.” Peter Marlowe wanted to get out of the shaft of light. Dammit, he thought. I’m embarrassed being seen with my friend. And that’s rotten. Very rotten.

But he could not help feeling the major’s eyes watching — or stop the wince as the King said, “C’mon. Won’t be long, then we can go to work!”

Grey went to the hiding place just in case there was a message for him in the can. And there was. Major Prouty’s watch. Tonight. Marlowe and him.

Grey tossed the can back into the ditch as casually as he had picked it up. Then, stretching, he got up and walked back towards Hut Sixteen. But all the time his mind worked with computer speed.

Marlowe and the King. They’ll be in the “shop” behind the American hut. Prouty. Which one? Major! Is he the one with the Artillery? Or the Aussie? Come on, Grey, he asked himself irritably, where’s the card index mind you’re so proud of? Got him! Hut Eleven! Little man! Pioneers! Aussie!

Is he connected with Larkin? No. Not to my knowledge. An Aussie. Then why not through that Aussie black-marketeer Tiny Timsen? Why the King? Maybe it’s too big for Timsen to handle. Or maybe it’s stolen property — more likely, for then Prouty wouldn’t use regular Aussie channels. That’s more like it.

Grey glanced at his watch. He did it instinctively, even though he had not had a watch for three years, even though he needed no watch to tell the time or gauge the hour of the night. Like all of them, he knew the time, as much of time as it was necessary to know.

It’s too early yet, he thought. The guards don’t change yet awhile. And when they did, from his hut he would be able to see the old guard plod the camp, way up the road, past his hut toward the guardhouse. The man to watch’ll be the new guard. Who is it? Who cares? I’ll know soon enough. Safer to wait and watch until the time, then swoop. Carefully. Just interrupt them politely. See the guard with the King and Marlowe. Better to see them when the money changes hands or when the King hands over the money to Prouty. Then a report to Colonel Smedly-Taylor: “Last night I witnessed an interchange of money,” or just as good: “I saw the American corporal and Flight Lieutenant Marlowe, DFC — Hut Sixteen — with a Korean guard. I have reason to believe that Major Prouty, Pioneers, was involved and provided the watch for sale.”

That would do it. The regulations, he thought happily, were clear and defined: “No sales to guards!” Caught in the act. Then there would be a court-martial.

A court-martial to begin with. Then my jail, my little jail. With no extras and no katchang idju-bully. No nothing. Only caged, caged like the rats you are. Then to be let go — angry and hating. And angry men make mistakes. And the next time, perhaps Yoshima would be waiting. Better let the Japs do their own work — to help them isn’t right. Perhaps in this case it would be all right. But no. Just a nudge, perhaps?

I’ll pay you back, Peter Bloody Marlowe. Maybe sooner than I’d hoped. And my revenge on you and that crook will be ecstasy.

The King glanced at his watch. Nine-four. Any second now. One thing about the Japs, you always knew to the instant what they were going to do, for once a timetable had been set, it was set.

Then he heard the footsteps. Torusumi rounded the corner of the hut and came quickly under the lee of the curtain. The King rose to greet him. Peter Marlowe, also under the curtain, got up reluctantly, hating himself.

Torusumi was a character among the guards. Quite well-known. Dangerous and unpredictable. He had a face where most of them were faceless. He had been with the camp for a year or more. He liked to work the POW’s hard and keep them in the sun and shout at them and kick them when the mood was on him.

“Tabe,” said the King, grinning. “Like smoke?” He offered some raw Java tobacco.

Torusumi showed his gold-proud teeth and handed Peter Marlowe his rifle and sat down. He pulled out a pack of Kooas and offered them to the King, who accepted one. Then the Korean looked at Peter Marlowe.

“Ichi-bon friend,” said the King.

Torusumi grunted, showed teeth, sucked his breath in and offered a cigarette.

Peter Marlowe hesitated. “Take it, Peter,” the King said.

Peter Marlowe obeyed, and the guard sat down at the little table.

“Tell him,” said the King to Peter Marlowe, “that he’s welcome.”

“My friend says that thou art welcome and he is pleasured to see thee here.”

“Ah, I thank thee. Does my worthy friend have anything for me?”

“He asks have you anything for him?”

“Tell him exactly what I say, Peter. Be exact.”

“I’ll have to put it in the vernacular. You can’t translate exactly.”

“That’s okay — but make sure it’s right — and take your time.”

The King passed over the watch. Peter Marlowe noticed with surprise that it was like new, freshly burnished, a new plastic watch face, and in a neat little chamois leather case.

“Tell him this — a guy I know wants to sell it. But it’s expensive, and maybe not what he wants.”

Even Peter Marlowe saw the glint of avarice in the Korean’s eyes as he took the watch out of the case and held it to his ear, grunted casually and put it back on the table.

Peter Marlowe translated the Korean’s reply. “Hast thou something else? I regret that Omegas are not bringing much in Singapore these days.”

“Thy Malay is exceptionally good, sir,” Torusumi added to Peter Marlowe, politely sucking the air past his teeth.

“I thank thee,” Peter Marlowe said grudgingly.

“What’d he say, Peter?”

“Just that I spoke Malay well, that’s all.”

“Oh! Well, tell him I’m sorry, but that’s all I’ve got.”

The King waited until this had been translated, then smiled and shrugged and picked up the watch and put it into its case and back in his pocket, and got up. “Salamat!” he said.

Torusumi showed his teeth once more, then indicated that the King should sit. “It is not that I want the watch,” he said to the King. “But because thou art my friend and thou hast taken much trouble, I should inquire what does the man who owns this insignificant watch want for it?”

“Three thousand dollars,” the King replied. “I’m sorry it’s overpriced.”

“Truly it is overpriced. The owner has sickness in his head. I am a poor man, only a guard, yet because we have done business in the past and to do thee a favor I will offer three hundred dollars.”

“I regret. I dare not. I have heard that there are other buyers who would pay a more reasonable price through other intermediaries. I agree that thou art a poor man and should not offer money for so insignificant a watch. Of course, Omegas are not worth much money, but in deference to the owner thou wouldst understand it would be an insult to offer him anything less than a second-class watch is worth.”

“That is true. Perhaps I should increase the price, for even a poor man has honor, and it would be honorable to try to alleviate any man’s suffering in these trying times. Four hundred.”

“I thank your concern for my acquaintance. But this watch — being an Omega — and being that the price of Omegas has fallen from their accepted high place previously, obviously there is a more definite reason for thou not wanting to do business with me. A man of honor is always honorable — ”

“I, too, am a man of honor. I had no wish to impugn thy reputation and the reputation of your acquaintance who owns the watch. Perhaps I should risk my reputation and try to see if I could persuade those miserable Chinese merchants with whom I have to deal to give a fair price once in their miserable existences. I’m sure that thou wilt agree, five hundred would be the maximum a fair and honorable man could go for an Omega, even before their price dropped.”

“True, my friend. But I have a thought for thee. Perhaps the prices of Omegas have not dropped from their ichi-bon position. Perhaps the miserly Chinese are mistakenly taking advantage of a man of honor. Why, only last week another of thy Korean friends came to me and bought such a watch and paid three thousand dollars for it. I only offered it to thee because of my long friendship and trust that pertains as between associates of long standing.”

“Dost thou tell me truly?” Torusumi spat vehemently on the floor, and Peter Marlowe readied himself for the blow which had followed such outbursts before.

The King sat unperturbed. God, thought Peter Marlowe, he’s got nerves of steel. The King pulled out some shreds of tobacco and began to roll himself a cigarette. When Torusumi saw this, he stopped raving and offered the pack of Kooas and cooled.

“I am astonished that the miserable Chinese merchants for whom I risk my life are so corrupt. I am horrified to hear what thou, my friend, hast told me. Worse, I am appalled. To think that they have abused my trust. For a year I have been dealing with the same man. And to think that he has cheated me for so long. I think I will kill him.”

“Better,” said the King, “to outsmart him.”

“How? I would dearly like my friend to tell me.”

“Curse him with thy tongue. Tell him that information has been given thee to prove that he is a cheat. Tell him if he does not give thee a fair price in future — a fair price plus twenty percent to pay thee back for all his past errors — then thou mayest whisper in the ear of the authorities. Then they will take him and take his women and take his children and abuse them to thy satisfaction.”

“It is superb advice. I am happy with the thought of my friend. Because of his thought and the friendship I hold for him, let me offer fifteen hundred dollars. It is all the money I have in the world, plus some money entrusted to me by my friend who is with the sickness of women in the stink-house called a hospital and who cannot work for himself.”

The King bent down and slapped at the clouds of mosquitoes on his ankles. That’s more like it, boy, he thought. Let’s see. Twenty would be high. Eighteen okay. Fifteen not bad.

“The King begs thee to wait,” Peter Marlowe translated. “He must consult with the miserable man who wishes to sell thee an overpriced commodity.”

The King climbed through the window and walked down the length of the hut, checking. Max was in place. Dino down the path to one side. Byron Jones III to the other.

He found Major Prouty, sweating with anxiety in the shadow of the hut next to the American hut.

“Gee, I’m sorry, sir,” the King whispered unhappily. “The guy’s not anxious at all.”

Prouty’s anxiety intensified. He had to sell. Oh God, he thought, just my luck. Got to get some money somehow.

“Won’t he offer anything?”

“Best I could do was four hundred.”

“Four hundred! Why everyone knows that an Omega’s worth at least two thousand.”

“I’m afraid that’s a story, sir. He, well, he seems suspicious. That it’s not an Omega.”

“He’s out of his mind. Of course it’s an Omega.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the King, stiffening slightly. “I’m only reporting…”

“My fault, Corporal. I didn’t mean to pick on you. These yellow bastards are all the same.” Now what do I do? Prouty asked himself. If I don’t sell it through the King we won’t sell it at all, and the unit needs the money and all our work will be for nothing. What do I do?

Prouty thought a minute, then said, “See what you can do, Corporal. I couldn’t take less than twelve hundred. I just couldn’t.”

“Well, sir. I don’t think I can do much, but I’ll try.”

“There’s a good fellow. I’m relying on you. I wouldn’t let it go so low, but well, food’s been so short. You know how it is.”

“Yes, sir,” said the King politely. “I’ll try, but I’m afraid I can’t push him up much. He says the Chinese aren’t buying like they used to. But I’ll do what I can.”

Grey had marked Torusumi walking the camp and he knew that the time would soon be ripe. He had waited enough and now it was time. He got up and walked out of the hut, adjusting his armband and straightening his hat. No need for another witness, his word was enough. So he went alone.

His heart thumped pleasantly. It always did when he was preparing an arrest. He crossed the line of huts, walked down the steps onto the main street. This was the long way around. He chose it deliberately, for he knew the King kept guards out whenever he was transacting business. But he knew their positions. And he knew there was one way, through the human mine field.

“Grey!”

He looked over. Colonel Samson was walking over to him.

“Yes, sir?”

“Ah, Grey, nice to see you. How are things going?”

“Fine, thank you, sir,” he replied, surprised to be greeted in such a friendly way. In spite of his eagerness to be away, he was not a little pleased.

Colonel Samson had a special place in Grey’s future. Samson was Brass, but real Brass. War Office. And very well connected. A man like that would be more than useful — afterwards. Samson was on the General Staff of the Far East and had some vague but important job — G something or other. He knew all the generals and talked about how he entertained them socially — out at his “country seat” in Dorset and how the gentry came shooting, and the garden parties and the hunt balls he organized. A man like Samson could perhaps balance the scales against Grey’s lack of record. And his class.

“I wanted to talk to you, Grey,” Samson said. “I have an idea that you might think worth working on. You know I’m compiling the official history of the campaign. Of course,” he added with good humor, “it’s not the official one yet, but who knows, maybe it will be. General Sonny Wilkinson is historian in charge at the War Office, you know, and I’m sure Sonny’ll be interested in an on-the-spot version. I wondered if you would be interested in checking a few facts for me. About your regiment?”

Like to, Grey thought. Like to! I’d give anything to. But not now.

“I’d love to, sir. I’m flattered that you’d think my views’d be worthwhile. Would tomorrow be all right? After breakfast.”

“Oh,” said Samson, “I had hoped we could talk a little now. Well, perhaps another day. I’ll let you know…”

And Grey knew instinctively that if it wasn’t now, it was never. Samson had never said much to him before. Perhaps, he thought desperately, perhaps I can give him enough to start him off and I can still catch them. Deals took hours sometimes. Worth the risk!

“Be glad to now, if you wish, sir. But not too long, if you don’t mind. I’ve a little headache. A few minutes if you don’t mind.”

“Good.” Colonel Samson was very happy. He took Grey’s arm and led him back towards his hut. “You know, Grey, your regiment was one of my favorites. Did an excellent job. You got a mention in dispatches, didn’t you? At Kota Bharu?”

“No, sir.” By God, I should have though. “There was no time to send in requests for decorations. Not that I was entitled to one any more than anyone.” He meant it. Lot of the men deserved VC’s and they would never get so much as a mention. Not now.

“You never can tell, Grey,” said Samson. “Perhaps after the war we can rehash a lot of things.”

He sat Grey down. “Now, just what was the state of the battle lines when you arrived in Singapore?”

“I regret to tell my friend,” Peter Marlowe said for the King, “that the miserable owner of this watch laughed at me. He told me that the very least he would take was twenty-six hundred dollars. I am even ashamed to tell it to thee, but because thou art my friend, of necessity I must tell it.”

Torusumi was obviously chagrined. Through Peter Marlowe, they talked about the weather and the lack of food, and Torusumi showed them a creased and battered photo of his wife and three children and told them a little about his life in his village just outside Seoul and how he earned his living as a farmer, even though he had a minor university degree, and how he hated war. He told them how he himself hated the Japanese, how all the Koreans hated their Japanese overlords. Koreans are not even allowed in the Japanese army, he said. They’re second-class citizens and have no voice in anything and can be kicked about at the whim of the lowest Japanese.

And so they talked until at length Torusumi got up. He took his rifle back from Peter Marlowe, who all the time had held it, obsessed with the thought that it was loaded and how easy it would be to kill. But for what reason? And what then?

“I will tell my friend one last thing, because I don’t like to see thee empty-handed with no profit on this stench-filled night, and would ask thee to consult with the greedy owner of this miserable watch. Twenty-one hundred!”

“But with respect, I must remind my friend that the miserable owner, who is a colonel, and as such a man of no humor, said he would only take twenty-six. I know you would not wish for him to spit upon me.”

“True. But with deference I would suggest that at least thou shouldst allow him the opportunity to refuse a last offer, given in true friendship, wherein I have no profit myself. And perhaps give him the opportunity to recant his uncouthness.”

“I will try because thou art my friend.”

The King left Peter Marlowe and the Korean. The time passed and they waited. Peter Marlowe listened to the story of how Torusumi was pressed into the service and how he had no stomach for war.

Then the King climbed down from the window.

“The man is a pig, a whore of no honor. He spat upon me and said he would spread the word that I was a bad businessman, that he would put me in jail before he would accept less than twenty-four — ”

Torusumi raved and threatened. The King sat quietly and thought, Jesus, I’ve lost my touch, I pushed him too far this time, and Peter Marlowe thought, Christ, why the hell did I have to get mixed up in this?

“Twenty-two,” Torusumi spat.

The King shrugged helplessly, beaten.

“Tell him okay,” he grumbled to Peter Marlowe. “He’s too tough for me. Tell him I’ll have to give up my goddamned commission to make up the difference. The son of a bitch won’t accept a penny less. But where the hell’s my profit in that?”

“Thou art a man of iron,” Peter Marlowe said for the King. “I will tell the miserable owner colonel that he can have his price, but to do this I will have to give up my commission to make up the difference between the price that thou hast offered and the price that he, miserable man, will accept. But where is my profit in that? Business is honorable, but even between friends there should be profit on both sides.”

“Because thou art my friend, I will add one hundred. Then thy face is saved and the next time thou needst not take the business of so avaricious and miserly a patron.”

“I thank thee. Thou art cleverer than I.”

The King handed over the watch in its little chamois case and counted the money from the huge roll of new counterfeit bills. Twenty-two hundred were in a neat pile. Then Torusumi handed over the extra hundred. Smiling. He had outsmarted the King, whose reputation as a fine businessman was common knowledge among all the guards. He could sell the Omega easily for five thousand dollars. Well, at least three-five. Not a bad profit for one guard duty.

Torusumi left the opened pack of Kooas and another full pack as compensation for the bad deal the King had made. After all, he thought, there’s a long war ahead, and business is good. And if the war is short — well, either way, the King would be a useful ally.

“You did very well, Peter.”

“I thought he was going to bust.”

“So did I. Make yourself at home, I’ll be back in a minute.”

The King found Prouty still in the shadows. He gave him nine hundred dollars, the amount that the bitterly unhappy major had reluctantly agreed to, and collected his commission, ninety dollars.

“Things are getting tougher every day,” the King said.

Yes, they are, you bastard, Prouty thought to himself. Still, eight-ten isn’t too bad for a phony Omega. He chuckled to himself that he’d taken the King.

“Terribly disappointed, Corporal. Last thing I owned.” Let’s see, he thought happily, it’ll take us a couple of weeks to get another in shape. Timsen, the Aussie, can handle the next sale.

Suddenly Prouty saw Grey approaching. He scuttled into the maze of huts, melding with the shadows, safe. The King vaulted through a window into the American hut and joined the poker game and hissed at Peter Marlowe, “Pick up the cards for Chrissake.” The two men whose places they had taken calmly kibitzed the game and watched the King deal out the stack of bills until there was a small pile in front of each man, and Grey stood in the doorway.

No one paid him any attention until the King looked up pleasantly. “Good evening. Sir.”

“Evening.” The sweat was running down Grey’s face. “That’s a lot of money.” Mother of God, I haven’t seen so much money in my life. Not all in one place. And what I couldn’t do with just a portion of it.

“We like to gamble, sir.”

Grey turned back into the night. God damn Samson to hell!

The men played a few hands until the all-clear was sounded. Then the King scooped up the money and gave each man a ten and they chorused their thanks. He gave Dino ten for each of the outside guards, jerked his head at Peter, and together they went back to his end of the hut.

“We deserve a cuppa Joe.” The King was a little tired. The strain of being on top was fatiguing. He stretched out on the bed and Peter Marlowe made the coffee.

“I feel I didn’t bring you much luck,” Peter Marlowe said quietly.

“Huh?”

“The sale. It didn’t go too well, did it?”

The King roared. “According to plan. Here,” he said, and peeled off a hundred and ten dollars and gave them to Peter Marlowe. “You owe me two bucks.”

“Two bucks?” He looked at the money. “What’s this for?”

“It’s your commission.”

“For what?”

“Jesus, you don’t think I’d put you to work for nothing, do you? What d’you take me for?”

“I said I was happy to do it. I’m not entitled to anything just for interpreting.”

“You’re crazy. A hundred and eight bucks — ten percent. It isn’t a handout. It’s yours. You earned it.”

“You’re the one who’s crazy. How in the hell can I earn a hundred and eight dollars from a sale of two thousand, two hundred dollars when that was the total price and there was no profit? I’m not taking the money he gave you.”

“You can’t use it? You or Mac or Larkin?”

“Of course I can. But that’s not fair. And I don’t understand why a hundred and eight dollars.”

“Peter, I don’t know how you’ve survived in this world up to now. Look, I’ll make it simple for you. I made ten hundred and eighty bucks on the deal. Ten percent is one hundred and eight. A hundred and ten less two is one hundred and eight. I gave you one hundred and ten. You owe me two bucks.”

“How in the hell did you make all that when — ”

“I’ll tell you. Lesson number one in business. You buy cheap and sell dear, if you can. Take tonight, for instance.” The King happily explained how he had outfoxed Prouty. When he finished, Peter Marlowe was silent for a long time. Then he said, “It seems — well, that seems dishonest.”

“Nothing dishonest about it, Peter. All business is founded on the theory that you sell higher than you buy — or it costs you.”

“Yes. But doesn’t your — profit margin seem a little high?”

“Hell, no. We all knew the watch was a phony. Except Torusumi. You don’t mind screwing him, do you? Though he can off-load it on a Chinese, easy, for a profit.”

“I suppose not.”

“Right. Take Prouty. He was selling a phony. Maybe he’d stolen it, hell, I don’t know. But he got a poor price ’cause he wasn’t a good trader. If he’d had the guts to take the watch back and start down the street, then I’d have stopped him and upped the price. He could have bartered me. He doesn’t give a goddam in hell about me if the watch backfires. Part of the deal is that I always protect my customers — so Prouty’s safe and knows it — when I may be out on a limb.”

“What’ll you do when Torusumi finds out and does come back?”

“He’ll come back,” the King grinned suddenly and the warmth of it was a joy to see, “but not to scream. Hell, if he did that he’d be losing face. He’d never dare admit that I’d outsmarted him in a deal. Why, his pals’d rib him to death if I spread the word. He’ll come back, sure, but to try to outsmart me next time.”

He lit a cigarette and gave one to Peter Marlowe.

“So,” he continued blithely, “Prouty got nine hundred less my ten percent commission. Low but not unfair, and don’t forget, you and I were taking all the risk. Now as to our costs. I had to pay a hundred bucks to get the watch burnished and cleaned and get a new glass. Twenty for Max, who heard about the prospective sale, ten apiece for the four guards and another sixty for the boys for covering with the game. That totals eleven twenty. Eleven twenty from twenty-two hundred is a thousand and eighty bucks even. Ten percent of this is one hundred and eight. Simple.”

Peter Marlowe shook his head. So many figures and so much money and so much excitement. One moment they were just talking to a Korean, and the next he had a hundred and ten — a hundred and eight — dollars handed to him as simple as that. Holy mackerel, he thought exultantly. That’s twenty-odd coconuts or lots of eggs. Mac! Now we can give him some food. Eggs, eggs are the thing!

Suddenly he heard his father talking, heard him as clearly as though he were beside him. And he could see him, erect and thickset in his Royal Navy uniform “Listen, my son. There is such a thing as honor. If you deal with a man, tell him the truth and then he must of necessity tell you the truth or he has no honor. Protect another man as you expect him to protect you. And if a man has no honor, do not associate with him for he will taint you. Remember, there are honorable people and dirty people. There is honorable money and dirty money.”

“But this isn’t dirty money,” he heard himself answer, “not the way the King has just explained it. They were taking him for a sucker. He was cleverer than they.”

“True. But it is dishonest to sell the property of a man and tell him that the price was so far less than the real price.”

“Yes, but…”

“There are no buts, my son. True there are degrees of honor — but one man can have only one code. Do what you like. It’s your choice. Some things a man must decide for himself. Sometimes you have to adapt to circumstances. But for the love of God guard yourself and your conscience — no one else will — and know that a bad decision at the right time can destroy you far more surely than any bullet!”

Peter Marlowe weighed the money and pondered what he could do with it, he, Mac and Larkin. He struck a balance and the scales were heavy on one side. The money rightly belonged to Prouty and his unit. Perhaps it was the last thing they possessed in the world. Perhaps because of the stolen money, Prouty and his unit, none of whom he knew, perhaps they would die. All because of his greed. Against this was Mac. His need was now. And Larkin’s. And mine. Mine too, don’t forget me. He remembered the King saying, “No need to take a handout,” and he had been taking handouts. Many of them.

What to do, dear God, what to do? But God didn’t answer.

“Thanks. Thanks for the money,” Peter Marlowe said. He put it away. And all of him was conscious of its burn.

“Thanks nothing. You earned it. It’s yours. You worked for it. I didn’t give you anything.”

The King was jubilant and his joy smothered Peter Marlowe’s self-disgust. “C’mon,” he said. “We got to celebrate our first deal together. With my brains and your Malay, why, we’ll live a life of Riley yet!” And the King fried some eggs.

While they ate, the King told Peter Marlowe how he had sent the boys out to buy extra stocks of food when he heard that Yoshima had found the radio.

“Got to gamble in this life, Peter boy. Sure. I figured that the Japs’d make life tough for a while. But only for those who weren’t prepared to figure an angle. Look at Tex. Poor son of a bitch hadn’t any dough to buy a lousy egg. Look at you and Larkin. Wasn’t for me Mac’d still be suffering, poor bastard. Of course, I’m happy to help. Like to help my friends. A man’s got to help his friends or there’s no point in anything.”

“I suppose so,” Peter Marlowe replied. What an awful thing to say. He was hurt by the King and did not understand that the American mind is simple in some things, as simple as the English mind. An American is proud of his money-making capability, rightly so. An Englishman, such as Peter Marlowe, is proud to get killed for the flag. Rightly so.

He saw the King glance out of the window and saw the snap of the eyes. He followed the glance and saw a man coming up the path. As the man walked into the shaft of light Peter Marlowe recognized him. Colonel Samson.

When Samson saw the King, he waved amicably. “Evening, Corporal,” he said and continued his walk past the hut.

The King peeled off ninety dollars and handed it to Peter Marlowe.

“Do me a favor, Peter. Put a ten with this and give it to that guy.”

“Samson? Colonel Samson?”

“Sure. You’ll find him up near the corner of the jail.”

“Give him the money? Just like that? But what do I say to him?”

“Tell him it’s from me.”

My God, thought Peter Marlowe, appalled, is Samson on the payroll? He can’t be! I can’t do it. You’re my friend, but I can’t go up to a colonel and say here’s a hundred bucks from the King. I can’t!

The King saw through his friend. Oh Peter, he thought, you’re such a goddam child. Then he added, To hell with you! But he threw the last thought away and cursed himself. Peter was the only guy in the camp he had ever wanted for his friend, the only guy he needed. So he decided to teach him the facts of life. It’s going to be tough, Peter boy, and it may hurt you a lot, but I’m going to teach you if I have to break you. You’re going to survive and you’re going to be my partner.

“Peter,” he said, “there are times when you have to trust me. I’ll never put you behind the eight ball. As long as you’re my friend, trust me. If you don’t want to be my friend, fine. But I’d like you to be my friend.”

Peter Marlowe knew that here was another moment of truth. Take the money in trust — or leave it and be gone.

A man’s life is always at a crossroads. And not his life alone, not if he’s a man. Always others in the balance.

He knew that one path risked Mac’s and Larkin’s lives, along with his own, for without the King they were as defenseless as any in the camp; without the King there was no village, for he knew that he would never risk it alone — even for the wireless. The other path would jeopardize a heritage or destroy a past. Samson was a power in the Regular Army, a man of caste, position and wealth, and Peter Marlowe was born to be an officer — as his father before him and his son after him — and such an accusation could never be forgotten. And if Samson was a hireling, then everything he had been taught to believe would have no value.

Peter Marlowe watched himself as he took the money and went into the night and walked up the path and found Colonel Samson, and heard the man whisper, “Oh hello, you’re Marlowe, aren’t you?”

He saw himself hand over the money. “The King asked me to give you this.”

He saw the mucused eyes light up as Samson greedily counted the money and tucked it away in his threadbare pants.

“Thank him,” he heard Samson whisper, “and tell him I stopped Grey for an hour. That was as long as I could hold him. That was long enough, wasn’t it?”

“It was enough. Just enough.” Then he heard himself say, “Next time keep him longer, or send word, you stupid bugger!”

“I kept him as long as I could. Tell the King I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry and it won’t happen again. I promise. Listen, Marlowe. You know how it is sometimes. It gets a bit difficult.”

“I’ll tell him you’re sorry.”

“Yes, yes, thank you, thank you, Marlowe. I envy you, Marlowe. Being so close to the King. You’re lucky.”

Peter Marlowe returned to the American hut. The King thanked him and he thanked the King again and walked out into the night.

He found a small promontory overlooking the wire and wished himself into his Spitfire soaring the sky alone, up, up, up in the sky, where all is clean and pure, where there are no lousy people — like me — where life is simple and you can talk to God and be of God, without shame.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Peter Marlowe lay on his bunk drifting in half sleep. Around him men were waking, getting up, going to relieve themselves, preparing for work parties, going and coming from the hut. Mike was already grooming his mustache, fifteen inches from tip to tip; he had sworn never to cut it until he was released. Barstairs was already standing on his head practicing yoga, Phil Mint already picking his nose, the bridge game already started, Raylins already doing his singing exercises, Myner already doing scales on his wooden keyboard, Chaplain Grover already trying to cheer everyone up, and Thomas was already cursing the lateness of breakfast.

Above Peter Marlowe, Ewart, who had the top bunk, groaned out of sleep and hung his legs over the bunk. “’Mahlu on the night!”

“You were kicking like hell.” Peter Marlowe had said the same remark many times, for Ewart always slept restlessly.

“Sorry.”

Ewart always said, Sorry. He jumped down heavily. He had no place in Changi. His place was five miles away, in the civilian camp, where his wife and family were — perhaps were. No contact had ever been allowed between the camps.

“Let’s burn the bed after we’ve showered,” he said, yawning. He was short and dark and fastidious.

“Good idea.”

“Never think we did it three days ago. How did you sleep?”

“Same as usual.” But Peter Marlowe knew that nothing was the same, not after accepting the money, not after Samson.

The impatient line for breakfast was already forming as they carried the iron bunk out of the hut. They lifted the top bed off and pulled out the iron posts which fitted into slots on the lower one. Then they got coconut husks and twigs from their section under the hut and built fires under the four legs.

While the legs were heating, they took burning fronds and held them under the longitudinal bars and under the springs. Soon the earth beneath the bed was black with bedbugs.

“For Christ’s sake, you two,” Phil shouted at them. “Do you have to do that before breakfast?” He was a sour, pigeon-chested man with violent red hair.

They paid no attention. Phil always shouted at them, and they always burned their bunk before breakfast.

“God, Ewart,” Peter Marlowe said. “You’d think the buggers could pick up the bunk and walk away with it.”

“Damn nearly threw me out of bed last night. Stinking things.” In a sudden flurry of rage Ewart beat the myriads of bugs.

“Easy, Ewart.”

“I can’t help it. They make my skin crawl.”

When they had completed the bed they left it to cool and cleaned their mattresses. This took half an hour. Then the mosquito nets. Another half an hour.

By this time the beds were cool enough to handle. They put the bunk together and carried it back and set it in the four tins — carefully cleaned and filled with water — and made sure the edges of the tins did not touch the iron legs.

“What’s today, Ewart?” Peter Marlowe said absently as they waited for breakfast.

“Sunday.”

Peter Marlowe shuddered, remembering that other Sunday.

It was after the Japanese patrol had picked him up. He was in hospital in Bandung that Sunday. That Sunday, the Japanese had told all the prisoner of war patients to pick up their belongings and march because they were going to another hospital.

They had lined up in their hundreds in the courtyard. Only senior officers did not go. They were being sent to Formosa, so the rumor said. The General stayed too, he who was the senior officer, he who openly walked the camp communing with the Holy Ghost. The General was a neat man, square-shouldered, and his uniform was wet with the spit of the conquerors.

Peter Marlowe remembered carrying his mattress through the streets of Bandung under a heated sky, streets lined with shouting silent people, dressed multihued. Then throwing away the mattress. Too heavy. Then falling but getting up. Then the gates of the prison had opened and the gates of the prison had closed. There was enough room to lie down in the courtyard. But he and a few others were locked alone into tiny cells. There were chains on the walls and a small hole in the ground which was the toilet, and around the toilet were feces of years. Stench-straw matted the earth.

In the next cell was a maniac, a Javanese who had run amok and killed three women and two children before the Dutch had overpowered him. Now it was not the Dutch who were the jailers. They were jailed too. All the days and all the nights the maniac banged his chains and screamed.

There was a tiny hole in Peter Marlowe’s door. He lay on the straw and looked out at the feet and waited for food and listened to the prisoners cursing and dying, for there was plague.

He waited forever.

Then there was peace and clean water and there was no longer just a tiny hole for the world, but the sky was above and there was cool water sponging him, washing away the filth. He opened his eyes and saw a gentle face and it was upside down and there was another face and both were filled with peace and he thought that he was truly dead.

But it was Mac and Larkin. They had found him just before they left the prison for another camp. They had thought that he was a Javanese, like the maniac next door, who still howled and rattled his chains, for he too had been shouting in Malay and looked like the Javanese …

“Come on, Peter,” Ewart said again. “Grub’s up!”

“Oh, thanks.” Peter Marlowe collected his mess cans.

“You feeling all right?”

“Yes.” After a moment he said, “It’s good to be alive, isn’t it?”

In the middle of the morning the news flared through Changi. The Japanese Commandant was going to return the camp to the standard ration of rice, to celebrate a great Japanese victory at sea. The Commandant had said that a United States task force had been totally destroyed, that the probe to the Philippines was therefore halted, that even now Japanese forces were regrouping for the invasion of Hawaii.

Rumors and counter-rumors. Opinions and counter-opinions.

“Bloody nonsense! Just put out to cover a defeat.”

“I don’t think so. They’ve never given us an increase to celebrate a defeat.”

“Listen to him! Increase! We’re only getting back something we just lost. No, old chap. You take my word for it. The bloody Japs are getting their come-uppance. You take it from me!”

“What the hell do you know that we don’t? You’ve a wireless, I suppose?”

“If I had, as sure as God made little apples, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“By the way, what about Daven?”

“Who?”

“The one who had the wireless.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. But I didn’t know him. What was he like?”

“Regular sort of bloke, I hear. Pity he got caught.”

“I’d like to find the bastard who gave him away. Bet he was an Air Force type. Or an Australian. Those bastards’d sell their souls for a halfpenny!”

“I’m Australian, you Pommy bastard.”

“Oh. Take it easy. Just a joke!”

“You’ve got a funny sense of humor, you bugger.”

“Oh, take it easy, you two. It’s too hot. Anyone lend me a smoke?”

“Here, take a puff.”

“Gee whiz, that tastes rough.”

“Papaya leaves. Cured it myself. It’s all right once you get used to it.”

“Look over there!”

“Where?”

“Going up the road. Marlowe!”

“That him? I’ll be damned! I hear he’s taken up with the King.”

“That’s why I pointed him out, you idiot. Whole camp knows about it. You been sleeping or something?”

“Don’t blame him. I would if I had half the chance. They say the King’s got money and gold rings and food to feed an army.”

“I hear he’s a homo. That Marlowe’s his new girl.”

“That’s right.”

“The hell it is. The King’s no homo, just a bloody crook.”

“I don’t think he’s a homo either. He’s certainly smart, I’ll say that for him. Miserable bastard.”

“Homo or not, I wish I was Marlowe. Did you hear he’s got a whole stack of dollars? I heard that he and Larkin were buying some eggs and a whole chicken.”

“You’re crazy. No one’s got that amount of money — except the King. They’ve got chickens of their own. Probably one died, that’s all! That’s another of your bloody stories.”

“What do you think Marlowe’s got in that billy?”

“Food. What else? You don’t need to know anything to know that it’s food.”

Peter Marlowe headed towards the hospital.

In his mess can was the breast of a chicken, and the leg and the thigh. Peter Marlowe and Larkin had bought it from Colonel Foster for sixty dollars and some tobacco and the promise of a fertile egg from the clutch that Rajah, the son of Sunset, would soon fertilize through Nonya. They had decided, with Mac’s approval, to give Nonya another chance, not to kill her as she deserved, for none of the eggs had hatched. Perhaps it wasn’t Nonya, Mac had said, perhaps the cock, which had belonged to Colonel Foster, was no damned good — and all the flurry of wings and pecking and jumping the hens was merely show.

Peter Marlowe sat with Mac while he consumed the chicken.

“God, laddie, I haven’t felt so good or so full for almost as long as I can remember.”

“Fine. You look wonderful, Mac.”

Peter Marlowe told Mac where the money for the chicken had come from, and Mac said, “You were right to take the money. Like as not that Prouty laddie stole the thing or made the thing. He was wrong to try to sell a bad piece of merchandise. Remember laddie, Caveat emptor.”

“Then why is it,” Peter Marlowe asked, “why is it I feel so damned guilty? You and Larkin say it was right. Though I think Larkin was not so sure as you are — ”

“It’s business, laddie. Larkin’s an accountant. He’s not a real businessman. Now, I know the ways of the world.”

“You’re just a miserable rubber planter. What the hell do you know about business? You’ve been stuck on a plantation for years!”

“I’ll ha’ you know,” Mac said, his feathers ruffled, “most of planting is being a businessman. Why, every day you have to deal with the Tamils or the Chinese — now there are a race of businessmen. Why, laddie, they invented every trick there was.”

So they talked to one another, and Peter Marlowe was pleased that Mac reacted once more to his jibes. Almost without noticing it, they lapsed into Malay.

Then Peter Marlowe said casually, “Knowest thou the thing that is of three things?” For safety he spoke about the radio in parables.

Mac glanced around to make sure they were not being overheard. “Truly. What of it?”

“Art thou sure now of its particular sickness?”

“Not sure — but almost sure. Why dost thou inquire of it?”

“Because the wind carried a whisper which spoke of medicine to cure the sickness of various kinds.”

Mac’s face lit up. “Wah-lah,” he said. “Thou hast made an old man happy. In two days I will be out of this place. Then thou wilt take me to this whisperer.”

“No. That is not possible. I must do this privately. And quickly.”

“I would not have thee in danger,” Mac said thoughtfully.

“The wind carried hope. As it is written in the Koran, without hope, man is but an animal.”

“It might be better to wait than to seek thy death.”

“I would wait, but the knowledge I seek I must know today.”

“Why?” Mac said abruptly in English. “Why today, Peter?”

Peter Marlowe cursed himself for falling into the trap he had so carefully planned to avoid. He knew that if he told Mac about the village, Mac would go out of his head with worry. Not that Mac could stop him, but he knew he would not go if Mac and Larkin asked him not to go. What the hell do I do now?

Then he remembered the advice of the King. “Today, tomorrow, it doesn’t matter. Just interested,” he said and played his trump. He got up. The oldest trick in the book. “Well, see you tomorrow, Mac. Maybe Larkin and I’ll drop around tonight.”

“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.

“I just wanted some food and water, sir, and — perhaps I could stay for a little while until I’ve caught up with myself.”

“You call me sir, when three days ago you and the rest of the whites were calling us Wogs and were spitting upon us?”

“I never called you Wogs. I was sent here to try to protect your country from the Japanese.”

“They have liberated us from the pestilential Dutch! As they will liberate the whole of the Far East from the white imperialists!”

“Perhaps. But I think you’ll regret the day they came!”

“Get out of my village. Go with the rest of the imperialists. Go before I call the Japanese themselves.”

“It is written, ‘If a stranger comes to thee and asks for hospitality, give it to him that thou find favor in the sight of Allah.’”

The headman had looked at him aghast. Nut-brown skin, short baju coat, multicolored sarong and the decorating head cloth in the gathering darkness.

“What do you know of the Koran and the words of the Prophet?”

“On whose name be praise,” Peter Marlowe said. “The Koran had been translated into English for many years by many men.” He was fighting for his life. He knew that if he could stay in the village he might be able to get a boat to sail to Australia. Not that he knew how to sail a boat, but the risk was worthwhile. Captivity was death.

“Are you one of the Faithful?” the astonished headman asked.

Peter Marlowe hesitated. He could easily pretend to be a Mohammedan. Part of his training had been to study the Book of Islam. Officers of His Majesty’s forces had to serve in many lands. Hereditary officers are trained in many things over and apart from formal schooling.

If he said yes, he knew he would be safe, for Java was mostly the domain of Mohammed.

“No. I am not one of the Faithful.” He was tired and at the end of his run. “At least I don’t know. I was taught to believe in God. My father used to tell us, my sisters and I, that God has many names. Even Christians say that there is a Holy Trinity — that there are parts of God.

“I don’t think it matters what you call God. God won’t mind if he is recognized as Jesus or Allah, or Buddha or Jehovah, or even You! — because if he is God, then he knows that we are only finite and don’t know too much about anything.

“I believe Mohammed was a man of God, a Prophet of God. I think Jesus was of God, as Mohammed calls him in the Koran, the ‘most blameless of the Prophets.’ That Mohammed is the last of the Prophets as he claimed, I don’t know. I don’t think that we, humans, can be certain about anything to do with God.

“But I do not believe that God is an old man with a long white beard who sits on a golden throne far up in the sky. I do not believe, as Mohammed promised, that the Faithful will go to a paradise where they will lie on silken couches and drink wine and have many beautiful maids to serve them, or that Paradise will be a garden with an abundance of green foliage and pure streams and fruit trees. I do not believe that angels have wings growing from their backs.”

Night swooped over the village. A baby cried and was gentled back to sleep.

“One day I will know for certain by what name to call God. The day I die.” The silence gathered. “I think it would be very depressing to discover there was no God.”

The headman motioned for Peter Marlowe to sit.

“You may stay. But there are conditions. You will swear to obey our laws and be one of us. You will work in the paddy and work in the village, the work of a man. No more and no less than any man. You will learn our language and speak only our language and wear our dress and dye the color of your skin. Your height and the color of your eyes will shout that you are a white man, but perhaps color, dress and language may protect you for a time; perhaps it can be said that you are half Javanese, half white. You will touch no woman here without permission. And you will obey me without question.”

“Agreed.”

“There is one other thing. To hide an enemy of the Japanese is dangerous. You must know that when the time comes for me to choose between you and my people to protect my village, I will choose my village.”

“I understand. Thank you, sir.”

“Swear by your God — ” a flicker of a smile swept the features of the old man — “swear by God that you will obey and agree to these conditions.”

“I swear by God I agree and will obey. And I’ll do nothing to harm you while I’m here.”

“You harm us by your very presence, my son,” the old man replied.

After Peter Marlowe had had the food and drink, the headman said, “Now you will speak no more English. Only Malay. From this moment on. It is the only way for you to learn quickly.”

“All right. But first may I ask you one thing?”

“Yes.”

“What is the significance of the toilet bowl? I mean, it hasn’t any pipes attached to it.”

“It has no significance, other than that it pleases me to watch the faces of my guests and hear them thinking, ‘What a ridiculous thing to have as an ornament in a house.’”

And huge waves of laughter engulfed the old man and the tears ran down his cheeks and his whole household was in an uproar and his wives came in to succor him and rub his back and stomach, and then they too were shrieking and so was Peter Marlowe.

Peter Marlowe smiled again, remembering. Now that was a man! Tuan Abu. But I won’t think any more today about my village, or my friends of the village, or N’ai, the daughter of the village they gave me to touch. Today I’ll think about the wireless and how I’m going to get the condenser and sharpen my wits for the village tonight.

He unwound himself from the lotus seat, then waited patiently till the blood began to flow in his veins once more. Around him was the sweet gasoline smell, carried by a breeze. Also on the breeze came voices raised in hymn. They came from the open air theater, which today was the Church of England. Last week it was a Catholic Church, the week before the Seventh-day Adventist, the week before another denomination. They were tolerant in Changi.

There were many parishioners crowding the rough seats. Some were there because of a faith, some were there for lack of a faith. Some were there for something to do, some were there because there was nothing else to do. Today Chaplain Drinkwater was conducting the service.

Chaplain Drinkwater’s voice was rich and round. His sincerity poured from him and the words of the Bible sprang to life, and gave you hope, and made you forget that Changi was fact, that there was no food in your belly.

Rotten hypocrite, Peter Marlowe thought, despising Drinkwater, remembering once again…

“Hey, Peter,” Dave Daven had whispered that day, “look over there.”

Peter Marlowe saw Drinkwater talking with a withered RAF corporal called Blodger. Drinkwater’s bunk had a favored spot near the door of Hut Sixteen.

“That must be his new batman,” Daven said. Even in the camp the age-old tradition was kept.

“What happened to the other one?”

“Lyles? My man told me he was up in hospital. Ward Six.”

Peter Marlowe got to his feet. “Drinkwater can do what he likes with Army types, but he’s not getting one of mine.”

He walked the four bunk lengths. “Blodger!”

“What do you want, Marlowe?” Drinkwater said.

Peter Marlowe ignored him. “What’re you doing here, Blodger?”

“I was just seeing the chaplain, sir. I’m sorry, sir,” he said moving closer, “I don’t see you too well.”

“Flight Lieutenant Marlowe.”

“Oh. How’re you, sir? I’m the chaplain’s new batman, sir.”

“You get out of here, and before you take a job as a batman, you come and ask me first!”

“But sir — ”

“Who do you think you are, Marlowe?” Drinkwater snapped. “You’ve no jurisdiction over him.”

“He’s not going to be your batman.”

“Why?”

“Because I say so. You’re dismissed, Blodger.”

“But sir, I’ll look after the chaplain fine, I really will. I’ll work hard — ”

“Where’d you get that cigarette?”

“Now look here, Marlowe — ” Drinkwater began.

Peter Marlowe whirled on him. “Shut up!” Others in the hut stopped what they were doing and began to collect.

“Where did you get that cigarette, Blodger?”

“The chaplain gave it to me,” whimpered Blodger, backing away, frightened by the edge to Peter Marlowe’s voice. “I gave him my egg. He promised me tobacco in exchange for my daily egg. I want the tobacco and he can have the egg.”

“There’s no harm in that,” Drinkwater blustered, “no harm in giving the boy some tobacco. He asked me for it. In exchange for an egg.”

“You been up to Ward Six recently?” Peter Marlowe asked. “Did you help them admit Lyles? Your last batman? He’s got no eyes now.”

“That’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything about him.”

“How many of his eggs did you have?”

“None. I had none.”

Peter Marlowe snatched a Bible and thrust it into Drinkwater’s hands. “Swear it, then I’ll believe you. Swear it or by God I’ll do you!”

“I swear it!” Drinkwater moaned.

“You lying bastard,” Daven shouted, “I’ve seen you take Lyles’ eggs. We all have.”

Peter Marlowe grabbed Drinkwater’s mess can and found the egg. Then he smashed it against Drinkwater’s face, cramming the egg shell into his mouth. Drinkwater fainted.

Peter Marlowe dashed a bowl of water in his face, and he came to.

“Bless you, Marlowe,” he had whispered. “Bless you for showing me the error of my ways.” He had knelt beside the bunk. “Oh God, forgive this unworthy sinner. Forgive me my sins…”

Mrs. Alicia Drinkwater plodded ponderously into the little Rectory and closed the door and went into the kitchen. She began to make a cup of tea and heavily set the table for herself and the Reverend Webster Trout whom she had allowed to look after the flock while the Reverend was away at war.

She knew that Reverend Trout had none of the qualities of her husband, dear Theo, none of his richness of voice or his Godliness or his humility or his saintliness. But in war times, one cannot be too choosey. And though Reverend Trout was nearly seventy and his sermons long and droning and his theories on how the flock should be looked after were immoral and lax, he was the best she could find. After all, she told herself, it was her parish. And the parish had been in her family for generations, the Rectory, the Church, the surrounding lands, and the village of Tuncliffe, and Tuncliffe Manor where her brother was Squire.

She could just see Reverend Trout standing at the Church door — and such a lovely Church, built by Roger, Ninth Squire of Tuncliffe in Elizabethan times — old and bent and droning to the flock as they left to go home, precious few now that the villagers had gone to war and the girls had gone to the factories, to the hotbeds of sin in the cities and towns. Disgusting.

Well, she was content that there was a God in Heaven and He would have vengeance on those who sinned with their flesh. Disgusting. No spirit or backbone to this modern generation. Dancing on Sundays and not reading the Good Book. Not like in her day. Oh no. Well, they deserve everything they are going to get.

Alicia was sure of God’s vengeance. She was as sure of her place in Heaven, and certain that she and the Reverend would sometime stand before His Majesty and He would bless them for carrying His word and keeping His faith while they were mortal.

She went to the privy, disgusted that the flesh was so demanding. Everything physical was of the devil and the pure in heart had to be on guard eternally. The disgusting clothes that people wore nowadays showing themselves to all and sundry. Bathing costumes and low cut blouses and silk stockings. Disgusting.

As she walked back to the kitchen door, Alicia was glad that she had been brought up in the truth and the pure spirit. No gaudy clothes for her. Sensible woolen underclothes, combinations, and sensible bloomers. Sensible flat shoes and thick wool stockings. And knowing the Bible so well. She smiled, remembering her father, the Squire. Firm, upright, reading the lesson on Sundays, and all the services every Sunday, going to Church five times, her brother and her beating the boys and girls of his village if they didn’t come to church for every service. And being so near to God. How lucky you are, Alicia, how lucky to know that you haven’t strayed. That you’re one of the good and you’ll live in heaven for eternity.

Reverend Trout came in tiredly. He was feeling all of his years and he sat down at the table, hating the square, massive ponderous woman who set the plate of fish before him. But he hid his hatred, for he was glad of the parish and the two pounds per week he received from her, less ten shillings for his keep. He liked Tuncliffe; it was so old and beautiful and quiet and gentle. It was like his old parish in Dorset, but that had gone long since, like his wife and his child. Both dead, long since.

“How nice,” he said politely. The fish was haddock. It was old and stank and lay in a pool of graygreen slime of well-used congealed fat. The Brussels sprouts were boiled, boiled to that perfection of tastelessness only the English call cooking. Also on the plate were two soapy boiled potatoes, wet and slimy. A piece of bread and margarine. Sunday lunch, and it was always the same.

True, we are at war, he told himself, a little unhappily, but the war had little to do with it, as Tuncliffe was a dairy farm and the government allowed the farm to keep some of its produce, butter, eggs, bacon, pork, meats of various types and chickens and eggs and there was also a wealth of partridge and pheasant in season. There was plenty, but the plenty was for the Squire’s table and Mrs. Drinkwater always had her meals at the Manor.

He only got his rations. Sometimes he ate with one of the parishioners in the village, but this was rare and the village had many children from the big cities billeted on them. So the little food was distributed. To them. But the Squire entertained. Once a month he was invited to dinner at the Manor. The first Monday of the month. It was a custom from time immemorial.

But today’s Sunday was not the first Sunday. And tonight he would have Bubble and Squeak. It was his usual Sunday dinner. Boiled cabbage and Brussels sprouts leftovers mixed with more of the soapy potatoes — when there was a whole storehouse full of last year’s crops, but these had to be kept, kept usually until they were rotten, and then given to the pigs to make them fat and rosy and healthy — and this mixture of cabbage and potatoes was burnt-fried by Mrs. Drinkwater’s indelicate hand. She always prided herself that she looked after the Reverend Trout herself. It was a penance that she did, hoping thereby to placate the evil spirits that inevitably surrounded him and his immoral ways.

The old man sighed, and forced himself to eat. It was all he would get. He was thankful that he was old, and near the grave, and thankful he needed little to keep his thin blood circulating his thickening veins. He did not hope for death, in any way. He liked life. He gloried in life. But he would be content to die. When his time came. Then she put down the rice pudding. It was warm and lumpy — a sludge of condensed milk. He picked at it, then pushed it away. “Thank you,” he said, “but I’m not too hungry.”

“That’s all there is.”

“That did me very well, thank you, Mrs. Drinkwater.”

He got up and found his pipe. On Sundays he could smoke three pipes to celebrate the Lord’s day. The rest of the week he could only afford one, but today, one after each meal. He knew that Mrs. Drinkwater disapproved of his smoking on Sunday. She had said so many times. And she would not let him smoke in the house — “makes the place smell like the halls of Babylon” she always said with a twist of her thin lips.

Reverend Trout sighed inwardly, pitying the woman. But who was he to judge? Perhaps she was right to be so firm.

He went out of the Rectory putting on his scarf and topcoat and cap. “I think I’ll take a little walk,” he said. “Thank you for an excellent lunch.” Then he made his way down the lane, past the hedge rows flicked here and there with spring growth. Beside the rutted lane, the gentle meadows rolled and dipped under the gentle drizzle. Crisp and clean. He quickened his pace slightly as he crested the hill and looked down on the hamlet of Tuncliffe nestling the oaks. He took out his watch and peered at it rheumily. Happily he noticed it was only twelve fifteen. Good. An hour and three quarters to closing time. The little pub, the Cow’s Bell, would be warm and easy and the Squire would be there and he would have a pint of mild and bitters with the Squire and they would play darts and even perhaps some shove halfpenny and they would have a fine time, he and the Squire and the villagers. Warm and content and far away. His arthritic fingers tightened on the shilling he had in his pocket. Perhaps he could afford one of those wonderful sausage rolls old Mister Wethersby, the Innkeeper, made. No. He better keep the shilling. Perhaps the Squire would offer him one. That would be nice. Perhaps he might beat the Squire twelve games in a row and that would make a shilling, for they played for a penny a game. Reverend Trout saw nothing wrong in a little game on a Sunday in a pub, even though the Squire always laughed long and loud and told him that if Alicia ever found out what he did with his Sundays he’d be tossed out of the parish. But Reverend Trout knew that the Squire would never tell, and even if she found out, he, the Squire, would let him stay on for the duration, for after all it was the Squire’s money that paid his stipend.

He knew the Squire would be content to let him stay on even when Reverend Drinkwater came home — there was never any doubt that he would come home from the East — but, “after all, Reverend Trout, he is my sister’s husband, and well, as you know, the parish carries a seat in the House of Commons and all that. Man’s got a lot of responsibility being the Reverend of Tuncliffe, in normal times, you know. And Theo’s such a decent chap. Did all right in Parliament — he’d just made his maiden speech when this blasted war started. If it hadn’t been for that, well, you never can tell. They say he’s got a good chance to be a Minister some day. No telling what position a man of his talent can attain.”

Then suddenly Reverend Trout stopped. He stared down, filled with the beauty of what he saw. There was a crocus, the first he had seen this spring, growing sturdily from the good earth. And around the slim green shafts was a cowpat, fertilizing the soil. But the Reverend Trout did not see the manure. He only saw the beauty of the crocus, pellucid, and from its beauty, he knew the majesty of the Lord.

Now, on this sun-kissed Sunday, Peter Marlowe listened as Drinkwater finished the sermon. Blodger had long since gone to Ward Six, but whether Drinkwater had helped him there, Peter Marlowe could never prove. Drinkwater still got many eggs from somewhere.

Peter Marlowe’s stomach told him it was time for lunch.

When he got back to his hut, the men were already waiting, mess cans in hands, impatient. The extra was not going to arrive today. Or tomorrow according to rumor. Ewart had already checked the cookhouse. Just the usual. That was all right too, but why the hell don’t they hurry up?

Grey was sitting on the end of his bed.

“Well, Marlowe,” he said, “you eating with us these days? Such a pleasant surprise.”

“Yes, Grey, I’m still eating here. Why don’t you just run along and play cops and robbers? You know, pick on someone who can’t hit back!”

“Not a chance, old man. Got my eye on bigger game.”

“Jolly good luck.” Peter Marlowe got his mess cans ready. Across the way from him Brough, kibitzing a game of bridge, winked.

“Cops!” he whispered. “They’re all the same.”

“That’s right.”

He joined Peter Marlowe. “Hear you’ve a new buddy.”

“That’s right.” Peter Marlowe was on his guard.

“It’s a free country. But sometimes a guy’s got to get out on a limb and make a point.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Fast company can sometimes get out of hand.”

“That’s true in any country.”

“Maybe,” Brough grinned, “maybe you’d like to have a cuppa Joe sometime and chew the fat.”

“I’d like that. How about tomorrow? After chow — ” Involuntarily he used the King’s word. But he didn’t correct himself. He smiled and Brough smiled back.

“Hey, grub’s up!” Ewart called out.

“Thank God for that,” Phil groaned. “How about a deal, Peter? Your rice for my stew?”

“You’ve got a hope!”

“No harm in trying.”

Peter Marlowe went outside and joined the mess line. Raylins was serving out the rice. Good, he thought, no need to worry today.

Raylins was middle-aged and bald. He had been a junior manager in the Bank of Singapore and, like Ewart, one of the Malayan Regiment. In peacetime it was a great organization to belong to. Lots of parties, cricket, polo. A man had to be in the Regiment to be anyone. Raylins also looked after the mess fund, and banqueting was his specialty. When they gave him a gun and told him he was in the war and ordered him to take his platoon across the causeway and fight the Japanese, he had looked at the colonel and laughed. His job was accounts. But it hadn’t helped him, and he had had to take twenty men, as untrained as himself, and march up the road. He had marched, then suddenly his twenty men were three. Thirteen had been killed instantly in the ambush. Four were only wounded. They were lying in the middle of the road screaming. One had his hand blown off and he was staring at the stump stupidly, catching his blood in his only hand, trying to pour it back into his arm. Another was laughing, laughing as he crammed his entrails back into the gaping hole.

Raylins had stared stupidly as the Japanese tank came down the road, guns blazing. Then the tank was past and the four were merely stains on the asphalt. He had looked at his remaining three men — Ewart was one of them. They had looked back at him. Then they were running, running terror-stricken into the jungle. Then they were lost. Then he was alone, alone in a horror night of leeches and noises, and the only thing that saved him from insanity was a Malay child who had found him babbling and had guided him to a village. He had sneaked into the building where remnants of an army were collected. The next day the Japanese shot two of every ten. He and a few others were kept in the building. Later they were put into a truck and sent to a camp and he was among his own people. But he could never forget his friend Charles, the one with his intestines hanging out.

Raylins spent most of his time in a fog. For the life of him he could not understand why he wasn’t in his bank counting his figures, clean neat figures, and why he was in a camp where he excelled at one thing. He could deal out an unknown amount of rice into exactly the right number of parts. Almost to the grain.

“Ah, Peter,” Raylins said, giving him his share, “you knew Charles, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes, nice fellow.” Peter Marlowe didn’t know him. None of them did.

“Do you think he ever got them back in?” Raylins asked.

“Oh yes. Certainly.” Peter Marlowe took his food away as Raylins turned to the next in line.

“Ah, Chaplain Grover, it’s a warm day, isn’t it? You knew Charles, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” the Chaplain said, eyes on the measure of rice. “I’m sure he did, Raylins.”

“Good, good. I’m glad to hear it. Funny place to find your insides, on the outside, just like that.”

Raylins’ mind wandered to his cool, cool bank and to his wife, whom he would see tonight, when he left the bank, in their neat little bungalow near the racecourse. Let me see, he thought, we’ll have lamb for dinner tonight. Lamb! And a nice cool beer. Then I’ll play with Penelope, and the missus’ll be content to sit on the veranda and sew.

“Ah,” he said, happily recognizing Ewart. “Would you like to come to dinner tonight, Ewart, old boy? Perhaps you’d like to bring the missus.”

Ewart mumbled through clenched teeth. He took his rice and stew and turned away.

“Take it easy, Ewart,” Peter Marlowe cautioned him.

“Take it easy yourself! How do you know what it feels like? I swear to God I’ll kill him one day.”

“Don’t worry — ”

“Worry! They’re dead. His wife and child are dead. I saw them dead. But my wife and two children? Where are they, eh? Where? Somewhere dead too. They’ve got to be after all this time. Dead!”

“They’re in the civilian camp — ”

“How in Christ’s name do you know? You don’t, I don’t, and it’s only five miles away. They’re dead! Oh my God,” and Ewart sat down and wept, spilling his rice and stew on the ground. Peter Marlowe scooped up the rice and the leaves that floated in the stew and put them in Ewart’s mess can.”

Next week they’ll let you write a letter. Or maybe they’ll let you visit. The Camp Commandant’s always asking for a list of the women and children. Don’t worry, they’re safe.” Peter Marlowe left him slobbering his rice into his face, and took his own rice and went down to the bungalow.

“Hello, cobber,” Larkin said. “You been up to see Mac?”

“Yes. He looks fine. He even started getting ruffled about his age.”

“It’ll be good to get old Mac back.” Larkin reached under his mattress and brought out a spare mess can. “Got a surprise!” He opened the mess can and revealed a two-inch square of brownish puttylike substance.

“By all that’s holy! Blachang! Where the devil did you get it?”

“Scrounged it, of course.”

“You’re a genius, Colonel. Funny, I didn’t smell it.” Peter Marlowe leaned over and took a tiny piece of the blachang. “This’ll last us a couple of weeks.”

Blachang was a native delicacy, easy to make. When the season was right, you went to the shore and netted the myriads of tiny sea creatures that hovered in the surf. You buried them in a pit lined with seaweed, then covered it with more seaweed and forgot about it for two months.

When you opened the pit, the fishes had decayed into a stinking paste, the stench of which would blow your head off and destroy your sense of smell for a week. Holding your breath, you scooped up the paste and fried it. But you had to stay to windward or you’d suffocate. When it cooled, you shaped it into blocks and sold it for a fortune. Prewar, ten cents a cube. Now maybe ten dollars a sliver. Why a delicacy? It was pure protein. And a tiny fraction would flavor a whole bowl of rice. Of course you could easily get dysentery from it. But if it’d been aged right and cooked right and hadn’t been touched by flies, it was all right.

But you never asked. You just said, “Colonel, you’re a genius” and spooned it into your rice and enjoyed it.

“Take some up to Mac, eh?”

“Good idea. But he’s sure to complain it’s not cooked enough.”

“Old Mac’d complain if it was cooked to perfection — ” Larkin stopped. “Hey, Johnny” he called to the tall man walking past, leading a scrawny mongrel on a tether. “Would you like some blachang, cobber?”

“Would I?”

They gave him a portion on a banana leaf and talked of the weather and asked how the dog was. John Hawkins loved his dog above all things. He shared his food with it — astonishing the things a dog would eat — and it slept on his bunk. Rover was a good friend. Made a man feel civilized.

“Would you like some bridge tonight? I’ll bring a fourth,” Hawkins said.

“Can’t tonight,” Peter Marlowe said, maiming flies.

“I can get Gordon, next door,” suggested Larkin.

“Great. After dinner?”

“Good-oh, see you then.”

“Thanks for the blachang” Hawkins said as he left, Rover yapping happily beside him.

“How the hell he gets enough to feed himself and that dingo, damned if I know,” Larkin said. “Or kept him out of some bugger’s billy can for that matter!”

Peter Marlowe stirred his rice, mixing the blachang carefully. He wanted very much to share the secret of his trip tonight with Larkin. But he knew it was too dangerous.

Grace Ewart clung to life with the tenacity of her heritage, the tenacity that had spawned her forebears through the years, keeping them alive through the evils and degradations that people call history and Industrial Revolution. Grace Ewart grew up in Birmingham, in the Black Country. It was called the Black Country because the soot and touchable-smoke from the furnaces and factories settled on the landscape and roofs and walls and inside the houses of the seething mass of slums that stretch north, town joined to town and to Manchester and beyond. From the Black Country came the industrial wealth of England — knives, guns, capital equipment, buttons, toys, grenades, chemicals, plates and cups and saucers and pottery, glass, everything and anything. A busy hive of ants laboring on the produce of the world. Chains and ships and airplanes and guns and explosives and now all the war tools, little and big.

Grace Ewart’s forebears — the Tumbolds — had always lived and died in the Black Country. They were proud of their heritage in pottery. Tumbolds had always been in pottery. Her father was a foreman, like his father before him. And his father before him. Old Bert Tumbold, her father, had said many times, “You listen, Grace, me girl. Wun day, your son’ll be in the shop, an’ a good life it is.” Bert had disapproved greatly of Harold Ewart. “Don’t hold with them white collar workers, nothin’ but pansies, I’ll be bound.”

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.

Down the shed, atapped and bugpooled above, one of the women was weeping in her sleep. That’d be Mrs. Font. Still worrying about the disease she’d caught from the guard to get food to keep Georgie alive, but the medicine didn’t keep him alive and now all she had was the disease and the hurt of it. Poor woman. Well, they’ll get her well too when we get out.

Grace wouldn’t ever think of Harold. No. Harold was sacrosanct. He was in Changi and someday they would be together again and they would go back home for a visit, but never, never, never would they ever live in Birmingham. Oh my dear no! Somewhere in England perhaps, but never in a city. In the country. Somewhere small and nice and open. No more smoke and dust and dirt. No. Over her dead body.

Grace turned over and tried to sleep. She was content and knew that while her children were alive, she would live to guard them. And if they died, they died, and she would still live because a woman can always have more children and must live for the husband who was still alive. And even if her husband died, then she must still live for there are always people to take care of and look after and this was the world, the whole meaning of a woman’s life.

Lying in her bunk thinking, she came to a decision. She decided to do something about Sammy and the Kirk girl. Yes. She’d adopt them and they would live happily together, two boys and two girls. Both children had lost their mothers, their shields, this last week but they were good children and good thieves. Yes, that will be very nice. They can move their bunks next to ours and we’ll eat together and live together, the five of us. And if, when we get out, their fathers are lost too and they have no one to care for them, then Sammy and Linda can live with us always. There will always be enough to feed the family.

She turned over and slept happily. It was so good to have a family to care for.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Getting out of the camp was too simple. Just a short dash to a shadowed part of the six-wire fence, then easily through and a quick run into the jungle. When they stopped to catch their breath, Peter Marlowe wished he were safely back talking to Mac or Larkin or even Grey.

All this time, he told himself, I’ve been wanting to be out, and now when I am, I’m frightened to death.

It was weird — on the outside, looking in. From where they were they could see into the camp. The American hut was a hundred yards away. Men were walking up and down. Hawkins was walking his dog. A Korean guard was strolling the camp. Lights were off in the various huts and the evening check had long since been made. Yet the camp was alive with the sleepless. It was always thus.

“C’mon Peter,” the King whispered and led the way deeper into the foliage.

The planning had been good. So far. When he had arrived at the hut, the King was already prepared. “Got to have tools to do a job right,” he had said, showing him a well-oiled pair of Jap boots — crepe soles and soft noiseless leather — and the “outfit,” a pair of black Chinese pants and short blouse.

Only Dino was in the know about the trip. He had bundled up the two kits and dumped them secretly in the jumping-off point. Then he had returned, and when all was clear Peter Marlowe and the King had walked out casually, saying that they were playing bridge with Larkin and another Aussie. They had had to wait a nerve-wracking half hour before the way was clear for them to run into the storm drain beside the wire and change into their outfits and mud their faces and hands. Another quarter hour before they could run to the fence unobserved. Once they were through and in position, Dino had collected their discarded clothes.

Jungle at night. Eerie. But Peter Marlowe felt at home. It was just like Java, just like the surrounds of his own village, so his nervousness subsided a little.

The King led the way unerringly. He had made the trip five times before. He walked along, every sense alert. There was one guard to pass. This guard had no fixed beat, just a wandering patrol. But the King knew that most times the guard found a clearing somewhere and went to sleep.

After an anxious time, a time when every rotten stick or leaf seemed to shout their passing, and every living branch seemed to want to hold them back, they came to the path. They were past the guard. The path led to the sea. And then the village.

They crossed the path and began to circle. Above the heavy ceiling of foliage, a half-moon stuck in the cloudless sky. Just the right amount of light for safety.

Freedom. No circling wire and no people. Privacy at last. And it was a sudden nightmare to Peter Marlowe.

“What’s up, Peter?” the King whispered, feeling something wrong.

“Nothing … it’s just — well, being outside is such a shock.”

“You’ll get used to it.” The King glanced at his watch. “Got about a mile to go. We’re ahead of schedule, so we’d better wait.”

He found an overgrowth of twisted vine and fallen trees and leaned against it. “We can take it easy here.”

They waited and listened to the jungle. Crickets, frogs, sudden twitters. Sudden silences. The rustle of an unknown beast.

“I could use a smoke.”

“Me too.”

“Not here though.” The King’s mind was alive. Half was listening to the jungle. The other was racing and rehashing the pattern of the deal to be. Yes, he told himself, it’s a good plan.

He checked the time. The minute hand went slowly. But it gave him more time to plan. The more time you plan before a deal, the better it is. No slip-ups and a bigger profit. Thank God for profit! The guy who thought of business was the real genius. Buy for a little and sell for more. Use your mind. Take a chance and money pours in. And with money all things are possible. Most of all, power.

When I get out, the King thought, I’m going to be a millionaire. I’m going to make so much money that it’s going to make Fort Knox look like a piggy-bank. I’ll build an organization. The organization’ll be fitted with guys, loyal but sheep. Brains you can always buy. And once you know a guy’s price you can use him or abuse him at will. That’s what makes the world go round. There are the elite, and the rest. I’m the elite. I’m going to stay that way.

No more being kicked around or shoved from town to town. That’s past. I was a kid then. Tied to Pa — tied to a man who waited tables or jerked gas or delivered phone books or trucked junk or whined handouts to get a bottle. Then cleaning up the mess. Never again. Now others are going to clean up my mess.

All I need is the dough.

“All men are created equal … certain inalienable rights.”

Thank God for America, the King told himself for the billionth time. Thank God I was born American.

“It’s God’s country,” he said, half to himself.

“What?”

“The States.”

“Why?”

“Only place in the world where you can buy anything, where you got a chance to make it. That’s important if you’re not born into it, Peter, and only a goddam few are. But if you’re not — and you want to work — why, there’re so many goddam opportunities, they make your hair curl. An’ if a guy doesn’t work and help himself, then he’s no goddam good, and no goddam American, and — ”

“Listen!” Peter Marlowe warned, suddenly on guard.

From the distance came the faint tread of approaching footsteps.

“It’s a man” whispered Peter Marlowe, sliding deeper into the protection of the foliage. “A native.”

“How the hell d’you know?”

“Wearing native clogs. I’d say he was old. He’s shuffling. Listen, you can hear his breath now.”

Moments later the native appeared from the gloaming and walked the path unconcerned. He was an old man and on his shoulders was a dead wild pig. They watched him pass and disappear.

“He noticed us,” said Peter Marlowe, concerned.

“The hell he did.”

“No, I’m sure he did. Maybe he thought it was a Jap guard, but I was watching his feet. You can always tell if you’re spotted that way. He missed a beat in his stride.”

“Maybe it was a crack in the path or a stick.”

Peter Marlowe shook his head.

Friend or enemy? thought the King feverishly. If he’s from the village then we’re okay. The whole village knew when the King was coming, for they got their share from Cheng San, his contact. I didn’t recognize him, but that’s not surprising, for a lot of the natives were out night-fishing when I went before. What to do?

“We’ll wait, then make a quick reccy. If he’s hostile, he’ll go to the village, then report to the elder. The elder’ll give us a sign to get the hell out.”

“You think you can trust them?”

“I can, Peter. “He started off again. “Keep twenty yards in back of me.”

They found the village easily. Almost too easily, Peter Marlowe thought to himself suspiciously. From their position, on the rise, they surveyed it. A few Malays were squatting smoking on a veranda. A pig grunted here and there. Surrounding the village were coconut palm trees, and beyond it, the phosphorescent surf. A few boats, sails furled, fishing nets hanging still. No feel of danger.

“Seems all right to me,” Peter Marlowe whispered.

The King nudged him abruptly. On the veranda of the headman’s hut was the headman and the man they had seen. The two Malays were deep in conversation, then a distant laugh broke the stillness and the man came down the steps.

They heard him call out. In a moment a woman came running. She took the pig from his shoulders, carried it to the fire-coals and put it on the spit. In a moment there were other Malays, joking, laughing, grouped around.

“There he is!” exclaimed the King.

Walking up the shore was a tall Chinese. Behind him a native furled the sails of the small fishing craft. He joined the headman and they made their soft salutations and they squatted down to wait.

“Okay,” grinned the King, “here we go.”

He got up and, keeping to the shadows, circled carefully. On the back of the headman’s hut a ladder soared to the veranda, high off the ground. The King was up it, Peter Marlowe close behind. Almost immediately they heard the ladder scrape away.

“Tabe,” smiled the King as Cheng San and Sutra, the headman, entered.

“Good you see, tuan,” said the headman, groping for English words. “You makan-eat yes?” His smile showed betelnut-stained teeth.

“Trima kassih-thanks.” The King put out his hand to Cheng San. “How you been, Cheng San?”

“Me good or’ time. You see I — ” Cheng San sought the word and then it came. “Here, good time maybe or’ same.”

The King indicated Peter Marlowe. “Ichi-bon friend. Peter, say something to them, you know, greetings and all that jazz. Get to work, boy.” He smiled and pulled out a pack of Kooas, offering them around.

“My friend and I thank thee for thy welcome,” Peter Marlowe began. “We appreciate thy kindness to ask if we will eat with thee, knowing that in these times there is a lack. Surely only a snake in the jungle would refuse to accept the kindness of thy offer.”

Both Cheng San and the headman broke into huge smiles.

“Wah-lah,” Cheng San said. “It will be good to be able to talk through thee to my friend Rajah all the words that are in my miserable mouth. Many times have I wanted to say that which neither I nor my good friend Sutra here could find the words to say. Tell the Rajah that he is a wise and clever man to find such a fluent interpreter.”

“He says I make a good mouthpiece,” said Peter Marlowe happily, now calm and safe. “And he’s glad he can now give you the straight stuff.”

“For the love of God stick to your well-bred Limey talk. That mouthpiece mishmash makes you look like a bum yet.”

“Oh, and I’ve been studying Max assiduously,” Peter Marlowe said, crestfallen.

“Well, don’t.”

“He also called you Rajah! That’s your nickname from here on. I mean ‘here on in’.”

“Crap off, Peter!”

“Up yours, brother!”

“C’mon, Peter, we haven’t much time. Tell Cheng San this. About this deal. I’m gonna — ”

“You can’t talk business yet, old man,” said Peter Marlowe, shocked. “You’ll hurt everything. First we’ll have to have some coffee and something to eat, then we can start.”

“Tell ’em now.”

“If I do, they’ll be very offended. Very. You can take my word for it.”

The King thought for a moment. Well, he told himself, if you buy brains, it’s bad business not to use them — unless you’ve got a hunch. That’s where the smart businessman makes or breaks — when he plays a hunch over the so-called brains. But in this case he didn’t have a hunch, so he just nodded. “Okay, have it your way.”

He puffed his cigarette, listening to Peter Marlowe speak to them. He studied Cheng San obliquely. His clothes were better than the last time. He wore a new ring that looked like a sapphire, maybe five carats. His neat, clean, hairless face was honey-toned and his hair well-groomed. Yep, Cheng San was doing all right for himself. Now old Sutra, he’s not doing so good. His sarong’s old and tattered at the hem. No jewelry. Last time he had a gold ring. Now he hasn’t, and the crease mark where his ring had been worn was almost unnoticeable. That meant he hadn’t just taken it off for tonight’s show.

He heard the women off in the other part of the hut chattering softly, and outside, the quietness of the village by night. Through the glassless window came the smell of roasting pig. That meant the village was really in need of Cheng San — their black-market outlet for the fish the village was supposed to sell directly to the Japs — and were making him a gift of the pig. Or perhaps the old man who had just trapped a wild pig was having a party for his friends. But the crowd around the fire was waiting anxiously, just as anxiously as us. Sure, they’re hungry too. That means that things must be tough in Singapore. The village should be well stocked with food and drink and everything. Cheng San couldn’t be doing too well smuggling their fish to the markets. Maybe the Japs had their eye on him. Maybe he’s not long for this earth!

So maybe he needs the village more than the village needs him. And is putting on a show for them — clothes and jewelry. Maybe Sutra’s getting pissed off with lack of business and is ready to dump him for another blackmarketeer.

“Hey, Peter,” he said. “Ask Cheng San how’s the fish biz in Singapore.” Peter Marlowe translated the question.

“He says that business is fine. Food shortages are such that he is able to obtain the best prices on the island. But he says the Japs are clamping down heavily. It’s becoming harder to trade every day. And to break the market laws is becoming more and more expensive.”

Aha! Got you. The King exulted. So Cheng hasn’t come just for my deal! It is fish and the village. Now how can I turn this to my advantage? Betcha Cheng San’s having trouble delivering the merchandise. Maybe the Japs intercepted some boats and got tough. Old Sutra’s no fool. No money, no deal, and Cheng San knows it. No makee tradee, no makee business and old Sutra’ll sell to another. Yes, sir. So the King knew he could trade tough and mentally upped his asking price.

Then food arrived. Baked sweet potatoes, fried eggplant, coconut milk, thick slices of roasted pork, heavy with oil. Bananas. Papayas. The King marked that there was no millionaire’s cabbage or lamb or saté of beef and no sweetmeats the Malays loved so much. Yeah, things were tough all right.

The food was served by the headman’s chief wife, a wrinkled old woman. Helping her was Sulina, one of his daughters. Beautiful, soft, curved, honeyed skin. Sweet-smelling. Fresh sarong in their honor.

“Tabe, Sam,” winked the King at Sulina.

The girl bubbled with laughter and shyly tried to cover her embarrassment.

“Sam?” winced Peter Marlowe.

“Sure,” answered the King dryly. “She reminds me of my brother.”

“Brother?” Peter Marlowe stared at him astonished.

“Joke. I haven’t got a brother.”

“Oh!” Peter Marlowe thought a moment, then asked “Why Sam?”

“The old guy wouldn’t introduce me,” said the King, not looking at the girl, “so I just gave her the name. I think it suits her.”

Sutra knew that what they said had something to do with his daughter. He knew he had made a mistake to let her in here. Perhaps, in other times, he would have liked one of the tuan-tuan to notice her and take her back to his bungalow to be his mistress for a year or two. Then she would come back to the village well versed in the ways of men, with a nice dowry in her hands, and it would be easy for him to find the right husband for her. That’s how it would have been in the past. But now romance led only to a haphazard time in the bushes, and Sutra did not want that for his daughter even though it was time she became a woman.

He leaned forward and offered Peter Marlowe a choice piece of pig. “Perhaps this would tempt thy appetite?”

“I thank thee.”

“You may leave, Sulina.”

Peter Marlowe detected the note of finality in the old man’s voice and noticed the shadow of dismay that painted the girl’s face. But she bowed low and took her leave. The old wife remained to serve the men.

Sulina, thought Peter Marlowe, feeling a long-forgotten urge. She’s not as pretty as N’ai, who was without blemish, but she is the same age and pretty. Fourteen perhaps and ripe. My God, how ripe.

“The food is not to thy taste?” Cheng San asked, amused by Peter Marlowe’s obvious attraction to the girl. Perhaps this could be used to advantage.

“On the contrary. It is perhaps too good, for my palate is not used to fine food, eating as we do.” Peter Marlowe remembered that for the protection of good taste, the Javanese spoke only in parables about women. He turned to Sutra. “Once upon a time a wise guru said that there are many kinds of food. Some for the stomach, some for the eye and some for the spirit. Tonight, I have had food for the stomach. And the sayings of thee and Tuan Cheng San have been food for the spirit. I am replete. Even so, I have also — we have also — been offered food for the eye. How can I thank thee for thy hospitality?”

Sutra’s face wrinkled. Well put. So he bowed to the compliment and said simply, “It was a wise saying. Perhaps, in time, the eye may be hungry again. We must discuss the wisdom of the ancient another time.”

“What’re you looking so smug about, Peter?”

“I’m not looking smug, just pleased with myself. I was just telling him we thought his girl was pretty.”

“Yes! She’s a doll! How about asking her to join us for coffee?”

“For the love of God.” Peter tried to keep his voice calm. “You don’t come out and make a date just like that. You’ve got to take time, build up to it.”

“Hell, that’s not the American way. You meet a broad, you like her and she likes you, you hit the sack.”

“You’ve no finesse.”

“Maybe. But I’ve a lot of broads.”

They laughed and Cheng San asked what the joke was and Peter Marlowe told them that the King had said, “We should set up shop in the village and not bother to go back to camp.”

After they had drunk their coffee, Cheng San made the first overture.

“I would have thought it risky to come from the camp by night. Riskier than my coming here to the village.”

First round to us, thought Peter Marlowe. Now, Oriental style, Cheng San was at a disadvantage, for he had lost face by making the opening. He turned to the King. “All right, Rajah. You can start. We’ve made a point so far.”

“We have?”

“Yes. What do you want me to tell him?”

“Tell him I’ve a big deal. A diamond. Four carats. Set in platinum. Flawless, blue-white. I want thirty-five thousand dollars for it. Five thousand British Malay Straits dollars, the rest in Jap counterfeit money.”

Peter Marlowe’s eyes widened. He was facing the King, so his surprise was hidden from the Chinese. But Sutra marked it. Since he was no part of the deal, but merely collected a percentage as a go-between, he settled back to enjoy the parry and thrust. No need to worry about Cheng San — Sutra knew to his cost that the Chinese could handle himself as well as anyone.

Peter Marlowe translated. The enormousness of the deal would cover any lapse of manners. And he wanted to rock the Chinese.

Cheng San brightened palpably, caught off his guard. He asked to see the diamond.

“Tell him I haven’t got it with me. Tell him I’ll make delivery in ten days. Tell him I have to have the money three days before I make delivery, because the owner won’t let it out of his possession until he has the money.”

Cheng San knew that the King was an honest trader. If he said he had the ring and would hand it over, then he would. He always had. But to get such an amount of money and pass it into the camp, where he could never keep track of the King — well, that was quite a risk.

“When can I see the ring?” he asked.

“Tell him if he likes he can come into the camp, in seven days.”

So I must hand over the money before I even see the diamond! thought Cheng San. Impossible, and Tuan Rajah knows it. Very bad business. If it really is four carats, I can get fifty — a hundred thousand dollars for it. After all, I know the Chinese who owns the machine that prints the money. But the five thousand in Malay Straits dollars — that is another thing. This he would have to buy black-market. And what rate? Six to one would be expensive, twenty to one cheap.

“Tell my friend the Rajah,” he said, “that this is a strange business arrangement. Consequently I must think, longer than a man of business should need to think.”

He wandered over to the window and gazed out.

Cheng San was tired of the war and tired of the undercover machinations that a businessman had to endure to make a profit. He thought of the night and the stars and the stupidity of man, fighting and dying for things which would have no lasting value. At the same time, he knew that the strong survive and the weak perish. He thought of his wife and his children, three sons and a daughter, and the things he would like to buy them to make them comfortable. He thought also of the second wife he would like to buy. Somehow or another he must make this deal. And it was worth the risk to trust the King.

The price is fair, he reasoned. But how to safeguard the money? Find a go-between whom he could trust. It would have to be one of the guards. The guard could see the ring. He could hand over the money if the ring was real and the weight right. Then the Tuan Rajah could make delivery, here at the village. No need to trust the guard to take the ring and turn it over. How to trust a guard?

Perhaps we could concoct a story — that the money was a loan to the camp from Chinese in Singapore — no, that would be no good, for the guard would have to see the ring. So the guard would have to be completely in the know. And would expect a substantial fee.

Cheng San turned back to the King. He noticed how the King was sweating. Ah, he thought, you want to sell badly! But perhaps you know I want to buy badly. You and I are the only ones who can handle such a deal. No one has the honest name for trading like you — and no one but I, of all the Chinese who deal with the camp, is capable of delivering so much money.

“So, Tuan Marlowe. I have a plan which perhaps would cover both my friend the Rajah and myself. First, we agree to a price. The price mentioned is too high, but unimportant at the moment. Second, we agree to a go-between, a guard whom we both can trust. In ten days I will give half the money to the guard. The guard can examine the ring. If it is truly as the owner claims, he can pass over the money to my friend the Rajah. The Rajah will make delivery here to me. I will bring an expert to weigh the stone. Then I will pay the other half of the money and take the stone.”

The King listened intently as Peter Marlowe translated.

“Tell him it’s okay. But I’ve got to have the full price. The guy won’t turn it over without the dough in his hands.”

“Then tell my friend the Rajah I will give the guard three-quarters of the agreed price to help him negotiate with the owner.”

Cheng San felt that seventy-five percent would certainly cover the amount of money paid to the owner. The King would merely be gambling his profit, for surely he was a good enough businessman to obtain a twenty-five percent fee!

The King had figured on three-quarters. That gave him plenty to maneuver with. Maybe he could knock a few bucks off the owner’s asking price, nineteen-five. Yep, so far so good. Now we get down to the meat.

“Tell him okay. Who does he suggest as the go-between?”

“Torusumi.”

The King shook his head. He thought a moment, then said direct to Cheng San, “How ’bout Immuri?”

“Tell my friend that I would prefer another. Perhaps Kimina?”

The King whistled. A corporal yet! He had never done business with him. Too dangerous. Got to be someone I know. “Shagata-san?”

Cheng San nodded in agreement. This was the man he wanted, but he did not want to suggest it. He wanted to see who the King wanted — a last check on the King’s honesty.

Yes, Shagata was a good choice. Not too bright, but bright enough. He had dealt with him before. Good.

“Now, about the price,” said Cheng San. “I suggest we discuss this. Per carat four thousand counterfeit dollars. Total sixteen thousand. Four thousand in Malay dollars at the rate of fifteen to one.”

The King shook his head blandly, then said to Peter Marlowe, “Tell him I’m not going to crap around bargaining. The price is thirty thousand, five in Straits dollars at eight to one, all in small notes. My final price.”

“You’ll have to bargain a bit more,” said Peter Marlowe. “How about saying thirty-three, then — ”

The King shook his head. “No. And when you translate use a word like ‘crap’!”

Reluctantly Peter Marlowe turned back to Cheng San. “My friend says thus: He is not going to mess around with the niceties of bargaining. His final price is thirty thousand — five thousand in Straits dollars at a rate of eight to one. All in small denomination notes.”

To his astonishment Cheng San said immediately, “I agree!” for he too didn’t want to fool with bargaining. The price was fair and he had sensed that the King was adamant. There comes a time in all deals when a man must decide, yea or nay. The Rajah was a good trader.

They shook hands. Sutra smiled and brought forth a bottle of sake. They drank each other’s health until the bottle was gone. Then they fixed the details.

In ten days Shagata would come to the American hut at the time of the night guard change. He would have the money and would see the ring before he handed over the money. Three days after, the King and Peter Marlowe would meet Cheng San at the village. If for some reason Shagata could not make the date, he would arrive the next day, or the next. Similarly, if the King couldn’t make their appointment at the village, they were to come the next day.

After paying and receiving the usual compliments, Cheng San said that he had to catch the tide. He bowed courteously and Sutra went out with him, escorting him to the shore. Beside the boat they began their polite quarrel about the fish business.

The King was triumphant. “Great, Peter. We’re in!”

“You’re terrific! When you said to give it to him in the teeth like that, well, old man, I thought you’d lost him. They just don’t do those things.”

“Had a hunch,” was all the King said. Then he added, chewing on a piece of meat, “You’re in for ten percent — of the profit, of course. But you’ll have to work for it, you son of a bitch.”

“Like a horse! God! Just think of all that money. Thirty thousand dollars would be a stack of notes perhaps a foot high.”

“More,” the King said, infected by the excitement.

“My God, you’ve got nerve. How on earth did you arrive at the price? He agreed, boom, just like that. One moment’s talk, then boom, you’re rich!”

“Got a lot of worrying to do before it is a deal. Lot of things could go wrong. It ain’t a deal till the cash is delivered and in the bank.”

“Oh, I never thought of that.”

“Business axiom. You can’t bank talk. Only greenbacks!”

“I still can’t get over it. We’re outside the camp, we’ve more food inside us than we’ve had in weeks. And prospects look great. You’re a bloody genius.”

“We’ll wait and see, Peter.”

The King stood up. “You wait here. I’ll be back in an hour or so. Got another bit of business to attend to. So long as we’re out of here in a couple of hours, we’ll be okay. Then we’ll hit the camp just before dawn. Best time. That’s when the guards’ll be at their lowest mark. See you,” and he disappeared down the steps.

In spite of himself, Peter Marlowe felt alone, and quite a little afraid.

Christ, what’s he up to? Where’s he going? What if he’s late? What if he doesn’t come back? What if a Jap comes into the village? What if I’m left on my own? Shall I go looking for him? If we don’t make it back by dawn, Christ, we’ll be reported missing and we’ll have to run. Where? Maybe Cheng San’ll help? Too dangerous! Where does he live? Could we make the docks and get a boat? Maybe contact the guerrillas who’re supposed to be operating?

Get hold of yourself, Marlowe, you damn coward! You’re acting like a three-year-old!

Curbing his anxiety, he settled down to wait. Then suddenly he remembered the coupling condenser — three hundred microfarads.

“Tabe, Tuan,” Kasseh smiled as the King entered her hut. “Tabe, Kasseh!”

“You like food, yes?”

He shook his head and held her close, his hands moving over her body. She stood on tiptoe to put her arms around his neck, her hair a plume of black gold falling to her waist.

“Long time,” she said, warmed by his touch.

“Long time,” he replied. “You miss me?”

“Uh-uh,” she laughed, aping his accent.

“He arrived yet?”

She shook her head. “No like this thing, tuan. Has danger.”

“Everything has danger.”

They heard footsteps, and soon a shadow splashed the door. It opened and a small dark Chinese walked in. He wore a sarong and Indian chappals on his feet. He smiled, showing broken mildewed teeth. On his back was a war parang in a scabbard. The King noticed that the scabbard was well oiled. Easy to jerk that parang out and cut a man’s head off — just like that. Tucked into the man’s belt was a revolver.

The King had asked Kasseh to get in touch with the guerrillas operating in Johore and this man was the result. Like most, they were converted bandits now fighting the Japanese under the banner of the Communists, who supplied them with arms.

“Tabe. You speak English?” the King asked, forcing a smile. He didn’t like the look of this Chinese.

“Why you want talk with us?”

“Thought we might be able to make a deal.”

The Chinese leered at Kasseh. She flinched.

“Beat it, Kasseh,” the King said.

Noiselessly she left, going through the bead curtain into the rear of the house.

The Chinese watched her go. “You lucky,” he said to the King. “Too lucky. I bet woman give good time two, three men one night. No?”

“You want to talk a deal? Yes or no?”

“You watch, white man. Maybe I tell Japs you here. Maybe I tell them village safe for white prisoners. Then they kill village.”

“You’ll end up dead, fast, that way.”

The Chinese grunted, then squatted down. He shifted the parang slightly, menacingly. “Maybe I take woman now.”

Jesus, thought the King, maybe I made a mistake.

“I got a proposal for you guys. If the war ends suddenly — or the Japs take it into their heads to start chopping us POW’s up, I want you to be around for protection. I’ll pay you two thousand American dollars when I’m safe.”

“How we know if Japs kill prisoners?”

“You’ll know. You know most things that go on.”

“How we know you pay?”

“The American government will pay. Everyone knows there’s a reward.”

“Two thousand! ’Mahlu! We get two thousand any day. Kill bank. Easy.”

The King made his gambit. “I’m empowered by our commanding officer to guarantee you two thousand a head for every American that is saved. If the shoot blows up.”

“I no understan’.”

“If the Japs start trying to knock us off — kill us. If the Allies land here, the Japs’re going to get mean. Or if the Allies land on Japan, then the Japs here will take reprisals. If they do, you’ll know and I want you to help us get away.”

“How many men?”

“Thirty.”

“Too many.”

“How many will you guarantee?”

“Ten. But the price will be five thousand per man.”

“Too much.”

The Chinese shrugged.

“All right. It’s a deal. You know the camp?”

The Chinese showed his teeth in a twisted grin. “We know.”

“Our hut’s to the east. A small one. If we have to make a break, we’ll break through the wire there. If you’re in the jungle, you can cover us. How will we know if you’re in position?”

Again the Chinese shrugged. “If not, you die anyway.”

“Could you give us a signal?”

“No signal.”

This is crazy, the King told himself. We won’t know when we’re going to have to make a break, and if it’s going to be sudden there’ll be no way of getting a message to the guerrillas in time. Maybe they’ll be there, maybe not. But if they figure there’s five grand apiece for any of us they get out, then maybe they’ll keep a good lookout from here on in.

“Will you keep an eye on the camp?”

“Maybe leader says yes, maybe no.”

“Who’s your leader?”

The Chinese shrugged and picked his teeth.

“It’s a deal then?”

“Maybe.” The eyes were hostile. “You finish?”

“Yes.” The King stuck out his hand. “Thanks.”

The Chinese looked down at the hand, sneered and went to the door. “Remember. Ten only. Rest kill!” He left.

Well, it’s worth a try, the King assured himself. Those bastards could sure as hell use the money. And Uncle Sam would pay. Why the hell not! What the hell do we pay taxes for?

“Tuan,” said Kasseh gravely as she stood at the door. “I not like this thing.”

“Got to take a chance. If there’s a sudden killing maybe we can get out.” He winked at her. “Worth a try. We’d be dead anyway. So, what the hell. Maybe we got a line of retreat.”

“Why you not make deal for you alone? Why you not go with him now and escape camp?”

“Easy. First, it’s safer at the camp than with the guerrillas. No point in trusting them unless there’s an emergency. Second, one man’s not worth their trouble. That’s why I asked him to save thirty. But he could only handle ten.”

“How you choose ten?”

“It’ll be every man for himself, as long as I’m okay.”

“Maybe your command officer no like only ten.”

“He’ll like it if he’s one of the lucky ones.”

“You think Japanese kill prisoners?”

“Maybe. But let’s forget it, huh?”

She smiled. “Forget. You hot. Take shower, yes?”

“Yes.”

In the shower section of the hut the King bailed water over himself from the concrete well. The water was cold, and it made him gasp and his flesh sting.

“Kasseh!”

She came through the curtains with a towel. She stood looking at him. Yes, her tuan was a fine man. Strong and fine and the color of his skin pleasing. Wah-lah, she thought, I am lucky to have such a man. But he is so big and I am so small. He towers over me by two heads.

Even so, she knew that she pleased him. It is easy to please a man. If you are a woman. And not ashamed of being woman.

“What’re you smiling at?” he asked her as he saw the smile.

“Ah, tuan, I just think, you are so big and I so small. And yet, when we lie down, there is not so much difference, no?”

He chuckled and slapped her fondly on the buttocks and took the towel. “How ’bout a drink?”

“It is ready, tuan.”

“What else is ready?”

She laughed with her mouth and her eyes. Her teeth were stark white and her eyes deep brown and her skin was smooth and sweet-smelling. “Who knows, tuan?” Then she left the room.

Now there’s one helluva dame, the King thought, looking after her, drying himself vigorously. I’m a lucky guy.

Kasseh had been arranged by Sutra when the King had come to the village the first time. The details had been fixed neatly. When the war was over, he was to pay Kasseh twenty American dollars for every time he stayed with her. He had knocked a few bucks off the first asking price — business was business — but at twenty bucks she was a great buy.

“How do you know I’ll pay?” he had asked her.

“I do not. But if you do not, you do not, and then I gained only pleasure. If you pay me, then I have money and pleasure too.” She had smiled.

He slipped on the native slippers she had left for him, then walked through the bead curtain. She was waiting for him.

Peter Marlowe was still watching Sutra and Cheng San down by the shore. Cheng San bowed and got into the boat and Sutra helped shove the boat into the phosphorescent sea. Then Sutra returned to the hut.

“Tabe-lah!” Peter Marlowe said.

“Would thou eat more?”

“No thank you, Tuan Sutra.”

My word, thought Peter Marlowe, it’s a change to be able to turn down food. But he had eaten his fill, and to eat more would have been impolite. It was obvious that the village was poor and the food would not be wasted.

“I have heard,” he said tentatively, “that the news, the war news, is good.”

“Thus too I have heard, but nothing that a man could repeat. Vague rumors.”

“It is a pity that times are not like those in former years. When a man could have a wireless and hear news or read a newspaper.”

“True. It is a pity.”

Sutra made no sign of understanding. He squatted down on his mat and rolled a cigarette, funnel-like, and began to smoke through his fist, sucking the smoke deep within him.

“We hear bad tales from the camp,” he said at last.

“It is not so bad, Tuan Sutra. We manage, somehow. But not to know how the world is, that is surely bad.”

“I have heard it told that there was a wireless in the camp and the men who owned the wireless were caught. And that they are now in Utram Road Jail.”

“Hast thou news of them? One was a friend of mine.”

“No. We only heard that they had been taken there.”

“I would dearly like to know how they are.”

“Thou knowest the place, and the manner of all men taken there, so thou already knowest that which is done.”

“True. But one hopes that some may be lucky.”

“We are in the hands of Allah, said the Prophet.”

“On whose name be praise.”

Sutra glanced at him again; then, calmly puffing his cigarette, he asked, “Where didst thou learn the Malay?”

Peter Marlowe told him of his life in the village. How he had worked the paddy fields and lived as a Javanese, which is almost the same as living as a Malay. The customs are the same and the language the same, except for the common Western words — wireless in Malaya, radio in Java, motor in Malaya, auto in Java. But the rest was the same. Love, hate, sickness and the words that a man will speak to a man or a man to a woman were the same. The important things were always the same.

“What was the name of thy woman in the village, my son?” Sutra asked. It would have been impolite to ask before, but now, when they had talked of things of the spirit and the world and philosophy and Allah and certain of the sayings of the Prophet, on whose name be praise, now it was not rude to ask.

“Her name was N’ai Jahan.”

The old man sighed contentedly, remembering his youth. “And she loved thee much and long.”

“Yes.” Peter Marlowe could see her clearly.

She had come to his hut one night when he was preparing for bed. Her sarong was red and gold, and tiny sandals peeped from beneath its hem. There was a thin necklace of flowers around her neck and the fragrance of the flowers filled the hut and all his universe.

She had laid her bed roll beside her feet and bowed low before him.

“My name is N’ai Jahan,” she had said. “Tuan Abu, my father, has chosen me to share thy life, for it is not good for a man to be alone. And thou hast been alone for three months now.”

N’ai was perhaps fourteen, but in the sun-rain lands a girl of fourteen is already a woman with the desires of a woman and should be married, or at least with the man of her father’s choice.

The darkness of her skin had a milk sheen to it and her eyes were jewels of topaz and her hands were petals of the fire orchid and her feet slim and her child-woman body was satin and held within it the happiness of a hummingbird. She was a child of the sun and a child of the rain. Her nose was slender and fine and the nostrils delicate.

N’ai was all satin, liquid satin. Firm where it should be firm. Soft where it should be soft. Strong where it should be strong. And weak where it should be weak.

Her hair was raven. Long. A gossamer net to cover her.

Peter Marlowe had smiled at her. He had tried to hide his embarrassment and be like her, free and happy and without shame. She had taken off her sarong and stood proudly before him, and she had said, “I pray that I shall be worthy to make thee happy and make thee soft-sleep. And I beg thee to teach me all the things that thy woman should know to make thee ‘close to God.’”

Close to God, how wonderful, Peter Marlowe thought; how wonderful to describe love as being close to God.

He looked up at Sutra. “Yes. We loved much and long. I thank Allah that I have lived and loved unto eternity. How glorious are the ways of Allah.”

A cloud reached out and grappled with the moon for possession of the night.

“It is good to be a man,” Peter Marlowe said.

“Does thy lack trouble thee tonight?”

“No. In truth. Not tonight.” Peter Marlowe studied the old Malay, liking him for the offer, smoothed by his gentleness.

“Listen, Tuan Sutra. I will open my mind to thee, for I believe that in time we could be friends. Thou couldst in time have time to weigh my friendship and the ‘I’ of me. But war is an assassin of time. Therefore I would speak to thee as a friend of thine, which I am not yet.”

The old man did not reply. He puffed his cigarette and waited for him to continue.

“I have need of a little part of a wireless. Is there a wireless in the village, an old one? Perhaps if it is broken, I could take one such little piece from it.”

“Thou knowest that wirelesses are forbidden by the Japanese.”

“True, but sometimes there are secret places to hide that which is forbidden.”

Sutra pondered. A wireless lay in his hut. Perhaps Allah had sent Tuan Marlowe to remove it. He felt he could trust him because Tuan Abu had trusted him before. But if Tuan Marlowe was caught outside camp with the wireless, inevitably the village would be involved.

To leave the wireless in the village was also dangerous. Certainly a man could bury it deep in the jungle, but that had not been done. It should have been done but had not been done, for the temptation to listen was always too great. The temptation of the women to hear the “sway-music” was too great. The temptation to know when others did not know was great. Truly it is written, Vanity, all is vanity.

Better, he decided, to let the things that are the pink man’s remain with the pink man.

He got up and beckoned Peter Marlowe and led the way through the bead curtains into the darker recesses of the hut. He stopped at the doorway to Sulina’s bedroom. She was lying on the bed, her sarong loose and full around her, her eyes liquid.

“Sulina,” Sutra said, “go onto the veranda and watch.”

“Yes, Father.” Sulina slipped off the bed and retied the sarong and adjusted her little baju jacket. Adjusted it, thought Sutra, perhaps a little too much, so the promise of her breasts showed clearly. Yes, it is surely time that the girl married. But whom? There are no eligible men.

He stood aside as the girl brushed past, her eyes low and demure. But there was nothing demure in the sway of her hips, and Peter Marlowe noticed them too. I should take a stick to her, Sutra thought. But he knew that he should not be angry. She was but a girl on the threshold of womanhood. To tempt is but a woman’s way — to be desired is but a woman’s need.

Perhaps I should give thee to the Englishman. Maybe that would lessen thy appetite. He looks more than man enough! Sutra sighed. Ah, to be so young again.

From under the bed he brought out the small radio.

“I will trust thee. This wireless is good. It works well. You may take it.”

Peter Marlowe almost dropped it in his excitement. “But what about thee? Surely this is beyond price.”

“It has no price. Take it with thee.”

Peter Marlowe turned the radio over. It was a main set. In good condition. The back was off and the tubes glinted in the oil light. There were many condensers. Many. He held the set nearer the light and carefully examined the guts of it, inch by inch.

The sweat began dripping off his face. Then he found the one, three hundred microfarads.

Now what do I do? he asked himself. Do I just take the condenser? Mac had said he was almost sure. Better to take the whole thing, then if the condenser doesn’t fit ours, we’ve got another. We can cache it somewhere. Yes. It will be good to have a spare.

“I thank thee, Tuan Sutra. It is a gift that I cannot thank thee enough for. I am the thousands of Changi.”

“I beg thee protect us here. If a guard sees thee, bury it in the jungle. My village is in thy hands.”

“Do not fear. I will guard it with my life.”

“I believe thee. But perhaps this is a foolish thing to do.”

“There are times, Tuan Sutra, when I truly believe men are only fools.”

“Thou art wise beyond thy years.”

Sutra gave him a piece of material to cover it, then they returned to the main room. Sulina was in the shadows on the veranda. As they entered she got up.

“May I get thee food or drink, Father?”

Wah-lah, thought Sutra grumpily, she asks me but she means him. “No. Get thee to bed.”

Sulina tossed her head prettily but obeyed.

“My daughter deserves a whipping, I think.”

“It would be a pity to blemish such a delicate thing,” Peter Marlowe said. “Tuan Abu used to say, ‘Beat a woman at least once a week and thou wilt have peace in thy house. But do not beat her too hard, lest thou anger her, for then she will surely beat thee back and hurt thee greatly!’”

“I know the saying. It is surely true. Women are beyond comprehension.”

They talked about many things, squatting on the veranda looking at the sea. The surf was very slight, and Peter Marlowe asked permission to swim.

“There are no currents,” the old Malay told him, “but sometimes there are sharks.”

“I will take care.”

“Swim only in the shadows near the boats. There have been times when Japanese walk along the shore. There is a gun emplacement three miles down the beach. Keep thy eyes open.”

“I will take care.”

Peter Marlowe kept to the shadows as he made for the boats. The moon was lowering in the sky. Not too much time, he thought.

By the boats some men and women were preparing and repairing nets, chatting and laughing one to another. They paid no attention to Peter Marlowe as he undressed and walked into the sea.

The water was warm, but there were cold pockets, as in all the Eastern seas, and he found one and tried to stay in it. The feeling of freedom was glorious, and it was almost as though he was a small boy again taking a midnight swim in the Southsea with his father nearby shouting, “Don’t go out too far, Peter! Remember the currents!”

He swam underwater and his skin drank the salt-chemic. When he surfaced, he spouted water like a whale and swam lazily for the shallows, where he lay on his back, washed by the surf, and exulted in his freedom.

As he kicked his legs at the surf half swirling his loins, it suddenly struck him that he was quite naked and there were men and women within twenty yards of him. But he felt no embarrassment.

Nakedness had become a way of life in the camp. And the months that he had spent in the village in Java had taught him that there was no shame in being a human being with wants and needs.

The sensual warmth of the sea playing on him, and the rich warmth of the food within him, fired his loins into sudden heat. He turned over abruptly on his belly and pushed himself back into the sea, hiding.

He stood on the sandy bottom, the water up to his neck, and looked back at the shore and the village. The men and women were still busy repairing their nets. He could see Sutra on the veranda of his hut, smoking in the shadows. Then, to one side, he saw Sulina, caught in the light from the oil lamp, leaning on the window frame. Her sarong was half held against her and she was looking out to sea.

He knew she was looking at him and he wondered, shamed, if she had seen. He watched her and she watched him. Then he saw her take away the sarong and lay it down and pick up a clean white towel to dry the sweat that sheened her body.

She was a child of the sun and a child of the rain. Her long dark hair hid most of her, but she moved it until it caressed her back and she began to braid it. And all the time she watched him, smiling.

Then, suddenly, every flicker of current was a caress, every touch of breeze a caress, every thread of seaweed a caress — fingers of courtesans, crafty with centuries of learning.

I’m going to take you, Sulina.

I’m going to take you, whatever the cost.

He tried to will Sutra to leave the veranda. Sulina watched. And waited. Impatient as he.

I’m going to take her, Sutra. Don’t get in my way! Don’t. Or by God…

He did not see the King approaching the shadows or notice him stop with surprise when he saw him lying on his belly in the shallows.

“Hey, Peter. Peter!”

Hearing the voice through the fog, Peter Marlowe turned his head slowly and saw the King beckoning to him.

“Peter, c’mon. It’s time to beat it.”

Seeing the King, he remembered the camp and the wire and the radio and the diamond and the camp and the war and the camp and the radio and the guard they had to pass and would they get back in time and what was the news and how happy Mac would be with the three hundred microfarads and the spare radio that worked. The man-heat vanished. But the pain remained.

He stood up and walked for his clothes.

“You got a nerve,” the King said.

“Why?”

“Walking about like that. Can’t you see Sutra’s girl looking at you?”

“She’s seen plenty of men without clothes and there’s nothing wrong with that.” Without the heat there was no nakedness.

“Sometimes I don’t understand you. Where’s your modesty?”

“Lost that a long time ago.” He dressed quickly and joined the King in the shadows. His loins ached violently. “I’m glad you came along when you did. Thanks.”

“Why?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“You scared I’d forgotten you?”

Peter Marlowe shook his head. “No. Forget it. But thanks.”

The King studied him, then shrugged. “C’mon. We can make it easy now.” He led the way past Sutra’s hut and waved. “Salamat.”

“Wait, Rajah. Won’t be a second!”

Peter Marlowe ran up the stairs and into the hut. The radio was still there. Holding it under his arm, wrapped in the cloth, he bowed to Sutra.

“I thank thee. It is in good hands.”

“Go with God.” Sutra hesitated, then smiled. “Guard thy eyes, my son. Lest when there is food for them, thou canst not eat.”

“I will remember.” Peter Marlowe felt suddenly hot. I wonder if the stories are true, that the ancients can read thoughts from time to time. “I thank thee. Peace be upon thee.”

“Peace be upon thee until our next meeting.”

Peter Marlowe turned and left. Sulina was at her window as they passed underneath it. Her sarong covered her now. Their eyes met and caught and a compact was given and received and returned. She watched as they shadowed up the rise towards the jungle and she sent her safe wishes on them until they disappeared.

Sutra sighed, then noiselessly went into Sulina’s room. She was standing at the window dreamily, her sarong around her shoulders. Sutra had a thin bamboo in his hands and he cut her neatly and hard, but not too hard, across her bare buttocks.

“That is for tempting the Englishman when I had not told thee to tempt him,” he said, trying to sound very angry.

“Yes, Father,” she whimpered, and each sob was a knife in his heart. But when she was alone, she curled luxuriously on the mattress and let the tears roll a little, enjoying them. And the heat spread through her, helped by the sting of the blow.

It was a kind night, and the Java skies swam with stars, huge sparks of light in a carpet of ravened sea. The village was sparse with light. A fire flickered sleepily in the dusty campong. Around the doorways and verandas the men and women sat and talked or listened or contemplated. The children were mostly in bed asleep.

But over the men and over the women there was a waiting, a somberness. Their minds reached towards one hut, and they prayed, each in his own way.

N’ai writhed on the sleeping mat in agony. The pain was centered in her loins, and the fire of it spread through her entrails and through her veins and through her nerve channels, into her brain and eyes and hands and feet and into every molecule of her.

Now the pain was like an ocean within and over her, a placid sameness to the depth of it; though far beneath the surface there were peaks and valleys, plains and chasms, the surface stretched smooth the agony.

This pain was bearable, when the pain itself was part of the whole, the life of the body, the essence of it. But no ocean stays forever placid, storms come, winds claw the surface and tear the seas to highs and lows, tormenting. Storms are birthed in the bowels of wind and sky and cold and heat, and then, full-fledged, the storm takes the sea and shakes it and makes it monstrous. Thus was her pain, for now her pain moved jagged. It moved from ocean into storm, and the agony built from her loins and raced the paths of her and she twisted, ripped by its violence, spread by its violence. Her cries broke from her mouth and sped through the space of the stilted hut, over the hut and village quiet, out into the night, into the jungle, to mix delicately with sibilance of wind and hum of cricket and drone of mosquito, to rest at last in the sigh of surf pounding reefs of Java coast, south but a little way.

The sweat poured from her body and wet the mat, and she lay naked, her legs clawed wide by the pain, and she cursed men and all men and most the man who had done this to her, hating men with a hatred of monumental size, but most the one who had hurt her so, hurt her to this teetering death that took so long, so long.

“Tuan Allah,” she whimpered as the storm-pain blew its violence to a peak, “give me death, I beg Thee, give me death.”

“Ayee,” the old crone said simply, wiping the sweat from her, “pray not for death, N’ai, for that will come to pass soon enough. Pray better for life.”

The cries parted the girl’s lips as the pain built to impossibility and she twisted. The cries caught in her larynx and they became screams, a single scream which bent to the curve of pain, and subsided as the tide withdrew to ocean pain, once more at ocean strength.

“Wah-lah!” The old woman said testily, then shifted her betel nut chew to the other side of her mouth, “Push little one, push harder, push with the pain and let us both have done with the birth of the child.”

N’ai could bear the pain at ocean mood. Exhaustedly she opened her eyes and looked at the woman, saw the red-stained, needle-filed teeth of the old way, saw the flat withered dugs which once were breasts, felt the smile and confidence of the dark, dark eyes. “Will it be long?” she asked tiredly.

“Longer than some, shorter than others,” the old woman said and squatted more comfortably, waving away the mosquitoes. “If thou would push with the pain and not fear it, then it will be very soon. Thy hips are wide and strong, and thy body strong, and the child-to-be’s exit is firm and unscarred. There is nothing to fear for thee or for the child. As I am the best midwife in the village, or in these parts for that matter, as sure as I am Buluda, the midwife, the maker of potions, there is nothing to fear.”

“Wah-lah,” N’ai said, wan and very tired, “it is hard this time. I beg thee give me a little water.”

Buluda fetched the water and helped her to drink, and she had put a little sangi bark into the water which made it very healthful.

“I thank thee,” the girl said. She lay back and let her eyes wander the comfort of the hut, seeing the rafters and the screens and the cooking place and the eating-living-thinking space. “Where is Tua?” she asked, suddenly concerned.

“Where he should be,” Buluda said, “asleep with thy husband’s mother. Would thou have thy son here tonight, with thee birthing? Does thou think a three-year-old can help?” Her laugh was more a cackle and a spill of red betel-juice pencilled her chin, hung momentarily in a droplet, then fell to the matted floor.

“Chide me not, dear Mother Buluda.” The girl’s lips were pocked with teeth marks where she had bitten her flesh when the last pain had soared. But the scars were only transients and they made her lips more red, more pleasing red.

“And Tua, now that’s a foolish name for a boy,” Buluda was saying. “That’s no name for a boy.”

A smile touched the lips of the girl as she thought of her son and his father. “I like the name,” she said softly, “it is a good name.” She sighed and wearily moved the sweat from her face and neck. “It is hot tonight.”

“Yes. But this night is a good night for a birth. The omens are good.” Buluda felt the penetration of the girl’s scrutiny and she kept her face impassive. “Rest, child, rest and gain strength. It will not be long.”

Buluda got up and eased the ache in her shoulders and pottered around the hut checking that all was ready against the time.

Another tide of pain swarmed the girl and Buluda fondled the monstrous stomach, molding it, helping it. “Push hard, little one, push with thy pain. Let thy pain help thee. Push.” Her voice was as soothing as her gnarled hands, and though both her voice and her hands were strong and confident, her mind was not confident. Ayee, she told herself, too much pain and too long and too early. This is not good for one so young, not on the second birth. On the first, Wah-lah, that was different, very different and not hard. But this, this has too much pain and the portents are not good. Did not a hawk sail the eastern sky this noon when the pains began? Did not a toad cross the path to the hut as I hurried confidently to the hut of the mother-to-be? Ayee, she thought grimly, a hawk in the eastern sky and a toad on the path are bad omens at a second birth.

So Buluda continued her vigil and as the pains ebbed and flowed, she soothed the body as best she could. The ointments were ready and the herbs were ready and the water boiling on its charcoal fire. There was nothing for her to do but be patient. The position of the life-to-be was good and no harm should come to mother or child, but there seemed to her to be a strangeness in the space of the hut, and she feared for the child-woman she loved.

Wah-lah, Buluda thought, oh that I could be so young and beautiful, that I could be there, lying in child birth, not old and useless and without. She leaned forward and stroked the brow and the long raven hair, glorying in the deep bronze satin of the skin. She let her hands wander over the body, over the fullness of the breasts — seeping with the goodness of the milk of life — down over hips and stomach, grotesque yet beautiful with the marvelousness of fulfullment, over loins and thighs, soothing them, enjoying them, this beautiful body, hairless and pure.

Ayee, Buluda told herself in wonder, is it possible that only a few short years ago, this mother-to-be was yet a babe I held up from the womb and smacked life into, only a measured time ago? She counted the seasons and the girl’s count became sixteen years of life, and she remembered too that even the mother of this woman she had brought into life as well. I am old, old, she muttered, and she became a little sad. But not so old, she chuckled, that I cannot get a little warmth from the sight of a young buck caressing his love, nor yet a twitch of envy at the sight of a young virgin, or a young woman, or a young widow, or even a middle-aged widow; and not so old that I cannot feel excitement from the mating dance, and not so old that I cannot remember the time of my youth and my children, and the time, for instance, that I and Tuan Abu had down at the shore, when my husband was in Surabaya, and Tuan Abu yet a boy who knew not. Buluda laughed and laughed and the tears ran down her cheeks as she remembered her life. Ayee, thou art not yet ready for the earth, old woman, she told herself.

As the pains increased and pulsated quicker and more vast, Buluda held the girl’s hands to give her strength to push, push, push little one. Then she took her right hand away, and probed gently deep within and finger-touched the head, and she nodded to herself and knew that soon, what was to be, would be. She took her hand away and washed it, then sat once more beside the girl and held her hands, forgetting the ache in her own back or the oldness of her bones.

“Push, push again, little one,” she crooned encouragingly, “push for thy life and the life of thy child.”

The pain no longer ran like the ocean, but only came and went as the typhoon comes and goes — sudden, shocking, gone. Sudden, vicious, here. Sudden, killing, gone.

And the tide of pain hammered at the gate of brain, fulfilling the function that was required of it. It unlocked the door and let the spirit soar free, beyond the pain, leaving only muscles to the will of pain, leaving them free to stretch and split and move to open up the path of birth. A wave of pain crashed into her and her body bent to its will while her spirit rose above it.

Now N’ai was floating on a zephyred sky under a silken moon. She was serene now, no longer fearing death, no longer fighting it. She only felt regret, regret for her son, for her child to be, for her husband, regret that she would no longer be there to care and worry and cook and mend and plant and work and love the three of them.

“Truly I have no wish for death,” she murmured, unafraid, “but there is nothing I can do against it. So I will let death come, gently or terribly as is her wish. But I am sorry that I have to die — but there is nothing I can do, nothing.”

“Thou art wise, child,” a benign voice said.

She looked and smiled, and then a puzzled frown crossed her brow. “Tuan Abu! But thou art dead, Father! Thou art dead for two years now. Am I already dead?”

“No child, not yet.”

She was no longer in the sky, for the sky had become a chasm, and the path of the chasm was deep and dark and the thread of path was lit by fireflies, the steep walls of the chasm shutting out the sky and the light above. She was walking in the chasm, part of it, yet not a part of it, and now she walked out of the shadow into the sun.

“Ayee,” she sighed happily, “truly the sun is good.”

“How is he?” Tuan Abu asked gravely.

N’ai was puzzled for a moment and then she understood. Tuan Abu’s ears were old and tired, and where she had said sun, he had only heard “son.”

“He is growing and growing and he will make a fine man,” she said proudly, not wishing to embarrass him by saying “I but said the sun feels good.”

“I still can be proved right, my child,” Tuan Abu said sadly.

“I know, Father, but that is in the hands of Allah.”

She smiled confidently at the old man, loving him. “I would want the same to happen as it happened.”

It had happened when her first husband had left the village, and though she knew that she had been given to the stranger to make his sleep calm and not as a wife, even so she felt a wife to him. She had waited two weeks after he had left, and then she had bowed low before Tuan Abu, the Headman of the village, and said: “I am with child, Father.”

The Headman had looked at her astonished. “Did not the women tell thee what to do, what herbs to use, that thou should not have a child by him?”

“Yes, Tuan Abu, assuredly. But I wanted his child.”

Then Tuan Abu had become angry and had said: “This is a bad thing, N’ai. The blood of East and blood of West should not mix, for thou would have a tormented child that is half of our world and half of his. Neither of each, neither of both.”

“I know, Father. But I want his child, I want his child.”

“Thou hast done a bad thing,” Tuan Abu had said angrily. “You will go to Buluda and tell her to give thee the drink that will take away the child.”

“This I will not do,” she had said firmly.

Then the torrent of his rage had poured over her. “Thou art a wicked woman to disobey. Then think not of thyself but of the child! Why condemn a child to agony, a lifetime of agony, longing for one world or the other world — when neither can be had?”

“I want his child,” she had said stubbornly.

“This will not be!”

“Yes it will, Father. Be patient with me.” She had stopped and collected her words. “When my beloved went away he walked past the paddy and into the jungle. I followed secretly, obeying thy orders, but I wanted to see what would come to pass with him. He took off the village clothes and put on his own. Then he walked the road until a Japanese patrol met him. There was an officer with them and he questioned my beloved. My man said that he had been wandering the jungles for months, stealing food as he could, and he denied that he had ever lived in any village. He said that he had come from the west, and not the east where our village lay. The officer asked about the darkened color of his skin, and my beloved said that his own skin was deeply pigmented, and this, with the force of the sun, had made him darker than an Englishman should be.

“The officer gave him a cigarette and after they had talked about many things, the officer said, ‘As thou art an officer, thou hast lost face to be captured alive by the enemy. I will save thy loss of honor. I will help thee. I will let thee use my sacred dagger to commit hari kiri. Then thou wilt die honored.’

“My beloved hid his fear and said, ‘Why should you do this for me?’

“‘Because thou art the Samurai rank of England. I do this for I admire thy bravery and it is not fitting for a brave man to suffer the dishonor of capture.’

“For many minutes my beloved argued for his life, saying that by their code, the English code, that hari kiri was dishonor. Then the officer became angry and spat on my beloved and berated him. Finally the officer said, ‘Thou art a pig without honor. Therefore thou can die like the pig thou art,’ and they put iron manacles on his hands and took him away.”

She had stopped, the tears silently sweeping her cheeks. Then she had said with quiet strength, “So my beloved is dead. It is only right that his seed should live. It is right that a man should have a son to follow him. Even if the son is half of his world and half of ours.”

“Perhaps he has sons in his homeland,” the old man had said compassionately.

“No, Father, he has none. This is why I did not wish to stop the birthing of his child. Our son will be called Tua, which is almost Tuan, which is the title of respect.”

Then Tuan Abu had touched her forehead and blessed her, and said, “Against my knowledge, let the child be born. Perhaps it will be a girl child. For a girl it is not quite so bad to have East and West within her.”

In time Tua had been born. He was golden skinned and his eyes were blue like his father’s, and his limbs were strong and straight and blemishless. He was a son to be proud of, and he became the light of Tuan Abu’s eyes. Dying, Tuan Abu had touched Tua’s head, blessing him, saying, “One day, perhaps, thou will cross the seas to find thy father’s kin and perhaps, if Allah wills, they will smile on thee. But I believe they will not smile on thee,” he had added sadly. And before he died he had given her a paper which gave the sureness to the birth and the truth of it, and the name from which Tua came.

Now N’ai was walking the golden jungle, pink flowered, verdant, strong. She walked across the taro patch and climbed the bamboo stairs to their hut and ran into the arms of her beloved and they lay together, warmed, and then they ate good food that she had cooked — saté and rice and shrimps and breadfruit and coconuts — and then she had made kawa for him, and he lay back and she knew she was good in his eyes.

They passed the time in talking, for now, three months after he had arrived in the village, he could speak their tongue even as she. He was telling her about his home and many things.

“And thy wife?” she asked hesitantly.

Peter Marlowe laughed. “I have no wife.”

“Well, then, thy mistresses?”

“I have no mistresses. But, for a short time I did have one.”

She frowned, thinking that it was strange that a man so old should have had but one woman in his life, one woman. But she knew that he was telling her the truth, so she knelt beside him and said, “Tell me about her, my love.”

“Her name was Marina, and I met her on the great ship that brought me from England to the East. We fell in love, but I was a child in matters of love.” Peter Marlowe smiled and stroked her raven hair.

“What was she like, how did she look, tell me.”

“She was tall and fair, a head taller than thee. Her skin was like milk and her eyes blue.”

“And I am small and my skin is dark and my eyes dark,” she cried, and wept suddenly for her love was so much.

He took her in his arms and held her close. “But I love thee.”

“Do you love me, truly do you love me?”

“Thou art my life, little one.”

In time she let herself be soothed and begged forgiveness for her tears, tears not of jealousy for Marina, but tears that she was not like her, tall and fair and blue eyed. She blessed Marina, for it was Marina who had taught him how to love, and the secrets of love, taught him with her love, open, kind, gentle, taught him the things that please a woman, showed him the things, secret things, freely because of her love, things that now she and her beloved enjoyed, things that smoothed the way of content, man to woman. “I bless Maree-na” she said happily. “I will always bless her for her love for thee.”

She felt the pain begin to build. He was tiny in the distance, calling her name, then the typhoon wiped the sky dark and fear swept into her. Now she saw him no more. The sky was pitched with fire, and the earth was fire and the fire burned her feet and she screamed and tried to draw her feet away, but there was no place to go, for the fire covered the whole earth. The flames began eating her.

She was running through the burning coals towards a single coconut palm that grew from the fire and she whimpered with agony and climbed the trunk of the palm, wrapped her arms and legs around it. But the fire burned the roots of the tree and she felt herself falling into the fire and she screamed and screamed and screamed. Then through the blaze she heard a voice and she saw her husband, Aliman, running through the coals towards her.

“N’ai, my love,” he was shouting, “don’t despair, fight the fire, push away the trunk, push, push, push!”

And she felt her hands gripped and Aliman tore her from the molten trunk and ran with her through the fire, telling her of his love for her and Tua, “Live for Tua, live for me, for I love thee and the boy, love thee. Run and live. Run, my love!”

But the fire spread up the sky and the sky burned and the ground burned and the trees and the birds and the creatures burned, and the stars burned and the whole firmament fell upon her and she lifted up her hands to protect Aliman and Tua, and she felt the fire crushing her and she fought the fire with her nails and hands and legs and body.

Buluda was working frantically, massaging, pushing, tugging, helping, and as she sweated she muttered incantations to the djinns of the earth and sky and sea, and with the same desperate breath, she called on Allah for the balance of life and death was now. The head was cleared and one shoulder. With the bamboo spatula, she deftly eased the shoulders free and tugged against the wrong contractions, praying for help, weakened by her length of vigil, sick of waiting, sick with anxiety for mother and child….

Still the fire burned the girl, the flames reaching up from her feet, around her thighs, ripping at her weakness, tearing for her womb. Frantically, she tried to fight the fire with her hands — better to lose hands than essence — but the agony blew them away, and fire swarmed viciously into her.

Then the heavens opened and the rains gushed and the earth reeled instantly, and suddenly she was beyond the zephyred stars, in a paradise of soft green sward, beside the stream of paradise….

“Ayeee,” Buluda shouted, victorious, holding up the squalling child. “Wake up, N’ai, thou has a child, a fine child — and thee and the child are well and blemishless.”

The girl opened her eyes and saw the beauty of her son and the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes and floated into blissful slumber-peace, was the face of Aliman, her husband, and his love for her — written clear and content in the glory of his smile.

When they were about a mile from the camp, the King and Peter Marlowe stopped for a breather. It was then that the King noticed for the first time the small bundle wrapped in cloth.

He had been leading the way, and so concentrated had he been on the success of the night’s work, and so watchful of the darkness against possible danger, that he had not noticed it before.

“What you got? Extra chow?”

He watched while Peter Marlowe grinned and proudly unwrapped the cloth. “Surprise!”

The King’s heart missed six beats.

“Why, you goddam son of a bitch! Are you out of your skull?”

“What’s the matter?” Peter Marlowe asked, flabbergasted.

“Are you crazy? That’ll land us in more trouble than hell knows what. You got no right to risk our necks over a goddam radio. You got no right to use my contacts for your own goddam business.”

Peter Marlowe felt the night close in on him as he stared unbelievingly. Then he said, “I didn’t mean any harm — ”

“Why, you goddam son of a bitch!” the King raged. “Radios are poison.”

“But there isn’t one in the camp — ”

“Tough. You get rid of that goddam thing right now. And I’ll tell you something else. We’re finished. You and me. You got no right to get me mixed in something without telling me. I ought to kick the shit outta you!”

“Try it.” Now Peter Marlowe was angry and raw, as raw as the King. “You seem to forget there’s a war on and there’s no wireless in the camp. One reason I came was because I hoped I might be able to get a condenser. But now I’ve a whole wireless — and it works.”

“Get rid of it!”

“No.”

The two men faced each other, taut and inflexible. For a split second the King readied to cut Peter Marlowe to pieces.

But the King knew anger was of no value when an important decision had to be made, and now that he had gotten over the first nauseating shock, he could be critical and analyze the situation.

First, he had to admit that although it had been bad business to risk so much, the risk had been successful. If Sutra hadn’t been good and ready to give Pete the radio he’d’ve ducked the issue and said, “Hell, there’s no radio hereabouts.” So no harm was done. And it had been a private deal between Pete and Sutra ’cause Cheng San had already left.

Second, a radio that he knew about and one that wasn’t in his hut would be more than useful. He could keep tabs on the situation and he’d know exactly when to make the break. So, all in all, there was no harm done — except that Peter had exceeded his authority. Now take that. If you trust a guy and hire him, you hire his brains. No point in having a guy around just to take orders and sit on his can. And Peter had sure been great during the negotiations. If and when the break came, well, Peter would be on the team. Got to have a guy to talk the lingo. Yeah, and Pete wasn’t scared. So all in all, the King knew he’d be crazy to rip into him before his mind told him to use the new situation in a businesslike way. Yep, he had blown his stack like a two-year-old.

“Pete.” He saw the challenging set to Peter Marlowe’s jaw. Wonder if I could take the son of a bitch. Sure. Got him by fifty — maybe eighty pounds.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I blew my stack. The radio’s a good idea.”

“What?”

“I just said I was sorry. It’s a great idea.”

“I don’t understand you,” Peter Marlowe said helplessly. “One moment you’re a crazy man and the next you’re saying that it’s a good idea.”

The King liked this son of a bitch. Got guts. “Eh, radios give me the creeps, no future in them.” Then he laughed softly. “No resale value!”

“You’re really not fed up with me any more?”

“Hell no. We’re buddies.” He punched him playfully. “I was just put out that you didn’t tell me. That wasn’t good.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I apologize. It was ridiculous and unfair. Christ, I wouldn’t want to jeopardize you in any way. Truly I’m sorry.”

“Shake. I’m sorry I blew my stack. But next time, tell me before you do anything.”

Peter Marlowe shook his hand. “My word on it.”

“Good enough.” Well, thank God there was no sweat now. “So what the hell do you mean by condenser?”

Peter Marlowe told him about the three water bottles.

“So all Mac needs is the one condenser, right?”

“He said he thinks so.”

“You know what I think? I think it’d be better just to take out the condenser and dump the radio. Bury it here. It’d be safe. Then if yours doesn’t work we could always come back and get it. Mac could easily put the condenser back. To hide this radio in the camp’d be real tough, and it’d be a helluva temptation just to plug the goddam thing in, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes.” Peter Marlowe looked at the King searchingly. “You’ll come back with me to get it?”

“Sure.”

“If — for any reason — I can’t come back, would you come for it? If Mac or Larkin asked you to?”

The King thought a moment. “Sure.”

“Your word?”

“Yes.” The King smiled faintly. “You put quite a store by the ‘word’ jazz, don’t you, Peter?”

“How else can you judge a man?”

It took Peter Marlowe only a moment to snap the two wires joining the condenser to the innards of the radio. Another minute and the radio was wrapped in its protective cloth and a small hole scraped away in the jungle earth. They put a flat stone on the bottom of the hole, then covered the radio with a good thickness of leaves and smoothed the earth back and pulled a tree trunk over the spot. A couple of weeks in the dampness of its tomb would destroy its usefulness, but two weeks would be enough time to come back and pick it up if the bottles still didn’t work.

Peter Marlowe wiped the sweat away, for a sudden layer of heat had settled on them and the sweat smell frenzied the increasing waves of insects clouding them. “These blasted bugs!” He looked up at the night sky, judging the time a little nervously. “Do you think we’d better go on now?”

“Not yet. It’s only four-fifteen. Our best time is just before dawn. We’d better wait another ten minutes, then we’ll be in position in plenty of time.” He grinned. “First time I went through the wire I was scared and anxious too. Coming back I had to wait at the wire. I had to wait half an hour or more before the coast was clear. Jesus! I sweated.” He waved his hands at the insects. “Goddam bugs.”

They sat awhile listening to the constant movement of the jungle. Swaths of fireflies cut patches of brilliance in the small rain ditches beside the path.

“Just like Broadway at night,” said the King.

“I saw a film once called Times Square. It was a newspaper yarn. Let me see. I think it was Cagney.”

“Don’t remember that one. But Broadway, you got to see it for real. It’s just like day in the middle of the night. Huge neon signs and lights all over the place.”

“Is that your home? New York?”

“No. I’ve been there a couple of times. Been all over.”

“Where’s your home?”

The King shrugged. “My pa moves around.”

“What’s his work?”

“That’s a good question. Little of this, little of that. He’s drunk most of the time.”

“Oh! That must be pretty rough.”

“Tough on a kid.”

“Do you have any family?”

“My ma’s dead. She died when I was three. Got no brothers or sisters. My pa brought me up. He’s a bum, but he taught me a lot about life. Number one, poverty’s a sickness. Number two, money’s everything. Number three, it doesn’t matter how you get it as long as you get it.”

“You know, I’ve never thought much about money. I suppose in the service — well, there’s always a monthly pay check, there’s always a certain standard of living, so money doesn’t mean much.”

“How much does your father make?”

“I don’t know exactly. I suppose around six hundred pounds a year.”

“Jesus. That’s only twenty-four hundred bucks. Why, I make thirteen hundred as a corporal myself. I sure as hell wouldn’t work for that nothing dough.”

“Perhaps it’s different in the States. But in England you can get by quite well. Of course our car is quite old, but that doesn’t matter, and at the end of your service you get a pension.”

“How much?”

“Half your pay approximately.”

“That seems to me to be nothing. Can’t understand why people go in the service. Guess because they’re failures as people.”

The King saw Peter Marlowe stiffen slightly. “Of course,” he added quickly, “that doesn’t apply in England. I was talking about the States.”

“The service is a good life — for a man. Enough money — an exciting life in all parts of the world. Social life’s good. Then, well, an officer always has a great deal of prestige.” Peter Marlowe added almost apologetically, “You know, tradition and all that.”

“You going to stay in after the war?”

“Of course.”

“Seems to me,” the King said, picking at his teeth with a little thread of bark, “that it’s too easy. There’s no excitement or future in taking orders from guys who are mostly bums. That’s the way it looks to me. And hell, you don’t get paid nothing. Why Pete, you should take a look at the States. There’s nothing like it in the world. No place. Every man for himself and every man’s as good as the next guy. And all you have to do is figure an angle and be better than the next guy. Now that’s excitement.”

“I don’t think I’d fit in. Somehow I know I’m not a money-maker. I’m better off doing what I was born to do.”

“That’s nonsense. Just because your old man’s in the service — ”

“Goes back to 1720. Father to son. That’s a lot of tradition to try to fight.”

The King grunted. “That’s quite a time!” Then he added, “I only know about my dad and his dad. Before that — nothing. Least, my folks were supposed to have come over from the old country in the ’80’s.”

“From England?”

“Hell no. I think Germany. Or maybe Middle Europe. Who the hell cares? I’m an American and that’s all that counts.”

“Marlowes are in the service and that’s that!”

“Hell no. It’s up to you. Look. Take you now. You’re in the chips ’cause you’re using your brains. You’d be a great businessman if you wanted to. You can talk like a Wog, right? I need your brains. I’m paying for the brains — now don’t get on your goddam high horse. That’s American style. You pay for brains. It’s got nothing to do with us being buddies. Nothing. If I didn’t pay, then I’d be a bum.”

“That’s wrong. You don’t have to be paid to help a bit.”

“You sure as hell need an education. I’d like to get you in the States and put you on the road. With your phony Limey accent you’d knock the broads dead. You’d clean up. We’ll put you in ladies’ underwear.”

“Holy God.” Peter smiled with him, but the smile was tinged with horror. “I could no more try to sell something than fly.”

“You can fly.”

“I meant without a plane.”

“Sure. I was making a joke.”

The King glanced at his watch. “Time goes slow when you’re waiting.”

“I sometimes think we’ll never get out of this stinking hole.”

“Eh, Uncle Sam’s got the Nips on the run. Won’t take long. Even if it does, what the hell? We’ve got it made, buddy. That’s all that counts.”

The King looked at his watch. “We’d better take a powder.”

“What?”

“Get going.”

“Oh!” Peter Marlowe got up. “Lead on, Macduff!” he said happily.

“Huh?”

“Just a saying. It means ‘Let’s take a powder.’”

Happy now that they were friends once more, they started into the jungle. Crossing the road was easy. Now that they had passed the area patrolled by the roving guard, they followed a short path and were within quarter of a mile of the wire. The King led, calm and confident. Only the clouds of fireflies and mosquitoes made their progress unpleasant.

“Jesus. The bugs are bad.”

“Yes. If I had my way I’d fry them all,” Peter Marlowe whispered back.

Then they saw the bayonet pointing at them, and stopped dead in their tracks.

The Japanese was sitting leaning against a tree, and his eyes were fixed on them, a frightening grin stretching his face, and the bayonet was held propped on his knees.

Their thoughts were the same. Christ! Utram Road! I’m dead. Kill!

The King was the first to react. He leaped at the guard and tore the bayoneted rifle away, rolled as he twisted aside, then got to his feet, the rifle butt high to smash it into the man’s face. Peter Marlowe was diving for the guard’s throat. A sixth sense warned him and his clutching hands avoided the throat and he slammed into the tree.

“Get away from him!” Peter Marlowe sprang to his feet and grabbed the King and pulled him out of the way.

The guard had not moved. The same wide-eyed malevolent grin was on his face.

“What the hell?” the King gasped, panicked, the rifle still held high above his head.

“Get away! For Christ’s sake hurry!” Peter Marlowe jerked the rifle out of the King’s hands and threw it beside the dead Japanese. Then the King saw the snake in the man’s lap.

“Jesus,” he croaked as he went forward to take a closer look.

Peter Marlowe caught him frantically. “Get away! Run, for God’s sake!”

He took to his heels, away from the trees, carelessly crashing through the undergrowth. The King raced after him, and only when they had reached the clearing did they stop.

“You gone crazy?” The King winced, his breathing torturing him. “It was only a goddam snake!”

“That was a flying snake,” Peter Marlowe wheezed. “They live in trees. Instant death, old man. They climb the trees, then flatten their bodies and sort of spiral down to earth and fall on their victims. There was one in his lap and one under him. There was sure to be more ’cause they’re always in nests.”

“Jesus!”

“Actually, old man, we ought to be grateful to those bloody things,” Peter Marlowe said, trying to slow his breathing. “That Jap was still warm. He hadn’t been dead more than a couple of minutes. He would’ve caught us if he hadn’t been bitten. And we should thank God for our quarrel. It gave the snakes time. We’ll never be closer to pranging! To death! Never!”

“I don’t ever want to see a goddam Jap with a goddam bayonet pointing at me in the middle of the goddam night again. C’mon. Better get away from here.”

When they were in position near the wire, they settled down to wait. They couldn’t make their dash to the wire yet. Too many people about. Always people walking about, zombies walking the camp, the sleepless and the almost asleep.

It was good to rest, and both felt their knees shaking and were thankful to be alive again.

Jesus, this has been a night, the King thought. If it hadn’t been for Pete I’d be a dead duck. I was going to put my foot in the Jap’s lap as I smashed down the rifle. My foot was six inches away. Snakes! Hate snakes. Sons of bitches!

And as the King calmed, his esteem for Peter Marlowe increased.

“That’s the second time you saved my neck,” he whispered.

“You got to the rifle first. If the Jap hadn’t been dead, you’d’ve killed him. I was slow.”

“Eh, I was just in front.” The King stopped, then grinned. “Hey, Peter. We make a good team. With your looks and my brains, we do all right.”

Peter Marlowe began to laugh. He tried to hold it inside and rolled on the ground. The choked laughter and the tears streaming his face infected the King, and his laughter too began to contort him. At last Peter Marlowe gasped, “For Christ sake, shut up.”

“You started it.”

“I did not.”

“Sure you did, you said, you said…” But the King couldn’t continue. He wiped the tears away. “You see that Jap? That son of a bitch was just sitting like an ape — ”

“Look!”

Their laughter vanished.

On the other side of the wire Grey was walking the camp. They saw him stop outside the American hut. They saw him wait in the shadows, then look out across the wire, almost directly at them.

“You think he knows?” Peter Marlowe whispered.

“Don’t know. But sure as hell we can’t risk going in for a while. We’ll wait.”

They waited. The sky began to lighten. Grey stood in the shadows looking at the American hut, then around the camp. The King knew from where Grey stood he could see his bed. He knew that Grey could see he wasn’t in it. But the covers were turned back and he could be with the other sleepless, walking the camp. No law against being out of your bed. But hurry up, get to hell out of there, Grey.

“We’ll have to go soon,” the King said. “Light’s against us.”

“How about another spot?”

“He’s got the whole fence covered, way up to the corner.”

“You think there’s been a leak — someone sneaked?”

“Could be. Maybe just a coincidence.” The King bit his lip angrily.

“How about the latrine area?”

“Too risky.”

They waited. Then they saw Grey look once more over the fence towards them and walk away. They watched him until he rounded the jail wall.

“May be a phony,” the King said. “Give him a couple of minutes.”

The seconds were like hours as the sky lightened and the shadows began to dissolve. Now there was no one near the fence, no one in sight.

“Now or never, c’mon.”

They ran for the fence; in seconds they were under the wire and in the ditch.

“You go for the hut, Rajah. I’ll wait.”

“Okay.”

For all his size the King was light on his feet and he swiftly covered the distance to his hut. Peter Marlowe got out of the ditch. Something told him to sit on the edge looking out at the camp over the wire. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Grey turn the corner and stop. He knew he had been seen immediately.

“Marlowe.”

“Oh hello, Grey. Can’t you sleep either?” he said, stretching.

“How long have you been here?”

“Few minutes. I got tired of walking so I sat down.”

“Where’s your pal?”

“Who?”

“The American,” Grey sneered.

“I don’t know. Asleep, I suppose.”

Grey looked at the Chinese type outfit. The tunic was torn across the shoulders and wet with sweat. Mud and shreds of leaves on his stomach and knees. A streak of mud on his face.

“How did you get so dirty? And why are you sweating so much? What’re you up to?”

“I’m dirty because — there’s no harm in a little honest dirt. In fact,” Peter Marlowe said as he got up and brushed off his knees and the seat of his pants, “there is nothing like a little dirt to make a man feel clean when he washes it off. And I’m sweating because you’re sweating. You know, the tropics — heat and all that!”

“What have you got in your pockets?”

“Just because you’ve a suspicious beetle brain doesn’t mean that everyone is carrying contraband. There’s no law against walking the camp if you can’t sleep.”

“That’s right,” Grey replied, “but there is a law against walking outside the camp.”

Peter Marlowe studied him nonchalantly, not feeling nonchalant at all, trying to read what the hell Grey meant by that. Did he know? “A man’d be a fool to try that.”

“That’s right.” Grey looked at him long and hard. Then he wheeled around and walked away.

Peter Marlowe stared after him. Then he turned and walked in the other direction and did not look at the American hut. Today, Mac was due out of hospital. Peter Marlowe smiled, thinking of Mac’s welcome home present.

From the safety of his bed, the King watched Peter Marlowe go. Then he focused on Grey, the enemy, erect and malevolent in the growing light.

Skeletal thin, ragged pair of pants, crude native clogs, no shirt, his armband, his threadbare Tank beret. A ray of sunlight burned the Tank emblem in the beret, converting it from nothing into molten gold.

How much do you know, Grey, you son of a bitch? the King asked himself.