Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea

by Geoffrey Brooke

  For an hour we waited, watching the ammunition coming out. There seemed no end to it; but at last the final boxes were stacked on the grass, a formidable pile. There was one lorry left. The pile dwindled and I gauged the remaining space in the back. The controleur was watching too—a fine looking chap at close quarters—as was the officer in charge, to whom I had been addressing ingratiating remarks. I foresaw a few boxes left over, which might or might not need our vehicles. To lose our transport now might mean never to regain it, especially since the Japanese might be close. Nicholson said something to the controleur who nodded. Nicholson nodded to me and we were off.

  That was the last I saw of him. I understand he was taken prisoner. I heard nothing of Colonel Dillon either (until after the war, when I learned that he was also taken prisoner). They were two more who organised the escape of hundreds in their unselfishness, remaining behind themselves until it was too late.

  The sun went down and on went a pair of deep yellow lamps that threw a soft glow about ten yards in front. Speed was not slackened. Then the moon came out and, as the lorry topped a rise, revealed the most beautiful sight of my eastern experience. The road wound away to the left along the edge of a cliff, and for miles and miles below us there was jungle and mountain and more jungle. It looked soft and feathery in undulating rolls, losing detail as it receded until coming up against a long mountain chain; here and there a jagged hilltop thrust its head up and to the right was a streak of silver that looked like a lake. The road began to twist and drop down as it clung to the mountainside and then I realised we had stopped. The driver was already down and gesticulating to a hut off the road. We stumbled in to find it a coffee house full of British soldiers. There was also fish to eat. The coffee was bitter and the fish dried miserables that stared forlornly in the candle light, but both tasted like the Berkeley’s best. Then on again. The road became smooth and at about 04:00 we saw the lights of a small town immediately below. A few minutes later the lorry had stopped beside Sawalunto station. Climbing slowly down, we thanked our Jehu suitably, at which he refuelled the old bus, turned her round and with a cheery wave, drove straight back to Basrha!

  An hour later there was general commotion; a train for Padang was coming in; it would take all of us. Padang, our goal! It was almost too good to be true. For the n’th time CERA Roper mustered the party, who were in high spirits. There had never been any question of difficulty after Padang. Dawn was outside, streaky and chill, showing us the sombre mountains around. The train came in, a tall ancient thing, and we climbed up to the carriages. There was a puff and a jerk, the grey stone station began to recede and I settled back with a Squadron Leader Farquharson on to the comfortable cushions. We watched, relaxed and content, the attractive countryside go past as the line twisted round mountains, lakes and terraces of paddy; after a pretty trying few weeks we had surely made it.

  At mid-day the train drew into Padang to be met by two British Army officers. They explained that all British ‘refugees’ were billeted in two evacuated schools, the Malay School and the Chinese School, both virtually empty as our predecessors had been taken off by ships. Being somewhat junior I was surprised to be informed that I was in charge of the Malay School. A Major Rowley-Conwy was i/c the Chinese School. My new responsibility would comprise about 100 sailors and 300 soldiers, nearly all Australians. Having marched them there and settled in, I was taken to the British Officer in Charge, Padang.

  He was Lieutenant Colonel A.G. Warren, Royal Marines, who had his headquarters in the Oranje Hotel, a modern building in the middle of town. AH the officers of the new ‘draft’ were gathered there and went into his room. He was a fine figure of a man who seemed vaguely familiar, very dark with a black moustache, and great force of personality. Our hearts sank at his words.

  ‘The situation at the moment is not good. We have about a fifty-fifty chance. I have wireless communication with Colombo, but cannot get anything through from them, as the consul burnt his cypher books the other day, which was of course premature. Ships have been in fairly regularly since the fall of Singapore, taking off refugees as they arrived, but nothing has been here for five days now. We do know that one was sent from Colombo, but she is two days overdue, and I have just had a report from further down the coast that the last one to leave, which was for Java, has been torpedoed. There is daily Japanese air reconnaissance here and it looks as if they have pretty well sealed off this port either from the air or by submarines or both. The enemy are about 60 miles away by road, though not yet in strength, and the length of time we are left unmolested depends entirely on whether the early reduction of Padang is included in their strategy. So you see we are in rather a poor way.’ He smiled at our rueful faces and I could not help feeling that here was a man equal to anything.

  Then he got down to administrative details. Rowley-Conwy and I received our orders (only half the men to be absent at a time; always at five minutes notice to go) plus a few guilders for expenses, and then went our different ways. The loud clop-clop of the pony in front of me (transport was mainly by gharrie, an enclosed and highly decorated little trap) was only half heard, and I was too preoccupied to notice anything outside. The whole thing had been a race against time, and presumably we had lost. It was hard. We might wake up to find the town in possession of the little yellow soldiers tomorrow morning and there was nothing we could do about it. Though the Dutch Army was in position in the hills around Fort de Kok, it was their tactics to leave Padang undefended (they had made those of us who had arms hand them in at the station, though personally I had managed to avoid this). It was not going to be easy telling the troops, and doubtless the majority would take to the hills rather than capitulate, but for my sailors at any rate there could be little logic in this. The gharrie stopped and I looked out on to a sea of faces. Telling them the situation as optimistically as possible I did not exaggerate as experience had shown that nothing but the truth was much good. They went off in groups to discuss it.

  The Malay School was a white stone building built round a grass courtyard with a big tree in the middle, under which a couple of native barbers were already hard at work. The large rooms lent themselves readily to the various parties, which were soon organised and set to cleaning up, as much to keep the men occupied as anything else. Good food, brought in a Dutch van, the opportunity to wash myself and my clothes properly and the feeling that the future was somewhat out of my hands, went some way to counteracting the nasty taste produced by our prospects. A night on hard boards was no hardship now and next morning Warren produced enough money for officers to have eight and men five guilders each to refit what was left of their uniforms.

  Padang proved to be a large straggling port, very well laid out with avenues, trees and gardens. The European houses looked quite modern, cafés abounded and a large market sold everything one could think of. Hobbs and I went shopping for domestic requirements of the camp, to a refrain in Cockney, West Country, Scottish and Australian accents as soldiers and sailors bargained with gesticulating shopkeepers; the scene was so reminiscent of ‘Gib’, ‘Alex’, ‘Honkers’ or a hundred other places that it took an effort to realise that the underlying atmosphere was not so carefree. There was a Dutch barracks at which I had arranged to go and listen to the news, bending over an old radio with the orderly officer who translated with anxious features; the purport was then given out at the school. The news got worse and worse; Palembang in the south had fallen to parachutists; the fighting in Java (the centre of the Dutch East Indies) was clearly going badly. Nearer home the enemy, somewhere in the hills we had crossed, were taking this and that place and coming closer and closer. One seemed to have heard it all before.

  It was an antidote to have lunch at the Oranje Hotel, stood by Alex Lind, a hefty young Dutch- and Malay-speaking Lieutenant MRNVR. He was on Warren’s staff and told me something of the Colonel. He had been a senior member of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Malaya, as the name implies a secret organisation (of mixed regu
lars and ex-planters) that had been very active behind the Japanese lines, organising raids, sabotage and subversive activities generally. I had had a hint of this already as the Colonel had told me in the course of conversation about the Japanese that he was not going to let them take him alive if he could help it. He said he was well known to the enemy who had put a big price on his head—Malaya being full of cheques and sabotage orders signed by him behind their lines—and ‘they know how to make people talk’. Warren had been at Penang when it was evacuated and I suddenly remembered it had been he who had come up in a white steamer and shouted a change of destination.

  In Sumatra to arrange subversive activities with the Dutch when Singapore fell, he had sent one of his SOE men to set up the escape route that had served so well. (Major Campbell, whom I had already come across, was another of these.) Warren had voluntarily assumed command of the British forces at Padang though several more senior officers had passed through with no inclination to take over. He was, however, hoping to escape as soon as he could turn over his responsibilities to Colonel Dillon, expected the very next day.

  Terry, I discovered, had left Padang in a ship not long before we had arrived. No-one knew for certain but it looked as if it was the one that had been torpedoed. I returned to the school with a heavy heart. Surely the end had not come at last for that indomitable spirit. Perhaps he was all right and would turn up yet again.

  Time hanging heavy during the afternoon, I went for a walk. Happening on a photographer I went in and a solemn Chinese took a picture, sideface, to give the rather straggly beard—standard among us refugees—every chance. It was to be ready in 24 hours. In the evening we learnt from the radio that Java had fallen. After supper I went to an hotel for a beer with a most likeable subaltern called Fairfax, an RAF Flight Lieutenant and an Australian subaltern. I had with me my knapsack which contained my pistol and a few oddments. After we had been talking some time a boy came up and asked for Lieutenant Brooke.

  I said I was Lieutenant Brooke. He said I was wanted on the telephone. It was Major Waller, on Warren’s staff at HQ. He said I was to come to the Colonel’s quarters at once. I told Fairfax and the others that this might be the big getaway and if I rang and told them to have a beer on me (secrecy might well be necessary) they were to go at once and get the men-ready. I went outside and with some difficulty secured a gharrie in the pouring rain.

  At the address given were Rowley-Conwy, Clarke (the Intelligence Officer) and two other officers I had not come across before, in addition to Lind, Waller and Davis, late of the Straits Settlement Police, who had helped me with some problem at the school. More arrived until there were eight of us refugee officers, all having had the same summons. The air was electric. Warren was nowhere about. His lieutenants ordered drinks and we sat like opposing teams before a match, every questioning eyebrow being answered with a commonplace. All at once Campbell came in and said we were to make our way unobtrusively to an upstairs room.

  Warren stood there and we made a semi-circle round him. I could feel my heart thumping. He looked at each of us as we came in. When there was silence he spoke. ‘I have decided’, he said ‘with the help of information received, that if any of you are to escape, it is useless to leave it until after tonight. The Japs can be expected at any time, and there is no chance that a ship will get through at this eleventh hour; still less that she would get away. It is likely that all personnel here will be made prisoners of war. There is just a chance for some of you. The other day I authorised the purchase of a prauw* which is provisioned and has been lying up the coast so as not to attract attention. I had intended to sail for Ceylon in her, with my officers, having turned over the responsibility here to Colonel Dillon. But the latter has not arrived; I fear he may have been captured, and I am staying.

  ‘I have got you eight here because there is room for you in this boat. You have been selected as the most useful to the war effort in other theatres, and I am ordering you to go.

  ‘You will sail tonight. It is a very long way and there is considerable risk. This is just the end of the suitable monsoon weather. You may make it before the south-west monsoon breaks or you may not. Personally, I think you have a sporting chance. Has anyone got anything to say?’

  For a moment there was stunned silence and then Clarke said he had promised Singapore Intelligence that above all things he must stick by the Japanese prisoners. Colonel Warren said ‘I over-rule that. You are to go’. I said I did not see how I could possibly leave my men at this juncture and he said ‘I’ll talk to you in a minute’, or words to that effect. I went on to the verandah, my mind in a turmoil, and one of Warren’s officers—I think it was Lind—tried to persuade me not to be foolish. Then Warren appeared. ‘I’m ordering you to go!’ he said. Then: ‘Anyhow, they’ll segregate the officers from the men, so you wouldn’t be any use to them’. I had been steeling myself to disobey him but his last remark—almost an aside—suddenly decided me. It would be pointless to go into captivity to no avail and rightly or wrongly I said I would go. ‘Good’, he said. ‘Campbell’, turning to the latter, ‘everything in order? Right, get going. Absolute secrecy; we don’t know what orders the Dutch authorities may have had from Java which has just fallen, and it is quite possible that the surrender terms, if there are any, include the handing over of all allied nationals, so keep away from everybody.

  ‘Goodbye; good luck to you all!’: And that was the last we saw of Colonel Alan Warren, Royal Marines.

  I thought of various new clothes assembled and the little rifle but any idea of trying to get them was banished. I could not possibly go back among those men to collect my gear, saying nothing. Outside were seven gharries, already hired, into which we piled. ‘You come in this one with me’ said Campbell. I suddenly remembered poor Fairfax and the others waiting patiently for a telephone call and asked if I could go and put them off. ‘No, no time now’ was the answer. ‘Anyway, a slip of any sort at this juncture might wreck the whole show.’ The door in the back slammed shut, the gharrie tilted, sending a shower of water off its roof, and we went clopping after the little red lights in front. The last and longest lap of the journey from Singapore had begun, but I felt like a deserter and it was to be three long years before (having received many letters from them) I ceased to see the faces of my men at the Malay school, when they woke up on that next Sumatra morning to find that the place where I slept was empty.

  *‘Panic party’ is a naval expression of derision rather than more serious abuse.

  *The birds were almost certainly Sumatran Toucans.

  *On reaching Padang some got away but all the Naval officers and men joined the destroyer Stronghold. On leaving Tjilajap for Australia she ran into enemy cruisers and was sunk with all hands except Forbes and a number of ratings who were taken prisoner.

  *I am glad to say he survived. See pages 278–9.

  *King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

  †Another of the unsung heroes of those grim days, I doubt whether he ever received any recognition. He too survived but poor Dickinson died in captivity.

  *Pronounced ‘prow’.

  7

  Sederhana Djohanis

  On went the cavalcade through the pitch-black night. Occasional showers made the rear lights hard to see, collisions causing a volume of Malay and grunts as an unwilling beast was goaded to new effort. Doors opened in kampongs in question of such weird doings at midnight. Shouts were answered by the drivers. A long convoy of ox wagons was encountered and once we lost the way. Every delay was a nervous business, especially as it had been heard in the town that the British had a boat secreted up the coast and Campbell’s official car had been withdrawn that morning. We seemed to be going on forever when at last the leader turned off the road into a rutted lane. The few stars became obscured by nodding palms and soon we could hear surf breaking on the shore. Then the foliage thinned and we came out on to a beach, lit, to our surprise, by a rising moon. There were shadowy huts around and the silver line of
the sea beyond.

  Everyone disembarked stiffly and Davis paid off the drivers. Their voices, arguing about something, had only just died away when three forms materialised hauling a large kolek across the sand. Half the party embarked and the rest of us sat down on a log bench in front of one of the houses. Its inmates left their trestle beds and lit an oil lamp that threw flickering yellow shafts onto our faces. Davis introduced himself and we were all given a cup of water which was most acceptable. What they thought of this sudden influx of ill-assorted tuans is hard to guess; for my part I expected yet again to wake up and find it all a dream.

  ‘What on earth is a prauw?’ asked a shadowy form beside me. I said I hadn’t the vaguest idea but thought it sounded like an oversize canoe, probably with triangular sail and outrigger. We both fell silent, probably with much the same thoughts. Was it one or two thousand miles? I was glad that I had a knowledge of the sea and then on second thoughts felt it might be one of those occasions where ignorance is bliss.

  The moon was well up by now and entertained us with a fairy scene. Surf broke on the sand in a wide arc fringed by rustling coconut palms whose long shadows crossed and bent among the knobbly trunks and squares of attap roof The sea looked like molten metal and just before a fleeting rain cloud obscured the moon we made out the returning kolek not far away. It was a relief to move out of the mosquitoes and pile in.

  The author aboard the MV Anglo-Canadian.

  HMS Bermuda at Scapa Flow after hoisting Walrus flying boats aboard.

  Bermuda alongside at Bona, firing a blind barrage.