As the King began undressing, Brough went over to Peter Marlowe.
'Anything I can get you, Pete?' he asked.
'Just some water.'
'Tex,' Brough ordered, 'get some water.' Then to Peter Marlowe: 'You look terrible, what is it?'
'Just - fever - feel rough.' Peter Marlowe lay back on Tex's bed and forced a weak smile. 'That bloody Jap frightened me to death.'
'Me too.'
Grey went through the King's clothes and the black box and his shelves and the sack of beans, and the men were astonished when the search failed to uncover the diamond.
'Marlowe!' Grey stood in front of him.
Peter Marlowe's eyes were bloodshot, and he could hardly see. 'Yes?'
'I want to search you.'
'Listen, Grey,' Brough said. 'You're within your rights to search here if I'm here. But you got no authority - '
'It's all right,' Peter Marlowe said. 'I don't mind. If I - don't - he'll only -
think . . . Give me a hand, will you?'
Peter Marlowe took off his sarong and threw it and the inch of money onto a bed.
Grey went through the hems carefully. Angrily, he threw the sarong back.
'Where did you get this money?'
'Gambling,' Peter Marlowe said, retrieving his sarong.
'You,' Grey barked at the King. 'What about this?' He held, up another inch of notes.
'Gambling, sir,' the King said innocently, as he dressed, and Brough hid a smile.
'Where's the diamond?'
'What diamond? Sir.' .
Brough got up and moved down to the poker table. 'Looks as though there's no diamond.'
'Then where did all this money come from?'
'The man says that it's gambling money. There's no law against gambling.
Of course I don't approve of gambling either,' he added with a thin smile, his eyes on the King.
'You know that's not possible!' Grey said.
'It's not probable, if that's what you mean,' interrupted Brough. He was sorry for Grey — with his death- bright eyes, his mouth twitching and his hands palsied — sorry for him. 'You wanted to search here, and you've searched, and there's no diamond.'
He stopped as Peter Marlowe began to reel towards the door. The King caught him just before he fell.
'Here, I'll help you,' the King said. 'I'd better take him to his hut.'
'You stay here,' said Brough. 'Grey, maybe you'd give him a hand.'
'He can drop dead as far as I'm concerned.' Grey's eyes went to the King.
'You too! But not before I've caught you. And I will.'
'When you do, I'll throw the book at him.' Brough glanced at the King.
'Right?'
'Yes. Sir.'
Brough glanced back at Grey. 'But until you do — or he disobeys my orders — there's nothing to be done.'
'Then order him to stop black-marketing,' Grey said.
Brough kept his temper. 'Anything for a peaceful life,' he said, and felt his men's contempt and smiled inside. Sons of bitches. 'You,' he said to the King. 'You're ordered to stop black-marketing. As I understand black- marketing it means to sell food and goods, anything, to your own people
— for profit. You're not to sell anything for profit.'
'Dealing in contraband, that's black-marketing.'
'Captain Grey, selling for profit or even stealing from the enemy is not black-marketing. There's no harm in a little trading.'
'But it's against orders!'
'Jap orders! And I don't acknowledge enemy orders. And they are the enemy.' Brough wanted to end this nonsense. 'No black-marketing. It's ordered.'
'You Americans stick together — I'll say that for you.'
'Now don't you start. I've had enough for one night from Yoshima. No one's black-marketing here or breaking any laws that are laws — so far as I know. Now that's the end of it. I catch anyone stealing anything or selling food for profit or drugs for profit I'll break his arm off myself and stuff it down his throat. And I'm senior American officer and these are my men and that's what I say. Understand?'
Grey stared at Brough and promised himself that he would watch him too.
Rotten people, rotten officers. He turned and stalked out of the hut.
