by Andrew Grant
The drinks came. Part of me wanted to feel a little ashamed of the pre-lunch beer while my companion abstained. The animal inside me, however, just laughed and told me to drink up. I did. There is nothing quite like a cold beer when the humidity is about ninety-eight percent. I knew my shirt was going to take a big sweat hit and I didn’t care. I was Ed the Tourist from Perth and tourists sweat in Asia. Actually, given the climatic similarity between Singapore and Hong Kong, I was used to the heat and humidity, and short of getting physical, a big cold beer was the easiest way to work up a convincing sweat. Therefore I could justify the brew. Not that I really had to justify it, of course.
Simone and I sat and drank our respective drinks. There was no one sitting within earshot, so we dropped the corny dialogue for the moment and let ourselves sit and talk like real people. It was a pleasant interlude. I debated a second beer but decided against it. I’d received a Sentosa map with my monorail ticket. It showed the island enlarged. So, just as all tourists do, I spread the map on the table and looked it over. Incidentally, the container island was called Pulau Brani.
Sentosa island is shaped vaguely like a pizza slice. The wide end is basically to the east, the pointy end to the west. Fort Siloso is at the pointy end. There are golf courses and resorts and all sorts of things happening at the thick end. In the middle we have the bridge and the core of Singapore’s playpen. As the island narrows, the protected beaches on the seaward side become features. There are hotels scattered about, especially along the beachfront. A big resort complex labelled the Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa Resort is at the narrow neck of the island. It sits on one side, the aquarium complex on the other. Beyond the aquarium and resort there is Fort Siloso.
I don’t know the history of the fort other than that when the Japanese invaded Singapore, they cleverly didn’t come in by sea and face the guns of the fort. They snuck in the back door, and unfortunately for everyone in Singapore, the fort’s guns were all pointing the wrong way!
So the Japs took the island and Fort Siloso became an infamous prisoner-of-war camp. In the years since the war, the place has become a war museum, and that was where we were heading. I silently promised to read up on it one day but today was not that day.
Before we headed on to the fort, I decided we’d take a ride up in the Sky Tower. The map I had was just a simple schematic. I wanted to see the reality and the tower, at some hundred plus metres high, had to be the perfect vantage point. Carlsberg, one of my favourite beers, had naming rights.
I bought tickets for the both of us and we were ushered into a circular observation cabin. We settled on the bench seat that runs right around the inside wall of the cabin and we were away. As the tower rose, it rotated and Singapore and Sentosa were laid out below us. I used the camera and shot a 360-degree panoramic when we hit the top. The map of the island, I decided, was actually reasonably accurate. I could see that behind the resort there was quite a sizeable patch of jungle that pushes back along the seaward face of Siloso Point. The fort itself occupies the crest of the ridge and runs back down the harbourside.
After the short ride, we ignored the other attractions on the terrace. Simone took the lead and guided me across the terrace and down along a pathway into the trees. “The Dragon Trail,” she explained. “When they were younger the kids used to love this,” she said as we walked down through the dappled green tunnel. There were pieces of sculpture scattered around, skeletal bits of a prehistoric monster. “Imagination is a wonderful thing,” she added. “They used to come up with all sorts of things, stories and games based on what they saw or imagined in here. The innocence of children is so refreshing,” she added rather wistfully.
“Innocence is wasted on the young,” I replied cynically, well aware I’d just mangled a cliché or whatever. Simone turned to look at me.
“That’s rather a cruel thing to say.”
“I guess it is. Being innocent did shit for me when I was a kid. I’d love a big dose of it now.”
“Now you just sound bitter.”
“Sorry. Let’s go back to being Mavis and Ed out of—where the hell are we from again?”
“Perth!”
“That’ll do, cobber,” I said in my best attempt at an Australian accent. “So what’s a nice sheila like you doing in a shithole like this?”
Simone started chuckling. It was a nice sound. I forced myself to lighten up. Thinking about my childhood gets me down sometimes. Oh hell, let’s be honest: it gets me down every time.
We emerged from the jungle trail onto a roadway. There was a beach ahead of us. A long, wide expanse of white sand and palms stretched away in both directions. Siloso Beach the island map labelled it. An electric tram loaded with people honked us out of the way and slid past. There were people all over the sands, family groups, youngsters and huddled young lovers. Some were playing ball games, some picnicking under the palms. In the sheltered waters between the shore and the very artificial islands there were people swimming and playing in canoes and on floats.
Kiosks selling beach kit, soft drinks and food were scattered along the edge of the sand. There were pavilions and play areas, changing rooms and toilets and all the usual seaside stuff. It was a really well set out playground and there were plenty of people around on this sunny Singapore day.
“School holidays,” Simone said, guessing what I was thinking. “Singapore is very well organised, as you will probably no doubt know.” There was no hint of anything in her voice. “It’s a great place to bring up kids.”
I glanced at her. An open face looked back at me, but I could read her eyes. They said, “Great place for kids, shitty place for adults like me. Young, attractive, bored, divorced and tied to the place.”
I knew without a doubt that if I suggested that we might work at breaking her cycle of boredom for an hour or two before she returned to her kids that she’d be more than willing. I’m not that damn arrogant to suggest that I look like God’s gift to women and that they swoon over me. I just have the ability to read people and I was reading her, and that was exactly why I wasn’t going to even attempt to go that route. To do so would be a cheap shot and a quick fix, and in the end it wouldn’t do anyone much good. I’d just have done my male whore thing again and she’d be back where she started and the despair she felt would just have a fresh sprinkling of broken glass to grind into her soul. Shit, why such deep thoughts? Lighten up, arsehole, I thought.
Now we were climbing steps. There was a Delifrance café to our right. Was it time for lunch? I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes after midday.
“Lunch?”
“Sure.”
Then I focussed on the towering white façade of the Rasa Resort. Now that had to be the place to find an absolutely over-the-top lunch.
“There,” I suggested, pointing.
“Why not?”
“Rasa Resort it is.”
6
It may seem that since we set out, Simone and I had done nothing but breakfast, morning tea and now lunch. True, we had, and that is exactly what tourists do. This part of staying in character came easily to me. At the hotel we lunched outside above the pool shaded by huge umbrellas. I’d promised my companion the best lunch money could buy and if it wasn’t the best, it sure came close. I’m a seafood nut and when there is lobster on the menu I’m a sucker for it. Simone, it appeared, also had a thing for the regal crustacean.
“Way out of my budget,” she confided in me. “Last time I had it was years ago.”
“Sami’s paying,” I replied. “You can have two if you want.”
“That would be pure greed.”
“So?’
We both laughed. Hey, my dark thoughts had vanished. I was actually enjoying this little interlude. It was almost like a real date. The sort of thing normal people got to do.
When the lobster arrived, Simone did something that struck me as rather strange. She carefully arranged a salad leaf over her lobster’s head. When I asked why, she gave me a sheepish grin.
“I don’t like making eye contact with my food,” she replied.
I had to laugh, and despite my crustacean’s black beady stare, I left it unblinkered. We did our two magnificent specimens true justice. I’d matched my beast with a New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Simone stayed with iced water with a touch of lime.
After coffee, I settled the tab which represented a king’s ransom, of course, but that was to be expected. I used the card that matched my passport. Now I wanted a paper trail. Mr Ed from Perth was definitely in town!
It was 14:15 when we walked down the hotel driveway and hung a left turn to present ourselves at the ticket kiosk for the fort. A few metres up the hill were the fort gates and immediately beyond that a long covered shelter. Here eager youngsters in uniform stamped our tickets. Schoolkids probably. They were all smiles and helpful, youthful bubbling enthusiasm. There is a tram, they told us. Would we wait? No thanks, we wouldn’t!
Simone and I set off up the driveway. It wasn’t particularly steep and, full belly or not, the walking was easy. We stopped to coo and take photos. The two-tone brown bus purred down the hill past us, and the driver gave us a wave and a smile as he went past. We reciprocated. Everyone had a smile here, it seemed, even me. Sentosa, the island of smiles! That could be the place’s new marketing slogan.
As we walked up the driveway, the harbour was below us and to our right. A metal fence was erected below the driveway, no doubt to keep non-paying guests from coming up from the sea through the small fringe of jungle and crashing the Siloso party.
On the right side of the road was a blockhouse, which I guessed was the true entrance to the fort proper. On the left was what must have been the original guardhouse. I could see mannequins dressed in the uniforms of a previous century on display inside.
We arrived on a wide terrace to find a quartet of sizeable pieces of heavy ordinance positioned there. The long barrels of the guns pointed across the harbour towards the city. At least this time round the artillery was positioned the right way, albeit a few decades too late.
There was a long two-storey building to the left. Downstairs was a souvenir shop. The signs identified it as The QuarterMaster Store. Upstairs, according to the brochure I had been given with my ticket, were the surrender rooms.
“Watch for watchers,” I breathed to Simone as we stood shoulder to shoulder taking it all in. The roadway carried on up the hill, past a battery of short fat mortars before turning in a switchback and cutting back to the left. There were several buildings up there with their entrances facing towards us. The rest of these various structures appeared to be buried into the ridge behind.
Drums and bugles were sounding loudly in the still, sticky air. The fort’s sound system was not going to let us off easy. There didn’t appear to be anyone paying any attention to us that I could see. There was a small group of tourists above us on the roadway along the side of the ridge. They had a guide in attendance. There were also one or two other people in view, some walking along pathways in the trees behind The QuarterMaster Store. I couldn’t make out anyone obviously standing or sitting staring at us, or anyone else for that matter. That, of course, didn’t mean there was no one in the bushes or at the windows of any of the buildings and various structures scattered on the side of the hill.
Then I realised that indeed there were two sets of eyes on us. Two girls standing outside the souvenir shop were looking our way. They were fort guides and they were obviously waiting to offer us their services when we came into range.
“Let’s get guided up and do the full nine yards,” I said to Simone. She agreed cheerfully, jolly tourist wife that she was. She, of course, had no idea that I was going to be very focussed on one specific part of the complex when we eventually got to it.
We advanced on the waiting guides, purchased bottled water and set out to explore Fort Siloso in the company of a pretty young lady.
Our guide was Wenn. She was nineteen years old and a student. This was a part-time job for her. She was enthusiastic and informative. She had learned her lessons well. I doubted I was going to have to read up on the history of the fort. I just had to log her words into my memory banks.
Our enthusiastic young guide was intent on showing us around the entire fort complex. I knew that would take forever. I wanted to get to the surrender rooms. I explained we had limited time and asked for the quick tour. Wenn agreed and decided to start us at the very bottom, and it was down there that I found an excuse to loiter. I lit a cigarette while Simone distracted our guide with girlie conversation.
We were at the lowest point in the fort complex. The sign said we were at the Fire Direction Tower at Siloso Point. The channel between the island and the small promontory on the mainland was maybe only a couple of hundred metres wide. It may have been more. Distance across water can be tricky to judge, but no matter the exact meterage, it wasn’t far at all.
“Look at ways of getting in and out of the fort at night,” Sami had said. Swimming across the channel was a possibility, however I had no doubt that there was a serious tidal rip through this narrow stretch of water.
Standing in front of the small artillery piece mounted below the fire tower, I looked down the steep, tree-covered cliff towards the water. Below I could make out a building painted in shades of green, situated at water level. It was either a supply landing area or a water-level observation post in the form of a blockhouse or bunker. That being the case there had to be a way down to it.
Stepping a couple of paces to my right, I saw the ladder. It was one of those ones that had circular frames set at intervals down it to stop clumsy oafs falling off. Like the building below, it had originally been painted green, now it was mostly rust-coloured, however it looked strong enough to hold me. The only problem was the metal plate padlocked over the top where the ladder met the railing at the edge of the terrace. I figured that it would be easy enough to swing around the plate and get up to where I was standing. So now I had one possible means of getting myself into the fort through the back door.
Our guide was looking slightly nervous. Simone’s attempts at distraction had worked to a point, but Wenn obviously took her guide role very seriously. Was I planning to jump? I could see that thought plainly reflected on her pretty face. If I did jump here it was broken limb territory only. I made a show of stubbing out my cigarette and joined them.
Now we had come down to the fire tower via a long open-topped tunnel, if you can call it a tunnel. It was more a very deep concrete trench with a mesh grill across the top. Going back, Wenn led us up a whole bunch of steps. We emerged on the hill above the control tower. Jungle fringed in on both sides of the long grassed spur that ran back into the fort complex. This would be the perfect place for a watcher to hide both from fort staff and the public. There was an old guy using a rake further along the spur towards the buildings. Beyond him the roadway curved on upward to more buildings, Fort Siloso Square my fort leaflet said. A few people were getting off the busy little tram up beyond that. Apart from these folks, there was no one else to be seen.
I didn’t even try to spot anyone in the bush. Instead, I adjusted the pixel level on my camera to full out and took shots across the harbour. Then I made a show of posing the laughing Simone and Wenn close together and photographed them both with the water as a backdrop and with the road and fort buildings behind them. I used the widest lens setting so that I could obtain shots down both fringes of jungle. Maybe later, using a computer and the ten-plus megapixel images, we could pump things up and see if we could spot someone hiding amongst the foliage.
I continued to pose the girls and take photos as we meandered on through the various displays with their commentaries and that damned music. If it had really been as noisy back then, I think I would have preferred being in battle.
Eventually, having explored right up to the high point of the fort complex, we made our way down the wooden boardwalk to The QuarterMaster Store. Here I thanked our young guide for the tour and told her w
e would take in the surrender rooms by ourselves.
Access to the second level of the building was via stairs at either end. I led us to the right. An invalid lift was in operation. An elderly European man in a wheelchair was coming down. We waited while he was off-loaded by a guide and a middle-aged female companion. Perhaps a daughter! From the man’s comments, I deduced he had been a prisoner here during the war. This must have been a bittersweet return for him. I just hoped his nightmares didn’t come back to haunt him because of it. This place had been a living hell for so many—I’d learnt that for a fact this day.
I led Simone up the broad stairs to the double doors. I noted that there was a standard deadbolt fitted as I opened one wing of the door, ushering my twittering other half inside.
Alarm panel, smoke alarm and what I presumed were air-conditioner controls were to the right of the door, along with a fire extinguisher fixed to the wall. Large display boards and photographs covered the rest of the walls. To the front left were figures, wax figures. Gloating Japanese military in their green-brown uniforms, some sitting, others standing, looking down at four forlorn-looking Allied officers dressed in pale tropical kit. One of these officers was looking over his shoulder at me as if registering the intrusion.
A recorded voice began its recitation. Simone and I were the only people in this first room. The captions indicated that the tableaux represented the moment the Allies surrendered Singapore to the Japanese.
I used my camera. I posed with Simone in various spots and managed to capture virtually every inch of the room. I know Sami said I should focus on the Japanese surrender room, but if I was coming back here, I needed to know if there were any hidden mantraps. There didn’t seem to be any cameras in operation, not visible ones anyway. If I was on camera, I wanted to appear simply as an over-enthusiastic tourist, so I babbled nonsense as I posed and reposed Simone.
