ROSE COULD BARELY CONTAIN her excitement. Mr Churchill’s great battleship the Prince of Wales, the largest ship of its kind to be built, had arrived at the naval base and Howard was taking her to see it. Accompanied by the Repulse, the Prince of Wales had berthed just days before, on 2 December, to great celebration and everyone who could was making the journey to see it. In the face of increasing Japanese hostility, the ship had been sent to Singapore on the personal orders of Winston Churchill. It would display the might of the British Empire and defend the waters of South East Asia should the Japanese get any upstart ideas.
Rose was not interested in battleships, she was visiting the naval base because of her respect for Mr Churchill. She was sure the arrival of the ships in Singapore was Mr Churchill’s way of shaking his fist at the Japanese. The naval base had only recently been finished and, if it lacked a fleet yet to fill it, these two great ships made up for any inadequacy. Rose felt sure the Japanese, with their supposedly paper planes, bad eyes and beer-bottle glasses that hampered their ability to fight, would not be foolish enough to tangle with such might. She had chosen a dress sprinkled with mauve and grey flowers for the outing, and had clipped on some rarely worn pearl earrings that Charlie had given her at the time of Howard’s birth. Howard had ordered a taxi for the journey to the naval base and she scolded him for the expense; she herself still went about by rickshaw.
At last they arrived and joined a long queue of people craning their necks to observe the cliff-like hull of the Prince of Wales rising impressively out of the water. The sea slapped softly against the quay, but the great ship sat solidly where it was berthed, stretching above Rose to impossible heights. Against the sky a grey metal rail could be seen, and occasionally a young sailor was sighted in a white uniform, a breeze filling out the legs of his shorts. Further along the quay was the Repulse, which had accompanied the Prince of Wales to Singapore. It was an old tub of twenty-five years that had already fought many battles; nobody was interested in the Repulse, Howard informed his mother.
People were being taken on to the ship in small groups to tour the interior and walk on the vast plateau of the deck. The upper echelons of the European community had already been invited to dinners and dances on board the battleship; lesser ranks had been left to queue in the equatorial sun along with crowds of locals. Rose dabbed her perspiring face with a handkerchief under the shelter of her linen parasol. Although the queue was made up mostly of local people, she noticed a smattering of Europeans. Some distance behind her was a tall blonde woman in a straw hat, holding a parasol similar to her own. Catching the woman’s eye Rose smiled, but in reply received a cool stare of query.
A sailor in the smart white uniform and peaked cap of an officer appeared, and walking along the length of the queue stopped to converse politely with the Europeans. As he returned to the ship, they left the queue one by one, to follow him aboard ahead of all the locals. This did not bother Rose in the way it bothered Howard, who grumbled angrily at the Europeans’ preferential treatment.
‘It is the way things are; it is their right as our rulers,’ Rose told him impatiently. To complain seemed ungrateful to Mr Churchill and the young British sailors who, impeccable in uniforms and caps, might soon risk their lives for her. Looking up at the towering bulk of the vessel, she caught the faint odour of fried fish from the ship’s kitchen, edged with the sea’s oily perfume.
The European group walked forward behind the officer, amongst them the woman with the parasol, accompanied by her husband. As she came level with Rose she appeared to stumble, and her husband quickly reached out to support her. She was painfully thin, and Rose knew from the slight curve of her abdomen that she was pregnant. She remembered how ill she had felt while expecting Howard and stepped forward impulsively in concern.
‘It is very hot. Perhaps she is just feeling faint,’ Rose advised.
The woman’s husband gave Rose a brief but appreciative smile before turning back to his wife.
Opening her handbag, Rose pulled out a clean folded handkerchief and the miniature bottle of eau de cologne she always carried with her. Wetting the cloth with the cologne, she offered it to the man. He took it gratefully and dabbed his wife’s brow. Within a moment the woman steadied herself and looked at Rose askance. Shaking herself free of her husband’s grasp, she moved forward after the group.
‘Keep the handkerchief, she may need it again,’ Rose said. The man nodded, an expression of helplessness on his face, and hurried after his wife to press the handkerchief into her hand. Beside Rose, Howard glowered unpleasantly, and she hoped he was not going to make further derogatory remarks that would be heard by the officer or other Europeans. Instead, to Rose’s relief, he returned his attention to the Prince of Wales, refusing to involve himself.
‘Battleships like these should always have air cover. They’re sitting ducks without it. Apparently the aircraft carrier with the Prince of Wales ran aground on a sandbank somewhere on the way,’ Howard said, mopping perspiration from his neck.
Unseen by Howard, the Englishwoman was now rebuking her husband angrily. ‘It’s a local woman’s handkerchief; who knows where it has been. Why ever did you bring me to this place?’ she protested, loud enough for Rose and others to hear. With a toss of the head she walked up the gangplank and, before stepping into the belly of the ship, stretched out a hand to drop the handkerchief into the water below. The incident had taken no more than a few moments, and Howard had not noticed.
‘Air power is what will win a modern war,’ he continued to grumble, looking up at the ship.
Rose did not reply. The Englishwoman’s words repeated unpleasantly within her, filling her with resentment, and she was thankful her son had not seen the flow of events. Absorbed in trying to justify the woman’s response to her own impulsive action, Rose was overcome with feelings of self-reproach. Perhaps the woman felt ill and was not used to the tropical heat Rose reasoned, but the fault was hers: she had stepped out of place and appeared too familiar. It was all because of Wilfred. His recent marriage to Cynthia had left Rose feeling socially confused. Her son-in-law’s unfailing politeness and affection, and the relaxed manner in which she responded to his presence, had upset her sense of how things were done. Lost in these thoughts, she was conscious of Howard guiding her forward, and to her relief saw they were at last being hustled up the gangway on to the Prince of Wales. Rose collapsed her parasol, but as she neared the ship could not stop herself from looking down over the side of the gangplank. The handkerchief floated far below, a small white square washed this way and that on the water between the ship and the quay. Rose was shocked to feel anger flooding through her.
As they stepped aboard, a young British sailor came forward to greet them. His bony knees, protruding below the stiff white shorts of his uniform, gave him an appearance of vulnerability; he looked too young to be defending the Empire, Rose thought.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I am Ordnance Seaman John Jefferies and I am your guide to the Prince of Wales this afternoon. Please follow me. Hold on to the handrails, the ship’s companionways are steep, and mind your heads for ceilings are low.’ He turned smartly, leading the way to the top deck.
When they emerged on that high plateau, Rose was unprepared for the breeze that blew about her at this height. Before her the ocean stretched away dotted by small islands she could not name. The great space of it elated her. Ordnance Seaman Jefferies pointed out the heavy mounted guns, and explained that they could be rotated 365 degrees to take down an enemy plane from any angle.
Soon, they came into the dining room where the Captain’s table was pointed out. Ordnance Seaman Jefferies read the week’s menu and revealed interesting details about methods of transporting and maintaining the freshness of vegetables. He showed them the kitchens and the clamps that would keep a lidded pot strapped to the stove in an unruly sea. In the big dining room, rocking gently beneath her feet on the swell, Rose’s eyes settled on a portrait of the King nailed firmly to a wall. Perhaps the King had visited the ship, touring it just as they were doing. Mr Churchill too must have walked all over it, examining its many intricacies. He might have sat at the Captain’s Table on the very chair that was now before her.
They were shown the High-Angle Plotting Table in the small but important Communications Room. Here, in the event of a crisis, the officers below decks would plan the ship’s response. The technical area of the vessel with its ultra-modern radar and surveillance rooms was quickly bypassed, disappointingly off limits to all but an initiated few.
‘Even I am not allowed in there,’ Ordnance Seaman Jefferies confided.
Eventually the tour was over and they were guided back to the gangway for the return to shore. Once on land, Howard began complaining that as well as the radar and surveillance area, they had been denied sight of the torpedoes for which the battleship was famous.
‘Well, I for one shall sleep well tonight, knowing such ships are patrolling our waters,’ Rose announced firmly in the taxi as she and Howard returned to Belvedere. She inhaled the leathery smell of the vehicle and the heady essence of petrol fumes. All frightening talk of a Japanese advance had been put into perspective now that she had seen Mr Churchill’s great ship.
Some weeks before, in early November, Brigadier Simson, Chief Engineer, Malaya Command, had agreed to an interview with Wilfred for The Straits Times, over a beer at the Cricket Club. The Brigadier had been sent to Singapore four months earlier, with instructions from the War Office in London to evaluate and improve defences on the island. After the interview Simson had arranged for Wilfred to visit a military camp in Johore. Captain Jenkins, smart in his khaki uniform, had been delegated to accompany Wilfred on the drive there. A square-set man with broad shoulders, he spoke to Wilfred from the front of the army truck, staring all the while straight ahead.
‘The top brass don’t like journalists poking around. With all due respect, Brigadier Simson is new to things here. We don’t want defeatist talk, not good for morale,’ Jenkins told Wilfred in careful clipped words. They had crossed the Causeway on to mainland Malaya, and had been travelling for more than an hour. The metal seat in the truck had grown so hot Wilfred could not put a hand upon it. Above him, the canvas canopy gave only partial shade. Occasionally a plane droned over the jungle road and they both looked up. Jenkins nodded in satisfaction.
‘Good to know the RAF is overhead.’
‘All I ever see up there are old Brewster Buffaloes,’ Wilfred replied, trying to suppress his growing resentment of Jenkins’s superior manner. ‘Whitehall should have sent us some modern aircraft.’
‘Nonsense,’ Jenkins replied curtly. ‘Buffaloes are more than a match for antiquated Japanese aircraft; they have no adequate air power.’
‘A Japanese Zero is far in advance of any Buffalo,’ Wilfred argued in an even voice.
‘If they want to attempt an invasion, they’ll approach Singapore from the south, from the sea, and we’re ready and waiting for them. They will never get through the jungle,’ Jenkins insisted impatiently. This was not what Brigadier Simson had told Wilfred, but he chose not to argue. He remembered Simson’s complaining that his proposals for strengthening Singapore’s defences were being blocked by arrogant local military personnel.
The most important event the year had produced for Wilfred, was his marriage to Cynthia. The wedding in January had been small and witnessed only by Howard and Rose, Boffort with his new wife Valerie, and Collins from the office.
‘Not done to get married during your first tour of duty, I waited five years to marry Valerie. Have you told them at the office?’ Boffort was unable to resist the opportunity to make his disapproval known.
They had been married in the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes and Cynthia had worn her mother’s white satin wedding dress and veil, altered to fit her slighter frame. Wilfred had initially suggested a no-fuss civil wedding; because of the disapproval of early marriage in most British companies, it was important to keep a low profile. Rose had been so shocked he did not pursue the suggestion. As a Catholic, she wished Cynthia to marry as she had been brought up, in the Catholic faith. Wilfred had talked through the matter of faith with both Cynthia and her mother. At one point he was tempted to say he felt Agnostic, rather than Anglican, might better describe his religious views, but thought it politic to remain silent. In the end, he was prepared to go along with any request, as long as it meant he could marry Cynthia. When at last they stood before the priest, the perfume of incense and lilies filling the air, sun falling through stained glass upon them, he knew that whatever the future held, he would not regret this moment; he had never been so happy.
‘If The Straits Times object to my marriage, I’ll join The Malaya Tribune,’ Wilfred had answered Boffort in a jocular tone. ‘Being a local paper they don’t care about such piffling things.’
There had seemed no practical reason to wait to marry; Rose had offered them a large downstairs room in Belvedere free of rent, unable to hide her delight at the wedding. Wilfred had proved that his intentions were honourable and Rose was full of relief. Wilfred thought of Rose fondly; he had hardly known his own mother and was happy to let her fuss about him. As a staff nurse at the General Hospital, Cynthia was earning enough to supplement his income if necessary. From the beginning, Wilfred decided his marriage should be presented to The Straits Times as a fait accompli.
All Simmons said when Wilfred eventually faced him was, ‘She’s a local girl; you should expect problems with your social life.’
‘We’ll be all right,’ Wilfred told him, suppressing his anger. He had already decided not to join the clubs that mattered, from which Cynthia would be barred entry because she was not European; he would not put her through that humiliation.
The jungle pressed forward on each side of the road; a cloud of green parrots flew low overhead. The day before a flock of raucous cockatoos had settled noisily in the trees outside the bedroom window at Belvedere as he lay on the bed with Cynthia. Their precious hours together were frequently ruptured by the harsh pattern Cynthia’s work imposed upon their life. She was working full time at the hospital and could not escape her turn of night duty. My part-time wife, he jokingly called her, but could not at times eradicate his resentment at the long hours she was forced to spend away from him.
Eventually, the truck turned off the road, accelerated noisily up an incline and then descended into the camp. A wide swathe of land had been cleared in the jungle, and rows of barracks stood about a parade ground where men were drilling in neat formations. The shout of orders rang out, whistles shrilled. The number of turbans and dark skins amongst the men surprised Wilfred, and Jenkins followed his gaze.
‘Those are Indian Army units who have never seen combat. It’s our job to lick them into shape. Anyone with experience is already fighting in Europe or the Middle East and cannot be spared from those fronts. No need to worry – those Japs have only ever fought the Chinese. If they come up against British steel I predict they’ll fall flat on their faces,’ Jenkins said, as they skirted the parade ground.
In spite of blackout practices and military preparations, few people in Malaya were of pessimistic mind. Japanese belligerence as their armies marched triumphantly across South East Asia, was not viewed as a threat to peace. British Singapore was more concerned with the run-up to Christmas; Robinsons department store was crowded with shoppers, decorations were everywhere. Some ‘just in case’ procedures had been put in place: people were encouraged to join one of the auxiliary services and air raid practices were now humorously tolerated. People responded to these exercises according to mood, a few taking shelter beneath tables or beds when the siren sounded, but most blithely continuing their activities. In temperate Europe blackouts might be compulsory, but on the Equator heavy cloth across a window reduced a room to suffocation. Singapore had adapted procedures in a cavalier fashion, covering windows only partially and renaming blackouts, brownouts. The town was full of swagger, and the confidence of constant government bulletins made alarmist thought impossible. Japanese reconnaissance flights, seen daily over the island, were accepted as defiant enemy bravado in the face of British strength. Singapore was impregnable.
Jenkins led Wilfred to an empty administrative hut and went off to find someone to show him about the camp. Left alone, Wilfred walked over to the netted window to stare out at the drilling men. A pile of leaflets was stacked nearby and picking one up he read a Whitehall War Office instruction for non-technical methods of dealing with enemy tanks. Jenkins soon returned with a young private behind him, and nodded sadly when he saw what Wilfred was reading.
‘That’s the kind of nonsense they send us from Whitehall. They might need tanks in the desert, but what would we do with them here? How would a tank get through 700 miles of Malayan jungle? That jungle is our best defence; those Japs will never get through it,’ Jenkins stated.
After lunch rain came down, making a muddy lake of the parade ground. An army mess meal of fish curry and rice repeated unpleasantly on Wilfred as, his tour of the camp finished, he waited about for transport back to Singapore. In the late afternoon a jeep was found, and Wilfred climbed in next to the driver. Once more the bumpy road stretched ahead and the deep rich scent of the jungle steamed under the sun. The power of this impenetrable world filled Wilfred just as it had when he was a child. The rubber plantation on which he had been born could not be far away, he guessed, and on occasions his parents had visited Singapore, taking him with them. Such shadowy memories were always creeping up on him. The jeep rattled on as the sun mellowed; shadows were everywhere now, deepening between the trees. He knew that the reason he was here, the force that had propelled him so far across the ocean, was the need to enter again that distant place of childhood, the safety he had found under the dark leaves of the old swing on the mango tree. He thought of Cynthia, her burnished skin, the dark bruise of her mouth, her pale cat’s eyes, and the earthy essence of her filled him. When he took Cynthia in his arms the taste of her lips beneath his own seemed full of a world he had lost.
Soon they crossed the Causeway back on to the island but found the road ahead was flooded after the rain. The driver turned on to an alternative route that ran along the north-west coastline where beaches were gripped by the giant claws of mangroves. Coconut palms, seaside shrubs, mango and wild nutmeg grew everywhere. The tide was out and the gaunt, tangled roots of the mangroves stood in menacing shadow under the setting sun.
After some distance the driver stopped the jeep to relieve himself and Wilfred walked off down a path to the beach. Atop their stilts fishermen’s huts were crowded together on one side of the sandy cove. The spindly timbers of the fishing kelong stretched out into the sea; small boats were already setting out for the night, lanterns swinging on poles. A cool breeze blew upon him. Across the water, a short distance away, lay the Malay Peninsula. As he surveyed the empty beach, Wilfred was filled with unease. He saw that these northern Singapore beaches lay open to attack; no pillboxes, guns or landmines, no searchlights – not even the deterrent of barbed wire stood as fortification against an enemy landing. He remembered his interview with Brigadier Simson who, to the annoyance of Jenkins’s ‘top brass’, held an opinion contrary to all others.
‘In my view the jungle is not impassable for determined infantry, even during the monsoon. Our troops are not trained for jungle warfare, nor do we possess any tanks, for they are not thought to be necessary. Any defences we have are built entirely to meet a seaward attack. If an attack were to come from the north, Singapore could by no means be called an impregnable fortress.’
Wilfred stood on the darkening beach and remembered Simson’s words. Across the water the lights on the mainland already lit up the night.
A few days later, Wilfred awoke with a start at night, and was surprised to find he was sitting upright in bed. The air raid siren was wailing, and the clock on the table registered 4.30 in the morning. The sheets lay smooth and untouched on Cynthia’s side of the bed; she was on night duty again at the hospital and had left the evening before. Although he had not panicked during previous air raid alerts, Wilfred jumped out of bed and crawled under the desk a few feet away. There had never been an air raid practice after dark or this early in the morning. It was 8 December and Wilfred thought the alarm might be the grand practice the government had threatened for so long; it had been forecast that this dress rehearsal for war might come in the first week of the month, leaving everyone free to enjoy the rest of the festive season. Crouched in the narrow kneehole beneath the desk and looking up at the window, Wilfred could see the half-moon against a black sky. He had thrown the shutters back the night before, pushing aside the blackout cloth. As the siren faded away, he felt the ridiculousness of being squashed beneath the desk and eased himself out. The low drone of aircraft could already be heard. Thin fingers of searchlight thrust into the sky, illuminating formations of bombers like polished studs on a dark cloth. In the sweeping lights he could make out the red sun of Japan on the bodies of the planes. Silhouetted against the pale cup of the moon, the planes flew on across the island. The drone of the engines became fainter as Wilfred waited for them to disappear into a bank of cloud over the sea. Instead, there was the distant crack of anti-aircraft fire. The planes flew beyond the reach of the guns and in reply began to drop a litter of bombs. Picked out by the searchlights, the silver flecks fell in the planes’ wake, like a shower of confetti. Wilfred heard a muffled thudding and saw bursts of fiery light. The aircraft flew on and disappeared at last. The sky was now a deep pink over the area where the General Hospital was situated.
All Wilfred could think of was Cynthia. Under his hand the window frame still radiated the heat of the day, the paint flaking and uneven. In the dark garden the usual boom of bullfrogs echoed through the night, crickets continued their incessant whirr and the smell of night flowers came to him. Everything was as before, yet he sensed a line had been crossed and nothing would be the same again.
He pulled on some clothes and ran from the room. The hallway of Belvedere was in darkness but he heard a cough and sounds of breathing. A torch was switched on and he saw several of the lodgers crouched under the stairs. Wilfred strode on down the corridor towards Rose’s room. On the way he passed Boffort, who stood in the doorway of the large room he now occupied with his wife Valerie.
‘What’s up?’ Boffort enquired, stifling a yawn as he pulled on a dressing gown. Valerie peered anxiously over his shoulder, her hair wound on metal curlers.
‘The Japs have dropped bombs,’ Wilfred said over his shoulder as he hurried past.
‘Not possible,’ Boffort shouted after him. ‘It must be that big practice air raid they’ve threatened. Don’t be taken in.’
The door to Rose’s room was open and Howard was already with his mother, helping a confused Rose up from where she had hidden under the bed. She brushed dust from her pink smocked nightdress; grey hair straggled over her shoulders, and a cobweb trailed from her head. Wilfred hesitated, embarrassed to see his mother-in-law in this dishevelled state, but Rose seemed unaware, reaching for a dressing gown and wrapping it quickly about herself, picking the web from her hair.
‘They’ve dropped bombs near the hospital; they must be aiming for the docks and Chinatown. I’m going to Cynthia,’ Wilfred said from the doorway, and Rose hurried forward in concern.
‘Why did the Prince of Wales not shoot them down?’ Rose gripped Wilfred’s arm, refusing to let go. She remembered the great guns she had seen just days before, and Ordnance Seaman Jefferies striding about the huge ship.
‘Right now the battleships are steaming up the peninsula to get rid of Japanese transports sighted off Indo-China,’ Wilfred told her impatiently as he pulled himself free.
‘Practice or real raid, I’d better get to the Air Raid Precaution station,’ Howard said, tucking his shirt into his trousers. Although he had volunteered for ARP duties these were only in the day: the post shut down at night as no one expected a real raid, least of all after dark.
Howard ran behind Wilfred up the corridor, buckling his belt into place. They made their way to the gardener’s shed where a couple of bicycles were always kept, then pushed them hurriedly down the drive towards the gate. They parted to cycle off in opposite directions, Howard towards his Air Raid Precaution centre and Wilfred to the hospital.
As Howard passed the old rain tree on the corner and turned out on to Bukit Timah, he slowed to a halt, craning his neck for a glimpse of Bougainvillaea House between the dark shapes of the trees. Mei Lan had come back from Hong Kong the week before; Rama the gardener had told him. She had been away for more than a year, and during that time he had heard nothing from her. He had written each day but she had not replied to a single letter. When Rama gave him the news of Mei Lan’s return, he had gone down to the canal and played his saxophone in the hope that she might hear. Now, looking up at the sky in fear of more bombs, Howard saw a dim light in Bougainvillaea House, and felt again the pain of Mei Lan’s rejection.
The night was warm, and Wilfred pedalled furiously, head down, the breeze rushing against his ears. As he drew near the town the air was heavy with sulphurous fumes, and his panic grew. The leafy roads about Belvedere were dark and silent with only an occasional street lamp, but here he saw there was no blackout and streetlights blazed everywhere. People had come out of their houses to watch the air raid, and were running about excitedly.
As Wilfred neared the hospital the mournful shriek of the all-clear siren was heard at last. Wounded people, all poor residents of Chinatown, packed the hospital driveway, and a queue of ambulances carrying bomb victims added to the chaos. Propping the bike against a wall, Wilfred forced his way through the crowd into the Admissions Room. Almost immediately he saw Cynthia on the far side of the room, bent over an old Chinese woman with a bloodied limb, and relief flooded through him. He caught her eye but she waved him away, too busy to give him attention. Returning outside he sat down on a low wall, lighting a cigarette with trembling hands, drawing on it gratefully. Above the black silhouettes of trees the sky was alight with fiery reflection. He could not believe what was happening. Just as he had feared, just as Brigadier Simson had forecast, war had begun.
For Cynthia the unexpected sight of Wilfred across the crowded room was the comfort she needed: it meant Belvedere was safe. It was difficult to know exactly what had happened, except that Chinatown had been bombed. Even without the present emergency, it had been a bad week. The last few days she had been on the children’s wards, where there was an excess of tuberculosis. Although they wheeled these children out into the gardens, it was difficult to see what good this did in the swamp-like climate of Singapore. Many of the new-born babies had contracted tetanus from unsanitary conditions while the umbilical cord was being cut, and when they died she had to accompany their bodies to the mortuary. A number of nurses had succumbed to the current wave of malaria sweeping the town, leaving the hospital short staffed, and Cynthia had been shunted from one ward to another. For a while she had been on the First Class ward to which only Europeans were admitted and where the nursing staff were predominantly British. The most difficult thing there was dealing with the lewd comments of a sick Scottish sea captain. In that elite ward, patients presented nurses with chocolates and champagne, and staff dined on extra roast pigeon and lamb chops in the ward kitchens. The Second Class Asiatic wards were clean and orderly, but it was the crowded Third Class wards that Cynthia hated. They were for the poor who lacked concepts of hygiene and, as the beds were free, there was not the same standard of cleanliness. The nursing staff on these wards were all local women, and it was here Cynthia spent most of her time.
Now blood was all around her and in the midst of hysteria she must remain calm. The badly wounded were lined up on trolleys in the corridor near the operating theatre. For the first time she saw what shrapnel could do, the terrible fractures, burns and maiming; the wounds were unlike anything she had seen before.
She turned as a young woman, screaming incomprehensibly, stepped suddenly out of the crowd thrusting a bloody parcel at her. Cynthia stared at the tiny feet protruding from the blood-soaked towel. Usually she could keep a professional distance from a patient’s pain, but now she was flooded with horror and quickly looked away. The first weak light of day was growing in the open door of the Admissions Room; she had lost all track of time.
When Howard reached his local Air Raid Precaution station where they had been instructed to gather in an emergency, he was still convinced the raid was a practice. A couple of trucks were lined up outside the ARP station and a warden was issuing everyone with shovels and picks. Most of his group had already arrived and everyone appeared confused. Mr Barber, the group commander, drew up in his Austin car. Abdul, who lived in a nearby kampong had been first to arrive at the station, and greeted Howard excitedly.
‘Sky red over Chinatown and docks. Looks like real air raid, real fire,’ he announced to a clamour of disbelief.
‘Cannot be,’ said Wen Lit, the youngest of the group, a small, delicately boned youth with dark burning eyes.
‘It’s the real thing,’ Mr Barber confirmed, unusually flustered as he walked briskly up to them. He was a tall grey-haired Englishman with an insignificant chin and an army bearing who, Howard thought, resembled the newspaper pictures of Lieutenant General Percival, General Officer Commanding, Malaya.
‘I have our helmets at last, just in time for our baptism,’ Mr Barber said, instructing several boys to bring in the boxes from the car.
As ARP auxiliaries they were supposed to have a uniform and a metal helmet with a badge, but supplies had run short. Mr Barber cut the string of the box and triumphantly pulled out a helmet. It did not resemble the helmets other ARP volunteers were wearing.
‘Sir, it is German helmet,’ Abdul pointed out immediately.
Mr Barber blanched and spluttered and bent to the box in desperation.
‘Dear God, what have we been given?’ he exploded.
‘Helmet is helmet, sir,’ Abdul comforted.
‘Quite right Abdul,’ Mr Barber replied, straightening up resignedly. ‘Wherever they’re from, they may save our lives. We are needed in Chinatown at the double. Our transport is already outside.’
They were ten in the group, and wearing their new German helmets they filed out to climb into the open truck. Mr Barber swung himself up beside them and the vehicle moved forward. As they neared Chinatown a strong sulphurous odour blew about and street lights illuminated the extensive damage inflicted by the Japanese bombers. Fires blazed everywhere; the Auxiliary Fire Service was already at work. Howard’s group was unloaded from the truck, to join other ARP groups from different parts of the city. They marched behind Mr Barber to the wet rubble of a bombed house and were ordered to search for bodies. The AFS had just put out a nearby fire that had raged after the bombing, and moved on. Water and black ash swilled about their feet; a charred odour engulfed them. Gutted houses steamed and dripped from the AFS dousing, a distance away flames still leapt about. A great swathe of the road had collapsed and through the gap Howard could see the houses in the street beyond.
‘Use those picks; use those shovels. Quickly now, there are people under this mess,’ a senior ARP warden urged briskly as they began searching for casualties or signs of life. Soon, Howard’s mouth was full of gritty dust and he was sweating profusely in the hot night. When he had first joined Air Raid Precaution it seemed to demand only some walking about checking that glass windows were taped, and that all premises had an adequate brownout.
He knew he would never forget the first bodies they found; he turned away to vomit. Sometimes all they unearthed were bits and pieces – a torso, a hand, some arms, three legs; limbs had to be matched to corpses and piled up beside them. The body of a young woman was found intact but without her feet.
‘Her feet, you must find her feet,’ sobbed an old woman who had been hovering nearby, the mother or grandmother of the dead girl. Howard began to feel faint; he had lost count of time, they seemed to have been working non-stop for hours. His head sweated beneath the helmet but he dared not take it off. The noxious odour of the blast still hung heavily everywhere, and the stink from smashed honey buckets in the bombed buildings was overpowering. Behind Howard a woman was screaming ‘My baby, my baby!’ over and over again.
‘Why must we find her feet?’ Howard asked Wen Lit savagely. The boy dug stoically beside him; the pick seemed almost as big as himself and the helmet nearly covered his eyes, the strap swinging loosely under his chin.
‘She cannot be buried without her feet. She must go whole into the next life. If we cannot find her feet they will have to get some wax ones made for her,’ Wen Lit told him between breaths, shovelling diligently.
At last, day broke and the sun blazed down upon the smashed road, revealing the destruction in all its grotesque detail. Howard was exhausted. His head ached and his knees were shaking.
‘We need a break,’ Mr Barber said at last, coming up and putting a hand on his shoulder.
He led the way to a canteen set up in a truck near the bomb site. Howard took a mug of hot sweet tea and sat with Wen Lit and Abdul on the remains of a crumbling wall. Soon Mr Barber joined them, his face puffy and smeared with dust. Across the road bodies were laid out beside the neat piles of dismembered limbs. Already, the heat and humidity were rising; the stench of death had come to overwhelm every other smell. A constant stream of people trying to find missing relatives bent to examine the corpses and stray limbs. A Red Cross van finally arrived to carry bodies away to a morgue. Mr Barber drank his tea in silence beside Howard. No one had an appetite for the buns that were offered in the canteen, but Abdul walked over to get some more tea. Within a moment he returned, hurrying towards them in excitement.
‘Hong Kong also bombed by Japanese last night, just before Singapore. And a place from where they are getting pearls in America was also bombed. All American ships there were sunk. Because of this America is also now joining the war. News is on the radio just now,’ Abdul announced. Mr Barber stood up in shock.
‘You must mean Pearl Harbor, the American naval base in Hawaii! Is their fleet wiped out?’ He strode off towards the canteen where everyone was grouped about a radio connected to a generator.
‘Whole world is now at war.’ Abdul smiled happily.