Lizard's Tale

by Weng Wai Chan

  ‘I hope that’s true, Lili,’ said Miss Adelia. ‘Carry on, Miss Neha.’

  ‘Your first assignment takes place this evening. We need an agent who won’t be noticed. As we know, nobody notices girls.’ Miss Neha opened the briefcase, took out a world map and spread it out on the table. She tapped China. ‘The Japanese Empire is expanding from war in China and spreading south, towards us. Malaya and Singapore are in great danger.’

  ‘The British are not pleased. Our bases here and in Malaya must be protected,’ Miss Adelia said grimly. ‘The gunjin leave a trail of utter devastation.’

  Lili nodded. The gunjin—the Japanese military—had shocked everyone with their brutal treatment of the Chinese, starting when they invaded Shanghai in 1937. She had once overheard her stepmother telling a neighbour in shocked tones about how even the children in one village had been killed by the soldiers, but Lili couldn’t believe anybody could do something so terrible.

  ‘The Japanese want to take over Singapore,’ said Miss Neha. A shiver went up Lili’s spine at the thought of gunjin in Singapore. She would do everything she could to help stop that from happening.

  Lili thought about the portrait of Emperor Hirohito of Japan and the portrait of King George VI of the British Empire. Both were men in medal-laden military uniforms. Both were determined to have Singapore.

  ‘Japan has joined forces with Nazi Germany, which is bad news for us,’ said Miss Adelia.

  Lili looked at the two women, wondering what missions they had completed in the field. She had always thought of them as teachers, not spies, but of course they were both.

  ‘What must I do?’ Lili asked.

  ‘There is a very important box that must be found,’ said Miss Adelia. ‘Do you remember the codebreaking lesson on book ciphers?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lili. ‘The sender writes a message, then uses a codebook to replace the words with numbers or other letters.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Adelia. ‘The receiver must also have a codebook, in order to decipher the message. Lili, this mission is top secret. You must tell no one—not even the other S-Stream girls. Understand?’

  Lili nodded, eyes wide.

  ‘A Japanese Navy codebook was put in a wooden box and smuggled out of China by one of our Maximum Ops agents,’ said Miss Neha. ‘This codebook is extremely important—if we have it, the War Office in England will be able to decode messages that the Japanese Navy send to each other. If they plan to attack a British territory, we’ll be able to intercept before it happens.’

  ‘The Japanese Navy uses book ciphers,’ said Miss Neha. ‘This one codes a word or phrase into a five-digit number. For example, the word ‘aerodrome’ might be the number 20948. The War Office has managed to break some of the code but it’s hard, slow work.’

  ‘Wars are won on information, Lili. This codebook is absolutely crucial. We must get it back,’ Miss Adelia said.

  Maybe Lili’s mission could stop the gunjin coming to Singapore—if she succeeded. She had to succeed.

  ‘Great Britain is not at war with Japan, and we hope to avoid war,’ said Miss Adelia. ‘If the codebook is found in British military hands we fear that the situation will worsen.’

  ‘The Maximum Ops agent was captured by the gunjin, but he managed to get the box away before they knew he had it. The box was given to Sebastian Whitford Jones, the general manager of the New British East India Company. He was to take the box into Singapore and give it to the British Navy.’ Miss Neha paused. ‘Unfortunately, the box has been stolen from Mr Whitford Jones.’

  Miss Adelia snorted. ‘All he had to do was bring it from New Delhi and give it to Commander Baxter. A few hours in Singapore, and he loses it.’

  ‘The box was removed from his suite in Raffles Hotel sometime yesterday,’ said Miss Neha.

  ‘We must have that codebook if we are to defend ourselves against Japan,’ said Miss Adelia.

  ‘But you said we are not at war with Japan,’ said Lili, confused.

  ‘Well, not yet,’ said Miss Adelia. ‘We must be ready in case it happens.’

  Lili didn’t understand why countries wanted war—why couldn’t everyone just get along? But war was a reality, and that was why Maximum Operations Enterprise was necessary.

  Miss Neha opened a file. ‘We’ve received information about Mr Whitford Jones that makes us wonder if he is playing us false. He’s quite heavily in debt. It’s possible that he has taken the codebook to sell back to the Japanese.’

  ‘We don’t know for sure that Mr Whitford Jones is selling us out, but we need to put him under surveillance,’ said Miss Adelia. ‘Your mission is to go to Raffles Hotel to observe him. Is he secretly passing packages to Japanese agents? Having secret meetings? You must take the Minox camera and plenty of film. Photograph anyone he meets.’

  Miss Neha handed Lili a folder. ‘This file contains photographs of Sebastian Whitford Jones and his family, diagrams of Raffles Hotel, a list of staff and guests, and further instructions. We’ll need a full written mission report afterwards.’

  Lili clutched the folder, thrilled. After three years of training, she had been given her first mission at last!

  Later that day, Lili stood in the equipment room. Everything she took for her mission had to fit into her special tunic and trousers. The outfit had many hidden pockets, yet looked like something any Chinese girl would wear. The miniature camera, plus a handful of film canisters, were the first things she picked up. Her hand hovered over the lock-picking set, but this was just a surveillance mission, so she left it and took a miniature spyglass instead. She also picked up a sleep dart, and strapped a wrist dagger securely in place inside her sleeve. Just in case. As she smoothed down her tunic, she knew that the most important thing was not to bungle her first Max Ops solo mission, or be distracted, especially not by Lizard.

  She thought about what Lizard had said last night. After all she had done for him in the two years since they met, what thanks had she got? He had certainly never gazed into space while mumbling about her eyes and hair. Red hair! Blue eyes! Where had he seen those close enough to be so fascinated by them?

  She remembered the first time she had seen Lizard in the Tanjong Pagar wet market. She’d gone there with her older cousin Ting Ha to buy vegetables. Ting Ha had yelled out in Cantonese and Lili turned to see her holding a skinny boy by the wrist. He had tried to pick Ting Ha’s pocket, but hadn’t been very good at it. When Lili got closer, she noticed the boy’s green eyes. He apologised and tried to get away, but Ting Ha had a firm grip.

  Lili had been fascinated that this green-eyed boy could speak Cantonese. He told Ting Ha that he’d tried to pick her pocket because he was hungry. Something about him made Lili think of her baby brother who had died the year before. Then Lizard had looked at Lili, and to her own surprise she made Ting Ha let him go and then went to buy him some kway teow. The fried rice-noodle dish was the most fattening thing she could think of.

  She watched him eat, and then, when his chopsticks slowed down, she figured it might be a good chance to practise her English. She asked him how he came to be there. And in an accent just like Miss Adelia’s, he told her all about his life in Changi with his British ex-Navy uncle. Lili told Lizard that she wanted him to teach her to talk like he did, and she outlined her plan for him to live in one of the cubicles above her father’s tailor shop. She’d also told him about the mission school that took a few boys for free each year. And so Lizard became her friend and made his home in Chinatown.

  Lili frowned. Distracted again! By Lizard. She mentally pushed him aside and locked up the equipment room.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Strange Behaviour at Fatty Dim Sum’s Coffee Shop

  Lizard slouched dejectedly as he walked along South Bridge Road on his way home from school. He hadn’t seen Lili since she had stormed inside after cleaning his split lip last night. He had looked for her outside the gates of her school to apologise, although he still didn’t know what he’d done wrong.
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br />   The teak box was back in his satchel and he didn’t know what to do with it. It seemed to be getting heavier. Lizard was in two minds: half of him was thrilled with agitated curiosity, sure that it was connected to Uncle Archie; but the other half wished he had never stolen the box, reasoning that it was trouble, and that there was no actual evidence it had anything to do with his uncle.

  Chinatown people were superstitious to the marrow—to Lizard the box couldn’t have been more unlucky if it were wrapped in white sackcloth with the number four written all over it and had two upright chopsticks poking out the top. Lizard thought about flinging it over the side of the bridge, but the idea of maybe bringing on even worse luck stopped him. Although what else could possibly go wrong?

  ‘Wei! Boy!’

  Lizard heard footsteps hurrying up behind him. ‘Oh, no, no, no!’ Lizard moaned out loud. He turned, fists clenched.

  ‘Hey, don’t be so anxious, my friend!’ said Brylcreem, speaking in English, grinning widely and holding his palms up.

  Buck Tooth mooched along beside him with his hands in his pockets. ‘Wah, you look so smart in your white school clothes. Even got white, white shoes!’ Brylcreem said.

  Lizard raised his eyebrows. He flinched as Brylcreem flung an arm around his shoulders.

  ‘Sorry about yesterday. Your name Lizard, right? My girlfriend, Ting Ha, she tell me you are friend of her cousin, Lili. Why you not say?’ said Brylcreem expansively.

  ‘What?’ Lizard was confused by this turn of events. Ting Ha was Lili’s cousin whose pocket he had tried to pick two years ago.

  Brylcreem gave a little laugh. His right arm was still heavy around Lizard’s shoulder. ‘My girlfriend, she tell me off for fighting with you,’ he said.

  ‘She always telling somebody off,’ muttered Buck Tooth.

  Brylcreem turned on him and gave him a shove. ‘Shut up, you! What you say about my girlfriend, hah? Hah?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Buck Tooth, sulking.

  Brylcreem peered at Lizard’s swollen lip. ‘Wah, sorry, ah? No need to tell Ting Ha I did that, all right?’

  Lizard nodded. He noticed that Brylcreem’s eye was only a little bruised.

  ‘Listen, you know Ting Ha’s uncle is Inspector at the Tanjong Pagar Police Station?’ said Brylcreem. ‘Ting Ha want me to become a policeman. Do something new, she say. What you think?’

  ‘Uh—good idea. Yes, a really good idea,’ said Lizard, who didn’t know Ting Ha’s uncle and didn’t care what Brylcreem’s life ambitions were.

  ‘You think so? Good, good. Because Ting Ha say you can help me. With studying, you know? Have to pass a pro-fish-and-see exam to be a policeman.’

  ‘A what? Oh, a proficiency exam,’ said Lizard.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I say. Anyway, Ting Ha say you so good at studying and a helpful guy. You half-English, so can help me, right?’

  ‘Uh—sure, all right,’ Lizard said, in the spirit of self-preservation.

  ‘Wah, you so good, man. All right, maybe start tomorrow, or next day?’ Brylcreem finally removed his arm from Lizard’s shoulders and turned to go.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Lizard. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Forget to tell you, sorry. They call me Brylcreem,’ he said, preening his quiff. ‘And,’ he gestured at his friend. ‘He’s Buck Tooth.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Really?’ asked Lizard.

  ‘Yeah, why?’

  ‘No reason,’ said Lizard, turning into Tanjong Pagar Road. He headed towards Sum’s Coffee Shop, where he often went after school.

  It was only when he stepped inside that he realised that this was the last place he had seen Boss Man Beng alive and well. A wave of sadness and fear hit him, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. The owner of the coffee shop, Fatty Dim Sum, was acting strangely.

  Fatty was wiping down a marble-topped table when Lizard entered. That wasn’t strange; it was the look of goggle-eyed consternation on Fatty’s face when he saw Lizard that was strange.

  The greeting Lizard was about to utter died on his lips.

  Fatty’s eyeballs started jerking repeatedly to his left.

  ‘What?’ asked Lizard, staring at Fatty’s jerking eyeballs. He went to sit on a stool. Fatty leaned over and started to wipe it. Lizard went to sit on another, but Fatty got there first with his cloth.

  ‘Want a drink, ah, boy?’ asked Fatty loudly in Cantonese. His eyeballs had stopped jerking, but now his eyebrows were waggling up and down.

  ‘Ye-es,’ Lizard said hesitantly.

  ‘Come to the counter then, boy,’ said Fatty, standing straight. To Lizard’s relief, Fatty’s face stopped twitching.

  There was a long horizontal mirror behind the counter. It was spotted with age and humidity. Fatty turned his back to pop the cap off a bottle of raspberry drink, but Lizard could see Fatty’s face in the mirror.

  He saw Fatty’s eyes start jerking again, this time to his right, and Lizard half turned to look in that direction. He stopped at Fatty’s glare of horror. Instead, he looked in the mirror and saw the reflection of a man with a shaved head sitting in the corner by the door. Even sitting down he looked big and tall. He held up a newspaper, but his cold, dark eyes were looking over the top of it. At Lizard.

  Lizard felt a chill in his neck. Nothing about the man was friendly. Lizard looked at Fatty in the mirror again, and saw him fold a white cotton cloth into a rectangle, then spill raspberry drink on the counter. He dipped his finger surreptitiously into the liquid and dotted the finger on to the rectangle. Lizard stared at the red circle on the white rectangle. It looked just like the Japanese flag.

  Fatty glanced at Lizard, satisfied that he finally understood, and blew his nose noisily into the white cloth. He turned from the mirror and handed the bottle of drink to Lizard.

  Fatty always had the radio playing in the background and often sang along in a high reedy voice if a Hokkien song was on. As Lizard paid for his drink, Fatty started singing a familiar chorus but he changed the words to ‘Jackfruit tree, see you, my dear, at the jackfruit tree’. The previous hundred times Lizard had heard Fatty sing that song, the tree had been a magnolia tree.

  Lizard left with his raspberry drink. He tried to look relaxed even though he could feel the Japanese man’s eyes burning into him as he walked out the door. He stepped into the five-foot way and sighed with relief—prematurely, as it turned out. A tea vendor cycled past and Lizard saw, reflected in the huge metallic drum of tea on the back of the bicycle, that the tall Japanese man was coming up behind him.

  Just as the man’s meaty hand, large and menacing in the reflection, reached out for Lizard’s shoulder, Lizard jumped across the monsoon drain in front of the five-foot way and collided with the tea seller’s drum. The bicycle and its rider went over with a clattering crash, and hot fragrant tea swished all over the road. Lizard spun his arms around as if trying to keep his balance. Raspberry drink spiralled into the air, some splattering the face of the Japanese man who had followed him onto the road. The half-empty bottle glanced off the man’s head, then smashed in the monsoon drain.

  ‘Wah, sorry, ah!’ Lizard said, as he made himself fall, slamming into the chest of the man. He planted an elbow hard into the man’s abdomen, and they both landed on the road at the drain’s edge. A second bicycle swerved to avoid them and the man riding it, along with his wife and a basketful of eggs, fell onto the steaming, tea-washed road.

  Lizard leapt up and looked with horrified fascination at the mess he had made. Four people were sprawled in the road weltering in tea and smashed eggs. Traffic came to a halt and people stopped to watch, comment and add to the uproar. Fatty Dim Sum’s startled face goggled through the coffee shop window in between the golden roast ducks hung up to air, but Fatty wisely stayed inside. The Japanese man sat up, blinked and wiped his eyes. Then those eyes started scanning the scene, no doubt looking for Lizard.

  Lizard turned and hustled through the crowd. After passing
several shops he ducked behind a pillar and squatted next to a little girl who was playing behind a woman selling vegetables in the five-foot way.

  The little girl looked at him. ‘What are we playing?’ she asked in Cantonese.

  ‘Hide and seek,’ Lizard said. He stuck his head out cautiously to see if the Japanese man was still there. Yes, there he was, a head taller than everyone else. He had raspberry stains down his shirt and a hostile look on his face. Lizard gulped and uttered a few Cantonese swear words.

  The little girl repeated them. ‘What does that mean?’ she asked.

  ‘No, no, don’t say that. Your mother won’t like it.’ Lizard leaned back against the pillar. ‘I have to hide now. Don’t give me away, all right?’

  She nodded, giggling. She peeked around the pillar. ‘Is it that tall ugly man who’s looking for you?’ she asked.

  Lizard nodded, put a finger to his lips and then sneaked behind a large basket of cabbages. He looked into the monsoon drain, and then at his white, white school shoes. With a sigh, he took them off, tied the laces together and slung the shoes around his neck. He stepped into the drain. Even though he was used to running barefoot every day, he grimaced as he sank ankle deep into the stinking sludge.

  He looked under the concrete slab that formed a bridge across the drain. The space under it was just big enough for him to squeeze into. Trying not to get his clothes or his satchel in the sludge, he manoeuvred himself in. Lucky for him it hadn’t rained since the night before and the water level was low. Sweat trickled down his face as he settled in the smelly, stifling, cramped place. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to wait there all afternoon.

  Lizard willed the Japanese man not to notice the small Chinese girl squatting against the pillar giggling behind her hands at apparently nothing and just keep on stomping angrily down the road.

  A few minutes later, an upside-down head with two bunches of hair appeared over the side of the slab.

  ‘Wei, the ugly guy’s gone. You win,’ the little girl said. She wrinkled her nose. ‘You stink to death, but you win.’