King Rat

“Hello, honey. Gee, how nice to hear your voice. Just got in. Been working late. I’ll bet you look pretty as a picture.”

“Oh Mike, I’ve missed you so much.”

“Where are you now, you sound so low?”

“At home.”

“Are you tired? I mean would you like to go out on the town or go for a drive? I can’t have a beautiful girl like you unhappy. That’d be terrible.”

He waited for the inevitable pause, then the usual words—half hesitant, half shy, half bold, half hopeful—of rejection, half hateful lest he did reject. “If—if it isn’t too much trouble. I’d like that, very much, would you like to pick me up in half an hour?”

“Be right there.” The pause, then firm and deep and resonant—tinged with just the right amount of gravity. “So glad you called, honey.”

He card-indexed Mary Vickers. Oh yeah, the broad with the snotty kid. Husband’s also a POW. Let’s see. Yep, just about on the button. No, two days early, come to think of it. Yeah, it was only just four days ago, the “We’d better not see each other” routine. He laughed aloud. Mary should be quite a lay. They always are the first time, but then, hell, they’re all the same. Goddam broads! And it wasn’t as though he’d waste his time on anyone. Hell no. He was particular. Only the quote lady type unquote, and she had to be a looker with a body—and preferably married. Christ, what the “lady” will get up to when she’s hot.

He sat down, pleased with himself. Then he plucked up his pen and finished the letter he was writing to Gill. It took him half an hour. As he licked the envelope, he glanced at his watch. Yeah, just about right. It’d take him another twenty minutes to get to her house, and by that time she’d be hotter’n a firecracker worrying that maybe he’d changed his mind.

He made sure the prophylactic outfit was in his pocket. A guy can’t be too careful, not with these tramps.

Grey walked quietly up the steps of Hut Sixteen like a thief in the night and headed for his bed. He stripped off his pants and slipped under the mosquito net and lay naked on his mattress, very pleased with himself. He had just seen Turasan, the Korean guard, sneak around the corner of the American hut and under the canvas overhang; he had seen the King stealthily jump out of the window to join Turasan. Grey had waited only a moment in the shadows. He was checking the spy’s information, and there was no need to pounce on the King yet. No. Not yet, now that the informer was proved.

Grey shifted on the bed, scratching his leg. His practiced fingers caught the bedbug and crushed it. He heard it plop as it burst and he smelled the sick sweet stench of the blood it contained—his own blood.

Around his net, clouds of mosquitoes buzzed, seeking the inevitable hole. Unlike most of the officers, Grey had refused to convert his bed to a bunk, for he hated the idea of sleeping above or below someone else. Even though the added doubling up meant more space.

The mosquito nets were hung from a wire which bisected the length of the hut. Even in sleep the men were attached to each other. When one man turned over or tugged at the net to tuck it more tightly under the soaking mattress, all the nets would jiggle a little, and each man knew he was surrounded.

Grey crushed another bedbug, but his mind was not on it. Tonight he was filled with happiness—about the informer, about his commitment to get the King, about the diamond ring, about Marlowe. He was very pleased, for he had solved the riddle.

It is simple, he told himself again. Larkin knows who has the diamond. The King is the only one in the camp who could arrange the sale. Only the King’s contacts are good enough. Larkin would not go himself directly to the King, so he sent Marlowe. Marlowe is to be the go-between.

Grey’s bed shook as dead-sick Johnny Hawkins stumbled against it, half-awake, heading for the latrines. “Be careful, for God’s sake!” Grey said irritably.

“Sorry,” Johnny said, groping for the door.

In a few minutes Johnny stumbled back again. A few sleepy curses followed in his wake. As soon as Johnny had reached his bunk it was time to go again. This time Grey did not notice his bed shake, for he was locked in his mind, forecasting the probable moves of the enemy.

Peter Marlowe was wide awake, sitting on the hard steps of Hut Sixteen under the moonless sky, his eyes and ears and mind searching the darkness. From where he sat he could watch the two roads—the one that bisected the camp and the other that skirted the walls of the jail. Japanese and Korean guards and prisoners alike used both roads. Peter Marlowe was the north sentry.

Behind him, on the other steps, he knew that Flight Lieutenant Cox was concentrating as he was, seeking the darkness for danger. Cox guarded south.

East and west were not covered because Hut Sixteen could only be approached by north or south.