King Rat Page 13

  The Camp Commandant’s wife was lying amid the rubble of the tenement building in Notting Hill Gate, London, under a lowering rain. It was a tenement because she had no money. It was a rubble because a V2 had silent-swooped and laid it to waste.

  Maisie was half buried under broken bricks and twisted pipes and desecrated furniture. There was a freezing wind blowing, cutting as only an English wind can cut. But Maisie was glad of the cold for it deadened the hurt that surrounded her. She tried to move, but there was a hugeness of weight on her and she knew that death was near. Then she felt the icy rain on her face and that puzzled her for there should not be rain on her face. Hadn’t her flat been on the second floor? And hadn’t there been, therefore, floors and ceilings above her? But now there were no floors or ceilings, there was only sky and overcast and rain.

  Around her there were screams and pain and the crackle of flames and afar off, the screech of approaching sirens.

  I hope I don’t burn, she thought. I don’t want to burn. I don’t mind dying, but I don’t want to burn first. What’s today? Oh, my, it’s Sunday. Of course, I’d just got back from Church. You’re getting quite silly Maisie. Well, Sunday’s a good day to die, and the little thought comforted her.

  Later, she tried to move but could not. She could not feel her legs at all. Then she tried her arms, first the right and then the left. The right was almost as though it had never been, but the left moved free and she watched it as it lifted itself and moved above her, and the rain ran down her fingers touching the little gold band and dropped onto her face. The fingers, beyond herself it seemed, touched her face then moved a little of the rubble away and dust and moved a strand of gray hair from her eyes. Then at length, she let her hand and arm rest once more, exhausted.

  After a vastness of time she began to wonder about herself and the other tenants. I wonder if they got out, before it hit. And what about Felix, dear little Felix, the kitten, the joy of her solitude? Maisie remembered that she had him in her arms in the kitchen pouring him some milk, just before.

  She tried to move again, seeking the kitten, but she could not.

  “Kitty, kitty, kitty, here kitty,” she called. “Here kitty.”

  She waited but there was no sound other than the crackle of fire somewhere near.

  “Ah, well,” she said aloud, for now that she had been alone so long she often talked to herself, “kittens have nine lives so there’s no need to worry. They’re luckier than humans, much luckier. Or perhaps they’re unluckier. Perhaps it is better to have only one life.”

  Dimly she tried to remember the “before.” She had been standing in the kitchen. Yes, Felix was in her arms and she was pouring out the milk. What else? There was something that she had to remember. Something important. Now what could that be? Oh yes. She’d left the fire on, the gas. Now that’s a silly thing to do. Dangerous. And, oh yes! Now she remembered. The rations! Her week’s rations were on the table and now they were under the rubble. What a waste!

  Such a lovely, lovely chop that she’d saved her whole week’s ration for. Thick and juicy. Lamb. Maisie always liked lamb, and the butcher, old Mister Soames, such a nice gentleman—always a little extra from under the counter, why last week a whole half pound of sausages—he had cut it specially for her and taken her coupons and had given her a bone to make some gravy with. And now the lamb chop was ruined. Disgusting! And with the chop her egg and her week’s butter and the bacon she’d treasured. Blast it, I saved that miserable egg for a whole week. Maisie, you’re an old fool. That’ll teach you a lesson. Eat your rations while you’ve got them, don’t hold on to them, for now, well, now you won’t need rations much longer.

  That thought pleased her. And another thought pleased her.

  No more queues.

  Queues, queues, queues. Maisie had always, always hated queues. But England was queues. Well, no more queues or ration books or being cold. She hated the cold and loved India.

  “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  Ah those were good days, in the Indian army. Quetta, Lahore, Poona, all those lovely places and nice, nice, brown people. All the servants, and warmth and enough food and such lovely dances.

  Shafts of agony screamed pain from her lips, but the hugeness of the scream was merely of the mind and the real sound was only a whimper. In time the pain passed. But its coming and going took more of her ebbing strength away.

  The rain fell harder now and she had to close her eyes. Somewhere there were sirens over the patter of rain. And the icy wind whipped across her face.

  What a silly way to die—after all this time. “How silly,” she said. Then the terror of dying engulfed her and she began to shout, “Help, help, HELPPPPPPPP!” but the sound she made was merely a whisper, as the sound of a butterfly in a rainbowed breeze.

  Get hold of yourself Maisie. Hold on, and don’t be a foolish old woman. There’s no need to be afraid. There’s a God in Heaven and, all in all, you’ve been as good as a human can be, so there is nothing to fear. So she settled to wait and as she waited she prayed.

  Most of her prayer was for Toby, her eldest son, so tall and proud in his uniform, now part of the immense armored wave that was sweeping the enemy away, devastating enemy soil. Blasted Germans. Twice we’ve had to go to war with them. Blasted Germans. Twice. Well let’s hope we do a good job this time. I lost my father and uncle in the First War—and now in the second … first my youngest, my Roger, a skyborn death; then my son-in-law, a Dunkirk death; then later, my son-in-law’s son—my grandson to be—still-born, an air raid miscarriage death. Then my husband, my John, somewhere in the East, probably dead. So many, so many deaths. Dear God in Heaven, what for, what for?

  “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  When the war had begun, Maisie had been glad, but only for a moment. Glad for John. Well, war is what he had been trained for. And in the regular army, peace time promotion is very slow, so slow. But in war, well, with luck a General’s crossed swords. But her first gladness had been taken away by her sons. She had seen their fire, their wanting to “serve” the holy cause. Yes, it was right for them to serve; after all, we’re a service family and you always go into the services and serve. But John was caught in Singapore, and unlucky. Unlucky because promotions were being eaten up—by juniors, very much juniors. But still, perhaps, even now he could get his General’s crossed swords. Those meant security, and the house that they had always wanted to buy—the house that was way above their possibility—but the house that she had bought anyway.

  “Now, don’t be angry, John, I just had to buy it. It was going so cheap. I just had to buy it.”

  Maisie was a little worried what John would say, but, well, it was bought and that was that.

  When they were just engaged, years upon years ago, they had been walking in Sussex and some magic had led them to Chadlott’s Manor. They had said immediately, in the same breath, “Oh look at that!” and they had sworn that one day, somehow, that’s where they would live. Some day when all the foreign soldiering was done and the Indian army days were over, that’s where they would live. At Chadlott’s.

  It was an Elizabethan house as old and ancient as the wisteria which held it up and the yew trees that kept the winds at bay and the lush sward which was its carpet. Rolling gardens and lawns and oaks and a little bridge and diamond windows peeping out so prettily. Old, old, old brick, weathered and sheened, patinaed. Oh such a pretty pretty house. Their house.

  And two years ago she had met the owner of the house and had drawn out their savings, two thousand pounds, and the deed had been drawn up and the money given him and she had promised to pay six thousand more pounds over years and years but that did not matter, for there was all the time in the world and one day it would belong to Toby and his children and his children’s children. It was so cheap, the price, and the owner was selling because he was leaving England and going to America and he was so happy to leave it and the country. Strange.

  Chadlott’s Manor. Just outsid
e the little hamlet of Hawthorn-on-the-Raven. A tiny Eden. Their new home.

  Oh what glorious times she had had, living in the Manor and making curtains and seeing the joy on Toby’s face when he saw it before he went overseas and the joy on his wife Carol’s face when she lived in it for a week before taking the plane for overseas, so fine in her nurse’s outfit, still not strong for the stillborn child had wracked her, but that didn’t matter, for Maisie knew that Chadlott’s would take Carol to its bosom and make Carol well once the war was history. Those wonderful days, days of heaven. John’s old pipes over the inglenook fireplace, logs burning happily, a gardener as gnarled as the wisteria molding the flower beds.

  “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  Then a year ago she had come to London to sign some more papers and give some more money, but that was good, for she could just manage if she was careful. And then she had gone back and got off the train and walked the four miles and all the yew trees were smashed down and the roots of the wisteria were torn from the earth and the house was no more and blown apart and the beams were gutted with fire and the swathes of lawn were holes, holes, and over Chadlott’s there was smoke, smoke tinged with acrid smoke, and Chadlott’s was dead. Dead. Dead.

  That night she had died too, sitting on a dead tree. Her tears had watered the earth but their mixture brought forth no magic to make this nightmare just a nightmare.

  Maisie had never returned to her first graveyard. Never. She just got up, that night, and turned her back and never looked over her shoulder. And, thinking of the destruction of her home, the malevolent unnecessary obliteration of such beauty, she screamed her hate at the Hun, the rotten Boche, the rotten, rotten man, devil’s spawn who started the war and destroyed Chadlott’s. And she cursed them with her whole being for killing Chadlott and letting her live—for not letting her die with her beloved, her home.

  “Curse you, curse you, curse you!”

  Not for my father or my uncle or my son, or my son-in-law or his son, or my husband, or for me—humans are expendable and it is right that men should defend these shores and women should suffer—but a ten million thousand curses for Chadlott’s, for nothing, ever, ever, can rebuild that which took four hundred years to make. Nothing. Not even God. Not even God can make it, just the same.

  Maisie was dying fast now.

  “Kitty, kitty, kitty, here, kitty.”

  I don’t mind dying, but I hate dying alone. I wish you were here, all of you, all my children and most my John.

  “Here, kitty … here—”

  She died in the rubble, there, under the freezing rain and whipping wind, deep in the rubble. It was good that she could not move or feel the soft furred creature nestling protectively into the cradle of her arm, cold now, as cold and still even as she.

  Now they were all steeped in unluck.

  He waited impatiently for Yoshima to get to work on the beam, hating the cat-and-mouse agony. He could hear the undercurrent of despair from the men outside. There was nothing he could do but wait.

  Finally Yoshima tired of the game too. The stench of the hut bothered him. He walked to the bunk and made a perfunctory search. Then he studied the eight by eight. But his eyes could not find the cuts. Scowling, he examined it closer, his long sensitive fingers plying the wood. Still he could not find it.

  His first reaction was that he had been misinformed. But this he could not believe, for the informer had not yet been paid.

  He grunted a command and a Korean guard unsnapped his bayonet and gave it to him, haft first.

  Yoshima tapped the beam, listening for the hollow sound. Ah, now he had it! Again he tapped. Again the hollow sound. But he could not find the cracks. Angrily he jabbed the bayonet into the wood.

  The lid came free.

  “So.”

  Yoshima was proud that he had found the radio. The General would be pleased. Pleased enough, perhaps, to assign him a combat unit, for his Bushido revolted at paying informers and dealing with these animals.

  Smedly-Taylor moved forward, awed by the ingenuity of the hiding place and the patience of the man who made it. I must recommend Daven, he thought. This is duty above and beyond the call of duty. But recommend him for what?

  “Who belongs to this bunk?” Yoshima asked.

  Smedly-Taylor shrugged and went through the same pretense of finding out.

  Yoshima was sorry, truly sorry that Daven had only one leg.

  “Would you like a cigarette?” he said, offering the pack of Kooas.

  “Thank you.” Daven took the cigarette and accepted a light but did not taste the smoke.

  “What is your name?” Yoshima asked courteously.

  “Captain Daven, Infantry.”

  “How did you lose your leg, Captain Daven?”

  “I—I was blown up by a mine. In Johore—just north of the causeway.”

  “Did you make the radio?”

  “Yes.”

  Smedly-Taylor thrust away his own fear-sweat. “I ordered Captain Daven to make it. It’s my responsibility. He was following my orders.”

  Yoshima glanced at Daven. “Is this true?”

  “No.”

  “Who else knows about the radio?”

  “No one. It was my idea and I made it. Alone.”

  “Please sit down, Captain Daven.” Then Yoshima nodded contemptuously towards Cox, who sat sobbing with terror. “What’s his name?”

  “Captain Cox,” Daven said.

  “Look at him. Disgusting.”

  Daven drew on the cigarette. “I’m just as afraid as he is.”

  “You are in control. You have courage.”

  “I’m more afraid than he is.” Daven hobbled awkwardly over to Cox, laboriously sat beside him. “It’s all right, Cox, old boy,” he said compassionately, putting his hand on Cox’s shoulder. “It’s all right.” Then he looked up at Yoshima. “Cox earned the Military Cross at Dunkirk before he was twenty. He’s another man now. Constructed by you bastards over three years.”

  Yoshima quelled an urge to strike Daven. Before a man, even an enemy, there was a code. He turned to Smedly-Taylor and ordered him to get the six men from the bunks nearest to Daven’s, and told him to keep the rest on parade, under guard, until further orders.

  The six men stood in front of Yoshima. Only Spence knew of the radio, but he, like all of them, denied the knowledge.

  “Pick up the bunk and follow me,” Yoshima ordered.

  When Daven groped for his crutch, Yoshima helped him to his feet.

  “Thank you,” Daven said.

  “Would you like another cigarette?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Yoshima hesitated. “I would be honored if you would accept the packet.”

  Daven shrugged and took it, then hobbled to his corner and reached down for his iron leg.

  Yoshima snapped out a command and one of the Korean guards picked up the leg and helped Daven sit down.

  His fingers were steady as he attached the leg, then he stood, picked up his crutches, and stared at them a moment. Then he threw them into the corner of the hut.

  He clomped to the bunk and looked at the radio. “I’m very proud of that,” he said. He saluted Smedly-Taylor, then moved out of the hut.

  The tiny procession wove through the silence of Changi. Yoshima led and timed the speed of the march to Daven’s progress. Beside him was Smedly-Taylor. Then came Cox, tear-streamed and oblivious of the tears. The other two guards waited with the men of Hut Sixteen.

  They waited eleven hours.

  Smedly-Taylor returned, and the six men returned. Daven and Cox did not return. They remained in the guardhouse and tomorrow they were going to Utram Road Jail.

  The men were dismissed.

  Peter Marlowe had a blinding headache from the sun. He stumbled back to the bungalow, and after a shower, Larkin and Mac massaged his head and fed him. When he had finished Larkin went out and sat beside the asphalt road. Peter Marlowe squatted in the doorless doorway, his back to th
e room.

  Night was gathering beyond the horizon. There was an immense solitude in Changi and the men who walked up and down seemed more than ever lost.

  Mac yawned. “Think I’ll turn in now, laddie. Get an early night.”

  “All right, Mac.”

  Mac settled the mosquito net around his bed and tucked it under the mattress. He wrapped a sweat-rag around his forehead, then slipped Peter Marlowe’s water bottle from its felt case and unclipped the false base plate. He took the covers and bases off his own water bottle and Larkin’s, then carefully put them on top of one another. Within each of the bottles was a maze of wire, condenser and tube.

  From the top bottle he carefully pulled out a six-pronged male-joint with its complex of wires and fitted it deftly into the female in the middle water bottle. Then he took a four-pronged male-joint from the middle one and fitted it into its appointed socket in the last.

  His hands were shaking and his knees quivered, for to do this in the half light, lying propped on one elbow, screening the bottles with his body, was very awkward.

  Night swarmed across the sky, adding to the closeness. Mosquitoes began to attack.

  When all the bottles were joined together, Mac stretched the ache from his back and dried his slippery hands. Then he pulled out the earphone from its hiding place in the top bottle and checked the connections to make sure they were tight. The insulated source wire was also in the top bottle. He unrolled it and checked that the needles were still tightly soldered to the ends of the wire. Again he wiped away his sweat and rapidly rechecked all the joining connections, thinking as he did that the radio still looked as pure and clean as when he had finished it secretly in Java—while Larkin and Peter Marlowe guarded—two years ago.

  It had taken six months to design and make.

  Only the lower half of the bottle could be used—the top half had to contain water—so he not only had to compress the radio into three tiny rigid units, but also had to set the units into leakless containers, then solder the containers into the water bottles.