The Rose of Singapore

by Peter Neville

  The Silver Wraith’s Chinese chauffeur wiped blood from his eyes and face with the sleeve of his jacket. He, like all the other drivers in the convoy, had been forced to come to a standstill. Now, instead of surprise and shock showing upon his face there was fear, not so much for himself but for his two passengers. He was responsible for their safety and wellbeing whilst they were passengers in the car he drove, and he alone would be held accountable should any misfortune befall either. Thrusting the pistol into a trouser pocket, he threw open the door of the car and sprang out onto the road. Wrenching open a rear door, he saw that the amah, petrified with fear, had sunk deeply into the far corner of the seat, the child, now sobbing with fright, clasped tightly to her bosom.

  “Come, woman!” he yelled at her. “Get out! Get out! And bring the master’s child with you. We must go down the hillside to safety.”

  The amah, as if hypnotized by the terrifying noises all around her, did not move. It was all too much for her. She lay back in the seat as if dead; only the slight quivering of her thin lips betrayed life from death.

  Again the chauffeur shouted at her. “For the master’s sake, come, give me the girl!”

  The amah did not move but instead stared up at him, a terrified look on her face. Her mouth dropped open as if she wanted to speak but no sound came.

  Hurling himself upon her, Seng Yew wrenched the crying child from the amah’s arms. The child began to scream but he heeded her not. Dragging the little girl from the car, he picked her up in his arms, hurried to the roadside, and there carefully studied the vertical drop-off, which was at least thirty feet. Below this he could see thick jungle that sloped gradually downward away from the edge of the road. There was no deep drop-off here of hundreds of feet such as he could see further along the road, or which he had seen in many places along the route. Looking down upon the tangled mass of greens and browns, he noticed that directly below him a broad-leafed bushy tree stood higher than all other vegetation, and that clinging to the tree were many webs of tangled vines. The topmost leaves of the tree, though several feet away, grew almost parallel to the road. That tree, he knew, could well be the child’s only chance of survival.

  “Ah Ho, go to safety. May the master forgive me if I do wrong.” Uttering these words, Seng Yew carefully gauged the distance between himself and the topmost leaves of that tree, and then tossed the screaming child from him. He agonized as he saw her terrified face and her little arms and legs kicking and clawing at nothing as she passed over the chasm and fell among the topmost leaves of the tree. He watched her, for what would be the last time that he would see her, sinking from sight within the sanctuary of the jungle covering. In his mind he measured the distance that she would fall within the shelter of that tree. At the most thirty feet, he thought. But, he told himself, she had to take her chances. She was much safer down in the jungle than up here on the road. Ricocheting bullets and shrapnel from exploding grenades whined noisily near him. Ragged holes suddenly appeared in his beautiful car’s bonnet. Loudly he cursed the gunner and dived back inside the car, intending to pull the amah from it and throw her, too, into the comparative safety of the tree and the jungle-clad slope below the road. The amah had not moved but instead sat as if in a trance.

  “Wake up, foolish woman. Let not noise dull thy senses,” he screamed at her.

  Stooping over her, in great desperation he grabbed her by the arms and began pulling her towards the open door of the car, when, suddenly, a chill ran in cold shivers throughout his body as he sensed that he was being watched. He now had a feeling that death was close upon him. Lifting his eyes, he looked out of the window and up the roadside embankment but saw nothing there to cause him alarm. He was puzzled but relieved.

  “Do not leave me here to die,” he heard the plaintive voice of the amah beseeching him. “I am coming with you.”

  “Good! Come quickly!”

  Whilst pulling her through the doorway, he looked behind him and up the hillside to reassure himself that they were safe, and was startled to see a movement high up among the bushes. He watched as the branches of a low bush parted. Just the wind, he thought. But, no, there was no wind; not even enough to stir a leaf. Troubled, he stared intently at where he had seen the movement then he stiffened and, in great fear, held his breath.

  “My God! Be this not my day!” he gasped.

  He watched as the skinny figure of a man staring at him out of hollow eyes rose slowly from behind the bush, with arms extended towards him, the hands holding a rifle pointed at him.

  Sickened with fright, just for a moment he wondered if it was too late to dodge and to cheat death. With his eyes held firmly upon that lone figure, Seng Yew sank slowly to the floor of the car, his hand feeling for the pistol, hoping, praying, but he was too slow and too late. He heard the loud report of the rifle the same moment as he saw a side window fly into a million fragments and felt a stinging blow strike his chest. Reeling backwards, he clutched at the spot. The bullet had ploughed through his clothing, his flesh, smashed a rib, grazed his heart, and had embedded itself in a lung.

  Shaking his head to free himself of the mist that was engulfing him, he told himself, I must not pass out. He tried to get up from the floor of the car but his knees sagged from under him. He was swaying but he did not want to drop. And he could not clear away the mist that was all around him, a bluish, orange and greyish mist. He tried to blow it away, but could not. It encircled his eyes and numbed his brain. He felt himself as if on a cloud, drifting into eternity. His blood, deep red and streaked by white foam crept from the corners of his mouth, to drip upon the plush carpet of his new Rolls Royce; and now blood began to spurt from his nose. He was fast losing consciousness. He felt neither pain nor fear, the cloak of death having cast itself over him and was already bearing him upwards, upwards. A second shot rang out from the rifle. But the chauffeur neither heard the shot nor felt the bullet. His body jerked just once before toppling over and falling across the passed-out amah. Seng Yew was dead, the back of his head blown off.

  Fong Fook smiled to himself, gave a grunt of satisfaction, patted the rifle fondly, and then again levelled it at the car. He had seen the woman. She might as well join the other in death. He put an eye to the sights, squeezed the trigger and watched as the little woman twitched in her death throes before she, too, became still.

  Ping Jie, the faithful, reliable amah and nurse to Ho Li Li, a good mother, a grandmother, and a person who in life had caused grief or hurt to no one, was dead. And through a ragged hole torn through her neck her life-blood oozed, where it mixed with that of Seng Yew, the chauffeur, in an ever-enlarging puddle on the white lambs-wool carpeted floor of the new Rolls Royce.

  28

  When the single rifle shot rang out, followed immediately by the horrendous barrage of terrifying gunfire and exploding grenades, most of those travelling in the convoy, civilian and military personnel alike, froze in shock, and for precious moments did nothing. Many died during those crucial first seconds.

  The two airmen, SAC Peter Saunders and LAC Gerald Rickie, were two who sat thus, unable to do anything but stare in horrified disbelief, hearing the agonizing screams of their comrades as bullets thudded into them, and watching as they twitched and died. Precious seconds had already ticked by since the leading RAF Bedford plunged into the abyss to the left of the ill-fated convoy. Both airmen, though, in total shock, sat as if paralyzed and could not even remember being told that if ambushed they must immediately get clear of the lorry and down into the jungle.

  Then, amid the chaos around them, and even above the terrifying din, the thunderous voice of Flying Officer Morgan could be heard shouting orders at his men.

  “Get out! What the fuck are you doing sitting on your asses? Get out and get down into cover! Come on! You! You! And you! Move, man, move! Move your fucking selves.”

  His bellowing commands brought many of the airmen from their stupor. Grimly hanging on to their rifles, they began dropping over the sides and
tailboard of the lorry, some to leap and some to fall into cover. The RAF Regiment corporal Bren-gunner was now returning fire in long bursts.

  “Quick, man! Quick!” Flying Officer Morgan shouted as he heaved a terrified youth over the side. The youth was Tulip whose left hand had been hit by a bullet, and he had sat there staring in horrified amazement at the mangled bloody stubs where his fingers had been shot away leaving only a blood-splattered thumb. In shock, and hurt by the fall from the lorry, he was sobbing and crawling along the edge of the road when a hand shot out from the roadside undergrowth, grabbed him by the ass of his pants and pulled him down into cover. At that same moment a hail of bullets riddled the road where he had been.

  Peter Saunders, thinking clearly now, was about to jump from the lorry but found that his foot had become wedged in the damaged and twisted metal seat on which he had been sitting.

  “I can’t move my foot, Rick,” he gasped in dismay.

  “You’ve got to, Pete,” agonized his friend.

  “Christ, Rick! It won’t come out.”

  “Shuddup and heave. Come on! Heave!”

  “It’s out, Rick! It’s out!” Peter screamed.

  “Come on, then. Let’s go.”

  Both airmen were about to jump off the back of the lorry when Peter turned and saw Flying Officer Morgan manning the Bren, sending short bursts of fire up into the jungle overlooking them; the corporal RAF Regiment Bren-gunner lay dead at the officer’s feet. In between short bursts, Peter actually heard Morgan give a grunt of satisfaction, and he watched as a man’s body pitched from behind a bush high up on the hillside to crash head first down onto the road. “One,” Peter clearly heard the officer say. A moment later, he heard, “Two,” and Peter saw another man rise from behind cover. This one rolled down the slope accompanied by his rifle, which he held onto until he hit the road.

  Rick screamed, “For fuck sake, Pete, let’s go!”

  “OK. I’m coming,” Peter answered, and he was about to leave the lorry when a grenade exploded within the lorry’s cab, the blast from it shattering the rear window and sending Flying Officer Morgan staggering backwards. Peter heard him grunt, and watched dismayed as the officer sank slowly down onto the floorboards of the lorry, a jagged piece of glass and chunks of shrapnel from the grenade embedded into his chest. Flying Officer Morgan feebly but tenaciously sought to regain his feet, and almost managed to do so, by picking up a rifle from the floorboard of the lorry and attempting to use it as a crutch. Weakly, and as if mechanically, he managed to draw the bolt of the rifle back and slide a round into the breech. But the rifle dropped from his hands with a clatter, and Flying Officer Morgan sank down across the body of the Bren-gunner, and died.

  “You bastards,” shouted Peter, now almost in tears of anger and frustration. “I’m not going now, Rick.”

  “You’re what?”

  “I want to get one of them bastards.”

  “Don’t be a bloody fool.”

  “You go.”

  “I’m going.”

  Scrambling across the dead and wounded, Rick stooped down at the side of the dead officer and withdrew the heavy revolver from its holster. “I’ll take this,” he said. “It may come in handy. Come on, Pete!” With those words Rick sprang over the side, his rifle in one hand, the revolver in the other.

  Half-crazed with anger, Peter Saunders looked around him and noticed the violin and bag of golf clubs stacked neatly in a front corner of the lorry. Young Pilot Officer Graham, thinking they would be safer travelling in the same lorry as himself, had transferred them from the other Bedford during the rest period at the police post. The young pilot officer, himself one of the first to die, had fallen dead from the cab and now lay on the road in a pool of blood. Peter gaped at the dead man, his anger intensifying and all fear momentarily forgotten. Noticing the sun glinting on metal in the undergrowth above him, Peter suspected that a terrorist lay in hiding there behind his weapon. “I’ll get you, you bastard,” he muttered. Lusting to kill, he wrenched a blood-splattered Sten gun from the hands of badly wounded Corporal Hicks, aimed the quick-firing automatic weapon from his hip and squeezed the trigger. The gun vibrated violently in his hands but he held on, the muzzle aimed at that glinting spot. Suddenly, as if in surrender, a man rose from his hiding place amid the greenery, his hands held high above his head—his surrender to death. And as he stood there dying with still more bullets thudding into him, Peter Saunders snarled, “Die, you bastard, die,” and he managed a grim smile of satisfaction as he watched clothing and flesh being ripped in shreds from the man’s body. Raising the muzzle of the Sten gun ever so slightly, Peter watched as the man’s face splattered and the head disintegrated. The body, finally keeling over, tumbled from among low bushes and slithered down the cleared embankment to land in a messy heap at the side of the road below. Seeing more movement in bushes above and farther back the road, Peter fired at the spot until there was silence from the Sten gun, its last round spent. Peter tossed the weapon aside. For the first time in his life he had killed a man.

  Grabbing his rifle, he winced as a bullet thudded with a heavy thump into the Irishman, Paddy Jones. But Paddy Jones did not feel a thing. He was already dead, killed in the first bursts of gunfire.

  Corporal Hicks, moaning horribly, lay stretched across a seat, with blood pumping from his stomach and forming a widening pool on the floor of the lorry. A determined gleam shone in the eyes of Peter Saunders as he hissed, “You’re one poor bastard that’s not going to die, not in this lorry.”

  Attempting to drag the corporal by the arms, Peter gasped, for the man was so big and heavy and he felt so weak and inadequate for the job. He somehow managed to haul the corporal as far as the tailboard; but the man was not helping himself any, just groaning and feebly waving his arms in the air. There was only one way of getting the corporal off the lorry. Placing a foot against the man’s behind, determinedly Peter Saunders shoved with all his strength, so that the heavy body slowly slid over the tailboard and dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Peter watched as the corporal, rolling over once, fell off the edge of the road and disappeared into the sanctuary of the jungle.

  Now, it seemed to Peter that every gun on the hillside was aimed directly at him with bullets coming from all directions, splattering woodwork, thudding into bodies, and ricocheting off steel. So far, he had remained unscathed. Groaning loudly, he gritted his teeth and stood undecided, not knowing what to do. Several badly wounded RAF personnel still remained in the back of the lorry and he didn’t want to leave them to their fate. But now his anger left him and was replaced by fear, he felt terrifyingly alone. Feeling as if he must at any moment empty his bowels into his pants, he was stopped from doing so by a sudden searing red-hot pain as a bullet ripped through his scalp and slid across his skull. Wincing, he cried out, “Christ, I’m hit.” He had to get off the lorry and down into the relative safety of the jungle. It was now or never. Carrying his rifle, he jumped in one mighty leap from the tailboard, not even touching the road but seemingly to fly over it, to drop over the edge and to land on his feet with a jarring thud among low bushes growing upon a soft, wet, moss-covered slope.

  As he was regaining his balance an explosion behind him rent the air, followed immediately by a loud ‘whoooshhhh’, and then another explosion. Fearfully he looked towards the road and gasped in horror at the spectacle he witnessed. The RAF lorry’s petrol tank had exploded engulfing the vehicle in a great ball of fire, the screams coming from within the flames were terrible.

  “Poor bastards.” Peter said, talking to himself.

  Fearful and sickened by all he had seen, he plunged downward, panicking in his headlong flight through the undergrowth. He fell, dropping into a mass of creepers and nettles. Freeing himself, he tried to calm down, telling himself that he must not panic. But it was no use. Unable to control himself, he again crashed his way downward, fighting against all that tried to trip him, tear at him and hold him back. Nauseated and sweating with
fear, he slashed a path with his rifle, not caring about the cuts and bruises received in his headlong flight, or about the noise he created, and expecting at any moment to feel bullets ripping into his body. On colliding with the trunk of a spindly tree, he grabbed a hold on it for support, feeling as if he was about to faint. Dropping his rifle, he leaned heavily against the slender trunk, holding onto it whilst trying to pull himself together.

  On the lower side of the road the scattered security forces were regrouping, taking up positions and returning a massive barrage of gunfire against the terrorists hidden in the jungle-clad hillside a hundred feet or more above them. And now the armoured car, the leader of the convoy, having reversed back around the bend in the road, began firing back at the enemy, its heavy turret gun thumping and its twin machine guns chattering.

  Replaying the awful events in his mind, Peter wasn’t sure whether he was about to shit his pants, vomit or both. He vomited, spewing the contents of his stomach down over the tree and onto the jungle floor. Now he felt better and in more control of himself. Wiping his wet face with the sleeve of his jacket, he was surprised to see the sleeve covered in blood. Previously, the only pain he had felt was the moment the bullet ripped through his scalp and he had forgotten the wound. Now, though, knowing that it bled, it hurt. Removing his beret, he examined it and stared in disbelief at the two bullet holes in the blue cloth, one in the front, the other in the rear.

  “You bastards. I’ll get more of you before this day is over,” he shouted. He felt his mouth dry and twitching and his whole body shaking in both fear and anger. Leaving the sanctuary of the tree, he took up his rifle and cradled it almost lovingly in his arms. “You’re going to do your stuff today,” he was saying, wiping muck from it with the cuff of his jacket. He decided to work his way upward, back to the edge of the road and once there take up a firing position.