The Rose of Singapore (39 page)

Lai Ming smiled as she heard Peter say in English to the
amah,
“Here, Momma. Take these brown eggs. My chickens laid them this morning especially for you. And here's some sardines and a tin of cigarettes.” She heard the
amah's
delighted squeals of thanks, and then she heard Peter's hasty footsteps on the narrow stairway leading up to her apartment.

Later that night, Peter and Lai Ming lay in bed together, talking, touching, loving each other, their final hours together slipping quickly away. Eleven o'clock came, time for him to dress and depart if he was to catch the last bus back to Changi. Reluctantly, he got up off the bed and began to dress.

“No, Peter, you no go bus tonight, you take taxi,” Lai Ming said, also rising from the bed. “But first I wash you. You must be nice clean boy, not dirty boy go back camp. Come, Peter,” she was saying as she entered the bathroom.

Peter followed her in and allowed her to perform the ritual of washing his private parts whilst they both squat over the white enamel bowl three-quarters filled with warm water laced with Dettol disinfectant. He liked the feel of her touch. It tickled and felt good after sex. Normally she giggled as he played with her nipples while she performed the ablutions, but on this occasion he felt in no mood to play, or she to giggle. Both were too sad. After Lai Ming had completed the ablution and Peter had begun to dress, Peter finished a second bottle of Carlsberg beer. The time was approaching half past eleven but he was in no hurry now that he was to take a taxi back to Changi.

Outside, the night had grown quiet. The hawkers and beggars had retired for the night and very few citizens now roamed the street. Those who did were mostly prostitutes standing alone or in pairs in doorways, waiting to be approached by men looking for a short time or an all-night session. There was very little vehicular traffic passing below the window now, and those few were mostly whining jeeps, which regularly passed to and fro, the military police in them vigilantly seeking straying British servicemen. Also, there were numerous taxis, which passed slowly beneath the window whilst cruising the area, their alert drivers waiting for bargains to be settled between prostitutes and their potential customers before making their approach. Trishaw
wallahs
also waited for bargains to be settled. Their conveyances for hire were usually cheaper than the taxis but rarely used by British servicemen in the red-light district, because to do so would be folly and just asking to be picked up by the military police.

Dressed now and ready to depart, Peter held a
sarong-clad
Lai Ming in his arms. “A last kiss, Rose,” he said, and their lips met. They broke away, seeing each other in the glow of the bedside table lamp.

“Don't take anyone tonight, Rose. Please, I ask you not to. Let my thoughts be at rest tonight,” Peter pleaded.

“Shh. No talk about dirty business. I no want break spell of evening's happiness.”

“You're my lovely little lady, Rose. I love you so very much.”

“And I love you, Peter, much more than you think. I won't ever love anyone else. I know I won't, ever. You will come back to me the day you return to Singapore?”

“You know I will.”

Opening the drawer to her bedside table, Lai Ming took from it a pen and an unused white envelope with a ten cent red Malayan stamp already stuck to its top right hand corner. Her name and address was written in Chinese on the left-hand side of the envelope. “Peter, this my name and address,” she said. “Now you write my name and address in your writing.”

Questioningly, he took the envelope from her.

“When you get to where you go, you put inside picture postcard of place and post to me, OK. Then, I know you OK.”

“All right. That's a good idea,” said Peter, and placing the envelope on the dressing table, he carefully wrote in English Lai Ming's name and address on the right-hand side of the envelope. “How's that?” he said.

“It is good,” Lai Ming answered.

“I will post it as soon as I'm able. I may be able to send you a picture postcard of Fraser's Hill. It will be a memory.”

“Yes, a memory,” she said, holding back tears she knew must flow. A thought suddenly occurred to her. Supposing there were no postcards where he was going. “Peter,” she said. “If there are no postcards, send only the envelope. I shall understand, and I shall know you arrived safely. But you no forget send envelope.”

Folding the envelope, Peter slipped it into his pants back pocket. “I won't forget,” he said. “I shall post it as soon as I arrive at Fraser's Hill.” He looked into her sad, bewildered eyes. Or were they frightened eyes? He believed he understood her feelings. She wanted to hold on to him, and not let him go. Again he took her into his arms, feeling her warmth pressing against him and soft tresses of her hair sliding between his combing fingers. He did not want to leave her. Her soft cheeks were against his lips as he sincerely said, “You know, Rose, I shall always love you.”

Hugging Peter to her, Lai Ming lifted her face for a final farewell kiss. “We belong to each other, though it's a love that can never be,” she whispered. “A little Chinese woman and an English boy.” And she tearfully said, “Take care of yourself, Peter. Remember your mother's words. Yourself first, second and third. Always think of yourself, your own safety. And Peter, come back to me as soon as you can. I shall be waiting for you.”

“You're a darling. We should get married. Let's discuss it again when I return.”

“No, silly boy, remember, I am a mother and I'm too old for you. Let's not talk of marriage, but always you can be my lover.”

“OK. Have it your own way.”

She gave him a peck on the cheek. “The
amah
will get you a taxi as soon as she hears your footsteps on the stairs.”

“Thanks.”

“And don't forget to post the envelope as soon as you arrive at the camp. If no picture, OK. I want envelope. It says you OK.”

“I'll remember to post it.”

“Goodbye, Peter. Be careful. Look after yourself.”

He saw tears running freely from Lai Ming's eyes and rolling down wet cheeks, and he realized that he, too, was not taking the parting easily. He felt heavy at heart at leaving her, as well as a strange uneasiness. Damn the RAF for posting him back to Malaya, especially during his last few remaining months with her, he thought.

With a lump in his throat, he said, “Bye-bye, Rose. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Standing in her apartment doorway, Lai Ming tried to smile. “Goodbye, Peter,” she said, and now she was sobbing even more.

Peter turned from her. He did not like to see her cry. Feeling much sadness in his heart at parting from her, he slipped quietly down the stairway. And now, the other feeling that he had felt much of the day returned to him, a foreboding feeling of the forthcoming trip, a feeling of impending disaster. It lay hard upon his spirits as he let himself out of the house and walked the alleyway towards the road where a taxi had stopped, flagged down by the
amah.

“Thank you, Momma,” he said, as he passed the old
amah
in the alleyway.

“Good travels, Chicko,” she replied in Chinese.

He climbed into the taxi. This night he would lie in his own bed, but tomorrow? He could not answer that question. Anything could happen.

Part Four

23

Unperturbed by all that was happening around him, young Pilot Officer Anthony Graham carefully surveyed his immediate surroundings. Satisfying himself that he had found a suitable spot, he pulled out a putter from his golf bag that lay amid his other luggage—two new suitcases and an ancient-looking violin case containing an equally ancient violin which his grandfather had left him in his will. Taking a golf ball from his trouser pocket, he ambled over to a patch of scrubby grass growing alongside where the perforated steel plate runway ended and the concrete apron of the dispersal area began. There, using the heel of his shoe, he stamped an indentation into the soft wet soil, walked back four paces, dropped the ball to the ground, and putted it towards the hole he had made. The ball stopped within an inch of the hole. Tapping the ball into the hole, he casually retrieved it, and then practiced the shot a second time, this time scoring a hole in one. Smiling with satisfaction, he again retrieved the ball and retreated six paces. A Vampire fighter took off, its jet engine screaming as it flew low over his head, but Pilot Officer Graham did not look up; he was far too engrossed in putting the golf ball into that little hole he had created.

Between the budding golfer and the recently landed twin-engine Valletta, on the hot tarmac of RAF Kuala Lumpur in Malaya, waited Peter, Rick and the remaining arrivals from RAF Changi in Singapore. Some stood in small groups chatting and smoking cigarettes, whilst others sat on suitcases and kitbags, watching the young officer showing off his putting skill, and all appearing unconcerned about the journey ahead.

Suddenly, a three-tonne Bedford lorry appeared heading in their direction. Careering off the camp's main road, it bounced its way towards them in a cloud of dust along a dirt track, slowing only on reaching the tarmacked dispersal area, and finally stopping close to the groups of airmen waiting with their luggage alongside the stationary Valletta.

The cab's door flew open and out sprang the lorry driver, a senior aircraftman, about thirty years of age, freckled and with a mop of unruly red hair. The airman's blue beret was stuffed under an epaulette, the normally shiny brass RAF badge pinned to it blackened so that it would not glint in sunlight. Pulling a Sten gun from behind the seat of his cab, he casually clipped a full magazine into it and returned the weapon to behind his seat. He then turned to face the crowd of gathering airmen.

“OK chaps, all those for Fraser's Hill, chuck your gear aboard and jump on the lorry. Our first stop is the airmens' mess,” he shouted. Spotting Pilot Officer Graham swinging his golf club and about to putt another ball, he shouted, “And that means you, too, sir.”

At that moment, KL's grey-haired Movements NCO, Flight Sergeant Philpotts, arrived on the scene in a jeep driven by a military police corporal. Seeing the young officer wielding his golf club, Flight Sergeant Philpotts, who had flown as a rear-gunner aboard Sunderlands and bombers during World War II, was thinking, ‘What's this bloody RAF coming to?' Aloud, he said, “No time for golf now, sir.”

The young officer, twirling his golf putter as if he were a cheerleader twirling his baton, strutted towards the Movements flight sergeant, an ingratiating smile on his face.

“Good morning, Flight Sergeant. A lovely day, what!” he said, turning on the charm.

“Good morning, sir. Yes, it is a lovely day. But we've got to get moving.”

“Oh! Of course, Flight Sergeant,” the young officer beamed. “Just practicing a little, you know.” On seeing that his was the only luggage remaining on the tarmac, he said, “I say, Flight Sergeant, can someone help me with my luggage?”

“Your luggage, sir?”

“Yes. My luggage.”

“Well, it's not like Changi here, sir. There's no bearers at KL.”

“No bearers! I say, Flight Sergeant! That's frightfully inexcusable. What am I to do?” Looking across the airstrip the young officer espied two suntanned airmen clad only in khaki shorts busily working on the engine of a Beaufighter. Two other airmen, similarly clad, were standing on metal mesh beneath the wing, handing up tools when needed to the two aircraft mechanics. Confidently, he turned to the flight sergeant. “Those airmen over there, Flight, the two fiddling around underneath the wing. Could you detail one to help with my luggage?”

The flight sergeant looked over to where the young officer pointed, and on recognizing the two airmen working under the wing, said, “Them, sir! Them's mechanics. They can't go shiftin' peoples' gear around. They've got their own work cut out.”

“My luggage is awfully heavy, Flight Sergeant. That's mine over there. No one's bothered to put it on the lorry.”

The Movements flight sergeant, looking at the pile of luggage, couldn't help smiling to himself. “Sir, do you think it's wise to take golf clubs and a violin to Fraser's Hill?” he asked.

“And what's wrong with bringing my golf clubs and violin along, Flight Sergeant?”

“Well, sir, you are going up into the jungle. It's not exactly a pleasure trip.”

“I don't expect the actual trip to be too pleasant, Flight Sergeant, what with this damned heat and humidity. But the climate at the summit of Fraser's Hill should be delightful. It's quite cool and bracing there, so I've heard. More importantly, are you aware that Fraser's Hill boasts a spectacular golf course, built out of the jungle by the Sultan of Pahang? It's highly regarded in the golfing world and is definitely the largest and best golf course in Malaya. And since I'm to be the officer in charge of the radar unit at Fraser's Hill for the next six months or so, both my violin and my golf clubs will come in jolly handy.”

“Sir! I'm well aware of the golf course at Fraser's Hill, but do you know that much of the surrounding area is infested by Communist terrorists?”

“Oh, phooey to a few terrorists.”

“Well, sir, good luck to you. I hope you do manage to get in a few rounds of golf. But don't underestimate the terrorists. I'll get a couple of the lads leaving with you to put your gear aboard.”

“Good show! Thank you, Flight Sergeant. By the way, where's my transportation?”

“You'll be travelling to Fraser's Hill in this lorry, sir,” said the Flight Sergeant.

A sudden look of indignation appeared on the young pilot officer's face. “That lorry is to take me to Fraser's Hill?” he exclaimed.

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought there'd be at least a coach laid on for such a long journey.”