“Stupid question. Sorry, Peter,” Larkin said apologetically.
Peter Marlowe knew he would never be asked again. It was far better they did not know about the village.
Now it was dusk.
Larkin was guarding. Peter Marlowe was guarding. Under cover of his mosquito net, Mac joined the condenser. Then, unable to wait any longer, with a prayer he fiddled the connecting wire into the electric source. Sweating, he listened into the single earphone.
An agony of waiting. It was suffocating under the net, and the concrete walls and concrete floor held the heat of the vanishing sun. A mosquito droned angrily. Mac cursed but did not try to find it and kill it, for suddenly there was static in the earphone.
His tense fingers, wet with the sweat that ran down his arms, slipped on the screwdriver. He dried them. Delicately he found the screw that turned the tuner and began to twist, gently, oh so gently. Static. Only static. Then suddenly he heard the music. It was a Glenn Miller recording.
The music stopped, and an announcer said, “This is Calcutta. We continue the Glenn Miller recital with his recording ‘Moonlight Serenade.’”
Through the doorway Mac could see Larkin squatting in the shadows, and beyond him men walking the corridor between the rows of cement bungalows. He wanted to rush out and shout, “You laddies want to hear the news in a little while? I’ve got Calcutta tuned in!”
Mac listened for another minute, then disconnected the radio and carefully put the water bottles back into their sheaths of green-gray felt and left them carelessly on the beds. There would be a news broadcast from Calcutta at ten, so to save time Mac hid the wire and the earphone under the mattress instead of putting them into the third bottle.
He had been hunched under the net for so long that he had a crick in his back, and he groaned when he stood up.
Larkin looked back from his station outside. “What’s the matter, cobber? Can’t you sleep?”
“Nay, laddie,” said Mac, coming out to squat beside him.
“You should take it easy, first day out of hospital.” Larkin did not need to be told that it worked. Mac’s eyes were lit with excitement. Larkin punched him playfully. “You’re all right, you old bastard.”
“Where’s Peter?” Mac asked, knowing that he was guarding by the showers.
“Over there. Stupid bugger’s just sitting. Look at him.”
“Hey, ’mahlu sana!” Mac called out.
Peter Marlowe already knew that Mac had finished, but he got up and walked back and said,“’Mahlu senderis,” which means “’Mahlu yourself.” He, too, did not need to be told.
“How about a game of bridge?” Mac asked.
“Who’s the fourth?”
“Hey, Gavin,” Larkin called out. “You want to make a fourth?”
Major Gavin Ross dragged his legs out of the camp chair. Leaning on a crutch, he wormed himself from the next bungalow. He was glad for the offer of a game. Nights were always bad. So unnecessary, the paralysis. Once upon a time a man, and now a nothing. Useless legs. Wheelchaired for life.
He had been hit in the head by a tiny sliver of shrapnel just before Singapore surrendered. “Nothing to worry about,” the doctors had told him. “We can get it out soon as we can get you into a proper hospital with the proper equipment. We’ve plenty of time.” But there was never a proper hospital with the proper equipment and time had run out.
“Gad,” he said painfully as he settled himself on the cement floor. Mac found a cushion and tossed it over. “Ta, old chap!” It took him a moment to settle while Peter Marlowe got the cards and Larkin arranged the space between them. Gavin lifted his left leg and bent it out of the way, disconnecting the wire spring that attached the toe of his shoe to the band around his leg, just under his knee. Then he moved the other leg, equally paralyzed, out of the way and leaned back on the cushion against the wall. “That’s better,” he said, stroking his Kaiser Wilhelm mustache with a quick nervous movement.
“How’re the headaches?” Larkin asked automatically.
“Not too bad, old boy,” Gavin replied as automatically. “You my partner?”
“No. You can play with Peter.”
“Oh Gad, the boy always trumps my ace.”
“That was only once,” Peter Marlowe said.
“Once an evening,” laughed Mac as he began to deal.
“’Mahlu.”
“Two spades.” Larkin opened with a flourish.
The bidding continued furiously and vehemently.
Later that night Larkin knocked on the door of one of the bungalows.
“Yes?” Smedly-Taylor asked, peering into the night.
“Sorry to trouble you, sir.”
“Oh hello, Larkin. Trouble?” It was always trouble. He wondered what the Aussies had been up to this time as he got off his bed, aching.
“No sir.” Larkin made sure there was no one in earshot. His words were quiet and deliberate. “The Russians are forty miles from Berlin. Manila is liberated. The Yanks have landed on Corregidor and Iwo Jima.”
“Are you sure, man?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who — ” Smedly-Taylor stopped. “No. I don’t want to know anything. Sit down, Colonel,” he said quietly. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I can only say, Colonel,” the older man said tonelessly and solemnly, “that I can do nothing to help anyone who is caught with — who is caught.” He did not even want to say the word wireless. “I don’t wish to know anything about it.” A shadow of a smile crossed the granite face and softened it. “I only beg you guard it with your life and tell me immediately you hear anything.”
“Yes sir. We propose — ”
“I don’t want to hear anything. Only the news.” Sadly Smedly-Taylor touched his shoulder. “Sorry.”
“It’s safer, sir.” Larkin was glad that the colonel did not want to know their plan. They had decided that they would tell only two persons each. Larkin would tell Smedly-Taylor and Gavin Ross; Mac would tell Major Tooley and Lieutenant Bosley — both personal friends; and Peter would tell the King and Father Donovan, the Catholic chaplain. They were to pass the news on to two other persons they could trust, and so on. It was a good plan, Larkin thought. Correctly, Peter had not volunteered where the condenser came from. Good boy, that Peter.
Later that night, when Peter Marlowe returned to his hut from seeing the King, Ewart was wide awake. He poked his head out of the net and whispered excitedly, “Peter. You heard the news?”
“What news?”
“The Russians are forty miles from Berlin. The Yanks have landed on Iwo Jima and Corregidor.”
Peter Marlowe felt the inner terror. Oh my God, so soon?
“Bloody rumors, Ewart. Bloody nonsense.”
“No it isn’t, Peter. There’s a new wireless in the camp. It’s the real stuff. No rumor. Isn’t that great? Oh Christ, I forgot the best. The Yanks have liberated Manila. Won’t be long now, eh?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Maybe we should have just told Smedly-Taylor and no one else, Peter Marlowe thought as he lay down. If Ewart knows, there’s no telling.
Nervously, he listened to the camp. You could almost feel the growing excitement of Changi. The camp knew that it was back in contact.
Yoshima was slimed with fear as he stood to attention in front of the raging General.
“You stupid, incompetent fool,” the General was saying.
Yoshima braced himself for the blow that was coming and it came, openhanded across the face.
“You find that radio or you’ll be reduced to the ranks. Your transfer is canceled. Dismiss!”