You fucking pervert, Rooster.
When—in humiliation and to the mockery of all, and the laughter of Darky Gardiner in particular—Rooster MacNeice returned to his place on the sleeping platform, he made a distressing discovery. On rummaging around in his kitbag for Mein Kampf to check his memorisation, he found that his duck egg—bought three days earlier and hidden in his kitbag—had vanished. He thought on that missing egg, and on the duck eggshell Darky Gardiner had placed on Tiny Middleton, and he knew that the Black Prince had stolen his egg.
There was of course nothing that could be done about it—Gardiner would deny the theft, the others would laugh even more, perhaps even enjoy the idea of the theft. But at that moment he hated Gardiner—a man who had stolen off him and then used that theft to humiliate him—with an intensity and savagery that far exceeded any ill feeling he had towards the Japanese. And hate was everything to Rooster MacNeice.
4
DARKY GARDINER DRESSED, and because, like everyone else, he had no clothes other than the slouch hat he put on his head and the cock rag he wore night and day—a filthy G-string that covered the cock and little else—it took no time to dress. He made his bed and, because it was no bed, that also took Darky Gardiner no time. He folded his blanket in the regulation Imperial Japanese Army fashion, and then put it in the place defined by Imperial Japanese Army regulations—at the foot of his sleeping space on the bamboo bench. The rain stopped. The sound of dripping jungle gave way to jungle birds calling in droplets of sound.
He picked up one of his eight remaining possessions, his dixie mess kit—two battered tin bowls nesting inside each other, serving as plate and mug and food box—and was clipping the wire handle hairslide-like to his cock rag when a cry went up. Some guards were making their way to their hut for a surprise inspection. There was a flurry of desperate activity as blankets were folded, kitbags made plump and neat, and various contraband hidden as best could.
Two guards led by the Goanna made their way down the hut’s central aisle as the prisoners stood to attention in front of the communal bunks on either side. The Goanna upended one kitbag into the mud outside, slapped another man for no apparent reason, and then halted in front of Darky Gardiner.
The Goanna took his rifle off his shoulder, and with a long, slow movement picked up Darky Gardiner’s blanket with the tip of his rifle barrel and dropped it onto the muddy ground. For a moment he looked down at the filthy blanket, and then he looked back up. He screamed, and with all his strength slammed the rifle butt into the side of Darky Gardiner’s head.
The prisoner dropped but was too slow in raising an arm to shield himself as another guard kicked him across the face. He managed to writhe sideways under the protection of the bamboo sleeping bench, but not before the Goanna got a good kick in on his head. And then, as abruptly as it started, it was over.
The Goanna continued with his strange, stilted walk down the hut aisle, slapping Chum Fahey for no discernible reason, then disappeared with his entourage out the other end. Darky Gardiner rose to his feet, somewhat unsteadily, his head still confused, his mouth salty with blood, his body covered in the foul mud that lay beneath the sleeping platform.
The fold, Jimmy Bigelow said.
It wasn’t that bad, Darky said.
He meant the bashing. He spat out a gob of blood. It tasted too salty and too rich for a body as wasted as his. He felt dizzy. He put a finger in his mouth and felt the molar that had taken the kicks. It was wobbly, but with luck it would hold. His head was not right.
You forgot the fold, Sheephead Morton said.
I folded the fucking fucker, Darky Gardiner said.
With a smouldering cigarette butt he had just lit and now held between his thumb and forefinger, Jimmy Bigelow pointed at his own blanket.
See, he said.
The fold was facing outwards.
Your fold faced inwards, Sheephead Morton said. Against nip regulations. You know that.
The Goanna thought you was taking the piss, Jimmy Bigelow said, having a puff. Here—he held out the soggy cigarette butt for Darky.
Jimmy Bigelow’s hand was covered with cracked scales, and was badly infected, all yellow and reds. Sickness terrified Darky Gardiner. It got hold of you and it would not let you go.
Here, Jimmy Bigelow said. Take it.
Darky Gardiner didn’t move.
Only death is catching round here, Jimmy Bigelow said, and I ain’t got that. Rightio?
Darky Gardiner took the smoke and—without letting it touch his lips—held it up to his open mouth.
Yet, Jimmy Bigelow said.
Darky took a pull on the cigarette. He watched four men carrying a bamboo stretcher stumble up towards the hospital.
Think that’s Gyppo Nolan, Chum Fahey said.