King Rat Read Free Page A

“Quite right. Lucky I was passing. Can’t have an officer brawling with a common soldier.” He glanced out of the door again, hating the King, wanting his cigarette. “Blasted man,” he said without looking back at Grey, “undisciplined. Like the rest of the Americans. Bad lot. Why, they call their officers by their first names!” His eyebrows soared. “And the officers play cards with the men! Bless my soul! Worse than the Australians — and they’re a shower if there ever was one. Miserable! Not like the Indian Army, what?”
    “No. Sir,” Grey said thinly.
    Colonel Brant turned quickly. “I didn’t mean - well, Grey, just because — “ He stopped and suddenly his eyes were filled with tears. “Why, why would they do that?” he said brokenly. “Why, Grey? I — we all loved them.”
    Grey shrugged. But for the apology he would have been compassionate.
    The colonel hesitated, then turned and walked out of the hut. His head was bent and silent tears streamed his cheeks.
    When Singapore fell in ‘42, his Sikh soldiers had gone over to the enemy, the Japanese, almost to a man, and they had turned on their English officers. The Sikhs were among the first prison guards over the prisoners of war and some of them were savage. The officers of the Sikhs knew no peace. For it was only the Sikhs en masse, and a few from other Indian regiments. The Gurkhas were loyal to a man, under torture and indignity. So Colonel Brant wept for his men, the men he would have died for, the men he still died for.
    Grey watched him go, then saw the King smoking by the path. “I’m glad I said that now it’s you or me,” he whispered to himself.
    He sat back on the bench as a shaft of pain swept through his bowels, reminding him that dysentery had not passed him by this week. “To hell with it,” he said weakly, cursing Colonel Brant and the apology.
    Masters came back with the full water bottle and gave it to him. He took a sip and thanked him and then began to plan how he would get the King. But the hunger for lunch was on him and he let his mind drift.
    A faint moan cut the air. Grey glanced abruptly at Masters, who sat unconscious that he had made a sound, watching the constant movement of the house lizards in the rafters as they darted after insects or fornicated.
    “You have dysentery, Masters?”
    Masters bleakly waved away the flies that mosaiced his face. “No sir. At least I haven’t for nearly five weeks.”
    “Enteric?”
    “No, thank God. My bloody word. Just amebic. An’ I haven’t had malaria for near three months. I’m very lucky, an’ very fit, considering.”
    “Yes,” Grey said. Then as an afterthought, “You look fit.” But he knew he would have to get a replacement soon. He looked back at the King, watching him smoke, nauseated with cigarette hunger.
    Masters moaned again.
    “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Grey said irately.
    “Nothing, sir. Nothing. I must have…”
    But the effort to speak was too much and Masters let his words slip off and blend with the drone of flies. Flies dominated the day, mosquitoes the night. No silence. Ever. What is it like to live without flies and mosquitoes and people? Masters tried to remember, but the effort was too great. So he just sat still, quiet, hardly breathing, a shell of a man. And his soul twisted uneasily.
    “All right, Masters, you can go now,” Grey said. “I’ll wait for your relief. Who is he?”
    Masters forced his brain to work and after a moment said, “Bluey - Bluey White.”
    “For God’s sake, get hold of yourself,” Grey snapped. “Corporal White died three weeks ago.”
    “Oh, sorry, sir,” Masters said weakly. “Sorry, I must have… It’s… er, I think it’s Peterson. The Pommy, I mean, Englishman. Infantryman, I think.”
    “All right. You can go and get your dinner now. But don’t dawdle coming back.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Masters put on his rattan coolie hat and saluted and shambled out of the doorless