In the Mouth of the Tiger (62 page)

Denis didn't answer for a while, and then he reached across and patted the man on his shoulder. ‘You must do your duty as penghulu as you think best, Ahmet,' he said. ‘As I must do mine. Let us hope we can remain friends.'

The rain eased off and we set off down the muddy street, watched by people from the shelter of their houses. Already there was a perceptible change in the atmosphere: an air of cautious restraint. The invincibility of the tuans had been broken, and the villagers were hedging their bets. But the little children were the same, following us for a while, exchanging smiling comments with the boys. We passed an open store, and the Chinese proprietor ran out and gave the boys a paper kite each. The sun broke through for a moment, so that the soft rain looked like falling silver confetti. A monkey's wedding.

We walked home through back roads lined with lallang and occasional
clumps of sugar cane, a tired Bobby on Denis's shoulders, Tony holding my hand, his kite clutched proudly. ‘It's a dragon kite,' he told me seriously. ‘It's the sort the local boys fight with. You rub sharp stuff on the string and then you can use it to cut other kites' strings. I'm going to learn how to fight with it.'

Just then we heard the air-raid sirens starting up in Changi, and almost immediately planes flashed close overhead. Heavy, twin-engine planes with huge red Rising Suns on their wings and fuselage. They were no more than a thousand feet above us and as I looked up I saw bombs tumbling from the belly of one of them.

‘Into the sugarcane!' Denis snapped, and we were running pell-mell into the green, sweet-smelling thicket, Tony still clutching his kite, Bobby gurgling with delight at the excitement, riding Denis's shoulders like a jockey on a horse.

‘I saw bombs falling,' I gasped.

‘Miles away,' Denis said. ‘They're bombing the East Coast Road. We are in no danger here unless some confounded fighter comes nosing around. That's why we've got to keep out of sight.'

We lay pressed to the earth, staring up into a sky suddenly treacherously clear and blue. And then the earth beneath me fluttered, a feeling that came before the dull ‘whump' of the bombs exploding. The bombs were not falling miles away, I knew that. They might have been intended for the East Coast Road but they were way off beam. I tried to work out where they were falling. The sound seemed to be coming from the direction of Whitelawns and I felt a sudden, sharp pain in my chest. What if they were bombing the house?

Or the Deans' house? I had a sudden vision of Margaret and the boys quite alone with bombs falling all around then. Then breathed easier, remembering that she had taken the boys to visit friends in Woodlands Road, miles the other side of Singapore.

‘I want to see the planes!' Bobby had unaccountably broken loose and was making a toddling but determined run for the road. Just as he reached it another stick of bombs began to detonate, sounding even closer. I screamed, scrambling after him on knees turned to jelly, but Denis was there first, sweeping him up into the air. ‘Planes are bad planes,' he said, giving him a hug and hurrying back into the sugarcane. ‘We must hide. We mustn't let the planes see us.'

Above the deep rumble of the bombs, there was a sudden, sharper sound – Bang! Bang! Bang! Looking up through the waving cane I saw puffs
of brown smoke appearing in the sky – ack-ack fire from the military camp at Changi. The puffs were nowhere near any aeroplanes but it was good to see us fighting back.

The raid moved on to Singapore. Again I heard the almost continuous rumble of heavy bombing. It was a sound I was to hear often in the months ahead, and still hear occasionally in my dreams. It is a terrible sound because it seems so innocent, reminding me of the lazy afternoons when I used to hear a storm rumbling out in the Singapore Straits and I'd rush around the house with Amah closing all the shutters.

It was after six o'clock when the all-clear sounded and the sun was setting, turning the sea once more to burnished copper. Denis and I gripped hands as we approached the house, but as we topped the gentle rise we saw at once that Whitelawns, and the Deans' house beyond, were quite untouched. In fact, Whitelawns was a picture of tranquillity with two Tamil gardeners scything the lawn and Amah and one of her daughters visible through the dining room window laying the dinner things.

There was a message from the Naval Base: HMMS
Penghulu
was sailing at midnight and Denis was required to report to the ship immediately. We just looked at each other. I knew he wanted to stay, talk to me about the raid, make sure we were all right. He knew I hated the thought of him going, and that I was dreading the pain I'd feel every minute he was away. But we both knew there was nothing either of us could do about it. Except to smile into each other's eyes in total understanding.

The
Penghulu
was at sea for two days on that occasion, and I actually saw her chugging past Whitelawns on the second day, her White Ensign looking brave but slightly out of place above the jumble of sweeping gear and tangled lines on the deck. I waved furiously from the beach, and I think I saw someone waving in return but then she disappeared around the point, leaving just the empty sea marked with her wake. I remember thinking what a strange, local war it was when a wife could wave to her husband when he was on patrol.

Denis came home tired and frustrated, and immediately stripped off for a swim even though the sun had already gone down. ‘It's so pointless!' he called from the water. ‘We're just churning around Singapore Island like a headless chicken. Nobody seems to have the foggiest idea what to do with us. George thinks we should just push off up north and see what's happening. At least that way we'd feel useful.'

‘I'm sorry,' I called back. Truthfully, of course, I was offering up a small prayer that whoever was holding
Penghulu
back from ‘pushing off up north' would stick to his decision. Tom Phillips had pushed off up north and he was dead.

Denis came splashing out of the water and I chucked him his towel. ‘Spoken to Molly or Tanya today?' he asked casually.

I hadn't, and asked why he had asked. ‘There was a raid on Penang today,' he said quietly. ‘A bad show. There was no warning and no ack-ack. Quite a lot of casualties.

It was on the news after dinner. Thousands had been killed, the Japanese planes coming in waves and bombing my poor Penang at will. At first the people of George Town had actually come out onto the streets to see what was happening, lured to their deaths by ignorance and the display above them. There had been frightful casualties, and all the hospitals were full to overflowing.

I rang Tanya and breathed a huge sigh of relief when she answered on the first ring. ‘Are you both all right?' I asked.

‘Oh, the bombing was nowhere near us,' Tanya said, almost impatiently. ‘It was down in the city. Eugene is home. His temperature rose to one hundred and five, but then it broke and now he's a lot better. But the doctors won't let him join his stay-behind party in Kuala Kangsar. You know Ivan got him into the Army? Eugene is furious. If he doesn't join his group soon he'll miss out when they go into the jungle. The party is on first readiness because the Japs are already halfway across the Peninsula.'

Men! I thought. Denis with his desire to push off up north, Eugene furious that he couldn't join his stay-behind party. A thought suddenly struck me. Molly lived in Anson Road, close to the city. She would have been in the thick of things. I chatted briefly to Tanya, but my mind was elsewhere, and I think hers was too. We agreed to keep in touch, and then I rang off.

‘Will you ring Molly, dear?' I asked Denis. He looked at me curiously but picked up the phone to get her number. I don't know why but I just couldn't stand the thought that the phone would have a ‘fault' signal, which could mean that Molly's house had been destroyed. I stood by Denis's shoulder and could hear the phone ringing, and then Molly's sane, practical voice.

‘Are you all right?' I asked, a little breathless.

‘Of course I'm all right.' Molly sounded a little cross, and I sighed with relief.

‘What happened today, Molly?' I asked. ‘The news is full of stories that George Town took a real pasting, and that there were lots of casualties.'

‘There were lots of casualties. Hundreds and hundreds. I'm sorry, Nona, but I have only a few minutes to talk. I've joined the hospital auxiliary, and I'm on duty at nine.' Dear, practical Molly. I hung up thoughtfully, thinking of the men and women up and down Malaya quietly coping with the crisis that had befallen us. It was popular to picture the British in their Colonial outposts as effete, drawling, Bertie Wooster types, surrounded by servants and the trappings of privilege, who would crumple up like so many wet paper bags at the first hint of difficulty. The opposite was much closer to the truth. To survive in the Colonies meant that you had to be tough and adaptable. Facing a crisis was everyday life.

And then it struck me: I had counted Molly in with the British. In my mind she was simply one of us, and one of the better ones, too. But in the eyes of many Europeans she was not one of us. She was, and always would be, a ‘native', a half-citizen not entitled to a full role in the affairs of the Colony.

I had thought that Denis would have a couple of days' leave but it was not to be. The enigmatic dispatch rider came late that night and when Denis finally came to bed he told me he would be away first thing in the morning for another couple of days.

‘Not churning around Singapore again?' I asked. I hoped desperately it wasn't that George had got his way and they were ‘pushing off up north'.

‘I'm running up with Ivan to see some of the stay-behind parties,' he said. ‘We'll be in Cameron Highlands tomorrow night, then we'll pop up to Kuala Kangsar. With luck I'll be home late on Saturday or early Sunday.'

‘What on earth do they need you up there for?' I asked, sitting up in bed. According to Tanya the Japanese were crossing the Peninsula and there had been one radio report that they were already in Kedah.

‘We've got to get the communication side of things sorted out,' Denis said vaguely. ‘No point in having chaps roaming around in the jungle behind enemy lines if you can't talk to them.'

A big brown-painted Army car called for Denis at dawn, and again Tony and I saw him off, holding hands as Denis climbed into the back seat with Ivan. I was glad to see a tough-looking Gordon Highlander sitting next to the driver, a tommy-gun on his lap. I didn't cry this time. I was learning to be a proper wife for a warrior, and waved gaily as if they were going off on a picnic. Perhaps a little too gaily, because Tony looked up at me critically. ‘You don't
have to pretend to be happy just for me,' he said severely.

The Governor was due to make an important speech on the radio to ‘all the people of Malaya' at noon that day. Again Margaret and I crouched around the set – this time on her verandah – waiting for them to play the National Anthem as a prelude to the address. The four boys ran around behind us, ‘flying' their toy planes. They had all seen the bombers, heard bombs falling, and seen Singapore on fire in the distance. But to them it was all just a game. Death to them was falling over, usually with a grin, and then getting up to fight again.

Shenton Thomas's talk that afternoon surprised me. I expected him to bluster as he had in his broadcast after the first attack on Singapore. But today he spoke simply and directly from the heart. He made no fatuous claims of an imminent victory, nor did he attempt to disguise the seriousness of the situation. Like many of us now, he had seen the reality of the war.

He spoke only briefly about the military situation, mentioning the sinking of the
Prince of Wales
and the
Repulse
and how their loss had affected the balance of power in the area. He acknowledged the frustration we all felt at how easily the Japanese bombers seemed to penetrate our air defences, and promised that more planes were on the way. He said that important battles were even now raging in northern Malaya, and that their outcome would not be known for weeks or even months. ‘We are clearly in for a long and difficult struggle,' he said sincerely. ‘A struggle which will increasingly affect the daily life of everyone in Malaya. In that regard, I want to ask – I want to demand – something of you all. I want every person in Malaya to stand together, united in our time of peril.'

He paused as if gathering his thoughts. ‘Malaya is made up of many races, each with its own culture, language and history. I cannot pretend that we have always got along together in perfect harmony. But today we battle a common enemy, and a very real threat to our existence. Unless we can forget that we are Europeans, or Malays, or Chinese or Indians, and just remember that we are one people, brothers and sisters together, we will lose that battle.'

He had a special word for the women of Malaya. ‘While our men fight, let our white sisters and our brown sisters stand shoulder to shoulder together, supporting each other in the common cause. In my eyes, and in the eyes of the Colonial Administration, there is no difference between those of you with white skins and those of you with brown. You are equal as the wives, mothers, sweethearts and daughters of our gallant fighting men, and I promise that
you will receive equal recognition for your efforts, and equal support in your time of need.'

They were words that had needed to be said, and I was immensely glad that they had been said. But I also knew that there would be many, many white women in Malaya who would be angered by them, the women who had been nobodies back in England, and were somebodies in Malaya only because of the colour of their skin.

I experienced my first air raid without Denis that night. The sirens in Changi went off just after two o'clock, wailing like demons through the darkness. I found myself running to the boys' room, my heart pounding, my breath harsh and ragged in my throat. When I got there I found Agatha and Christine already had a boy each in their arms and waiting for me to tell them what to do.