In the Mouth of the Tiger (70 page)

Half an hour later we were in a sailing sampan, thrashing along the beach in a smother of spume. There was a sharp onshore wind, clean and almost cold, and as we heeled steeply and the water rushed by close under the lee gunwale, I found myself laughing with the sheer joy of living.

‘What if a Jap plane comes?' I shouted into Denis's ear, but he just shook his head. There was a devil in his blue eyes, and when I tried to ask again he put his hand over my mouth.

I suddenly realised that Denis didn't care, and I smiled back at him, a warm smile of complete understanding. If the Japs came we'd die together. It would be awful, but if we were going to die it seemed much better that death come to us on our terms, while we had breath to laugh at the whole mad comedy and arms to hold each other.

But no planes came, and the light died so that we were sailing in semi-darkness. And then we saw Amah, a dark figure standing on the edge of the water with a torch in her hand. Waiting for us, as she had waited a hundred times before.

We had pork trotters and rice for dinner, hot and savoury, and we had it in the dining room. The children ate with us as a treat, at first wide-eyed with the honour, but soon so tired that Agatha and Christine crept into the room and took them gently to their beds.

Denis and I sat on after the things had been cleared away, talking and smoking. We moved our chairs close together so that our hands touched often, not deliberately but as if by accident. And each time we touched we'd glance at each other and smile almost shyly.

It was to be the last time that Denis and I were to dine together at Whitelawns.

During that night, waves of Japanese soldiers crossed the narrow Straits of Johore by landing craft and began storming the mangrove-tangled beaches of Singapore Island. The attack took place on the north-western corner of the island, and while the first waves were slaughtered by the Australian 22nd Brigade, the Japanese did not give up. They kept coming, wave after wave of barges pressing home the attack. By one o'clock in the morning there were sufficient troops ashore for their patrols to penetrate between the spread-out Australian units, and suddenly the mood of the battle changed. Many of the Australians were hurriedly recruited reinforcements who had never been in action before, and the fierceness of the attack had caught them by surprise.
Nothing in their training had prepared them for the reality of a night action in broken, waterlogged country where the enemy was suddenly all around them, firing into their flanks, even firing at them from behind. A violent storm broke, adding to the confusion with vivid flashes of lightning and rain so heavy that the world seemed to dissolve into mud and blackness. At two in the morning, the Australian commanders ordered their men to fall back to prepared positions. In the hell of mud and darkness, the retreat became a rout.

By mid-morning the next day it was clear that not only had the Japanese secured a beachhead, they had captured almost a quarter of the island. Even Tengah Airfield had been overrun, and advance units were in sight of Singapore City itself.

Some troops stood firm, in the face of overwhelming odds. A company of Dalforce had been positioned in the creeks and mudflats between the Australian 27th Brigade and the Kranji River. When Dalley had visited the previous evening, the Japanese ‘softening up' bombardment had already begun. Mindful of the disastrous retreats in the adjoining sector the previous night, Dalley made a point of speaking to every man, emphasising the need to stay calm and purposeful and, above all else, to hold the position. He reiterated the message to their commander, a tin-miner-turned-major called Harte-Barry. ‘I think the Japs will attack tonight,' Dalley confided. ‘Our people look very steady, but they have yet to be tested.'

When the attack came the defenders were ready. Time after time barges trying to force a landing in that sector were hit by two-inch mortars and the Japanese soldiers raked by Lewis guns as they tried to scramble clear.

‘A turkey-shoot,' Harte-Barry said to Robert Koh as the two men strolled with affected unconcern amongst their company's dug-in firing positions.

‘Turkeys don't keep running at you, and they don't have guns,' Robert said dryly. His own Tikus people were in point position, dug in with their foremost firing lines just above the muddy beach. He was so proud of his men that there was a lump in his throat.

Although there were some incursions along the left flank the tenacious Australian troops, supported by artillery, managed to hold their own. However, their brigade commander, believing his men to be in danger of being cut off, ordered them to withdraw to new positions about three miles back. Before retreating, the men were ordered to destroy all oil and fuel stocks by opening the cocks of the nearby storage tanks and setting alight
the thousands of gallons of highly volatile aviation spirit that flowed down the waterways. The conflagration incinerated a battalion of enemy troops attempting an outflanking manoeuvre. But the tactic had an unfortunate consequence: the Japanese were just about to call off the attack when, by the light of the burning fuel, they saw the Australians retreating. Scarcely able to believe his good luck, Lieutenant-General Nishimura, with his men in the mangroves, ordered them to advance.

Dalley's men only realised that the Australians had retreated when Japanese machine-guns opened up from their abandoned positions. Men began to fall. Amongst the first were the company's two English platoon commanders. Then Harte-Barry himself was hit and dragged to the rear.

For a moment there was confusion, with some of the Chinese looking back over their shoulders, eyes wide with uncertainty. But Robert and his fellow sergeants took over with smooth professionalism, wandering through the unit's position as cool as cucumbers, putting steadying hands on the shoulders of those who needed support, joking with those who didn't.

The Dalforce unit was still in position and fighting well when the sun came up. About mid-morning the commander of the Japanese machine-gun battalion facing them was killed, and the men of his unit began to attack with feudal fanaticism to avenge his death. But still the Chinese soldiers stood their ground.

They were never defeated. A British counterattack regained the ground behind them and Colonel Dalley walked up into the company area. Of the two hundred who had fought two hundred died. Dalley's report was criticised in some quarters as ‘emotional':

It was a frightful sight. The company had been completely destroyed. They had used up all their ammunition. There were no wounded to bring back. They had stood their ground. They had been ordered to stay and they stayed. And they all died.

Amongst the dead was Sergeant Robert Koh. He had been hit four times. Three wounds had been roughly bandaged with field dressings. The fourth, over the heart, had killed him. He clutched in his hand a small, stuffed furry toy, a
tikus
, the little brown mouse of Malaya. It was the emblem of his company, and Catherine had pressed it into his hand for luck when he had left their home for the last time.

The Japanese landings, and the overrunning of General Bennett's vaunted Australians, had a crushing effect on morale. We woke up to hear small-arms fire just outside the city itself, and when the radio spoke of ‘a Japanese incursion which is being mopped up' people laughed openly. Over forty men and women, mainly members of the Kuomintang, committed suicide that morning, and perhaps even more significantly the chit system of credit dried up throughout the colony. Under the chit system, any European had been able to buy anything, from drinks and dinner at the best clubs and restaurants to tailored suits and jewellery in the shops, simply by signing a small piece of pasteboard. But suddenly chits were not good enough. From the white-suited ‘boys' at Raffles and the Tanglin Club to the merchants in Change Alley the message was the same: ‘Very sorry, Tuan. No can take chit. Money, please.'

Denis had left before dawn and heard the news of the Japanese landing while eating a frugal breakfast in the cramped wardroom of HDML 24. He told me later that he sat at the tiny wardroom table staring out of the porthole at the crumpled buildings along Collier Quay and cursed himself for being all sorts of a fool. He decided in that moment that his only purpose in life was now to get me and the children on board a ship as fast as possible. He knew that Bishop Wilson, the Bishop of Singapore, was organising a ‘last gasp' evacuation party and he determined on the spot that the children and I would be included.

‘You look a bit thoughtful, Skipper,' his Number One commented, and Denis stared at him unseeing. James Ogilvie was a painfully thin ex-Government clerk who had been a sub-lieutenant in the RNVR for only a month before his appointment to HDML 24, but he was a quietly competent exec who had taken to the sea as a duck takes to water.

‘Hold the fort, Jim,' Denis said, and suddenly was gone, vaulting up the gangway and then over the side onto the wharf. Three strides took him to the naval telephone, and moments later he was talking to Archdeacon Graham-White. Graham-White was Bishop Wilson's right-hand man, and an old friend. It had been Graham-White who had married us eighteen months before.

‘Easily done,' the Archdeacon said. ‘Only too glad you two have changed your minds. I'll put steps in train immediately.'

Denis was in action again that day, ferrying evacuees to the ships lying patiently out in the Roads. For my part, I too was busy. John Dalley had rung
me early in the afternoon with the news of Robert Koh's death, and I had determined to see Catherine as soon as possible. Hamid had disappeared so Chu Lun himself drove me over to Chamberlain Road in the Singer.

The house looked different. At first I couldn't tell why, and then I saw that every blind was down, every window shut, and the very walls themselves looked closed against the world. Catherine could have heard of Robert's death only within the last few hours, and yet she had already put up the barricades, closed herself off from the world. I almost decided not to intrude, but something Denis and I had long ago agreed upon came to mind: when someone was in trouble it was far better to try and help, and fail, than to stand by doing nothing.

Catherine opened the door herself. She had not been crying and as usual looked indescribably beautiful. But it was the cold, empty beauty of a Greek statue, not the warm, loving beauty of the Catherine I had known. For a long moment she just stood there, staring at me as if she did not recognise me, and then she gestured me in with a stiff, mechanical move of the hand.

It had been wrong to come, I knew that immediately. We sat facing each other like stuffed dummies, and then at last I found my voice.

‘I came to say how sorry I am,' I said softly. ‘And to see if there is anything I can do.'

‘Nobody can do anything,' Catherine said. ‘It's too late.'

I suddenly remembered that I'd brought something for the baby. It was some bauble, wrapped in colourful paper, and I held it out. ‘Could I give this to April?'

‘We were hit by a shell this morning, Norma. Just one. It exploded somewhere out the back. The house shook but didn't seem to have been damaged. I ran in to see if April was all right, but when I picked her up from her cot she was dead. A splinter came through the window and struck the side of her head.'

I stood up, so shocked I couldn't speak. Catherine rose with me. ‘Don't say anything, Norma,' she said desperately. ‘Please don't say anything. Please just go. Please go.'

I couldn't move. I stood there speechless, staring at Catherine, and she stood facing me, staring back. I don't know how long we were there, unable to speak, unable to move. I wanted so desperately to reach out and help her, but of course I couldn't. Nobody could. Everything she had lived for had been taken from her.

I can't remember saying goodbye, but I must have mumbled something. And then Chu Lun was driving me home, April's gift still in my hand. As soon as I got home I rang John Dalley. By a miracle I reached him.

‘You have to do something for Catherine,' I said desperately. ‘She's all alone in her house and terribly upset. On top of Robert, her baby was killed this morning. I'm frightened she might do something silly. I tried to talk to her but she doesn't want sympathy or friendship. But she does need practical help. Could one of Robert's friends go around?'

Dalley was at his HQ in the middle of a battle, but he heard me out. ‘I'll send someone round straight away, Norma,' he said gently. ‘But don't expect too much. I had a word with her myself this morning. I fear the shock has thrown her over the edge. I don't think there is anything anyone can do. But we will try.'

Dalley was as good as his word and his people tried to collect Catherine later that afternoon. She refused to move. According to those who called on her she was quite cool and composed. She told them she wanted to wait for the Japanese in her own home. She had hung the Tikus Platoon flag above her door, and put up pictures of Robert in his uniform throughout the house. His dress uniform – which she had refused to let him wear when he was alive – was hanging on a valet stand just inside the front door, the buttons sparkling, the cap on the hall table beside it.

Denis roared into Whitelawns just after I had spoken to Dalley, his face grim with determination. He began calling for us all as soon as he arrived. I knew precisely what he was going to say and I forestalled him. ‘It's all right, my dear,' I said in as businesslike voice as I could. ‘Tom Graham-White phoned me earlier. We are due at Bishopscourt anytime this afternoon or this evening, and we'll be boarding one of the evacuation ships tomorrow morning. I've packed the Singer so we can move whenever we want to.'

Denis let out a long breath. ‘I knew I could count on you, darling,' he said. ‘You are an absolute brick. Would you mind if we made a move straight away? I've got to be back on board in a couple of hours.'

‘We've got time for a last cup of tea, surely?' I asked.