An officer was standing in the centre of the road, a revolver in his hand as he shouted hoarsely, “Get back there! I’ll shoot the first man to pass this point!”
But the soldiers hurried by, not even sparing the officer a glance, some even brushing against his revolver, their eyes glazed and empty as they pushed on down the road.
The officer, he was a young major, lowered his revolver, and as individual soldiers thrust their way past he called out, “You, Jackson! Tell them to stop and dig in! We can still hold the line!” To another, “Here, Bill! Let’s show ’em what we can do!”
Mallory said thickly, “Christ, they’re Aussies!”
The major saw them and called in a pleading voice, “For God’s sake, what can I do? They won’t listen!”
Mallory asked, “Are there any more behind you?” He seized the major’s arm. “Well, are there?”
The major stared at him vacantly. “No ammunition left. No food. No goddam anything!” He shook his revolver at the jungle. “Jesus bloody Christ, what did they expect us to do?”
Mallory said, “Easy, mate! There’s nothing you can do now!”
The soldiers had reached the river and were throwing themselves into the current and striking out for the opposite bank. Even those who could obviously not swim were following the blind stampede, heedless of everything but the need to escape the holocaust behind them. Not a single man made for the moored gunboat. It was as if she represented authority more than safety. Something to be avoided to the last.
Trewin saw several bobbing heads being swept downstream and heard the feeble cries above the din around him. He said grimly, “We must get on with the job, Pilot. There’s less time than ever now.”
Mallory was still staring at the last of the soldiers, his face creased with despair. “I never thought I’d live to be ashamed of being an Aussie!” He turned to watch the major who was already striding back up the road towards the jungle. He was shouting out orders to the few remaining stragglers, his voice cracked and inhuman. Mallory added, “What about him, for God’s sake?”
Trewin said, “He’d not thank you for helping him now.”
At that moment Kane appeared around the bend of the road, his eyes searching for his officers. He yelled, “We’re bringin’ out the nurses now, sir!” He clucked as a shell ripped overhead and exploded against a tall tree in a blast of splinters. “The ’ospital’s been ’it, sir. A raid last night, they tell me.”
Trewin broke into a run. He ignored the little groups of figures, the sailors carrying improvised stretchers and a civilian engineer who was holding a caged bird and a bottle of gin. His eyes were fixed on a separate pall of smoke, and his mind was ringing with Kane’s words. The hospital had been hit. Massey’s red cross, his efforts to stay apart from the war, had been in vain.
In the clearing by the hospital he saw the lines of covered corpses, splattered with drying mud from the night’s rain, the broken furniture and great fragments of charred timber from what must have been a direct hit.
He shouted wildly, “Get these people out of it, Kane!” He saw the nurses, smoke-stained and dazed as they stood amongst the wreckage. They did not resist as the sailors pushed them towards the road. They were like children. Mindless children, Trewin thought.
He put his shoulder against a door at the side of the building and ducked as a sheet of corrugated iron scythed down from the remains of the roof. But for the splintered bookcase he would not have recognised it as the same room.
Massey lay on a sofa, his eyes open and staring at the sky overhead, his teeth bared in agony as he clutched a bloody bandage against his stomach. The girl was on her knees beside him, her black hair speckled with ashes. There was blood on her hands and her shirt was almost torn from her shoulders.
Trewin dropped beside her. “We got here, Clare! For God’s sake what happened?”
She did not look at him. “It hit the centre ward. There were fifty people there. It was ablaze from end to end before we could get to them!” Her shoulders began to shake, but as Trewin put his arm around her she said fiercely, “Please help him! I—I can’t do anything for him!”
Massey seemed to see Trewin for the first time. His lips opened and closed, and even that effort appeared to be tearing him apart. He gasped, “Get her away, Lieutenant!” His eyes blinked. “Oh, it’s you!” He tried to smile. “So Greville got here after all!” He clamped his teeth together, and Trewin saw the sweat breaking across his forehead and running down his beard. “Just get her out!”
Mallory stepped through the door, his feet crunching on broken glass and splinters. He said harshly, “I’ve sent most of them down.” He saw Massey and added, “How is he?”
The girl turned and stared up at him. “He can’t be moved! I’m not leaving without him!” Her voice quivered and there were tears cutting through the grime on her face.
Trewin lifted his head. The gunfire had stopped, and he was conscious of the small sounds outside the shattered room. The hiss of charred wood, the distant cry of a wounded animal, or man.
He said, “You must go now, Clare.”
She stared at him, her eyes wild. “No! I won’t go!” To her father she said brokenly, “Please! Tell him!”
Petty Officer Kane shouted from the clearing, “Come on, sir! I can hear the bastards on the hill!” As if to back the urgency of his words Trewin heard the Porcupine’s siren. It was eerie and somehow frightening.
“You will go with Lieutenant Mallory.” He could not look at her. “I will stay with your father.”
She screamed, “No!” But as Mallory seized her arm she shouted, “I hate you! I’ll never forgive you!” Her other words were lost in an outburst of sobbing as Mallory picked her bodily from the floor and carried her into the sunlight.
Massey seemed to relax. “Thank you.” He coughed, and two small threads of scarlet ran down his beard. “I know what that cost you. What she means to you.”
Trewin looked at the sodden bandage. The sudden silence outside the ruins was worse than gunfire, and his whole being called out to him to run. To keep running, like those soldiers. But he could not move.
Massey muttered, “Can’t help me. Finished. Matter of minutes.” He rolled his eyes. “All my work gone, Trewin. All finished.” He tried to lift himself on his elbows. “You’ll see her safe, won’t you?” His eyes were desperate. “She’s had nothing out of life!”
Trewin nodded, not knowing what to say. “Try to rest, Doctor.”
“I’ll rest. Later.” He lay back, his eyes again on the sky. “Tell Greville to look after himself.” One hand gripped Trewin’s wrist with surprising force. “He must be careful!”
Trewin looked away. Massey was obviously going fast. He was delirious.
But Massey continued in the same urgent tone, “You must help him, Trewin! I know he trusts you.”
Somewhere a rifle cracked and the agonising screams were cut short before the echo had faded. Trewin tried to smile. “He doesn’t need my help, Doctor.”
His voice seemed to bring Massey a last reserve of life. He struggled up on one arm, his eyes blazing. “He does, Trewin! He does!” His teeth were bared in what might have been a smile. “He’s a stubborn fool. But he’s going blind!” His head lolled against Trewin’s shoulder. “Been treating him, but he can’t be helped now. Nearly blind!”
He coughed, and this time the blood did not stop.
Trewin felt his pulse and then stood up. Hardly daring to allow his mind to function he stepped out into the sunlight and then, with Massey’s last words ringing in his ears, began to run down the road towards the river.
The last mooring rope was flung clear as he was hauled up and over the bows, and he saw the guns swinging round to cover the bend in the road as the ship thrashed astern and started to edge her way towards the opposite bank.
The rescued wounded and the handful of refugees had been taken below, and of the girl there was no sign. Trewin had been dreading the reproach and hatred in he
r eyes. Now he would not have to tell her about her father’s last minutes. Not now, not ever.
He climbed to the bridge and watched dully as Corbett leaned across the port screen to peer at the river bank as it swung to meet the gunboat in her tight turn. But I’ll have to live with Massey’s last words. He heard a shell whine overhead and felt the increased vibrations from the Porcupine’s screws. Another failure. Another bloody retreat.
He stared at Corbett’s shoulders, seeing all the past moments, the occasions of uncertainty with sudden clarity and understanding. The time he had found Corbett in the darkened room with Massey. His unwillingness to attempt to enter the Inlet at night. It all made stark and terrible sense now.
Corbett turned and saw him leaning against the chart table. He said sharply, “Take over the con, Trewin. I want to keep an eye on the shore, just in case they try and block our escape.” He waited and then asked, “Are you all right?”
Trewin heard his mind screaming back at Corbett. Throwing the stupid excuses straight at those pale, opaque eyes which could see nothing but the need of this ship. He lurched past him and took his place behind the screen. In a voice he no longer recognised he replied, “I’ve got her!” The cry in his mind continued. Tell him you know! Tell him!
Instead he said emptily, “Massey’s dead.”
When he looked again Corbett was resting his hands on the teak rail by the ladder, his face suddenly lined and old. “He was a good doctor, Trewin.” He turned away, his hands groping for the ladder. “More than that, he was a good man.”
He vanished down the ladder and Trewin heard the chartroom door slam. He looked at Mallory and the others. They were all watching him, as if they already shared his secret.
He rasped, “Half ahead together!”
The settlement disappeared around the curve of the river, but Trewin knew that now he would never be free of it, or its secret.
10 | The Impregnable Fortress
LEADING STEWARD YATES leaned his buttocks comfortably against the wardroom sideboard and watched as Ching, the Chinese messman, refilled the officers’ coffee-cups. He had just pulled the screens across the scuttles for the night, and had adjusted the fans to give maximum relief from the heavy, humid air which stayed as a reminder of the relentless heat.
He asked, “Anythin’ more, sir?”
Trewin sat at the head of the table, deep in thought, his eyes resting on the flat surface of his coffee. “No, you can clear up, Yates.” He glanced across at Tweedie and Hammond, but they too seemed immersed in their own particular problems.
It was strange to feel the ship moving gently beneath him again. Ever since they had limped back to harbour from the fire and terror of Talang they had been committed to the indignity and danger of a crude stone slipway, while Chinese dockyard workers had done their best with limited facilities to repair the damage to the bows and restore the ship to fighting trim. There had been time to think and brood during the hot nights while the bombers droned above Singapore city and the sky flickered to bursting shells and the glow from burning buildings below.
For as the Porcupine completed her hasty repairs, so the Japanese reached the southern coastline of Malaya. There had been a fierce rearguard action to allow every possible group of soldiers to retreat to the island, and then, as the last organised resistance of Australians and troops of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had been withdrawn, the causeway had been destroyed and the final link with the mainland cut. It was like hoisting the drawbridge of a great fortification, and with it Singapore settled down to withstand attack and siege for as long as was required.
The Japanese forces entered Johor Bahru at the close of January to find it deserted. Like a ghost town, with only the buildings and abandoned animals to watch their jubilant capture. Within two days the enemy’s guns were firing across the water, and at night, even aboard the Porcupine, they could hear the mutter of the bombardment like an ever-present threat.
The final loss of Malaya had had a mixed effect on the island. There was new determination amongst the fighting men, brought about mainly by a simplification of objectives and purpose. Their strength was more condensed, and even the attacking aircraft no longer had it all their own way. Singapore’s own fighters flew to meet them without a break, and the island was littered with wrecked aircraft, friend and foe alike.
But there was plenty of apathy and stupidity, too. Trewin had spoken to an officer whose duty it was to dig fresh defences for the infantry. He had told him how the secretary of a golf club had refused point-blank to allow slit trenches to be dug on his greens without proper authority. And even the rumble of the distant artillery would not budge him.
The harbour was busy with two-way traffic. As the days dragged past Trewin had watched the troopships bring more reinforcements to the island and leave almost immediately, their decks crammed with women and children, dependants of those left to defend and fight.
The evacuation had had a marked effect on the Porcupine. Many of her company were married and had settled down years earlier to Far East service. There was an air of gloom over the whole ship, something quite different and apart from past events and common suffering.
Perhaps now that the Porcupine was afloat again things might improve, if only out of the harsh necessities of survival.
Trewin stirred his coffee and wondered how Corbett was getting on. Within a few days of the ship being hoisted on to the slipway Corbett had been ordered to take the remainder of the group back to sea. He had sailed in Beaver to take overall charge of the motley collection of craft which the admiral had formed into one force to help forestall any attempt by the enemy to land isolated groups of shock troops. Apart from the two gunboats, Corbett had taken three trawlers, an M.L. and one converted yacht. It was not much of a force, but as the admiral had said before they had sailed, “We must put all our shoulders to the wheel now! Not a man or a ship can be wasted!”
It was difficult to see through the confident daily orders and bulletins, and quite impossible to know exactly how safe the defences really were.
The reinforcements were heartening, and only a few days earlier the fleet had been joined by the veteran cruiser Exeter, heroine of the River Plate battle. Her name seemed to represent another war to Trewin. She came from a time when the lines between friends and enemies were clear-cut, when people still believed that to win a war you merely had to be in the right.
The quartermaster’s voice echoed harshly through the tannoy. “Hands darken ship! Duty part of the watch fall in!”
Trewin smiled to himself in spite of his thoughts. Routine went on, no matter what was happening elsewhere.
He tried not to let his thoughts stray back to Corbett. By throwing himself into the work of getting the ship ready for service, with all the additional burdens of temporary command, he had managed to shy away from what he knew must be done. On the slow trip down from Talang he had found himself watching Corbett’s every move, had even gone out of his way to test him with a cunning he never knew he possessed. He had wanted to prove Massey’s dying words to be imaginary, part of a mistake, and up to the last moments he had still hoped that Corbett would surprise him. He had offered the captain hastily scribbled signals, and felt his heart sink as Corbett had made casual excuses for leaving them until later to read, or had asked Trewin to summarise them for him.
“Be good training for you, Trewin,” he had remarked on more than one occasion.
His mind had gone over all the little remarks Corbett had made in the past. His testy complaints on smartness or the cleanliness of paintwork. He knew now that they had been part of a carefully planned façade, and he could almost feel pity for Corbett and the misery he must be enduring.
Trewin had even considered going to see the admiral about it, but had dismissed the idea instantly. He knew about Corbett, and as first lieutenant he had to do something about it.
But as a man he knew he would have to tell Corbett himself.
Tweedie, who had been re
ading one of his accumulated letters from home with laborious concentration, sat up with a jerk and threw it on the table. “God Almighty! They’ve been an’ put some snotty-nosed evacuee kids in me new bungalow!” He glared at the others as if he could not believe it. “Bloody Battersea kids at that!”
Hammond asked politely, “Does Mrs. Tweedie object, Guns?”
Tweedie scowled. “Object? No, she bloody well seems to enjoy it!” He stood up violently. “All me flower beds. All that work! I’ll bet the little sods’ll trample over everything.” He snatched up a torch and peered at his watch. “I’ll go an’ do me rounds. I need to think about this.”
He stamped outside and Hammond said, “I’m sorry for any of the lads with a scruffy messdeck tonight.”
Trewin watched him thoughtfully. He knew that Hammond had been ashore trying to persuade his Jacqui to take a place in one of the evacuation ships. He knew from Hammond’s worried face that he had failed. He asked, “What will your girl friend do, Sub?”
Hammond shrugged. “I keep telling her she must go. It’s not safe here, no matter how good the defences are.” He stood up and walked restlessly to the sideboard. “I—I want to marry her and send her home to England.”
Trewin thought of the girl’s calm, sad eyes as she had watched Hammond at the New Year party. Quite apart from being a bit older than Hammond, it was unlikely that his family would welcome a half-caste girl into the fold without some protest. His father was an admiral. One of several in a long line of naval ancestors.
Trewin said quietly, “Did she say why she would not go?”
Hammond stared at him and then grinned awkwardly. “You know damn well why it is!” He became serious again. “I had a letter from my father yesterday. Just between ourselves, he said he’s arranging a transfer for me. To a destroyer this time. So you see, if I can’t get Jacqui fixed up before that we may never get together.” His mouth hardened. “And I happen to love her. I really do.”
Pride and the Anguish Page 18
