King Rat

Nonya was sitting on a nest of seven eggs. It had taken a great amount of will for the unit to let the eggs remain beneath her, but if they were lucky and got seven chicks, and if the seven chicks lived to become hens or cocks, then their herd would be vast. Then they could spare one of the hens to sit permanently on a clutch. And they would never have to fear Ward Six.

Ward Six housed the sightless, the men blinded by beri-beri.

Any vitamin strength was magic against this constant threat, and eggs were a vast source of strength, usually the only one available. Thus it was that the Camp Commandant begged and cursed and demanded more from the Overlord. But most of the time there was only one egg per man per week. Some of the men received an extra one every day, but by then it was usually too late.

Thus it was that the chickens were guarded day and night by an officer guard. Thus it was that to touch a chicken belonging to the camp, or to another, was a vast crime. Once a man had been caught with a strangled hen in his hand and had been beaten to death by his captors. The authorities ruled it was justifiable homicide.

Peter Marlowe stood at the end of his run admiring the King’s hens. There were seven, plump and giants against all others. There was a cock within the run, the pride of the camp. His name was Sunset. His sperm grew fine sons and daughters and he could be had for stud by any. At a price: choice of litter.

Even the King’s hens were inviolate and guarded like the others.

Peter Marlowe watched Sunset nail a hen into the dust and mount her. The hen picked herself off the dust and ran about clucking and pecked another hen for good measure. Peter Marlowe despised himself for watching. He knew it was weakness. He knew he would think of N’ai and then his loins would ache.

He went back to the henhouse and checked to see that the lock was tight and left, holding the two eggs carefully all the way back to the bungalow.

“Peter, mon,” Mac grinned, “this is our lucky day!”

Peter Marlowe found the pack of Kooas and divided them into three piles. “We’ll draw for the other two.”

“You take them, Peter,” Larkin said.

“No, we’ll draw for them. Low card loses.”

Mac lost and pretended sourness. “Bad cess to it,” he said.

They carefully opened the cigarettes and put the tobacco in their boxes and mixed it with as much of the treated Java weed as they had. Then they split up their portions into four, and put the other three portions into another box and gave the boxes into Larkin’s keeping. To have so much tobacco at one time was a temptation.

Abruptly the heavens split and the deluge began.

Peter Marlowe took off his sarong, folded it carefully and put it on Mac’s bed.

Larkin said thoughtfully, “Peter. Watch your step with the King. He could be dangerous.”

“Of course. Don’t worry.” Peter Marlowe stepped out into the cloudburst. In a moment Mac and Larkin had stripped and followed him, joining the other naked men glorying in the torrent.

Their bodies welcomed the sting, lungs breathed the cooled air, heads cleared.

And the stench of Changi was washed away.

CHAPTER FIVE

After the rain the men sat enjoying the fleeting coolness, waiting until it was time to eat. Water dripped from the thatch and gushed in the storm ditches, and the dust was mud. But the sun was proud in the white blue sky.

“God,” said Larkin gratefully, “that feels better.”

“Ay,” said Mac as they sat on the veranda. But Mac’s mind was up country, at his rubber plantation in Kedah, far to the north. “The heat’s more than worthwhile—makes you appreciate the coolness,” he said quietly. “Like fever.”

“Malaya’s stinking, the rain’s stinking, the heat’s stinking, malaria’s stinking, the bugs’re stinking and the flies’re stinking,” Larkin said.

“Not in peacetime, mon.” Mac winked at Peter Marlowe. “Nor in a village, eh, Peter boy?”

Peter Marlowe grinned. He had told them most of the things about his village. He knew that what he had not told them, Mac would know, for Mac had lived his adult life in the Orient and he loved it as much as Larkin hated it. “So I understand,” he said blandly and they all smiled.

They did not talk much. All the stories had been told and retold, all the stories that they wanted to tell.

So they waited patiently. When it was time, they went to their respective lines and then returned to the bungalow. They drank their soup quickly. Peter Marlowe plugged in the homemade electric hot plate and fried one egg. They put their portions of rice into the bowl and he laid the egg on the rice with a little salt and pepper. He whipped it so that the yolk and white were spread evenly throughout the rice, then divided it up and they ate it with relish.

When they had finished, Larkin took the plates and washed them, for it was his turn, and they sat once more on the veranda to wait for the dusk roll call.

Peter Marlowe was idly watching the men walk the street, enjoying the fullness in his stomach, when he saw Grey approaching.