War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk

friends have been working on me. Pity you don’t dance. What about it, Leslie?”
    “I’d be delighted.”
    Rule stood up, grinning in defeat. “My best to Talky, then. I’m off to Singapore Monday. See you there, no doubt.”
    Pamela stared at his departing back, the spots crimson on her gray cheeks.
    Slote said, “Are you sure you want to dance?”
    “What? Of course not. I feel horrible. I just wanted to get rid of that sod.”
    “Come up to my room and have a drink.” The invitation was plain, but not leering.
    A quick smile — knowing, amused, faintly giddy — illumined her face, lovely even in its sickliness. She put a clammy hand to his cheek. “Bless my soul, Leslie, you’re still harboring indecent thoughts about me, aren’t you? How sweet of you. Sorry, I’m in hopeless shape. I’m burning with fever, and anyway, no.”
    Slote said, “Okay,” with a resigned shrug.
    “You really should have married Natalie in Paris, dear. She was so insistent!”
    “Oh, Pamela, go screw yourself.”
    She burst out laughing, took his hand and placed it on her damp hot forehead. “Feel that? Honestly, I’d better find a cab and get on home, don’t you think? Good luck in Switzerland. Thanks for the news about Captain Henry.”
    She wrote the ebullient letter when she got back to her flat.
    In a flying boat circling over Singapore, Alistair Tudsbury pulled off his tie, threw open the white linen jacket strained over his paunch, and fanned his wet jowls with a straw hat. “This will be worse than Ceylon, Pam. We’re dropping into a bloody inferno.”
    “Peaceful little inferno,” said Pamela, looking down through the tilting window. “Where are the vast fortress walls, the masses of cannon, the swarms of Spitfires and Hurricanes?”
    “Nothing shows, naturally. But that small green scorpion down there packs the hell of a sting. I say, there’s the
Prince of Wales!
Can’t miss those turrets.”
    Seen from the air Singapore was a broken-off tip of the craggy Malayan mountains; a green triangle in the wrinkled open sea, hanging to the mainland by a thread of causeway. Two gray warts blotched its jungle beauty: to the southeast a modern city sprinkled with red roofs, and up north, near the causeway, an expanse of sheds, cranes, barracks, streets, houses, and broad green playing fields: the Singapore naval base. The base looked oddly quiet. In its docks and wide anchorage not one vessel lay. On the other side of the island, warships and merchant vessels clustered by the city’s waterfront.
    “Hello there!”
    In the immigration shed, Philip Rule pushed through the crowd and plunged past the wooden rail. He wore army shorts and shirt, his face and arms were burned red-brown, and he held a purple orchid in a swollen bandaged hand. “Barely in time. You’re both invited to Admiral Phillips’s reception aboard the
Prince of Wales.
“
    “Admiral’s reception!” Tudsbury limped up and shook hands. “Smashing.”
    Rule handed Pamela the orchid. “Welcome to the bastion of Empire, love. These things grow by the roadside here. Come, I’ll whisk you through the formalities.”
    “What’s wrong with your hand, Phil?”
    “Oh, out on jungle maneuvers with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, I got bitten by a centipede. Nasty brute, a foot long. I hardly knew whether to step on him or shoot him! Charms of the tropics.” Rule spoke cheerily over his shoulder, leading them to a small office. Here a perspiring red-faced little man in a brass-buttoned coat stamped the passports.
    “Well, well! Mr. Alistair Tudsbury! What an honor. Correspondents are fairly pouring in now, but you’re the most famous one yet.”
    “Why, thank you.”
    “Let me say, sir, that we’ve had these Jap scares before. They always blow over. The vultures are gathering in vain, so to speak. No offense, sir. Have a pleasant stay, sir.”
    Rule collected their luggage, piled it in his car, and raced them to town, where he drove slowly