The Empire Trilogy Part 58

'They'll find somewhere, Major, don't worry. Besides, it's an order. It has nothing to do with me. It's official, so there you are. Perhaps you'd like to know a little more about them?' And Smith began to explain that the Poh Leung Kuk was run by a committee of Chinese under the supervision of the Protectorate. There had been such an importing of young girls into the Colony to act as prost.i.tutes, particularly before the brothels had been closed down in 1930, that it had been necessary to find a suitable inst.i.tution to house them. Girls arriving from China were taken to an inspection depot and only released to genuine relatives or employers. Any employers with dubious credentials were obliged to post a bond for a sum of money that the girl in question would not be disposed of to someone else or made to work as a prost.i.tute. Other girls found themselves in the home as a result of police raids on illicit establishments. Unfortunately, since the Poh Leung Kuk was situated in a vulnerable part of Singapore in buildings near Outram Road (next to the prison on one side and near the Teck Lee Ice Works on the other), it had been found necessary to disperse the inmates where possible. The Major had been specially selected as a man of probity to give temporary shelter to half a dozen of these girls.

'Oh, and one more thing, Major. You'll probably find that some, if not all, of your girls are on the "marriage list". I suppose you don't know the procedure in that eventuality ...'

'No, I don't, and frankly ...'

'No need to take that tone here, Major. You don't seem to realize that there's a war on and that we must improvise as best we can. Now, about the "marriage list" ...'

In due course the Major, accompanied for moral support by Dupigny, had driven over to the Poh Leung Kuk in one of the Blackett and Webb vans to take delivery of the half-dozen girls who had been a.s.signed to the Mayfair. He found himself waiting in a sort of yard aware that from the windows round about him a mult.i.tude of eyes were appraising him. After a while, the official to whom he had explained his business returned, saying rather nervously: 'They'll be out in a moment, I think.' He stood in silence for a moment, then said brightly: 'None of yours have any venereal problems, as far as we know.' The Major cleared his throat gloomily, but said nothing. 'Ah, here they come now.'

'But there were supposed only to be half a dozen. Here there are twice as many!'

'That was only an estimate ...'

'What d'you think, Francois? They look look well-behaved. Can we manage so many? I suppose they could help Cheong with the cooking and household ch.o.r.es ...' The Major surveyed the row of neatly dressed Chinese girls who had lined up beside the van as if for inspection, each with her little bundle of belongings. They kept their eyes meekly on the ground while the two men discussed what to do. Dupigny, who could see the Major already weakening and who, moreover, was experienced in the ways of civil servants, gave it as his opinion that they should return to the Mayfair and only accept those girls whom the Protectorate succeeded in billeting on them by force. well-behaved. Can we manage so many? I suppose they could help Cheong with the cooking and household ch.o.r.es ...' The Major surveyed the row of neatly dressed Chinese girls who had lined up beside the van as if for inspection, each with her little bundle of belongings. They kept their eyes meekly on the ground while the two men discussed what to do. Dupigny, who could see the Major already weakening and who, moreover, was experienced in the ways of civil servants, gave it as his opinion that they should return to the Mayfair and only accept those girls whom the Protectorate succeeded in billeting on them by force.

'But Francois, we can't possibly leave so many of them here! How would we feel if a bomb dropped on this building tonight? We could never forgive ourselves!'

And so, with the back of the van crammed with young women, the Major and Dupigny drove back to the Mayfair. 'I'm sure they won't be any trouble, Francois ... what d'you think?' There was silence from Dupigny and a raised eyebrow. 'Once we've got it sorted out which of them is on the marriage list and which isn't ... I mean, that's the only real problem.' Smith had explained that thanks to a shortage of women in the Colony, there was a great demand for brides from the Poh Leung Kuk among the less affluent Chinese who could not afford to find a wife in the usual manner, that is through a go-between, which could involve great expense. A man who wanted a wife, once he had given details of his circ.u.mstances, might look over the girls on the list and make his selection. The girl then would accept or reject him on the spot. He would then pay forty dollars for his bride's trousseau and undergo a medical inspection. And that was that.

'I shouldn't think there'll be many men wanting to get married in the present situation,' said the Major confidently. 'I don't think we need worry about it, Francois. What d'you think?' Dupigny smiled but still made no comment. From the back of the van there came one or two smothered giggles.

All the same, there was no question of the Major asking any of the refugees to leave so that he might accommodate the newcomers. He allotted the former Board Room to the girls as a dormitory, asked Cheong to make use of them for kitchen and cleaning duties and, having nominated Captain Brown to deal with any difficulties that might arise, he returned to his other preoccupations, hoping for the best.

And still, as the days went by, more refugees continued to arrive so that soon new arrivals were obliged to camp in the compound. Now the centre of the city was thronged with refugees from up-country, milling about aimlessly all day in the hot streets in the hope of coming across someone they knew who might be able to help them. Many of them were women with small children who had been separated from their menfolk in the upheaval and had no idea of how they could make contact with them again. The Major, gazing at these shattered-looking people, was appalled and angry at the inadequacy of the arrangements which had been made to cope with them. But at this late date, with the administration of the city already in chaos, what was there to be done?

There was, however, one newcomer to the Mayfair whom everyone was pleased to see. Returning early one morning from an exhausting night at the docks, Matthew saw a familiar figure sitting on the verandah chatting with Dupigny. It was Ehrendorf.

'You've got thin, Matthew,' he said with a smile, getting to his feet. 'I hardly recognize you.'

'So have you!' Matthew was taken aback to see the change that had taken place in his friend's appearance in the few weeks since he had last seen him. Ehrendorf's handsome face was deeply lined and shrunk, as if he were suddenly ten years older. His cheekbones stood out sharply and grim little brackets which Matthew had never noticed before now enclosed the corners of his mouth; as he was speaking his eyes kept wandering from Matthew's face, as if he were trying to estimate, by the sound of the ack-ack batteries, the course of the raid which at that moment was taking place to the south.

Ehrendorf's voice was firm, however, as he explained that he had been ill with dysentery in Kuala Lumpur. Later he had been to Kuantan on the east coast, then back to Kuala Lumpur to find that it was being evacuated. He had no specific idea of how the campaign was progressing but it was clear that it was going badly. The roads throughout Joh.o.r.e were jammed with reinforcements and supplies going in one direction and refugees going, or attempting to go, in the other. It had taken him many hours to get through the traffic by car to Singapore and there was a danger of the whole line of communication seizing up. It was already a sitting target during daylight hours for j.a.panese bombers. He had heard one piece of good news, though. Last Tuesday it had rained providentially and a convoy of reinforcements had managed to sneak in, thanks to the bad weather, without being taken to bits by the bombers which now prowled the sea approaches to Singapore. Provided there was some way of getting the new men and equipment into the line quickly enough ... Ehrendorf shrugged.

'I shall probably be going back to the States in a few days if I can get transport.'

'In the meantime, you can stay here and lend a hand at the pumps.' Noticing Ehrendorf hesitate he added: 'You haven't seen Joan, I suppose? Mrs Blackett and Kate have left for Australia. Joan's still here, I believe, but I haven't seen her recently. Come on, grab your kit and I'll show you the few inches that are your ration of floorboards. We'll soon make a fireman of you.'

54.

LEARN TO DANCE AND DROWN YOUR WORRIES IN CABARETS!Success guaranteed to anyone after two and a half hoursprivate coaching at theModern Dancing School5A Ann Siang Hill(the road is diagonally opposite to the Hindu Templeof South Bridge Road).Straits Times, 16 Jan 1942PROGRAMME FOR SUNDAY, 18 JAN, 1942,at the Sea View Hotel popular concert11 a.m. to 1 p.m. by Reller's band 1 Overture The Beautiful Helena The Beautiful Helena Offenbach Offenbach 2 Waltz Wine, Women & Song Wine, Women & Song Strauss Strauss 3 Fantasia Faust Faust Gounod Gounod 4 Selection s...o...b..at s...o...b..at Kern Kern 5 Rhapsody Slavonic Rhapsody Slavonic Rhapsody Friedman Friedman 6 Selection No, No, Nanette No, No, Nanette Youman Youman 7 Medley Somers Scottish Medley Somers Scottish Medley Rijf Rijf 8 Selection Tommy's Tunes Tommy's Tunes Pecher Pecher Tiffin special Curry served from 12.302.30 p.m.

MR SOLOMON R. LANGFIELD,.

PEACEFULLY IN HIS SIXTY-THIRD YEAR.

NO FLOWERS PLEASE.

The death was announced today of Mr Solomon Langfield, co-founder of Langfield and Bowser Ltd and a familiar figure in Singapore business circles for many years. Mr Walter Blackett, paying tribute, said that although not the first in the field Mr Langfield's family firm had made a contribution.

So troubled were the times that for the general public the pa.s.sing of old Solomon Langfield, who surprisingly had turned out not to be quite as old as everyone had thought, took place with scarcely a murmur. There were none of the official manifestations of grief which had marked old Mr Webb's departure, for example, none of the letters of regret from the Governor nor the flying of flags at half-mast over buildings frequented by rubber dealers, bankers and merchants. At best a few of his old colleagues from Club or committee found their way to the Blacketts' residence to pay their last respects and offer condolences to young Nigel Langfield on his bereavement. If there were not even as many of these as one might have hoped, considering the long and devoted service which Solomon Langfield had bestowed unstintingly on the Colony in a number of different fields of endeavour, it was partly because in these troubled times everyone had difficulties of his own. It was partly, too, because some of those who were among the first to make the sad pilgrimage to take leave of their friend, reported back that Walter was inclined to be moody and odd in his behaviour, feigning not to know why they had come and then, when they had explained, giving the impression that their journey had been a waste of time and that they were disturbing his peace unnecessarily for such a trivial matter. However, with a shrug of his shoulders he would direct them to the room where the body had been laid out (refrigerated fortunately) awaiting mortuary attentions.

No doubt Walter's moody behaviour would have seemed more explicable to the friends of the deceased if they had known the extent of his disappointment over Solomon Langfield's rejection of the match he had proposed between their respective children. Walter was bitter about this. It had been such a good idea. When you are in a pickle as complicated as that which Walter considered himself to be in, with a partner in your company you cannot depend upon, with a daughter to marry off, and vast stocks of rubber to ship, it could only be expected that the rejection of a single elegant solution to these disparate problems would come as a blow. Add to that old Solomon Langfield's insulting behaviour and you have enough to make blood bubble in the veins.

A great deal of thought must be given to your daughter's marriage. Otherwise she will simply slink off like a cat on a dark night and get herself fertilized under a bush by G.o.d knows whom! Yes, even a sensible daughter will, there's no trusting them, particularly these days ... Or to put it another way, there are no sensible daughters. Not even with a girl like Joan, who had her head screwed on more tightly than most, could you be sure that you would not wake up one morning to find her entangled with some worthless adventurer. Now, although Walter was confident that sooner or later the present difficulties with the j.a.panese would be overcome and life in Singapore would return to normal, it was increasingly obvious to him that for some time to come the Singapore community would be scattered to the winds. Finding herself in a different environment, in Australia, say, or India, was there not a danger that Joan would lose the sensible perspective she had acquired in Singapore? Yes, there was, and that was why Walter felt he must see Joan married before she left Singapore. The last thing Walter wanted was to find her captivated by some mustachioed flight-lieutenant who happened to catch her fancy because he was serving his country so heroically.

The morning after Langfield had rejected his proposal so impudently Walter had discussed the matter with Joan. 'The old brute was against the idea,' he had explained grimly, 'and even if Nigel was so besotted about you that he was willing to go ahead without the old man's permission, it still wouldn't do any good because if I know Solomon he'd just cut off the funds. Then we'd be stuck with Nigel but with none of the Langfield business which would be the worst possible solution.' Yes, it had begun to seem to Walter that he had left this question of marrying off his daughter until too late. Fate, however, had then taken a hand.

When, in due course, Abdul came to inform Walter, first that Tuan Tuan Langfield had not risen for breakfast, then that Langfield had not risen for breakfast, then that Tuan Tuan Langfield would not be rising again on this earth, Walter had merely said to himself: 'What a blessed nuisance! Trust that old codger to make a nuisance of himself!' But presently it did occur to him that provided Solomon had not discussed the matter with his son, his death might not be such a nuisance after all. Joan was inclined to share his opinion. Langfield would not be rising again on this earth, Walter had merely said to himself: 'What a blessed nuisance! Trust that old codger to make a nuisance of himself!' But presently it did occur to him that provided Solomon had not discussed the matter with his son, his death might not be such a nuisance after all. Joan was inclined to share his opinion.

Walter was astonished to see the effect that the news of his father's death had on Nigel. The young man seemed positively afflicted to hear of it; he was visibly on the verge of breaking down. Walter inspected him with curiosity, marvelling at the resources of human nature that could inspire, even for such as Solomon Langfield, an affection so deep. But there was the evidence: Nigel sat before him with his head in his hands, overcome. Such grief could only be respected.

Walter gave Joan a nod and a wink and she advanced to place a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder. Walter himself retired then to brood in his dressing-room. He believed he had thought of a way to bring solace to Nigel in his hour of loss. Thus, later in the morning when Nigel had regained control of himself, Walter summoned him and said: 'My boy, I know how you must be feeling. I won't beat about the bush. Your father and I had our ups and downs but we always respected each other. When you get down to it, you know, we were very much alike in many ways. Well, I hesitate to tell you what I'm going to tell you because I know that he did not want you to be influenced in any way. I think that poor Solomon may have had some intimation that the end was not far away because the other evening, while we were chatting together about old times and the fun we'd had as youngsters in this Colony, he happened to say how concerned he was for the future ... Yes, to put it in a nutsh.e.l.l he told me that he would not be at all averse to seeing you settle down and start a family. "Well, Walter," he said to me, "this may come as a surprise to you, considering the ups and downs we've had in business matters, but there's only one young woman I'd like to see him married to and that's that young woman of yours, Joan." There it is, Nigel, and I was pretty surprised about it, I must say, but once I'd got to thinking about it, why ... Lord, are those the wretched air-raid sirens again?'

'But Mr Blackett!' cried Nigel who in the matter of a few seconds had flushed, turned pale and was now flushing again.

'Dammit! It's only five to ten. This is becoming too much of a good thing ...'

'I thought my father ...'

'Well, there we are. We'll talk about it later ... but of course, only if you want to. Maybe I've been speaking out of turn, maybe I should have kept mum about it: it wasn't an easy decision for me to bring it up. And mind you, I know he didn't want you to be influenced in any way and he even told me that if anything he would pretend to take a dim view of such an arrangement just so that ... Ah, there go the guns! d.a.m.n these air-raids! How can we possibly get anything done? By the sound of the guns they seem to be coming our way ... We'd better go to the shelter this time, I think. You go and get Joan and I'll tell the staff to get under cover ...'

There was no time for further discussion. Already the bombs were beginning to fall and the thudding of the anti-aircraft guns matched the thudding of young Nigel's heart as he dashed upstairs to get Joan and bring her to the shelter which Walter had had dug beside the Orchid Garden. This time, it seemed, the j.a.panese bombers were not going to be content with an attack on Keppel Harbour or the Naval Base: they were setting to work on the city itself and on Tanglin in particular.

Nearby at the Mayfair those of the Major's firemen who were awake after their night's work listened wearily to the sirens. Only when the guns at Bukit Timah opened up did they make a move to take shelter. Here, as almost everywhere else on the island, it was hard to see any distance, except upwards. And so as they struggled out of the building, still red-eyed and bewildered from lack of sleep, they looked upwards ... to see a densely packed wave of j.a.panese bombers flying at a great height and directly over Tanglin. In a moment the leading bomber would fire a burst of machine-gun fire: at this signal all the planes would drop their bombs at the same moment and there would be havoc on the ground. Meanwhile, a few hundred yards from where they stood the light ack-ack battery over the brow of the hill was blazing away quite uselessly, it seemed, for the bombers were flying well out of range.

Now the aeroplanes above, like monstrous insects, began to deposit batches of little black eggs into the sky and a fearful whistling grew in the air around the men fleeing through the flowerbeds. Soon the shelter was crammed and people flung themselves down in any hole or ditch they could find while the Major, wearing a steel helmet, bundled the girls from the Poh Leung Kuk and other latecomers into the recreation hut whose walls had been padded with rubber bales, mattresses and cushions, more as a gesture than anything else. As he did so the first bomb landed in the long-disused swimming pool sending up a great column of water which hung in the air for a moment like a block of green marble before crashing down again. Another bomb landed simultaneously in the road blowing a snowstorm of red tiles off the Mayfair's roof and out over the compound, and another in the grove of old rubber which lay between the Mayfair and the Blacketts' house. The last explosion, though some distance from both makeshift shelters, was strong enough to blow in one wall of the recreation hut, hurling those who had been huddled against it back into a jumble of cushions, mattresses and struggling bodies: the roof, too, began to sag and utter piercing cracks. In the deep hush which followed, the telephone could be heard ringing, very faintly, in the empty bungalow. People began to extricate themselves from the jumble on the floor of the recreation hut. n.o.body seemed to be badly hurt.

Abruptly there was a roar overhead and everyone ducked. 'It's one of the RAF buses!' someone shouted as a Hurricane vanished over the tree tops. A ragged cheer went up. The telephone was still ringing: it seemed a miracle that the wires had not been brought down in the bombing. The Major ran towards the bungalow to answer it. He had to swing himself up by the verandah rail because the wooden steps had been carried away by the blast from the bomb which had fallen in the road and now sagged in a drunken concertina some yards from the building. As he had expected they were being called to a fire: houses and a timber yard between River Valley Road and the river had been set alight.

Shortly afterwards a strange cavalcade was to be seen setting out from the Mayfair. In the lead came the Major's Lagonda towing a trailer-pump, followed by Mr Wu's Buick crammed with pa.s.sengers. Next came two Blackett and Webb vans commandeered from the nutmeg grove by the Major and it was these which lent the Mayfair unit its air of rather desperate carnival, for there had been no time to unbolt the bizarre wooden super-structure which had been fitted on top of them; besides, it might give added protection from shrapnel. The first van, towing a second, newly acquired trailer-pump, still carried the gigantic facsimilies of red and blue Straits dollar bills, complete with slant-eyed portrait of the King. From the other van eight long arms painted dark brown, light brown, yellow and white, each pair supplied with a papier mache head, emerged symbolically from the jaws of Poverty; since these arms, which were enormously long and stretched forward over the cabin of the van, were supposed to be reaching for Prosperity, it had been collectively decided that the van displaying the dollar bills should go first. Otherwise, as Dupigny remarked, it might almost look as if dollar bills were chasing the representatives of the four races and that they, arms outstretched, were fleeing in terror.

As they emerged on to Orchard Road they saw for the first time the extent of the havoc caused by the air-raid. A stick of high-explosive bombs had fallen along the upper reaches beginning near the junction with Tanglin Road and neatly distributing themselves, two on one side, three on the other, reducing a number of buildings to rubble, bringing down overhead cables and smashing shop windows so that the pavements of the covered ways glittered with a frosting of gla.s.s. The way into Paterson Road was blocked by a number of blazing vehicles which had been hurled across the road by the blast; a lorry lay upside down, its wheels in the air; everywhere people scrabbled desperately in the rubble searching for survivors. A greyish-white cloud of dust muted the blaze of the burning vehicles and turned the people struggling in the road into figures from a winter scene.

The Major continued down Orchard Road hoping to approach River Valley Road from the other direction; he looked back once or twice to make sure that the others were following. Behind the two vans a motor-cycle brought up the rear of the column, carrying Turner, formerly the manager of the Joh.o.r.e estate, but now obliged by military preparations across the Causeway to return to Singapore, and a Chinese friend of Mr Wu's whose name was Kee, a strong and taciturn individual, extremely courageous.

They had to proceed carefully here, sounding their horns on account of the people, many of them apparently still dazed, some wandering about aimlessly, others laying out the dead and wounded at the side of the road. Once they had to stop while an abandoned vehicle was dragged out of their path; then they came upon an oil-tanker that had collided with a tree but by a miracle had not caught fire. Not far away the Cold Storage had had a near miss and badly shaken shoppers were being helped from the building. Near the vegetable and fruit market next door a block of flats was on fire. A Sikh traffic policeman, still incongruously wearing the basketwork wings that gave him the appearance of a dragon-fly, waved his arms vigorously, trying to direct the Major towards the burning flats. But the Major would not be directed: he had his own fire to go to. As they pa.s.sed by he saw the policeman sink to his knees and then fold up with his forehead on the sticky tar surface of the road, evidently overcome by shock or concussion: one of his basket wings had been neatly broken in the middle and bent back behind the shoulderblade. A moment later and he had been left behind in the swirling dust and smoke, motionless as a dying insect in the road.

By the time they reached the timber yard two Chinese AFS units were already at work under a detachment from the Central Fire Station but it was clear that there was no chance of saving either the yard itself or the adjoining saw-mills, both of which were well alight. To make matters worse a stiff breeze was blowing from the north-east in the direction of a group of slum tenements standing a little way back from the river: an attempt was being made to arrest the wall of flame advancing towards them.

When the suction hose had been dropped in the river and the delivery hose had been laid out the pumps were started up: the Major and Ehrendorf went ahead with one branch, Mr Wu and Turner with the other. Kee, who was a mechanic, had taken charge of both pumps, a.s.sisted by Captain Brown, while Matthew, Cheong, Dupigny and the others ran back and forth as the branches advanced, laying out extra lengths, signalling to the pumps, uncoupling and coupling again, dizzy and breathless with heat. His head spinning, Matthew watched the jets from half a dozen branches curving towards the fire but nevertheless it grew and grew. Flames were now rising over half an acre of piled-up timber and roaring a hundred feet into the air and the water seemed to evaporate before it had time to touch any part of it. Once, when he was accidently splashed by water from another branch on his way to relieve the Major, who was lurching drunkenly and seemed about to fall, Matthew gave an involuntary cry of pain: the water was scalding.

Now the fire, like some inadequately chained-up oriental demon, was roaring and raging on his left, occasionally making sudden darts forward as if to seize him by the leg and drag him back to its lair. Behind him was the river; on his right was a wooden fence and, beyond that, the tenements whose windows he could see were packed with round Chinese heads, like oranges in a box, watching the fire as if it were no concern of theirs. 'Why doesn't someone tell them to hop it?' he shouted at Ehrendorf beside him, but Ehrendorf was too bemused by the heat to reply.

Beside this ocean of flame hours pa.s.sed in a dream. Every so often the men holding the branch were relieved and led back to splash themselves with the stinking water from the river. Again and again Matthew was scalded with water from another branch, but now he could hardly feel it. One moment he would be drenched from head to foot, the next his clothes would be dry and stiff on his body again.

Suddenly Matthew realized that this fire had a personality of its own. It was not just a fire, in fact, it was a living creature. He tried to explain this to Ehrendorf who was again beside him, holding on like himself to the same struggling branch: he gabbled away laughing at his insight but could not get Ehrendorf to comprehend. But it was so obvious! Not only did this fire have its own delightful fragrance (like sandalwood), it also had a restless and cunning disposition, constantly sending out rivulets of flame like outstretched claws to surround and seize the men fighting it and squeeze them to its fiery heart. But Ehrendorf, on whose forehead a large white blister had appeared, could only shake his head and mumble ... meanwhile, the blister grew and presently burst and fluid ran down his face but dried instantly, like a trail of tears on his cheeks. These claws of flame which stretched out from the fire, Matthew noticed, very often overran the lengths of bulging hose that lay between the river and the fire and, presently, on one of his stumbling journeys back and forth, he saw that the canvas skin of the hose had already been eaten so thin by the fire that he could see the water coursing through, as if these were semi-transparent veins pulsing in the direction of the fire to supply it with nourishment. But what they were really trying to do was not to nourish it but to poison it. The fire chuckled and crackled cheerfully at this, and said: 'You won't poison me me so quickly. You'd better watch out for your so quickly. You'd better watch out for yourself !' !'

55.

There was something odd about that fire, Matthew found. It hypnotized him. And not only him but everyone else round about. There was another air-raid before the end of the morning, but this time n.o.body paid it the least attention. The fact that somewhere above the smoke and heat some aeroplanes were dropping bombs seemed, beside that monstrous fire, altogether trivial.

The hours wore on without any appreciable change, except that the heat from the fire seemed to grow more intense. Early in the afternoon another AFS unit arrived and, without a word to anyone, they dropped their hoses into the river and set to work. This new team displayed even greater human variety than the Major's: if you looked at them closely you could see that it included Indians, Malays, Chinese, Europeans and even an African who spoke only French. But these men had been to another fire and their hands and faces were already so blackened and blistered that it had become difficult to tell them apart. They knew what they were about, though, and positioned their branches so that they could control and repulse the restless claws of fire that continually threatened to encircle the Major's men.

Matthew now found that he was present at the fire merely in excerpts with long blank intervals in between: one moment he would be holding the branch with someone else and trying to shield himself from the intense heat, the next he would be slumped on the river bank trying to explain to Ehrendorf how simple it would be for human beings to use co-operation instead of self-interest as the basis of all their behaviour. 'So many people already do!' he exclaimed, but Ehrendorf, who was not as accustomed to fire-fighting as Matthew, looked too distressed to reply. If you looked at teachers and nurses and all sorts of ordinary people, to whom, incidentally, society granted a rather reluctant and condescending respect, there were already many people whose greatest ambition was the welfare of others! Why should this not be extended to every walk of life? Ah, just you wait a moment, he protested, for Ehrendorf was opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish, I know that you want to say that such people, too, are motivated by self-interest but that they get their satisfaction in a different way. That is merely a psychological quibble! There's all the difference in the world between someone who gets his satisfaction from helping others instead of helping himself! Can you imagine how tremendous life would be? Look at all these men at the fire: they'd do anything for each other, though some of them don't even speak the same b.l.o.o.d.y language! But perhaps Matthew, instead of saying all this, had merely thought it, because when Ehrendorf at last managed to reply, his words did not seem to make any sense.

Ehrendorf, in case he should not survive, was urgently trying to pa.s.s on to Matthew his great discovery; Ehrendorf's Second Law! That everything in human affairs is slightly worse at any given moment than at any preceding moment. It was very important that this should be more widely known ...

'Say it again.'

Ehrendorf did so.

'What? But it's not true!'

'Yes it is, if you think about it.'

'Well, let me see ... Certainly things seem to be getting worse for us in Singapore, but not for the j.a.panese.'

'Yes, they are getting worse for the j.a.panese. It only seems seems that they're not. Because things keep happening which don't do anybody any good!' that they're not. Because things keep happening which don't do anybody any good!'

'Yes, but still there are lots of things ...' Before Matthew could finish what he was saying, however, he found himself back at the fire and feeling dreadfully exhausted. He inspected the person beside him, planning to give him a piece of his mind if it turned out to Ehrendorf. It was ridiculous that a man of his intelligence and culture should not be able to see how important it was that a vast, universal change of heart should take place. It was the only answer.

'You might just as well expect stockbrokers to be ready to die for the Stock Exchange,' chuckled the fire, trying to grasp his ankle with a fiery talon.

The man standing beside him, however, turned out to be not Ehrendorf but Dupigny. Dupigny's normally pallid face had been scorched an angry red by the heat and his hair, cut to about the height of a toothbrush where it flourished most stiffly on the back and sides of his head, appeared to be smouldering. He was about to ask for an explanation of Dupigny's presence when, pausing to blink his sore eyes, he suffered another irritating time slip and was once more holding the branch, but this time with a Chinese on whose face white blisters had risen where the skin covered bone. His face had become unrecognizable but it might have been Kee. Matthew had an urge to finger his own blisters which were becoming extremely painful, but he was afraid that if he removed one hand from the branch he would be too weak to hold it ... it would wrestle him to the ground and flail-out his brains.

From the fire there now came a series of dull reports, as of internal organs swelling and exploding. 'Paint chop!' howled the Chinese beside him, pointing to the depths of the fire where the skeleton of a fiercely burning hut could still be seen. It dissolved as Matthew watched, shielding his eyes. 'What about the tenements?' he asked, unexpectedly finding himself back in reality again. The tenements were still there, certainly, and so was the wooden fence, but the round Chinese heads had departed from the windows. Evidently someone had at last thought of evacuating them, which was just as well because the fire was still lapping in that direction.

Towards the end of the afternoon half a dozen huge cranes which had been towering over the fire in a semi-circle on its south-western fringe began to waver; then, one by one, they slowly buckled, toppling into the fire and sending up great fountains of sparks and burning debris which started fresh fires all around as they fell to earth again; these new fires threatened once more to cut off the men wielding the branches. The Major had become very concerned about the safety of his men and decided on a roll-call: even this was not easy to effect in the dense smoke and ever more intense heat. Finally it was completed. There was one man missing. n.o.body had seen Mr Wu since he had been relieved at one of the branches some time earlier: an hour, half an hour? it was impossible to say. But just as they were deciding with dismay that Mr Wu must have been cut off by a subsidiary fire stemming from one of the fallen cranes and consumed, he suddenly reappeared again, as cheerful as ever, together with a lorry loaded with Fraser and Neave's mineral waters which he had somehow commandeered, hired or hijacked ... and not a moment too soon for everyone at the fire was suffering badly from dehydration. The Chinese driver of the lorry, which had evidently been on a delivery round, then volunteered to join the firemen and was promptly enrolled. Next time, the Major reflected, it would be as well to bring food and drink; it had not occurred to him that they might have to spend such a long time away from the Mayfair.

At dusk the fire grew steadily more magnificent. As the sky darkened they became aware that the air was full of drifting sparks which fell around them in a steady golden drizzle which now and again grew more heavy, so that they wondered uneasily whether their clothes might catch fire. Nevertheless, the beauty of this golden rainstorm was such that Matthew was filled with great exhilaration, no longer feeling the sting of sparks on his unprotected face and forearms but gazing about in wonder like a child.

For some time now the fire had ceased to make progress towards the tenements and it was easier in the darkness to spot new advances it tried to make before they had time to become established. But although the fire itself stopped advancing, and even fell back a little, its core in which thousands of tons of logs were being consumed, grew hotter and hotter so that even at a considerable distance it could no longer be faced and the men with the branch could only work for a few minutes at a time. In the gloom it could be seen that the drainpipes on the tenement buildings had begun to glow red-hot, standing out like blood vessels on the dark ma.s.ses of the buildings. And now the wooden fence spontaneously burst into flame though the fire was nowhere near it: it blazed furiously for a minute or two, then melted away and a rich wine darkness returned.

Some time after midnight Adamson arrived, bringing two more units from another fire at the docks. He made a quick inspection, detailed the new men to hose down the tenement roofs and walls and then, after a word of encouragement to the exhausted men, returned to his own fire at the docks. Not long afterwards it was found that there were two men missing from one of the other AFS units: a frantic search for them began. One was found unconscious not far from the pumps, overcome by the heat and smoke: he was splashed with water from the river and given some lemonade from Mr Wu's lorry. Towards dawn the other man was found dead on the no man's land between the fire and the tenements where he had evidently collapsed. His scanty clothing had been burned off his back and his helmet was glowing a dull red. For some hours it was impossible to retrieve his body and when at last this was done and someone made to grasp his arm to lift him on to a stretcher, the arm came away from the shoulder like the wing of an overcooked chicken.

The fire reached its zenith at about five o'clock in the morning and thereafter it became possible to drive it back gradually, a few feet hour after hour: the plan was to contain it and let it burn itself out. Abruptly Matthew realized that it was daylight again: standing so close to the fire he had not noticed the sky growing paler. In the darkness it had been difficult to tell the Mayfair men from the others, but in the daylight it was not much easier, so dirty and unkempt were the figures staggering drunkenly about on the uneven ground. Moreover, by now there was so much hose running between the river and the fire that when it became necessary to put in another length it was a laborious job to discover which hose belonged to the Mayfair and which to other units; the job was made even more difficult by the exhausted state that everyone was in, for by now they had been almost twenty hours at the fire and those who fell down found it hard to get up again. At one point, while engaged in a weary search to trace the correct coupling in the hoses which lay like a bundle of arteries half-buried in sodden wood shavings, Matthew stumbled against a man from one of the other companies lying on the ground. 'Thanks, mate, I'm OK,' he said when Matthew tried to help him up. 'I'll be all right in a minute.' He peered up at Matthew, recognizing him. 'You still all right then?' It was Evans, the fireman who had told him about Adamson some days earlier.

'Don't worry, I'll be OK in a minute,' Evans repeated. So Matthew went on searching for the hose he wanted. But half an hour later Evans was still lying there.

Presently Matthew, too, stumbled and fell into a pile of wood shavings: they had a pleasantly fresh scent: he lay with his cheek against them and his head spinning. He felt wonderfully contented, however, and despite his weariness, exhilarated by the sense of comradeship with the other men. After a while he made feeble efforts to get to his feet again, but the best he could do was to sit up. He sat there in the wood shavings between the fire and the river, waiting for the strength to move: the fire was quiet now, and in daylight appeared shabby and dull but it still radiated the same stupendous heat. 'This is the life I should have been living years ago,' he thought, again experiencing an extraordinary sensation of freedom and fulfilment, 'instead of which I've wasted my time with theories and empty disputes! When the war is over I shall make myself useful to someone.'

Presently Ehrendorf and Dupigny came looking for him and between them got him to his feet. The Mayfair unit was being relieved, they told him. He would do better to sleep in one of the roster beds at the Mayfair. As they left, Evans was still lying exhausted on the ground. Hardly had they pa.s.sed through the shattered streets to the Mayfair when the sirens began to wail once more. Another raid, heavier even than the one on Tanglin, was just beginning on the crowded shop-houses and tenements of the Beach Road area.

56.

An indication of communal co-operation was provided yesterday when Indian pa.s.sive defence volunteers attended to the casualties in their area ... these casualties were mostly Chinese. One of the members of the Indian Youth League, Mr N. M. Marshall, was most helpful in providing a van for the removal of the casualties.

In a certain well-known hotel yesterday a bomb damaged the boys' quarters but this did not prevent patrons from having their midday meal. They went to the kitchen and helped themselves.

WORKERS, every hour counts in the battle for Singapore. Don't let the sirens stop your work. The enemy bombers may be miles away. They may never come near you. Carry on till the roof-spotters give the signal to take cover. The fighting men are counting on you. Back them up in the workshops, shipyards and offices. Every hour's work makes Singapore stronger.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nTPrevent a Blitzkrieg ... by White Ants!The Borneo Company Ltd.'DIFFICULT TO TAKE SINGAPORE,' SAYS j.a.p.'It would be risky to expect that the capture of Singapore will be an easy task to be fulfilled in a short time,' said the spokesman of the j.a.p War Ministry in a broadcast speech quoted by Rome radio.Reuter.ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nTShopping at Robinson's during alert periods. We had roof spotters on duty throughout alert periods to give final 'take cover' alarm when danger is near. Until this warning is given we endeavour to continue normal business. Members of our staff carry on and give shoppers cheerful service. We have shelter facilities and seating accommodation in the bas.e.m.e.nt for all persons who are in the building should the spotters' give the danger alarm. These arrangements have been made for the protection and convenience of our customers, so you need have no fear regarding shopping arrangements if you are at Robinson's during an alert period.Straits Times 21, 22, 23 January 1942 21, 22, 23 January 1942 In the course of this last week of January the city underwent a final metamorphosis: the peaceful and prosperous city of Singapore which Walter remembered from his early days had already been eroded by time and change, the way all cities are. But now there came a dreadful acceleration: in the course of a few days and nights many familiar parts of the city were demolished. Bombs fell in Tanglin, interrupting his important conversation with Nigel. They were sprinkled through the grounds of Government House and fell in a dense shower on Beach Road. They peppered the docks and the airfields and Bukit Timah. They fell all around the padang padang and the Munic.i.p.al Offices, shattering windows in High Street and Armenian Street beneath Fort Canning Hill, and blowing out one face of the clock in the tower of the Victoria Memorial Theatre where, in years gone by, Walter had so often gone with other parents to watch the children of the European community in Mr Buckley's Christmas pantomime. 'What was all this, anyway,' mused Walter grimly, 'but the physical evidence of all the more fundamental changes that had taken place in Singapore in the last two decades?' and the Munic.i.p.al Offices, shattering windows in High Street and Armenian Street beneath Fort Canning Hill, and blowing out one face of the clock in the tower of the Victoria Memorial Theatre where, in years gone by, Walter had so often gone with other parents to watch the children of the European community in Mr Buckley's Christmas pantomime. 'What was all this, anyway,' mused Walter grimly, 'but the physical evidence of all the more fundamental changes that had taken place in Singapore in the last two decades?'

Walter did not often abandon himself to abstract thought and when he did so it was a sign that he was in a state of depression. He found himself now, however, brooding on what makes up a moment of history; if you took a knife and chopped cleanly through a moment of history what would it look like in cross-section? Would it be like chopping through a leg of lamb where you see the ends of the muscles, nerves, sinews and bone of one piece matching a similar arrangement in the other? Walter thought that it would, on the whole. A moment of history would be composed of countless millions of events of varying degrees of importance, some of them independent, other a.s.sociated with each other. And since all these events would have both causes and consequences they would certainly match each other where they were divided, just like the leg of lamb. But did all these events collectively have a meaning?

Most people, Walter believed, would have said 'No, they are merely random.' Perhaps sometimes, in retrospect, we may stick a label on a whole stretch of events and call it, say, 'The Age of Enlightenment' the way we might call a long hank of muscle a fillet steak, but we are simply imposing a meaning on what was, unlike the fillet steak whose cells are organized to some purpose, essentially random. Well, if that was what most people thought, Walter did not agree with them.

Certainly, it was not easy to see a common principle in the great ma.s.s of events occurring at any moment far and near. But Walter believed that that was because you were too near to them. It was like being a single gymnast in a vast stadium with several thousand other gymnasts: your movements and theirs might seem quite baffling from where you stand whereas viewed from an aeroplane, collectively you are forming letters which spell out 'G.o.d Save The King' in a pattern of delightful colours.

Well, what was this organizing principle? Walter was vague about that. He believed that each individual event in a historical moment was subtly modified by an intangible mechanism which he could only think of as 'the spirit of the time'. If a j.a.panese bomber had opened its bomb doors over Singapore in the year 1920 no bomb would have struck the city. Its bombs would have been lodged in the transparent roof that covered Singapore like a bubble, or bounced off it into the sea. This transparent roof was 'the spirit of those times'. The spirit of these times, unfortunately, allowed the bombs of an Asiatic nation to fall on a British city. Walter had seen the roof growing weaker even during the early thirties: such ruinous j.a.panese compet.i.tion in the cotton trade would not have been permitted by the spirit of yet earlier times. Now the bubble no longer covered Singapore at all, or if it did, it let everything through.

Walter's own house had so far escaped damage though it had lost a few windows. in the air-raid of 20 January. But the atmosphere of the place had changed considerably since his wife and Kate had left. It was not too bad during the daytime: there was always a good deal of bustle now that he had moved his office staff up here from Collyer Quay. Once the office had closed down for the day, however, an eerie solitude descended on the house. He would sit fidgeting restlessly on the verandah or stroll on the lawn, waiting for the sirens or watching the searchlight batteries fingering the sky. Now he was back sitting on the verandah in darkness.

He was surprised that the absence of his wife and Kate should make such a difference. There were still people about. Nigel and Joan were usually somewhere mooning about the house (thank heaven, at least, that that looked like coming off successfully!). There were still the 'boys' and Abdul, though some of the kitchen staff had made themselves scarce. He occasionally saw Monty sloping in from the direction of the compound. No, what upset Walter was not the absence of people but the absence of normality. Life had taken on an aspect of nightmarish unreality. If someone had told him a year ago that on a certain date in January Solomon Langfield would be found under his roof he would have dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Yet not only was Langfield under his roof (his mortal remains, anyway) but at this very moment he was in the process of being embalmed by Dr Brownley on the dining-room table ... or would have been if Dr Brownley had known better how to proceed. As it was, for the last few minutes he had been on the telephone asking a colleague for instructions. The line was not a good one and he had to shout. So Walter's melancholy reflections had been punctuated by the medical instructions which Dr Brownley howled for confirmation into the instrument. Evidently he was concerned lest too much time should have elapsed since the old fox had gone to his reward. No wonder then if Walter felt that his grip on reality had loosened.

Embalming old Langfield at a time like this, what an idea! To embalm him at any time would have seemed to Walter an unprofitable undertaking, but with bombs raining on the city and corpses laid out everywhere on the pavements the idea of preserving the old goat was perfectly ludicrous. Yet his board of directors had demanded it 'for the sake of Langfield and Bowser Limited and its British and overseas shareholders' on whose behalf, they had explained, they were making 'this very natural gesture'.

'Very natural indeed!' grumbled Walter to himself. 'What could be more un unnatural? I should have had him stuck under the ground immediately. Mind you, with the sort of man they have on Langfield's board these days they would most likely have been out there in the graveyard at the dead of night helping the company secretary to dig him up again!'

Walter sighed, allowing his mind to wander on to the subject of graveyards ... Poor old Webb must be rotted away by now, he mused. His cane chair squeaked as he shifted about in it restlessly, trying to convince himself that the best thing would be to go inside and deal with some of the paper-work which awaited him. Abruptly he became aware that two wraith-like figures were moving in the shadows beyond the swimming pool. He stirred uneasily, trying to identify them. Nigel and Joan perhaps? But they had gone inside some time ago. The white wraiths shimmered nearer, growing brighter as they left the shadows of the trees and drifted into the open. Voices now reached Walter, raised in argument, and he relaxed for these were not the ghosts of old Webb and old Langfield returning to remonstrate with him from beyond the grave, but Matthew and Ehrendorf haggling over colonial policy well on this side of it.

'If by "progress" you mean the increasing welfare of the native then I'm afraid you're going to have a job proving the beneficial effects of these public works you make such a song and dance about ...' Matthew was saying: he had not forgotten his moment of illumination while sitting exhausted beside the fire at the timber-yard: he still intended to give up theorizing and devote his life to practical work of some kind. But there were one or two arguments he felt he had to finish first; besides, the mere presence of Ehrendorf, even mute, was enough to start his brain secreting theories and his tongue expressing them. As for Ehrendorf, he was peering ahead at the dark house with trepidation, half hoping, half dreading that they would b.u.mp into Joan. A moment ago he had bravely offered to accompany Matthew across the compound to see Walter about something, but he had not expected to feel quite so vulnerable.

'I suppose you're talking about railways ... In our African colonies something like three-quarters of all loans raised by the colonial governments are for railways. True, they're useful for administration ... but what they're mainly useful for is opening up great tracts of land to be developed as plantations by Europeans. In other words, it's done not for the natives' benefit but for ours! To which you will reply, Jim, that what benefits us, benefits them ... To which I reply ... "Not necessarily so!" To which you reply ...'

'Wait a moment,' came Dr Brownley's voice faintly to Walter on the darkened verandah, interrupting Matthew who had been gripped by such a frenzy of abstractions that he had been obliged to commandeer both sides of the argument. 'Let me make quite sure that I've got the embalming fluid down properly ... I repeat ... Liquor formaldehyde, 13.5cc. Sodium borate, 5 grammes ... and water to make up to 100cc. Is that correct? Yes, I see ... And with what? A bicycle pump?'

'A bicycle pump!' thought Walter giddily.