"You're not cutting off my arm!"

"Please yourself. It's that or -" The doctor stopped and sat down wearily. "I suppose it is your privilege if you want to die. Can't say I blame you. But my God, boy, don't you realize what I'm trying to tell you? You will die if we don't amputate."

"You're not going to touch me!" Peter Marlowe's lips were drawn from his teeth and he knew he'd kill the doctor if he touched him again. "You're out of your mind!" he shouted. "It's a flesh wound."

"All right. Don't believe me. We'll ask another doctor." Kennedy called another doctor and he confirmed the diagnosis and Peter Marlowe knew that the nightmare was not a dream. He did have gangrene. Oh my God! The fear washed his strength away. He listened, terrified. They explained that the gangrene was caused by bacilli multiplying deep down in his arm, breeding death, right now. His arm was a cancerous thing. It had to be cut off. Cut off to the elbow. It had to be cut off soon or the entire arm would have to be removed. But he wasn't to worry. It wouldn't hurt. They had plenty of ether now - not like in the old days.

And then Peter Marlowe was outside the hospital, his arm still on him - bacilli breeding - tied with a clean bandage, and he was groping his way down the hill, for he had told them, the doctors, that he would have to think this over .. Think what over? What was there to think? He found himself outside the American hut and he saw that the King was alone in the hut and all was prepared for Shagata's coming - if he came that night.

"Jesus, what's with you, Peter?" The King listened, his dismay growing as the story spilled out.

"Christ!" He stared at the arm, which rested on the table.

"I swear to God I'd rather die than live a cripple. I swear to God!" Peter Marlowe looked up at the King, pathetic, unguarded, and out of his eyes came a scream: Help, help, for the love of God, help!

And the King thought, Holy Cow, what would I do if I was Peter and that was my arm, and what about the diamond - got to have Peter to help there, got to ...

"Hey," whispered Max urgently from the doorway. "Shagata's on his way."

"All right, Max. What about Grey?"

"He's down by the wall under cover. Timsen knows about him. His Aussies're covering."

"Good, beat it and get ready. Spread the word."

"Okay." Max hurried away.

"Come on, Peter, we got to get ready," the King said.

But Peter Marlowe was in shock. Useless.

"Peter!" The King shook him roughly. "Get up and get with it!" he grated. "Come on. You've got to help. Get up!"

He jerked Peter Marlowe to his feet.

"Christ, what -"

"Shagata's coming. We've got to finish the deal."

"To hell with your deal!" Peter Marlowe screamed, brinked on insanity. "To hell with the diamond! They're going to cut off my arm."

"No they're not!"

"You're goddam right they're not. I'm going to die first -"

The King backhanded him hard, then slapped him viciously.

The raving stopped abruptly and Peter Marlowe shook his head. "What the hell -"

"Shagata's coming. We got to get ready."

"He's coming?" Peter Marlowe asked blankly, his face burning from the blows.

"Yes." The King saw that Peter Marlowe's eyes were once more guarded and he knew that the Englishman was back in the world. "Jesus," he said, weak with relief. "I had to do something, Peter, you were shouting your head off."

"Was I? Oh, sorry, what a fool."

"You all right now? You got to keep your wits about you."

"I'm all right now."

Peter Marlowe slipped through the window after the King. And he was glad of the shaft of pain that soared up his arm as his feet hit the ground. You panicked, you fool, he told himself. You, Marlowe, you panicked like a child. Fool. So you have to lose your arm. You're lucky it's not a leg, then you'd really be crippled. What's an arm? Nothing. You can get an artificial one. Sure. With a hook. Nothing wrong with a false arm. Nothing. Could be quite a good idea. Certainly.

"Tabe," Shagata greeted them as he ducked under the flap of canvas which shielded the overhang.

"Tabe," said the King and Peter Marlowe.

Shagata was very nervous. The more he had thought about this deal the less he liked it. Too much money, too much risk. And he sniffed the air like a dog pointing. "I smell danger," he said.

"He says, 'I can smell danger.'"

"Tell him not to worry, Peter. I know about the danger and it's taken care of. But what about Cheng San?"

"I tell thee," Shagata whispered hurriedly, "that the gods smile upon thee and me and our friend. He is a fox, that one, for the pestilential police let him out of their trap." The sweat was running down his face and soaking him. "I have the money."

The King's stomach turned over. "Tell him we'd better dispense with the yak and get with it. I'll be right back with the goods."

The King found Timsen in the shadows.

"Ready?"

"Ready." Timsen whistled a bird call in the dark. Almost at once it was answered. "Do it fast, mate. I can't guarantee to hold you safe for long."

"Okay." The King waited and out of the darkness came a lean Aussie corporal.

"Hi, cobber. Name's Townsend. Bill Townsend."

"Come on."

The King hurried back to the overhang while Timsen kept guard and his Aussies fanned out ready for the escape route.

Down by the corner of the jail, Grey was waiting impatiently. Dino had just whispered in his ear that Shagata had arrived, but Grey knew that the preliminaries would take a while. A while, and then he could move.

Smedly-Taylor's phalanx was ready too, waiting for the transfer to take place. Once Grey was in motion, they too would move.

The King was under the flap with Townsend nervously beside him.

"Show him the diamond," the King ordered.

Townsend opened his ragged shirt and pulled out a cord and on the end of the cord was the diamond ring. Townsend was trembling as he showed it to Shagata, who focused his portable lamp on the stone. Shagata examined it carefully, a bead of ice-light on the end of a piece of string. Then he took it and scratched the glass surface of the lamp. It screeched and left its mark.

Shagata nodded, sweating. "Very well." He turned to Peter Marlowe. "Truly it is a diamond," he said and took out calipers and carefully measured the extent of the stone. Again he nodded. "Truly it is four carats."

The King jerked his head. "All right. Peter, you wait with Townsend."

Peter Marlowe got up and beckoned to Townsend and together they went outside the flap and waited in the darkness. And around them they could feel eyes. Hundreds of eyes.

"Bloody hell," Townsend winced, "wish I'd never got the stone. The strain's killing me, my bloody oath." His palsied fingers played with the string and the jewel, making sure for the millionth time that it was around his neck. "Thank God this's the last night."

The King watched with increasing excitement as Shagata opened his ammunition pouch and planked down three inches of notes, and opened his shirt and brought out a two-inch bundle, and from his side pockets more bundles until there were two piles of notes, each six inches high. Rapidly the King started counting the notes, and Shagata made a quick nervous bow and left. He pushed past the flap, and when he was once more on the path he felt safer. He adjusted his rule and began to walk the camp and almost knocked down Grey, who was coming up fast.

Grey cursed and hurried past, ignoring the torrent of abuse from Shagata. This time Shagata did not run after the bastard stinking POW as he should and beat some courtesy into him, for he was thankful to be away and anxious to get back to his post.

"Cops," Max whispered urgently outside the flap.

The King scooped up the notes and tore out of the overhang, whispering to Townsend as he ran, "Get lost. Tell Timsen I've the money now and we'll pay off tonight when the heat's off."

Townsend vanished.

"Come on, Peter."

The King led the way under the hut as Grey rounded the corner.

"Stay where you are, you two!" Grey shouted.

"Yes, sir!" Max called grandly from the shadows and moved in the way, Tex beside him, covering the King and Peter Marlowe.

"Not you two." Grey tried to push past.

"But you wanted us to stop -" began Max easily, moving back in Grey's way.

Grey shoved past furiously and darted under the hut in pursuit.

The King and Peter Marlowe had already jumped into the slit trench and were up the other side. Another group ran interference as Grey ran after them.

Grey spotted them tearing down the jail wall and blew his whistle, alerting the MP's already stationed. The MP's moved out into the open and guarded the area from jail wall to jail wall, and from jail wall to barbed fence.

"This way," the King said as he jumped through the window of Timsen's hut. No one in the hut paid any attention to them, but many saw the bulge in the King's shirt.

They raced through the hut and out the door. Another group of Aussies appeared and covered their retreat just as Grey panted up to the window and caught a fleeting glimpse of them. He rushed around the hut. The Aussies had covered their exit.

Grey called out abruptly, "Which way did they go? Come on! Which way?"

A chorus of "Who?" "Who, sir?"

Grey pushed his way through them and hurried into the open.

"Everyone's in position, sir," an MP said, running up to him.

"Good. They can't get far. And they won't dare dump the money. We'll start moving in on them. Tell the others."

The King and Peter Marlowe ran towards the north end of the jail and stopped.

"Goddam it to hell!" the King said.

Where there should have been a phalanx of Aussies to run interference for them, now there were only MP's. Five of them.

"What next?" Peter Marlowe said.

"We'll have to backtrack. C'mon!"

Moving quickly, the King asked himself, What the hell's gone wrong? Then suddenly he found it. Four men blocked their run. They had handkerchiefs over their faces and heavy sticks in their hands.

"Better hand over the money, mate, if you don't want to get hurt."

The King feinted, then charged, with Peter Marlowe at his side. The King plowed into one man and kicked another in the groin. Peter Marlowe blocked a blow, biting back a scream as it glanced off his arm, and tore the stick out of the man's grasp. The other bushwhacker took to his heels and was swallowed by the darkness.

"Chrissake," the King panted, "let's get out of here."

Again they were off. They could feel eyes following them and any moment they expected another attack. The King skidded to a stop.

"Look out! Grey!"

They turned back, and keeping to the side of a hut, ducked underneath it. They lay for a moment, their chests heaving. Feet ran past and they heard snatches of angry whispers - "They went that way. Got t' get 'em before the stinking cops."

"The whole goddam camp's after us," the King said.

"Let's stick the money here," Peter Marlowe said helplessly. "We can bury it."

"Too risky. They'd find it in a minute. Goddammit, everything was going fine. Except that bastard Timsen let us down." The King wiped the dirt and sweat off his face. "Ready?"

"Which way?"

The King did not answer. He just crawled silently from under the hut and ran with the shadows, Peter Marlowe following close behind. He headed sure-footed across the path and jumped into the deep storm ditch beside the wire. He squirmed his way down it until they were almost opposite the American hut and stopped and leaned against the wall of the ditch, his breath fluttering. Around them was a whispered uproar and over them was a whispered uproar.

"What's up?"

"The King's on the run with Marlowe - they've got thousands of dollars with them."

"The hell they have! Quick, maybe we can catch them."

"Come on!"

"We'll get the money."

And Grey was getting reports and so was Smedly-Taylor and so was Timsen and the reports were confusing and Timsen was cursing and hissing at his men to find them before Grey or Smedly-Taylor's men found them.

"Get that money!"