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.

“Good evening, Colonel,” Grey said to Larkin, saluting neatly.

“’Evening, Grey,” Larkin sighed. “Who’s it this time?” When Grey came to see him it always meant trouble.

Grey looked down at Peter Marlowe. Larkin and Mac sensed the hostility between them.

“Colonel Smedly-Taylor asked me to tell you, sir,” Grey said. “Two of your men were fighting. A Corporal Townsend and Private Gurble. I’ve got them in jail now.”

“All right, Lieutenant,” Larkin said dourly. “You can release them. Tell them to report to me here, after roll call. I’ll give them what for!” He paused. “You know what they were fighting about?”

“No, sir. But I think it was two-up.” Ridiculous game, thought Grey. Put two pennies on a stick and throw the coins up into the air and bet on whether the coins come down both heads, or both tails, or one head and one tail.

“You’re probably right,” Larkin grunted.

“Perhaps you could outlaw the game. There’s always trouble when—”

“Outlaw two-up?” Larkin interrupted abruptly. “If I did that, they’d think I’d gone mad. They’d pay no attention to such a ridiculous order and quite right. Gambling’s part of Aussie makeup, you ought to know that by now. Two-up gives the Diggers something to think about, and fighting once in a while isn’t bad either.” He got up and stretched the ague from his shoulders. “Gambling’s like breathing to an Aussie. Why, everyone Down Under has a shilling or two on the Golden Casket.” His voice was edged. “I like a game of two-up once in a while myself.”

“Yes, sir,” Grey said. He had seen Larkin and other Aussie officers with their men, scrambling in the dirt, excited and foul-mouthed as any ranker. No wonder discipline was bad.

“Tell Colonel Smedly-Taylor I’ll deal with them. My bloody oath!”

“Pity about Marlowe’s lighter, wasn’t it, sir?” Grey said, watching Larkin intently.

Larkin’s eyes were steady and suddenly hard. “He should’ve been more careful. Shouldn’t he?”

“Yes, sir,” Grey said, after enough of a pause to make his point. Well, he thought, it was worth trying. To hell with Larkin and to hell with Marlowe, there’s plenty of time. He was just about to salute and leave when a fantastic thought rocked him. He controlled his excitement and said matter-of-factly, “Oh, by the way, sir. There’s a rumor going the rounds that one of the Aussies has a diamond ring.” He let the statement linger. “Do you happen to know about it?”

Larkin’s eyes were deepset under bushy eyebrows. He glanced thoughtfully at Mac before he answered. “I’ve heard the rumors too. As far as I know it isn’t one of my men. Why?”

“Just checking, sir,” Grey said with a hard smile. “Of course, you’d know that such a ring could be dynamite. For its owner and a lot of people.” Then he added, “It would be better under lock and key.”

“I don’t think so, old boy,” Peter Marlowe said, and the “old boy” was discreetly vicious. “That’d be the worst thing to do—if the diamond exists. Which I doubt. If it’s in a known place then a lot of chaps’d want to look at it. And anyway the Japs’d lift it once they heard about it.”

Mac said thoughtfully, “I agree.”

“It’s better where it is. In limbo. Probably just another rumor,” Larkin said.

“I hope it is,” Grey said, sure now that his hunch had been right. “But the rumor seems pretty strong.”

“It’s not one of my men.” Larkin’s mind was racing. Grey seemed to know something—who would it be? Who?

“Well, if you hear anything, sir, you might let me know.” Grey’s eyes swooped over Peter Marlowe contemptuously. “I like to stop trouble before it begins.” Then he saluted Larkin correctly and nodded to Mac and walked away.

There was a long thoughtful silence in the bungalow.

Larkin glanced at Mac. “I wonder why he asked about that?”

“Ay,” said Mac, “I wondered too. Did ye mark how his face lit up like a beacon?”

“Too right!” Larkin said, the lines on his face etched deeper than usual. “Grey’s right about one thing. A diamond could cost a lot of men a lot of blood.”

“It’s only a rumor, Colonel,” Peter Marlowe said. “No one could keep anything like that, this long. Impossible.”

“I hope you’re right.” Larkin frowned. “Hope to God one of my boys hasn’t got it.”

Mac stretched. His head ached and he could feel a bout of fever on the way. Well, not for three days yet, he thought calmly. He had had so much fever that it was as much a part of life as breathing. Once every two months now. He remembered that he had been due to retire in 1942, doctor’s orders. When malaria gets to your spleen—well, then home, old fellow, home to Scotland, home to the cold climate and buy the little farm near Killin overlooking the glory of Loch Tay. Then you may live.

“Ay,” Mac said tiredly, feeling his fifty years. Then he said aloud what they were all thinking. “But if we ha’ the wee devil stone, then we could last out the never-never with nae fear for the future. Nae fear at all.”

Larkin rolled a cigarette and lit it, taking a deep puff. He passed it to Mac, who smoked and passed it to Peter Marlowe. When they had almost finished it, Larkin knocked off the burning top and put the remains of tobacco back into his box. He broke the silence. “Think I’ll take a walk.”

Peter Marlowe smiled. “Salamat,” he said, which meant “Peace be upon thee.”

“Salamat,” Larkin said and went out into the sun.

As Grey walked up the slope towards the MP hut, his brain churned with excitement. He promised himself that as soon as he got to the hut and released the Australians he would roll a cigarette to celebrate. His second today, even though he had only enough Java weed for three more cigarettes until payday the next week.

He strode up the steps and nodded at Sergeant Masters. “You can let ’em out!”

Masters took away the heavy bar from the door of the bamboo cage and the two sullen men stood to attention in front of Grey.

“You’re both to report to Colonel Larkin after roll call.”

The two men saluted and left.

“Damn troublemakers,” said Grey shortly.

He sat down and took out his box and papers. This month he had been extravagant. He had bought a whole page of Bible paper, which made the best cigarettes. Though he was not a religious man, it still seemed a little blasphemous to smoke the Bible. Grey read the scripture on the fragment he was preparing to roll: “So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. And then his wife said …”

Wife! Why the hell did I have to come across that word? Grey cursed and turned the paper over.

The first sentence on the other side was: “Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?”

Grey jerked upright as a stone hissed through the window, smashed against a wall and clattered to the floor.

A piece of newspaper was wrapped around the stone. Grey picked it up and darted to the window. But there was no one near. Grey sat down and smoothed out the paper. On the edge of it was written:

“What’s it say, sir?” Masters asked, staring rheumy-eyed at the paper.

Grey crumpled the paper into a ball. “Someone thinks we work too hard for the Japs,” he said harshly.

“Bloody bastard.” Masters went to the window. “What the hell they think’d happen if we didn’t enforce discipline? The buggers’d be at each other’s throats all day long.”

“That’s right,” said Grey. The ball of paper felt animated in his hand. If this is a real offer, he thought, the King can be felled.

It was no easy decision to make. He would have to keep his side of the bargain. His word was his bond; he was an honest “cop,” and not a little proud of his reputation. Grey knew that he would do anything to see the King behind the bamboo cage, stripped of his finery—even close his eyes a little to a breaking of the rules. He wondered which of the Americans could be the informer. All of them hated the King, envied him—but who would play Judas, who would risk the consequences if he were to be discovered? Whoever the man was, he could never be such a menace as the King.

So he walked outside with the stone in his left hand and scrutinized the men who passed. But no one gave him a sign.

He threw the stone away and dismissed Masters. Then he sat in the hut and waited. He had given up hope when another rock sailed through the window with the second message attached: