“Jesus, we got us a gold mine!” Miller said, scratching furiously.
“The hell we have,” the King said. “Not without some figuring. Number one, we can’t put ’em all together. They’re cannibals. That means we got to separate the males and females except when we’re mating them. Another thing, they’ll fight among themselves, all the time. So that means separating males from males and females from females.”
“So we separate them. What’s so tough about that?”
“Nothing, Max,” said the King patiently. “But we got to have cages and get the thing organized. It isn’t going to be easy.”
“Hell,” Tex said. “We can build a stock of cages, no sweat in that.”
“You think, Tex, we can keep the farm quiet? While we’re building up the stock?”
“Don’t see why not!”
“Oh, another thing,” the King said. He was feeling pleased with the men and more than pleased with the scheme. It was a business after his own heart — nothing to do except wait. “They’ll eat anything, alive or dead. Anything. So we’ve no logistics problem.”
“But they’re filthy creatures and they’ll stink to the skies,” Byron Jones III said. “We’ve enough stench around here as it is without putting more under our own hut. And rats are also plague carriers!”
“Maybe that’s a special type of rat, like a special mosquito carries malaria,” Dino said hopefully, his dark eyes roving the men.
“Rats can carry plague, sure,” the King said, shrugging. “And they carry a lot of human diseases. But that don’t mean nothing. We got a fortune in the making and all you bastards do is figure negatives! It’s un-American!”
“Well, Jesus, this plague bit. How do we know if they’ll be clean or not?” Miller said queasily.
The King laughed. “We asked Vexley that an’ he said, quote, ‘You’d find out soon enough. You’d be dead.’ Un-quote. Hell, it’s just like chickens. Keep ’em clean and feed ’em good and you got good stock! Nothing to worry about.”
So they talked about the farm, its dangers and its potentials — and they could all appreciate the potentials — provided they didn’t have to eat the produce — and they discussed the problems connected with such a large-scale operation. Then Kurt came into the hut and in his hands was a squirming blanket.
“I got another,” he said sourly.
“You have?”
“Sure I have. While you bastards’re talkin’ I’m out doin’. It’s a bitch.” Kurt spat on the floor.
“How do you know?”
“I looked. I seed enough rats in the Merchant Marine to know. An’ the other’s a male. An’ I looked too.”
They all climbed under the hut and watched Kurt put Eve into the trench. Immediately the two rats stuck together viciously, and the men were hard put not to cheer. The first litter was on its way. The men voted that Kurt was to be in charge and Kurt was happy.
That way he knew he would get his share. Sure he’d look after the rats. Food was food. Kurt knew he was going to survive if any bastard did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Twenty-two days later Eve gave birth. In the next cage, Adam tore at the wire netting to get at the living food and almost got through, but Tex spotted the rent just in time. Eve suckled the young. There were Cain and Abel and Grey and Alliluha; Beulah and Mabel and Junt and Princess and Little Princess and Big Mabel and Big Junt and Big Beulah. Naming the males was easy. But none of the men wanted their girls’ names or their sisters’ or their mothers’ names attached to the females. Even mother-in-law names were some other man’s passion or relation of the past. It had taken them three days to agree on Beulah and Mabel.
When the young were fifteen days old, they were put into separate cages. The King, Peter Marlowe, Tex and Max gave Eve until noon to recover, then put her back with Adam. The second litter was launched.
“Peter,” the King said benignly as they climbed through the trapdoor into the hut, “our fortune’s made.”
The King had decided on the trapdoor because he knew that so many trips under the hut would excite curiosity. It was vital to the success of the farm that it should remain secret. Even Mac and Larkin knew nothing about it.
“Where’s everyone today?” Peter Marlowe asked, closing the trapdoor. Only Max was in the hut, lying on his bunk.
“Poor slobs got caught for a work party. Tex’s in hospital. The rest are out liberating.”
“Think I’ll go and liberate too. Give me something to think about.”
The King lowered his voice. “I got something for you to think about. Tomorrow night we’re going to the village.” Then he yelled to Max, “Hey Max, you know Prouty? The Aussie major? Up in Hut Eleven?”
“The old guy? Sure.”
“He’s not old. Can’t be more’n forty.”
“From where I’m at forty’s old as God. It’ll take me eighteen years to get that old.”
“You should be so lucky,” the King said. “Go see Prouty. Tell him I sent you.”
“And?”
“And nothing. Just go see him. And make sure Grey isn’t around — or any of his eyes.”
“On my way,” Max said reluctantly and left them alone.
Peter Marlowe was looking over the wire, seeking to the coast. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d changed your mind.”
“About taking you along?”
“Yes.”
“No need for you to worry, Peter.” The King got out the coffee and handed a mug to Peter Marlowe. “You want to have lunch with me?”
“I don’t know how the hell you do it,” Peter Marlowe grunted. “Everyone’s starving and you invite me to lunch.”
“I’m having some katchang idju.”
The King unlocked his black chest and took out the sack of little green beans and handed them to Peter Marlowe. “You like to fix them?”
As Peter Marlowe took them out to the tap to begin washing them, the King opened a can of bully and carefully eased the contents onto a plate.
Peter Marlowe came back with the beans. They were well washed and no husks floated in the clean water. Good, the King thought. Don’t have to tell Peter twice. And the aluminum container had exactly the right amount of water — six times the height of the beans.
He set it on the hot plate and added a large spoonful of sugar and two pinches of salt. Then he added half the can of bully. “Is it your birthday?” Peter Marlowe asked.
“Huh?”
“Katchang idju and bully, in one meal?”
“You just don’t live right.”
Peter Marlowe was tantalized by the aroma and the bubble of the stew. The last weeks had been rough. The discovery of the radio had hurt the camp. The Japanese Commandant had “regretfully” cut the camp’s rations due to “bad harvests,” so even the tiny desperation stocks of the units had gone. Miraculously, there had been no other repercussions. Except the cut in food.
In Peter Marlowe’s unit, the cut had hit Mac the worst. The cut and the uselessness of their water-bottled radio.
“Dammit,” Mac had sworn after weeks of trying to trace the trouble. “It’s nae use, laddies. Without taking the bleeding thing apart I canna do a thing. Everything seems correct. Without some tools an’ a battery of sorts, I canna find the fault.”
Then Larkin had somehow acquired a tiny battery and Mac had gathered his waning strength and gone back to testing, checking and rechecking. Yesterday, while he was testing, he had gasped and fainted, deep in a malarial coma. Peter Marlowe and Larkin had carried him up to the hospital and laid him on a bed. The doctor had said that it was just malaria, but with such a spleen, it could easily become very dangerous.