by John Harris
He stood for a long time, watching the two ships, the activity on their decks and the small boats which had turned out to give them a welcome. Their presence worried him, despite their size, because danger was implicit in their arrival and he decided that, while he was glad he was going to Sydney, he ought perhaps to telegraph Elliott Wissermann in San Francisco and warn him of the situation. He was even tempted to stay on longer than he’d intended, but he decided Nadya might be worried and came to the conclusion that he should stick to his arrangements. But, as he arrived at his suite at the hotel, the telephone went. It was Polly.
‘Pa,’ she screamed. ‘You must come round at once! Teddy’s here. He’s in the Prince of Wales!’
Shaving and scrambling into his clothes, Willie called one of the little yellow Ford taxis that plied round the city. With the Wissermann children overexcited at the prospect of seeing something of a war, something which to them was no more dangerous than a Western film, the gathering turned into a riot. But it was a riot with its more sombre moments because for the adults the future remained dark, and Edward, arriving with Ruffard, had none of the incurable optimism of those who had lived out their lives in the Far East. He didn’t believe the arrival of the two great ships substantially altered the situation.
‘Big ships,’ he said firmly, ‘have something in common with cavalry and dodos. They’re out of date.’
Standing in the sunshine with a drink in his hand, to Willie it didn’t seem possible, and Edward went on bluntly.
‘In 1914–18,’ he said, ‘the cavalry had to transport about three times their own weight in fodder for their horses, far more than was transported in the way of ammunition for fighting. Big ships are the same. They’re so valuable, both in monetary terms and in terms of prestige, to protect them they have to have a fleet of destroyers which would be of far better use protecting convoys.’
It was decided that they should all be together for lunch at Poll’s on the Sunday and that they should make a day of it, starting with breakfast. The excitement of meeting again had died a little by this time and they were all a bit subdued now. The weather was as magnificent as it always was as they gathered in the garden and the servants brought out the coffee and rolls. Edward, however, seemed to have his thoughts elsewhere. The negotiations between the Americans and the Japanese in Washington were still deadlocked and Ruffard had heard of mysterious radio messages that seemed to indicate a movement of the Japanese fleet not westwards towards China and Malaya as they had expected but eastwards towards Honolulu.
Edward didn’t like the situation at all, in fact, but he held his tongue when Polly or the children were near and only began to discuss the situation when he was alone in the garden with his father. Newly out from England, where they had been closer to the war for a long time, he and his friends hadn’t been slow to notice the things that were wrong in Singapore, and took a poor view of the quality of the British troops garrisoning the place. The tropical climate had brought softness and they had grown too accustomed to the easy living conditions.
‘Back home,’ he insisted, ‘they’re living like Spartans, preparing for what’s to come. The Admiral went to see the army the other day and I was part of his staff, and one of the things that was brought up was the fact that nobody’s considered using the Chinese and Malays. Why not? They’ve as much to lose as we have.’
‘The trouble with this war,’ he went on, ‘is that communications have developed too much and that allows Whitehall too big a say in what’s to be done and we have to face the fact that at the moment Malaya’s not a very important issue at the War Office. But you also can’t run a war from the other side of the world, Father, and here they’re letting ’em, and taking far too much for granted. Including the oldest and most unforgivable mistake of all – underestimating the enemy. The Japs might still surprise America by deciding they’re strong enough to declare war.’
Willie frowned. ‘There’s one other thing that everybody seems to have overlooked, too,’ he pointed out quietly. ‘You’ll remember I was in Port Arthur in 1905 when the Japanese attacked without warning. Why do people think they’ve changed?’
As he finished asking, he turned and saw that Polly had appeared at his side. The look in her eyes was one of doubt.
‘Surely they’d never try anything, Pa,’ she said. ‘When we came back from the States the last time we stopped at Honolulu, and the harbour was full of battleships. Enormous ones. The whole Pacific Fleet, Elliott said. Surely the Japanese wouldn’t attempt anything with that lot waiting to snap them up.’
As the telephone rang, she stopped dead, excused herself and disappeared. After a while she returned.
‘It’s for you, Teddy,’ she announced. ‘They said it was urgent.’
Edward disappeared. A few moments later he, too, reappeared. His face was grim and Willie knew at once that something momentous had occurred.
‘I have to get back to the ship,’ he said. ‘We’re going to sea.’
‘Has something happened?’ Polly asked.
Edward kissed her gently, his face grave. ‘Yes, it has, Poll, old love,’ he said. ‘The war’s started. The Japanese have attacked that Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour you were talking about. The Americans seem to have guessed wrong and they’ve lost eighteen ships, some of them big ones, around three hundred aircraft, and God knows how many people. Pearl’s a ruin and the Pacific Fleet’s destroyed.’
Three
The Sarth Line passenger-freighter Cenerentola, about to leave Singapore for Port Morseby in New Guinea, was promptly ordered to stay where she was, and the Lady Roberts, heading south from Rangoon, was signalled to get a move on, while the Man of Harlech, heading north from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, was expected within forty-eight hours. A fourth ship, the Sunga Kavalan, carrying trucks and steam rollers for the building of airstrips in the north and due to pick up a cargo of tin from Kuala Lumpur, was in Penang somewhere and out of touch.
The destruction of the American Pacific Fleet had abruptly stirred things up, and for the first time there appeared to be signs of life about Singapore. The streets were suddenly full of military police and steel helmets appeared in large numbers. Trucks galloped everywhere at full speed and the dance halls became silent and the cafés and bars deserted because every soldier in the place was heading back to camp. Those who couldn’t obtain transport were commandeering cabs, rickshaws and passing cars to get them to where they ought to be.
With Robert Edward unreachable, Willie had to fall back for information on his friend Ruffard.
‘There’s a Japanese fleet at sea,’ Ruffard said. ‘And we know troop transports are near the tip of Indo-China steaming westwards. I’d advise you to start organising your affairs.’
It wasn’t Willie’s own affairs that worried him. The shipping office where the business of the Sarth Line was conducted was normally well in control, but suddenly it was being besieged by people seeking passages. No official order for evacuation had been given, but, though many people still felt that it was safe to stay, a lot had started to use their own initiative. It didn’t take long to fill up the few places on the Cenerentola and she was fuelled, turned round, and left the following day, passing the Man of Harlech coming in as she headed southwards for the Indian Ocean.
‘This is bloody silly,’ Willie said. ‘Here I am worrying about everybody else’s family and neglecting my own.’
When he spoke to Polly on the telephone, she was anxious but calm. ‘Elliott telephoned,’ she said. ‘He says he’s been told it’ll be all right.’
‘Poll, it won’t be all right!’ Willie snapped. ‘It’ll be all wrong, and you tell Elliott that from me. People are getting out and you should be planning to get out, too. The Japanese are coming.’
‘They’ll never reach Singapore, Pa.’
Willie’s thoughts churned. The fighting units in Singapore which should have been going through an intensive preparation for war months before had been doing nothing and as f
ar as he could see, the total lack of preparation was compounded by unimaginative leadership, both civil and military. ‘Poll, listen,’ he said. ‘Malaya – and especially Singapore – is living in a fool’s paradise. They do bugger-all here but drink, dance and sign chits. The policy’s “Don’t worry. It may never happen.” They should be forgetting red tape and files and starting to act.’
It was true enough. The Europeans in Singapore seemed even worse than the people of Shanghai, who at least were hard-headed business people. With their eyes on their money, they were too concerned with their possessions to be indolent. In Singapore the festive mood still prevailed and people set more store in dressing for dinner than preparing to meet the Japanese.
He tried to tell his daughter what he knew. ‘The Japanese,’ he said sharply, ‘are desperate for rubber and oil. And both those things are here in this part of the world. Pack your bags, Poll. There are berths going begging on ships that are leaving. You could be away in twenty-four hours. This evacuation thing’s all cockeyed and I’m going to be busy as hell with getting my ships and the people on board to safety, so you’ll have to cope with your own. But get on with it, Poll. For God’s sake, get on with it!’
Though Poll remained uncertain, Willie was swamped by telephone calls from others asking once again if he thought it best to leave.
‘Of course it’s best to leave,’ he said angrily. ‘Now! I have two ships coming in and there’ll be places for anyone who wants them.’
On his way back to the hotel, he called at the Air Raid Precautions Headquarters to find out how shipping would be affected. But nobody knew anything about it and he found the place practically deserted.
‘Nobody’s told us anything about that,’ he was informed. ‘We were told we weren’t likely to be affected just yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘Surely it can’t happen to us!’
‘It’s happened,’ Willie snarled. ‘At Pearl Harbour!’
Returning to his hotel in a fury, he learned it had already started to happen in his own neck of the woods.
‘Hong Kong’s been attacked,’ he was told at once. ‘And they’ve gone for the Americans in Guam. The little bastards are also landing in Siam just north of the border with Malaya and they’re putting men ashore at Kota Bharu just to the south. The airfield’s expected to fall at any time, they say.’
‘Who says?’
His informant looked startled. ‘Everybody says.’
Instead of going to bed as he’d intended, Willie headed for the bar. While before Europe starved or burned or cowered, Singapore seemed determined to enjoy its luxurious life, and it was full of men, planters on leave from upcountry wondering whether they should return and remittance men in white ducks, busy with gin slings brought by silent waiters moving deftly among the rattan. They were drinking steadily, some of them half-drunk.
‘Hello, Sarth,’ one shouted to Willie. ‘Happy now that war you’ve been going on about’s finally come?’
Willie didn’t answer and the speaker went on. ‘Some people get the wind up easily,’ he said pointedly, his red face shining with sweat. ‘Woman asked my wife this morning if she was leaving. My wife gave her the beady eye. Good with the beady eye, my wife. Voice like ice. “Surely you’re not,” she said. That shut her up. You going, Sarth, or do you think you can drum up enough of the old necessary to see it out?’
‘You,’ Willie snapped, ‘are a bloody fool!’
The red face grew redder. ‘Come off it, Sarth! Isn’t it showing a tiny bit of the old yellow to bolt as soon as things start moving? Good God, the nearest Jap airfields are six hundred miles away in Indo-China.’
‘And that, I suppose,’ Willie retorted, ‘is why no one’s ordered a black-out or dug any trenches.’
The other man laughed. ‘Trenches would only fill with water and breed mosquitoes.’
Willie glared. ‘God help you,’ he said. ‘This place belongs to yesterday and we’re already into tomorrow!’
He downed his whisky and had just put his glass down when he was called to the telephone to be informed that the Man of Harlech had signalled her estimated time of arrival. He acknowledged the message and, deciding that being tired would help no one, headed for his room to get some sleep.
He was still angry and frustrated. The threat to Singapore was clearly regarded as remote, and the lazy fans, the music every evening, the spells of drenching rain that brought humid heat, drained everyone of energy. Huge stocks of rubber were still piled on the wharves, but there was nobody to load them because there was a dispute going on and there were no labourers. Yet labourers could always be found to cut the grass outside the Supreme Court.
It was already into the early hours of the new day, but he had an uneasy feeling that the next twenty-four hours would bring news of disasters and, taking his revolver from his baggage, he placed it alongside him near the bed. It was still the same gun he had acquired as long ago as 1900 and it was a huge weapon, double-action, self-cocking and with a glossy blue finish. He had rarely used it, but it was big enough to frighten most people when they saw it. Perhaps, he thought, it might frighten a Japanese.
He fell on his bed fully clothed and had just dropped off to sleep when he woke to feel the hotel shuddering to the roar of aircraft engines. Leaping to his feet, awake at once, he headed downstairs and on to the street. The lights in Orchard Road were still blazing as were those of military headquarters at Fort Canning. Cars were also moving about with their headlights on and, as the anti-aircraft guns stuttered into action, along the waterfront a crowd of Malays and Chinese stood gaping skywards as if expecting a fireworks display.
‘Christ on a tightrope!’ he said aloud.
As he spoke, half a dozen aircraft howled overhead and he heard the scream of a bomb. As the crowd started to scatter, yelling with alarm, he began to run.
The bombs fell in the thickly populated Chinese quarter, and almost immediately he heard fire engines arriving, followed by ambulances and police cars. He stopped the first taxi he saw and demanded that they be followed.
‘No, tuan.’ The Malay at the wheel refused point blank.
‘There are people dying.’
‘No, tuan.’
Willie dragged at the revolver in the waistband of his trousers and, finding himself staring down the enormous barrel, the driver changed his mind at once. ‘Yes, tuan,’ he said. ‘I take you.’
It was the same shock Willie had experienced previously in Shanghai, in Chungking, in Port Arthur – and having seen it before he was able to cope with it. Some people couldn’t, and he saw a white man sitting on the pavement holding his head in his hands and weeping. Willie gave him a kick.
‘Get up,’ he snapped. ‘You can do better than that!’
To his surprise, the man rose and followed him into the smoke.
Because of the early hour, there had not been many people about the streets, but dozens in the Chinese quarter had been sliced to pieces by the daisy-cutter bombs the Japanese had dropped, and the bloody remains lay on the pavements, in the gutters, in doorways, at alley-ends. As they started to seek out the still living, a few British planes lumbered overhead in pursuit of the long-departed Japanese.
Willie was there all day and only headed back to the hotel at the end of the afternoon. As he arrived, he noticed that the two great battleships had gone and uttered a silent prayer that his son would be safe.
Singapore remained breathless – especially when it read in the papers of the disaster at Pearl Harbor. As Willie had expected, Shanghai had gone at once. With the Japanese virtually in control of the place already, it had been taken over rather than conquered. More men were also being pushed ashore from Japanese ships in the north and, despite the damage that was being done to them, were having little difficulty in reaching their objectives. Visiting naval headquarters to try to find out if anything had been heard of the Sunga Kavalan, he found Ruffard was Duty Commander. He was on the telephone and a great deal of activity
was going on round him. Guessing he had stumbled into a crisis, Willie was about to back out when he was called back.
‘Mr Sarth! Hang on!’
He waited until Ruffard put the telephone down. Rising and offering a cigarette, he faced Willie squarely.
‘Mr Sarth, we’ve just had bad news. I’d prefer you kept it to yourself until it’s made official – as it’s bound to be before long because it’s something we’re not going to be able to hide – but under the circumstances I think you ought to know. Because of Edward.’
Willie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Spit it out,’ he said gruffly.
‘They’ve sunk the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.’
It was more than Willie had expected. The minor crisis he had been waiting for had turned out to be a major one. ‘How?’ he asked bleakly.
‘Bombs. Aircraft.’
‘Both of them?’
‘Both.’
‘What about Edward? Have you heard anything?’
‘Not yet. But we’ve heard the loss of life’s not been great. We’re optimistic.’
At the hotel, Willie found Ruffard’s warning to keep the matter quiet was pointless because the men in the bar already knew.
‘They’ve sunk the Prince of Wales,’ he was told. ‘Repulse as well.’
There was no point in denying it. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Bombs. Dropped by myopic airmen from aeroplanes made from tin kettles and old saucepans.’
It seemed to Willie that Singapore was in its death throes already, but reinforcements were still arriving, complete with trucks and equipment.
For God’s sake, he thought wildly, surely they could be better used elsewhere! Untrained, untried troops, unaccustomed to the situation, were offering to walk straight into a prisoner of war camp. He hadn’t a scrap of faith in Singapore’s ability to defend itself, despite all the talk of ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.’ The whole atmosphere was one of indifference, sloth and rampant bureaucracy, and that, he felt, would never win battles.