To the south there was a hill, and surrounding the hill were thousands of Chinese coolies. They all carried two bamboo baskets on a bamboo pole over their shoulders, and they walked up the hill and collected two baskets of earth and walked down the hill and emptied the two baskets. Their movement was perpetual and you could almost see the hill disappear.
Under the burning sun.
Peter Marlowe had been coming to the airfield four, five times a week for almost two years now. When he and Larkin had first seen the site, with its hills and swamps and sand, they had laughed and thought that it would never be turned into an airfield. After all, the Chinese had no tractors or bulldozers. But now, two years later, there was already one operative strip, and the big one, the bomber strip, was nearly finished.
Peter Marlowe marveled at the patience of all those worker-ants and wondered what their hands could not do if they were set in motion with modern equipment.
His eyes closed and he was asleep.
'Ewartt, Where's Marlowe?' Grey asked curtly.
'On a work party at the airfield. Why?'
'Just tell him to report to me immediately he gets back.'
'Where'll you be?'
'How the hell do I know! Just tell him to find me.' As Grey left the hut he felt a spasm building, and he began to hurry to the latrines. Before he got halfway the spasm climaxed and a little of the bloody mucus oozed out of him, soaking even more the grass pad he wore in his pants. Tormented and very weak, he leaned against a hut to gather strength.
Grey knew that it was time to change the pad once more, the fourth time today, but he didn't mind. At least the pad was hygienic and it saved his pants, the only pair he possessed. And without the pad he could not walk around. Disgusting, he told himself, just like a sanitary napkin. What a bloody mess! But at least it was efficient.
He should have reported sick today, but he couldn't, not when he had Marlowe nailed. Oh no, this was too good to miss, and he wanted to see Marlowe's face when he told him. It was worth the pain to know he had him. The cheap, no-good bastard. And through Marlowe the King'd sweat a little. In a couple of days he would have them both. For he knew about the diamond and knew that contact was to be made within the next week.
He didn't know yet exactly when, but he would be told. You're clever, he told himself, clever to have such an efficient system.
He went up to his jail hut and told the MP to wait outside. He changed the pad and scrubbed his hands, hoping to wash the stain away, the invisible stain.
Feeling better, Grey forced himself off the veranda steps and headed for the supply hut. Today he was to make his weekly inspection of the supplies of rice and food. The supplies always checked, for Lieutenant Colonel Jones was efficient and dedicated and always weighed the day's rice himself, personally, in public. So there was never any chance of skulduggery.
Grey admired Lieutenant Colonel Jones and liked the way he did everything himself — then there were no slips. He envied him too, for he was very young to be a lieutenant colonel. Just thirty-three. Makes you sick, he told himself, he's a lieutenant colonel and you're a lieutenant —and the only difference is being in the right job at the right time. Still, you're doing all right, and making friends who will stand up for you when the war's over. Of course, Jones was a civilian soldier, so he wouldn't stay in the service afterwards. But Jones was a pal of Samson and also of Smedly-Taylor, Grey's boss, and he played bridge with the Camp Commandant. Lucky bastard. I can play bridge as good as you can, but I don't get invited, and I work harder than anyone.
When Grey got to the supply hut, the day's issue of rice was still in progress.
'Morning, Grey,' Jones said. 'I'll be right with you.' He was a tall man, handsome, well-educated, quiet. He had a boyish face and was nicknamed the Boy Colonel.
'Thank you, sir.'
Grey stood and watched as the cookhouse representatives - a sergeant and an enlisted man - came up to the scales. Each cookhouse supplied two men to pick up the allotment - one to keep an eye on the other. The tally of men submitted by the representatives was checked and the rice weighed out. Then the tally sheet was initialed.
When the last cookhouse had been served, the remains of the sack of rice was lifted by Quartermaster Sergeant Blakely and carried into the hut.
Grey followed Lieutenant Colonel Jones inside and listened absently as Jones wearily gave him the figures: 'Nine thousand four hundred and eighty-three officers and men. Two thousand three hundred and seventy and three-quarters pounds of rice issued today, four ounces per man.
Twelve bags approx.' He nodded to the empty jute bags. Grey watched him count them, knowing that there would be twelve. Then Jones continued, 'One bag was short ten pounds' - this was not unusual - 'and the residue is twenty and a quarter pounds.'
The lieutenant colonel went over and picked up the almost empty sack and put it on the scales that Quartermaster Sergeant Blakely had pulled inside the hut. He carefully placed the weights on the platform and built them up to twenty and one quarter pounds. The sack lifted and balanced.
'It checks,' he smiled, satisfied, looking at Grey.
Everything else - a side of beef, sixteen tubs of dried fish, forty pounds of gula malacca, five dozen eggs, fifty pounds of salt and bags of peppercorns and dried red chilis - checked out perfectly also.
Grey signed the store chart, and winced as another spasm racked him.
'Dysentery?' asked Jones, concerned.
'Just a touch, sir.' Grey looked around the semidarkness, then saluted.
'Thank you, sir. See you next week.'
'Thank you, Lieutenant.'
On the way out, Grey was hit by another spasm and stumbled against the scale, knocking it over and scattering the weights across the dirt floor.
