Free King Rat by James Clavell Page A

he spoke he shook the bottle. It was full.
    The guard jerked the bottle out of his hands and sniffed it suspiciously. Then he poured some of the water onto the floor and shoved the bottle back at Peter Marlowe and cursed him again and pointed at the men on parade below.
    Peter Marlowe bowed, weak with relief, and ran to join his group in line.
    “Where the hell have you been, Peter?” Spence asked, dysentery pain adding to his anxiety.
    “Never mind, I’m here.” Now that Peter Marlowe had his water bottle he was giddy. “Come on, Spence, get the bods lined up,” he said, needling him.
    “Go to hell. Come on, you chaps, get into line.” Spence counted the men and then said, “Where’s Bones?”
    “In hospital,” Ewart said. “Went just after breakfast. I took him myself.”
    “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”
    “I’ve been working in the gardens all day, for Christ sake! Pick on someone else!”
    “Keep your blasted shirt on!”
    But Peter Marlowe wasn’t listening to the curses and chatter and rumors. He hoped that the colonel and Mac had their water bottles too.
    When his group was accounted for, Captain Spence walked along the road to Lieutenant Colonel Sellars, who was in nominal charge of four huts, and saluted. “Sixty-four, all correct, sir. Nineteen here, twenty-three in hospital, twenty-two on work parties.”
    “All right, Spence.”
    And as soon as Sellars had all the numbers from his four huts, he totaled them and took them up the line to Colonel Smedly-Taylor, who was responsible for ten huts. Then Smedly-Taylor took them up the line. Then the next officer took them up the line, and this procedure was repeated throughout the camp, inside and outside the jail, until totals were given to the Camp Commandant. The Camp Commandant added the figures of men inside the camp to the number of men in hospital and the number of men on work parties, and then he passed the totals over to Captain Yoshima, the Japanese interpreter. Yoshima cursed the Camp Commandant because the total was one short.
    There was an aching hour of panic until the missing body was found in the cemetery. Colonel Dr. Rofer, RAMS, cursed his assistant, Colonel Dr. Kennedy, who tried to explain that it was difficult to keep a tally to the instant, and Colonel Rofer cursed him anyway and said that that was his job. Then Rofer apologetically went to the Camp Commandant, who cursed his inefficiency, and then the Camp Commandant went to Yoshima and tried to explain politely that the body had been found but it was difficult to keep numbers accurate to the second. And Yoshima cursed the Camp Commandant for inefficiency and told him that he was responsible — if he couldn’t keep a simple number perhaps it was about time another officer took charge of the camp.
    While the anger sped up and down the line, Korean guards were searching the huts, particularly the officers’ huts. Here would be the radio they sought. The link, the hope of the men. They wanted to find the radio as they had found the one five months ago. But the guards sweltered as the men on parade sweltered, and their search was perfunctory.
    The men sweated and cursed. A few fainted. The dysenteric streamed to the latrines. Those who were very sick squatted where they were or lay where they were and let the pain swirl and consummate. The fit did not notice the stench. The stench was normal and the stream was normal and the waiting was normal.
    After three hours the search was completed. The men were dismissed. They swarmed for their huts and the shade, or lay on their beds gasping, or went to the showers and waited and fumed until the water cooled the ache from their heads.
    Peter Marlowe walked out of the shower. He wrapped his sarong around his waist and went to the concrete bungalow of his friends, his unit.
    “Puki mahlu!” Mac grinned. Major McCoy was a tough little Scot who carried himself neatly erect. Twenty-five years in the Malayan jungles had etched