were on their feet.
Yoshima, the Japanese officer, shattered the silence. 'There is a radio in this hut.'
Chapter 8
Yoshima waited five minutes for someone to speak. He lit a cigarette and the sound of the match was a thunderclap. Dave Daven's first reaction was, Oh my God, who's the bastard who gave us away or made the slip?
Peter Marlowe? Cox? Spence? The colonels? His second reaction was terror — terror incongruously mixed with relief — that the day had come.
Peter Marlowe's fear was just as choking. Who leaked? Cox? The colonels? Why, even Mac and Larkin don't know that I know! Christ! Utram Road!
Cox was petrified. He leaned against the bunk looking from slant eyes to slant eyes, and only the strength of the posts kept him from falling.
Lieutenant Colonel Sellars was in nominal charge of the hut, and his pants were slimed with fear as he entered the hut with his adjutant, Captain Forest.
He saluted, his dewlapped face flushed and sweating.
'Good morning, Captain Yoshima…'
'It is not a good morning. There is a radio here. A radio is against orders of the Imperial Nipponese Army.' Yoshima was small, slight and very neat.
A samurai sword hung from his thick belt. His knee boots shone like mirrors.
'I don't know anything about it. No. Nothing,' Sellars blustered. 'You!' A palsied finger pointed at Daven. 'Do you know anything about it?'
'No, sir.'
Sellars turned around and faced the hut. 'Where's the wireless?'
Silence.
'Where is the wireless?' He was almost hysterical. 'Where is the wireless?
I order you to hand it over instantly. You know we're all responsible for the orders of the Imperial Army.'
Silence.
'I'll have the lot of you court-martialed,' he screamed, his jowls shaking.
'You'll all get what you deserve. You! What's your name?'
'Flight Lieutenant Marlowe, sir.'
'Where's the wireless?'
'I don't know, sir.'
Then Sellars saw Grey. 'Grey! You're supposed to be Provost Marshal. If there's a wireless here it's your responsibility and no one else's. You should have reported it to the authorities. I'll have you court-martialed and it'll show on your record…'
'I know nothing about a wireless, sir.'
'Then by God you should,' Sellars screamed at him, his face contorted and purple. He stormed up the hut to where the five American officers bunked. 'Brough! What do you know about this?'
'Nothing. And it's Captain Brough, Colonel!'
'I don't believe you. It's just the sort of trouble you bloody Americans'd cause. You're nothing but an ill- disciplined rabble…'
'I'm not taking that goddam crap from you!'
'Don't you talk to me like that. Say 'Sir' and stand to attention.'
'I'm the senior American officer and I'm not taking insults from you or anyone else. There's no radio in the American contingent that I know of.
There's no radio in this hut that I know of. And if there was, I sure as hell wouldn't tell you. Colonel!'
Sellars turned and panted to the center of the hut. 'Then we'll search the hut. Everyone stand by their beds! Attention! God help the man who has it.
I'll personally see he's punished to the limit of the law, you mutinous swine…'
'Shut up, Sellars.'
Everyone stiffened as Colonel Smedly-Taylor entered the hut.
'There's a wireless here and I was trying —'
'Shut up.'
Smedly-Taylor's well-used face was taut as he walked over to Yoshima, who had been watching Sellars with astonishment and contempt. 'What's the trouble, Captain?' he asked, knowing what it was.
'There's a radio in the hut.' Then Yoshima added with a sneer,
'According to the Geneva Convention governing prisoners of war…'
'I know the code of ethics quite well,' Smedly-Taylor said, keeping his eyes off the eight-by-eight beam. 'If you believe there is a wireless here, please make a search for it. Or if you know where it is, please take it and be done with the affair. I've a lot to do today.'
