Dalley’s men only realised that the Australians had retreated when Japanese machine-guns opened up from their abandoned positions. Men began to fall. Amongst the first were the company’s two English platoon commanders. Then Harte-Barry himself was hit and dragged to the rear.
For a moment there was confusion, with some of the Chinese looking back over their shoulders, eyes wide with uncertainty. But Robert and his fellow sergeants took over with smooth professionalism, wandering through the unit’s position as cool as cucumbers, putting steadying hands on the shoulders of those who needed support, joking with those who didn’t.
The Dalforce unit was still in position and fighting well when the sun came up. About mid-morning the commander of the Japanese machine-gun battalion facing them was killed, and the men of his unit began to attack with feudal fanaticism to avenge his death. But still the Chinese soldiers stood their ground.
They were never defeated. A British counterattack regained the ground behind them and Colonel Dalley walked up into the company area. Of the two hundred who had fought two hundred died. Dalley’s report was criticised in some quarters as ‘emotional’:
It was a frightful sight. The company had been completely destroyed. They had used up all their ammunition. There were no wounded to bring back. They had stood their ground. They had been ordered to stay and they stayed. And they all died.
Amongst the dead was Sergeant Robert Koh. He had been hit four times. Three wounds had been roughly bandaged with field dressings. The fourth, over the heart, had killed him. He clutched in his hand a small, stuffed furry toy, a tikus, the little brown mouse of Malaya. It was the emblem of his company, and Catherine had pressed it into his hand for luck when he had left their home for the last time.
The Japanese landings, and the overrunning of General Bennett’s vaunted Australians, had a crushing effect on morale. We woke up to hear small-arms fire just outside the city itself, and when the radio spoke of ‘a Japanese incursion which is being mopped up’ people laughed openly. Over forty men and women, mainly members of the Kuomintang, committed suicide that morning, and perhaps even more significantly the chit system of credit dried up throughout the colony. Under the chit system, any European had been able to buy anything, from drinks and dinner at the best clubs and restaurants to tailored suits and jewellery in the shops, simply by signing a small piece of pasteboard. But suddenly chits were not good enough. From the white-suited ‘boys’ at Raffles and the Tanglin Club to the merchants in Change Alley the message was the same: ‘Very sorry, Tuan. No can take chit. Money, please.’
Denis had left before dawn and heard the news of the Japanese landing while eating a frugal breakfast in the cramped wardroom of HDML 24. He told me later that he sat at the tiny wardroom table staring out of the porthole at the crumpled buildings along Collier Quay and cursed himself for being all sorts of a fool. He decided in that moment that his only purpose in life was now to get me and the children on board a ship as fast as possible. He knew that Bishop Wilson, the Bishop of Singapore, was organising a ‘last gasp’ evacuation party and he determined on the spot that the children and I would be included.
‘You look a bit thoughtful, Skipper,’ his Number One commented, and Denis stared at him unseeing. James Ogilvie was a painfully thin ex-Government clerk who had been a sub-lieutenant in the RNVR for only a month before his appointment to HDML 24, but he was a quietly competent exec who had taken to the sea as a duck takes to water.
‘Hold the fort, Jim,’ Denis said, and suddenly was gone, vaulting up the gangway and then over the side onto the wharf. Three strides took him to the naval telephone, and moments later he was talking to Archdeacon Graham-White. Graham-White was Bishop Wilson’s right-hand man, and an old friend. It had been Graham-White who had married us eighteen months before.
‘Easily done,’ the Archdeacon said. ‘Only too glad you two have changed your minds. I’ll put steps in train immediately.’
Denis was in action again that day, ferrying evacuees to the ships lying patiently out in the Roads. For my part, I too was busy. John Dalley had rung me early in the afternoon with the news of Robert Koh’s death, and I had determined to see Catherine as soon as possible. Hamid had disappeared so Chu Lun himself drove me over to Chamberlain Road in the Singer.
The house looked different. At first I couldn’t tell why, and then I saw that every blind was down, every window shut, and the very walls themselves looked closed against the world. Catherine could have heard of Robert’s death only within the last few hours, and yet she had already put up the barricades, closed herself off from the world. I almost decided not to intrude, but something Denis and I had long ago agreed upon came to mind: when someone was in trouble it was far better to try and help, and fail, than to stand by doing nothing.
Catherine opened the door herself. She had not been crying and as usual looked indescribably beautiful. But it was the cold, empty beauty of a Greek statue, not the warm, loving beauty of the Catherine I had known. For a long moment she just stood there, staring at me as if she did not recognise me, and then she gestured me in with a stiff, mechanical move of the hand.
It had been wrong to come, I knew that immediately. We sat facing each other like stuffed dummies, and then at last I found my voice.
‘I came to say how sorry I am,’ I said softly. ‘And to see if there is anything I can do.’
‘Nobody can do anything,’ Catherine said. ‘It’s too late.’
I suddenly remembered that I’d brought something for the baby. It was some bauble, wrapped in colourful paper, and I held it out. ‘Could I give this to April?’
‘We were hit by a shell this morning, Norma. Just one. It exploded somewhere out the back. The house shook but didn’t seem to have been damaged. I ran in to see if April was all right, but when I picked her up from her cot she was dead. A splinter came through the window and struck the side of her head.’
I stood up, so shocked I couldn’t speak. Catherine rose with me. ‘Don’t say anything, Norma,’ she said desperately. ‘Please don’t say anything. Please just go. Please go.’
I couldn’t move. I stood there speechless, staring at Catherine, and she stood facing me, staring back. I don’t know how long we were there, unable to speak, unable to move. I wanted so desperately to reach out and help her, but of course I couldn’t. Nobody could. Everything she had lived for had been taken from her.
I can’t remember saying goodbye, but I must have mumbled something. And then Chu Lun was driving me home, April’s gift still in my hand. As soon as I got home I rang John Dalley. By a miracle I reached him.
‘You have to do something for Catherine,’ I said desperately. ‘She’s all alone in her house and terribly upset. On top of Robert, her baby was killed this morning. I’m frightened she might do something silly. I tried to talk to her but she doesn’t want sympathy or friendship. But she does need practical help. Could one of Robert’s friends go around?’
Dalley was at his HQ in the middle of a battle, but he heard me out. ‘I’ll send someone round straight away, Norma,’ he said gently. ‘But don’t expect too much. I had a word with her myself this morning. I fear the shock has thrown her over the edge. I don’t think there is anything anyone can do. But we will try.’
Dalley was as good as his word and his people tried to collect Catherine later that afternoon. She refused to move. According to those who called on her she was quite cool and composed. She told them she wanted to wait for the Japanese in her own home. She had hung the Tikus Platoon flag above her door, and put up pictures of Robert in his uniform throughout the house. His dress uniform – which she had refused to let him wear when he was alive – was hanging on a valet stand just inside the front door, the buttons sparkling, the cap on the hall table beside it.
Denis roared into Whitelawns just after I had spoken to Dalley, his face grim with determination. He began calling for us all as soon as he arrived. I knew precisely what he was going to say and I forestalled him. ‘It’s
all right, my dear,’ I said in as businesslike voice as I could. ‘Tom Graham-White phoned me earlier. We are due at Bishopscourt anytime this afternoon or this evening, and we’ll be boarding one of the evacuation ships tomorrow morning. I’ve packed the Singer so we can move whenever we want to.’
Denis let out a long breath. ‘I knew I could count on you, darling,’ he said. ‘You are an absolute brick. Would you mind if we made a move straight away? I’ve got to be back on board in a couple of hours.’
‘We’ve got time for a last cup of tea, surely?’ I asked.
‘There is always time for a last cup of tea.’ He took my face in his hands and kissed me gently on the lips. ‘Thank you for being so sensible.’
We drank tea under the loggia, the boys sprawling on cushions, Denis and me sitting at the cane table, playing ladies and gentlemen. ‘You remember your part of the bargain, I hope?’ I asked. ‘It’s now up to you to find some way of joining us. If you welch on our deal I’ll never forgive you.’ There was an emptiness growing around my heart but I was determined not to let my sadness show.
Denis caught the mood. ‘Just look over the taffrail of your ship,’ he said cheerfully. ‘The chap you will see swimming after you like the blazes will be me.’
Tony took the comment literally and sat up, his Dinky-toy car in his hand. ‘We could let a rope down, Daddy,’ he said seriously. ‘Then all you have to do is catch the end and climb up.’ He frowned suddenly. ‘We’ll have to hide you in our cabin, though, cause they might ask to see your ticket.’
Fortunately we didn’t have time for too much thinking that afternoon. I gave the horses a last apple and then Denis was urging us all into the car. Agatha and Christine, dressed in their starched uniforms and as composed as ever, sat in the back with a boy each in their laps, with Amah, who felt it her duty to oversee the evacuation, squashed between them. With Denis and me in the bucket front seats, there was no room for Chu Lun, who had decided to accompany us as far as Bishopscourt. Refusing to be left behind, he sat on his bicycle, clinging to the passenger side window as we went.
As we drove off, I turned for one last look at Whitelawns. The house seemed so beautiful, so serene and safe that I felt a moment of horror, wondering if we hadn’t done the wrong thing. I made the sign of the cross, an instinct from childhood, and mouthed a prayer: ‘Dear Mother of God, please let it be that we have made the right decision . . .’
We had just turned into Tanah Merah Besar Road when the Zero appeared, low above the coconut trees and dead ahead of us. Time froze. I saw the speckle of flames from the guns on its wings, and then the whole world went mad. Machine-gun bullets lashed the left side of the car, exploding the windscreen and tearing off both the passenger side doors. I saw Chu Lun’s bicycle cartwheeling through the air and then we ploughed into the bank on the side of the road, my head cracked the dashboard, and everything went black.
I remember I had one thought in my head: if Denis or the children are dead, I don’t want to wake up.
‘Well, that’s torn it.’ Denis’s voice was so normal, so cool and collected, that I found myself breathing again, relaxing, opening my eyes. I must have been unconscious for only a second or two because Chu Lun was only just getting up from the grassy bank. He seemed perfectly all right, and I snapped my head around looking for the boys. They were both safe in the arms of their nurses, though Christine had bumped her nose and a thin trickle of blood ran down her face.
We clambered out, the boys suddenly boisterous, Denis laughing as he dusted Chu Lun down. ‘You won’t be riding this anymore,’ he said cheerfully, holding up the battered frame of the bicycle.
The Zero was coming back. I heard the sudden roar of its engine and then it was there again, guns sparkling. But even as I braced for the stream of bullets I saw that something was different. The pilot had misjudged his turn and instead of coming straight for us the Zero was slewing to the left, is nose pointing upwards as the pilot fought to pull out of the shallow dive. There was a devil of a bang, the plane disappeared from view, and then there was a huge explosion and fire and smoke rolled up from behind a line of banyan trees.
‘Clipped a tree,’ Denis said with satisfaction. ‘Serves the blighter right.’
I was dizzy from the bump on the head and shaking so much that I had to sit beside the car for a while. Even then Denis had to support me, an arm around my waist, while Amah clicked her tongue and fussed. ‘Mummy’s not used to war, is she Daddy?’ Tony observed with an air of infuriating male superiority.
‘I am!’ Bobby piped up. ‘I’m used to war, aren’t I?’
Denis dropped on his knee and turned both boys towards him.
‘Nobody ever gets used to war,’ he said seriously. ‘We were very, very lucky this afternoon. So don’t tempt the gods by boasting. Just say a little prayer in your heads. Say thank you that we are all alive, and ask God to keep protecting us as he did just now.’
The Singer was able to limp the short distance back to Whitelawns, but it was clearly a write-off. Denis did suggest that we might make a try in the Marvelette but I shook my head. ‘I’ve had enough,’ I said. ‘I promise I’ll go to Bishopscourt tomorrow, but I couldn’t even try tonight. You don’t mind, do you?’
In truth, I was not sure that I would try tomorrow. I wondered if the Zero hadn’t been sent to us as a sign. After all, I had been praying to the Holy Mother for guidance when it had appeared. Perhaps she was telling us that it was safer to stay at Whitelawns than trust our luck trying to escape. It was dangerous enough just getting on a ship, and the danger would certainly not stop there. So many vessels had gone down trying to escape from island that the run from Singapore to the Banka Straits had earned the nickname ‘Bomb Alley’.
Denis rang me during the night. He had intended to return early the next morning with a Navy car to drive us down to Bishopscourt, but had just received orders to sail at first light, ferrying evacuees out to their ships. ‘I’ve asked Graham-White to run you over,’ he said. ‘Promise me you will go?’
That put me in a pickle. ‘I’m not sure we should go,’ I said. ‘I’m not being stubborn but I really am torn two ways.’
‘There are no two ways about it. The Japs are going to take Singapore. You know our people have already started demolishing the Naval Base?’
‘A lot of people are getting killed trying to get out,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think it would be wiser to stay put? Or perhaps we could get hold of a boat and try and get out ourselves?’
‘It’s past that.’ Denis’s voice was abrupt, almost angry. ‘Please do as I say, Norma. Join Bishop Wilson’s party.’
There was a long pause, and then I suppose I got to the nub of my difficulty. ‘I’m loath to leave you,’ I said simply. And then it came out. ‘You are everything to me, Denis. Like Robert was for Catherine. I simply wouldn’t want to go on living if you were not around . . .’
The line went dead. For a split second I thought Denis had rung off but then I realised that the line was down. It had happened a lot recently, either due to bomb damage or simply because the system had become prone to faults because of the lack of proper servicing.
There was no way the line would be up before morning, which left everything up to me. It was a terrible responsibility to carry, and I wandered out onto the verandah and stared up at the stars. I suppose I was looking for guidance. They glittered, timeless and beautiful, but of course they had no answer for me. I’d never felt quite so alone in my life.
The next day was the Day of the Smoke. The Navy’s huge oil tanks on Pulau Bukum and Pulau Subaru had been deliberately set alight to prevent the oil falling into Japanese hands, and smoke rolled across the sky in a thick, black pall that blocked out the sun. All day, the light held a strange grey hue as if we were in the middle of a storm, but no rain fell and the heat was unbearable. An American pilot with the RAF, Arthur Donahue, flew the last Hurricane out of Singapore on that day. He wrote later:
My final memory of Singapore is of a
bright green little country, resting on the edge of a dark, tragic mantle of smoke which towered over it like a great, overhanging cloak of doom. The city itself, with huge leaping red fires at its heart, seemed to rest on the floor of a vast cavern formed by the sinister curtains of black smoke.
At Whitelawns, the smoke penetrated everything, tainting the water we drank, getting into our clothes and hair, even seeming to dull the taste of food.
Our discomfort was increased by the persistent air raids. It seemed that no sooner had the all-clear sounded for one raid when the warning sounded for the next. The children became fractious, their misery compounded by my irritability: I simply could not decide what we should do. I wandered about the place in an agony of indecision, at one moment convinced that I should be sensible for the children’s sake, the next determined that come what may Denis and I would see it through together. Our packed bags, standing in a neat pile at the end of the verandah, seemed to rebuke me for me weakness.
I had dreaded the thought of Archdeacon Graham-White’s arrival but when he did finally arrive I felt overwhelming relief. Now I would be forced to come to a decision. Now at last the agony would be over.
He arrived in a Model-T Ford, a curio even in those days. He was a tall, upright man and when he climbed stiffly from his old-fashioned, upright motor car, dressed in an old-fashioned dark-brown alpaca suit and with a flat parson’s hat on his head I almost laughed. He looked the epitome of Father Brown in the G. K. Chesterton stories.
In the Mouth of the Tiger Page 54
