The Empire Trilogy Part 64

'All right, take the job! Be a showgirl!'

'But Franz!'

A plane roared low overhead and the heads of the audience, many of them wearing helmets, wilted in silhouette against the flickering screen. 'I suppose it would be as well to put one's tin hat on,' mused the Major, returning his attention to the screen. But he put the matter out of his mind. He was too susceptible to the cold, rather sad beauty of Hedy Lamarr. He had never been able to resist that sort of woman: she reminded him of someone he had known, oh, years ago ... That melancholy smile. 'What's she like now?' he wondered. 'Getting on, of course. Water under the bridge,' he thought sadly. Yes, Hedy Lamarr was very much the Major's cup of tea.

Now it was the dressing-room before the first night.

'Nervous?'

'Oh, Jenny, I ... I can't even put on my lipstick.'

'Relax, honey. They won't be lookin' at your mouth.' A breathless, manic Judy Garland burst in. The girls chattered excitedly. They were quelled by a man who said: 'Listen, kids-I've got something important to say to you ... in a few minutes you're going on in your first number. D'you know what that means? It means you're a Ziegfeld Girl. It means you're going to have all the opportunities of a lifetime crowded into a couple of hours. And all the temptations ...'

'Oh dear,' said Matthew, drowsing with his chin on his chest. 'Soon I shall go and look for Vera.'

'The "Dream" number. Places for the "Dream" number.'

'All right, girls. And good luck.'

The music swelled and, as it did so, a bomb falling not far away caused the building to shake and one or two small pieces of plaster fell from the ceiling. In the warm darkness the audience stirred uneasily and one or two silhouettes, crouching under the beam from the projector, made their way to the exit.

But this was the 'Dream' number. A plump, sleek tenor wearing a voluminous pair of Oxford bags began to sing: You stepped out of a dream, You are too wonderful to be what you seem.

Could there be eyes like yours?

Could there be lips like yours?

Could there be smiles like yours?

Honestly and truly, You stepped out of a cloud I want to take you away, away from the crowd ...

Matthew fell asleep, woke, fell asleep, woke again. His limbs had grown stiff from sitting so long in the same position. He longed to stretch out and sleep ... in clean sheets, in safety. The palms of his hands, raw and weeping from the gla.s.s splinters that clung to the hose, had begun to throb unbearably; on the screen one glittering scene followed another: he could no longer make sense of them. The screen filled with balloons from the midst of which Judy Garland emerged dressed in white. Then there were girls dancing on moving white beds, girls in white fur, girls with sheepdogs. Meanwhile, the plot was begining to thicken beyond Matthew's powers of comprehension with Lana Turner forsaking a truck-driver for an older man with an English accent, identified as a 'stage-door johnny', who offered her a meal in a French restaurant, jewels, minks. This man bore a very slight resemblance to the Major. Judy Garland danced frantically and sang: They call her Minnie from Trinidad, And all the natives would be so sad, Ay! Ay! Ay! ...

If Minnie ever left Trinidad!

She was wearing a turban, three rings of big white beads and a striped dress, through the open front of which there was an occasional glimpse of her childishly muscled legs. Matthew found something distressing about her manic innocence. He fell asleep and woke again.

Now there was the shadow of the fat tenor thrown on to the sail of a yacht. As he spun the wheel he sang: Come, come where the moon shines with magic enchantment, High up in the blue sky above you.

Come where a scented breeze caresses you with a lovely melody. While my heart is whispering 'I love you.'

Then Hedy Lamarr, reflected in a mirror misted over with steam, was getting into her bath, but Matthew could no longer make sense of it all and the others were asleep: even the Major missed this important development. Again and again the girls drifted up and down brilliant staircases wearing elaborate constructions of stars on twigs, of stuffed parrots, of spangles, trailing miles of white chiffon ... and outside, beneath the music of the soundtrack, the thudding of the guns continued without a pause. The girls now appeared to be clad only in flashing white beads. On and on they went filing up and down staircases. Their clothes grew ever more elaborate. One girl had an entire dead swan strapped to her chest with its neck round hers. Lana Turner, descending yet another staircase, but not so steadily now, for in the meantime she had taken to drink, at last pitched over senseless while supporting a whole flight of stuffed white doves.

'Gosh! How can a girl do that to her career?' asked one of the other girls.

'I must go and find Vera,' whispered Matthew to the Major. But the Major was still asleep. Matthew did not wake him but made his way stiffly out to the foyer. He stood there for a few moments gazing out in bewilderment as the last glittering staircase faded from his mind and was replaced by half a dozen motor-cars blazing fiercely in a car park a hundred yards away.

Although Matthew had no clear idea where he should look for Vera, it seemed to him quite likely that he would find her sooner or later. After all, the s.p.a.ce in which they could avoid each other was shrinking rapidly; they were like two fish caught in a huge net: as the net was drawn in they were inevitably brought closer together. The difficulty was that a million or more other people had been caught in the same net and now here they all were together, like herrings in a flashing bundle dumped on the quayside ... it was difficult to see one herring for all the others. Finding himself across the road from Raffles Hotel he went inside and telephoned the Mayfair. But Vera still had not returned and there had been no word of her.

In the past few hours a movement of refugees had developed from west to east across the city as the j.a.panese pressed in towards the outskirts of Tanglin and from Pasir Panjang towards the brickworks, Alexandra Barracks and the biscuit factory. As the fighting drew nearer, the Asiatic quarters emptied and people fled towards the Changi and Serangoon Roads with what few belongings they could carry, rushing together in a dying wave that would presently wash back again with diminished force the way it had come.

Matthew allowed himself to be carried along by the tide of refugees flowing from the direction of the padang padang and the cathedral. His watch had stopped and he had no idea what time it might be ... It had grown dark while he had been in the cinema and it was no longer possible to make out clearly the features of the people he saw in the street ... strained, blank, Oriental faces, men and women with swaying poles bouncing with the rhythm of their steps. Matthew felt sorry for them. What business was it of theirs, this war conceived hundreds of miles away and incubated in Geneva! and the cathedral. His watch had stopped and he had no idea what time it might be ... It had grown dark while he had been in the cinema and it was no longer possible to make out clearly the features of the people he saw in the street ... strained, blank, Oriental faces, men and women with swaying poles bouncing with the rhythm of their steps. Matthew felt sorry for them. What business was it of theirs, this war conceived hundreds of miles away and incubated in Geneva!

He plodded along mechanically, so tired that time pa.s.sed in a dream. The palms of his hands continued to throb, but at a distance, as if they scarcely belonged to him any more. Presently he reached a place where the macadam road-surface, melted by the heat of the day, had been set on fire by an incendiary bomb and was burning bright orange. He hurried past it, aware that it must create a dangerous pool of light to attract the planes which still lurked in the black sky above. There was evidence of looting, too: he found himself trudging through sand-dunes which lay across his path and turned out to be sugar from a nearby store. He saw men and boys crawling in and out of shattered shop windows and a shadowy figure with a rickshaw full of bottles offered to sell him a bottle of brandy for a dollar. Half a mile further on he stumbled into a twenty-five-pounder field-gun halted in a prodigious traffic jam at a fork in the road: there were other guns, too, a little further on, and a great deal of cursing could be heard. A young officer sat on the wheel of one of the twenty-five-pounders.

'You don't happen to know where we are, do you?' he asked Matthew. 'We spent the afternoon over there firing on a map reference given us by the Sherwood Foresters, but the j.a.ps landed a mortar on our OP truck and our maps went up with it.'

'I think this must be the Serangoon Road,' said Matthew. 'If you take the left-hand fork you go to Woodleigh. I don't know where the other one goes.'

'We're trying to get to Kallang.'

'Kallang should be over there somewhere,' said Matthew vaguely, pointing into the blackness with his throbbing hand. 'Those gun-flashes must be the ack-ack from the aeodrome, I should think. But you'll have to go back into town to get there. I don't think there's any road across. Are the j.a.ps somewhere about?'

'No idea, old chap. To tell the truth I doubt if I'd know one if I saw one. I've only been here a week. You'll probably find them up the road somewhere. Well, thanks a lot.'

Matthew walked on into the darkness. Now there came a trickle of refugees from the opposite direction. He could just make them out as they flitted by with their bundles, some dragging carts, others steering monstrously overloaded bicycles. A party of men with rifles pa.s.sed by: his pulse raced at the thought that this might be a j.a.panese patrol. The houses dropped away now; for a while there was a lull in the traffic and he could hear the guns grumbling for miles around. He wondered now whether it would be unwise to stretch out and sleep by the roadside, but plodded on, nevertheless. He was very thirsty, too, and his mind dully contemplated the thought of cold water as he walked. At length, however, he could walk no further: his legs would no longer carry him. An abandoned cart lay nearby at the side of the road. He crawled into it and fell asleep immediately with his arms over his face to protect it from mosquitoes. The battle for Singapore eddied and flowed around him while he slept.

72.

When Matthew awoke day was breaking: the country round about was already suffused in a dismal grey light that reminded him of winter in England ... with the difference that here it was sweltering hot still. While he had been asleep a lorry had parked a few yards away in the spa.r.s.e shade of a grove of old, healed-up rubber trees. A British officer and an Australian corporal sat beside it, swigging alternately from a khaki water bottle. Matthew's thirst had revived with horrible and astonishing power now that he was awake and he could hardly avert his eyes from the water bottle. The corporal noticed and said: 'You look as if you could do with a drink. Come and have some water for breakfast.'

Matthew took the water bottle and drank. He was so thirsty that he had to force himself to hand it back before he finished it. The officer's name was Major Williams. He said: 'You look a mess, old boy. What have you done to your hands?' Matthew told him. He nodded sympathetically and said: 'Come back with us and we'll get you a dressing.'

They climbed into the lorry's cabin and set off. Major Williams commanded a mixed battery of 37-inch heavy AA guns and 40-mm Bofors on the airfield at Kallang. He explained that the j.a.panese planes were at last flying low enough to be in range of the Bofors. Until the past week only the 37s had been able to get near them. He added: 'We lost half a dozen men, though, in a single raid yesterday. It's not as if there are even any b.l.o.o.d.y planes left on the aerodrome. I don't know why they bother.' They drove on some way in silence, Matthew beginning to feel thirsty again.

'None of this makes any sense to a chap like me,' Williams said after a while, gesturing at the rubble-strewn streets. 'I used to work in an insurance company before the war.'

They had barely reached the aerodrome when a siren began to wail. The corporal, who was behind the wheel, accelerated down one of the supply roads, slamming to a stop some fifty yards short of the nearest gun emplacement: all three sprinted for cover. 'We have ammo in the back,' the corporal said when he had recovered his breath. 'It wouldn't do to be caught in the open sitting on that lot.'

Now, all around the aerodrome the guns began to thunder. A squadron of j.a.panese bombers was approaching. This was not a high alt.i.tude carpet-bombing raid; the planes were coming in low and had split up before reaching the target to confuse the ack-ack guns. A scene of frenzied activity confronted Matthew in the sandbagged emplacement where he now found himself. He had no idea what was happening and hung back, anxious not to get in the way of the frantically working gun crew. He gazed in wonder at the great 37-inch gun looming above him; its two enormous, tyred wheels rearing off the ground gave it the appearance of a prancing prehistoric monster, Meanwhile the range was read off on the predictor, sh.e.l.ls were brought up, their fuses were set and they were stacked into the loading trays. At a little distance on either side an appalling shrieking and popping had begun as the Bofors guns poured their small, impact-fused sh.e.l.ls into the sky at the rate of two a second. To this shrieking and popping was added the prodigious roar of the heavy guns and the crump of bombs that made the ground ripple beneath his feet.

Matthew had never seen a gun fired at such close quarters and was overcome by enthusiasm. 'There's one, get it down!' he shouted, pointing and even climbing on to the sandbagged parapet in his excitement. 'Here it comes!' But the gunners paid no attention to him. They worked on grimly, for the most part not even looking up at the sky. They seemed to be working in a daze, automatically. Their hands were blistered and in some cases as raw as Matthew's own. The sweat poured off them. Sometimes they staggered under the weight of the sh.e.l.ls as they handed them up. 'Magnificent! What splendid men!' thought Matthew, shouting and waving them on like a boat-race crew.

But now another bomber was clumsily droning towards them over the field, very low at no more than a few hundred feet, perhaps, coming from the direction of the river. Matthew leaped up again on to the parapet of sandbags and pointed, speechless with excitement, for evidently the gunners had not seen it. They continued to fire, not at this plane which lingered tantalizingly almost on their muzzle, but at some other aircraft which drifted miles above them and was scarcely to be seen through the canopy of smoke and cloud. Matthew, who did not know that the huge 37-inch would have been useless against a hedge-hopping plane, it was too slow (what you needed was a fast-swinging, rapid-firing gun like the Bofors, a glorified machine-gun), jumped up and down, almost having a fit. 'Look at this one!' he cried in a frenzy and again he pointed at the bomber which was still crawling steadily and now rather menacingly towards them, barely skimming the row of wooden huts on the far side of the field.

'Fire!' howled Matthew, gesticulating. 'It'll get away. Oh, my G.o.d! Quick!' But the men continued to serve the gun not placidly, no, but steadily, grimly, and the gun continued to fire at the other plane, remote, maybe twenty thousand feet above them and no longer even visible but obscured once more by the canopy of smoke.

'Can they be deaf?' groaned Matthew, looking, it seemed, into the very eyes of the oncoming bomber-pilot, and concluded that perhaps they were deaf as anyone would be, standing beside those guns all day. 'This may be dangerous,' he thought, jumping down from the parapet. But his excitement was too much for him and he promptly sprang up again, to see the Bofors on each side of him firing over open sights at the plane which was now a mere hundred yards away. For a second the two streams of sh.e.l.ls formed two sides of a triangle whose apex was the bomber itself. The gla.s.s c.o.c.kpit suddenly vanished, as if vaporized. Matthew ducked involuntarily. A dark shadow covered him, like a lid on a pot. An appalling rush of air and a quaking of the ground, in complete silence, it seemed.

Matthew again jumped up, in time to see through the smoke the bomber departing peacefully over the flat, marshy ground in the direction of Geylang, but very low ... and suddenly it seemed to trip on some obstruction, and then tumble head over heels with a tremendous explosion. Now it became several independent b.a.l.l.s of fire that raced each other onwards over the flat ground burning brilliantly as they went and leaving the main hulk of the aircraft behind. Even the great noise this had caused had only reached Matthew faintly. The crew of the 37 had stopped firing, they were grinning, their mouths were working and they were waving their fists, Matthew swallowed and the sound suddenly came back. He, too, joined in the cheering. Around them all the guns had fallen silent for the moment. Williams appeared presently, having detailed one of his men to find Matthew a dressing. 'I'm glad we got another one before we give up,' he remarked.

'How d'you mean "before we give up"?' Matthew asked vaguely; he now felt shaken and disgusted with himself for having exulted over the death of the j.a.panese bomber-crew; even though they had presumably wanted to kill him and his companions it did not seem right to have allowed himself to get so excited.

'The rumour is we'll surrender some time today.' Williams shrugged. 'It can't be much longer, anyway. A few of us here are thinking of trying to make it to Sumatra by boat once the surrender is official. We've got hold of a motor-launch over by the Swimming Club on the other side of the field.' He gazed at Matthew sympathetically. 'There's room for you if you care to join us.'

'Could I bring a Chinese girl? She's on the j.a.panese blacklist.'

Williams nodded. 'It might be a squeeze. The plan is to leave as soon after nine o'clock as possible if we surrender today. If not, then tomorrow.'

'I may not be able to find her in time but I'll try. Don't wait for me if I'm not here.'

Presently Matthew set off on foot back towards the centre of the city but shortly after he had left the aerodrome gates he was given a lift by a taciturn young Scot driving a van. There was barely time for the vehicle to start moving, however, before there was the roar of an aero-engine overhead and bullets began to furrow the tarmacadam. A moment later the plane, a Zero, had overshot them, was climbing and turning. The driver accelerated and the van began to sway violently from side to side. Matthew craned out of the window, trying to follow the path of the plane as it circled round behind them.

'd.a.m.n! He's coming back.'

The van screeched to a stop beside the Kallang bridge, slewing round in the road so that it was sideways on to the direction they had been going. Matthew and the driver plunged out, one on each side of the road. Matthew took cover in the doorway of a deserted shop-house and sank to the ground with his back against the wall, feeling sick and exhausted. The Zero came back. Another rattle of machine-gun fire and it zoomed over again. Then all was quiet for a while. Nothing moved on the road or on the bridge. There was no sign of the young Scot. Matthew continued to sit where he was, staring at the buildings across the road.

Beside the ca.n.a.l was the Firestone factory: a long, cream, concrete building with green windows which had a slight air of a cinema, perhaps because of the name 'Firestone' in red gothic lettering attached to its facade. Matthew remembered now that Monty had pointed this building out to him on the evening he had first arrived. There had been some strike or other there. Some distance further along, sandwiched between the Gas Company gas-holder and the Nanyang Lights Company, was a bizarre little temple. Its outer wall was painted in red and white stripes and supported a mult.i.tude of strange, sculpted figures painted silver: a plump silver guru held up three fingers and gazed complacently back across the street at Matthew; beside him silver cows relaxed; the head of an elephant supported each gatepost while, on the arch above, a Buddha-like figure sat on a lotus flower and was saluted by two baby elephants with their trunks; on each side of the elephants, most curious, winged angels played violins and blew trumpets. Beyond, on the roof itself, an elephant-headed G.o.d rode a cow and a cobra rode a peac.o.c.k. In front of the temple, like an offering, a dead man lay in the gutter under a buzzing, seething black shroud.

'I must get us both on to that boat tonight, come what may,' he thought, longing to go home himself and forget the cruel sights he had seen. With an effort he forced himself to stand up and go in search of the young Scot and find out why he had not returned to the van.

73.

The last position from which a defence of Singapore might have been successful had been lost but still the city had not surrendered.

On the previous day, Sat.u.r.day, 14 February, General Percival had found himself at last having to wrestle with the problem he had been dreading for weeks: how long would it be possible to fight on. The water supply was on the verge of failing. On higher ground it had failed already. Drinking water especially was in short supply. Because of the damaged mains there were fires burning out of control on every hand. Twice he had visited Brigadier Simson at the Munic.i.p.al Offices to inspect the figures for the city's water supply for the previous day: he had found that two-thirds of the water being pumped was running to waste and that the situation was getting rapidly worse.

This was clearly a matter which must be discussed with the Governor who had, in the meantime, moved out of the bomb-damaged Government House and had taken up residence in the Singapore Club. This meeting with the Governor had left a distressing impression on Percival's mind. Sir Shenton Thomas was alarmed by the prospect of a serious epidemic in the city. Why then did Percival still hesitate to surrender? Wavell, now back in Java, had made it plain that he was expected to fight on as long as possible, if necessary by fighting through the streets. Behind this reluctance of Wavell's to countenance surrender there was undoubtedly the voice of Churchill himself. On the other hand, surrender was clearly the only way in which the civilian population might be spared some great disaster, either from an epidemic or from the fighting.

It is distressing to have to act under the impulsive orders of someone who, in a situation which concerns you deeply, does not know what he is talking about. Percival, as a deeply loyal soldier, was sufficiently nimble to dodge the notion that Churchill, trying to tell him what was best at a distance of several thousand miles, was nothing but a blockhead who had, moreover, already committed his full share of blunders with respect to the Malayan campaign. But no sooner had Percival dodged this disloyal thought than he found himself having to elude the grasp of another, even more cruel conviction: namely, that the Governor now sitting opposite him was not real was not real. Nor was it only the Governor who suffered this disability: his wife did, too, and his staff, and indeed, everyone here in the Singapore Club and, come to that, outside it. For it had suddenly dawned on Percival that he was the victim of a cruel and elaborate charade: that the moment he left the Governor's presence the fellow would cease to exist. Percival pa.s.sed a hand over his brow and tried to collect himself. Could it really be that Churchill, Wavell, Gordon Bennett, even his own staff, had no real substance, that they were merely phantasms sent to test and torment him, incredibly lifelike but with no more reality than the flickering images one saw on a cinema screen? Wherever he looked, yes, these deceptive images would spring up, but the instant he looked away again they would vanish. What evidence was there that they continued to exist when he was not looking at them? Why, he doubted whether the Governor, relying on the dignity of his office to deter Percival from touching him, even bothered to cloak himself with a tactile as well as visual semblance. He could probably poke a finger through him! For a moment, staring at the Governor suspiciously over the little table between them, Percival had an urge to experiment, an urge to reach out and grasp him by the throat. With an effort of will, however, he mastered himself and muttered: 'While we still have water we must fight on. It is our duty.' But he continued to stare at the Governor until the latter grew uneasy.

'Whatever ails the fellow?' Sir Shenton wondered while Percival's eyes, which for some reason had become unusually piercing, bored into him like the bits of two drills. 'He's been under a frightful strain, of course. But then, we all have.'

The Governor was somewhat relieved when Percival at last stood up to leave. Before he did so, he took the opportunity of returning once more to the subject of the epidemic he feared, but less with the hope of persuading Percival to surrender than of making sure that there was no doubt about his own position should the epidemic in fact occur. Percival nodded, licking his lips in an odd manner, and then asked unexpectedly: 'What will you do now ... I mean, immediately after I have left this room?'

'What?' The Governor was taken aback by this question which seemed to him peculiar, even impertinent. What business was it of Percival's what he was going to do now? Or ... wait. Wait a moment. Did Percival suspect that what he was about to do was to send a cable to the Colonial Office putting all responsibility for the decision not to surrender on to the Forces? He replied shortly that he must now visit his wife, who was sick. Percival nodded at this information, smiling in a rather offensive and knowing way, as if to say: 'I'll bet you are!' and then took his leave.

Still, the Governor could not help wondering about Percival's odd behaviour, even while drafting a cable to the Colonial Office to point out that there were now over a million people within a radius of three square miles. 'Many dead lying in the streets and burial impossible. We are faced with total deprivation of water which must result in pestilence. I have felt that it is my duty to bring this to notice of General Officer Commanding.' There! His flanks protected, the Governor felt a little better. Still, there was no denying it, they were all in a pickle.

That night Percival dreamed not about the war but about an epidemic. 'What has your epidemic got to do with me?' he demanded indignantly. The Governor replied: 'If you don't understand, it's not much use trying to explain.' Then the Governor faded and Percival slept in peace for a while, until presently a little group of military advisers a.s.sembled round his bedside led by Hamley, author of The Operations of War Explained and Ill.u.s.trated. The Operations of War Explained and Ill.u.s.trated. They were less confident than they had been on previous nights, but nevertheless, recommended a bold stroke: the million people who now crowded into Singapore Town should arm themselves as best they could with whatever lay to hand and all charge simultaneously at the same point of the j.a.panese lines. When they had finished with one point they might turn to another, and so on until the j.a.panese were defeated. 'An attack by a million people,' declared Hamley pompously, 'is not to be shrugged off lightly.' They were less confident than they had been on previous nights, but nevertheless, recommended a bold stroke: the million people who now crowded into Singapore Town should arm themselves as best they could with whatever lay to hand and all charge simultaneously at the same point of the j.a.panese lines. When they had finished with one point they might turn to another, and so on until the j.a.panese were defeated. 'An attack by a million people,' declared Hamley pompously, 'is not to be shrugged off lightly.'

Now Sunday dawned, ominous, unbearably hot. Percival took communion and prayed fervently: he found it hard to masticate the wafer he was given: his mouth was too dry. However, his frame of mind was somewhat better. Only once, noticing the chaplain gaze at him with interest and compa.s.sion, did he find himself wondering whether this cleric had any other existence beyond the walk-on part of lending verisimilitude to his own Sunday devotions. He shrugged the thought off hastily. There would be time enough to worry about the existence of other people. The campaign was almost at an end.

He had called a conference of all his commanders for nine-thirty a.m. Brigadier Simson now reported that a complete failure of the water supply was likely within twenty-four hours. In the light of this news there were only two possible courses of action. One was to counter-attack and recover the reservoirs and the food depots at Bukit Timah. The other was to surrender.

It was agreed unanimously that there was no real alternative. The meeting was over within twenty minutes and Percival immediately set to work on the delicate and humiliating task of negotiating Singapore's surrender. It was not until late in the afternoon that, after much difficulty, Percival found himself at the Ford factory, sitting opposite the j.a.panese Commander, General Yamas.h.i.ta. Although a cease-fire had already been ordered for four p.m. it was agreed that hostilities should officially cease at eight-thirty p.m. Yamas.h.i.ta conceded that his three fighting divisions should remain outside the city that night to prevent any disorder or excesses. At no point during this trying interview did General Yamas.h.i.ta seem anything but completely real to General Percival (only Torrance, his Chief of Staff, who sat on his right, occasionally dimmed like an electric light in a thunderstorm).

This Sunday, then, was the last day of the defence of Singapore, the last day of freedom for the British who remained on the Island ... almost, you might say with hindsight, the last day of the British Empire in these parts. It took time for news of the impending surrender to percolate through the stricken city, particularly since the bombing, strafing and sh.e.l.ling continued unabated all morning and afternoon. Matthew still had not heard the news as he struggled in the mid-day heat near the Firestone factory to get the body of a young Scot into the back of the van ... as a matter of fact, by now he had lost count of the days and could not have told you that today was Sunday. Nor had the Major heard the news as, after a rather odd tiffin of tinned sardines and tinned pears, he and Captain Brown held a cut-rate auction of the remaining girls from the Poh Leung Kuk in the presence of the handful of bridegrooms he had persuaded to a.s.semble, thanks to the good offices of Mr Wu. The bridegrooms were apathetic and uneasy and bidding was not brisk. But the Major comforted himself with the thought that to get them husbands of any description in the circ.u.mstances was not bad going. How would those girls who had declined to accept one or other of the Major's bridegrooms fare during the inevitable j.a.panese occupation of Singapore? He suspected that some of them, to judge by the lipstick and nail-varnish that was beginning to reappear, might fare all too well.

Matthew was now delivering the young Scot's body to the General Hospital in Outram Road. It had taken an age to get the body into the van (a corpse is heavy and Matthew was weak) and it was two o'clock exactly as he reached the hospital. There, beside one of the paths leading up the slope to the main building, a ma.s.s grave had been dug. He looked up, afflicted by the sight of so many bodies laid out on the lawn for burial, and noticed the white clock tower above the portico of the main block with its four small, black clock faces. It came as a shock, somehow. The clock looked so peaceful nestling there beneath drooping cla.s.sical garlands while on the ground below there was nothing to be seen but carnage and violent death. Two o'clock.

Two, three hours pa.s.sed in a dream. The guns had fallen silent at last and bombs ceased to fall on the city. At the Mayfair there was no sign of Vera. Matthew longed to lie down there and sleep but time was slipping away and he must find her soon if they were to escape that night. A little later, without remembering how he had got there, he found himself sitting on his heels and gazing down at the wall of the storm-drain that ran along Orchard Road; part of it had fallen in, revealing a great wedge of neatly packed pink bricks, like the roe of a gutted fish, each with the word Jurong neatly printed on its back.

Later again he pa.s.sed Dr Brownley scurrying along Battery Road in the direction of Whiteaways': he called to him but the Doctor paid no attention. His eyes were shining, his pulse was racing, he suffered a painful, joyful constriction of his respiration. In his ears, instead of Matthew's greeting, a celestial music sounded, while in his pocket rested $98550 cents which in a moment he would be exchanging for the only true object of his desire, that article which had fixed him with its basilisk stare from Whiteaways' window, whatever it was. Dr Brownley was flying as if to greet a lover (but let him pa.s.s on, for which of us is so poor in spirit that he has never experienced the delights of being united in bonds of ownership with a piece of merchandise?).

Then Matthew, having wished the Doctor well under his breath, was standing in the cathedral grounds inspecting a collection of furniture that had been carried outside. The pews, he noticed, were made of solid wood, such as one might find in any English church, but with woven rush seats and backs as a concession to the tropics. Inside, a hospital had been improvised. The shuttered sides of the building stood open, as did another row of shutters just beneath the timbered roof. Rows of wounded had been laid on the brown stone flags beneath a couple of dozen silently revolving fans which hung from elbowed brackets along the aisle. Nearer to the altar, a number of men and women knelt in prayer, some of them in uniform. From a distance this scene, like that in the grounds of the General Hospital, appeared relatively peaceful. It seemed to Matthew that the human beings in it looked quite insignificant compared with the great building which rose above them. The fans, revolving like propellers some distance below the dim heights of the roof, gave him the restful impression that he was under water ... It was only when he looked with more particular attention at the wounded on the floor that he realized that here, too, people lay shattered and dying. Shocked, he fell back, intending to continue his search somewhere else. But then, at last, he saw Vera working among the patients not far away.

Vera saw him at almost the same moment. She hurried towards him but, at the last instant, hung back. He had thought at first that she was wearing a red and white dress. Now he saw that it was an overall and that she was soaked in blood from head to foot.

'I know,' she said immediately. 'I'm going to change as soon as I can.' She smiled at him then and burst into tears.

They went outside for a moment. 'D'you notice something odd?' he asked suddenly. 'There are no birds. They've all gone. That's why it seems so quiet.'

'Tell me where you'll be later,' Vera said. 'I can't talk to you now. I must go.'

'I'll come back here just after seven. There may be a boat leaving tonight which we could both take.'

Vera borrowed his handkerchief, dried her eyes, smiled at him and hurried away. He retired a little way into the grounds but lingered for a while, watching her as she moved from one patient to another.

Later, after lying down for some time on the cathedral lawn, he joined the crowds milling slowly about in Raffles Place. A strange hush had fallen over everything: in it the occasional crash or crackle of a fire not far away in Battery Road or Market Street could be clearly heard. People drifted, for the most part aimlessly, in and out of the shops that were still open, or simply stood about talking in little groups. Many people had suitcases or bundles, evidently refugees from up-country or from districts lying outside the British-held perimeter. There were a number of forlorn-looking children: some of them had been bedded down on the street or in doorways by their parents. There were a great many soldiers: some of them, in defiance of the supposed destruction of liquor, were drunk and belligerent.

A dense crowd had gathered at the far end of Raffles Place in front of the Mercantile Bank. There, under a thick stone colonnade, someone was shouting. Matthew pressed forward into the crowd to see what was happening. A sculpted stone flame resembling an ice-cream cone twirled up over the grandiose entrance to the Mercantile Bank. Above that, two fluted, indigestible stone pillars supported four more twirled ice-cream cones set in dishes. It was beneath this important facade that a ragged British Tommy had chosen to address the crowd. Matthew strained to hear what he was saying.

'A dirty capitalist war!' he was shouting. 'We've no reason to be here at all. Listen, mates, which of us gives a d.a.m.n for the bleedin' Chinese? Let 'em sort it out for themselves with the b.l.o.o.d.y j.a.ps ... What's it to do with us? I'll tell you what ... It's greedy profiteers in London, that's what it is ...'

A drunken shout of approval rose from the troops packed together in front of this vociferous figure. There were jeers, too, and bitter laughter. Matthew muttered: 'No, that's all wrong ...' and tried to force his way through the mob. But now, abruptly, a fight flared up just beside him and in the sudden thrashing of fists and boots Matthew was shoved backwards and somebody's elbow caught him a blow in the face. He fell and for a moment, dazed, was afraid that the crowd would surge over him before he could get up. He could still hear the Tommy ranting as he scrambled to his feet and worked his way round to the right by the Meyer Building, muttering to himself as he went.

Now he had shoved his way in under the colonnade and was almost within reach of the table on which the soldier was standing, still declaiming wildly against the profiteers and their native henchmen. At this moment a missile, perhaps a bottle, hurled from the crowd, struck the speaker and he fell suddenly to his knees, crouching on the table like a wild animal, blood pouring from his temple. Matthew saw the glinting studs of his boots as he knelt there with his head between his knees. Then someone helped him off the table and Matthew immediately jumped up in his place, holding up his hand and shouting: 'No! Don't you see? Things don't have to be like this ... Please listen to me! It's just a question of how we approach each other. People seem to think that self-interest ... No, what I mean to say really ... Wait! We're no different from each other, after all! We don't have to have ... yes, I believe it, and one day we won't! We won't have them ...! We shall live ...!' He tried to say more but a great wave of jeering and yelling surged forward from the crowd and his voice broke. 'Oh, don't you see, you're playing their their game ...' he muttered, gazing down in distress at the baying crowd in front of him until, a moment later, a bottle came winging end over end towards him and struck him a numbing blow in the ribs. He staggered back with a gasp. A hand gripped his arm firmly and dragged him off the table. He found himself looking at the grinning face of Dupigny. game ...' he muttered, gazing down in distress at the baying crowd in front of him until, a moment later, a bottle came winging end over end towards him and struck him a numbing blow in the ribs. He staggered back with a gasp. A hand gripped his arm firmly and dragged him off the table. He found himself looking at the grinning face of Dupigny.

'Francois,' he muttered. 'What are you doing ...?'

'D'you want to get yourself killed?' asked Dupigny. 'Now is not the moment for such nonsense.'

74.

At the Adelphi Hotel beside the cathedral someone had had the foresight to fill several baths before the water supply had failed. Although these baths had already been used by several people and the water in them had taken on a dark grey colour, both Matthew and Dupigny took advantage of them and were feeling distinctly refreshed as they emerged from the hotel into the twilight and crossed the road to the cathedral grounds. Dupigny himself had decided not to try to escape. He was too old, he had explained with a shrug, and besides 'avec la Boche en France' ... He would stay and keep his friend the Major company during the internment which no doubt awaited them. He had agreed to drive Matthew and Vera to the boat waiting at Tanjong Rhu, however.

A great crowd had gathered around the cathedral in the dusk, and seeing it Matthew began to feel anxious again, lest they should not be able to locate Vera. A service was in progress and these people standing in devout silence several deep around the building were those who had been unable to find room inside. As Matthew and Dupigny searched the fringes of this crowd the congregation began to sing: Praise, my soul, the King of To his feet thy tribute bring.

Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven Who like me his praise should sing?