‘Fine, sir, now that them bloody shaking fits have gone! When can I get out of here?’
The sister explained that he’d be in for a week or two yet, before being sent for convalescence to either the Cameron Highlands or Penang. This brought a wide grin to the man’s rugged face. ‘Almost worth being bitten by them bloody mozzies, sir!’
Tom wagged an admonitory finger at him. ‘I wouldn’t try it again, lad, you damned near died, you know. Keep on taking the tablets!’
The pair went out of the little ward and the humid heat instantly wrapped itself around them like a damp blanket.
‘Phwah, air conditioning makes it worse when you come out!’ grumbled Tom, running a finger around the inside of his collar.
Lynette pointed to the other special room opposite, its humming cool-box sticking out of the wall. ‘No one in there tonight. The OMO often sleeps there if it’s empty.’
‘Maybe I will — if you’ll bring me a cup of tea in the morning!’
‘Some hope, Captain! I’m off duty at six and straight back to my own bed, thank you.’
There was an undercurrent of playfulness in the innocent exchange and Tom felt an inner warmth steal through him, unrelated to the outside temperature.
‘I’ll tell the corporal you’re staying, so that she can get some sheets put on for you.’
‘Thanks — I’ll have to go up the rest of the corridor first, then over to the armoury.’
As they parted, they waved at each other, though Tom felt the urge to kiss her, which no doubt would be an offence against Queen’s Regulations. He plodded up the corridor, making quick enquiries in each of the remaining wards, where all seemed peaceful enough. At the top of the corridor he crossed the road and went across a wide patch of gravel to the arms kote which was placed between the two Officers’ Messes, each a few hundred yards distant. Behind it was the high perimeter fence, lit at intervals with lamps that threw yellow pools of light down on to the gritty ground. Beyond, Tom could just make out a dim glimmer from the scattered Malay huts that lay in the scrub between the hospital and the jungle that clothed the hills that rose half a mile away.
He crunched up to the small building, which was a flat-topped concrete blockhouse with a heavy metal door, like a larger version of the defence pillboxes that had been scattered around Britain during the war.
According to Alec Watson, the place was not a dispensary of weapons to the staff of BMH in the event of a siege, but a temporary repository for the guns of soldiers admitted to hospital. The all-knowing Alec had also repeated Alf’s admonition that their Commanding Officer was obsessional about its security and advised Tom to stick to every detail of ‘Part Two Orders’ concerning the armoury. These mysterious commandments were the Standing Orders for the Unit, as opposed to ‘Part One Orders’, which were a day-to-day update of tasks and events. From Alec’s description, Tom had almost expected them to be carved in tablets of stone set outside the colonel’s office, but eventually discovered they were rather dog-eared typed sheets pinned up on a notice board outside the Admin Officer’s room.
There was a low-wattage bulb over the door of the armoury and Tom stood under it for a moment to remind himself once again from his sheet of instructions.
‘Knock on door,’ was the first obvious command and he did so, using a fifty-cent coin on the thick steel panel. There was some shuffling inside and he waited for a ‘Who goes there?’ in true military style. Instead, a small panel slid aside at eye level and a rather frightened Malay voice quavered, ‘Who dat?’
‘Orderly Officer. Captain Howden!’ he replied, putting his mouth near the trap, which looked like a small letter box.
There was a silence while the body behind the door digested this. Tom had the suspicion that this was the first time the MOR occupant had been lumbered with this duty; it was certainly not the same chap that was there last time.
‘Identity card, sah?’ came the voice again, sounding more confident now that it was probably not Chin Peng himself who was standing outside the door.
Tom pulled out his identity document, a celluloid-covered card bearing an almost unrecognizable photograph that had been taken at the Depot in Crookham.
He pushed it through the slot, generating more shuffling and muttering. Then there was much scraping and scratching of bolts being drawn and the massive door slowly swung open enough for him to squeeze through, when it was immediately slammed shut again to keep the bandits out. The pathologist was now in a cell-like room which contained only a small table and one hard chair, apart from the diminutive Malay lance corporal. On the table was a gaudy vacuum flask, a glass half filled with water and a copy of the Koran. The small space was suffocatingly hot, even though there was a fan in the ceiling below some kind of vent through the roof above, but the corporal seemed oblivious of the heat. He handed Tom’s card back with a tentative smile on his smooth olive face.
‘Everything OK, sir,’ he confided, his almond-shaped eyes taking in the shiny new brass of the officer’s cap badge and pips.
Tom nodded at him and consulted his creased sheet of paper again.
‘I have to look in each of the magazines, corporal. I’m rather new at this business.’
The Malay’s face stretched in a conspiratorial grin. ‘Me also, sir. I got posted from BMH Kamunting last week. Another fellow from here sent back there — is crazy!’ He looked suddenly doleful. ‘My wife and my two kid still in Taiping.’
Tom muttered his commiserations at the habitual waywardness of the British Army, but wanted to get out of the stifling heat as soon as he could.
‘I suppose I’d better look in there, corporal.’ He waved his paper at a pair of steel doors, one on each side of the room. The soldier went to the table and took a bunch of keys from a drawer, then unlocked the doors and switched on the interior lights. Tom put his head inside the first and looked at a motley collection of weapons, some clipped in wall racks, others on the floor or on top of ammunition boxes. Most had OHMS labels tied to the trigger guards, with names and numbers written on them. He knew little about guns, but could recognize Lee-Enfield.303s, some Stirlings, Stens and a few more modern-looking weapons which he assumed were the NATO Fabrique Nationale rifles.
In the other room, as well as more rifles, there was a Bren gun on the floor and a row of grenades and a couple of revolvers sitting on top of a box. In spite of the CO’s alleged mania about the armoury, the place looked like a second-hand shop, but presumably Albert Morris or someone knew exactly what was in here.
‘You want to see book, sir?’ The MOR scrabbled in the drawer again and for a moment Tom thought he was going to pull out a girlie magazine, which seemed an odd companion for the Koran. But it was a worn red ledger that the corporal displayed and when Tom opened it, he saw it was a listing of all the weapons and other armaments that had been left there, with signed entries for each deposit and withdrawal, though there were some crossings-out and corrections here and there.
‘God, I hope wasn’t supposed to check everything against this list!’ he muttered aghast, urgently consulting his piece of paper again. But there was nothing there about making an inventory, only an exhortation to sign alongside the time and date of the inspection, so with sigh of relief, he scrawled these in the back of the book and told the corporal to close up the doors and let him out. After a precautionary peep through the letter-box, the MOR unlocked the door and creaked it open, to let Tom escape into the comparative coolness of the night.