The Rose of Singapore

by Peter Neville

  “Good grief!” exclaimed the horrified orderly officer. “What in heavens name has happened here?”

  “They’re both dead, sir,” said Cornishman Joe Milden matter-of-factly.

  “How the hell do you know?” snapped the officer. “Sergeant, get on the phone. Ring through to the hospital and tell them to send an ambulance here immediately. And tell them to send medical officers and orderlies. Stress the urgency,” he snapped.

  The sergeant, springing to attention and saluting smartly, said, “Yes, sir,” and then did a practiced precise about turn.

  “For Christ’s sake, Sergeant, stop the bullshit and get a move on. And call the guardroom while you’re about it.”

  “Yes, sir,” snapped the sergeant, already hurrying towards the phone in the hut.

  Both the orderly officer and LAC Milden bent over the body of the Signals operator.

  “This man’s not dead, Milden. He’s badly hurt, but look! See! He’s breathing!”

  “Just about a goner, though, I’d say, sir. Wish the blood wagon would hurry up. Look ‘ere, sir,” he said, pointing a finger at the fallen man’s scalp. “It’s blood.”

  The officer looked at the mess of matted hair and blood. “You’re right. He’s had a hell of a whack on the head by the look of it. Let’s take a look at the other man.”

  Together, they crossed the few feet to where the motionless Malay driver lay on his back. Congealed blood had formed on the KD uniform covering the man’s stomach. They both bent over the motionless airman.

  “By the look of it, he’s been knifed or shot in the stomach, sir,” said Joe Milden.

  “Yes, Milden. That’s rather obvious.”

  “He looks dead, sir.”

  “Yes, I think he is dead.”

  The orderly officer lifted a limp wrist and felt for a pulse. “No, he’s not dead!” he exclaimed. “He’s got a pulse, very weak but still beating.” Suddenly excited, the officer snapped, “Airman! Get to the phone quickly and ring up the hospital. Tell them to expect emergency operations. No, I’ll ring up myself and I’ll call the main guardroom.”

  “But the sergeant’s calling them, sir.”

  “I know. But I want to make sure what’s going on. You stay here. Don’t touch anything. Just listen. There’s a chance this man may say something that’s vital to us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  At that moment the sergeant returned. “Ambulances will be here any minute, sir,” he said. “The hospital’s ready to receive them. I’ve also notified the guardroom and spoken with the guard commander. He’s on his way.”

  “Good show, Sergeant. What did the guard commander say?”

  “He seemed more concerned about the dog-handler who’s supposed to be on duty here, a Corporal Brown, sir. Said he’d like to talk to him but I told him there’s no dog-handler here.”

  “Hmm,” said the puzzled officer. “Yes, there should be a police guard here. I quite forgot.”

  “There’s supposed be a dog-handler on duty here at all times, sir.”

  “If that’s the case, then where is he? And where’s his dog?”

  The sergeant wanted to say, ‘How the hell should I know?’ Instead, he said, “I wish I knew.” He rubbed a square chin with a heavy hand. “First time I’ve come up against anything like this. I don’t know what to make of it. You know, sir, I wonder,” he said thoughtfully.

  “You wonder what, Sergeant?”

  “I’m wondering if the corporal was here when whatever happened here happened. Could it be possible that he and his dog have given chase to the attackers?” he said, hopefully.

  “He would have notified the guardroom first.”

  “Yes, sir. I suppose so.”

  “This certainly is a rum affair, though, Sergeant. It’s a job for the SIB to sort out.”

  “Sir, look! This chap’s eyes are open, and I think he’s trying to tell us something,” sang out the excited voice of LAC Milden. “Shh” and he held a finger to his lips seeking silence as all three men bent over the signals operator.

  “Take it easy, son. You’re going to be all right,” the sergeant said in a gentle voice. “What happened?”

  Bluish white lips trembled, and all three men bent closer.

  “The corporal. The corporal,” the signals operator whispered, wincing in pain.

  “Yes. But what about the corporal?” eagerly asked the orderly officer.

  “He did it.”

  The whispering ceased, the lips closed, the frightened eyes fluttered, and then they, too, closed.

  “He’s passed out again, sir. Did you hear what he said?”

  “Yes, I heard him,” said the bewildered officer. “The corporal did it.”

  “Yes. That’s what I thought he said. It doesn’t make sense, does it? If this man’s words are correct, the corporal must have gone bonkers.”

  “I beg your pardon, Sergeant?”

  “Nuts, sir! You know, crazy!”

  “The corporal?”

  “Yes, the corporal, sir. My Sherlock Holmes intuition tells me that he attempted to bump these two off, then footed it somewhere. See! He must have left on foot because their MT vehicle is still parked here. He did this then walked calmly away.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Sergeant. Let’s not say too much against the man, not yet anyway. We may be wrong.”

  “I hope we are.”

  “Corporal Charlie Brown should be on duty here tonight, sir,” butted in LAC Milden. “He’s a good chap. He’s the last man who would do something like this. I know him well. Everybody likes Charlie Brown.”

  “Hmm.” The orderly officer frowned, then sighed. “As soon as the Station Duty Officer arrives, we’ll decide what action to take. Ah! Here’s an ambulance now. And here come the police.”

  In a great cloud of dust, the blue-grey ambulance roared into the clearing and skidded to a standstill close to where the three men were standing over the two bodies lying motionless on the ground. Within seconds the two injured men were placed on stretchers and hoisted into the ambulances. Within minutes they would be arriving at the emergency section at RAF Changi Hospital.

  It was now six o’clock in the morning, already daylight, with the sun rapidly rising up over the horizon.

  The search for Corporal Charlie Brown was underway. The search party was made up of personnel from many sections: RAF police and fellow police dog-handlers accompanied by their vicious charges; civil police; medical orderlies; plus volunteer airmen from the fire section, catering section and motor transport pool. All were airmen who personally knew and liked Charlie.

  Only the police carried revolvers, which they were compelled to carry as part of their uniform when on duty. However, on this morning no firearm would be used, not unless it was absolutely necessary. Corporal Charlie Brown was too well liked for any of his searchers to wish him harm. They wanted to safeguard him, to get him into the hospital for treatment. Actually, the majority of the searchers still could not believe that it was Charlie who had committed those brutal acts on two defenseless co-workers.

  The massive search party formed a ring around the many acres of swampland and cautiously moved inward. There were five police dogs out there, too, tracking with their masters. The scents of Charlie and Wicked Witch were easy for the dogs to follow. Straining at their leashes, sniffing and snarling and eager and excited, but baffled occasionally when splashing through mud and water, they pursued their quarries through thorny bushes and tall coarse grasses. The place was alive with many species of snakes, mostly poisonous. Fortunately, most of these slipped discreetly away, to hide whilst the tide of men and dogs passed over.

  Suddenly, someone shouted, “There he is. There’s Charlie Brown. Over on that hillock.”

  All eyes turned to where a medical orderly was pointing. Sure enough Corporal Brown had risen from scrub bushes and stood his full height for all to see, watching his pursuers not fifty yards away encircling and closing in on him. He appeared to be quite
calm and unconcerned, as did his dog, which stood patiently at her master’s side. Slowly, Corporal Brown lifted his revolver and squeezed the trigger, aiming towards the circle of moving men but at no one in particular. The bullet, glancing off a rock, ricocheted, whining and flying wild. The searchers dropped as one into the mire and waited.

  “Charlie! Put down your gun! We’re your friends! We’ve come to take you back to the camp,” shouted a fellow corporal police dog-handler. “We’ll have breakfast together.”

  “Hey! Charlie! This is ol’ fatty Ginger Brent. You gotta be hungry. Let’s go back to the kitchen. I’ll fix you bacon and eggs and we’ll have a mug of tea together,” shouted the cook. Only an hour earlier LAC Brent had come off a ten-hour night shift in the airmens’ mess kitchen. He’d had a busy night with three big transport planes arriving at Changi loaded with army chaps coming in from England en route to Korea. He’d helped cook and serve grilled spam, scrambled eggs, sautéed potatoes and toast for over two hundred men in transit, plus the normal late suppers and early breakfasts for night-duty personnel. He was tired and still in his cooks’ whites, but on hearing the bad news about Charlie, had immediately volunteered to help in the search. He and Charlie were good friends.

  Brent’s words were greeted by another shot from Charlie’s revolver, followed by a third, then a fourth, all seemingly fired aimlessly. Then, but for the yapping of the dogs, silence fell across the swamps.

  “He hasn’t reloaded. He can’t have many more rounds left in that gun. I think it’s empty, unless he reloaded it before we saw him,” muttered Sergeant Chapman of the fire department. “Come on, Smithy,” he said, addressing his corporal, “Let’s move forward.”

  “OK, but take it easy.”

  Again the ring of men slowly closed in on Charlie Brown, but more cautiously than before, creeping through sharp-thorned willow-type bushes and crawling through stinking mud and over stones covered in slime. The two men of the fire section were now less than twenty yards from where Corporal Brown and his dog stood on the grass-covered hillock.

  Sergeant Chapman raised himself from behind a bush and said in a fatherly and not too loud a voice, “OK, Charlie. Take it easy,” and beckoning the dog-handler with a wave of his hand, he said, “Come on down here with us. We’ll drive you back to camp.”

  Corporal Brown didn’t acknowledge him, but instead stood staring out over the swamps as if seeing or hearing no one.

  “OK! We’re coming up, Charlie,” shouted the sergeant. And he stood up, an easy target, but Corporal Brown ignored him.

  “Charlie,” the nasal voice of Corporal Smith rang out. “It’s me, Smithy. Remember me? I’m your pal in the fire section. I’m coming up to you. I’ve no gun, so throw yours down. I’m coming up. Do you hear me?”

  The provost police sergeant was now at Corporal Smith’s side. “Steady,” he said. “Don’t do anything silly.”

  “Yeah. Don’t panic him,” someone else said.

  “I’ll go up and see if I can reason with him,” said SIB Corporal Symes.

  “I’ll come with you,” said dog-handler Corporal Ben Jones, Charlie’s roommate. “I’ll try to talk to Wicked Witch and keep her quiet. She could be a problem. She has only one master.”

  “I know,” said Corporal Symes of the Service Investigation Branch. “OK. You come along, Ben. Maybe my judo will come in handy. I’ve always bettered Charlie at it. He may need pinning down.”

  “Maybe he’ll come quietly,” said Corporal Jones hopefully.

  The two looked at one another. Both knew Charlie Brown well, or did they? If he could kill out of hand, just like that, he could kill again thought Corporal Symes, shrugging as they both edged forward.

  As if in deep meditation, Corporal Charlie Brown was looking down at those around him, expressionlessly.

  “Careful, you two,” warned the fire section sergeant. “He’s dangerous.”

  “I don’t think he’d use his revolver on us, Sarge,” said Corporal Ben Jones. “Anyway, I think it’s empty. Unless he reloaded it after he left the signals section, he’s fired the last round.”

  “Don’t be too sure.”

  “I’ll chance it. Wait! What’s he doing now? Oh, my God!”

  “Christ! He must have a round left!”

  Corporal Brown was slowly lifting the revolver, higher and higher until the muzzle rested upon the bridge of his nose.

  “Stop, Charlie! Don’t do it!” screamed a horrified Corporal Ben Jones, and he began racing towards the hillock.

  “Oh, fuck it!” shouted Symes, and following Jones, he too ran towards Charlie, bounding forward and ignoring the thorny bushes in his path. The two were on their way up the hillock and only a few feet from the corporal and his dog.

  Both men saw Corporal Brown gazing for moments at them as if in puzzlement. He then lifted his revolver a fraction above and between his eyes, squeezed the trigger and dropped lifeless, his last round spent.

  Too late, the men reached him, much too late.

  Whimpering in grief, the faithful Wicked Witch positioned herself over the fallen body of her master and would not allow anyone to touch him. The commanding officer of the RAF military police shot her.

  Peter Saunders was puzzled when the bus he was returning to camp on was stopped by RAF police at a barrier erected on the road near Changi Gaol. Being the only European on the bus, the police took one look at him, then waved the bus on. Peter didn’t know that at that very moment his friend Charlie Brown was being tracked in the nearby swamps.

  He arrived back at the camp much earlier than usual, having previously agreed with Sergeant Muldoon, who was taking the day off, that he would work both the early and late shift. Shortly after arriving at the sergeants’ mess kitchen, he heard with dismay the news of what had happened that night at the signals section hut. Minutes later he was informed that Corporal Charlie Brown was dead.

  At first Peter could not believe that Charlie, his friend who only yesterday had complained of a headache, and who was counting the days to going home, was dead. Stunned and depressed, he worked that day with a heavy heart, because Charlie Brown had been one of the best.

  Several days later, Peter learned that after intensive care at Changi Hospital, both the Malay driver and the signal section operator survived their injuries, though the latter was medically discharged from the RAF due to brain damage.

  19

  Whistling happily to himself, LAC Peter Saunders reached the sergeants’ mess kitchen at eleven o’clock in the morning on 1 April 1953 only to be confronted at the office doorway by a grim-faced Sergeant Muldoon.

  “G’morning, Sarge. What’s up?” Peter asked.

  “Jeez, Pete, have I got bad news for you,” the sergeant answered. “Bad news for me, too.”

  “Bad news! What do you mean?” asked Peter.

  “Have you looked at the noticeboard lately, like in the last day or so?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “You haven’t been keeping up with SROs? You haven’t read them recently?”

  “No, not for months. Not since I began working here. Why?”

  “You best go and read them,” said the sergeant, his face uncommonly solemn. “They’ve got you down for a posting to Negombo.”

  “What!” exclaimed Peter, aghast.

  “I’m just as shocked as you, Pete. Thinking a mistake may have been made, I checked with Movements. They’ve got you down to be posted to Negombo next Thursday. That’s the RAF station north of Colombo, the capital of Ceylon.”

  Completely taken aback and confused by this dreaded news, Peter could only mutter, “Yeah, I know where Negombo is. But I can’t believe they’d do this to me.”

  “Well, check for yourself,” said the sergeant. “Take a look at the lobby noticeboard.”

  “I will,” said Peter dejectedly. Hurrying from the office, he passed through the kitchen without noticing the Chinese cooks and other kitchen staff preparing tiffin, and on through the dining room where white-
coated Chinese waiters were laying the tables, until he reached the double-doored main entrance to the mess and lobby where the four-foot-square noticeboard was attached to the wall for all to see.

  With pounding heart, his confused thoughts for the most part was on how to break the awful news to Rose. They just can’t do this to me, he kept saying to himself. Why do they want to send me to Negombo when there’s a shortage of cooks here at Changi? Quickly he scanned the many notices tacked to the board, seeing on it the usual roster of duty senior NCOs, guard and fire picket rosters, minutes of the last messing committee meeting, and a leaflet asking for volunteers to play RAF Seletar at cricket. Actually, the cricket match had already been played the previous Saturday, with Changi losing dismally, but the leaflet had not been removed from the board. The normal sheets of Standing Station Orders were also on the board, but Peter could find nothing relating to postings. Puzzled, he stood back and again studied every item on the board. No, there was definitely nothing on it that related to postings, for anyone to anywhere.

  Totally perplexed, Peter returned to the kitchen office to find Sergeant Muldoon seated at the office desk awaiting him, a surprisingly different expression on his face from when Peter had seen him just moments ago. Then, he had seemed troubled by the news, but now his eyes were sparkling mischievously.

  Puzzled by the change in the sergeant’s expression, Peter said to him, “I couldn’t find anything on the board to do with postings. What’s going on, Sarge?”

  “I didn’t expect for one moment that you would,” replied an amused Sergeant Muldoon. “I thought I’d give you a bit of a scare.”

  “A bit of a scare?”

  “Yeah, a scare,” said the sergeant, chuckling. “Do you know what day it is today, Pete? It’s April Fool’s Day. April Fool, Pete. I really gotcha, didn’t I?” whereupon the sergeant burst into a fit of laughter.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Sarge, that was not bloody-well funny. Not funny at all.”