Asian Saga 1 - King Rat by Clavell James

Author:Clavell, James
Language: eng
Format: epub

Book Three

Chapter 15

It was just after dawn.

Peter Marlowe lay on his bunk in half-sleep.

Was it a dream? he asked himself, suddenly awake. Then his cautious fingers touched the little piece of rag that held the condenser and he knew it was not a dream.

Ewart twisted in the top bunk and groaned awake.

“Mahlu on the night,” he said as he hung his legs over the bunk.

Peter Marlowe remembered that it was his unit's turn for the borehole detail. He walked out of the hut and prodded Larkin awake.

“Eh? Oh, Peter,” Larkin said, fighting out of sleep. “What's up?”

It was hard for Peter Marlowe not to blurt out the news about the condenser, but he wanted to wait until Mac was there too, so he just said, “Borehole detail, old man.”

“My bloody oath! What, again?” Larkin stretched his aching back, retied his sarong and slipped on his clogs.

They found the net and the five-gallon container and walked through the camp, which was just beginning to stir. When they reached the latrine area they paid no heed to the occupants and the occupants paid no heed to them.

Larkin lifted the cover off a borehole, Peter Marlowe quickly scooped the sides with the net. When he brought the net out of the hole it was full of cockroaches. He shook the net clean into the container and scraped again. Another fine haul.

Larkin replaced the cover and they moved to the next hole.

“Hold the thing still,” Peter Marlowe said. “Now look what you did! I lost at least a hundred.”

“There's plenty more,” Larkin said with distaste, getting a better grip on the container.

The smell was very bad but the harvest rich. Soon the container was packed. The smallest of the cockroaches measured an inch and a half. Larkin clamped the lid on the container and they walked up to the hospital.

“Not my idea of a steady diet,” Peter Marlowe said.

“You really ate them, Peter, in Java?”

“Of course. And so have you, by the way. In Changi.”

Larkin almost dropped the container. “What?”

“You don't think I'd pass on a native delicacy and a source of protein to the doctors and not take advantage of it for us, do you?”

“But we had a pact!” Larkin shouted. “We agreed, the three of us, that we'd not cook anything weird without telling the other first.”

“I told Mac and he agreed.”

“But I didn't, dammit!”

“Oh come on, Colonel! We've had to catch them and cook them secretly and listen to you say how good the cook-up was. We're just as squeamish as you.”

“Well, next time I want to know. That's a bloody order!”

“Yes, sir!” Peter Marlowe chuckled.

They delivered the container to the hospital cookhouse. To the special tiny cookhouse that fed the desperately sick.

When they got back to the bungalow Mac was waiting. His skin was gray-yellow and his eyes were bloodshot and his hands shaking, but he was over the fever. He could smile again.

“Good to have you back, cobber,” Larkin said, sitting down.

“Ay.”

Peter Marlowe absently took out the little piece of rag.

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