To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  They were in paddy country, with no place to shelter if bombs fell.

  They drove on.

  Rain started, lashed the cars, turned the road to a river and the windscreen to a creek, stopped. Houses thickened into a city. Three cars broke away from the group as they crossed the causeway into Singapore — those who had friends or relatives in the city heading there. For Nancy and Moira there was no choice but to follow the others to the Evacuation Bureau.

  They stood in the meandering line outside the bureau till Gavin began to grizzle again. ‘No need for us both to stand here,’ said Nancy. ‘You wait in the car.’

  Moira nodded her thanks. Her face was pale, her eyes shadowed. She’s not used to travelling in the day’s heat, thought Nancy.

  Nor was she. Not heat like this. Suddenly she wanted to cry, to have someone look after her, say, ‘There, there, now here’s a bed for you.’ But there were only weary women, crying children, the straggle that had tried to stay until forced here by war.

  It was late by the time she got to the head of the queue. She tried to smile at the clerk. ‘No hotels, I suppose? We have enough money …’

  ‘No hotels at all. You’ll have to be billeted.’

  ‘There’re two of us. Three, I mean. My sister-in-law too, and her baby.’

  ‘Three of you.’ The clerk made it sound as if three was the most unreasonable number of all. He sighed. ‘You’ll need to be registered properly tomorrow, then go to the Shipping Office and put your names down with P&O. Name?’

  ‘Nancy Clancy. My sister-in-law is Mrs Benjamin Clancy.’

  The clerk looked up from his papers. Nancy thought he saw her properly for the first time. ‘Nancy Clancy?’

  She waited for the joke. It didn’t come.

  ‘There’s a cable for you.’ He rummaged in the drawer of his desk, then handed her the yellow paper. ‘Next!’

  She moved aside, but not too far, ready to reclaim her place when she had read the cable.

  HAVE BOOKED ROOM AT RAFFLES HOTEL STOP MISS NANCY CLANCY MRS BENJAMIN CLANCY MASTER GAVIN CLANCY STOP PASSAGE BOOKED STOP CONTACT MR OREILLY P&O OFFICE FOR DETAILS STOP STAY SAFE STOP MICHAEL SENDS HIS LOVE STOP BEST WISHES ALWAYS THOMAS THOMPSON

  She moved over to the wall, the cable still in her hand. Tears came, and would not stop: tears for the kindness of neighbours, the goodness of friends; tears because somehow, miraculously, a hand of comfort had been extended across the sea; and tears because there would be beds tonight and food. Tears mostly because Michael had sent his love.

  Love, in a time of war. Despite the stench of burning rubber clinging to her clothes, her hands shaking with weariness, she felt as revived as if she had already slept a week at the Raffles.

  Michael had sent his love.

  Chapter 10

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 4 January 1942

  Australia Looks to America, Says Prime Minister Curtin

  Prime Minister Curtin has announced that ‘Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom’. The Prime Minister said that the USA would be the cornerstone of Australia’s defence in the Pacific.

  SINGAPORE, 11 JANUARY 1942

  NANCY

  The Raffles hummed even so late at night, though its exterior was dark, blackout curtains drawn to stop any sliver of light that might attract an enemy plane.

  A uniformed footman opened their car door, ignoring the coating of mud; another collected their luggage, not even blinking at the mosquito nets and bedding. Nancy suspected that these days even guests at the Raffles arrived carrying odd assortments, or even possibly no luggage at all. Another man in livery helped her out, then slid into the driver’s seat to park the car.

  A doorman opened the door with a subtle flourish. She stopped, entranced.

  Polished wooden floors and Persian carpets; white-painted walls; green palms in bronze tubs; the scent of food, proper food, as well as the tang of spices; ceiling fans whirring; and somewhere nearby an orchestra played and people laughed.

  They were expected. ‘Only one room, madam, I am so sorry. But with the city so crowded … And there are two beds, and a cot for the little one.’

  Up in a grillwork, clanking lift; down a long corridor with dark panelling, the wood creaking under their feet. Their luggage preceded them to a bedroom with wide windows muffled in heavy curtains.

  And beds. Two as promised, with starched white sheets …

  ‘Tea, madam?’

  ‘Please,’ said Moira.

  The tea came while Moira was in the bathroom down the hall, a wheeled trolley with silver service: teapot, hot-water pot and thin china cups, a silver tea strainer, a plate of thin bread and butter, crustless watercress sandwiches, a covered dish which revealed steaming curry puffs and a platter of jam tarts.

  Nancy settled Gavin on her knee and began to eat, slipping him crumbs of bread and butter, of jam tart.

  The door opened. Moira, wrapped in a dressing gown, stared at her and sighed. ‘Heaven knows how I’ll get him back to a proper routine. And no jam tarts! Not at this time of night. He’ll take forever to settle.’

  ‘No, he won’t. He’s as tired as us. How are the bathrooms?’

  ‘Wonderful. So much hot water and, oh, the soap.’ Moira stretched out on the bed. The shadows under her eyes had turned to purple bruises. Nancy handed her a cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches.

  ‘I could sleep for a week,’ said Moira.

  ‘So could I.’ Nancy settled Gavin in the white-painted cot. He stared up at her and gave a sudden gummy grin. She grinned back, wondering why his expression was familiar, then realised it was hers, seen in the mirror every day.

  Strange to think of this small person with her smile. Not Ben’s. Not Moira’s. Hers and Gran’s.

  Both Moira and Gavin were asleep by the time she got back from the bathroom, clad in the silk dressing gown with dragons she hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave behind, clean for the first time since they had left Kuala Lumpur. The bed was not as soft as the princess’s in the fairytale. She slept deeply regardless, woke in darkness, then realised the blackout curtains were still drawn; one tiny sunbeam was escaping and wandering across the room.

  Moira snored softly in the other bed. Nancy had vaguely heard her rise in the night to feed Gavin, who was now sprawled on his back, his arms and legs outflung. She smiled at his soft pale face, then tiptoed out, down to the bathroom for yet another bath, dressed in one of the garments gleaned from the house in Kuala Lumpur, this one blue polka-dotted linen, only slightly too long when she’d hauled the skirt up a little over the belt. She combed her hair, decided not to risk disturbing Moira and Gavin by going back to borrow Moira’s lipstick, then went down the stairs — forsaking the lift and its alarming creaks and groans — towards the smell of food.

  ‘Breakfast, madam?’

  ‘Please.’

  The waiter surveyed the room. ‘I am sorry, madam, there is no table free. The hotel is full, you see. If madam would not mind sharing?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  She expected to be placed with an elderly lady, perhaps, or even a family. But the other single diners were mostly men. The few tables with families were already full. Instead the waiter led her towards an elderly man peering down at papers on his table.

  ‘Mr Harding, if you would be so kind, this young lady wishes breakfast and there is no table free …’

  ‘What? Of course, of course.’ He stood politely. ‘Cyril Harding, at your service.’

  ‘Nancy Clancy,’ she said, as the waiter held out her chair for her.

  ‘Someone either had a warped sense of humour, Miss Clancy, or you were named for a relative.’

  ‘My grandfather.’

  He sat again and raised grey eyebrows. ‘Your grandfather was called Nancy?’

  ‘His surname was Clancy, and “Nancy” was as close as they could get to it.’ She risked a grin, unsure how familiar one was supposed to be with
a stranger at the breakfast table. ‘Everyone just knew him as Clancy.’ She decided to omit ‘of the Overflow’.

  ‘I know the feeling. Prefer Harding to Cyril any day. Only the wife ever called me Cyril.’ His accent was educated Australian. In his fifties, perhaps, too old for the services unless he was in the regular army, but he wore no uniform. ‘I recommend the porridge. They know how to make it here. Some places add milk and sugar. Turns it into a sort of pudding.’

  ‘I eat it with milk and sugar,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘That’s different. Adding it after is the right thing to do. How do you feel about fish curry?’

  ‘Strongly against.’

  ‘Ah. Devilled fowl?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Recommend an omelette then. Not the choice there used to be.’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘Excellent. The young lady will have porridge and an omelette. Fruit for both of us. Toast and my usual. Tea for you?’

  ‘Please. You stay here often?’ she asked, as the waiter left them, and another approached to fill their glasses with chilled water.

  ‘Lived here for nearly ten years now, since my wife died.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That I am reduced to living at the Raffles? No, my dear, don’t apologise. I’m joking. Ah, porridge,’ as the waiter slipped a bowl in front of Nancy, and another in front of him. He winked at her. ‘All the waiters ran away into the jungle. Had to fend for ourselves for a night. But the next day the place was staffed again. Good management. Nothing like it. Tuck in.’

  She helped herself to sugar, a pool of milk. Mr Harding, she noticed, added only salt to his, despite his words of approval earlier.

  ‘How are things up north?’

  ‘How did you know we came from there?’

  ‘I doubt you’ve come to Singapore for a holiday,’ he said dryly. ‘And if you had been here before now, you’d have a regular breakfast table. “We” you said. Mother, sister or sister-in-law?’

  ‘Sister-in-law. And nephew. You’d make a good fifth columnist.’

  He choked slightly on his porridge. ‘You are a perceptive young lady. I suppose you came with the convoy last night?’

  She decided not to answer that one. He smiled. ‘You’ll need to register today. All new arrivals do. And be inoculated against smallpox and typhoid. Unless your ship is leaving soon.’

  Since she didn’t know when it was leaving, or even its name, she limited her reply to, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Happy to be of use. Good thing you landed here. Some of the billets can be a bit rough. Bombs might fall, shells whizz across the rooftops, the Cricket Club may be rubble, but the Raffles goes on. Though they did bomb the dhobi hut last week. The washing hut,’ he added, seeing she didn’t recognise the term. ‘Lost two of my shirts. The Raffles is the only place in Singapore where you might see a maharajah dining at the next table. Doesn’t matter what colour a chap’s skin, he’s welcome at the Raffles.’

  She looked up, wondering if this was a veiled reference to her skin. But he continued to spoon his porridge mildly, then sat back and let the hovering waiter take his bowl. She suspected Mr Thompson, or his agent, had been careful to book them into a hotel where there might be no question of accepting her, especially in times like these.

  ‘Do you know what’s been happening? I haven’t heard any news since we set out,’ she said.

  ‘And you’ve only been listening to the BBC World Service before that? Ah, thank you,’ as the waiter slid an omelette accompanied by baked tomatoes and a small puddle of rice in front of Nancy, and a far larger serve of rice topped with something brown and green and fragrant in front of Mr Harding. ‘Tuck in. The BBC will have us know that General Heath is holding back the Japanese at Johor Bahru. Only problem is that the Japs have already taken Johor Bahru. Which means they have also captured Singapore’s main water supply. Not to worry — it’s only been connected the last few years. The city has enough cisterns to go on with.’

  If the BBC could not be trusted to tell them the truth about Malaya, considered Nancy, what might it be concealing about the rest of the world? The news they had heard back in Kuala Lumpur was desperate enough: landings on the islands of New Britain, New Ireland and in the Solomons; the surrender of the Australian forces in New Britain, the RAAF sending one last message home: We who are about to die salute you.

  ‘What’s really happening here?’

  He studied her for a moment, then nodded, as if he had decided she was someone who preferred the truth. ‘A mess. Mess after mess. Fools of British officers who can’t accept that the Japanese aren’t marching in neat lines towards them, but creeping around behind, wading through jungle swamps, climbing palm trees, coming down by parachute, landing on the beach. Unsporting of them, but it works. Know what we should do?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘We could wipe them out in a fortnight. Give me two thousand men and I’ll lead them behind the Jap lines. Attack them from the rear, like they are doing to us. I know the country, which is more than these damn fool Pommies can say.’

  ‘Are there a spare two thousand men?’

  ‘Plenty that aren’t being of use. But they don’t even have to be army men. Put out a call for Chinese volunteers last week. Hoped for two thousand. Got six thousand volunteers in a day. Make fine guerrilla soldiers, the Chinese. Look what they are doing back on the mainland.’

  ‘Gorillas?’ She had a sudden image of training large, hairy gorillas to fight Japanese soldiers.

  He grinned, a surprisingly youthful grin despite his grey hair. ‘Fellas who don’t obey the rules of war. Hide out in the bush, attack when they’re not expected. Blow up supply depots. Six thousand Chinese guerrillas could keep Malaya free. Know how many of those volunteers the British Army put in uniform? None. By the time they get round to it, it will be too late.’

  ‘Too late’ must mean Singapore taken, she thought. For there was little else left of the peninsula. She watched Mr Harding fork up his curry. Everyone had been telling her that Singapore was impregnable, that Japan would never attack Malaya, and when it did, that Japan could never take it. This man seemed to have come to terms with the impossible.

  ‘Do you really think there is a chance to beat the Japanese? Even now?’ She thought of the burning rubber, the bridges exploding behind their convoy.

  ‘Of course. We outnumber them. Look at Malta, how it’s held out against the Germans. We could do the same here.’

  ‘So Singapore won’t be taken,’ she said thankfully.

  ‘Of course it will.’ He said it as though no one could possibly think otherwise.

  ‘But you said we outnumber the Japanese.’

  ‘Ah, but they have strategy, and we don’t. Our guns point to the sea, and not the land where the enemy is coming from. They can’t even be moved. Those in command won’t listen to army intelligence. Intelligence! Don’t know the meaning of the word.’ He peered at her over his fish curry. ‘Old Chinese chappie said it best. Clever people, the Chinese. Old Sun Tzu: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” Eat your omelette before it gets cold,’ he added.

  She attacked her omelette. It was good: filled with a slightly spicy green filling, but delicious anyway.

  ‘Know what the one great failure in war is? Seeing your enemy as less than you. Means you don’t truly see them at all. All the talk about Japanese on bicycles. Brilliant bit of strategy that. Of course they have vehicles too. But bicycles can move faster on crowded narrow roads. You can carry a bicycle through the jungle.’ He shook his head. ‘Most of the desk wallahs talk about Japanese “sneaking through the jungle” as if it puts them on the same level as jungle animals. Just means they are superb soldiers who were trained for just this, as our blokes weren’t. Those men are wading chest deep, covered in leeches, facing deadly snakes. Magnificent warfare. How is your omelette?’

  ‘Good.’

&
nbsp; ‘Excellent. And excuse an old man sounding off.’ He smiled at her over his curry. ‘You are forced to listen to me, or not get breakfast.’

  ‘No, really. It’s fascinating. No one else has ever talked to me seriously about the war before.’

  ‘I’d like to think that’s because you are a beautiful young lady and the men you meet want to talk about you, not the war. But I suspect they haven’t thought about the war themselves, just swallowed decades of clichés. Anyone with half a brain could see what was going to happen here a mile off. The Japanese foreign minister signed a treaty with the Soviets nearly a year ago so the Japanese won’t have to fight a second front in Manchuria or Korea while they’re advancing south. Japanese agents have been collecting information about Malay defences for years. No one put a stop to it — the Japanese have been allowed free movement as part of the policy of appeasement.’

  He snorted. ‘You’d have thought that after Munich the British would have learnt that appeasement doesn’t work. Ah, toast,’ as the omelette and curry plates were removed and two silver toast racks were placed on either side of the table. A silver dish of marmalade and another of strawberry jam appeared, and two of butter, neatly curled.

  ‘You don’t seem angry,’ she said tentatively.

  He snorted. ‘Used up my anger in the last war. Two armies of equal stupidity butting their heads together in the mud for four years, till the Americans arrived just as our side was finally discovering what the word “tactics” meant.’ He gave her a sardonic glance as he offered her the toast. ‘Look up the dictionary sometime. You’ll see “intelligence” then underneath it “military intelligence”. Dictionary is right. Two separate animals.’

  He helped himself to butter, spreading the marmalade thickly. ‘Can’t beat grapefruit marmalade. Though it’s not proper grapefuit here. This will be pomelo. What was I saying? Could have stopped the whole invasion in its tracks if it hadn’t been for command back in England. American intelligence, and British too for that matter, knew about the Japanese convoys days before the attack. Local commanders asked permission to take them out. Half an hour and the whole invasion would have been stopped in its tracks if the Japanese had lost those two transports. Bally desk wallahs refused. All this,’ he waved his hand, taking in the waiters in their uniforms, the trays piled high with fish, strange messes on heaps of bright white rice, the silver porringers but also, presumably, the smoke and rubble of Singapore outside, the burning spires of rubber dotted through the jungle, ‘one decisive action could have stopped it all. Now we are on a two-hundred-square-mile island, penned up like a mob of sheep while the Japanese guns bark at us from the mainland.’