King Rat

by James Clavell

  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.

  Three

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was just after dawn.

  Peter Marlowe lay on his bunk in half-sleep.

  Was it a dream? he asked himself, suddenly awake. Then his cautious fingers touched the little piece of rag that held the condenser and he knew it was not a dream.

  Ewart twisted in the top bunk and groaned awake.

  “’Mahlu on the night,” he said as he hung his legs over the bunk.

  Peter Marlowe remembered that it was his unit’s turn for the borehole detail. He walked out of the hut and prodded Larkin awake.

  “Eh? Oh, Peter,” Larkin said, fighting out of sleep. “What’s up?”

  It was hard for Peter Marlowe not to blurt out the news about the condenser, but he wanted to wait until Mac was there too, so he just said, “Borehole detail, old man.”

  “My bloody oath! What, again?” Larkin stretched his aching back, retied his sarong and slipped on his clogs.

  They found the net and the five-gallon container and walked through the camp, which was just beginning to stir. When they reached the latrine area they paid no heed to the occupants and the occupants paid no heed to them.

  Larkin lifted the cover off a borehole, Peter Marlowe quickly scooped the sides with the net. When he brought the net out of the hole it was full of cockroaches. He shook the net clean into the container and scraped again. Another fine haul.

  Larkin replaced the cover and they moved to the next hole.

  “Hold the thing still,” Peter Marlowe said. “Now look what you did! I lost at least a hundred.”

  “There’s plenty more,” Larkin said with distaste, getting a better grip on the container.

  The smell was very bad but the harvest rich. Soon the container was packed. The smallest of the cockroaches measured an inch and a half. Larkin clamped the lid on the container and they walked up to the hospital.

  “Not my idea of a steady diet,” Peter Marlowe said.

  “You really ate them, Peter, in Java?”

  “Of course. And so have you, by the way. In Changi.”

  Larkin almost dropped the container. “What?”

  “You don’t think I’d pass on a native delicacy and a source of protein to the doctors and not take advantage of it for us, do you?”

  “But we had a pact!” Larkin shouted. “We agreed, the three of us, that we’d not cook anything weird without telling the other first.”

  “I told Mac and he agreed.”

  “But I didn’t, dammit!”

  “Oh come on, Colonel! We’ve had to catch them and cook them secretly and listen to you say how good the cook-up was. We’re just as squeamish as you.”

  “Well, next time I want to know. That’s a bloody order!”

  “Yes, sir!” Peter Marlowe chuckled.

  They delivered the container to the hospital cookhouse. To the special tiny cookhouse that fed the desperately sick.

  When they got back to the bungalow Mac was waiting. His skin was gray-yellow and his eyes were bloodshot and his hands shaking, but he was over the fever. He could smile again.

  “Good to have you back, cobber,” Larkin said, sitting down.

  “Ay.”

  Peter Marlowe absently took out the little piece of rag. “Oh, by the way,” he said with studied negligence, “this might come in handy sometime.”

  Mac unwrapped the rag without interest.

  “Oh my bloody word!” Larkin said.

  “Dammit, Peter,” Mac said, his fingers shaking, “are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

  Peter Marlowe kept his voice as flat as his face, enjoying his excitement hugely. “No point in getting all upset about nothing.” Then he could contain his smile no longer. He beamed.

  “You and your blasted Pommy underplay.” Larkin tried to be sour, but he was beaming too. “Where’d you get it, cobber?”

  Peter Marlowe shrugged.

  “Stupid question. Sorry, Peter,” Larkin said apologetically.

  Peter Marlowe knew he would never be asked again. It was far better they did not know about the village.

  Now it was dusk.

  Larkin was guarding. Peter Marlowe was guarding. Under cover of his mosquito net, Mac joined the condenser. Then, unable to wait any longer, with a prayer he fiddled the connecting wire into the electric source. Sweating, he listened into the single earphone.

  An agony of waiting. It was suffocating under the net, and the concrete walls and concrete floor held the heat of the vanishing sun. A mosquito droned angrily. Mac cursed but did not try to find it and kill it, for suddenly there was static in the earphone.

  His tense fingers, wet with the sweat that ran down his arms, slipped on the screwdriver. He dried them. Delicately he found the screw that turned the tuner and began to twist, gently, oh so gently. Static. Only static. Then suddenly he heard the music. It was a Glenn Miller recording.

  The music stopped, and an announcer said, “This is Calcutta. We continue the Glenn Miller recital with his recording ‘Moonlight Serenade.’”

  Through the doorway Mac could see Larkin squatting in the shadows, and beyond him men walking the corridor between the rows of cement bungalows. He wanted to rush out and shout, “You laddies want to hear the news in a little while? I’ve got Calcutta tuned in!”

  Mac listened for another minute, then disconnected the radio and carefully put the water bottles back into their sheaths of green-gray felt and left them carelessly on the beds. There would be
a news broadcast from Calcutta at ten, so to save time Mac hid the wire and the earphone under the mattress instead of putting them into the third bottle.

  He had been hunched under the net for so long that he had a crick in his back, and he groaned when he stood up.

  Larkin looked back from his station outside. “What’s the matter, cobber? Can’t you sleep?”

  “Nay, laddie,” said Mac, coming out to squat beside him.

  “You should take it easy, first day out of hospital.” Larkin did not need to be told that it worked. Mac’s eyes were lit with excitement. Larkin punched him playfully. “You’re all right, you old bastard.”

  “Where’s Peter?” Mac asked, knowing that he was guarding by the showers.

  “Over there. Stupid bugger’s just sitting. Look at him.”

  “Hey, ’mahlu sana!” Mac called out.

  Peter Marlowe already knew that Mac had finished, but he got up and walked back and said,“’Mahlu senderis,” which means “’Mahlu yourself.” He, too, did not need to be told.

  “How about a game of bridge?” Mac asked.

  “Who’s the fourth?”

  “Hey, Gavin,” Larkin called out. “You want to make a fourth?”

  Major Gavin Ross dragged his legs out of the camp chair. Leaning on a crutch, he wormed himself from the next bungalow. He was glad for the offer of a game. Nights were always bad. So unnecessary, the paralysis. Once upon a time a man, and now a nothing. Useless legs. Wheelchaired for life.

  He had been hit in the head by a tiny sliver of shrapnel just before Singapore surrendered. “Nothing to worry about,” the doctors had told him. “We can get it out soon as we can get you into a proper hospital with the proper equipment. We’ve plenty of time.” But there was never a proper hospital with the proper equipment and time had run out.

  “Gad,” he said painfully as he settled himself on the cement floor. Mac found a cushion and tossed it over. “Ta, old chap!” It took him a moment to settle while Peter Marlowe got the cards and Larkin arranged the space between them. Gavin lifted his left leg and bent it out of the way, disconnecting the wire spring that attached the toe of his shoe to the band around his leg, just under his knee. Then he moved the other leg, equally paralyzed, out of the way and leaned back on the cushion against the wall. “That’s better,” he said, stroking his Kaiser Wilhelm mustache with a quick nervous movement.

  “How’re the headaches?” Larkin asked automatically.

  “Not too bad, old boy,” Gavin replied as automatically. “You my partner?”

  “No. You can play with Peter.”

  “Oh Gad, the boy always trumps my ace.”

  “That was only once,” Peter Marlowe said.

  “Once an evening,” laughed Mac as he began to deal.

  “’Mahlu.”

  “Two spades.” Larkin opened with a flourish.

  The bidding continued furiously and vehemently.

  Later that night Larkin knocked on the door of one of the bungalows.

  “Yes?” Smedly-Taylor asked, peering into the night.

  “Sorry to trouble you, sir.”

  “Oh hello, Larkin. Trouble?” It was always trouble. He wondered what the Aussies had been up to this time as he got off his bed, aching.

  “No sir.” Larkin made sure there was no one in earshot. His words were quiet and deliberate. “The Russians are forty miles from Berlin. Manila is liberated. The Yanks have landed on Corregidor and Iwo Jima.”

  “Are you sure, man?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who—” Smedly-Taylor stopped. “No. I don’t want to know anything. Sit down, Colonel,” he said quietly. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I can only say, Colonel,” the older man said tonelessly and solemnly, “that I can do nothing to help anyone who is caught with—who is caught.” He did not even want to say the word wireless. “I don’t wish to know anything about it.” A shadow of a smile crossed the granite face and softened it. “I only beg you guard it with your life and tell me immediately you hear anything.”

  “Yes sir. We propose—”

  “I don’t want to hear anything. Only the news.” Sadly Smedly-Taylor touched his shoulder. “Sorry.”

  “It’s safer, sir.” Larkin was glad that the colonel did not want to know their plan. They had decided that they would tell only two persons each. Larkin would tell Smedly-Taylor and Gavin Ross; Mac would tell Major Tooley and Lieutenant Bosley—both personal friends; and Peter would tell the King and Father Donovan, the Catholic chaplain. They were to pass the news on to two other persons they could trust, and so on. It was a good plan, Larkin thought. Correctly, Peter had not volunteered where the condenser came from. Good boy, that Peter.

  Later that night, when Peter Marlowe returned to his hut from seeing the King, Ewart was wide awake. He poked his head out of the net and whispered excitedly, “Peter. You heard the news?”

  “What news?”

  “The Russians are forty miles from Berlin. The Yanks have landed on Iwo Jima and Corregidor.”

  Peter Marlowe felt the inner terror. Oh my God, so soon?

  “Bloody rumors, Ewart. Bloody nonsense.”

  “No it isn’t, Peter. There’s a new wireless in the camp. It’s the real stuff. No rumor. Isn’t that great? Oh Christ, I forgot the best. The Yanks have liberated Manila. Won’t be long now, eh?”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  Maybe we should have just told Smedly-Taylor and no one else, Peter Marlowe thought as he lay down. If Ewart knows, there’s no telling.

  Nervously, he listened to the camp. You could almost feel the growing excitement of Changi. The camp knew that it was back in contact.

  Yoshima was slimed with fear as he stood to attention in front of the raging General.

  “You stupid, incompetent fool,” the General was saying.

  Yoshima braced himself for the blow that was coming and it came, openhanded across the face.

  “You find that radio or you’ll be reduced to the ranks. Your transfer is canceled. Dismiss!”

  Yoshima saluted smartly, and his bow was the perfection of humility. He left the General’s quarters, thankful that he had been let off so lightly. Damn these pestilential prisoners!

  In the barracks he lined up his staff and raged at them, and slapped their faces until his hand hurt. In their turn, the sergeants slapped the corporals and they the privates and the privates the Koreans. The orders were clear. “Get that radio or else.”

  For five days nothing happened. Then the jailers fell on the camp and almost pulled it apart. But they found nothing. The traitor within the camp did not yet know the whereabouts of the radio. Nothing happened, except the promised return to standard rations was canceled. The camp settled back to wait out the long days, made longer by the lack of food. But they knew that at least there would be news. Not rumors, but news. And the news was very good. The war in Europe was almost over.

  Even so, there was a pall on the men. Few had reserve stocks of food. And the good news had a catch to it. If the war ended in Europe, more troops would be sent to the Pacific. Eventually there would be an attack on the home islands of Japan. And such an attack would drive the jailers berserk. Reprisals! They all knew there was only one end to Changi.

  Peter Marlowe was walking towards the chicken area, his water bottle swinging at his hip. Mac and Larkin and he had agreed that perhaps it would be safer to carry the water bottles as much as possible. Just in case there was a sudden search.

  He was in a good mood. Though the money he had earned was long since gone, the King had advanced food and tobacco against future earnings. God, what a man, he thought. But for him, Mac, Larkin, and I would be as hungry as the rest of Changi.

  The day was cooler. Rain the day before had settled the dust. It was almost time for lunch. As he neared the chicken coops his pace quickened. Maybe there’ll be some eggs today. Then he stopped, perplexed.

  Near the r
un that belonged to Peter Marlowe’s unit was a small crowd, an angry, violent crowd. He saw to his surprise that Grey was there. In front of Grey was Colonel Foster, naked but for his filthy loincloth, jumping up and down like a maniac, incoherently screaming abuse at Johnny Hawkins, who was clasping his dog protectively to his chest.

  “Hi, Max,” said Peter Marlowe as he came abreast of the King’s chicken run. “What’s up?”

  “Hi, Pete,” said Max easily, shifting the rake in his hands. He noticed Peter Marlowe’s instinctive reaction to the “Pete.” Officers! You try to treat an officer like a regular guy and call him by his name and then he gets mad. The hell with them. “Yeah, Pete.” He repeated it just for good measure. “All hell broke loose an hour ago. Seems like Hawkins’ dog got into the Geek’s run and killed one of his hens.”

  “Oh no!”

  “They’ll hand him his head, that’s for sure.”

  Foster was screaming, “I want another hen and I want damages. The beast killed one of my children, I want a charge of murder sworn out.”

  “But Colonel,” Grey said, at the end of his patience, “it was a hen, not a child. You can’t swear a—”

  “My hens are my children, idiot! Hen, child, what’s the difference? Hawkins is a dirty murderer. A murderer, you hear?”

  “Look, Colonel,” Grey said angrily. “Hawkins can’t give you another hen. He’s said he’s sorry. The dog got off its leash—”

  “I want a court-martial. Hawkins the murderer and his beast, a murderer.” Colonel Foster’s mouth was flecked with foam. “That bloody beast killed my hen and ate it. He ate it and there’s only feathers to show for one of my children.”

  Snarling, he suddenly darted at Hawkins, his hands outstretched, nails like talons, tearing at the dog in Hawkins’ arms, screaming, “I’ll kill you and your bloody beast.”

  Hawkins avoided Foster and shoved him away. The colonel fell to the ground and Rover whimpered with fear.

  “I’ve said I’m sorry,” Hawkins choked out. “If I had the money I’d gladly give you two, ten hens, but I can’t! Grey—” Hawkins desperately turned to him—“for the love of God do something.”

  “What the hell can I do?” Grey was tired and mad and had dysentery. “You know I can’t do anything. I’ll have to report it. But you’d better get rid of that dog.”