Bill for the Use of a Body Read Online Free PDF Page A

right an’ left an’ took six of the misbegotten bastards wiv ’im. When the rest of the Staff come art wiv their ’ands up they was tied up in bundles of three, then stuck again and again, just as though they was ’ay sacks in a bayonet practice. Gawd, it were awful! Me stomach turned over at their yellin’. I was sick as a dog, an’ pissin’ meself that the Japs ’d spot me. But they didn’t, an’ when it fell dark I crawled away. The Brigadier ’ad the right idea though.’
    Julian nodded. ‘He certainly did. And when we have won the war we ought to castrate every Japanese who has set foot on this island.’ After a moment he added, ‘I think I’ll make for the Jockey Club, as the best chance of getting my wound dressed. It’s been turned into a temporary hospital. What about coming with me and having your head attended to?’
    â€˜No, thanks, sir,’ the Corporal replied. ‘My Chinese girl friend lives in a room upstairs. Those sons of bitches won’t make do with them few nurses fer long. I give ’em no more ’n an ’our and they’ll be darn ’ere ’unting fer wimmen in the tarn. I mean ter stick around. And Gawd ’elp the first few bloody little sods who get the idea that they’d like ter play their filthy games on ’er.’
    They wished one another luck, then Julian turned his steps towards Happy Valley. When he reached the Jockey Club he found every bed in it occupied and thelandings and passages crowded with other wounded men. Some were dying as they lay or crouched in corridors. After an hour he managed to get a nurse to look at his arm. Having given it a cursory glance she said, ‘That’s not serious, and I’ve far more urgent cases to attend to.’
    â€˜I’m sure you have,’ he agreed, ‘but if it’s not sterilised I may lose my arm.’
    She gave a quick nod. ‘All right, go into that ward on the left and wait there. As soon as I can I’ll come and attend to you.’
    Just inside the ward he found a group of other lightly wounded men waiting to be patched up. To get free of the crowd he walked down between the beds to the window at the far end of the ward and perched himself on the sill. He had been sitting there for about twenty minutes when he caught the sound of shouts and curses coming from the corridor. A moment later the door burst open and a score of Japanese streamed into the ward.
    They were obviously drunk on looted liquor. Yelling like scalded hell cats, they proceeded to lay about them with demoniac fury. In a matter of seconds the group of lightly wounded near the door had been reduced to a bloody shambles. Every one of them had gone down. Half disembowelled or with frightful neck wounds, they lay writhing and screaming on the floor.
    Julian had turned, flung up the window and scrambled out on to the fire escape. While hesitating whether to run up or down it he gave a quick glance in through the window. The Japanese were swarming down the centre of the ward, pausing only at each bed to bayonet the wounded man in it. Riveted with horror, he stared in at this ghastly spectacle for another thirty seconds. During them the nurse to whom he had spoken, in a heroic endeavour to protect one of her patients, threw herself face down on top of him. With a fiendishgrin the nearest Japanese raised his rifle sideways, then plunged his bayonet into the middle of her bottom.
    The girl’s piercing scream did something to Julian’s stomach. Overcome by nausea, he choked and vomited. As he leaned forward to spew he caught sight of several Japanese outside the building, below him. Seeing that his only hope lay in endeavouring to hide in one of the rooms in an upper storey, he shinned up the fire escape and entered a window on the top floor.
    The room was a fairly large one. It was furnished as a lounge, with two settees, several armchairs, a