“Oh, now, I say, old chap,” Allison drawled, “this is not such a bad spot. His Majesty’s Army has been downright thoughtful, sending us out here to the glamorous East for a rest cure.”
Allison eased himself upward in his chair. He was a slender young man. His uniform fitted him neatly. His blond hair was close-clipped. There was a hint of insolent mockery in his cool, gray eyes. Allison was an ace who had made a name for himself in the wild days of the Battle for Britain. He smiled at O’Malley as he went on talking.
“O’Malley, you have not made good use of your time here in Singapore. You have not seen any of the sights.” There was more than a hint of mockery in Allison’s voice. He himself had not set foot outside quarters.
O’Malley turned and squinted at Allison. “Sure, an’ I know all about Singapore. Singapore, the Lion City, crossroads o’ the East!” O’Malley’s voice dropped to a drawl. “Ivery time you open a tin can or have a blowout you make business for Singapore, for it boasts the biggest tin smelters in the world and half o’ the rubber in the world comes through its gates.” He grinned widely. “And it stinks and it’s hot and it’s dead as a graveyard. Ivery one of us might as well be buried in County Kerry, Ireland.”
“We’ll get some patrol duty after a while. The Japs want Singapore and will make a grab for it,” Allison predicted. His mood matched that of O’Malley but he refused to admit it. They were stuck in the Far East, thousands of miles from the battle lines. To his way of thinking, they might well remain there for the rest of the war, making routine flights over a smelly jungle infested with crocodiles, tigers and leeches.
“Mrs. O’Malley’s boy joined up to fight, not to melt,” O’Malley growled. “I’m thinkin’ I’ll hire meself out as a deck hand an’ beat me way back home. I can enlist under another name.”
“You won’t do that,” Allison snapped.
“Why not? I’m doin’ no good here,” O’Malley retorted.
“You won’t desert. I’d turn you in, you redheaded Irisher. As your superior officer I’d break your neck.” Allison’s gray eyes had lost their insolent flicker and were cold and hard.
O’Malley grinned broadly and reached for the slab of pie which was dripping berry juice down the wall. “You mean you’d be after tryin’,” he said as he opened his big mouth and shoved half of the piece of pie into it.