“Yes, I am. I work for the London Times.”
“Why did you ever come to Singapore?” he asked.
I didn’t want to explain my reason. Especially to a man I had known a matter of minutes. “I wanted to report from the front lines.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t London the front lines?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “I suppose it is. But it’s more than that. My predecessor was killed in an earlier air raid.”
“The only people coming to Singapore now are running away from something worse,” he said.
I didn’t have a good answer. I wasn’t about to tell him that I had to leave London, that I saw Maggie’s face in every window, on every corner. I didn’t want him to know that I couldn’t even function, that a task as simple as choosing my shoes was utterly overwhelming.
“It was a good opportunity,” I said simply.
He studied me for a moment, curiously. It was almost as if he knew something far more intriguing than a better career opportunity had brought me to Singapore. Maybe he was too polite to ask.
“Actually, I wanted to be a soldier,” I said, interrupting the impasse.
“You weren’t accepted?”
“No,” I said. “I had a very sickly childhood. I have trouble breathing, and I don’t have much stamina. I’ll make more of a contribution as a reporter.”
“Probably so,” he said.
He was quiet, either uninterested or reflecting on what I’d said; I didn’t know which. He took another sip from the bottle.
The ground shook from a bomb above. I shuddered and quickly looked upward as dust filtered from the ceiling, rattled loose by the blast. I hoped the hotel wouldn’t collapse like the Malay Towers had. I shifted uncomfortably, keeping a wary eye on the beams above.
“I don’t recognize your accent,” I said.
He smiled. “I’m a citizen of the seven seas.”
I looked at him curiously. He was being as evasive as I was.
“But of French ancestry,” he added.
“From France?” I asked. “Or a colony?”
“From everywhere,” he said. “My family moved frequently.”
“Have you been in Singapore long?”
He shrugged. “I lose track of time.”
“What does that mean?”
He nodded towards the woman who had helped me. “An interesting lady,” he said.
I looked over at her. She sat upright, her back against the wall. She held a book in front of her, and the pages had her complete attention. As bombs burst above us and the sounds of machine-guns, diving planes, and whining engines drowned conversations, she calmly read. She refused to be intimidated, not by me staring at her, not by the other guests, and not by the Japanese army. I looked at the book. It was entitled,Murder on the Suez Canal.
That was an interesting choice. Another volume sat on the floor beside her. I squinted, reading the title on the spine. It was a far different subject:Social Stratification of the Indian Subcontinent.
“She helped me get to the bomb shelter,” I said. “She’s a brave woman.”
“I may ask to borrow her book.”
“The murder mystery?”
He looked at me strangely. “No, the book on India.”
I hadn’t expected the reply. There might be more to the man than I thought. He might have an interesting story to tell. Maybe he could form the foundation of my first article. I was planning a series for theTimes.I wanted to call itPeople of Singapore.
“I think she arrived yesterday,” he continued.
“Who is she?” I asked. “She wouldn’t tell me her name.”
He laughed. “I have no idea. But, as I said before, people are fleeing Singapore by the boatload. Those arriving can only be leaving something worse.”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
He pointed towards the street. “The bombing has ceased.”
The sirens signaling the end of the attack sounded, but I wondered for how long. When was the next attack coming and would it be worse than this one? I had to establish some contacts with the military and determine how serious the situation was. My first impression was that Singapore was in dire danger.
As we made our way to the exit, I glanced at the woman who had helped me. She was disappearing into the crowd. I didn’t know why I found her so interesting. I suppose it was because she had saved me. Or maybe it was her smile. Or the assortment of books she was reading. And then I suddenly felt guilty. How could I even think about another woman, regardless of the reason? It wasn’t fair to Maggie.
“I want to thank you for helping me,” I said. I thought about the potential story. “Maybe I can buy you dinner?”
“How about a drink,” he said. “We can meet in the hotel bar this evening.”
We climbed the steps. He opened the door, and rays of sunlight streamed into the dimly lit basement.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “I would like that, but something soft.” I wondered if many of the hotel guests frequented the bar. I suspected they did. It might be interesting.
Singapore would be more difficult than I realized. I had to immerse myself in its culture, learn about its people, understand its motives, and predict its future. I would understand and assess its military capabilities: the strength of its defenses, the morale of its defenders, the will of its attackers and the chances for its survival. I planned to interview people, from the men who cleaned the streets to the social elite to the highest ranked military commanders I could gain access to. I must become a part of Singapore, and it would become a part of me. And I must learn why Thomas Montclair had come, and why he stayed, and why he had helped me when a dozen others had simply stared. I made a note to find out who the woman was, courageous and defiant in the face of danger, but reluctant to reveal her identity. I would learn the secrets of Singapore, but I would tell their secrets too.
CHAPTER 2
I returned to my room, continually playing the scenes of the air raid in my mind. It had been traumatic, especially for the residents, but it was far from the intense aerial assaults that London experienced. This attack didn’t compare to a thousand planes harassing the city day and night, the incessant wail of sirens and ambulances, the sickening cost in injuries and deaths, or block after block of devastation and destruction. Even though I had almost lost my life, it was due to my own stupidity, my own complacency and overconfidence. I would not make that mistake again.
The magnitude of the attack showed me much about the Japanese. There were less than a hundred planes, all fighter aircraft with minimal destructive impact. And, although it came late, the British did counterattack, both with anti-aircraft guns and a handful of planes dispatched after the attack had started.
But the assault had come quickly; it had been launched from a nearby airfield, probably just across the straits on the Malay Peninsula. The air attack that killed my predecessor Miles Jackson had come from long range bombers that flew from Japanese bases in French Indo-China. Given what I had witnessed, the city’s defense would be difficult. The British and their allies seemed undermanned and overwhelmed, even though reinforcements arrived daily.
While reflecting on the attack, and wondering when the next would come, I cleaned up my injuries. Thomas had removed the cobblestone splinters in my legs and glass particles in my cheek. I cleansed all the wounds, ensuring nothing else remained, and then rubbed an antiseptic on them that I had gotten in the hotel shop. My head ached where the beam had struck me, so I put a wet cloth on it and took some aspirin. Other than that there was little else I could do.
I obsessed about the woman who had rescued me. I wondered why she wouldn’t tell me who she was or who she was looking for during an air raid. Assuming she was really looking for someone. The mystery was intriguing. But she wasn’t why I had come to Singapore, my writing was. So I immersed myself in my work, occasionally distracted by thoughts of her smile.
I sat with my notepad and created the first in a series of a
rticles titled,Live from Fortress Singapore. I gave a detailed description of the air raid, making the images vibrant and real, the emotions vivid and deep. First I focused on my experience: the machine gun attack, the collapse of the Malay Towers, my mystery rescuer, and the plane that crashed on the lawn of the Victoria Hotel. Readers always seemed to like it when I related personal experiences.
I closed the article by summarizing my thoughts on military preparedness, capturing the panic in the streets, and describing the mood in the hotel bomb shelter. I envisioned the series as a companion to my articles on the people of Singapore, and I thought it would give British subjects around the world a vivid depiction of the war in Southeast Asia.
I brought the article to the office of theLondon Times, which was across the street from the Victoria Hotel, tucked away in a string of storefronts and offices that ran the length of the entire block.
As I left the lobby, I saw that the crashed Japanese plane had marred the expanse of green lawn that wrapped around the hotel, the rich soil exposed from the aircraft skidding over it on its way to the street. Wreckage lay scattered about: pieces of a wing, a section of tail that still had the plane’s identifying numbers on it, the grass singed brown by leaking gasoline, and scattered debris, mostly fragments of wood too small to tell what part of the plane they had come from.
A flower bed, one of dozens, had been destroyed, but a gardener was already working magic with what was left, rearranging the flowers, removing what was damaged, and adding more. A work crew, consisting of three uniformed workers, organized the debris, bundling it into smaller packages and loading it on the back of a small truck. Although the cockpit still sat in the midst of the street, just beyond the lawn, I saw no sign of the pilot, his remains having long since been taken away.
I entered theTimes office to find a single room, spacious but crammed with a dozen desks situated in the center, facing each other in two rows. Each desk contained a small lamp, a typewriter, stacks of paper, file compartments, pens, and pencils. The desks were mostly occupied, and some of the reporters’ fingers were flying across the keys as they fought to meet the day’s deadline. Others were on the phone, frantically gathering information, confirming sources, and making arrangements. Arms waved, tongues wagged, eyes proofread. It was truly a news room, and probably the most important in Southeast Asia.
“Can I help you?” asked a young woman of Asian descent, petite and pretty with black half-glasses.
“Yes,” I said. “How are you? I’m looking for Alistair Duncan.”
She motioned her head towards an office at the back of the room. I nodded and walked towards it.
Alistair Duncan was tall and very thin, with an anemic look and pale blue eyes that made him appear one day away from a hospital bed. His suit fit poorly, probably due to his irregular shape, and his tie was loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. He looked just as I would expect an editor to look after enduring a long day with too much news to cram into too little time. He spoke on a telephone as I knocked on his door, the earpiece cradled on his shoulder while he typed, slowly and methodically with two or three fingers on each hand. A moment later he hung up the phone and motioned me in.
“I’m George Adams,” I said. “I arrived earlier today to replace Miles Jackson.”
“Adams, nice to meet you. Alistair Duncan. Do you have anything for me?”
“Yes,” I said, handing him my article. “A report on the air raid.”
“That’s three days in a row they’ve attacked,” he said. “But we’ll beat them back. This is Fortress Singapore.”
As he skimmed the pages, I outlined my plans for two articles a day, focused on both the people of Singapore and the war. He occasionally looked up; he seemed to like the idea but offered no reaction. He was preoccupied with finishing his own report, his eyes glancing towards the manila sheet rolled into the typewriter. When he finished reading, he called the man whose desk was nearest his office, gave him the article and instructed him to post it.
“We need you, Adams,” he said. He pointed to the office, which was chaotic, with nine or ten people alternating between phone calls and typewriters. “It’s pandemonium here. Especially since the air raids started.
The whole world wants to know what’s happening in Singapore.”
“I’m glad I can help,” I said. My thoughts drifted back to London. I missed it already: my office, my desk, my typewriter. “Do you have a military contact I can use?”
He scribbled some information on a notepad. “Here are three,” he said. “The first, Colonel Rogers, is on General Percival’s personal staff. Difficult to find, somewhat guarded, but the most knowledgeable. The other two have second-hand information, but they’re still good sources. Tell them you work for me.”
I looked at the contacts. I didn’t recognize any of them, but I wasn’t that familiar with military leaders in the Asian theater. When I looked up I saw Duncan glancing at his watch.
“Thank you,” I said as I stood to rise. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
The Raffles Café sat next to theTimesoffice, a cozy eatery with a generous view of the expansive lawn in front of the Victoria Hotel and Orchard Road as it rolled past on its way to the harbor. Beside the wide windows were a half dozen wrought iron tables and chairs situated on the edge of the sidewalk, none showing any signs of damage from the air raid, and now occupied with an assortment of citizens idly passing the early evening. It reminded me of the Treasure Island Café, one of my favorite haunts in London and a location where I had spent many an afternoon, often with other reporters from theTimes office.
I went in and ate dinner, selecting a local dish called Mee Siam, which was rice with seafood and vegetables. I then enjoyed a cup of tea, which was as popular in Singapore as it was in London. I quietly watched the pedestrians passing: young women with strollers, octogenarians with canes, policeman, students, housewives and businessmen, wondering how they continued with their daily lives with the Japanese at their doorstep. They strolled by, most not even looking at the downed plane across the road, intent on their destination: work or school or shopping or visiting friends and relatives. Somehow they coped, just as we had in London.
An elderly man was seated beside me, well dressed in slacks and a sports coat, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his white hair meticulously combed. He reeked of British upper class, an integral component of any colony. He sipped his tea, watching me curiously.
“Nasty business, the air raid,” he said.
“Yes, it was,” I agreed. “When do you think the next attack will be?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “They’re coming daily now. In another week, they’ll be sitting beside me having tea.”
I liked him. He was polite and sophisticated, and he possessed the wit and wisdom that only the years seem to offer. His name was Henry Hyde, and he was a retired banker. Originally from London, he had lived in Singapore for the last forty years. He described life in the city before the war, and I did the same for him in London. The more we talked, the more I found him interesting, honest, and sincere, a man of both conviction and integrity.
“I never missed London,” he told me. “At least not until now. Singapore is paradise. But apparently the Japanese have figured that out. Now they want it. The trick is not to let them have it.”
“How do we do that?”
He shrugged. “We’re in a precarious situation. Reinforcements arrive daily, troops and planes and canons, but the island is almost surrounded. I was out in my boat yesterday and saw Japanese on Ubin Island.”
I pictured the map of Singapore and the Malay Peninsula in my mind, but I couldn’t capture details that minute, even though I had memorized maps as a child.
He noticed my bewilderment. “Here, I’ll show you,” he offered. He drew the Malay Peninsula on a napkin. At the base he drew a rough circle, shaped like a diamond. “This is the island of Singapore. The city of Singapore is located on the southern side, just be
side the lower point of the diamond. The entire island is about thirty miles east to west and fifteen miles north to south. The Japanese are on the Malay Peninsula, which wraps the northern half of the island. Now they are also on Ubin Island, to the northeast.”
“So that’s where the attack will come from?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You should have the answer in a few days.”
Henry Hyde became the first person profiled in myPeople of Singapore series.
I strolled into the hotel lounge at 9 PM that evening, wondering how long the city would be spared another air raid. I had now acquired the habit of always knowing where the nearest bomb shelter was; I didn’t want to be unprepared. I realized that Singapore was a different situation than London. The Japanese had every intention of invading the island. There were no distractions for them, no alternative targets, no reason to bypass. The invasion would come, probably in a matter of days.
As I had expected, given the impeccable reputation of the hotel, the lounge was a spacious room with an elegant décor. Ornate, cream-colored moldings framed the ceiling and divided the walls at their center. The upper portion of the room was wrapped in beige-striped wallpaper, while the lower half was whitewashed wainscoting. The outside wall contained a series of twelve- pane windows, some of which were cracked or broken from the recent bombing and haphazardly patched to keep out insects. Those windows still intact offered a generous view of Orchard Road and the landscaped lawn.
An empty stage with closed curtains that depicted the Singapore waterfront ran the length of the room. I guessed that the war had borrowed many of the city’s best performers, but I envisioned happier times when crowds of people enjoyed fine food and the area’s finest productions. Now only a scratchy phonograph played the year’s most popular songs. I recognized the voice of Billie Holiday.
Perpendicular to the stage and jutting into the room was a horseshoe-shaped mahogany bar. Twenty people of various nationalities were scattered around its circumference, while a busy bartender manned the center. A bare dance floor occupied the area in front of the stage, while the remainder of the room was filled with small tables. Some faced the windows, where you could watch the pedestrians on the boulevard beyond, but the rest were scattered about. The majority were occupied, some by well-dressed men and women of society’s elite, others by the more mundane.
To Parts Unknown Page 2