Beside the gate was the MP and on the opposite side of the gate the Korean guard leaned against the wall smoking, lethargically watching the men who passed. The MP was looking at the work party shuffling through the gate. There was one man lying on the trailer. One or two usually ended up that way, but they had to be very tired, or very sick, to be hauled back home to Changi.
Peter Marlowe slipped past the distracted guards and joined the men milling the huge concrete square.
He found his way into one of the cellblocks and began picking his way up the metal stairways and over the beds and bed rolls. There were men everywhere. On the stairways, in the corridors, and in the open cells —f our or five to a cell designed for one man. He felt the growing horror of pressure from above, from below, from all around. The stench was nauseating. Stench from rotting bodies. Stench of unwashed human bodies. Stench of a generation of confined human bodies. Stench of walls, prison walls.
Peter Marlowe found Cell 54. The door was shut, so he opened it and went in. Mac and Larkin were already there.
"Christ, the smell of this place is killing me."
"Me too, cobber," said Larkin. He was sweating. Mac was sweating. The air was close and the concrete walls were moist with their own wall-sweat and stained with the mold of years of wall-sweat.
The cell was about seven feet wide and eight feet long and ten feet high.
In the center of the cell, cemented to one wall, was a bed — a solid block of concrete three feet high and three feet wide and six feet long.
Protruding from the bed was a concrete pillow. In one corner of the cell was a toilet - a hole in the floor which joined to the sewer. The sewers no longer worked. There was a tiny barred window nine feet up one wall, but the sky could not be seen because the wall was two feet thick.
"Mac. We'll give them a few minutes, then get out of this bloody place,"
Larkin said.
"Ay, laddie."
"At least let's open the door," Peter Marlowe said, the sweat pouring off him.
"Better keep it closed, Peter. Safer," Larkin replied uneasily.
"I'd rather be dead than live here."
"Ay. Thank God for the outside."
"Hey, Larkin." Mac indicated the blankets lying on the concrete bed. "I don't understand where the men are who live in the cell. They can't all be on a work party."
"I don't know either." Larkin was getting nervous. "Let's get out of here…"
The door opened and the King came in beaming with pleasure. "Hi, you guys!" In his arms were some packages and he stood aside as Tex came in, also laden. "Put 'em on the bed, Tex."
Tex put down the electric hot plate and the large stewpan and kicked the door shut as they watched, astonished.
"Go get some water," the King said to Tex.
"Sure."
"What's going on? Why did you want to see us?" said Larkin.
The King laughed. "We're going to have a cook-up."
"For Christ sake! You mean to say you got us in here just for that? Why the hell couldn't we have done it in our billet?" Larkin was furious. The King merely looked at him and grinned. He turned his back and opened a package. Tex returned with the water and put the stewpan on the electric stove.
"Rajah, look, what-" Peter Marlowe stopped.
The King was emptying the best part of two pounds of katchang idju beans into the water. Then he added salt and two heaping spoons of sugar. Then he turned around and opened another package wrapped in banana-leaf and held it up.
"Mother of God!"
There was a sudden stunned silence in the cell.
The King was delighted with the effect of his surprise. 'Told you, Tex," he grinned. "You owe me a buck."
Mac reached out and touched the meat. "Mahlu. It's real."
Larkin touched the meat. "I'd forgotten what meat looked like," he said in a voice hushed with awe. "My bloody oath, you're a genius. Genius."
"It's my birthday. So I figured we'd have a celebration. And I've got this,"
the King said, holding up a bottle.
"What is it?"
"Sake!"
"I don't believe it," Mac said. "Why, there's the whole hindquarters of a pig here." He bent forward and sniffed it. "My God, it's real, real, real, and fresh as a day in May, hurray!"
They all laughed.
"Better lock the door, Tex." The King turned to Peter Marlowe. "Okay, partner?"
Peter Marlowe was still staring at the meat. "Where the hell did you get it?"
"Long story!" The King took out a knife and scored the meat, then deftly broke the small hindquarters into two joints and put them into the stewpan.
They all watched, fascinated, as he added a quantity of salt, adjusted the pan to the absolute center of the hot plate, then sat back on the concrete bed and crossed his legs. "Not bad, huh?"
For a long time no one spoke.
A sudden twist of the door handle broke the spell. The King nodded to Tex, who unlocked the door, opened it a fraction, then swung it wide.
Brough entered.
He looked around astonished. Then noticed the stove. He went over and peered into the stewpot. "I'll be goddamned!"
The King grinned. "It's my birthday. Thought I'd invite you to dinner."
"You got yourself a guest." Brough stuck out his hand to Larkin. "Don Brough, Colonel."
"Grant's my Christian name! You know Mac and Peter?"
"Sure." Brough grinned at them and turned to Tex. "Hi, Tex!"
"Good to see you, Don."
The King motioned to the bed. "Take a seat, Don. Then we got to go to work!"
Peter Marlowe wondered why it was that American enlisted men and officers called themselves by Christian names so easily. It didn't sound cheap or unctuous — it seemed almost correct — and he had noticed that Brough was always obeyed as their leader even though they all called him Don to his face. Remarkable.
"What's this work jazz?" asked Brough.
The King pulled out some strips of blankets. "We're going to have to seal the door."
"What?" Larkin said incredulously.
"Sure," the King said. "When this begins cooking, we're liable to have us a riot on our hands. The guys start smelling this, Chrissake, figure for yourselves. We could get torn apart. This was the only place I could figure where we could cook in private. The smell will mostly go out the window. If we seal the door good, that is. We couldn't cook it outside, that's for sure."