Larkin read and reread the letter. Then he read it to Mac, Peter Marlowe and the King, sitting on the veranda of the bungalow.

Darling, This letter is number 205, it began. I am well and Jeannie is well and Mother is staying with us and we live just where we've always lived. We have had no news of you since your letter dated February 1, 1942, posted from Singapore. But even so we know you're well and happy, and we're praying for your sqfe return. I've started each letter off the same, so if you've read the above before, forgive me. But it's difficult, not knowing if this one will reach you, if any of them have. I love you. I need you. And I miss you more than I can bear at times.

Today I feel sad. I don't know why, but I am. I don't want to be depressed and I wanted to tell you all manner of wonderful things.

Perhaps I'm sad because of Mrs. Gurble. She got a post card yesterday and 1 didn't. I'm just selfish I suppose. But that's me. Anyway, be sure to tell Vie Gurble that his wife, Sarah, got a post card dated January 6, 1943. She is well and his son is bonny. Sarah is so happy that she is back in contact again. Oh yes, and the Regiment girls are all right. Timsen's mother is just grand. And don't forget to remember me to Tom Masters. 1 saw his wife last night. She's well too and making a lot of money for him. She's in a new business. Oh yes and I saw Elizabeth Ford, Mary Vickers . . .

Larkin looked up from the letter. "She mentions maybe a dozen wives. But the men're dead. All of 'em. The only man who's alive is Timsen."

"Read on, laddie," said Mac quickly, achingly aware of the agony that was written in Larkin's eyes.

Today's hot, Larkin continued, and I'm sitting on the veranda and Jeannie's playing in the garden and I think this weekend I'll go up to the cottage in the Blue Mountains. I'd write about the news, but that's not allowed.

Oh God, how do you write into a vacuum? How do 1 know? Where are you, my love, for the love of Christ, where are you? I won't write any more. I'll just finish the letter here and won't send it . . . oh my love, I pray for you - pray for me. Please pray for me, pray for me- After a pause, Larkin said, "There's no signature and it's the address is in my mother's handwriting. Well, what do you think of that?"

"You know how it is with a lass," Mac said. "She probably just put it in a drawer and then your mother found it and air-posted it off, without reading it, without asking her. You know how mothers are. More than likely Betty forgot all about it and the next day she wrote another letter when she felt better."

"What does she mean by 'Pray for me'?" Larkin asked. "She knows I do, every day. What's going on? For Christ's sake, is she sick or something?"

"There's no need to worry, Colonel," Peter Marlowe said.

"What the hell do you know about things?" Larkin flared abruptly. "How the hell can't I worry!"

"Well, at least you know she's all right, and your daughter's all right," Mac slammed back, beside himself with longing. "Bless your luck that far! We've not had a letter! None of us! You're lucky!" And he stamped out furiously.

"I'm sorry, Mac." Larkin ran after him and pulled him back. "I'm sorry, it's just that, after such a time -"

"Eh, laddie, it wasn't anything you said. It was just me. It's me who should apologize. I was sick with jealousy. I think I hate these letters."

"You can say that again," the King said. " 'Nough to drive you crazy. Guys that get 'em go crazy, guys that don't go crazy. Nothing but trouble."

It was dusk. Just after chow. The whole American hut was assembled.

Kurt spat on the floor and put the tray down.

"Here's nine. I kept one. My ten percent." He spat again and left.

They all looked at the tray.

"I think I'm going to be sick again," Peter Marlowe said.

"Don't blame you," the King agreed.

"I don't know about that." Max cleared his throat. "They look just like rabbit legs. Small, sure, but still rabbit legs."

"You want to try one?" the King asked.

"Hell no. I just said they looked like them. I can have an opinion, can't I?"

"My ruddy oath," Timsen said. "Never thought we'd really sell any."

"If I didn't know -" Tex stopped. "I'm so hungry. An' I ain't seen that much meat since we got that dog -"

"What dog?" Max asked suspiciously.

"Oh hell, it was, er, years ago," Tex said. "Back in, er, '43."

"Oh."

"Goddam!" said the King, still fascinated by the tray. "It looks all right." He bent forward and sniffed the meat, but did not put his nose too close. "It smells all right ..."

"But it ain't," Byron Jones III interrupted acidly. "It's rat meat."

The King pulled his head back. "What the hell you say that for, you son of a bitch!" he said through the laughter.

"Well, it is rat, for Chrissake. The way you were going on, it was enough to make a guy hungry!"

Peter Marlowe carefully picked up a leg and laid it on a banana leaf. "This I've got to have," he said, and returned to his hut. He went to his bunk and whispered to Ewart, "Maybe we'll eat very well tonight."

"What?"

"Never mind. Something special." Peter Marlowe knew that Drinkwater was overhearing them; furtively he put the banana leaf on his shelf and said to Ewart, "I'll be back in a mo'." Half an hour later he came back and the banana leaf was gone and so was Drinkwater. "Did you go out?" Peter Marlowe asked Ewart.

"Only for a moment. Drinkwater wanted me to get some water for him. Said he was feeling proper poorly." And then Peter Marlowe had hysterics and everyone in the hut thought he had gone off his head. Only when Mike shook him could he stop laughing. "Sorry, just a private joke."

When Drinkwater came back Peter Marlowe pretended to be mortally concerned about the loss of some food, and Drinkwater was concerned too and said, licking bis chops, "What a dirty trick," and Peter Marlowe's hysterics began again.

At length Peter Marlowe groped into his bunk and lay back, exhausted by the laughter. And quickly this exhaustion added to the exhaustion of the last two days. He fell asleep, and in his dreams Drinkwater was eating mountains of little haunches and he, Peter Marlowe, was there watching all the tune, and Drinkwater kept saying, "What's the matter? They're delicious, delicious ..."

Ewart shook him awake. "There's an American outside, Peter. Wants to talk to you."

Peter Marlowe still felt weak and nauseated, but he got off the bed. "Where's Drinkwater?"

"I don't know. He took off after you had the fit."

"Oh." Peter Marlowe laughed again. "I was afraid it might have been a dream."

"What?" Ewart studied him, "Nothing."

"Don't know what's getting into you, Peter. You've been acting very strange lately."

Tex was waiting for Peter Marlowe hi the lee of the hut. "Pete," he whispered. "The King sent me. You're overdue."

"Oh blast! Sorry, I dropped off."

"Yeah, that's what he figured. 'Better get with it,' he told me to tell you." Tex frowned. "You all right?"

"Yes. Still a bit weak. I'll be all right."

Tex nodded, then hurried away. Peter Marlowe rubbed his face and then walked down the steps to the asphalt road and stood under the shower, his body drinking strength from the cold. Then he filled his bottle and walked heavily to the latrines. He chose a hole at the bottom of the slope as near as possible to the wire.

There was only a thread of a moon. He waited until the latrine area was momentarily empty, then he slipped across the naked ground and under the wire and into the jungle. He kept low as he skirted the wire, avoiding the sentry that he knew was meandering the path between jungle and fence. It took him an hour to find the spot where he had hidden the money. He sat down and took the inches of notes and tied them around his thighs, and doubled his sarong around his waist. Now, instead of reaching the ground, the sarong was knee length, and the bulk of it helped to hide the untoward thickness of his legs.

He had to wait another hour just outside the latrine area before he could slip under the wire. He squatted down on the borehole in the darkness to catch his breath and wait until his heart was calmer. At length he picked up his bottle and left the latrine area.

"Hello, cobber," Timsen said with a grin, coming out of the shadows. "Gorgeous night, ain't it?"

"Yes," Peter Marlowe said.

"Beaut of a night for a walk, right?"

"Oh?"

"Mind if I walks along with you?"

"No. Come along, Tim, I'm happy to have you. Then there won't be any bloody hijackers. Right?"

"Right, mate. You're a toff."

"You're not bad yourself, you old bastard." Peter Marlowe slapped him on the back. "I never did thank you."

"Think nothing of it, mate. My bloody oath," Timsen chuckled, "you nearly had me fooled. I thought you was only going to take a pong."

The King was grim when he saw Timsen, but at the same time he was not too grim, for the money was once more in his possession. He counted it and put it in the black box.

"Now all we need's the ice."

"Yus, mate." Timseji cleared his throat. "If we catch the bushwhacker, before he comes 'ere or after he come 'ere, then I gets the price we agreed, right? If you buy the ring from him and we don't catch him - then you're the winner, right? Fair enough?"

"Sure," the King said. "It's a deal."

"Good - oh! God help him if we catch him." Timsen nodded to Peter Marlowe and walked out.

"Peter, take the bed," the King said, sitting on the black box. "You look wrung out."

"I thought I'd go on back."

"Stick around. Might need someone I can trust." The King was sweating, and the heat of the money from the black box seemed to be burning through the wood.

So Peter Marlowe lay on the bed, his heart still aching from the strain. He slept, but his mind was alert.

"Mate!"

The King jumped to the window. "Now?"

" 'Urry." The little man was vastly afraid and the white of his eyes caught the light as they darted back and forth. "C'mon 'urry."

The King slammed the key into the lock and threw back the lid and took out the pile of ten thousand he had already counted and rushed back to the window. "Here. Ten grand. I've counted it. Where's the diamond?"

"When I gets the money."

"When I've got the diamond," the King said, still holding tight to the notes.

The little man stared up belligerently and then opened his fist. The King stared at the diamond ring, examining it, not making a move to take it. Got to make sure, he told himself urgently. Got to make sure. Yes, it's the one. I think it's the one.

"Go on, mate," grated the little man. "Take it!"

The King let go of the notes only when he had a firm grip on the ring, and the little man darted away. The King held his breath and bent down beside the light and examined the ring carefully.

"We've done it, Peter buddy," he whispered, elated. "We've done it. We got the diamond and we've got the money."

The stress of the last few days closing in on him, the King opened a little sack of coffee beans and made as though to bury the diamond deep within. Instead, he palmed the ring neatly. Even Peter Marlowe, the closest man to him, was fooled. As soon as he had locked the box he was overcome with a fit of coughing. No one saw him transfer the ring to his mouth. He felt around for the cup of cold coffee and drank it down, swallowing the stone. Now the diamond was safe. Very safe.

He sat on a chair waiting for the tension to pass. Oh yes, he told himself exultantly. You've done it.

A danger whistle cut the stillness.

Max slipped through the doorway. "Cops," he said, and quickly joined the game of poker.

"Goddam!" The King forced his legs to move and he grabbed the stacks of money. He threw an inch at Peter Marlowe, stuffed an inch into his own pockets, and raced down the room to the poker table and gave each man a stack which they stuffed in their pockets. Then he dealt out the rest on the table and grabbed another seat and joined the game.

"Come on, for Chrissake, deal," the King said.

"All right. All right," Max said. "Five card." He pushed out a hundred dollars. "Hundred to play."

"Make it two," Tex said, beaming.

"I'm in!"

They were all in and gloating and happy and Max dealt the first two cards and dealt himself an ace up. "I bet four hundred!"

"Your four and up four," said Tex, who had a deuce face up and nothing in the hole.

"I'm in," said the King, and then he looked up and Grey was standing at the door. Between Brough and Yoshima. And behind Yoshima were Shagata and another guard.

Chapter 23.

"Stand by your beds," Brough ordered, his face stark and drawn.

The King shot a murderous glance at Max, who was the night's lookout. Max had failed in his job. He had said "Cops" and not noticed the Japanese. If he had said "Japs" a different plan would have been used.

Peter Marlowe tried to get to his feet. Standing made his nausea worse, so he stumbled to the King's table and leaned against it.