Autobiography
Page 62
Like veterans of war who expect the next one to be exactly like the last I began preparing for siege and invasion—goose-chases after poultry and a sow, hectic dibbing in of vegetables, all useless effort as it turned out. Penang had collapsed in a flash, and eye-witnesses were pouring in to Singapore with gruesome stories of panic, breakdown, idiocy, lack of defence and of discipline, native police running amok and looting whisky. Even the white Fire Service ran and had not been seen since, which had infuriated the Government. Yet even with this disaster an outcry from the press, local B.B.C. and intelligentsia seemed to be the only reaction. Suddenly Duff was expected to be the genie and build on no foundations shelters, fire-service, evacuation schemes, food-storage, censorship and rationing, every municipal service, with no approval from the Government of Singapore. It opposed everything, including the scorched-earth policy, still imagining the Japanese to be Samurai who would show honour and not destroy the reclaimable. The calm infected me for a change. A new mynah bird, gift of the Sultan, replaced the one Duff had let fly, and a lady’s tame gibbon had settled in our tree. This young man on a flying trapeze was a perpetual delight as it tore across one’s path with arms high to heaven.
Conrad’s letters continued to reach me, although many of them must have perished on the way.
We’ve now reached the stage in the war when the muddle and incompetence are universally recognised. The Crimea, the Boer War and the Great War all went through this phase. This time it is our miserable production and high wages for doing little or no work. And food muddles! Of course there are the actual failures in the field too, Narvik, Dunkirk, Crete. Now Libya has turned out disappointing. How could our dear Prime Minister make that “Blenheim and Waterloo” allusion in his speech? It was asking for it. But Englishmen never, never learn. It is always going to be Agincourt or Crecy and then it is Majuba or Kut in the end. The relief of Mafeking was good news, and it was so unusual that the English behaved like a lot of jack-asses and the verb “to maffick” was invented to describe what we did (me among them).
The two great ships were forgotten by people in the street who looked unconcerned, and careless of the huge shadows cast. There was faith too in the inhabitants’ loyalty (true, the Japanese were a traditional enemy), but I could see no particular reason why these eighty-five per cent Chinese and fifteen per cent Indian and Malay citizens of Singapore should fight, as Cockneys do, against people of their own shade, for the dear good English, who when they hadn’t irritated them with schools and demands for work had bored them with restrictions, requests for voluntary service, for blood from their veins, for rice from their stomachs. Of course they would scatter in a crisis. At one rehearsal raid 1200 coolies had left the Naval Base and had not returned. No one did much about the shelter that had been digging for two weeks in our garden. Another slit trench was cut in our office-plot, but that was filled with our Indian guard. I restrained my brag about London in 1938, the gentlemen with their coats off, the soldiers and the old girls digging away in parks and squares, and me fitting snouts and schnozzles on to gas-masks against time.
It’s quite simple. I just take two cachets of amytol every night and sleep without squeaking until Duff gets up at seven. I feel quite different and have calm dreams and no dread of oncoming day or night. When I think of the mountain of morphia I consumed in the last war with no habits formed, a few amytols won’t do me any harm.
Poor Mrs Reed, the young American doyenne of the typists, who came over with the Mission, cried all yesterday with homesickness. I tried my hand at comfort with fair success but she said: “You can’t really understand, Lady Diana, because you are never down.” Isn’t it extraordinary? I think my gloom, despondency and great alarm stick out for the public to be shocked at. If only I were like Eve Curie with one selfless preoccupation, that of winning the war.
Evacuation of women and children is talked of. I notice it is a subject Duff is loath to discuss with me. I am quite determined not to go and know how to avoid it, namely by not arguing but hiding at the last. No ship is going to be held up for one. My trouble would be (and it’s what I greatly fear) a reasoned appeal from Duff—duty, others, his own work etc. I can’t stand up to that if it comes to it, so I try, and shall to the end try, not to discuss it. I live on prayer. A lot of women are off voluntarily to Australia. Never a dull moment, now beri-beri is listed as a threatened epidemic, with cholera of course and malaria.
I made an appeal for blood. When I got to the jerry-built bungalow-building on a lake with two topless meccano-towers as landmarks, “the real thing” was said to have started. There was a jolly gang of boys telling me we were indefinitely off the air and would I like to go and lie in the slit trench. I feebly said that one might watch the raid better from the trench and perhaps spot the Fifth Column rockets, but it was laughed off and as a sop they brought out the first-aid box, jumbo-size for splints and gas-detergents and snake-bite virus, but it proved to contain only Alka-Seltzers, aspirins, pick-me-ups and brandy as hair-of-the-dog. We came back on the air and I delivered my piece and went to the blood-transfusion place pour encourager les autres. There was a gratifying rush of donors, but I could not get any of my Chinese boys to go. They had promised to but thought poor relations paid out of their wages would do as well.
There is going to be an awful scarcity of women. Anyone with children is to go. Many have left already and the Naval Base is short of cipherers and typists. I deciphered an absolutely epoch-making message which may alter our plans and might bring us home or send us elsewhere. It read:
Prime Minister to Lord Privy Seal for Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Prime Minister to Mr Duff Cooper. Personal and Secret.
1. The very large arrangements which have developed from our discussions here, and Wavell’s appointment as Supreme C.-in-C. South West Pacific, necessarily bring your Mission to an end. You should at your convenience, and by whatever is safest and most suitable route, come home. If possible, without undue risk, you should confer with Wavell at his Headquarters in Java, and tell him what you think and know. Pray let me know your plan.
2. H.M. Government are entirely satisfied with the way in which you have discharged your difficult and, at times, dangerous task, and I look forward to our future work together in a world situation which, with all its trouble, has changed decisively for the better.
I rushed over with it to show Duff and found him making his adieus to poor Brooke-Popham. Embarrassing. I didn’t produce the telegram, and every word said about the Air in Singapore and Malaya seemed to be a reflection on the Services. Now Pownall has taken over, but I’m sure it is too late.
31 December
Last day of a full year—pain, pleasure, fear and relief. I imagine that the fateful telegram is activated by the appointment of Wavell as Ruler of the Far East. There can’t be two Number Ones and Duff thinks that Number Two should be an American.
We had been threatened since the war broke out with the loss of our Military Attaché, the gallant Robbie, who had become most dear to us. His regiment was the Argyll and Sutherland, who were engaged in the north, and it was thought that he would be promoted to command it. I so prayed that he would be left with us. It is difficult to discover what soldiers really wish for. He was of great use to the Mission. He felt that he was in the hub of things with messages from Churchill and Roosevelt, airing his sensible views to Pownall and other big shots, but he continued to say that he hoped to be ordered to the front, and to the front he went. We had a goodbye dinner and Robbie left for the firing-line, looking schoolboyish and wistful. I prayed for his speedy return like Nelson with a black eye and an empty sleeve, but we never saw him again nor do I know the end. I was so very fond of Robbie.
The epoch-making telegram was followed up on 7 January, and in the twinkling of an eye our plight changed for the better. Or for the worse? I really did not know. Singapore was at this time divided as sharply as hard sun makes a shadow and I truly hated the idea of deserting Duff’s crusaders.
These last days we are in a state of uncomfortable suspense. Duff is restless, with suddenly not enough to do. The War Council sits in the morning, but with Pownall instead of Popham, and the Governor a bit cowed. There is less struggle, fewer Ephesian beasts. The Civil Defence daily meeting has served its purpose in electing the despot Brigadier over the Governor’s head and responsible to the War Council, so it no longer meets every afternoon. The office is slack. We all snatch at arriving telegrams but it’s never the one to tell us of our fate. My mind reels. It’s such a readjustment from beri-beri and the massacre of white-devils to home—loves—forgotten reading.
A second telegram arrived at noon and it’s back to the arms of my farmer, I honestly do believe. I feel pleased but I have felt pretty sure of it for days. I hate in a way to leave them to it here. I loathe the idea of His Excellency rubbing his hands. I think though that they can be manacled. The Generalissimo and Pownall are downstairs now, I hope, arranging with Duff to depose him. People here had such faith and hope in Duff, and now I suppose they’ll think we are hooking it while the hooking is good. Winston’s personal telegram was exceedingly nice, full of praise for the “dangers you have passed” and of his conduct and resource, and talking of continuing to work together. No question, thank God, of Duff becoming a kind of Governor of Singapore, nor yet any question of Java. I shall continue to write to you, though I shall bring this letter in my hand, I hope, across India, Arabia, Egypt and Europe. The journey will be as usual hazardous, but this time fraught with real enemy-action danger. We may go by commercial aeroplane that takes off occasionally, when it feels good, via Sumatra and Calcutta, or we might snaffle a Catalina flying-boat (armed) and fly direct to Colombo, travel up India by train, see my airy-fairy Viceroy, and take the aeroplane from our old haunt Gwalior, stop perhaps a week in Cairo too. It’s all frightful—but poor Singapore! I do love it so.
8 January 1942
The two biggest shots stayed to dinner with Duff, me, Martin and Alex Newboult. I ordered a gourmet’s Chinese dinner and enjoyed the evening immensely. A blanket of cloud and monsoon-squalls gave us a raid-free night. I loved Pownall. Wavell alarmed me, though I might fall in love with him if I got over my fear of his silences. His drooping eye suits me. John Julius will look just like him if he makes sixty and stays good, for Wavell might be an angel in disguise. It’s early days and seen by candlelight. Pray, pray, dear God, let him succeed, at least in part.
They were both most happy and I got going and said all the truth about the situation here, which Duff had told them already but which I could make much more indiscreet and crude. The result was that for the second time Martin drew Priam’s curtains in the dead of night with a letter from Pownall enclosing a draft of the telegram to be sent (if agreed to) to the Prime Minister saying how far from satisfactory the situation would be minus Pownall and Duff, and could he suggest at least postponing Duff’s departure. It’s a beast! And yet I half want to stay. Ambivalence has me in its thrall.
8 a.m.
I’ve just had breakfast downstairs. Everything glitters in the garden and country. The caged bird chatters, the others make a loud harmonious chorus, the trunks are out and airing. Duff is off to his Council, there to announce the end of his Mission. Nothing can be said there since the Governor and G.O.C. are part of it, but afterwards he will discuss this new plan with Pownall. Wavell has gone north to look at the enemy.
If Duff takes it on temporarily I have warned him that it will be for good, and not the best that can be done for Singapore. “Good enough” however for a frenzied set-up in Java to put the subject from their overcrowded minds. Wavell said he felt like a man not expecting a baby, being suddenly given quadruplets. I’m sorry for him, and although I’m sorry Pownall will not hold this fort, it is perhaps just as well that he should hold Wavell’s hand. They are excellent friends. In an official telegram distributed to a chosen few and addressed to Pownall, Wavell ended with the words “Bless you, we will see this thing through, or do our best or something.” The telegram to Winston wasn’t sent.
Above Ground
13 January
It’s days since I wrote. One becomes less ready to set trifles down when one knows they cannot precede one. The last three or four days have been sad and trying. Every sound man from up or down country (newspaper men, sound en masse) begging Duff to stay and dictate. It’s heartrending to appear callous and glad to get out. I don’t know really why he is being removed, which makes it more difficult to suggest staying. It may, after all, be that the home Government think he has made an appalling mess of it. They wouldn’t think so if they were here.
CHAPTER FIVE
A Long Way Home
JANUARY 13 was the day chosen for our departure. We were all unhappy. I was sad, too, that the telegram to Winston asking for Duff’s departure to be postponed had not been sent. It would have proved at least that Wavell and Pownall and all the fighting side of Singapore had faith in him. Deputations would call with petitions. The editor of the Straits Times also pleaded. It was impossible not to look as though we were running for it. I was so frenzied with packing and goodbyes and tearfully returning borrowed Ming and celadon to Chinese merchants, and generally winding up, that I missed many decisions of policy and plans. People were pouring down from the north in cars loaded with bundles, dogs, whisky, shotguns, golf-clubs and birds. They had lost everything else. They reported Kuala Lumpur as really scorched earth. They told of breaking cases of whisky and pouring it away to discourage Japanese rapine and loot. It seemed a crime. No one even now looked worried. Raids were incessant but fairly harmless.
On the eve of departure, after the difficult goodbye dinner at Government House, to my amazement a respectable middle-aged woman sitting next me on the sofa suddenly mumbled: “Don’t look up, don’t start. I’m going to pass you a letter. Nobody must see.” It might have been in a Dumas novel. I smuggled it into my dress and when I got home read a condemnation of the Governor, begging Duff to stay. It was too touching, and dreadful to feel that we had a sneaking desire to be going home.
13 January
This morning has been full. Luggage had to be reduced to the minimum (44 lbs per head) so everything we both need was dragged out of the already packed boxes and put in others for a sea-trip. I have had to jettison (leaving treasure to be sent on when a town is falling about your ears is jettisoning) my lovely scroll-pictures, my galloping horse and my three poets on mules. I shall miss them always if I ever again have walls on which they might have been unrolled. The staff is plunged in gloom to lose us, and I am plunged in gloom at leaving my Chinese staff. I’ve photographed them all, but only you shall see them, as who else could want to?
We were told 10 a.m. and then 11 a.m. Moaning, gnashing of teeth and many tears in the office, then Alex and Duff and I sat down to our last gin-sling. I said “Boy, give me a last gin-sling.” Of course he thought I said “large” and got me a beer-glass full. The result was wonderful, and I survived a very
trying time without a qualm. The alert went as we got to the airport. Guns banged, bombs dropped. We were forced into a dangerous lift-shaft—me, Duff, Martin, Alex, Mr Kao, Mr Yen and two soldiers. It was nearly all made of glass. Hardly had the All Clear gone than the Alert started again, followed by more guns and bangs and the roar of engines, and down we went into the gleaming glass. So we didn’t get off until one.
The weather two months ago would have alarmed me (rain-clouds and storm) but today I am grateful for its covering veils. It’s pretty rough too, but I didn’t notice it until the Captain said “I’m afraid we’re giving you a very nasty passage.” The passage is curiously enough to Batavia. From there we don’t know. We are in one of the old Imperial Airways flying-boats, and I think that now I’ll sleep some of that gin off.
15 January
We crept up the south-west coast of Sumatra. It has a ridge of high mountains that serves us in the office of a wall against the Japs. The night before, Batavia, now G.H.Q., had sheltered us. Wavell had left for another boistering day in Malaya. In the Dutch-Indian capital, provision had been made against attack—glow-worm lighting, injunctions or orders on every wall. Winston’s picture looked out of most windows; interlaced flags draped the little palace dedicated to Spitfire funds.
Duff’s sadness lowered me. We stared at each other in the clouds, afraid now of the subject that haunted me more than him. Were we to be thought quitters? He at least knew that he had orders and that he saw no place for himself; my predicament of conscience was, unnecessarily, less simple.