Today there was a little left over from the servings and the list was checked and the three men who headed it got the extra and thanked today.
Then the food was gone and lunch was over and dinner was at sundown.
But though there was only soup and rice, here and there throughout the camp a man might have a piece of coconut or half a banana or piece of sardine or thread of bully or even an egg to mix with his rice. One whole egg was rare. Once a week, if the camp hens laid according to plan, an egg was given to each man. That was a great day. A few men were given one egg every day, but no man wanted to be one of the special few.
'Hey listen, you chaps!' Captain Spence stood in the center of the hut, but his voice could be heard outside. He was officer of the week, the hut adjutant, a small dark man with twisted features. He waited till they had all moved inside. 'We've got to supply ten more bods for the wood detail tomorrow.' He checked his list and called out the names, and then looked up. 'Marlowe?' There was no reply. 'Anyone know where Marlowe is?'
'I think he's down with his unit,' Ewart called out.
'Tell him he's on the airfield work party tomorrow, will you?'
'All right.'
Spence started coughing. His asthma was bad today, and when the spasm had passed he continued: 'The Camp Commandant had another interview with the Jap General this morning. He asked for increased rations and medical supplies.' He cleared his throat in the momentary hush. Then he went on and his voice was flat. 'He got the usual turndown.
The rice ration stays at four ounces of grain per man per day.' Spence looked out of the doors and checked that both lookouts were in position.
Then he dropped his voice and all the men listened expectantly.
'The Allies are about sixty miles from Mandalay, still going strong.
They've got the Japs on the run. The Allies are still going in Belgium but the weather's very bad. Snowstorms. On the Eastern front, the same thing, but the Russians are going like bats out of hell and expect to take Krakov in the next few days. The Yanks are going well in Manila. They're near' -
he hesitated, trying to remember the name - 'I think it's the Agno River, in Luzon. That's all. But it's good.'
Spence was glad that this part was over. He learned the news by heart daily at the hut adjutants' meeting, and every time he stood up to repeat it publicly, his sweat chilled and his stomach felt empty. One day an informer might point a finger at him and tell the enemy that he was one of the men who delivered the news, and Spence knew that he was not strong enough to stay silent. Or one day a Japanese might hear him tell the others, and then, then…
'That's all, chaps.' Spence went over to his bunk, filled with nausea. He took off his pants and walked out of the hut with a towel over his arm.
The sun beat down. Two hours yet until the rain. Spence crossed the asphalt street and stood in line for a shower. He always had to have a shower after he gave the news, for the sweat-stench was acrid on him.
'All right, mate?' Tinker asked.
The King looked at his nails. They were well manicured. His face felt tight from the hot and cold towels, and tangy with the lotion. 'Great,' he said as he paid him. 'Thanks, Tink.' He moved out of the chair, put on his hat and nodded to Tinker and to the colonel who had been waiting patiently for a haircut.
Both men stared after him.
The King walked briskly up the path once more, past clustering huts, heading for home. He was pleasantly hungry.
The American hut was set apart from the others, near enough to the walls to share the afternoon shade, and near enough to the encircling path which was the life stream of the camp and near enough to the fence. It was just right. Captain Brough, USAF, the senior American officer, had insisted that the American enlisted men have their own hut. Most of the American officers would have preferred to move in too — it was difficult for them to live among foreigners — but this was not allowed, for the Japanese had ordered that officers be separated from enlisted men. The other nationalities found this hard to stomach, the Australians less so than the English.
The King was thinking about the diamond. It would not be easy to swing this deal, and this deal he had to swing. Suddenly as he approached the hut, he noticed beside the path a young man sitting on his haunches, talking rapidly in Malay to a native. The man's skin was heavily pigmented and beneath the skin the muscles showed. Wide shoulders. Slim hips. The man wore only a sarong, and the way he wore it, it seemed to belong. His face was craggy, and though he was Changi-thin, there was a grace to his movements and a sparkle about him.
The Malay — black-brown, tiny — was listening intently to the man's lilting speech; then he laughed and showed teeth abused by betel nut, and replied, accenting the melodious language with a wave of his hand. The man joined his laugh and interrupted with a flood of words, oblivious of the King's intent stare.
The King could catch only a word here and a word there, for his Malay was bad and he had to get by with a mixture of Malay and Japanese and pidgin English. He listened to the rich laugh and knew it was a rare thing.
When this man was laughing, you could see that the laugh came from inside. This was very rare. Priceless.
Thoughtfully the King entered the hut. The other men looked up briefly and greeted him amiably. He returned their greetings without favor. But he knew and they knew.
Dino was lying on his bunk half asleep. He was a neat little man with dark skin and dark hair, prematurely flecked with gray, and veiled liquid eyes.
The King felt the eyes and nodded and saw Dino's smile. But the eyes were not smiling.
In the far corner of the hut Kurt looked up from the pants he was trying to patch up and spat on the floor. He was a stunted, evil-looking man with yellow-brown teeth, ratlike, and he always spat on the floor and not one of them liked him, for he would never bathe. Near the center of the hut Byron Jones III and Miller were playing their interminable chess. Both were naked. When Miller's merchant ship was torpedoed two years before, he had weighed two hundred and eighty-eight pounds. He was six feet, seven inches. Now he turned the scale at a hundred and thirty-three, and the folds of belly skin hung like a pelt over his sex. His blue eyes lit up as he reached over and took a knight. Bryon Jones III quickly removed the knight, and now Miller saw that his castle was threatened.
'You've had it, Miller,' Jones said, scratching the jungle sores on his legs.
'Go to hell!'
