by JH Fletcher
Rex was sent to an artillery unit at Tampin, a town a few miles to the south-west.
‘Don’ know nuthin’ ’bout artillery.’
‘You don’ know nuthin’ ’bout machine guns, either.’
Which was true of all of them.
Rex went, anyway. Briefly they envied him. At least from Tampin he should be able to get to the beach, which was more than you could say for this dump.
‘Half his luck,’ they said, and forgot him. It was the way things worked, in the army. They hung about, waiting for the machine guns that never arrived, and for the Japanese, who didn’t arrive either, but might.
Nothing to do in camp, nothing in Gemas. ‘Almost makes you hope the bloody Japs do pitch up,’ Tom said.
‘Don’t even joke about it,’ Hedley told him.
‘Don’t reckon they’ll be much, even if they do come.’
‘I’d as soon not find out.’
Hedley was unconvinced by the army’s assurances that the Japanese were half-blind, half-witted midgets. They’d been wrong about everything else; why should they be right about this?
The day I see our machine guns and aircraft, I’ll start believing the rest, he thought. But in that prospect had no faith at all.
Christmas arrived and, with it, news. The Japanese had attacked Hong Kong.
‘What happened?’
No-one knew. One thing was sure, though; the time for doubt was over. The war had arrived.
So had the Prince of Wales.
‘Didn’t know there was one.’
‘The battleship, you fool.’
Fresh from its victory over the Bismarck, the Prince of Wales, with the Repulse, had arrived in Singapore.
‘That’ll make ’em think!’
If it did, it wasn’t for long. Japanese troops landed from invasion barges in Kelantan, on the north-east coast of Malaya. The two warships sailed north to sort them out and, within hours, destroyed by Japanese fighters, were at the bottom of the South China Sea.
‘I thought them Japs was supposed to be half-blind?’
‘You gotta be completely blind to miss a battleship, maybe.’
Even so.
The next story: the Japanese were dished. It was well known that the Malayan jungles were impenetrable, the Kelantan jungle the most impenetrable of the lot. They’d landed in the wrong place.
‘They’ll starve there, on the beaches.’ So said the Pommy major, baggy shorts, chinless, who came to brief them. ‘Pick them off at our leisure, what?’
A junior officer put up his hand. The lecturer condescended, smiling. ‘Yes?’
‘Are we sure about that?’
‘About what?’ The beginnings of a frown clouded the beautiful aura of confidence.
‘About the jungle. It seems odd, dumping an army on a beach if you can’t get off it.’
One shoulder lifted in an elegant shrug. ‘The Asiatic mind, old boy. No fathoming it.’
Someone asked, ‘What news of our machine guns, sir?’
‘Any day. Maybe even tomorrow.’ He laughed, warming to his task. ‘Who knows? This is the Army, after all.’ And awaited the obedient titters. ‘Planes are coming, too. In no time, the skies will be black with them.’
‘Bloody well better be ours, then,’ Hedley said.
Tom looked about him nervously; spreaders of despondency got short shift.
‘Dunno why they’re bothering if the bastards can’t get off the beach,’ Hedley said. He, too, was warming to his task.
‘Shut up, for Christ’s sake …’
Next thing they heard, the Japanese were in Penang, on the other side of the Peninsula. How they’d got there, no-one seemed to know.
Inconvenient. All the same, Penang was still a long way off. ‘Lots of our boys between us and them.’
Except that Penang harbour was full of pleasure craft which the owners, in their rush to depart, had abandoned. The Japanese sailed down the coast, leapfrogging the defences, and came ashore behind them.
‘This rate they’ll be here, next!’
That, they were assured, was nonsense.
Somehow, impenetrable jungle or not, the advance continued. Making what the authorities called strategic withdrawals, the defenders fell back. And back.
‘Where are those bloody machine guns?’
‘What’s the difference? There aren’t no planes.’
‘Stuff the sodding planes! I’m thinking about us!’
In early February a skirmish as, from nowhere, the Japs closed in. It was an ambush in dense forest, machine guns hammering behind a blind of leaves and matted vines. Hamish Laird, who might have replaced Rex as a mate, coughed blood and guts as he died in Hedley’s arms.
‘Bloody bastards!’
For once, the bastards were driven back.
Not for long. Next day, the machine-gun-less machine gunners were pulled out of a line as nonexistent as the guns and sent south. Back to Singapore.
‘We’ll be right there!’
Singapore, like the Malayan jungle, was known to be impenetrable. And, like the jungle, was not.
Bombs, day and night. Smoke from oil storage tanks, from fires burning what must not be taken by the enemy. Government papers, military plans, maps, millions of dollars in currency from bank vaults. Zero aircraft, unchallenged, strafed up and down Orchard Road. The harbour was littered with craft trying to get away, the wharves with people hoping to do the same.
Most of them behaved very well, even in the general hospital which, rumour had it, had been out of water for days. Impregnable Singapore got its water from the mainland. The Japanese, arriving at the southernmost tip of the Malay Peninsula, had simply turned off the tap.
Blokes everywhere. Hedley and Tom didn’t have a bloody clue what was going on. Neither, it seemed, did anyone else. It looked like the whole Division had been squeezed into a area a few miles across, some way north of the city. Columns of smoke billowed continuously as the Japs dropped their bombs. From time to time, they watched huge bursts of flame boil skywards as the fuel dumps went up.
The first thing after they’d got back to Singapore they’d been seconded to an artillery unit. Nobody told them why; nobody knew, perhaps. They remembered Rex’s objections when he’d been posted to Tampin: ‘Dunno nuthin’ ’bout sodding field guns!’
The sergeant said, ‘What I seen, you dunno nuthin’ ’bout nuthin, so what’s the difference?’
He went away. Hedley and Tom stayed. Around them the twenty-five pounders let fly, at what they didn’t know. There was nothing they could do but at least they were no more in the way than they would have been anywhere else.
After a while the officer came over to them. ‘Want to make yourselves useful?’
‘Sure.’
‘We’re running low on ammo. There’s a dump at Alexandra. Get over there and bring us back some twenty-five pounder shells.’
There was a truck, beat-up but usable. They found their way to Alexandra without drama. There were shells everywhere, stacked in tunnels. The twenty-five pounders were packed four to a case. It was a hell of a sweat loading them onto the truck, and the springs were flat by the time they’d finished. They drove back.
‘Got them …’
The Commander gave them a queer look. For the first time they realised that everything was still. No planes, no bombs, no shells, just the occasional burst of small arms fire, echoing in emptiness.
It was eerie. They looked at each other.
‘Thanks for your trouble,’ the Commander told them, with what might have been a grin: friendly, but with something odd about it. ‘Unfortunately, you’re too late. It’s over.’
They couldn’t believe it. They looked at the faces of the battery crews, knew it was the truth.
It was the afternoon of Sunday, 15 February, 1942. Singapore had surrendered.
‘Now what?’ Tom could be a pest.
‘Mate, I reckon we’ll soon find out.’
For several hours everyone held thei
r breath. Then there were strange uniforms in the street, short, swaggering, aggressive men. The Japanese had arrived.
Orders were conveyed through interpreters. All Europeans were to parade on the padang where, shortly after their arrival, Hedley had spent afternoons watching cricket.
Cricket. Along with the magical night of music and shadow and the puppet master’s high, harsh chant from the darkness behind the stage, cricket had become a dreamlike symbol of a life so changed that in its old form it might never have existed at all.
The padang was crowded. Old men, young men, soldiers and civilians, the human wreckage of an empire that had disappeared, it seemed, overnight. Around them roamed the soldiers of Japan, redolent of violence and an air of sullen menace that from time to time broke out in indiscriminate bashings. Once, in Hedley’s hearing, an elderly-looking man was slowly and systematically bayoneted to death. First arms, then legs, then shoulders and ears; finally, the belly, soft and vulnerable as elderly men’s bellies so often are. It burst like a paper bag but, by then, with any luck, the man was already dead.
‘What d’he do?’
Probably nothing.
Eventually they were organised into a straggling column. Battered by a barrage of orders and blows, surrounded by guards, they set out through the city’s streets. No-one had any idea where they were going. The pavements were crowded with onlookers, the local population ordered out to observe the passing of the old order. There was the occasional derisive yell but for the most part the crowd watched in silence, frightened of what the future might hold.
They might well be. At every intersection heads were displayed on poles: Chinese who, for some reason, or perhaps no reason, had been put to death by the new conquerors.
Slowly, laboriously, the column struggled eastwards out of the city. It was hot and humid, as Singapore always was, and some of the older civilians began to fall out. When they did, they were at once kicked to their feet. Those who couldn’t get up were killed. No water, no pause for rest, no energy for talking.
Mindlessly, endlessly, the swaying column of men like oxen made its stumbling way eastwards in a daze of heat and exhaustion, its tottering progress accompanied only by the slow torture of gasping breath, the sombre, repetitive sound of shots as the guards executed those who could go no further.
Finally, after several lifetimes, they arrived at their destination.
‘Changi bloody jail!’
‘Me old mum said I’d end in jail.’
Steel-studded gates swung open. Urged by rifle butts and the endless screaming of unintelligible orders, the column was driven inside the prison’s grim walls.
‘Where they going to take the rest of us?’
‘Which ones are those?’
‘The blokes who can’t get in. This place isn’t big enough for all this mob.’
The Japanese army had other ideas. Somehow they shoe-horned them in. The great gates shut.
6
KATH
1941–1942
There were times when Kath found it hard to remember that she was married at all.
After Hedley left her life went back to its old routine. She helped her mother around the house, looked after the chooks, took the men’s dinner out to the paddocks, talked to the horses …
She studied the photos of the wedding, examining the images of herself, laughing, seemingly triumphant in the ornate white dress, remembered the jokes she had shared with her friends about the see-through nightie. It was like hearing stories about a stranger whom she had never met.
Hedley’s photograph. The immature face, the suit, the buttonhole … Her husband?
She put the photo back on the mantelpiece. When she went to bed at night, she did not think about being alone, of having no-one beside her. She was not conscious of Hedley’s absence at all. When she thought of him, it was of a stranger, someone she had known briefly long ago, whose existence had done nothing to disturb the even tenor of her days.
Except that it had. Hedley had taken something, left something. Virginity was not something you missed. You had it or you didn’t; either way, she did not give it a thought. The other matter was different.
At first she did not think about that, either. It wasn’t until the second month had passed that she knew something was up. She pinched the car and went to the doctor, who told her what she had known he would.
All she needed. A husband off at the war, a baby on the way.
I’m too young, she told herself. I’ve too much living to do, I don’t want the hassle. It’s not fair. Although what else she could have expected, with Hedley after her morning, noon and night, she could not have said.
In the bathroom she stripped and resentfully inspected the body that had once again betrayed her. She could see nothing, wondered hopefully if it all might be a mistake, knew it was not.
It must have happened on his embarkation leave. That last night, that was when it was. She could not possibly know, yet was sure of it. He’d come on at her like a stud ram, she’d hardly slept all night. If he’d left her alone, this would never have happened.
Why didn’t you? she besought him furiously. Bloody git!
She looked closer at her reflection, no longer inspecting her body but her face. What happened to the idea that women were supposed to want babies?
I would, she told herself, if things had been different, but as it is … I should have shoved a cork up there, she thought. That would have fixed him.
Too late now. She got dressed, took a deep breath, went and told her mother.
Who wept, sentimentally.
Her mother-in-law next. She walked, taking her time. It was a bitter July day with rain about but Kath didn’t care; she wondered if she would ever care about anything again.
Seeing her coming, Emily Warren came out to meet her. ‘Heard from Hedley?’
‘Nothing …’
Kath had received one brief scrawl from nowhere, telling her nothing; the censors had taken care of that. But that had been weeks ago.
‘Oh dear …’ Emily let her disappointment show, then brightened. ‘I suppose the post’s difficult, with the war on.’
They shared a pot of tea — Emily and tea were inseparable — while Kath said nothing. Her mother-in-law watched her keenly. She knows there’s something, thought Kath, but found it hard to drag the news out. If she said nothing, perhaps nothing would come of it. What nonsense!
Again the deep breath. ‘I’m having a baby.’
There.
Emily sipped her tea. Unlike Kath’s mother, she did not weep. ‘I thought that’s what it must be.’
Kath half-laughed, protestingly. ‘How could you?’
‘There was a look about you …’ The dark eyes that Hedley had inherited watched her thoughtfully. ‘And now you don’t know if you want it or not.’
Kath tried to laugh. ‘How can you say such a thing?’
Emily continued to regard her, steadily.
Kath’s shoulders sagged. ‘Is it that bad? To wonder?’
‘You’d be crazy if you didn’t.’
Kath was eager to believe her but was cautious, suspecting a trap. ‘Why?’
The dark eyes grew even darker. They were eyes that had seen a lot, formed their own judgments. Had accepted a lot, too, having no choice. ‘Married five minutes, at your age? Husband overseas? Naturally you’re going to wonder.’
‘Don’t you think he should have gone?’
‘Of course he shouldn’t have gone!’ Emily’s cup clattered in the saucer. ‘His duty was here. With you. With us. Even if he felt he had to join up, he needn’t have gone overseas. You know that, don’t you? If he’d told them he was needed on the farm, they’d have held him back.’
Kath hadn’t known. Perhaps he had not wanted to tell her.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
Emily sighed. ‘The Warrens do what they want, and to hell with everyone else. They’re all like that, even Wilf. My brothers-in-law were the same.’ S
he smiled, lost for a moment in memory. ‘Doug and Jim. Such good-looking boys … I could have fallen for Jim myself, given half a chance. Both of them went off to fight. Doug to the Boer War, Jim to Gallipoli. Killed, the pair of them. Stupid fools. What good did it do? ‘What good does it ever do?’ She leant forward, put her hand on Kath’s knee. ‘Hedley may not come back, either.’
‘How can you say that?’
Emily sat back. ‘Got to face it, girl. Plenty of kids won’t have a father, time all this is over. Those Jerries have always been good fighters. Let’s hope the Japs don’t come in but, if they do, I don’t reckon they’ll be the pushover our blokes think, either.’
It was something Kath had never considered. She didn’t miss Hedley, but the idea of bringing up a child without him …
‘Bright bloody prospect,’ she said.
‘Maybe it won’t happen.’ Emily made a determined effort to cheer them both up. ‘How about some more tea?’
The conversation with Emily had changed things.
Hedley may not come back, either.
Deliberately, Kath put the thought out of her mind. Instead, took refuge in day-to-day chores. She’d never been one for polishing; now you could see your face everywhere you looked.
Life had its lighter moments. There had been a Patriotic Concert Party at the Soldiers Memorial Hall; Kath had gone to the Services Ball at the end of September. There were always things to do, ways to help, to try to forget what was happening in the world. Not that there was much chance of doing that for long.
The Japs came into the war, after all; so did the Americans. Kath refused to think about it.
The news said the Germans were closing in on Moscow; she refused to think about that, either.
She had another card from Hedley, a few lines that told her as little as before. She looked at the date: December 1. At least he’d been alive when he’d written it. Which proved nothing, of course.