he knew, perhaps they would die. All because of his greed. Against this was Mac. His need was now. And Larkin's. And mine. Mine too, don't forget me. He remembered the King saying, 'No need to take a handout,' and he had been taking handouts. Many of them.
What to do, dear God, what to do? But God didn't answer.
'Thanks. Thanks for the money,' Peter Marlowe said. He put it away. And all of him was conscious of its burn.
'Thanks nothing. You earned it. It's yours. You worked for it. I didn't give you anything.'
The King was jubilant and his joy smothered Peter Marlowe's self-disgust.
'C'mon,' he said. 'We got to celebrate our first deal together. With my brains and your Malay, why, we'll live a life of Riley yet!' And the King fried some eggs.
While they ate, the King told Peter Marlowe how he had sent the boys out to buy extra stocks of food when he heard that Yoshima had found the radio.
'Got to gamble in this life, Peter boy. Sure. I figured that the Japs'd make life tough for a while. But only for those who weren't prepared to figure an angle. Look at Tex. Poor son of a bitch hadn't any dough to buy a lousy egg. Look at you and Larkin. Wasn't for me Mac'd still be suffering, poor bastard. Of course, I'm happy to help. Like to help my friends. A man's got to help his friends or there's no point in anything.'
'I suppose so,' Peter Marlowe replied. What an awful thing to say. He was hurt by the King and did not understand that the American mind is simple in some things, as simple as the English mind. An American is proud of his money-making capability, rightly so. An Englishman, such as Peter Marlowe, is proud to get killed for the flag. Rightly so.
He saw the King glance out of the window and saw the snap of the eyes.
He followed the glance and saw a man coming up the path. As the man walked into the shaft of light Peter Marlowe recognized him. Colonel Samson.
When Samson saw the King, he waved amicably. 'Evening, Corporal,' he said and continued his walk past the hut.
The King peeled off ninety dollars and handed it to Peter Marlowe.
'Do me a favor, Peter. Put a ten with this and give it to that guy.'
'Samson? Colonel Samson?'
'Sure. You'll find him up near the corner of the jail.'
'Give him the money? Just like that? But what do I say to him?'
'Tell him it's from me.'
My God, thought Peter Marlowe, appalled, is Samson on the payroll? He can't be! I can't do it. You're my friend, but I can't go up to a colonel and say here's a hundred bucks from the King. I can't!
The King saw through his friend. Oh Peter, he thought, you're such a goddam child. Then he added, To hell with you! But he threw the last thought away and cursed himself. Peter was the only guy in the camp he had ever wanted for his friend, the only guy he needed. So he decided to teach him the facts of life. It's going to be tough, Peter boy, and it may hurt you a lot, but I'm going to teach you if I have to break you. You're going to survive and you're going to be my partner.
'Peter,' he said, 'there are times when you have to trust me. I'll never put you behind the eightball. As long as you're my friend, trust me. If you don't want to be my friend, fine. But I'd like you to be my friend.'
Peter Marlowe knew that here was another moment of truth. Take the money in trust — or leave it and be gone.
A man's life is always at a crossroads. And not his life alone, not if he's a man. Always others in the balance.
He knew that one path risked Mac's and Larkin's lives, along with his own, for without the King they were as defenseless as any in the camp; without the King there was no village, for he knew that he would never risk it alone
— even for the wireless. The other path would jeopardize a heritage or destroy a past. Samson was a power in the Regular Army, a man of caste, position and wealth, and Peter Marlowe was born to be an officer — as his father before him and his son after him — and such an accusation could never be forgotten. And if Samson was a hireling, then everything he had been taught to believe would have no value.
Peter Marlowe watched himself as he took the money and went into the night and walked up the path and found Colonel Samson, and heard the man whisper, 'Oh hello, you're Marlowe, aren't you?'
He saw himself hand over the money. 'The King asked me to give you this.'
He saw the mucused eyes light up as Samson greedily counted the money and tucked it away in his threadbare pants.
'Thank him,' he heard Samson whisper, 'and tell him I stopped Grey for an hour. That was as long as I could hold him. That was long enough, wasn't it?'
'It was enough. Just enough.' Then he heard himself say, 'Next time keep him longer, or send word, you stupid bugger!'
'I kept him as long as I could. Tell the King I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry and it won't happen again. I promise. Listen, Marlowe. You know how it is sometimes. It gets a bit difficult.'
'I'll tell him you're sorry.'
'Yes, yes, thank you, thank you, Marlowe. I envy you, Marlowe. Being so close to the King. You're lucky.'
Peter Marlowe returned to the American hut. The King thanked him and he thanked the King again and walked out into the night.
He found a small promontory overlooking the wire and wished himself into his Spitfire soaring the sky alone,
