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.
