Ah, but he could be objective about Shanghai. It was difficult with Malaya. Malaya he regarded as his own country. He had lived here most of his life, had raised a family here. He had a preconceived idea of what the place should be like. He did not want it to change. He liked it the way it used to be. ‘I’m beginning to sound like old Webb,’ he thought. Well, he had accommodated himself as best he could to the new labour disturbances. Perhaps he had not done so badly, after all.
Mohammed returned and Walter pursued his way upwards among the tiers of rubber bales by the light of the torch-beam from below. When he had reached the top Mohammed followed him up, carrying a basket with some provisions he had brought. Walter thanked him, took out his wallet and gave him a few dollars, adding that he would not be needed for some time, that he should lay the car up wherever he found convenient, preferably immobilized and concealed, and that he would be well advised to return to his own kampong until the situation became normal.
‘A man must move with the times, Mohammed,’ he said with a faint smile. Then he conducted him back to the ladder and held the light for him while he descended.
‘Goodbye, Tuan.’
‘Goodbye, Mohammed.’ And the syce departed, feeling more concerned than ever. It seemed to him that only a madman would want to stay in this place by the river where rats fidgeted in the darkness and mosquitoes settled on you in clouds. And then, of course, there were the bombs.
From the little window of the store-keeper’s office Walter had an unobstructed view, thanks to the river, for a considerable distance to the east and south-east in the direction of Raffles Place. Over the low roofs on the far bank some of the taller buildings around Raffles Place stood out in silhouette against other buildings on fire behind them. The looming shape of the Fullerton Building was visible, too, thanks to some vessel burning furiously in the inner roads behind it. Searchlights swept the sky, criss-crossing with each other; occasionally he could see the flashes of guns. Of the docks nothing was visible but it was clear from the pink-tinged clouds above them that they were still burning in several places. Nearer at hand yet another great conflagration had started in the godowns which lined the river between Clark Quay and Robertson Quay and on the opposite bank, too, between Magazine Road and part of Havelock Road where it ran beside the river. Walter, sometimes muttering something to himself, more often in silence, stood leaning against the side of the window for most of the night watching the progress of these fires.
69
It was to this fire beside the river that the Mayfair unit had been directed by the Central Fire Station. They sped towards it through a corridor of fire; on every street they passed through there seemed to be buildings ablaze. The major hunched wearily over the wheel, listening anxiously to the Lagonda’s motor and sniffing the odour of petrol that was leaking somewhere. The Lagonda had broken down once or twice but somehow had been restored to the road; it now bore a jagged tear along one side from a piece of shrapnel and the paint on the bonnet was blistered in several places by the heat of previous fires. It had done good service, certainly. All the same, perhaps it was not wise to go to a fire in a car that was leaking petrol.
In spite of the curfew the streets were full of people, many of them refugees from the threatened area. The Lagonda raced past figures struggling with bundles and belongings, crashed and slithered over rubble strewn in the street, passed a crowd of looters dragging goods out of a shop window like entrails out of a dead animal. Matthew, beside the Major, turned to see a shadowy battery of guns pointing skywards which flashed and gulped one by one as they went by. Evidently another air-raid was in progress.
It was a relief to arrive at the fire by the river and set to work. This, at least, was familiar: the search for a water supply, the laying out of the hose, the starting of the pump. While they were busy looking for a convenient place to drop the suction hose into the river a dog came dashing up, inspected them and hurried away again. ‘Adamson must be here somewhere!’ And they all smiled, for this was comforting and familiar. And sure enough, presently Adamson appeared; he was still limping and walking with a stick; his manner was as casual as ever but for once even he looked tired. He said: ‘I’d knock down that fence if I were you and do it from there. If you get in any closer you’ll have one of these walls come down on top of you.’ Presently he limped away again, vanishing into a trembling haze of heat and light with the dog at his heels.
Kee, Turner and Cheong were left to get the pumps ready, the others set off for the fire unreeling hose as they went. Evidently it had been burning unchecked for some considerable time for at its centre it was no longer possible to distinguish the individual riverside godowns: these had now become the fuel of a gigantic furnace. As they approached, they converged with other men, heads lowered into a glittering blizzard of sparks, dragging their hoses towards the fire’s heart. Matthew was among the helmeted figures struggling through this brilliant storm, his pulse pounding with excitement and trepidation as it always did when he went to a fire. Had he touched wood? Yes. Or was that yesterday? He had lost his hold on the passage of time; events telescoped into each other. Soon the water was crackling through the hose and they were directing their branch against the outer walls of a vast arena of heat and light. For beyond the burning buildings which they were trying to contain, the fire possessed an inner core of other buildings which seemed to stretch over several acres and which by now could hardly be looked at with the naked eye.
Time passed. It could have been a few minutes but, looking at his watch, Matthew saw that two hours had elapsed since their arrival. Occasionally, hurrying back for another length of hose, he glimpsed the glowing inner core as he crossed a street leading into it. Then he would be buffeted suddenly by a wave of heat until he reached the shelter of the next wall. Once, as he hurried across one of these rivers of light, arm raised to shield his face, he saw two lamp-posts, whose elongated shadows almost reached him along the cobbles, buckle and wilt as they began to melt. An instant later he had plunged gratefully into the next dark shadow, unable to believe what he had just seen.
How strange it was to stumble from one of these avenues flowing with light into the black darkness of a side street! Here in the shadows an exhausted fireman sat on the kerb and used his steel helmet to scoop up the water running to waste and pour it over his head; when you looked more carefully you saw that he was not alone: other firemen sprawled here and there, driven back into this dark haven to recuperate. Surprisingly a mood of good humour, almost of elation, prevailed among these exhausted men: they called cheerfully to Matthew in whatever language they happened to speak … in English, Tamil, Dutch, Cantonese … they laughed and teased each other, put their arms around each other’s shoulders and when, presently, the roof of a nearby godown fell in with a roar and another wave of sparks eddied over them illuminating the darkness of their refuge, a great cheer went up and someone began to sing ‘Roll out the barrel’. Laughing uncontrollably, he did not know why, Matthew set off with the new length of hose he had been sent for, following the fire’s perimeter. He was astonished at how quickly the fire changed its character from one sector to another. In one place it would be a cheerful blaze, gay with sparks, in another a sullen inflammation beneath blankets of acrid smoke; here, where the fire was spitting great streams of burning liquid towards a row of dark tenements, the firemen were fighting it with a desperate tenacity; nearby, where a bonded warehouse was in flames, they staggered about playfully, falling over each other like a litter of puppies, drunk with the alcohol fumes which billowed around them.
The night wore on. Matthew and Mr Wu were together at the branch, directing its jets at some gentle blue flames that prettily trimmed the roofs of a row of shop-houses, when they heard a sinister hissing above them. Behind them the men who had been singing fell silent. The hissing grew rapidly in volume and changed into a low whistle. Matthew and Mr Wu at the same moment dropped the branch and sprinted for the darkness. The next instant Matthew found himself l
ying face down in a pool of water issuing from a burst main; the road was quaking beneath him and he was being pummelled by flying fragments of brick and clods of earth. After a few moments a hand tugged his arm: he opened his eyes to see the ever-smiling face of Mr Wu. Together they began to search for the branch they had been holding and which they presently found, thrashing about by itself in the darkness. As Matthew tried to grasp it, it flailed up and dealt him a blow in the chest that robbed him of his breath; but Mr Wu had managed to throw himself on top of it and hold it down while they got a firm grip on it once more. A van now arrived, miraculously, from the Central Fire Station with hot, sweet tea in a metal fire-bucket.
While Matthew was sitting at some distance from the fire drinking tea with his back against a wall, Adamson and his dog approached. Two godowns containing rubber, engine-oil, copra, palm-oil and latex stored as a liquid were on fire only a few feet back from the river. Although there was no hope of saving the godowns themselves Adamson was afraid that burning liquid might flow from them into the river and set the crowded sampans and tongkangs on its surface alight. He wanted Matthew to relieve one of his men who was directing a jet from the roof of a tall building nearby. ‘Can you manage the branch by yourself? I’ll send someone to help as soon as I can.’ Matthew nodded. The dog eyed him dubiously and then looked up at Adamson, as if afraid that Matthew might not be up to it.
It seemed to take an age of climbing ladders up through the dark warehouse before he finally emerged on the roof. He immediately saw the silhouette of the man he had come to relieve: he had lashed the branch to an iron railing, but loosely enough so that he could still turn the jet a few degrees, and was slumped against the parapet which ran round the roof; he found it hard to get up when he saw Matthew. ‘I’ve been up here all night,’ he said. ‘I thought they’d forgotten me.’
‘Tea is being served down below: if you hurry you might get some.’
‘Enjoy the view,’ called the departing fireman, leaving Matthew alone on the roof. He turned his attention to the fire. From this position he could look down over the godowns and he wondered whether Adamson realized how far gone they already were; it seemed unlikely that a single jet could make any difference. However, he played the jet over the roofs on the river side, trying to let it stream down the outside walls to cool them and keep them standing as long as possible.
Soon he began to savour the strange sensation of being marooned above the city in the hot darkness; he was pervaded by a feeling of isolation and melancholy. The occasional drone of a bomber in the black sky above him, the slamming of distant doors from the ack-ack guns, the dull thud, thud, thud of bombs falling, the rapid popping and sighing of the Bofors guns, even the deep bark of the artillery … all this seemed perfectly remote from his vantage point over the rooftops. Up here he was only conscious of the moaning and creaking of the branch against the railing and the faint steady hiss of the jet as it curved down towards the fire. He could see a considerable distance, too: he could see the rapid flashes advancing along Raffles Quay and the Telok Ayer Basin as a stick of bombs fell, and the hulk of what might have been a barge burning near Anderson Bridge at the mouth of the river and another vessel blazing brilliantly in the inner roads, and yet other fires scattered here and there in the densely crowded residential quarters to the south and east of New Bridge Road. ‘If a bomb fell here,’ he thought suddenly, ‘nobody would ever find me,’ and he peered anxiously down towards the street to see if anyone was being sent up to join him, but with the smoke he could see nothing.
After a while he grew, calm again, soothed by the regular creaking of the branch. He was so remote from what was happening down there, after all. It seemed impossible that anything happening on the ground could touch him. Below was the fire, and beyond the fire and all around lay the city of Singapore where two hostile armies were struggling to subdue each other in the darkness. Up here it made no difference. All that concerned him was the fire raging below him: he must concentrate on playing the jet where it would do most good. But soon he found himself wondering whether his efforts might not be superfluous. With a change in the tide, burning oil from a stricken vessel at the mouth of the river was already beginning to flow up towards the tightly packed sampans and barges in the heart of the city. As the sky grew pale on the eastern horizon Matthew watched in dismay the leisurely advance of this fiery serpent.
70
‘The Blackett and Webb godown is threatened. Walter’s inside and refuses to leave. Someone on his staff got in touch with Hill Street and they passed it on to us. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind having a shot at persuading him?’
Matthew and the Major were sitting on the kerb beside the Blackett and Webb van which had once carried eight outstretched arms in various colours reaching for prosperity. These arms had not proved very durable and most of them had broken off going over bumps or pot-holes, some at the shoulder, some at the elbow. Only two still remained intact as far as the grasping fingers: Matthew suspected that they were the white ones but could not be sure. The steady precipitation of oily smuts from the sky had rendered white, yellow, light brown and dark brown and even the van itself a uniform black colour. Everything else in sight appeared also to be black, or grey like the sky and the smoke.
‘I’d go myself,’ said the Major, ‘but I must get all this lot back to the Mayfair for some rest and food.’ He stared vaguely at the palms of his hands which were raw and bleeding from handling hose in which the broken glass which littered the streets had become embedded. Matthew’s palms were similarly flayed. They were waiting their turn while one of the regular firemen went about with a pitcher of iodine, dripping it on to the other men’s wounds to a chorus of jokes, curses and cries of anguish. Adamson sat with them, holding out his own raw palms for this painful ritual. The dog slept with its head on his shoe. When, presently, Adamson got up to go for breakfast at Hill Street, the dog had to be shaken awake.
Matthew set off past a dismal row of buildings which had burned during the night: now they loomed, dripping, gutted shells in the grey light. Turning a corner he came upon half a dozen hoses lying side by side, still swollen into thick veins by the water coursing through them. A little further on the branches, perhaps abandoned during a raid, were rearing and flailing like a many-headed monster in the deserted street. He walked on, wondering where Vera was. He hoped that by now she had returned to the Mayfair. It might still be possible, somehow or other, to get her away from Singapore before the Japanese took over.
Matthew had visited the Blackett and Webb godown on the river once before, in the company of Walter himself, as it happened, in the first days after his arrival in Singapore. He had glimpsed it again when with Vera he had visited The Great World (now bleak and deserted except for an ARP post) for it lay close by. But he had found nothing particularly interesting about it, except that it had his own name painted on it in large white letters. Now, strangely undamaged amid the bomb-shattered buildings on either side, it looked somehow more impressive than he had remembered it.
Inside it seemed very dark at first, and quiet. What little light there was came from above, falling from a great height into the dim amphitheatre in which he stood. And there was a pleasant smell in the air, perhaps from the bales of rubber that mounted around him, if not from the old building itself.
‘Walter?’ he called uncertainly, his voice sounding very small in this great space. It seemed for a moment that there would be no answer but then there came the sound of footsteps from the half-floor above and a familiar voice asked impatiently: ‘What is it?’
‘It’s me, Matthew Webb. I want to talk to you.’
‘Who? Oh, it’s you. Well, all right … I suppose you want to destroy all this rubber, do you?’ Walter uttered a grim laugh. ‘I don’t know what your father would have thought of all this madness that’s got hold of everyone.’
‘It’s not about that. D’you mind if I come up there?’ Without waiting for an invitation Matthew began to climb a ladder which
he dimly perceived nearby. He found Walter waiting at the top, looking restless and irritable. He paused to recover his breath, peering at him uncertainly. ‘Could we go somewhere where there’s a bit more light?’
‘All right. Come this way.’ Walter led the way down corridors of rubber. At a turning an old rat stood in their path and stared at them insolently for a moment before limping away down a side alley. Around the next corner grey daylight issued from a little cubicle of wood and glass. A row of huge fruit bats, neatly folded, hung from a rafter overhead and slept. Walter ushered him inside and offered him a chair. Before taking it Matthew went to the window, anxious to see what progress the fire had made towards them. But although it faced east, the direction from which the fire was being driven, his view was so obscured by smoke that he could see nothing. He knew that it must be very close.
‘You can’t stay here, Walter, you know. Have you made no arrangements to leave Singapore?’
‘I suppose like everybody else you want to get me out so you can burn the place down,’ said Walter grimly.
‘Don’t be absurd. It’s going to burn down without our help, I’m afraid. In any case, we’re trying to stop fires, not start them.’ He paused, noticing for the first time Walter’s dishevelled appearance. The clean clothes he had put on the evening before were already covered in dust and even his hair was thick with it; both his eyelids were red and swollen, perhaps from insect bites. His eyes kept wandering restlessly from one place to another, without meeting Matthew’s gaze for more than a moment.
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