pardon? Well, I don't know. The memo says three — not two children.
Perhaps it's an error. Next!
More men went swimming now. But the outside was still fearful and the men that went were glad to be back inside once more. Sean went swimming. He walked down to the shore with the men and in his hand was a bundle. When the party got to the beach, Sean turned away, and the men laughed and jeered, most of them, at the pervert who wouldn't take off his clothes like anyone else.
'Pansy!'
'Bugger!'
'Rotten fairy!'
'Homo!'
Scan walked up the beach, away from the jeers, until he found a private place. He slipped off his short pants and shirt and put on the evening sarong and padded bra and belt and stockings and combed his hair and put on makeup. Carefully, very carefully. And then the girl stood up, confident and very happy. She put on her high-heeled shoes and walked into the sea.
The sea welcomed her and made her sleep easy, and then, in the course of time, devoured the clothes and body and the time of her.
A major was standing in the doorway of Peter Marlowe's hut. His tunic was crusted with medal ribbons and he seemed very young. He peered around the hut at the obscenities lying on their bunks or changing or smoking or preparing to take a shower. His eyes came to rest on Peter Marlowe.
'What the fucking hell are you staring at?' Peter Marlowe screamed.
'Don't talk to me like that! I'm a major and —'
'I don't give a goddam if you're Christ! Get out of here! Get out!'
'Stand to attention! I'll have you court-martialed!' the major snapped, eyes popping, sweat pouring. 'Ought to be ashamed of yourself, standing there in a skirt —'
'It's a sarong—'
'It's a skirt, standing in a skirt, half-naked! You POWs think you can get away with anything. Well, thank God you can't. And now you'll be taught respect for —'
Peter Marlowe caught up his hafted bayonet, rushed to the door and thrust the knife hi the major's face. 'Get away from here or by Christ I'll cut your fucking throat…'
The major evaporated.
'Take it easy, Peter,' Phil muttered. 'You'll get us all into trouble.'
'Why do they stare at us? Why? Goddammit why?' Peter Marlowe shouted. There was no answer.
A doctor walked into the hut, a doctor with a Red Cross on his arm, and he hurried — but pretended not to hurry — and smiled at Peter Marlowe.
'Don't pay any attention to him,' he said, indicating the major who was walking through the camp.
'Why the hell do all you people stare at us?'
'Have a cigarette and calm down.'
The doctor seemed nice enough and quiet enough, but he was an outsider — and not to be trusted.
'Have a cigarette and calm down! That's all you bastards can say,' Peter Marlowe raged. 'I said, why do you all stare at us?'
The doctor lit a cigarette himself and sat on one of the beds and then wished he hadn't, for he knew that all the beds were diseased. But he wanted to help. 'I'll try to tell you,' he said quietly. 'You, all of you, have suffered the unsufferable and endured the unendurable. You're walking skeletons. Your faces are all eyes, and in the eyes there's a look…' He stopped a moment, trying to find the words, for he knew that they needed help and care and gentleness. 'I don't quite know how to describe it. It's furtive — no, that's not the right word, and it's not fear. But there's the same look in all your eyes. And you're all alive, when by all the rules you should be dead. We don't know why you aren't dead or why you've survived — I mean each of you here, why you? We, from the outside, stare at you because you're fascinating…'
'Like freaks in a goddam side show, I suppose?'
'Yes,' said the doctor calmly. 'That would be one way of putting it, but —'
'I swear to Christ I'll kill the next bugger who looks at me as though I'm a monkey.'
'Here,' the doctor said, trying to appease him. 'Here are some pills.
They'll calm you down —'
Peter Marlowe knocked the pills out of the doctor's hand and shouted, 'I don't want any goddam pills. I just want to be left alone!' And he fled the hut.
The American hut.was deserted.
Peter Marlowe lay on the King's bed and wept.
''By, Peter,' Larkin said.
''By, Colonel.'
''By, Mac.'
'Good luck, laddie.'
'Keep in touch.'
Larkin shook their hands, and then he walked up to Changi Gate, where trucks were waiting to take the last
