King Rat

The King was pleased. “You wait till I’ve finished. Then you’ll see the goddamnedest egg you’ve ever seen.” He powdered the eggs delicately with pepper, then added the salt. “You like cooking?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Peter Marlowe. His voice sounded unlike his real voice to him. “I do most of the cooking for my unit.”

“What do you like to be called? Pete? Peter?”

Peter Marlowe covered his surprise. Only tried and trusted friends called you by your Christian name—how else can you tell friends from acquaintances? He glanced at the King and saw only friendliness, so, in spite of himself, he said, “Peter.”

“Where do you come from? Where’s your home?”

Questions, questions, thought Peter Marlowe. Next he’ll want to know if I’m married or how much I have in the bank. His curiosity had prompted him to accept the King’s summons, and he almost cursed himself for being so curious. But he was pacified by the glory of the sizzling eggs.

“Portchester,” he answered. “That’s a little hamlet on the south coast. In Hampshire.”

“You married, Peter?”

“Are you?”

“No.” The King would have continued but the eggs were done. He slipped the frypan off the stove and nodded to Peter Marlowe. “Plates’re in back of you,” he said. Then he added not a little proudly, “Lookee here!”

They were the best fried eggs Peter Marlowe had ever seen, so he paid the King the greatest compliment in the English world. “Not bad,” he said flatly. “Not too bad, I suppose,” and he looked up at the King and kept his face as impassive as his voice and thereby added to the compliment.

“What the hell are you talking about, you son of a bitch?” the King said furiously. “They’re the best goddam eggs you’ve seen in your life!”

Peter Marlowe was shocked, and there was a death-silence in the hut. Then a sudden whistle broke the spell. Instantly Dino and Miller were on their feet and rushing towards the King, and Max was guarding the doorway. Miller and Dino shoved the King’s bed into the corner and took up the carpets and stuffed them under the mattress. Then they took other beds and shoved them close to the King so that now, like everyone else in Changi, the King had only four feet of space by six feet of space. Lieutenant Grey stood in the doorway. Behind him a nervous pace was Sergeant Masters.

The Americans stared at Grey, and after just enough of a pause to make their point they all got up. After an equally insulting pause Grey saluted briefly and said, “Stand easy.” Peter Marlowe alone had not moved and still sat in his chair.

“Get up,” hissed the King, “he’ll throw the book at you. Get up!” He knew from long experience that Grey was hopped up now. For once Grey’s eyes were not probing him, they were just fixed on Peter Marlowe, and even the King winced.

Grey walked the length of the hut, taking his time, until he stood over Peter Marlowe. He took his eyes off Peter Marlowe and stared at the eggs for a long moment. Then he glanced at the King and back to Peter Marlowe.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, Marlowe?”

Peter Marlowe’s fingers took out his cigarette box and put a little tobacco in a slip of rattan grass. He rolled a funnel-cigarette and carried it to his lips. The length of his pause was a slap in Grey’s face. “Oh, I don’t know, old boy,” he said softly. “An Englishman’s at home wherever he is, don’t you think?”

“Where’s your armband?”

“In my belt.”

“It’s supposed to be on your arm. Those are orders.”

“They’re Jap orders. I don’t like Jap orders,” said Peter Marlowe.

“They are also camp orders,” Grey said.

Their voices were quite calm and only a trifle irritated to American ears, but Grey knew and Peter Marlowe knew. And there was a sudden declaration of war between them. Peter Marlowe hated the Japanese and Grey represented the Japanese to him, for Grey enforced camp orders which were also Japanese orders. Relentlessly. Between them there was the deeper hate, the inbred hate of class. Peter Marlowe knew that Grey despised him for his birth and his accent, what Grey wanted beyond all things and could never have.

“Put it on!” Grey was within his right to order it.

Peter Marlowe shrugged and pulled out the band and slipped it about his left elbow. On the band was his rank. Flight Lieutenant, RAF.

The King’s eyes widened. Jesus, an officer, he thought, and I was going to ask him to—

“So sorry to interrupt your lunch,” Grey was saying. “But it seems that someone has lost something.”

“Lost something?” Jesus Christ, the King almost shouted. The Ronson! Oh my God, his fear screamed. Get rid of the goddam lighter!

“What’s the matter, Corporal,” Grey said narrowly, noticing the sweat which pearled the King’s face.

“It’s hot, isn’t it?” the King said limply. He could feel his starched shirt wilting from the sweat. He knew he had been framed. And he knew that Grey was playing with him. He wondered quickly if he dared to make a run for it, but Peter Marlowe was between him and the window and Grey could easily catch him. And to run would be to admit guilt.