In the Mouth of the Tiger (69 page)

About three in the morning I got up and waited for Denis, a new concern beginning to gnaw at my breast. There had been the sounds of an air raid to the north of the island, and perhaps it had been on Seletar. Perhaps Denis too was dead.

Perhaps.
I was sick to death of perhaps. The uncertainty and unfairness of it all. If there was a God, why couldn't he be more consistent? Why didn't he reward goodness and punish evil as he had promised, so that our progress through life, happy or unhappy, at least made sense?

I went out and sat under the loggia until I heard the Marvelette returning. By then it was dawn, a particularly beautiful dawn, I remember, the sky streaked with carnival colours – golds and reds and purples, faithfully reflected in the pearl-grey sea. It was almost as if heaven was taunting me in my misery by showing me just how beautiful the world could be.

‘How did he take it?' I asked when Denis joined me, but he just squeezed my hand, staring out to sea. We never saw Alec again. He refused to come to the simple funeral we arranged on his behalf, remaining at his post. He was captured in the first hours of the Japanese invasion of Singapore Island and died in Japanese hands.

So the Deans, our closest, dearest friends, were just blinked out of existence, almost between one breath and the next.

On the last day of January 1942, troops of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders retreated across the causeway linking Singapore and the mainland. They were the rearguard of the British forces in Malaya. Minutes later Indian sappers blasted a crater in the causeway in what would prove to be an abortive attempt to cut the island off from the advancing Japanese. The Battle for Malaya was over, and the Battle for Singapore had begun.

Singapore is a small island, barely twenty-five miles by twelve, so the battle was an extraordinarily intimate affair. Just how intimate I was to discover on the first night of the siege. A large reinforcement convoy was due in that night and Denis had left early for his ship, his job being to help shepherd the convoy through the minefields guarding Keppel Harbour. The
fireworks started about midnight, with a bombing raid setting fire to several of the arriving vessels. The waters off Whitelawns became almost as bright as day, illuminated by burning ships, searchlights crisscrossing the sky, and the brilliance of parachute flares. The noise and the spectacle brought many on Singapore's south coast out of bed and down to the beach. At Whitelawns I sat in the loggia, half petrified, half fascinated by the terrible display. At about two o'clock a tanker went up in a ball of fire and began drifting towards Sultan Shoal. I knew Denis would be there as his patrol area was from Horsburgh Light to the Shoals. Sure enough, I glimpsed a shape, tiny but distinct in the light of the conflagration, a fleck of grey racing towards the stricken vessel with its Oerlikon sending a line of tracer up towards the invisible bombers. And then abruptly the little vessel was gone, replaced by a vivid flare of light as it took a direct hit.

I was certain it was HDML 24, and commended Denis's life to God, kneeling in the inky shadow of the loggia with the scent of frangipani in my nostrils and my hands clasped so tightly together that the nail marks were still there the next morning. I thought Denis must surely be dead, and accepting the thought gave me a curious feeling of relief. I started talking to him in my mind. ‘We had a terrific time, didn't we?' I asked. ‘Would you change anything, darling? I wouldn't. Not a single thing.'

When he woke me next morning, smelling of burnt oil and his eyes red with exhaustion, I felt at first a wild, sweet surge of joy but a second later the pain returned. I began worrying for him all over again, a roiling snake of fear uncurling in my breast. I put my head under my pillow like a child trying to blot out the reality of another day and Denis sat beside me, for once at a complete loss.

And then he stood up and drew me to my feet. ‘This won't do, Nona,' he said, his eyes suddenly dancing. ‘Don't you see we are at risk of chucking in the towel? That's precisely what they want us to do, and I don't think we should let them have their way. What say we take those poor under-exercised nags of ours for the devil of a ride?'

We rode all morning, kicking the horses into a lather and then letting them catch their wind for a minute or two before booting them back into a gallop. We sang, and shouted poetry to each other as we rode, and about noon we clattered into a little Chinese prayer garden high above the Johore Straits. There were painted concrete figures all round us, warriors and maidens, and mythical beasts. A single frangipani tree, splendid in its loneliness, stood in
the centre. The priests had gone – we could see their little cabins with doors agape – and the only sign of life was a family of cats, preening themselves with proprietorial arrogance.

‘Lunch, I think,' Denis said, helping me down from a distinctly relieved Dame Fashion. ‘Amah only had time to chuck a few sandwiches together, but you know what Omar Khayyam said –

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,

A flask of Wine, a Book of Verse –

And thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.'

There was a pool full of waterlilies, and we sat on its edge, munching our sandwiches in the scented shade of the frangipani. ‘Did you know this place existed?' I asked.

‘Chu Lun told me about it,' Denis said. ‘He said it was very quiet and beautiful. I thought I might bring you here because we need to talk.'

I knew what he was going to talk about, and bowed my head.

‘I'm afraid sticking it out doesn't make sense anymore,' he said. ‘Now that the Japanese have taken Malaya, Singapore will not be able to hold out. They have control of the sea and of the air, and it's only a matter of days before they'll be swarming all over the island, killing and raping like they did in Hong Kong. I'm terribly sorry, darling, but you are going to have to take the children out.'

I looked up at him. ‘I'm not going without you . . .' I began, but he put a finger on my lips.

‘There is a ship leaving tomorrow, and Captain Mulock has offered a chit for you and the children,' he said. ‘You would be going with other families from the Naval Base. I think we should take the offer. I'll be fine, because I'm with my ship. When the time comes, we'll potter along behind you. Probably get to Sumatra at the same time you do.'

Part of my mind felt a wave of relief. For days now I had harboured an awful picture of Japanese soldiers bayoneting the two boys, and I knew I would never forgive myself if it ever happened. But I didn't want to leave Denis. The thought of kissing him goodbye, of leaving him behind, of living without him, turned my heart to ice. The talk about coming after us on
HDML 24 was hokum. He would be under orders, and nobody would order a naval vessel to push off like that. HDML 24 would remain in Singapore until the end.

‘I'm not going, Denis,' I said quietly. ‘It's a tempting thought, because of course I'd like the boys to be somewhere safe. But I'm afraid I'm quite determined to stay and see this thing through by your side. You will have to ring Captain Mulock and tell him to give his chit to someone else.'

We argued, holding hands under the frangipani tree, but I was immovable. I simply could not imagine an existence without Denis, and that gave me the strength to resist his every argument. When he mentioned the children I put my fingers in my ears, tears forming in my eyes at the agony of my thoughts.

Finally he took my hand and kissed it. ‘We'll make a deal,' he said. ‘I won't force you to take Mulock's chit, but if the Japs land on Singapore Island, you must promise to do exactly what I say. Even if I tell you to try and escape.'

‘If the Japs win of course we'll make a bolt for it,' I said. ‘And you had better be beside us.' I thought a moment. ‘I'll give you the promise you want if you promise in return that you will try and escape with us.'

‘I'm under orders,' Denis began. ‘But I think that if we are beaten it will be every man for himself . . .'

The clap of the explosion caught us by surprise. There were no bombers in the sky and yet something had exploded not a quarter of a mile away. And then there was another explosion, and then another.

‘Artillery,' Denis said shortly. ‘They've set up their guns on the Johore shore and those must be ranging shots.' He stood up and squinted towards the north-west. ‘They're probably aiming for the Tinggi telecommunications tower in Serangoon. They can see that from Johore.'

Our picnic was spoilt, but a new-found mood of buoyancy remained. Our agreement – impractical and absurd though it may have been – had cleared the air and as we rode home we dawdled down the bridle paths, chatting about how we'd get out of Singapore if the place were overrun. Boats figured prominently in our discussion, probably because we knew how easy it would be to slip away by night and be lost in the islands by the time the bombers came. Unfortunately, the
Norma II
was not available: the Air Force had requisitioned her a week before, and the boys and I had seen her sailed away with an RAF flag flapping from her mizzen mast. But there were other craft. Chu Lun's cousins' junk, for example, lying just up the coast from Mata
Ikan. And a dozen fishing sampans, big, seaworthy boats with diesel motors.

The Japanese artillery fire intensified over the next few days until it was almost continuous. In some ways it was more frightening than the bombing because there was absolutely no warning. You could be shopping in Changi, and there would be a sudden eruption of earth across the road, followed by an ear-shattering ‘Bang!' You'd fall flat on your face, and then realise how stupid that was. If a shell had your name on it, lying on the ground wouldn't do a blind bit of good.

By the end of the first week of February the Japanese had occupied Pulau Ujong and set up 25-pounder batteries on the British-built gun aprons on the island. Together with their batteries on the high ground west of Johore Bahru they had the whole island of Singapore in range. They even had the cheek to hoist an observation balloon over the Johore Bahru fish markets so that their spotters could see the fall of shot and direct fire to the targets they wanted to hit.

One of the targets they wanted to hit was Aw Boon Haw's home in the north-western part of the city. Together with Tan Kah Kee, Ah Boon Haw had raised millions for the Chinese Nationalist Government, and in their malicious way the Japanese military were determined to exact revenge as soon as possible. All one afternoon shells pounded the Aw Boon Haw compound, smashing his garage full of imported cars, his Hollywood-style swimming pool, his aviary of rare songbirds, his tennis court and his badminton lawn. By a freak of good fortune the house itself remained intact. Ah Boon Haw himself was at the Cathay Cinema at the time, quite oblivious of the personal attention the Japanese were paying him.

Denis had been given a terrible job. The flood of families leaving Singapore had become a torrent, spurred on by news of fresh atrocities and a change of tone by the authorities. Instead of being exhorted to ‘stay and fight shoulder to shoulder with our brown sisters', white women were now being told they were ‘useless mouths to feed' and that their patriotic duty was to leave as soon as possible. The torrent of people had to be transported from the docks, now busy unloading the newly arrived supply convoy, to lines of passenger ships lying out in the Roads. All sorts of small craft had been conscripted to the task, including HDML 24. These vessels would load up with unhappy humanity and make a high-speed dash for the ships. If they were lucky nothing happened and the passengers would scramble aboard the rescue vessels grinning with
relief. But if an attack came while the boats were making their run, all hell would break loose. Ack-ack guns would bark from the wharf and from any armed ships in the harbour, and the small vessels packed with evacuees would open up with their own armament, either Oerlikons or machine-guns mounted on the bridge. The bombers would come first, and huge columns of water would lift off the oily surface of the harbour accompanied by the whine and ping of shrapnel. And then the Zeros would have their turn, skimming in low with machine-guns stuttering.

Boats went down regularly, their bottoms blown out by underwater explosions or the whole craft smashed to smithereens by a direct hit. Denis passed many such wrecks but could not stop for survivors. He had his own passengers to look after, and a vessel stopped in the water was a sitting duck. As HDML 24 roared past, the crew would stare down into the water where women and children choked and screamed, bled and died, their luggage floating around them.

There were occasional miracles. On one occasion the scene was just too pitiful and Denis turned back in a wide, fast circle, stopped engines and coasted up to a group floundering towards him, including half a dozen women pitifully trying to hold their babies above the blood-red water. A Zero lined them up and ran in, its flaps down to wash off speed and give added stability for the pilot to take aim. The crew of HDML 24 were standing by with nets to haul in the survivors but could do nothing, frozen into immobility by the certainty that they would all be dead within the next few seconds. But the Zero didn't fire. Instead it hauled away in a tight turn, its wing-tip feathering the water, and then lined up for another attack. This time the crew were galvanised into action, hauling in the survivors like men possessed. They were certainly dead men now, and the thought evaporated their fear like water thrown into a fire.

Again the Zero didn't fire, this time roaring up in a steep climb and heading away to the north-east. The reason it didn't fire is of course unknown and unknowable. Sudden compunction from a decent man? Or had the guns simply jammed, overheated by so much firing?

The night after that particular incident Denis came home in a strange, unfamiliar mood. He brought the Marvelette to a skidding stop on the gravel turning circle and flung himself up the verandah steps, bellowing for me and the boys. ‘Come on, sluggards,' he laughed, swinging both boys off the floor together, ‘we're going to throw aside dull care and have some fun!'