The Empire Trilogy (162 page)

Last week there had been talk of Australian troops wrecking a hotel somewhere. Now rumours had reached Mr Wu, who had business contacts in Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Kuantan, that civil disorder, looting and inter-racial strife was spreading like a shock-wave in front of the advancing Japanese bayonets. In some places the retreating British troops, instructed to destroy stores that might be of value to the enemy, had set the example by looting jewellers and liquor shops, eagerly assisted by the local population and even by the police who had discarded their uniforms and joined in with a will. Open season had been declared on anything of value left behind. A cloud of locusts descended on every abandoned European bungalow: in no time it was stripped of everything down to light-bulbs, door-handles and bathroom fittings. When European bungalows had all been stripped the looters turned to those abandoned by rich Chinese, Indians and Malays … and, presently, to those that had
not
been abandoned, stripping them regardless and, if the owner did not promptly produce his valuables, torturing him until he did. Sometimes, according to Mr Wu's all too circumstantial and convincing account, Chinese looters would wear masks, or pretend to be Japanese soldiers; sometimes two rival bands of looters would arrive to sack the same premises, which now included Government rice godowns, Land offices and Customs premises, and do battle with each other for the right to pillage. And all this accompanied by wholesale violence and rape, not to mention old scores being paid off. The country was foundering in anarchy!

‘What do you expect to happen?' asked Dupigny, dismissing the matter with a shrug. ‘I do not see why you should be surprised.'

‘But wait, François. The laws of a country are merely the wish of people to live in a certain way. Remove the laws for a few days and you don't expect anarchy to result overnight, any more than by abolishing road regulations you would expect motorists to pick at random which side of the road they would drive on. Laws aren't a means of coercing a population of wild animals but an agreement between people … D'you see what I mean? But in that case why has this moral vacuum appeared in the space between the two armies where the rule of law is suspended? It must mean that all these people looting and raping don't consider themselves to belong to our community at all!'

‘But exactly!' cried Dupigny and a flash of lightning lit up his sardonic smile. ‘In a country like Malaya such an ideal community is impossible because people belong to different races and only have self-interest in common. A brotherhood of man? Rubbish! But let us not complain, self-interest is the surest source of wealth as your Mr Smith has so brilliantly demonstrated.'

‘Do you really believe, François, that until now our British laws have merely been preventing people here from doing what they would most like to do, namely: attack, rob and rape their neighbours? Come now!'

‘Certainly. Today you have the proof!'

Instead of replying, the Major stooped and held out his fingers to The Human Condition who was hesitating prudently a few feet away, as if afraid that the Major might be about to scoop him up and drop him into an incinerator. After some moments of interior debate the animal crept a little closer and faintly wagged its wretched tail. The Major sighed. Outside the window the first thin shaft of sunlight broke through the cloud and hung quivering in the murky gloom of the drive, at the same time striking emerald sparks from a dripping banana leaf.

Matthew, who had spent a little time with his hands in his pockets at the window, staring out in a gloomy reverie at the drenched foliage, had become interested in this discussion. He remembered with what pleasure he had watched the mingling of races on the dance-floor at The Great World. It was surely true that to build a nation out of Malaya's plural society some greater ideal than the profit of plantation owners, merchants and assorted entrepreneurs combined with the accumulation of wealth by the labour force, was required. What was needed was
a new spirit
… the spirit that had animated people at Geneva in the early days before everything had turned sour. Matthew began, haltingly, to explain this to the Major and Dupigny. It was simply a question of breaking out of old habits of thought! It was so easy, given the right atmosphere, for people to change the way they approached each other! Even apparently self-interested people were capable of it. It was like … like … He groped the air with his fingers, searching for an example. Yes, it was like someone in the empty compartment of a train who pulls down the blinds and puts his suitcases on the seat to prevent another passenger sharing it with him. Yet if, once installed, the newcomer should become ill the original occupant will spare no effort to help him, will take off his jacket, perhaps, to spread it over him, will stop the train and bully officials into coming to his companion's assistance, and go to all manner of trouble! It was a fact! And truly there was no earthly reason why all human affairs should not be conducted in this manner! It was just as available to people as conduct based on suspicion and self-interest. Even with the Japanese it would have been possible if they had not been infected with our own cynical approach to power.

‘I refuse to believe that self-interest is the best source of prosperity. It only
seems
that way because we've never been able to break out of this bad habit with which we've been shackled by our history. Men are capable of becoming brothers, whatever you say, François. And I'm sure you'll find, once this dreadful war is over, that thousands of people of different races have been willing to risk their lives for each other!'

While Matthew, stuttering with excitement, had been stating his belief, his companions had been listening, the Major dubiously, Dupigny with derision. Now Dupigny got to his feet: it was time for his late afternoon siesta on the table in the Board Room, the only room in the building which possessed an efficient fan. On his way out he paused to pat Matthew on the shoulder, saying with a laugh: ‘You might just as well expect stockbrokers to be ready to die for the Stock Exchange!'

It was in these days that members of the Mayfair AFS unit first began to be seen at fires here and there in the city with their glistening new trailer-pump. Nothing spectacular at first while they were learning the business; a shop-house or a godown, perhaps, set on fire by an air-raid on the docks. A tiny convoy would set off led by the Major's Lagonda driven by the Major himself, keeping an eye on the trailer-pump dodging and swaying in the rear-view mirror, and followed by Mr Wu's ancient Buick, crammed with helmeted figures and equipment. Sometimes, as the fires grew bigger, they would find a number of other units there, too, and as they arrived they would have to bump over several hose-ramps while trying to locate the officer in charge of the fire. Quite often this would turn out to be a man called Adamson who, they learned from some of the regular firemen, had an unusual reputation for skill in beating back or outflanking fires that threatened to get out of control … the reputation of a general, one might have thought. His appearance, though, was disappointingly ordinary … a rather anonymous-looking individual in his forties with bristly grey hair and a manner that suggested more a curious by-stander than a general on a battlefield. Matthew, in particular, surveyed him with interest, wondering how it was that so many legends hat attached themselves to him.

At one godown fire, while Matthew was talking to a man called Evans from the Central Fire Station in Hill Street, there came a shout of ‘Stand from under!'

‘That means the façade is about to topple,' Evans explained and together they joined the other men drifting back to a safer distance. Evans, however, was watching Adamson who still lingered beneath the building, staring up at it, hands in pockets. There was a story, he told Matthew, that Adamson had once been caught at just such a moment under a tall façade as it toppled outwards over him. Because it had been too late to run he had calmly estimated where an open window would fall, had changed his position slightly and then stood still. The façade had fallen neatly around him, leaving him untouched.

‘Great Scott!' Matthew gazed at Adamson, deeply impressed by such sang-froid, but at the same time half suspecting that this might be just a story which old hands told to new recruits like himself.

Despite the satisfaction Matthew experienced these days in the knowledge that he was doing his bit for the Colony, and even putting himself at risk for it, he was still not altogether pleased with himself. His relations with the Blackett family had been seriously clouded by the unfortunate manner in which he had announced that he did not want to marry Joan. How could he have done such a thing? The Blacketts were his father's life-long friends! Now he flushed with embarrassment at the mere recollection of his dreadful behaviour. Naturally, he had written notes of apology to Walter, to Mrs Blackett, and to Joan herself (how could he have been so insensitive as to reject the poor girl in public!) … but he had heard nothing and did not expect to be forgiven for his appalling lapse.

He would have written a note to Monty, too, but Monty had turned up in person before he could do so and, as a matter of fact, did not appear to be particularly put out. Monty, indeed, was inclined to look on the bright side and said, chuckling: ‘Boy, you've really put your foot in it this time. They aren't very pleased with you at home, to put it mildly! But at least you've got rid of all the bloody bridesmaids! Frankly, old chap, I hand it to you … I didn't think you had it in you.' But Matthew was not to be consoled. It was true that he did not now have to marry Joan … but such was his remorse that he would almost have preferred to have done so.

Presently, a hastily written message from Walter did arrive and Matthew opened it expecting recriminations. But to his surprise the message did not even mention his lapse and one might even have supposed, reading it, that Walter had already forgotten about it. The note begged Matthew, in the name of his country and of everything he held dear, to reconsider his refusal to impersonate Continuity in Blackett and Webb's jubilee parade. ‘Since the loss of Penang,' wrote Walter, ‘it has become more necessary than ever to shore up the morale of the Asiatic communities in the Colony by a display of firmness and a reminder of our past association which has been so fruitful to them.' Because of ‘recent events' it had been necessary to postpone the jubilee parade and celebrations, but ‘any day now' final arrangements would be made. In the meantime, Matthew was asked to come with the Major and Dupigny to a dress rehearsal for the parade to make sure that everybody knew what was expected of him.

This note had been dictated in a rather discursive style and typed on Walter's office note-paper. Walter had added a cryptic postscript in ink, however, which stated: ‘I hear young Lang-field has not been doing
too badly
as a fireman. What d'you think? Perhaps he is not as bad as the rest of
that gang?
' Matthew was relieved to get Walter's note, though a little puzzled by the reference to Nigel Langfield: Walter musing aloud, it seemed. He hastily sent a note in return, agreeing to do anything Walter wanted. After his lapse there was nothing else for him to do, after all.

His conscience lightened somewhat by this exchange, Matthew decided to take the afternoon off. His efforts to grasp the complexities of the rubber business took second place these days, in any case, to his duties as a fireman. Besides, he still hardly knew Singapore.

The Major, who had to pick up an order of books from Kelly and Walsh's, dropped him near Raffles Place and he set off, hands in pockets, with no particular destination. First he walked down Market Street. It was here, he remembered, that Ehrendorf had his flat but as to which number it was in the street he had no idea. As he strolled along he was suddenly enveloped in a delightful smell of cloves and cinnamon which hung outside a spice merchant's. On the opposite side of the street his eye was caught by the money-lenders shops and he paused for a moment to stare in wonder and dismay at the white-garmented figures lurking in those dim interiors. What did this glimpse of money-lenders remind him of? Yes. He moved on once more, pondering the assertion that self-interest is the most efficient producer of wealth, that what an undeveloped tropical country most needed were entrepreneurs like his father and like Walter. Many people believed, he was aware, that no matter what an individual entrepreneur might accomplish in the way of exploitation or abuse of native labour, his presence was still beneficial to the country as the most effective means by which the local population could begin to accumuate capital of its own. This paradox, which was no doubt true within limits, was accompanied by a cynical companion in the form of another assertion: namely, that human beings would only produce their best efforts when they were working, not for the community in which they lived, but for themselves. This Matthew
refused to believe
!

He had paused, muttering under his breath, in the doorway of a metalwork shop where he found himself gazing at his own perspiring, bespectacled face upside down in a gleaming concave bowl. Inside the shop he could see a man on his hands and knees cutting out a long strip of metal to make a bucket; another man, cross-legged, sat on the floor hammering rivets into another strip which had been bent into a cylinder. Beside them glistened a pile of newly minted buckets. To produce such handsome buckets without even a work-bench, using only primitive tools, seemed to him miraculous.

He walked on at random, now northwards, now westwards. He passed a sign which read Nanyang Dentist and the dentist himself, perhaps, sitting in his white coat on the pavement smoking a cigarette. A ginger cat with a docked tail crossed his path and slipped hopefully under the bead-hung entrance to the North Pole Creamery. A Chinese song blared tinnily from a wireless somewhere above his head in the forest of poles and washing; two voices gabbled in different languages riddled with atmospheric from two other wirelesses nearby. He passed on to the street corner where a Chinese funeral, which he at first took for a parade, was getting down to business outside a shop-house. A framed photograph of the dead man had been set up on a table on the pavement, a prosperous-looking fellow wearing the most formal of Western blue suits and white shirts; two tall lamps swathed in sackcloth for the occasion flanked the photograph: piles of oranges and apples and bundles of smoking joss-sticks stood in front of it. At the side of this table was another; Matthew found himself confronted with a great lobster-coloured pig's mask complete with ears and flaring nostrils, crabs, whole naked chickens, some squashed as flat as plates, very greasy-looking, others with their yellow waxen heads horribly bent back over their bodies.