Torrance- Escape From Singapore

by Onbekend

  Shapiro pressed the button, opened his mouth, then closed it again and released the button. ‘“Wee Willie Winkie”? You gotta be kiddin’ me!’

  Cochrane shrugged. ‘Those are our call signs.’

  ‘I’m not going on the air calling myself “Wee Willie Winkie”!’

  ‘Ye don’t have to,’ said Rossi. ‘Use the W/T. We’re probably out o’ range for R/T anyhow.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Morse instead of voice. Would ye like me to do it?’

  Shapiro handed Rossi the headphones and microphone. ‘Knock yourself out.’

  As Rossi put on the headphones and began tapping on the Morse key on the base of the microphone, Gibson emerged from the shack, wiping blood from his hands. ‘Were ye fond o’ yon captain?’ he asked Nagarkar and Varma.

  ‘Yes,’ said Varma.

  ‘No,’ said Nagarkar.

  The two Indians looked at one another, and the jemadar shrugged and said something in Urdu, the lingua franca of the Indian Army. Varma replied in the same language, the two of them obviously arguing. Their tone was good humoured, almost bantering, but clearly they disagreed about something. Finally Nagarkar turned back to Gibson. ‘Willoughby Sahib is dead, then?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Not much point in us lugging his corpse across all of creation.’

  ‘Any joy, Lefty?’ asked Torrance.

  Rossi pulled off the headphones and shook his head in disgust. ‘I don’t know if it’s the trees or the hills, but I’m gettin’ nothing.’

  ‘Never mind. We can try again this evening. Maybe we’ll have good news by then.’

  ‘What exactly are your orders?’ Nagarkar asked Cochrane.

  ‘We’re to go to Istana Mimpi and escort the sultan back through the Jap lines to Singapore Town.’

  ‘And how will you get back past the Japanese lines?’

  ‘We hid our boat in the undergrowth on the north shore of the reservoir; I suppose we go back the way we came.’

  ‘And if that’s not possible?’

  ‘I guess we have to use our initiative.’ Cochrane did not look overjoyed at the prospect: using his initiative was not his strong suit.

  ‘Perhaps I can be of service?’ offered Nagarkar.

  ‘I don’t want to sound ungrateful, sir, but d’ye no’ have yer own unit to get back to?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do, any more. And anyway, it seems to me your need is greater.’

  ‘Ye’ll get nae argument frae me there, sir. Just for the record, sir, dis this mean ye’re officially takin’ over?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant, I am. And I suggest we start by getting the men moving.’ Nagarkar turned to Zulkifli. ‘Can you find the way to the banks of the Kranji Creek from here?’

  ‘Yes, tuan.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Zulkifli, tuan.’

  ‘Then you can be lead man, Zulkifli. We’ll advance in standard diamond formation, Sergeant Cochrane and this fellow’ – Nagarkar indicated Rossi – ‘ten yards behind Zulkifli, then the two Australians on the flanks and Varma and myself in the centre, then these two bringing up the rear’ – indicating Gibson and MacRae – ‘and the corporal as getaway man.’

  ‘Ye’re no’ gaunae let a wog take over command o’ Pigforce, are ye?’ MacRae muttered indignantly to Cochrane as Rossi and Quinn hastened to pack up the wireless.

  ‘King’s Regs, Smiler. Command falls to the senior officer, irrespective of the branch of service, including officers of the Indian Army.’ He stalked off after Zulkifli, Rossi fell in on his right, then Shapiro hefted the wireless on his back and fell in with Quinn, Varma and Nagarkar. Gibson and MacRae followed the two Indians, and Torrance followed the boat tickets he was sure MacRae had stashed about his person somewhere.

  ‘Cheer up, Smiler,’ said Torrance. ‘At least no one’s asking you to take orders from a Catholic, eh?’ He said it meaning to mock MacRae’s sectarianism – until Torrance had joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, he had had no idea there were different flavours of Christianity, and no one would ever have accused him of being a good Christian in the first place – but the Glaswegian only shrugged and nodded, as if he thought Torrance had made a good point.

  Where the orderly rows of rubber trees ended, a disorderly band of date palms began, with swamp ferns covering most of the ground between them. Then the date palms gave way to cannonball trees – so named from the large, spherical fruits hanging down from their boughs – with buttress roots, festooned with vines on which little white flowers blossomed. Then the leaf-strewn ground came to an end and was replaced by bare mud where mangrove trees stood as if on tiptoes on their masses of intertwined roots. In many places these roots rose so high there was no stepping over them, and they were too irregular to walk on, creating an impassable barrier. Zulkifli was forced to lead the group wherever there were gaps between the trees, which often required wide detours.

  At last they came to the end of the trees. Overhead, the thick pall of smoke from the petrol tanks at Kranji gave the sky an ominous, leaden aspect. Beyond about fifty yards of grey mud, they could see the brown and turgid waters of the Kranji Creek, as wide as a football pitch was long, then another stretch of mud with more mangrove trees growing on the far side. On both sides of the creek, thousands of wooden cones thrust up like spikes, twelve-inches high. Torrance was not sure if they were young mangrove trees growing up out of the mud, all that was left of trees that had died and rotted away, or some other kind of plant life. Whatever they were, like the mangrove trees themselves they looked weird and unnatural and they gave him the creeps. Here and there were lanes of open mud between the spikes where a man could walk.

  ‘How on earth are we supposed to cross that?’ asked Nagarkar.

  ‘This disnae look like the place where we crossed in the summer,’ said Rossi.

  ‘There must be a hundred inlets leading off this creek,’ said Torrance. ‘What do you want us to do? Search every one of them until we find a stretch of shoreline that looks exactly like where we crossed in the summer?’

  Zulkifli started to walk out onto the mud, his boots sinking in to the ankles. ‘Haud on, Joe.’ Cochrane used Piggott’s field glasses to survey the mangrove swamps on the far side of the creek.

  ‘You might wanna shade the lenses with one hand when you do that,’ said Torrance. ‘Nothing advertises the presence of a watcher with a pair of field glasses better than sunlight reflecting off the lenses.’

  ‘Do you think you can find a way across?’ Nagarkar asked Zulkifli.

  ‘Only one way to find out, tuan.’ The Malay continued to advance across the mud.

  ‘We’ll go across in three squads,’ said Nagarkar. ‘I’ll lead the first with Zulkifli and the Bren-gun team. When we reach the far side, we’ll set up the Bren to provide cover – if it’s needed – for the next team. That’ll be you and the two Australians, Sergeant. Watch me with the field glasses, I’ll signal you when we’re set up. Then finally the corporal, the lance corporal and Sapper Varma. When you set out, Sergeant, make sure you remember to give the field glasses to the corporal so he can see when you’re safely across. Corporal, until then, it will be your job to cover the rear.’

  MacRae shrugged off his pack and webbing and bound them tightly to the Bren. Zulkifli and Rossi likewise bound their packs and webbing to their rifles. Nagarkar had no rifle, so he bound his holstered revolver, map case and field glasses to his pack and held that above his head as he followed Zulkifli into the water. Torrance watched as the four of them waded into the creek, the water rising above their knees and hips until they were chest deep.

  ‘Take Hoot and Gandhi there and cover the rear,’ Cochrane told Torrance.

  ‘Varma,’ said the Indian.

  ‘What?’ said Cochrane.

  ‘The name’s Varma. Jairam Bandhu Varma. Not “Gandhi”, not “Gunga Din”, not “Little Black Sambo”. Jairam Bandhu Varma.’

  ‘Listen, Sabu, if I call ye Gandhi,
ye’ll bloody answer to “Gandhi” and like it.’

  Varma received this information with a blank expression, but something in the Indian’s eyes warned Torrance that sooner or later, Cochrane was going to regret those words. ‘Come on,’ he said, gesturing for Varma and Gibson to follow him down the trail.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re so upset about Corky Cochrane calling ye “Gandhi”,’ Gibson told Varma as they followed their own footsteps back through the mangrove trees. ‘I thought ye Indians all thought the sun shines out of Gandhi’s arse?’

  ‘It’s the implication that all Indians look alike, that one Indian is as good as another, rather than individuals with individual thoughts and feelings,’ said Varma. ‘Besides, we are not all such fervent admirers of Mr Gandhi as you might think.’

  ‘Use your bleedin’ loaf, Hoot,’ said Torrance. ‘You wouldn’t expect him to be fighting for the British Empire if he supported Indian independence, would you?’

  ‘In point of fact, Corporal, I do believe in Indian independence,’ said Varma. ‘But Mr Gandhi is naïve if he thinks Hitler will be content with conquering Europe, and leave India alone. The Nazis and their allies present a threat to the whole world, and those of us who believe in democracy stand a better chance of defeating the Axis if we stand together. To fight against the British Empire now is to support Hitler, and I would sooner die than give that lunatic any succour. Once the war against fascism is won, that will be the time for India to throw off the shackles of British imperialism.’

  ‘Blimey!’ said Torrance. ‘Such ingratitude, after all we’ve done for you.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Railways. Telegraphs. Schools. Hospitals.’

  ‘Railways to transport British soldiers to the North-West Frontier. Telegraphs to summon British soldiers to wherever a rebellion against British rule may break out. Schools to teach Indian babus how to serve the British bureaucracy. And hospitals to cure sick Indians and get them back to work for their white masters as soon as possible.’

  ‘I see. What about Nagarkar? Does he feel the same way about it as you?’

  ‘That’s something you should ask Jemadar Nagarkar.’

  ‘How come you speak English so good?’

  ‘I went to school in England. Harrow, to be precise. And then studied at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge.’

  ‘Blimey! You rich or something?’

  ‘My father is.’

  ‘So how come you’re not a jemadar like Nagarkar is?’

  ‘Think of me as a gentleman-ranker.’

  Torrance laughed. Indians and their pretentions… everyone knows only the British are sufficiently classy to be gentlemen, he thought to himself, scratching his balls through the fabric of his Bombay bloomers.

  They had reached the stretch of jungle where the buttress roots of the cannonball trees would provide good cover if they saw any Japanese following them. ‘Hoot, you take cover over there, where you can shoot straight up the trail,’ said Torrance. ‘Varma… have you got a nickname?’

  ‘Chava.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Modesty forbids.’

  ‘Funny sort of nickname.’

  Varma opened his mouth to protest, then shrugged and shook his head dismissively.

  ‘I’m not calling you “Chava”,’ said Torrance. ‘We’ll have to come up with a new nickname for you. Position yourself by that tree over there, where you can cover Hoot’s flank.’

  While they waited, Torrance smeared a little gun oil on some of the more vulnerable parts of his Thompson. In a close-range skirmish against the odds he could wish for no better weapon, but the bloody thing was a pain in the arse to lug around – covered in no end of knobs that stuck painfully into a man’s back as he carried it slung from his shoulder – and if you did not oil it every day, the humidity of the jungle soon reduced it to a useless piece of rust. He hoped when they got to Istana Mimpi he would get an opportunity to strip and clean it properly. The torrid tropical climate made everything decay.

  He wondered how well Nagarkar and his squad were getting on, wading across the broad creek. If MacRae had those boat tickets on him, he hoped the Glaswegian would have sense enough to put them where they would not get soaked. He imagined himself approaching the foot of the SS Hsiu T’ung’s gangplank and presenting whoever was collecting tickets with a fistful of pulp.

  He had been waiting about twenty minutes when Quinn came back to find them. ‘They’ve made it,’ he told Torrance. ‘We’re going across now. Cochrane wants you to cover us from the treeline.’

  Torrance, Varma and Gibson followed Quinn back through the mangroves. Even from a hundred and fifty yards away, there was no mistaking the footprints of Nagarkar, Zulkifli, Rossi and MacRae meandering across the mud flats on the far side until they disappeared into the mangroves, where the four of them had presumably taken cover.

  ‘Field glasses?’ Torrance prompted Cochrane.

  The sergeant took off the field glasses hanging from his neck and gave them to Torrance. ‘Wait while we’ve reached the cover o’ yon trees before ye follow.’

  Torrance nodded. ‘Varma, cover the trail leading back the way we came.’

  The sapper took up position amongst the roots of a mangrove tree, aiming his Lee–Enfield back up the trail.

  Cochrane and the two Australians squelched through the mud to the water’s edge. All three of them had strapped their packs to their sidearms with their webbing; now, as the water rose about their hips, they held their sidearms above their heads. Shapiro held his rifle with his pack strapped to it up in one hand, and the wireless transceiver in the other: a posture that most men could not have achieved in the first place, much less maintain for as long as it took to wade across the creek, but the big Australian did not even break a sweat.

  Torrance and Gibson watched from the mangroves on the east side of the creek. Already up to their chests, Cochrane and the two Australians seemed to take an inordinately long time to make the crossing. Torrance lit a cigarette while he waited, occasionally glancing up and down the creek to see if any Japanese patrol boats approached.

  It was several long minutes after he had tossed down the butt of his cigarette and pressed it into the mud at his feet with a toecap when Cochrane and the two Australians waded out of the water at the other side. Adding to the set of tracks leading to the trees, they followed them through the mud. Torrance raised the field glasses to his eyes. As they reached the foliage, he saw one of them – he recognised Quinn’s rangy figure – pause to turn and wave back across the creek, before following Cochrane and Shapiro into the trees.

  Torrance at once shrugged off his pack and put the field glasses in it, before buckling down the flap and strapping it along with his utility pouches to his Thompson with his webbing. ‘All right, that’s it, let’s go.’

  The mud sucked at Torrance’s boots as he hurried across the mud to the water’s edge with Varma and Gibson. After a final glance up and down the creek – it would be just his luck if a patrol boat appeared while he was halfway across – he began to wade into the creek, his boots stirring up fresh billows of mud in the already turgid water. It invaded his boots, insidiously warm. It was unnerving not being able to see where he was putting his feet, and he soon began to understand why it had taken the others so long to cross. The bottom was uneven, littered with stones that rolled and shifted under Torrance’s boots and ledges that made him stumble. As the water rose to his chest, he lifted his Thompson – heavy with the combined weight of his pack and utility pouches – above his head. The next time he stumbled, he struggled to maintain his balance, and his arms soon ached from the unaccustomed effort of holding his gear aloft.

  Finally the level of the water was falling again. Torrance was relieved to be able to lower his bundle, letting it rest on one shoulder for now. At last they staggered up through the shallows to emerge onto the mud on the far side. Here more of the weird wooden spikes grew out of the silt. The others’ tracks foll
owed a path through them. Nagarkar and the rest waited for them beneath the trees at the other end.

  ‘All right, let’s go.’ The jemadar did not wait for Torrance, Varma and Gibson to unstrap their packs, but immediately motioned Zulkifli to lead the way up a natural trail between two banks of thickly entwined mangrove roots. As soon as Torrance had his webbing buckled over his now soaking khaki drills, he drew his parang from its scabbard and hacked at the bark of one of the mangrove trees to leave a blaze.

  ‘What’s that for?’ demanded Gibson.

  ‘So we can find our way back,’ said Torrance.

  ‘It will make it easier for the Japanese to follow us as well,’ said Varma.

  Torrance had not thought of that, though he was damned if he would admit as much to Varma. ‘If there are any Japs following us, we’ll lay an ambush for them, won’t we? And a series of blazes will help to guide them right into it.’ He smirked, pleased with that one.

  ‘If we know they’re following us, yes,’ agreed Varma.

  Bloody smart alec, thought Torrance.

  The ground became firmer underfoot as they left the mangroves behind and marched through a forest of date palms with swamp ferns growing around their buttress roots, which in turn gave way to the regular rows of rubber trees in a plantation. Nagarkar signalled another halt. ‘Do you know where we are?’ he asked Zulkifli.

  The Malay nodded. ‘This is part of the Namazie Estate. From here, only two more miles to Istana Mimpi.’

  Cochrane paused, leaning against a tree, pinching the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. ‘Something wrong, Sergeant?’ asked Nagarkar.

  Cochrane pasted a smile on his face. ‘Just a bit tired, sir, that’s all. I’ll be awreet in a minute.’

  ‘We’re all tired,’ said Rossi. ‘We got no sleep last night and precious little the night before that.’

  ‘All right.’ Nagarkar turned to address the rest of Pigforce. ‘We’ll camp here. You can rest while Zulkifli and I scout ahead.’

  ‘What’s the point of that?’ asked Varma.