Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea

by Geoffrey Brooke

  We had made one of the boats about seaworthy and I was just offshore in it on a trial trip with a signalman and a boy seaman called Jones, when there was a roar and our daily aircraft came over very low from behind the trees. We were caught napping and could do absolutely nothing. The aircraft banked sharply and came back straight for us. Waiting for the inevitable burst of gunfire I knew intense fear. The signalman threw himself into the bottom of the boat and squirmed under a thwart; I was in half a mind to do the same when I caught the expression on Jones’ face and stayed where I was. He was sitting quite impassive, just looking up at the approaching death. In my division in the Prince of Wales, he had been something of a skate (bad-hat) in a light-hearted sort of way. He was obviously fearless as well. To our astonishment the aircraft merely screamed overhead and made off, I suppose thinking we would starve anyway so why waste ammunition. The feeling came to me that I had experienced this all before and suddenly remembered the Air Defence Position of the Nelson with the German bomber diving and Whitting gazing up at it with the same disdain. The signalman got up from the floorboards looking rather silly and we pulled back as the others began to come out of hiding.

  That night we were sure we heard noises at Pohm-Pohm but nothing more materialised and as another morning broke even Hobbs was less ebullient. We could hardly cut the rations again. I was sitting on a dead trunk thinking of nothing in particular, except how hungry I was, when a lookout shouted. He was pointing towards a speck which turned into a man in a kolek (canoe); moreover he, now clearly a Malay, was making for our beach. A ‘clear lower deck’ reception committee ran his little craft up the sand and out stepped a small man of about 40 in hornrimmed spectacles, stripped to the waist but wearing smart khaki shorts and sandals. ‘How do you do?’ he said. Unfortunately I soon forgot his name but he said he was—if I remember right—a minister in the Johore State government. He had escaped, ‘island hopping’ from Singapore, hoping to pass as a fisherman and was bound for somewhere further south.

  We told him our story and that it looked as if Terry had been taken prisoner. He said he knew where there might be junks not far off and if we could provide money he would hire some and send them back for us and those still on Pohm-Pohm. He would offer half a reasonable amount, the other half to be handed over by us on completion of the hire. We had a whip-round and after some food he pushed off, paddling steadily, and was soon lost to sight. ‘Well, that’s the last we shall see of him!’ said someone to a chorus of assent, but money was no good to us here and he might just be telling the truth. He certainly spoke perfect English and I for one went to sleep that night with some hope.

  The following morning, our seventh on the island, there was, glory be, almost a repeat performance. Again a shout brought us running to the water’s edge, and there was a largish sailing kolek, threading its way in among the mangroves, grey-green bushes with twisted stems that grew in the water at one point. In it were three khaki-clad Europeans, one of whom in a Naval cap set at a rakish angle was standing in the bows directing the coxswain along the green channels of sand which wound among coral.

  Willing hands helped the boat in and out stepped a blond and very sunburnt young man with an engaging smile. The sun sparkling on the sea, the sail, and his flashing teeth, made it almost too like an Errol Flynn epic to be real. But real he was, with news of the outside world, and he was listened to with more attention than any Chancellor on budget day. Sub-Lieutenant Cunyngham-Brown, Malayan RNVR, he had been sunk leaving Singapore and managed to get to the main island of this particular group which was called Sinkep, about 80 miles to the south. Commander Alexander (of Penang and our last muster at the Oranje Hotel) was there; he had been sunk in the minesweeper Trang (or had had to leave her after beaching) and as senior officer present had assumed command of the two or three hundred British personnel who had all been sunk in the last week and made this island. Sinkep was a civilised place with a Dutch controleur (sort of district commissioner; this group of islands known as the Rhiu Archipelago, being part of the Dutch East Indies) who was most helpful, housing refugees at Dabo, the one town on the island. There were tin mines at Sinkep and other kampongs. Dabo boasted a wireless station in contact with Batavia, the main Dutch base in Java, 400 miles away. There were hopes that a rescue ship might brave the passage from there. But the best news of all was that Cunyngham-Brown had seen four junks anchored out of sight from where we were. The effect of this can be imagined. Hearing that we intended to make for Sumatra, he strongly advised us to go to Sinkep instead, as it would be sensible to make contact with Alexander radier than play an entirely lone hand. Monro and I talked it over and decided to do this.

  The other two in the kolek were Engine Room Artificers, the trio being engaged in searching out shipwrecked mariners like ourselves. Thompson said he would join them and gave me a precious .22 rifle. As they would be leaving in the direction of the junks I decided to come too, pick out which ones would go to which party and bring ours back. It was a contented crowd that shoved the kolek off and then went to collect what little that remained of our provisions.

  The four junks were clustered in a little bay—I think of a third island—and choosing the smallest I climbed onboard. Brown spoke to the skipper, we wished each other luck, the kolek shoved off and they were away. I admired Brown a lot. It seemed obvious that nothing would hold the Japanese down to Java or Australia and while we were thinking, pardonably, of nothing but getting to safety, here he was doing a Scarlet Pimpernel act among the islands, losing precious time. I do not know what happened to him.

  The other three junks set off for Pohm-Pohm to embark the last of the unfortunates there. (I believe two followed us to Sinkep, the other going straight to Sumatra.) Mine was about 40 feet by 15 with two masts and a large hold amidships; it seemed to be in good order. Alone with the crew of three Chinese, I began to wish I’d brought someone with me in case they changed their minds, so sat down in the stern and ostentatiously opened the flap of my holster. Their every whim would be matters of the greatest concern; in particular the attitudes of other Chinese or Malays—all very suspicious these days of bursting bombs, sinking ships and sudden death—might well depend on how this trio spoke of us, and I hoped we’d get on. I studied them as they hoisted the cumbersome brown lateen sails. The oldest had a flat, expressionless face and was nearly bald, one was young, cantankerous and sinister (he turned out to be perpetually ‘high’ on opium) and the third was unremarkable. The young one reminded me of a battle-scarred hunt terrier and so was nicknamed ‘Tyke’ on the spot. He wore a filthy blue loincloth and his ugly, cunning little face, minus most teeth, looked out from what appeared to be a sweat-sodden ‘deerstalker’. It was apparent that he was ‘agin’ the expedition from the start.

  As the junk dropped anchor off our beach the men stood looking at the vehicle of their deliverance with hands outstretched to shield the setting sun. The first boatload came out, baling furiously. Monro eventually embarked and together we looked back at the friendly island that had served us so well: the white sand, the fluttering of a roosting bird somewhere among the mass of green, the other derelict white boat lying on a nobbly bed of mangrove roots, the dead trunk by the water where we dried our clothes and a battered biscuit tin. It was almost exactly a week since we had first set foot ashore, but seemed like a lifetime. Eager backs bent to the windlass beside the rather incredulous Chinese and, as the anchor came up, the steady tok-tok of wooden palls seemed to symbolise our new-found progress. The settling boat was cast adrift, the stiff sails went up again and the forefoot began to chuckle to itself as they filled to an off-shore breeze.

  The men settled themselves as comfortably as possible in the smelly hold and a tarpaulin was spread over it. No sardines were ever packed as tightly, but it was better after dark when the tarpaulin came off, a mouth organ miraculously appeared and we all sang. Lying on the hard deck and looking up at the rectangle of purple where myriad stars swayed gently from side to side, I wondered at th
e strangeness of life. What would I have said to anyone in the spotless Gunroom of the Prince of Wales not so many weeks back, had he told me I would soon be lying in the bottom of a Chinese junk, with the future as uncertain as the then Scapa weather?

  Most of the next morning we were passing islands of various sizes, all covered with thick foliage and some with thin lines of smoke ascending lazily into still air. Hobbs cooked indefatigably in the stifling bottom of the junk where a gap in the tarpaulin permitted a triangle of sunlight. What looked like one of the other junks was in sight far astern when in the early afternoon the old man pointed to a long green streak ahead and said ‘Sinkep’. After much vociferous probing of the depths with long poles, anchor was dropped half a mile out, the signal for a kolek to detach itself from the shore. It proved to be manned by three native policemen, smart in green tunics and breeches with straw hats and cutlasses, who took Mackintosh, Monro and me back with them. An old car having been provided, through the good offices of the Dutch controleur, we soon found ourselves on the outskirts of Dabo approaching a sizeable building. Morose Europeans were sitting on the verandah or standing in groups outside. I went to look for whoever was in charge, with a sinking feeling that if Commander Alexander had moved on it might be me. However, as I went in the door to curious looks Alexander came out. ‘Good heavens, Brooke again! We always seem to meet in adverse circumstances; and how did you get here?’

  He said we were completely isolated; there was no longer communication with Batavia or anywhere else because the Dutch had prematurely destroyed the W/T station in a fit of ‘scorched earth’ zeal. There were three or four Naval parties here from different wrecked ships, some RAF personnel and others already arrived from, I think, Pohm-Pohm. When the junks turned up he would hold a council of war to make plans.

  One of the parties was from the sunken gunboat Dragonfly. She and her sister Grasshopper had been bombed and Commander Hoffman (it will be remembered that Ian Forbes and I were under him for the causeway operation) had beached the latter. The survivors, including soldiers and civilians, had got ashore, the many wounded owing their lives to a nurse who tore up her clothes for bandages (assisted by some Japanese prisoners under escort from Singapore). Forbes—eventually to receive the DSC—and two others had swum to the next island where a Malay fisherman was persuaded to take them all to Sinkep. The controleur then provided boats in which they had left for Sumatra*.

  Whilst awaiting the other junks’ parties, I bought a songkok (pronounced songkoe), the black velvet pill-box hat universally worn by Malays (being brown enough to get by, the idea was disguise from the air), some unpleasant solid brilliantine made in Japan to grease my automatic, a lattice sleeping mat and a whistle. The wherewithal was begged from a Lieutenant Dickinson, MRNVR, as I had no funds left after the departure of our Malay saviour from Dankau, as it turned out our island was called. Dickinson, of Kuala, seemed familiar and I had just remembered that it was he who had saved Monro’s life by going out to the Kung Wo, when the sudden roar of a Japanese aircraft cleared the place in a flash. It contented itself with a good look round and shortly after this Commander Alexander called his conference. I think there were eight or nine officers present, mostly Naval. Two or three junks and a launch comprised our only links with the outside world. Because of the air menace (the enemy had set up a seaplane base quite near) Sumatra was our only possible goal. The mouth of the Indragiri River was about 50 miles west of Sinkep and should be attainable in one night. I then had a bad moment. It did not look as if the junks would take everybody and Alexander asked for volunteers to bring two back again. I was struggling with my conscience on the one hand and what I reckoned was the serious language problem on the other when Monro and Dickinson said they would do this.

  We were not yet out of the wood, however, and there followed a bizarre little drama. ‘Tyke’ presented himself, hostile eyes smouldering, and somewhat naturally made it plain that he demanded payment. He was sat on a chair, surrounded by the rest of us and confronted with Mackintosh; wearing an expression of utter defiance he looked like an animal at bay, which he was. ‘Ask him if he will take us further’ said Alexander. ‘Unk hooken kook ulch clook’ said Mackintosh, or something like that. Tyke’s eyes went metal hard. A torrent of words crackled out of his ugly mouth to the accompaniment of much gesticulation; I had the unpleasant feeling that he had the whip hand and knew it. ‘He says the contract was to bring us here and no further. It has been fulfilled. He wants the money. They must get back to their village.’

  ‘Say we will pay him well.’ Further explosions. ‘He says no.’ I saw Alexander take a deep breath. He then played his one and only legitimate card. Producing a neat wooden box, about nine inches long, he slid off the top to reveal glass divisions. But it was Tyke’s face that held our attention. His eyes were riveted on this box and his bullet head followed its every movement. ‘Got this from the controleur’, said Alexander. ‘Opium. If he doesn’t fall for this, I don’t quite know what we’ll do. The controleur is dead against any violence as we must sow the right seeds for the future and we ought to respect him.’ He tapped the box methodically and studied the other’s face. Tyke said he had not the authority to make a decision, the old man would have to decide. Accordingly someone got on the telephone to the police and a boat went out for the latter.

  Presumably we would have had to take over the junks if the old fellow had declined, but fortunately he did not, and the other crews must have conformed without trouble. Someone had a chart of the area over which we all pored and with difficulty I made a copy on a piece of scrap paper. There were a few small islands west and north-west of Sinkep and then a straight run to the Indragiri. For many miles each side of the river mouth there was nothing but mangrove swamps and mudflats, backed by jungle. I was keen to get away quickly. Commander Alexander gave me a box of opium, a typed note which was a pass from the controleur and 50 guilders. We said goodbye. I never saw that fine officer again and it was three and a half years before it was learnt he had been taken prisoner, one of that select band who engineered the escape of others but left it too late themselves*.

  Return to the waterside kampong brought another farewell as Monro was to go in one of the other craft. This was the third occasion of his volunteering for potentially fateful duties in ten days. He had been an object lesson to the other officers of his ship, volunteering to stay on board her after we had all left; then to stay on the island; and now to return to Sinkep. His fate too was unknown to me until discovering— after the war—that he had been taken prisoner†.

  I expected another battle of wills so nothing was said to the Chinese about our exact destination. The clatter of the windlass again wound our spirits up. We had certainly wasted some hours going to Sinkep but prayed this would not matter. It was 19:00 when we got under way; a western course was indicated and to our relief accepted without demur. Occasionally I felt my haversack for the magic box and was at once conscious of covert glances. It contained little lead tubes in rows like water colour paints, about fifty of them. My instructions were to administer one every few hours. Mackintosh explained that the opium, strictly rationed by law, could only be legitimately procured with a licence. Life to any Chinese under its power, of whom there were many, my box represented some months’ supply at a time when future procurement was doubtful. As if to underline this, Tyke produced a charcoal fire in a little pot that he fanned into flame, a crucible into which he poured a dark brown viscous liquid (‘Opium’ said Mackintosh) and a pipe with a tiny bowl but very long stem. When the liquid began to bubble he poured some into the pipe and, lying on his side with his knees drawn up, kept the bowl above the flames while he inhaled the issuing fumes. We watched with interest. After a time he offered the pipe with glazed eyes to someone else, who refused. He then offered it to me and to show willing I took a few sucks. My lungs filled with a poisonous-smelling smoke, I was nearly sick and Tyke cackled his delight.

  The last island on the scrap of paper was in si
ght as darkness fell and I was faced with a decision. Though the wind was favourable we could only hope to make Sumatra about 08:00 the next morning; that would mean two or three hours of daylight in the open sea, and more if we did not hit the right spot. Also, the Jap seaplane base was only a few miles south of our route and to be well away from it by daylight was an absolute necessity. The risk was too great and I decided that 24 hours were worth losing here to time our light correctly.

  Accordingly we sailed up an attractive palm-fringed channel and anchored as the stars came out opposite some lights that meant habitation. Morning revealed a few bamboo huts on stilts and cultivation behind, which proved to be the abode of two friendly little Chinese charcoal burners. Mackintosh and I landed in the kolek we carried and he gossiped with them, pulled their legs, and very soon had things on an excellent footing. Nearly everyone else came ashore and the two fed the whole 60 on rice, sweet potato, roots and cane sugar, eaten off oyster-like shells with which the shore was covered. We bathed and fooled about in the sea which lapped right under the huts, though three times I had to blow my whistle to send everyone sprawling for cover. Once it was a formation of twin-engined bombers and twice it was single planes. I was glad we were not under way. At 18:00 leave was taken of our benefactors (they received a few tubes of opium, gleefully accepted) and we set out down the channel.

  Everyone was sweating below the tarpaulin at sunset when, coming into the open sea, there was a shout of ‘Jap destroyer!’ that sent a murmur round the hold and a cold shaft to one’s heart. But coming closer we could see she was beached, and then obviously the poor old Grasshopper, wreckage and black stains where a bomb had burst being quite plain. When clear the skipper was given to understand that course was to be set north-west. There was considerable argument, but I think this time he was swayed as much by the determination on our faces as by display of the opium box.