Peter Marlowe was looking over the wire, seeking to the coast. 'I was beginning to wonder if you'd changed your mind.'
'About taking you along?'
'Yes.'
'No need for you to worry, Peter.' The King got out the coffee and handed a mug to Peter Marlowe. 'You want to have lunch with me?'
'I don't know how the hell you do it,' Peter Marlowe grunted. 'Everyone's starving and you invite me to lunch.'
'I'm having some katchang idju.'
The King unlocked his black chest and took out the sack of little green beans and handed them to Peter Marlowe. 'You like to fix them?'
As Peter Marlowe took them out to the tap to begin washing them, the King opened a can of bully and carefully eased the contents onto a plate.
Peter Marlowe came back with the beans. They were well washed and no husks floated in the clean water. Good, the King thought. Don't have to tell Peter twice. And the aluminum container had exactly the right amount of water - six times the height of the beans.
He set it on the hot plate and added a large spoonful of sugar and two pinches of salt. Then he added half the can of bully. 'Is it your birthday?'
Peter Marlowe asked.
'Huh?'
'Katchang idju and bully, in one meal?'
'You just don't live right.'
Peter Marlowe was tantalized by the aroma and the bubble of the stew.
The last weeks had been rough. The discovery of the radio had hurt the camp. The Japanese Commandant had 'regretfully' cut the camp's rations due to 'bad harvests,' so even the tiny desperation stocks of the units had gone. Miraculously, there had been no other repercussions. Except the cut in food.
In Peter Marlowe's unit, the cut had hit Mac the worst. The cut and the uselessness of their water-bottled radio.
'Dammit,' Mac had sworn after weeks of trying to trace the trouble. 'It's nae use, laddies. Without taking the bleeding thing apart I canna do a thing. Everything seems correct. Without some tools an' a battery of sorts, I canna find the fault.'
Then Larkin had somehow acquired a tiny battery and Mac had gathered his waning strength and gone back to testing, checking and rechecking.
Yesterday, while he was testing, he had gasped and fainted, deep in a malarial coma. Peter Marlowe and Larkin had carried him up to the hospital and laid him on a bed. The doctor had said that it was just malaria, but with such a spleen, it could easily become very dangerous.
'What's a matter, Peter?' the King asked, noticing his sudden gravity.
'Just thinking about Mac.'
'What about him?'
'We had to take him up to the hospital yesterday. He's not so hot.'
'Malaria?'
'Mostly.'
'Huh?'
'Well, he's got fever all right. But that's not the main trouble. He goes through periods of terrible depression. Worry -about his wife and son.'
'All married guys've the same sweat.'
'Not quite like Mac,' Peter Marlowe said sadly. 'You see, just before the Japs landed on Singapore, Mac put his wife and son on a ship in the last real convoy out. Then he and his unit took off for Java in a coastal junk.
When he got to Java he heard the whole convoy had got shot out of the water or captured. No proof either way — only rumors. So he doesn't know if they got through. Or if they're dead. Or if they're alive. And if they are — where they are. His son was just a baby — only four months old.'
'Well, now the kid's three years and four months,' the King said confidently. 'Rule Two: Don't worry about nothing you can't do nothing about.' He took a bottle of quinine out of his black box and counted out twenty tablets and gave them to Peter Marlowe. 'Here. These'll fix his malaria.'
'But what about you?'
'Got plenty. Think nothing of it.'
'I don't understand why you're so generous. You give us food and medicine. And what do we give you? Nothing. I don't understand it.'
'You're a friend.'
'Christ, I feel embarrassed accepting so much.'
'Hell with it. Here.' The King began spooning out the stew. Seven spoons for him and seven spoons for Peter Marlowe. There was about a quarter of the stew left in the mess can.
They ate the first three spoons quickly to allay the hunger, then finished the rest slowly, savoring its excellence.
