Peter Marlowe watched himself as he took the money and went into the night and walked up the path and found Colonel Samson, and heard the man whisper, “Oh hello, you’re Marlowe, aren’t you?”
He saw himself hand over the money. “The King asked me to give you this.”
He saw the mucused eyes light up as Samson greedily counted the money and tucked it away in his threadbare pants.
“Thank him,” he heard Samson whisper, “and tell him I stopped Grey for an hour. That was as long as I could hold him. That was long enough, wasn’t it?”
“It was enough. Just enough.” Then he heard himself say, “Next time keep him longer, or send word, you stupid bugger!”
“I kept him as long as I could. Tell the King I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry and it won’t happen again. I promise. Listen, Marlowe. You know how it is sometimes. It gets a bit difficult.”
“I’ll tell him you’re sorry.”
“Yes, yes, thank you, thank you, Marlowe. I envy you, Marlowe. Being so close to the King. You’re lucky.”
Peter Marlowe returned to the American hut. The King thanked him and he thanked the King again and walked out into the night.
He found a small promontory overlooking the wire and wished himself into his Spitfire soaring the sky alone, up, up, up in the sky, where all is clean and pure, where there are no lousy people — like me — where life is simple and you can talk to God and be of God, without shame.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Peter Marlowe lay on his bunk drifting in half sleep. Around him men were waking, getting up, going to relieve themselves, preparing for work parties, going and coming from the hut. Mike was already grooming his mustache, fifteen inches from tip to tip; he had sworn never to cut it until he was released. Barstairs was already standing on his head practicing yoga, Phil Mint already picking his nose, the bridge game already started, Raylins already doing his singing exercises, Myner already doing scales on his wooden keyboard, Chaplain Grover already trying to cheer everyone up, and Thomas was already cursing the lateness of breakfast.
Above Peter Marlowe, Ewart, who had the top bunk, groaned out of sleep and hung his legs over the bunk. “’Mahlu on the night!”
“You were kicking like hell.” Peter Marlowe had said the same remark many times, for Ewart always slept restlessly.
“Sorry.”
Ewart always said, Sorry. He jumped down heavily. He had no place in Changi. His place was five miles away, in the civilian camp, where his wife and family were — perhaps were. No contact had ever been allowed between the camps.
“Let’s burn the bed after we’ve showered,” he said, yawning. He was short and dark and fastidious.
“Good idea.”
“Never think we did it three days ago. How did you sleep?”
“Same as usual.” But Peter Marlowe knew that nothing was the same, not after accepting the money, not after Samson.
The impatient line for breakfast was already forming as they carried the iron bunk out of the hut. They lifted the top bed off and pulled out the iron posts which fitted into slots on the lower one. Then they got coconut husks and twigs from their section under the hut and built fires under the four legs.
While the legs were heating, they took burning fronds and held them under the longitudinal bars and under the springs. Soon the earth beneath the bed was black with bedbugs.
“For Christ’s sake, you two,” Phil shouted at them. “Do you have to do that before breakfast?” He was a sour, pigeon-chested man with violent red hair.
They paid no attention. Phil always shouted at them, and they always burned their bunk before breakfast.
“God, Ewart,” Peter Marlowe said. “You’d think the buggers could pick up the bunk and walk away with it.”
“Damn nearly threw me out of bed last night. Stinking things.” In a sudden flurry of rage Ewart beat the myriads of bugs.
“Easy, Ewart.”
“I can’t help it. They make my skin crawl.”
When they had completed the bed they left it to cool and cleaned their mattresses. This took half an hour. Then the mosquito nets. Another half an hour.
By this time the beds were cool enough to handle. They put the bunk together and carried it back and set it in the four tins — carefully cleaned and filled with water — and made sure the edges of the tins did not touch the iron legs.
“What’s today, Ewart?” Peter Marlowe said absently as they waited for breakfast.
“Sunday.”
Peter Marlowe shuddered, remembering that other Sunday.
It was after the Japanese patrol had picked him up. He was in hospital in Bandung that Sunday. That Sunday, the Japanese had told all the prisoner of war patients to pick up their belongings and march because they were going to another hospital.
They had lined up in their hundreds in the courtyard. Only senior officers did not go. They were being sent to Formosa, so the rumor said. The General stayed too, he who was the senior officer, he who openly walked the camp communing with the Holy Ghost. The General was a neat man, square-shouldered, and his uniform was wet with the spit of the conquerors.
Peter Marlowe remembered carrying his mattress through the streets of Bandung under a heated sky, streets lined with shouting silent people, dressed multihued. Then throwing away the mattress. Too heavy. Then falling but getting up. Then the gates of the prison had opened and the gates of the prison had closed. There was enough room to lie down in the courtyard. But he and a few others were locked alone into tiny cells. There were chains on the walls and a small hole in the ground which was the toilet, and around the toilet were feces of years. Stench-straw matted the earth.
In the next cell was a maniac, a Javanese who had run amok and killed three women and two children before the Dutch had overpowered him. Now it was not the Dutch who were the jailers. They were jailed too. All the days and all the nights the maniac banged his chains and screamed.
There was a tiny hole in Peter Marlowe’s door. He lay on the straw and looked out at the feet and waited for food and listened to the prisoners cursing and dying, for there was plague.
He waited forever.
Then there was peace and clean water and there was no longer just a tiny hole for the world, but the sky was above and there was cool water sponging him, washing away the filth. He opened his eyes and saw a gentle face and it was upside down and there was another face and both were filled with peace and he thought that he was truly dead.
But it was Mac and Larkin. They had found him just before they left the prison for another camp. They had thought that he was a Javanese, like the maniac next door, who still howled and rattled his chains, for he too had been shouting in Malay and looked like the Javanese …
“Come on, Peter,” Ewart said again. “Grub’s up!”
“Oh, thanks.” Peter Marlowe collected his mess cans.
“You feeling all right?”
“Yes.” After a moment he said, “It’s good to be alive, isn’t it?”