‘Oh, it was terribly lucky for me!’ exclaimed Vera, clapping her hands. ‘I had never worn such lovely clothes before, Matthew. Except, of course, when I was a baby in Russia, I suppose, because my mother’s family was of noble blood, princesses at least … and my father was a wealthy tea-merchant, definitely “well thought of” in the highest circles, so I understand …’
‘In our family,’ said Joan, ‘it has always been our custom to give our cast-off clothes away … My mother always gives hers to the amah of to the “boys” for their wives or to someone like that. It seems such a shame to allow good material to go to waste, especially when it turns out to be a perfect fit like the clothing I gave to Vera …’
‘Perhaps not quite a perfect fit, Miss Blackett,’ said Vera sweetly. ‘I sometimes think that when I wear this dress it is a little tight across the chest. What is your opinion, Matthew? If I were a little more flat-chested would it not be an even more perfect fit? But then, even as a young girl, my breasts were rather well-developed. I find I sometimes breathe easier when I open these two top buttons. So!’
And Matthew, though the bungalow had for some time been rocking so badly that it was astonishing the vase of flowers could remain standing on the table, nevertheless snatched a moment to cast a hungry eye on Miss Chiang’s exquisite chest, a good deal of which had now come to light as she fanned it, murmuring: ‘Ouf! That’s better.’
‘A funny thing,’ said Joan in honeyed tones, ‘but my mother says the servants to whom she donates her old clothes are very often not in the least grateful! Would you believe it, Matthew? D’you think it is because they aren’t of pure European stock or is it simply a lack of education and good breeding?’
‘Well, good gracious!’ exclaimed Matthew, gripping the arms of his chair for dear life as he was hurled this way and that. ‘I should hardly …’
While Joan had been talking she had been struggling with one hand behind her back, frowning with concentration. Now her expression relaxed and she, too, unbuttoned the front of her dress, though with difficulty because it was wet; having done so she began tugging away a shapeless piece of white cloth, saying: ‘I must say, there’s nothing more disagreeable than a damp bra.’
‘Look, I really must go to bed now,’ said Matthew, jumping to his feet. ‘I feel dreadfully ill …’ The floor had now begun to tilt in different directions at the same time and it was a miracle that he could retain his balance at all.
‘But Matthew,’ exclaimed Vera, jumping to her feet. ‘You must come and look at the “snaps” I have in my room.’ And taking his arm she began to lead him from the verandah. But Joan, too, had got to her feet and taking him by the other arm started to drag him in the other direction, saying: ‘First Matthew is coming to see something I want to show him outside in the compound … and as it may take a little time, Vera, I think it would be best if you don’t bother to wait up.’
‘In that case it is better that I take him first to my room,’ cried Vera tugging Matthew rather hard in that direction.
How long this embarrassing scene would have continued it was hard to say, but at this moment a torrent of blackness swept over Matthew’s storm-battered brain and he sank diplomatically to the floor between the two young women.
‘It’s no joke being attractive to women, I must say,’ he thought as he lost consciousness.
27
When Matthew came to he found himself lying on the floor exactly where he had fallen. The Major and Dupigny were kneeling beside him. The two young women had disappeared (Joan to fetch Dr Brownley, Vera to crack ice for a cold compress). The Major and Dupigny, seeing that he was conscious again, helped him to his feet and then supported him to his bedroom, one on each side.
‘Ça a l’air assez grave,’ remarked Dupigny to his friend over Matthew’s swaying head. ‘C’est la grippe de Singapour si je ne me trompe pas.’
Matthew, however, felt a little better after a few moments and declared himself able to peel off his own clothes which were as sodden as if he had indeed plunged into the swimming pool. He dried his quaking body with a towel and then crawled under his mosquito net. A pair of wet footprints glistened on the floor where he had been standing. The Major handed him an aspirin and a glass of water; when he had swallowed them he lay back in the darkness, watching giddily as the room began to revolve slowly like a roundabout. Gradually, the bed, too, began to spin, dipping and rising, faster and faster. He had to cling on tightly, as to the neck of a wooden horse, or be hurled out against the walls by centrifugal force. Although the night was still, great gales of hot air poured in through the open shutters and tugged at the mosquito net. Time passed. The light was switched on. Now faces were swirling round the bed: he recognized the Major’s anxious features and Dupigny’s wrinkled face, pickled in cynicism like a walnut in vinegar, and Dr Brownley chuckling like a fiend, but then Matthew closed his eyes, knowing he must be delirious, and fell into a troubled sleep. In his dreams he was back in Geneva … the pale, sorrowful ghost of Matsuoka appeared and whispered: ‘Matthew, why do you persecute me like this? You know I am only trying to do what is best.’ And then he smiled and his face turned into that of a cobra. Outside in the darkness some small creature uttered a cry as it was killed by a snake.
Now, a few miles away at Katong, Sir Robert Brooke-Popham also lay dreaming of the Japanese. Brooke-Popham slept on his back, legs apart, arms away from his body, wrists and palms turned upwards, an attitude of total surrender to sleep, perhaps, or that of a man felled suddenly in the boxing-ring by an unexpected blow. His honest, friendly face looked older now that sleep had allowed the muscles of his jaw to sag, older than his age indeed for he was not much over sixty; but this long Sunday had been spent in interminable conferences and he was exhausted. Moreover, these conferences still had not resolved the problem which faced him. Should he order troops across the border into Siam in order to forestall a possible Japanese landing there?
Malaya, very roughly, was carrot-shaped with Singapore at its tip and Siam, more roughly still, providing its plume of green leaves. The obvious place to defend Malaya’s northern border with Siam was where the green plume grew out of the carrot, at the thinnest part, for there you would need least troops to do the job. Alas, there was a snag to this, because the border, although it obligingly started at the thinnest part on the western side of the carrot, instead of heading straight to the east to snip off the leaves neatly where they should be snipped off, wandered south for some distance into the pink flesh of the carrot itself at its fattest. Nor was the problem simply that Malaya’s real border, by wandering hither and yon through the bulging part of the peninsula, was a good deal longer than it need have been: the fact was that there were only two roads south into Malaya through the jungle and mountains and both of them began some fifty miles across the border into Siam, one at a place called Singora, the other at Patani.
So what was he going to do? (Or, to put it another way, what should he have already done?) Should he order the 11th Division to invade Siam and occupy Singora before the Japanese could land? There was hardly still time to do so, anyway. Ah, but he did not know (although he might suspect) that the Japanese were even thinking of landing there. This was a terrible dilemma for a man who was not as young as he used to be. After all, one rash act might plunge Britain into war with Siam and her patron, Japan, when by abstaining it might be avoided. This was the fix which Brooke-Popham had found himself in. During the past week the Chiefs of Staff in London had authorized him to go ahead and launch his forestalling operation (which had been named Matador) into Siam if he thought a Japanese landing there was imminent. Well!
Nor was it only a question of occupying Singora. There was the other road, too, the one which began at Patani and ran south-west towards the Malayan border. To hold this road would also mean pushing into Siam, though it should not be necessary to occupy Patani itself. This time the idea was to seize the only defensible position on the road, at a place called ‘the Ledge’, where it entered
the mountains near the border. The Ledge was vital, Brooke-Popham was in no doubt about that. If you did not stop an attacking force at the Ledge there was no knowing where you would stop it. Most likely you would have to take to your heels and try to halt it again some miles down the road at Kroh. But once the enemy (still hypothetical, thank goodness!) had reached Kroh they would have crossed Malaya’s mountainous spine and reached the civilized and vulnerable western coast with its open rice fields and rubber plantations. And once there you would no longer have the jungle to inhibit their flanking operations. Somehow you would have to bottle them up, for if they once got loose in all that open country, well, it would be better not to think of what might happen … ! He and General Percival, whose responsibilities began on the Malayan side of the border, had agreed therefore, that they should have a battalion waiting at Kroh, ready to sprint up the road into Siam and grab the Ledge: they might have some Siamese border guards to deal with on the way but that should not worry them. So everything was ready as far as the Ledge was concerned, more or less, though the troops could have done with more training, raw recruits as many of them were. Brooke-Popham knew, even in his sleep, what had to be done. What he did not know, and could not decide, was when, if ever, to do it. After all, by acting too soon he could start an international incident! And if he did that he would really look a fool. Because, frankly, that is the sort of thing that people remember about a chap, not all the hard work he has got through in his career.
Brooke-Popham lay pole-axed on his bed. Occasionally he gibbered a little or champed his moustache briefly with his lower lip. Although he was asleep his mind still bore the traces of the day’s dilemma, printed on it like crisp footprints in the snow: the problems that faced him went on rehearsing themselves even when his conscious mind had been ordered to stand easy. If only he had known earlier what the Japanese were doing! (Mind you, he still did not know for sure, for absolute sure.) For the past week the sky over the South China Sea had been thickly carpeted with cloud, making air reconnaissance impossible. But then, late on Saturday morning, one of the RAF Hudsons, on the point of turning for home, had come across a break in the cloud over the sea some distance to the south of the tip of Indo-China. And there below had been first one Japanese convoy with three troopships, then another with twenty, both with an escort of warships. What he and his staff had found difficult to determine was where they were going. The first convoy was heading north-west into the Gulf of Siam, the second due west: therefore, the most likely explanation was that they were innocently rounding the tip of Indo-China from Saigon on their way to Bangkok. So more Hudsons and a Catalina flying-boat had been sent out to look for them where they should have been, in the Gulf of Siam. The Catalina had failed to return: nothing more had been heard of it. As for the Hudsons, that providential break in the cloud had sealed itself up again and they had seen no more, merely that endless fluffy carpet, white on top, grey below, stretching from one horizon to the other. Somewhere beneath that carpet were two sinister little herds of Japanese troopships, but where? They had cudgelled their brains all Saturday night to find the answer.
What was to be done? Last night he would have given a great deal to be able to ask General Percival and Admiral Phillips what they thought. But Percival was in Kuala Lumpur visiting 111 Corps and Tom Phillips was in Manila. Moreover, with one’s own staff one must be careful to display confidence and an air of decision; the important thing is to give the impression that you know what you are doing, even when in doubt: any commander will tell you that. But what a burden it had been that he had had to carry by himself! He remembered a cartoon he had seen in some magazine, making fun of the excesses of German discipline. A platoon of storm-troopers were marching over a cliff while their officer was trying to decide what order to give next. An NCO was pleading with him: ‘Say something, even if it’s only goodbye!’ Brooke-Popham had chuckled heartily when he had seen that cartoon. But in the last few terrible hours it had returned to haunt him and he had been unable to get it out of his head. Say something, even if it’s only goodbye!
The hours of Sunday had ticked away slowly until, at long last, at about the time when the first pahits of the evening were being sipped all around him in peaceful, unsuspecting Singapore, the Hudsons, skimming the wave tops, had found the troopships again. All his worst fears had been immediately realized: the troopships were on course for Singora and a mere hundred miles away. Others were steaming down the coast in the same direction. A Hudson had been fired on by a destroyer.
Brooke-Popham champed his moustache again and uttered a long, low sigh, aware that in a few minutes he would have to drag himself back to full consciousness to find out what was happening. The sighting of those troopships approaching Singora had meant another round of exhausting conferences. Percival had come back on the train from KL, displaying surprise that he had not begun ‘Matador’ and ordered the 11th Division into Siam yesterday when the troopships had first been sighted. But it was all very well for Percival, he did not have the wider responsibilities! Any fool could see that the political implications of ‘Matador’ could not be shrugged off lightly. Had he not just had a telegram from Crosby in Bangkok warning him against alienating the Siamese by violating their neutrality? As Commander-in-Chief Far East he was obliged to consider all sides of the matter.
While Matthew and the others had been at The Great World more exhausting conferences were taking place, and yet more after supper. By now Tom Phillips had returned from Manila. Percival asserted that ‘Matador’ should be abandoned as General Heath and 11th Division would no longer have time to reach Singora before the Japanese landed. Well, in a way this had come as something of a relief: it meant that, whatever else might happen, he would not involve his country in a diplomatic incident. Still, ‘Matador’ had been a good idea strategically and he was reluctant to abandon it altogether. It might still come in useful, though in what way, precisely, he could not quite say. So, before retiring to rest in the early hours, he had ordered that word should be sent to Heath to keep the ‘Matador’ troops standing by. He had noticed one or two raised eyebrows at this (what was the point, his staff might have been wondering, in keeping troops standing by for an operation which it was too late to execute?) and a ghostly voice had whispered in his ear: ‘Say something, even if it’s only goodbye!’
And yet … and yet, perhaps he should have ignored Percival and ordered ‘Matador’ to go ahead and hang the consequences. Which was the greater risk, to start a military engagement at a disadvantage or to risk making an enemy of a potential ally? And what had happened to the poor devils in that Catalina which had gone out yesterday? A typewriter was clattering faintly two, three rooms away. Soon it would be dawn and he would have more decisions to wrestle with; he must sleep, if only for a while. Perhaps they were even now floating somewhere in the warm, sluggish waters of the Gulf of Siam, hoping against hope for rescue. He felt old and tired: he, too, was floating in warm, sluggish waters, hopelessly, hopelessly. Life had been better when he was still Governor of Kenya: he had not felt so worn out there; the drier climate had suited him better than this humid heat. Well, he had retired once and now here he was back again in harness. Ah, but life had been best of all in France in 1914, the good fellowship and the sunlight and the smell of the country. What fun he had had with their liaison officer, Prince Murat, when the mayor of Saponay was making a fuss about Royal Flying Corps men stealing fruit from orchards: Murat had told the poor mayor that he would have him court-martialled and shot! That had quietened him down. And then there was another time at some little country restaurant near Fère-en-Tardenbois with Murat and Baring, yes, eating outside in the sunlight surrounded by roses and pear trees … how golden the Montrachet had sparkled in their glasses! And the time Hillaire Belloc had visited them from England and the boxer, Carpentier, a colleague in the French naval air force; he remembered how Trenchard (he was a General in those days) had thrown his cigar into a carppond at some place, perhaps a monastery, where th
ey were having lunch, and a carp had eaten it and for a while seemed to have poisoned itself but afterwards to everyone’s delight staged a recovery. But above all there came to him now, as he lay troubled and sweating on his bed at Katong, the smell of cider echoing back over quarter of a century from that long, sunlit autumn of 1914, and the memory of Avros and Blériots and Farmans as they came grumbling through the translucent evening, one by one, towards the stubble of the aerodrome. Now the first ground-mist was beginning to form while the shadows reached out across the field and the Mess bell sang its clear note into the still air, calling them all to supper. Brooke-Popham sighed again in the darkness. Outside the window the breeze gently tossed the palms of Katong, making them creak and rustle. Beside him the menacing shadow of the telephone crouched like a toad in the gloom.
General Percival, too, had stretched out to snatch a little rest. And he also slept with his mouth open, snoring slightly from time to time. Were those his teeth in a glass by his bedside? No, his teeth, though they protruded, were perfectly sound: it was just a glass of water in case he should wake during the night and feel thirsty. Beside it glimmered the luminous dial of his watch. What time is it? Half past two, perhaps. It is difficult to make sense of those glowing, trembling dots and bars in the darkness. He was dreaming, partly of the defence of Malaya, partly of the Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas. Someone was whispering to the Governor that he, Percival, was not senior enough to take command in Malaya. Who is this sinister whisperer dripping poison into the Governor’s ear? Percival can see the man’s hands, knotted and heavily veined, emerging from the sleeves of a uniform, but the face remains in shadow. It must be someone who had known him when he was out here before in Singapore, in 1937, on General Dobbie’s staff … General Dobbie, there was a man for you! Over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and with the quiet confidence of a man who has the gift of Faith. You had only to look into those steady blue eyes and to witness that calm, informal manner to know that Dobbie would support you through thick and thin. And yet the whispering continued: that face in the shadows was telling the Governor that Percival would be a nuisance, that he did not know how to handle civilians. But this was not true! He did know how to deal with civilians. It is just that one must be careful with them. With civilians it is all a question of morale, of what goes on in their minds. He had seen that in Ireland as a youngster. And civilians get things wrong! They take fright, like one of those herds of antelope dashing this way and that on the African plain. And no army on earth can save them once they start this blind dashing about. A snore back-fired and almost woke him, causing his sleep to stall like a cold engine, but somehow he managed to keep it going, and presently the rhythm picked up again and he slept on, breathing deeply.
The Empire Trilogy Page 110