The Forgotten Highlander

by Alistair Urquhart

  He reminded us of our great traditions and the need to uphold the honour of the regiment. The Gordons seemed to have been in so many of the key battles fought by the British Army. The buttons on our white spats were black – in memory of our commander during the Napoleonic Wars. The details of his interment were taught in verse to generations of British schoolboys as ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna’. At Waterloo the Gordons had grasped the stirrups of the galloping Scots Greys when they charged into Napoleon’s troops with the cry ‘Scotland Forever!’ – a scene immortalised in Lady Butler’s famous painting. It was certainly a hard act to follow and frankly we hoped that we would never be required to do so.

  Colonel Graham then went on to speak about Singapore itself and the dark dangers that lurked therein. Pacing up and down before us innocent recruits he suddenly announced to our surprise: ‘Venereal Disease! I’m sure you all know what it is. I can tell you now that it is rife among the Chinese, Malays and Eurasians. Any soldier contracting the disease will be charged and severely dealt with.’

  Talk about being punished twice for one crime!

  He warned us to watch our wallets when in the city and also reminded us that the military police would pick us up and bring us in front of him if we were spotted without wearing proper uniform – including our thick, redchecked, woollen Glengarry caps, despite the intense heat.

  He finished up by saying, ‘Tomorrow you will rest and draw equipment from the quartermaster’s stores and familiarise yourself with your surroundings.’

  After the commanding officer’s speech we were split into our companies – A, B, C and D. I was assigned to D Company, along with three others from my platoon of new arrivals. We joined the barracks and tried to settle in. But we were the new meat and fresh targets. We got some amount of ribbing, most of it good-natured but some below the belt and bordering on bullying. Like a new football club signing entering the changing rooms for the first time, there was plenty of macho posturing and mock sexual advances towards us ‘pretty young things’. I decided to muck right in and do the best I could. I was sure that I could become a good soldier and be better than most of my tormentors anyway.

  The following day, after a sleepless night, was spent mostly drawing equipment, clothing and rifle. When the officer in the quartermaster’s store handed me my rifle I thought he was kidding me on. I stared at the antique gun and turned it over and over in my hands. With utter disbelief I saw it was dated 1907 – a bashed-up relic from before the First World War. I realised that the rifle and its accompanying bayonet, along with my webbing and buttons, would require much cleaning, polishing and general elbow grease to bring it up to the standard of regular soldiers, whose long experience in Singapore gave them the edge over us.

  We paraded for inspection and for extra drill by the RSM. Unsurprisingly not one rifle or bayonet passed. When the drill commenced the regulars hanging over the balconies on all sides of the parade ground took great delight in our pathetic and shambolic performance. They hooted and hollered, subjecting our efforts to merciless and withering comment. For two solid hours in the heat of the afternoon sun we sweated and toiled. With our fatigues soaking we were a bedraggled spectacle when dismissed and we stumbled back to our respective barracks with bleeding toes and red-raw feet.

  Christmas Day in 1939 was celebrated in real traditional British style. The officers mucked in for a change and served up generous carvings of turkey with all the trimmings and plum pudding to the men. The dining room had been decorated with festive bunting and there was a cracker for each man. All of us enjoyed the atmosphere and it was probably the most euphoric we had been for weeks. But less than a hundred miles north of the equator the temperature was well into the nineties and it did feel strange to enjoy festivities without being wrapped up in woolly jumpers and scarves. It was my first Christmas away from home and would be my last celebration for six long years.

  For the first six weeks at Selarang us new recruits had our own drill and weapons training in the morning, and went our separate ways in the afternoon to complete basic training. This was simply an extension of the Bridge of Don training – the same drill, just done in tropical conditions. Being fair-skinned, I found the heat got to me more than anything. But it never stopped me from giving my all and I was as good as any in the squad. Myself and the three others from the original Bridge of Don platoon pretty much stuck together during those first few weeks. We had yet to be accepted by the regulars so we stayed close and kept each other right.

  Once a week we went down to the rifle range on a stretch of virgin hillocky land at the back of the barracks. We enjoyed letting out our frustrations on the trigger of the Bren gun. Rifle practice was fun too, even though I could hardly hit a barn door with my defective gun. We would usually start target practice from a hundred yards, which seemed the preferred distance to keep your enemy at, but occasionally a bit further.

  The officers would also order us on weekly route marches of ten miles or so over uneven ground – sand dunes, semi-jungle – never a proper path, hauling full kit and rifle. They kept us pretty fit – they had to stave off the boredom somehow.

  By four in the afternoon we were left to our own devices until dinner at six. Most days we would walk the three or four miles to the neighbouring Roberts barracks, home of the Royal Artillery units. They had a twenty-five-metre outdoor swimming pool that they let us use. After a hard day of training the cool of the pool was fantastically refreshing and reinvigorating. We would eke out as much time as possible before we had to get back to Selarang in time for dinner. If you were late, you went hungry.

  The speed at which the sun went down was something that I never really got used to. It was dark by 6 p.m. After dinner I sat on my bed in the barracks, spitting and polishing, and writing letters home. I had never written as often as I did in those early days. I would write to Mother mainly and would include notes to my whole family. Mum would tell me news of home to keep me updated. But she never mentioned Douglas for some reason I never quite understood. I think that maybe she did not want to worry me as I later learned he had gone off to be a glider pilot. I wrote occasionally to my old pal Eric, who had joined up with the RAF, and also to Hazel Watson, the girl I danced with before I left. On days of extreme boredom I would think of Hazel, who seemed to become more attractive and intelligent with every day and every mile that passed between us.

  At the end of the six weeks us conscripts were considered passable as soldiers. Without fuss or fanfare we became fully trained members of our respective companies. Aside from the regular training sessions, each company was assigned to guard duties.

  Now that I was in the Army proper, spit and polish was the order of the evenings, with drill, manoeuvres, guard duties and PT during the day. Bizarrely each day between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. the whole camp came to a standstill for a compulsory siesta. Every man had to be in his bunk during that period. I disagreed with this from the start. The enemy seemed unlikely to suspend hostilities to allow us time to rest during the hottest part of the day. One’s body gets accustomed to the habit of daily routine. It was hardly suitable training for jungle warfare but our superiors thought differently. This ridiculous routine, a hangover from the days of the Raj, was fairly typical of the complacency that served the British so badly in Singapore.

  During training with D Company I soon found favour with the commanding officer, Captain W. H. Duke. Noticing my high fitness levels, he was particularly interested in my athletics background. I told him that I ran 220 and 440 yards at grammar school and generally spent my life sprinting here and there. He was impressed by what he saw and I, along with another of the new conscripts, wee Davie, was put through training in athletics for the annual battalion championships between companies. He told us to be ready for training at 6 a.m. the next day.

  The following morning I was on the parade ground going through my exercises. Captain Duke, Sandhurst-trained and the best officer I had ever served with, produced a pair of spikes. I w
as familiar with spikes and had used them many times back home, although wee Davie found them difficult and took some time to get used to them. Captain Duke was himself an excellent runner, particularly over the 220-yard races. Training was held for an hour across from the guardroom on the pedang – not an athletics track, just a patch of coarse grass that served its purpose for us very well.

  Captain Duke watched us intently as we sprinted laps, timing with the stopwatch that hung permanently from his neck. He was very softly spoken but knew how to get the most out of us. After a few laps he would come up and give some technical tips, like how to run the bend or how to maximise your stride – things that the sports master at school never taught. I improved a lot under his tuition.

  We wanted to shine as individuals and trained hard. But we also wanted the Company to perform well. I was allotted to run the 440- and 880-yard races while the other chap was given the mile race. Captain Duke did the long jump and high jump duties were shared by myself and wee Davie.

  Finally the day dawned for the battalion sports day. I was extremely nervous throughout the day before the event kicked off at 4 p.m. on the pedang where we had trained. I wasn’t too sure why, as I had competed in various events back home without any such nerves. I guess after all the stick we had taken from the regulars I wanted to prove myself in my own way. I was certainly out to win. All of the officers, their wives and children were there, along with the company support, cheering us on from the sidelines. Stakes had been hammered into the ground to mark out the makeshift track. It was covered in bumps and rises that could put you off your stride but since I had practised on it I knew all the bad bits and dips.

  After a shaky start I managed to hit my strides and win the 440-yard race, while wee Davie won the mile event. I didn’t fare as well in the 880 yards but still finished a credible third. I also won the high jump and the officer won all of his events as anticipated. Our 220-yard relay team was augmented by a fairly good runner, and with Captain Duke as anchor man we came in a solid second. On that showing we lifted the cup for 1940. There was no hugging and kissing, no grand party, just back to the barracks to spit and polish and get ready for the next day. But the grin on my face remained for a good while.

  Athletics helped get me out of the cocoon that is military life. And after the battalion championships I decided to travel into Singapore as often as possible to break the tedium. However, as a conscripted private paid just a shilling a day, less deductions for my keep, and when converted to Singapore dollars, it was nigh on impossible to leave the barracks more than once a month.

  But the more I did get out, the more I encountered the local colonial population. And the more I saw of them, the less I liked what I saw. Most of the white people, rubber planters, mining company managers or those working for the government, conducted themselves with swaggering arrogance and had nothing but contempt for the armed forces who had been sent out to protect them. On one day off I thought I would venture into Singapore. I had heard that the air-conditioned Cathay cinema was showing Gone with the Wind. I caught the ‘piggy bus’ and got dropped off downtown. Walking along the pavement, or ‘sidewalk’ as they called it, I had my first experience with the local colonials. Two chaps dressed in sandals, khaki shorts and immaculate open-collar cotton shirts were striding towards me. As they approached one of them said to me in a pukka upper-class English accent, ‘Hey, soldier. You have to get off the sidewalk to let us past.’

  I stopped in my tracks, stunned. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Who are you talking to?’

  ‘You. Who else?’ one of them sneered.

  Bristling with rage I replied, ‘Why do you think I’m here? I didn’t want to come to Singapore but we’re here to defend you and there’s no way I’m getting off the pavement for you or anyone else.’

  Greatly affronted they threatened to report me to my commanding officer and stormed off pompously. I stood there shaking my fist at them. ‘You do that! But I’m not moving off this sidewalk!’

  I was still cursing them as they disappeared from view. If this was how they treated us, goodness knows what they meted out to the native rubber-tappers. It was a miracle that there was not more trouble, I thought, as I marched to the cinema. I had never been treated like that before and it was disgusting to witness these English and Scottish colonials and their diabolically superior attitude to all and sundry. I swore never to become like them and arrived at the cinema only to discover that the screening had been cancelled – which did nothing for my mood.

  A few weeks later I received an unexpected invitation to lunch from a chap called Ian, who was engaged to my cousin Cathie Kynoch. He was a fellow Aberdonian – a very large proportion of the colonials were Scottish – and managed a rubber plantation in the Singapore area. I was pleased to have been remembered and excited at the prospect of meeting people outside the stultifying confines of the military. Naturally I dressed immaculately in Army ‘whites’, my formal attire, and made my way to the exclusive club in the middle of Singapore City. I clutched my invitation to a club usually out of bounds to the likes of me and as I approached suddenly felt extremely poor. The club was housed in a huge white building that had been converted from a former mansion house. I walked up the palm-lined pavement and, finally plucking up the courage, entered the teak-panelled drinking club popular with expat traders, rubber planters and their guests. As I went in I felt the welcoming cool of the air-conditioning and the swish-swish of the ceiling fans. The louvred blinds kept out the heat of the sun and white-jacketed bar tenders were shaking cocktails. It was another, well-heeled world. I could sense all the men in the room sizing me up, the only non-civilian there, and felt extremely uncomfortable under their disdainful stares. I walked up to the long bar beside the vacant snooker table and under the swooping of the fans took my bearings. The all-male clientele were standing, drinking brandy and gin slings in equally copious measures and smoking cigars and expensive filtered cigarettes. Shouting at the Chinese waiters and making derogatory comments, they were much the same arrogant characters I had seen abusing the rickshaw drivers in the streets of Singapore.

  I was wondering whether to turn around and leave when a large man with a bloated face and stomach came forward and introduced himself as Ian, my cousin Cathie’s fiancé.

  To my horror the man was one of the two planters who had tried to chuck me off the sidewalk. If he recognised me, he concealed it well and offered a sweaty palm. I shook his hand automatically. In a loud and artificially acquired pukka accent, he asked, ‘What’ll you be having to drink, good fellow?’

  ‘Iced lemonade,’ I replied, noticing the smell of alcohol on his breath and the red lines that webbed his eyes.

  ‘What? Iced lemonade?’ he roared, as if I had just asked for Hitler’s barber.

  ‘Yes, just iced lemonade, thank you.’

  He tossed his head back laughing, shouted to a waiter to fix my drink, and went back to his pals, who were in stitches. A few of his drinking buddies came over and attempted some forced small talk. Ian came back over and said, ‘So you’re just a private, then?’ in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.

  My lemonade arrived and despite not being particularly sour, it certainly went over that way. I downed it rather quickly, made my excuses and left. On the bus journey back to barracks I kicked myself for not having asked Ian if he had yet volunteered for the Malay Volunteer Force. He would be roped in eventually and I doubted that he would fare very well.

  When I got back to the barracks I immediately sat down and wrote a letter to my cousin: ‘Dearest Cathie, I had never met your fiancé before I came to Singapore, but now that I have, I urge you in the strongest manner possible not to marry him. He is no good for you. He will ruin your life.’

  I will never know whether it was my letter that changed her mind but I was delighted when she called off the engagement soon after.

  During this period the news coming from home was worrying. Dunkirk, especially among the Highland regiments, was view
ed as an unmitigated disaster. Churchill had ordered the 51st Highland Division to undertake a rearguard action to allow the beaches to be cleared of allied soldiers. Three hundred thousand men got off the beaches but forty-one thousand, including virtually the entire Scottish army in Europe, had been killed or captured at St Valery. The Black Watch, the Seaforth Highlanders, the Cameronians, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and two battalions of our own Gordon Highlanders were all either wiped out or marched into Germany as captives. It was a terrible thought. But in Singapore it was business as usual – still very much a ‘phoney war’. We never even had a blackout.

  Somehow even the good news that came from home in late summer, when the RAF and our allies got the upper hand in the Battle of Britain, had a downside for us. The home islands were under attack and planes were needed to defend Britain. But where did that leave Singapore? There were mutterings in the barracks that we could be the ‘next Dunkirk’, a sitting duck without adequate air cover. Singapore was known as the ‘Naked Isle’ and that is exactly how it felt without a sizeable RAF contingent.

  When I wasn’t taking part in athletics or exploring Singapore on the cheap, I threw myself into the training. The various companies of 112 men alternated guard duties at the barracks with stints at the governor’s house across the causeway on the Malaya Peninsula in Johore, and Blakang Mati – the small island at the foot of Singapore where the mighty British guns pointed out to sea. Each guard posting was for one week. The most sought-after duty was guarding the governor’s house and only the best men got selected. I did more than one stint at his house and I welcomed it like a vacation. It was a great number. The governor had a beautiful, lush nine-hole golf course as smooth as a billiard table, which we were allowed to play in the evenings, and the pace of life was even slower and more relaxed. At night, like something out of a Hollywood movie, huge chrome-plated limousines would pull up at the house and glamorous diamond-clad ladies in long, flowing dresses would step out and set our hearts aflutter, their escorts resplendent in white bow-tied evening wear and full regimental dress. In this idyllic existence, as the strains of the latest dance numbers drifted across the impeccable lawns, it seemed unthinkable to the governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, and his entourage that it might all come to a sudden and dramatic end.