The Empire Trilogy

by J. G. Farrell

  Walter’s own house had so far escaped damage though it had lost a few windows. in the air-raid of 20 January. But the atmosphere of the place had changed considerably since his wife and Kate had left. It was not too bad during the daytime: there was always a good deal of bustle now that he had moved his office staff up here from Collyer Quay. Once the office had closed down for the day, however, an eerie solitude descended on the house. He would sit fidgeting restlessly on the verandah or stroll on the lawn, waiting for the sirens or watching the searchlight batteries fingering the sky. Now he was back sitting on the verandah in darkness.

  He was surprised that the absence of his wife and Kate should make such a difference. There were still people about. Nigel and Joan were usually somewhere mooning about the house (thank heaven, at least, that that looked like coming off successfully!). There were still the ‘boys’ and Abdul, though some of the kitchen staff had made themselves scarce. He occasionally saw Monty sloping in from the direction of the compound. No, what upset Walter was not the absence of people but the absence of normality. Life had taken on an aspect of nightmarish unreality. If someone had told him a year ago that on a certain date in January Solomon Langfield would be found under his roof he would have dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Yet not only was Langfield under his roof (his mortal remains, anyway) but at this very moment he was in the process of being embalmed by Dr Brownley on the dining-room table … or would have been if Dr Brownley had known better how to proceed. As it was, for the last few minutes he had been on the telephone asking a colleague for instructions. The line was not a good one and he had to shout. So Walter’s melancholy reflections had been punctuated by the medical instructions which Dr Brownley howled for confirmation into the instrument. Evidently he was concerned lest too much time should have elapsed since the old fox had gone to his reward. No wonder then if Walter felt that his grip on reality had loosened.

  Embalming old Langfield at a time like this, what an idea! To embalm him at any time would have seemed to Walter an unprofitable undertaking, but with bombs raining on the city and corpses laid out everywhere on the pavements the idea of preserving the old goat was perfectly ludicrous. Yet his board of directors had demanded it ‘for the sake of Langfield and Bowser Limited and its British and overseas shareholders’ on whose behalf, they had explained, they were making ‘this very natural gesture’.

  ‘Very natural indeed!’ grumbled Walter to himself. ‘What could be more unnatural? I should have had him stuck under the ground immediately. Mind you, with the sort of man they have on Langfield’s board these days they would most likely have been out there in the graveyard at the dead of night helping the company secretary to dig him up again!’

  Walter sighed, allowing his mind to wander on to the subject of graveyards … Poor old Webb must be rotted away by now, he mused. His cane chair squeaked as he shifted about in it restlessly, trying to convince himself that the best thing would be to go inside and deal with some of the paper-work which awaited him. Abruptly he became aware that two wraith-like figures were moving in the shadows beyond the swimming pool. He stirred uneasily, trying to identify them. Nigel and Joan perhaps? But they had gone inside some time ago. The white wraiths shimmered nearer, growing brighter as they left the shadows of the trees and drifted into the open. Voices now reached Walter, raised in argument, and he relaxed for these were not the ghosts of old Webb and old Langfield returning to remonstrate with him from beyond the grave, but Matthew and Ehrendorf haggling over colonial policy well on this side of it.

  ‘If by “progress” you mean the increasing welfare of the native then I’m afraid you’re going to have a job proving the beneficial effects of these public works you make such a song and dance about …’ Matthew was saying: he had not forgotten his moment of illumination while sitting exhausted beside the fire at the timber-yard: he still intended to give up theorizing and devote his life to practical work of some kind. But there were one or two arguments he felt he had to finish first; besides, the mere presence of Ehrendorf, even mute, was enough to start his brain secreting theories and his tongue expressing them. As for Ehrendorf, he was peering ahead at the dark house with trepidation, half hoping, half dreading that they would bump into Joan. A moment ago he had bravely offered to accompany Matthew across the compound to see Walter about something, but he had not expected to feel quite so vulnerable.

  ‘I suppose you’re talking about railways … In our African colonies something like three-quarters of all loans raised by the colonial governments are for railways. True, they’re useful for administration … but what they’re mainly useful for is opening up great tracts of land to be developed as plantations by Europeans. In other words, it’s done not for the natives’ benefit but for ours! To which you will reply, Jim, that what benefits us, benefits them … To which I reply … “Not necessarily so!” To which you reply …’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ came Dr Brownley’s voice faintly to Walter on the darkened verandah, interrupting Matthew who had been gripped by such a frenzy of abstractions that he had been obliged to commandeer both sides of the argument. ‘Let me make quite sure that I’ve got the embalming fluid down properly … I repeat … Liquor formaldehyde, 13.5cc. Sodium borate, 5 grammes … and water to make up to 100cc. Is that correct? Yes, I see … And with what? A bicycle pump?’

  ‘A bicycle pump!’ thought Walter giddily.

  Meanwhile, as a descant to Dr Brownley’s rather anxious elucidations (the good doctor, though for years he had been medical officer to Langfield and Bowser Limited, had never been faced with such a problem before … And just think of it! The Chairman himself! A heavy responsibility indeed!) there came Ehrendorf’s reasonable tones, gently chiding Matthew for being selective in his view of railways in the colonies, for conveniently forgetting their positive aspects …

  ‘What we are doing is subsidizing the white man’s business operations at the expense of native welfare … Now, I agree with you, this would not matter if the profits stayed where they were produced, but they don’t … they’re whipped off back to Britain, or France, or Belgium or Holland or wherever …’

  ‘A three-gallon bottle with two glass tubes passing through the rubber stopper, yes, I’ve got that … One tube reaches the bottom of the bottle to take up the liquid and pass it out to a rubber tube and then to the injection canula. I see. The other glass tube through the stopper you attach to the bicycle pump … Oh, I see, a foot pump … I thought you might mean …’

  ‘Let’s not forget that railways act as an instrument of civilization,’ said Ehrendorf vaguely, his eyes probing the darkness for some sign of hope, ‘bringing isolated people into contact with the modern world.’

  ‘Slavery used to be defended in those very words! Besides, in Africa natives died by the hundreds of thousands just in building the damn things. Look at the Belgian Congo under Leopold! You see, what I’m trying to explain is how everything in a colony, even beneficial-sounding things like railways and experimental rice-growing stations, are set up in one way or another to the commercial advantage of the Europeans or Americans with money invested in the country …’

  ‘D’you mind if we just go over the sites of injection once more,’ cried Dr Brownley in a voice of despair. ‘No, operator, this is an important matter, a matter of life and death. I’m a doctor, will you kindly get off the line, please. Now, fluid equal to fifteen per cent of body weight into the arterial system? 450 cc to a pound, yes, I’ve got that. Two per cent body weight to be injected into each femoral artery towards the toes. One per cent into each brachial artery towards the fingers, yes. One common carotid artery towards head with two per cent. Inject same carotid towards heart with seven per cent. Total amount of fluid should come to fifteen per cent body weight. What happens, though, if the blood in the artery has clotted, as I’m afraid it might have by now, and you can’t force the fluid in? Wait a moment, I’m trying to note it down, yes … the extremity should be wrapped in cotton wool soaked in the fluid and then
bandaged … and you keep on soaking the cotton at intervals. Good. Another thing I want to know is whether one has to inject fluid into the thoracic and abdominal cavities?’

  ‘How frightful!’ thought Walter, and despite the heat his skin became gooseflesh and even the bristles on his spine rose in horror. Meanwhile, the two young men had reached the foot of the white marble steps which curved up to the portico and thence to the verandah. Still talking nonsense they began to ascend.

  ‘How about the rights of the individual, imported along with a Western legal system? Isn’t that worth having, Matthew?’

  ‘Freedom of the individual at the expense of food, clothing and a harmonious life, of being swindled by a system devised to the advantage of those with capital? If you had asked the inmates of the coolie barracks in Rangoon, dying by their hundreds from malnutrition and disease, I’m sure they would have told you that wonderful though being free was, just at the moment so wretched was their condition that it wasn’t much help. It’s no good calling somebody free unless he’s economically free, too, at least to some extent … Is it? … however much lack of individual freedom may horrify an English intellectual sitting at his desk with a hot dinner under his belt.’

  ‘Yet even if one admits, and I’m not saying I do,’ replied Ehrendorf, ‘that the natives in British and other colonies have been placed at a disadvantage, or even swindled and abused, can you actually say that they would have been better off left strictly alone? You could say that the coming of Western capital is simply a bitter pill that they have to swallow if they are ever to achieve a higher state of civilization … In others words, that capitalism is like a disease against which no traditional culture anywhere has any resistance and that, in the circumstances, in Malaya and other colonies it could have been worse and will certainly get better.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Matthew dubiously, ‘at some future period men will be able to look back and say, why, it was merely a bitter pill they had to swallow before achieving their present state of felicity, but for the moment, although it’s clear what they’ve lost with their traditional way of life, it’s not so easy to see what they’ve gained. Improved medicine in some places, but mainly to combat new illnesses we’ve brought with us. Education … largely to become unemployable or exploited clerks in the service of our businesses or government departments … And so on.’

  ‘I say, Walter, are you there?’ called Dr Brownley who had left the telephone and was peering uneasily out on to the darkened verandah. ‘Oh, there you are, I didn’t see you at first. What a business!’ he added, mopping his brow. ‘It seems we must wash the entire body with the fluid, including the face, ears and hair … and we can get rid of any post-mortem staining of the face by massage.’

  Walter did not reply. He was looking at the silhouettes of Matthew and Ehrendorf who had paused by the wire door to the verandah and were looking out towards the restlessly moving searchlights over the docks. Dr Brownley, distraught, began to think of a matter which had occupied his mind almost exclusively for the past few days: walking with an innocent mind and a serene, untroubled expression on his face along the street his eye had happened to stray to Whiteaway’s window and there, alas, had found itself locked in the basilisk stare emitted by a certain article of an almost infinite desirability, agreed, but costing $985.50. How could a man afford such a price? Yes, but how could a man do without such an article? These were the horns of the Doctor’s dilemma. But first he would have to deal with this dreadful business of embalming old Langfield.

  ‘There’s only one way, it seems to me,’ said Matthew with a sigh, ‘in which our colonies could begin to get the benefits of their contact with us …’

  ‘And what’s that, I should like to know?’ came Walter’s forbidding voice from within, startling the two young men.

  ‘Oh, hello, Walter. Well, by kicking us out and running the mines and plantations for their own profit instead of ours. In other words, a revolution!’ He smiled wearily. ‘The only trouble with a revolution is that it seldom improves things and very often makes them worse.’

  ‘Obviously they too are subject to my Second Law,’ smiled Ehrendorf.

  ‘But it wasn’t that that I wanted to see you about, Walter. I wanted to ask for your help in another matter entirely.’

  ‘And what might that be?’ Walter did not sound encouraging. Matthew explained that he was trying to help Miss Chiang to leave Singapore because she would run a particular risk if the city fell to the Japanese. It seemed impossible, however, to get her the necessary passport and permit to leave. Perhaps Walter could do something …?

  ‘I don’t see how I can help,’ said Walter testily. ‘With all the red tape I can’t get anything done myself these days.’ Although there was some truth in this, Walter would not have felt inclined to help in any case. He considered it a sign of ‘the spirit of the times’ that Matthew should be seeking a favour for a Eurasian woman with little concern for propriety as if she were his wife.

  ‘I thought it might be easier to get her an exit permit if she were travelling with someone who had a British passport. Presumably Joan will be leaving soon? Perhaps she could go with Joan if you have no objection?’

  ‘That’s up to Joan,’ replied Walter shortly. ‘You’d better ask her and Nigel.’ From his tone it was plain that he did not want to discuss the matter further.

  When the two young men had retreated, in silence this time, the way they had come, the Doctor cleared his throat. ‘I say, Walter, d’you think you could give me a hand in the dining-room for a few minutes. I can’t get hold of anyone to help me on account of these damned air-raids. This job shouldn’t be too difficult, fortunately, but I’ve never had to do it before … And by the way, please don’t let me forget to plug the anus, mouth and nostrils with cotton soaked in the embalming fluid. Oh yes, and what I wanted to ask you was this: do you think that the Langfield and Bowser shareholders will want to keep the body a long time? I mean, they aren’t thinking of keeping it in a glass case in the board-room or anything like that, are they? Because the thing is this: If they do want to keep it we shall have to rub it with plenty of Vaseline and bandage it to prevent it from drying out … I say, Walter, is anything the matter?’

  57

  ‘I’ll make sure that she has money, of course, and take care of the ticket. We think it may be easier to get her an exit permit if she is employed, at least nominally, by someone with a British passport. She won’t be any trouble, Joan, I guarantee.’

  ‘Nigel,’ Joan called to her fiancé, invisible in the room behind her, ‘Matthew wants to know if we can take someone with us? I don’t think we can, can we?’

  ‘I don’t think you realize how urgent it is …’

  ‘A Eurasian girl, you say? An amah? A servant? Really, it’s impossible.’

  ‘Not a servant … a friend.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Joan, this isn’t just anyone. It’s someone you know. She’ll be in deadly danger if the Japanese ever take Singapore and she’s still here. Vera has told me that you were there when the Japs arrested her in Shanghai … You know better than anyone what will happen to her if they find her here!’

  ‘Nigel, there’s nothing we can do, is there?’

  A voice called something from the interior of the room which Matthew was unable to make out.

  ‘Sorry, Miss Chiang should have thought about all this earlier in the day. There’s nothing we can do, I’m afraid.’

  ‘To hell with you then, you bitch!’ cried Matthew in a voice that took even him by surprise.

  Since the air-raids which had on successive days devastated Tanglin, Beach Road and the central part of the city, many Europeans had at last come to realize the extreme danger that they ran. Even if it were improbable that the Japanese would be permitted to land on Singapore Island itself, the fact remained that their air force, whose control of the sky was no longer seriously disputed by the few and rapidly diminishing fighters of the RAF, could inflict all
the damage that was necessary. Such was the confidence of the Japanese bombers that they now droned constantly over the city in daylight, flying at a great height, twenty thousand feet or more, in enormous packs that for some reason were always in multiples of twenty-seven, causing Europeans below to think that there must be something sinister and unusual about Japanese arithmetic. At such a height they were well beyond the range of the light anti-aircraft guns which made up the greater part of Singapore’s air defences. And so the truth had begun to dawn on the inhabitants of the city: if attacked from the air they were defenceless.

  Many European women who had bravely declared that they would ‘stay put’ now had second thoughts or at least yielded to the demands of their men-folk that they should leave forth-with. The result was that every day crowds assembled at the shipping offices in search of passages to Europe, Australia or India. But, although earlier in the month many ships had sailed from Singapore with room to spare (Mrs Blackett and Mrs Langfield had marvelled at the deserted decks and echoing state-rooms of the Narkunda) now, quite suddenly it seemed, you were lucky to find a berth on any sort of vessel going anywhere. Partly this was the result of the chaos in the docks, where unloading had almost seized up under the bombing; partly it was the result of the diminished ability of the RAF to defend incoming convoys in the sea approaches to the Island, now rendered hazardous to a distance of twenty miles or more by prowling Japanese bombers.

  Matthew’s efforts to help Vera had so far been frustrated as much by the perplexing regulations which governed departure from the Colony as by the rapidly swelling numbers of those who wanted to leave. Moreover, so much of his time was taken up by his duties as a fireman that he had little time or energy to spare to help and encourage her. One of the major difficulties was to find somewhere for her to go. After a series of tiring and time-consuming enquiries he had at length succeeded in discovering that it was government policy that women and children, irrespective of race, should be allowed to leave if they wanted to. To begin with he had thought it would be best to send Vera to Australia … but Australia had agreed to accept only a limited number of Asiatics and Vera had returned empty-handed from their temporary immigration office, depressed and exhausted after many hours of waiting.