King Rat

Yoshima snapped out a command and one of the Korean guards picked up the leg and helped Daven sit down.

His fingers were steady as he attached the leg, then he stood, picked up his crutches, and stared at them a moment. Then he threw them into the corner of the hut.

He clomped to the bunk and looked at the radio. “I’m very proud of that,” he said. He saluted Smedly-Taylor, then moved out of the hut.

The tiny procession wove through the silence of Changi. Yoshima led and timed the speed of the march to Daven’s progress. Beside him was Smedly-Taylor. Then came Cox, tear-streamed and oblivious of the tears. The other two guards waited with the men of Hut Sixteen.

They waited eleven hours.

Smedly-Taylor returned, and the six men returned. Daven and Cox did not return. They remained in the guardhouse and tomorrow they were going to Utram Road Jail.

The men were dismissed.

Peter Marlowe had a blinding headache from the sun. He stumbled back to the bungalow, and after a shower, Larkin and Mac massaged his head and fed him. When he had finished Larkin went out and sat beside the asphalt road. Peter Marlowe squatted in the doorless doorway, his back to the room.

Night was gathering beyond the horizon. There was an immense solitude in Changi and the men who walked up and down seemed more than ever lost.

Mac yawned. “Think I’ll turn in now, laddie. Get an early night.”

“All right, Mac.”

Mac settled the mosquito net around his bed and tucked it under the mattress. He wrapped a sweat-rag around his forehead, then slipped Peter Marlowe’s water bottle from its felt case and unclipped the false base plate. He took the covers and bases off his own water bottle and Larkin’s, then carefully put them on top of one another. Within each of the bottles was a maze of wire, condenser and tube.

From the top bottle he carefully pulled out a six-pronged male-joint with its complex of wires and fitted it deftly into the female in the middle water bottle. Then he took a four-pronged male-joint from the middle one and fitted it into its appointed socket in the last.

His hands were shaking and his knees quivered, for to do this in the half light, lying propped on one elbow, screening the bottles with his body, was very awkward.

Night swarmed across the sky, adding to the closeness. Mosquitoes began to attack.

When all the bottles were joined together, Mac stretched the ache from his back and dried his slippery hands. Then he pulled out the earphone from its hiding place in the top bottle and checked the connections to make sure they were tight. The insulated source wire was also in the top bottle. He unrolled it and checked that the needles were still tightly soldered to the ends of the wire. Again he wiped away his sweat and rapidly rechecked all the joining connections, thinking as he did that the radio still looked as pure and clean as when he had finished it secretly in Java—while Larkin and Peter Marlowe guarded—two years ago.

It had taken six months to design and make.

Only the lower half of the bottle could be used—the top half had to contain water—so he not only had to compress the radio into three tiny rigid units, but also had to set the units into leakless containers, then solder the containers into the water bottles.

The three of them had carried the bottles for eighteen months. Against such a day as this.

Mac got on his knees and stuck two needles into the guts of the wires that joined the ceiling light to its source. Then he cleared his throat.

Peter Marlowe got up and made sure no one was near. He quickly un-snapped the light bulb and turned the light switch on. Then he went back to the doorway and stood guard there. He saw that Larkin was still in position guarding the other side, and gave the all-clear signal.

When Mac heard it, he turned up the volume and picked up the earphone and listened.

Seconds mounted into minutes. Peter Marlowe jerked around, suddenly frightened, as he heard Mac moan.

“What’s the matter, Mac?” he whispered.

Mac stuck his head out of the mosquito net, his face ashen. “It does na’ work, mon,” he said. “The fucking thing does na’ work.”

PART TWO

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.