The Other Side of Paradise

by Margaret Mayhew

  Susan, who had been sent with Ghani to meet her grandmother, received a sharp peck on the cheek and an equally sharp reproof.

  ‘Far too much lipstick for a young girl … and it’s not as though you need it. And I don’t approve of painting fingernails and certainly not toenails. Only trollops paint their feet. Zhu, don’t bump Hector about like that. You know how he hates it.’

  Hector, Grandmother’s parrot, acquired from the jungle many years ago by Grandfather, was making indignant squawks from under the cloth covering his cage. The Chinese amah, tiny and bent, could barely lift it off the ground. Ghani was dispatched to deal with the luggage – a massive cabin trunk hooped with steel bands and plastered with faded steamship labels bearing witness to many voyages across the oceans, and several suitcases and heavy crates containing Grandmother’s collection of Georgian silver.

  ‘They wanted us to leave with next to nothing – barely the clothes we stood up in. Ridiculous! The whole affair is a shameful disgrace. We’ve abandoned the natives without a word. Run away like cowards to save our own skins. I never imagined the day would come when I’d see the British in Malaya do that. Thank God your grandfather isn’t alive.’

  The luggage couldn’t possibly fit into the Buick and had to follow behind in three rickshaws. On the journey to Cavenagh Road, her grandmother expressed her views on the shortcomings of the Royal Navy, the army, the Royal Air Force and the Government.

  ‘Useless, the lot of them. First they let the Japs sink those two battleships, then they let them land on the beaches, and then they start retreating. Retreating! What’s the good of that? The Japs came and bombed us and flew their aeroplanes up and down the streets, just as they pleased. Corpses lying everywhere, fires blazing, gangs looting and no police stopping them. No control, no organization, no leadership. Scandalous! Where’s your mother, by the way? Lying down with one of her headaches, I expect.’

  Her mother was doing exactly that and would probably stay in her room for hours, or even days, to avoid Grandmother who had never had any patience with her migraines, or with her dislike of Malaya.

  Soojal was on the steps, bowing and smiling, as they arrived, and Grandmother issued peremptory instructions about her luggage and about Hector. She swept up the staircase, Zhu tottering in her wake, the household amahs scurrying behind.

  Her mother stayed firmly in her room, but when her father came back from his office tea was served under the jacaranda tree. The conversation was constantly interrupted by Hector, whose cage had been put nearby. Sometimes the parrot squawked in English, other times in Malay or Chinese, or Tamil.

  ‘He picks it up from the servants,’ Grandmother said, like a fond mother with a precocious child. ‘He’s remarkably clever.’

  He was also a vicious old bird with a razor-sharp beak capable of cracking knuckles as well as nuts, as Susan had discovered on visits to the bungalow in Penang.

  Her father put down his teacup. ‘I’m afraid he’ll have to stay behind, Mother.’

  ‘Stay behind? What are you talking about, Thomas?’

  ‘When you leave Singapore. There’s no alternative now – you must realize that. I’m arranging for the next available passages out for you, Helen and Susan. To Australia, preferably.’

  ‘Australia? I’m not going anywhere, least of all Australia. I have just arrived in Singapore where I intend to remain until the British regain their senses and the Japanese army is routed. I shall then return to my home in Penang, where I should still be if it weren’t for this disgraceful and humiliating situation.’

  ‘Penang is expected to be taken by the Japs within the next few days – that’s why the evacuation arrangements were made.’

  ‘I refuse to believe it. Surely our army can deal with those little men.’

  ‘The British army is in retreat, Mother. It seems incredible, I know, but apparently it’s true. The Japs have already taken Jitra and are advancing south.’

  Hector shouted something unintelligible in Tamil and marched to and fro excitedly on his perch. For once, Grandmother ignored him.

  ‘That may be, but sooner or later they’re bound to overreach themselves. I can see no cause for panic – certainly no necessity to go rushing off to Australia. Singapore Island is perfectly safe.’

  ‘No, it’s not, Mother. We’ve already had one bad bombing raid and the Japs are bound to carry out more.’

  ‘You have a shelter here, don’t you? That place over there by the tennis court. We can go and sit in it until they go away.’

  ‘They won’t “go away”, as you put it. They’re here to try and take the Malayan peninsula and then to capture Singapore. That’s their general plan, I believe.’

  ‘Capture Singapore! What an absurd idea! Impossible!’

  ‘It once seemed so, I agree, but not any more. Not the way things are going. So, I want the three of you to leave as soon as possible. It’s what Father would have wished me to arrange for you. His first consideration would have been your safety.’

  Hector, peeved at being ignored, poked his head through the cage bars and tried some Malay.

  Grandmother still took no notice; she drew herself up in her chair.

  ‘I was forced to run away from Penang, Thomas; I don’t intend to run any further. We have a duty to set an example to the Asians. They would spot any sign of weakness on our part, which would be disastrous. British prestige is at stake. Send Helen and Susan by all means, if you wish, but I shall stay here. I have lived in Malaya for more than fifty years and no Jap is going to make me leave.’

  There was loud squawking from the corner. Hector spoke in clear English this time and in a good imitation of Grandfather’s voice.

  ‘God save the King! God save the King! God save the King!’

  Grandmother smiled grimly.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Apart from some hit-and-run visits by Japanese fighters, there were no more bombing raids over the next days. Preparations for Christmas went on; so did the parties and the dinners and the dancing, though there were fewer young men present and, for once, no sign of Denys. Eventually Susan spotted him at the railway station when she was making yet another ambulance trip to collect yet more wounded. When the orderly had gone off to wait on the platform for the train to arrive, she had powdered her nose, repaired her lipstick, dabbed some Je Reviens on her forehead and wrists and gone to sit on a bench in the shade. It was then that she caught sight of Denys talking to an army officer. He saw her, too, and after a while he came over.

  ‘What are you doing here, Susie?’

  She indicated the ambulance parked nearby. ‘Collecting patients.’

  ‘Still driving them? Good Lord, I never thought you’d stay the course.’

  ‘Well, I have – so far.’ She fanned herself with her cap. ‘What have you been up to, Denys? Still rounding up Jap civilians?’

  ‘No, they were all in the bag long ago. We’ve packed most of them safely off to Ceylon. It’s the other kind of Jap that we have to worry about now.’

  He looked rather tired and very un-Denys-like. Not at all his cheery self. He sat down beside her and groped in his breast pocket.

  ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ After it was lit, she said, ‘What’s the latest news?’

  He shrugged. ‘Who knows? By the time any news reaches Singapore it’s two days out of date. Penang’s been taken, but I expect you already knew that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. My grandmother was evacuated from there and she took it as a personal insult. What’s going to happen next, do you think?’

  ‘The last thing I heard was that we’ve retreated as far as Grik. Next stop Kuala Kangsar, after that Ipoh, I’d say. It’s anybody’s guess. And it’s not just the army retreating, it’s the civilian chaps, too – rubber planters, tin miners, administrators – all those sort of bods turning up in Singapore. They’ve had to set fire to rubber stocks, flood mines, smash up machinery – everything they’ve left behind, rather than let the Nips get their
hands on it. Hell of a mess.’

  ‘You never believed they’d attack us, did you?’

  ‘I never thought they’d have the nerve. The thing is once they got a foothold in northern Malaya, we’ve been on the slippery slope. They’re outsmarting us at every bloody turn. Made fools of us, so far. We simply have to stop the rot somehow.’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t think you’d still be in Singapore, Susie. I thought you’d be on one of the ships taking women and children out. Wasn’t your papa going to pack you off?’

  ‘He’s been trying to but my mother’s been ill. We thought it was one of her migraines at first, but it’s some sort of fever. The doctor says she’s not fit to travel.’

  ‘The sooner she is, the better, I’d say. You should leave, Susie. While the going’s good.’

  ‘There’s nothing good about it. I feel like my grandmother feels – it would be running away, letting the Asians down. I don’t want to do that. And I’m not afraid of the Japs.’

  ‘You should be. They’re frightening people.’

  She heard the sound of the train approaching – the puffing of steam, the clank of metal wheels. ‘I’d better get ready.’ She put her cap back on, ground out her cigarette in the dirt. They both stood up. ‘Good luck, Denys.’

  He bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Good luck, Susie. I’ll give you a ring … see how things are going.’ He grinned at her, more like the old Denys. ‘By the way, you look terrific in that get-up.’

  She climbed into the ambulance and waited for the wounded to be brought out – four more gruesome stretcher cases. They only sent the bad ones down. Men with chest wounds, head wounds, stomach wounds, mangled and missing limbs, transported in sweating heat. The smell of putrefaction was permeating the air vents behind her seat. She shut them and got out the bottle of Je Reviens again, sprinkled some on her handkerchief and waved it to and fro under her nose.

  On Christmas Day her mother was still confined to bed, but Susan went to St Andrew’s cathedral with her father and with Grandmother, who had exchanged her white topee for a veiled black straw. They sang carols about snow and ice, holly and ivy, and frosty wind making moan while the sun beat down from a cloudless sky. After the service, people stopped outside to talk. Nobody mentioned the fact that Hong Kong had just fallen to the Japanese.

  At the Christmas lunch at the Tanglin Club extra tables had been laid for evacuees who had arrived from the peninsula. Everybody was smiling and laughing, eating and drinking as though nothing whatever was wrong.

  Susan came across Milly at the swimming pool, but without Geoff.

  ‘I’ve hardly seen anything of him lately. He’s too busy at the hospital. Still, Daddy says things are bound to get better soon. The Japs won’t have it their own way for much longer.’

  ‘They’ve just had it their way in Hong Kong – or haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Yes, but Daddy says Singapore is quite different. Hong Kong hardly had any troops, whereas we’ve got lots.’

  Susan could picture Colonel Benson saying nice, reassuring things to his daughter but she wondered what he really thought. And how bad it really was on the mainland. Denys hadn’t been very optimistic but nobody seemed to know for sure. There was no official information given out and lots of different rumours were flying around: the fighting was going well and hundreds of Japs had been killed; or, the British army was retreating steadily southwards with heavy losses and the Japs were now bombing Kuala Lumpur; or, there was no need for alarm because help was on its way from England … more ships, more planes, more men.

  ‘Lucky your brothers are in England, Milly.’

  ‘They don’t think so. They’d far sooner be here. Anyway, I don’t think Mummy and I will be for much longer. Daddy says the army’s arranging for wives and children to leave. That’s the latest news. Actually, I’ll be rather glad if we do go. I thought it was all rather exciting at first, but it isn’t any more. It’s frightening. Don’t you think so?’

  She had told Denys that she wasn’t afraid of the Japs – but it wasn’t strictly true. The ones she’d encountered in Singapore had always seemed rather sinister, hiding their feelings behind a mask of politeness. The man in the local camera shop, for instance, had always bowed and scraped but he had never smiled. She had sensed his scorn: even his hatred.

  ‘Yes, it is a bit. When would you be going?’

  ‘Quite soon, I think. Mummy told me to pack a suitcase and have it ready. I can’t take much, though; we have to leave almost everything behind. The worst is that we’ll have to leave Bonnie.’

  Bonnie, Milly’s pet spaniel, was as overweight as her mistress.

  ‘The servants will look after her.’

  ‘If they stay. Our kebun’s already disappeared; we think he’s probably gone off to hide in the jungle. They’re all scared stiff.’ Milly rubbed some sun oil on to her legs. ‘You’ll have to leave, too, I expect, Susie.’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  ‘But your father won’t let you stay if the Japs get anywhere near Singapore, will he? I suppose he’ll stay behind, though, like Daddy has to, being in the army.’

  On the opposite side of the pool there was a woman with her son. Very English – fair-haired, fair-skinned, dressed in sensible English swimming costumes. She’d never seen them at the club before. They were probably one of the evacuee families from the peninsula that had been allowed in. Susan watched as the boy lowered himself into the water and struck out boldly across the pool. He reached the side and held on to the edge. He was quite near where they were sitting and she saw his face clearly: greenish eyes, a snub nose, freckles.

  Milly said, ‘Have you been out with Ray again?’

  ‘No, thank you. Once was quite enough.’

  ‘I’ll probably never see Geoff again after we leave.’

  ‘You might if you go to Australia.’

  ‘Only he won’t be there, will he? Not if the war goes on. He’ll be here. And anyway, we’re supposed to be going to England and that couldn’t be further away from Australia. What if the Japs get as far as Singapore, Susie? What do you think will happen to everybody that gets left behind?’

  ‘They’ll go on fighting and stop the Japs landing.’

  ‘Do you really think they could?’

  ‘Peter! Peter!’

  The woman was beckoning anxiously to the boy.

  ‘Coming, Mummy.’

  She watched the boy doing a very splashy sort of crawl back to the other side.

  ‘Susie? Do you really think they’d be able to stop them?’

  She said firmly, ‘Yes. Of course they will, Milly.’

  Towards the end of December Japanese aircraft returned at night to drop more bombs on the city. As well as bombs, they dropped leaflets which said Burn all the White Devils in the sacred White Flame of Victory.

  On New Year’s Eve Susan went to a party. Some of the leaflets had been pinned up on the walls as a joke and everyone laughed. They all linked arms at midnight and sang ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot’ extremely loudly. Everybody kissed everybody else and several of them, herself included, ended the party by jumping into the swimming pool, fully clothed.

  During early January the Japanese bombers came back again and again – in broad daylight now as well as at night. They flew over the city in big and perfect formations, sometimes of almost a hundred planes. Most of the bombs fell on the docks and the airfields and on the poorer districts so that the native workers fled, leaving ships unloaded, shelters undug, bodies unburied. Black smoke billowed from burning oil-storage tanks and the city began to stink of the rotting corpses trapped under rubble.

  Lawrence Trent came back with news of the fighting on the mainland. The Japanese were, he said, moving steadily south. They had brought ashore armoured carriers and tanks and rumbled down main roads, all guns blazing, with only useless British rifles being fired in return. The Japanese infantry followed in their wake while Japanese planes covered them from the air, some battalions on bicycles. Exha
usted British troops were being ambushed, massacred, outflanked. They were being beaten back by sheer weight of numbers as more and more Japanese troops poured on to the peninsula and advanced in hordes over swamps and ricefields, along roads, through rubber plantations, on rafts down rivers, infiltrating the jungle armed with tommy guns and hand grenades, concealing themselves among the trees to attack behind the British lines.

  They had no standard uniform, and to add to the confusion they sometimes dressed themselves as Malays. Ipoh had been captured, then Kampar. There had been ferocious fighting with terrible losses at the Slim River where the Japanese had seized the road bridge intact. Kuantan had fallen and the last British troops had withdrawn from Kuala Lumpur, which had been occupied by the Japs without even a fight. The official communiqués spoke of British troops falling back on previously prepared positions, as though the retreat had been of their choice rather than forced upon them.

  They listened to all this sitting out on the west verandah at Cavenagh Road, as the sun sank behind the jungle and the bullfrogs began their nightly chorus.

  Susan’s father said, ‘On bicycles? Are you serious, Lawrence?’

  ‘Perfectly. I told you the Japs were resourceful.’

  ‘It still seems ludicrous. Bicycles, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘They’re an excellent means of transport and they can go more or less anywhere. And the Japs travel light. Have you ever seen a British Tommy setting off for war? He’s weighed down like a pack-horse with a ton of equipment.’

  ‘But if we can regroup our forces in the south, there must still be a chance of stopping them.’

  ‘There might be – if we can hold the Johore line.’

  ‘And if we can’t?’

  ‘Then the game’s up and I don’t believe anything will save Singapore. The Lion City is going to be brought to its knees.’

  Her grandmother said icily, ‘That’s defeatist talk, Mr Trent, and I won’t allow it. I have rather more faith in the British soldier than you. I consider him second to none.’