Torrance: Escape from Singapore

by Torrance- Escape from Singapore (retail) (epub)

  ‘I’ll meet you out front in a few minutes,’ Torrance told Rossi. ‘I want to find out if Kay’s still here.’

  Rossi nodded and headed for the door. Torrance picked his way through the bodies to the reception desk. ‘I’m looking for Dr Sheridan?’ he told the orderly on duty there. He could only see orderlies and doctors; presumably all the female staff had already been evacuated, or were on their way off the island, like the Australian nurses he had seen at the docks.

  ‘There’s no Dr Sheridan on the staff here.’

  ‘She wasn’t on the staff here, she was a patient. Bullet wound in her side?’

  ‘You’re looking for Dr Sheridan?’ asked another orderly who was passing. ‘She discharged herself this morning.’

  ‘Discharged herself? Was she fit to leave?’

  ‘Her husband came for her. He had two berths on the Queen of the Orient, so it was better for her to go.’

  It felt like a kick in the guts. Torrance had known Dr Sheridan was still technically married, but he had thought the husband was out of the picture after she had caught him in an act of infidelity. Torrance and Dr Sheridan had spent a few days together escaping from the Japanese upcountry and in that time he really had believed the two of them had formed a bond. Now he saw how mistaken he was.

  He found Rossi smoking a cigarette in the gardens in front of the hospital. ‘Did ye find her?’

  ‘She sailed on the Queen of the Orient. With her husband.’

  Rossi winced in sympathy. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Fuck her,’ Torrance said savagely. ‘If the silly Yank bitch would rather stay with her two-timing bastard of a husband, good luck to her. I’m better off without her. Bints are like buses anyway: miss one, there’ll be another one along in a few minutes.’

  * * *

  ‘Miss Polyakova?’

  Irina snapped groggily from sleep and looked up to find a surgeon standing over the chair she had been sleeping in. His white coat was splashed with blood, making him look more like a butcher than a surgeon, his jaw was covered in stubble and the bags under his bloodshot eyes made it look as though he had not slept in a month.

  She rose to her feet. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’ve finished operating on His Majesty. He’s lost a great deal of blood and ideally I’d like to give him a transfusion, but we ran out of his blood type two days ago. However, his condition is stable and I believe there is every chance he’ll make a full recovery in time.’

  ‘Thank heavens! May I see him?’

  ‘He’s sleeping. You can see him, but please don’t wake him. He needs rest now.’

  She nodded, and the surgeon directed a Malay orderly to take her to the recovery room. There were half a dozen other men recuperating in the room with the sultan. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t arrange a private room for him,’ said the orderly. He whispered so as not to wake any of the sleeping men.

  ‘With things as they are, he would not want special treatment.’

  The orderly nodded and left her to it. She gazed down at the sultan for a few minutes. He seemed to have aged ten years in the past two days and looked dreadfully frail. Sweat beaded his brow, and she dabbed it off with a wadded handkerchief.

  Hamilton and Kitty arrived. ‘How is he?’ murmured the colonel.

  ‘Stable, the doctor says,’ said Irina. ‘No thanks to you.’

  Hamilton doffed his panama. ‘You know we would have done anything to avoid this happening.’

  ‘Anything but leave my Alex be.’ She turned abruptly on her heel and marched out of the recovery room.

  She saw a door across the corridor marked ‘Sluice Room’. Opening it, she stepped into a small room piled high with bed pans, but the smell was of disinfectant rather than human waste. She lit a cigarette and opened the window. Beyond the car park at the back of the hospital, the ruddy glow of the fires burning at the fuel depot on Pulau Bukum silhouetted the tree-covered ridge of Pasir Panjang. The crackle of small-arms fire filled the night, and muzzle flashes and tracer rounds twinkled just a few streets away. Even as she watched, there came a bright flash like sheet lightning as a shell burst in a street nearby, the crack of the explosion startling her a heartbeat later.

  She took a small rubber wedge from a pocket and dropped it on the floor behind the door, using the toe of one of her boots to jam under the door. Anyone trying to open it from the other side would be able to force it open eventually, but it would buy her enough time to hide what she was doing.

  Unbuckling the flap of her handbag, she took out a box seven inches high, five wide and three deep, clearly labelled with the name of one of the world’s leading brands of tampons, which helped to avert any unwanted male curiosity, in particular any inclination they might have had to take it out of the handbag, because if they had they would have noticed it was a good deal heavier than a box of tampons had any right to be. Opening it, she revealed a recessed panel covered with knobs, switches and dials. She set it down on a worktop and next took out an item that looked like a coffee grinder, clipping that to the table edge next to the larger box. Pressing a tiny stud in the back of the box made a panel fall open, and she unravelled two wires from it, one of which plugged into the thing that looked like a coffee grinder but wasn’t, the other ending in an earpiece that she inserted into one ear. She turned the handle on the coffee-grinder-like object to generate power for the radio with one hand, while the other twiddled a dial until she was picking up Japanese military transmissions in the vicinity. Even when sending only in Morse, the radio only had a range of a mile or so, but it was clear there were Japanese troops a lot closer than that. She waited for the soldier transmitting a message to his battalion headquarters to signal that his message was concluded and he was ready to receive, before inserting her own message.

  * * *

  ‘Pull up so I can ask that fellow the way.’ Sitting next to Toriyama in the cab of the Dennis lorry, Shimura nodded to where a grimy-looking superior private sat by the side of the Ayer Rajah Road, one arm in a sling crimson with fresh blood, a cigarette lolling from his lips.

  Toriyama did as he was bid and Shimura wound down the window. ‘Where’s the Fifty-Fifth Regiment?’

  The superior private did not seem to hear him at first, but sat staring at nothing. Shimura snapped his fingers at him until he finally lifted his haunted eyes to where the sergeant sat in the cab. ‘The Fifty-Fifth Regiment?’ Shimura repeated.

  With his good arm, the superior private jerked a thumb up the road. ‘That way. But you don’t want to go that way.’

  ‘Why not? What’s up there?’

  ‘Hell on earth.’

  ‘Didn’t we just come from there?’ Toriyama put the engine in gear and drove up the road very slowly. Drifting smoke obscured his view of the obstacles up ahead, including many shell craters. A yellow glow by the roadside resolved itself into a still-burning Ha-Go tank. There were corpses everywhere, so many Toriyama could not help but run over them.

  A lieutenant in a steel helmet emerged from the smoke, motioning them to stop. Toriyama braked.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded the lieutenant.

  ‘Fifty-Fifth Regiment,’ said Shimura.

  ‘Two hundred yards up the road on the right. You’d better leave the lorry here.’

  Toriyama parked up and they climbed down from the cab, the corporal making his way to the back of the lorry to order what was left of the platoon to disembark. Three others had died trying to capture Sergeant Cochrane, and when they had finally overwhelmed him – out of ammo and bleeding from half a dozen bullet wounds – Shimura had finished him off with a single shot to the forehead.

  They advanced cautiously up the road the lieutenant had indicated in single file. They were met by Sergeant Kurosaki, with whom Shimura had passed through training more years ago than either of them cared to remember. His uniform was every bit as grimy as those of Shimura and his men, and he had three days’ growth of beard on his chin. He had tucked pieces of foliage into the camouflage netti
ng stretched over the dome of his helmet, and the leaves rustled with every nod of his head. ‘Shimura! Where in hell have you been?’

  ‘Secondment to U-Kikan.’

  ‘That explains why I haven’t seen you for a few days. I thought you must have been killed.’

  ‘You might try to sound pleased to find you were mistaken! Where’s Major Hamaguchi?’

  ‘Died in an attack this morning.’ Kurosaki glanced at Shimura’s platoon. ‘Is this all that’s left of your men?’

  Shimura nodded.

  ‘Very well, you’d better attach yourself to my platoon for now.’

  ‘Any chance of some rice? We haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.’

  Kurosaki told Toriyama where he and the rest of the Shimura’s men could find the platoon cooks preparing the rations. ‘No, not you, Shimura,’ he added as the sergeant made to follow his men. ‘You come with me, I’ll show you what you missed out on.’

  ‘What about my breakfast?’

  Kurosaki handed him something in a bag of waxed paper that rustled.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Shimura.

  ‘An English delicacy,’ said Kurosaki. ‘Deep fried slices of potato. Not very nutritious, but they help to keep hunger at bay.’

  Following the other sergeant up a path that led diagonally across a tree-covered slope, Shimura tore the bag open and popped one in his mouth. He pulled a face. ‘It’s crunchy!’ he protested.

  ‘I think they’re supposed to be like that.’

  ‘They’re not very tasty, are they?’

  ‘English cooking, what do you expect? Quiet now: we’re getting close to the English lines.’

  From a ledge amongst the trees, they could see over the drifting smoke to where the road continued up the valley below to Singapore Town. Rolls of concertina wire lined the pavements on both sides, channelling anyone travelling up the road to where two concrete pillboxes gave one another covering fire half a mile up the road. The tarmac in front of the pillboxes was littered with the bloody corpses of men wearing turbans.

  ‘Wait, those aren’t Indians!’ Shimura suddenly gasped out loud. ‘Those are our boys!’

  Kurosaki nodded grimly. ‘We’ve been trying to fight our way past those two pillboxes for two days now. Major Hamaguchi thought a platoon might be able to get close enough to throw grenades through the gun slits if they pretended to be Punjabis, so they made turbans and marched towards the enemy in a column of four. We knew they wouldn’t pass muster under close inspection, but Hamaguchi was sure the Malays would be confused enough to delay firing just long enough for him and his men to assault the pillboxes.’

  ‘Malays? The English are using Malay soldiers?’

  Kurosaki nodded.

  ‘You should be able to tear through them in a matter of minutes.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Hamaguchi thought.’ Kurosaki gestured to the corpses littering the road. ‘Don’t let their usual easy-going demeanour fool you, those bastards fight like demons.’

  ‘Did you say Hamaguchi advanced in a column of four?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘English soldiers march in columns of three.’

  Kurosaki snorted. ‘No wonder they weren’t fooled, then. What an annoying mess!’

  Footsteps sounded on the path behind them. Both turned back, Shimura levelling his Thompson, Kurosaki his Arisaka, but it was only Corporal Wakabayashi. ‘There’s a kenpei captain looking for you, Sergeant.’

  ‘For me?’ Kurosaki asked in surprise.

  Shaking his head, Wakabayashi indicated Shimura. ‘For him.’

  ‘This kenpei,’ said Shimura. ‘He wouldn’t happen to wear a brown leather jacket and a pair of dark glasses, by any chance?’

  Wakabayashi grinned. ‘How did you guess?’

  Shimura sighed. ‘Captain Yashiro. It’s the bastard who’s had us chasing English soldiers all over the west end of the island. What does he want now?’

  ‘He didn’t say,’ said Wakabayashi.

  ‘Why don’t we go and ask him?’ suggested Kurosaki.

  They made their way back down the path to find Yashiro talking to a couple of other NCOs by the commandeered Humber Wakabayashi was using for a radio truck.

  ‘Where’s your commanding officer?’ Yashiro asked Kurosaki.

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Then who’s in command here?’

  ‘I suppose I am. Unless you want the job?’

  Grinning, Yashiro shook his head. ‘I’ve still got to get the sultan,’ he reminded Shimura.

  ‘The sultan is safely behind enemy lines.’

  ‘I know.’ Yashiro pointed up the road. ‘One thousand metres up that road, to be precise.’

  ‘Meaning no disrespect, Yashiro-sama, but how can you possibly know that?’

  ‘I have a spy in the sultan’s party.’

  ‘And he waited until now to get in touch?’

  ‘He’s a she. And she can’t very well take out her radio and send me a message when she’s surrounded by English soldiers, can she? Also, her radio is only short-range. But someone in the Eighteenth Engineer Battalion picked up a transmission from her this morning. She says he’s been wounded and he’s lying in a room on the second floor of the Alexandra Barracks Hospital.’ Yashiro pointed into the drifting battle smoke. ‘One thousand metres up that road.’

  ‘You’re sure she was the one who sent that message, Yashiro-sama?’ asked Toriyama. ‘It sounds like the bait for a trap to me.’

  ‘She has certain code words to use to let me know if she’s been compromised and is being forced to transmit a message against her will.’

  ‘All right,’ said Shimura. ‘Let’s suppose she’s right, the sultan is in a hospital a thousand metres up this road. What do you expect us to do? There’s a battalion of Malay soldiers dug in seven hundred metres up the road, covering the approaches with Vickers guns, Brens, you name it. And they’ve been beating off all comers for two days now.’

  Yashiro climbed into the back of the Humber, switched on the radio and put on the headphones. He twiddled the dials, then pressed down the transmit button on the microphone. ‘Bush Warbler to Sake Cup, Bush Warbler to Sake Cup, do you read me…? I need infantry reinforcements… say, a battalion… and an artillery bombardment.’ He read the grid reference for the two pillboxes off the map. ‘How soon can you get the reinforcements here…? Fine… yes, everything you’ve got. Obliterate the place.’

  Seventeen

  Saturday 1250 – Saturday 1600

  The dockyard gates were closed when Torrance and Rossi found Quinn and Shapiro there, reading the latest edition of the Straits Times. The challenges of producing a newspaper in the face of the present situation had reduced it to no more than a single, one-sided broadsheet. Ack-ack guns coughed in the distance, spitting up shells that exploded with little puffs of white smoke amongst the droning black specks, while bombs fell on the streets below. But the bombs were falling at least a mile away, and as long as there was no immediate threat, Torrance scarcely paid any attention to that sort of thing. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked the two Australians.

  ‘See for yourself.’ Quinn handed him the news-sheet.

  Torrance read out the headlines. ‘“City’s new defence line… heavier bombing and shelling… Fighting in Singapore is now taking place on a line running from about Ang Mo Kio Village, MacRitchie Reservoir and Pasir Panjang…”’

  ‘Look at this.’ Quinn indicated a small box on the right-hand side of the page.

  Torrance cleared his throat. ‘“All evacuation suspended as from today. By order of the General Officer Commanding, Malaya, all evacuation from Singapore is entirely suspended. This applies also to women and children.”’ That was the entire article. He looked up at the two Australians. ‘No more ships?’

  ‘No more ships,’ confirmed Quinn.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ asked Rossi. ‘Try to get back to our units?’

  ‘As far as I can make out, that�
�s what most of the Aussies in Singapore are trying to do,’ said Quinn. ‘But the whole thing’s a bloody mess and the only blokes who know what the hell’s going on are the Japs—’ He broke off as a shell screeched overhead to land with a crash a few streets away, waiting for the last reverberations of the explosion to die away before continuing. ‘It’s only a matter of time before they come marching down the Bukit Timah Road,’ he continued as if nothing had happened.

  ‘This is crazy,’ said Torrance. ‘Hong Kong and Borneo were bad enough. Don’t tell me Singapore’s about to fall too?’

  ‘You should know,’ said Rossi. ‘You were the one who bought tickets to Batavia.’

  ‘That was just in case! I always knew it might fall; I never believed it would. What next? Burma? India? It’s like the whole bloody empire’s falling apart!’

  ‘So what do we do?’ repeated Rossi. ‘’Cause I’m no’ in the mood to sit here and wait for the Japs to come and round us up.’

  ‘We could always go to that knocking shop on Bugis Street,’ said Shapiro. ‘If we’re gonna spend the next few years in a POW camp—’

  Quinn shook his head. ‘All the sheilas will have cut their hair short by now to pass as boys, so they don’t get raped by the Japs.’

  ‘So that’s it?’ asked Torrance. ‘We’re just gonna give up?’

  Quinn shrugged. ‘I don’t see what else we can do.’

  ‘The battle’s not lost yet.’ Looking around, Torrance saw a Union flag hanging from a flagpole angling upwards from the portico of a nearby building. He pointed it out to the others. ‘See that? I dunno about you blokes, but that means something to me. Democracy. Freedom. Justice. Shakespeare. Roast beef and ’taters on a Sunday afternoon. A pint of stout down the Dog and Duck and fish and chips wrapped in yesterday’s Daily Express on the way home. McVitie’s rich tea biscuits with yer cuppa. “Land of Hope and Glory”. “Rule Britannia”, remember that? “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves—”’

  Another shell tore overhead, this time its shriek coming so close that all four men froze and braced themselves, flinching as the building still flying the Union Flag was engulfed in a sudden eruption of smoke and dust. When the final echoes of the crash had faded, the four of them straightened and looked around to see the building had vanished, a cloud of dust now sheeting down around the mound of rubble that had replaced it. There was no sign of the Union Flag.