The Empire Trilogy (188 page)

Abruptly, after an age of being jostled back and forth in the densest part of the crowd, as if by a miracle Vera and Matthew found themselves within reach of the nearest desk and, lunging forward, Matthew managed to slap down Vera's ticket. The official picked it up, looked at it and handed it back with a shake of his head. ‘Alphabetical order, sir. Sorry. We aren't ready for this lot yet.'

‘But the ship is leaving in five minutes!'

‘I can't help that. Next please.'

Matthew had released his hold on Vera in order to deal with the man at the desk. Looking round, he saw that she had been caught in a cross-current of shoving passengers and thrown back. But this man behind the desk! Matthew reached out to take the official by the throat, but the people behind who had been shouting abuse at him for wasting time now seized his clothes and dragged him out of the way. As he struggled to reach Vera, something darted between his legs and away towards the gang-plank. It was an elderly King Charles spaniel. One of the officials tried to grab it as it passed but it swerved and eluded him; head down it battled its way up the gang-plank, darted past a surprised seaman and, plunging on to the crowded deck, vanished from sight just as the order was being given to raise the gang-plank (thereafter, some instinct directed The Human Condition unerringly towards the bridge where the captain, though worried by Japanese bombers and the anxious hours that lay ahead, at that moment happened to be contemplating with regret and longing his own little dog which, by a fortunate coincidence, had died, smothered in comfort, only a few days earlier).

Again a searchlight was switched on and swept hastily over the crowded quays, hesitating for a moment on a great net cradle containing a large motor-car that was being winched aboard. Matthew stared in disbelief: surely it was the Bentley which Monty had been driving! But how had it managed to get to the quayside? There was no sign of Monty. Perhaps he was lying on the floor. There were Da Sousa Sisters perched everywhere, however. A French sailor, looking handsome, clung on to a rope with one foot on the Bentley's running-board and with the scarlet claws of one of the Da Sousa Sisters round his neck. Suddenly, like song-birds struck by a beam of sunlight, the Da Sousa Sisters put their marcelled heads together and trilled:

Matelot, hulloa, hulloa!
In silk and satin and boa
We are the girlies from Goa!

The searchlight was switched out. Blackness and a sudden silence descended. The next moment a roar of outrage erupted from the disappointed passengers on the quayside. The gangplank was beginning to go up.

Again the crowd pressed forward, pinning Matthew's arms to his sides and squeezing the air out of his lungs. He at last managed to free an arm and reach out towards Vera…but as he did so, he saw the back of her reddish-black head vanish beneath the thrusting mob. In a rage he shoved his way through the crowd to where he had seen her go down, shouting at people to stand back from her. But nobody seemed to hear. As he groped for her on the ground his hand closed over a piece of wood and he picked it up, flailing about with it until he had driven everyone back from where she lay on the paved quay. He picked her up then and barged his way back towards the gates, still hitting about him with the piece of wood. Blood from her face began to trickle down his back. To the north the thud of guns continued. The Japanese assault on the island was only a few minutes away.

On his way home from the docks the Major, having given up the attempt to find Matthew and Vera in the crowd, had called in to see a friend at the Rescue Control Room in the Municipal Offices; together they had gone up to watch the bombardment from the flat roof of the building where a number of other people had already gathered. The flashes of the British guns, the noise, the restless glimmer of the Japanese batteries to the north, all combined to bring back memories of his younger days which he would have preferred to forget. After a few minutes he said goodbye to his friend and returned to the Mayfair. In the early hours of the morning Matthew and Vera returned, shocked and exhausted by their ordeal. Vera, though cut and bruised, was not badly hurt. The Major was sorry but he was not particularly surprised when he heard of the crowds left on the quayside.

Despite the lateness of the hour a sympathetic audience had assembled to hear what had happened at the docks. Everyone had found it hard to sleep, perhaps because there was a feeling in the air that a crisis was at hand. The terrific Japanese barrage from Johore suggested that it would not be long before they attempted to land on the Island. Earlier, in response to a rumour that all the alcohol in Singapore was soon to be destroyed lest Japanese troops, in the event of a successful landing, should go on the rampage among the civilian population, a party led by Dupigny and Mr Wu had slipped over to the Blacketts' house and returned with several cases of wine from Walter's cellar. Since there were not enough glasses to go round a separate bottle had been uncorked for everyone. Soon a party was getting under way.

Gradually, thanks to Walter's fine claret, a mood of elation came to replace the sombre atmosphere which had prevailed. Festive sounds also issued from the board-room where the girls from the Poh Leung Kuk, under orders from the Major to accelerate the process of selecting bridegrooms, appeared to be having an all-night sitting. They had asked the Major if they could borrow his gramophone. He had responded dubiously to their request, wanting to know why they should need a gramophone for such a purpose? They had looked so disappointed and abashed, they had blinked their long eyelashes so submissively (and, after all, they had behaved themselves jolly well when you consider the uncomfortable conditions they had had to put up with) that the Major had found himself yielding in spite of himself. So, not without misgivings, he had handed over the gramophone, the only two records which remained unbroken and a box of needles with strict instructions that they were to change the needle
every
time before playing a record and not to wind the instrument too hard or they would break the spring. ‘And I want to see every single one of you with a husband by tomorrow at the latest,' he had added sternly. ‘This choosing business has gone on long enough. If you don't make up your minds I shall ask Captain Brown to do it for you.'

As a matter of fact, the Major had expected to find the bungalow quiet by the time he returned from the docks, but evidently the girls, in order to hammer out their final decisions, had found it necessary to retain their prospective bridegrooms even after the curfew. Now from behind the closed door of the board-room came the sound of laughter in the silence which followed Noel Coward singing ‘London Pride'. The Major tried to estimate whether there was enough time for them to have changed the needle before the other record began.

The moon that lingered over London Town,
Poor puzzled moon, He wore a frown …

The Major, too, wore a frown. He took a swig from the bottle of Château Ducru Beaucaillou he was holding, hoping that nothing untoward was happening in the board-room. He really should have insisted on the bridegrooms leaving before the curfew: he could hardly expect them to leave now. Perhaps he would turn them out at five o'clock.

How could he know we two were so in love,
The whole darn world was upside down?
And as we kissed and said goodnight
A nightingale sang in Berkley Square …

Soon, the Major did not doubt, it would again be the turn of Noel Coward.

Presently, Cheong, who was also finding it difficult to sleep, joined the circle and he, too was given a bottle of claret. Cheong's status had undergone a remarkable change in the past few weeks. He was no longer to be considered a servant. On the contrary, he had now become a figure of considerable authority, organizing meals on a large scale and allotting space to transients who needed shelter both inside and underneath the bungalow. The Major depended on him heavily. On his own initiative he dealt with a variety of matters which, but for him, would most likely not have been dealt with at all. Had the Major not come across him burying someone quietly in the compound? To bury someone between breakfast and tiffin was nothing these days to Cheong. Sometimes the Major could not help wondering, such was the man's initiative, whether Cheong might not secretly be a graduate of the University of the Toilers of the East. Not that it mattered, of course.

Under the influence of the wine the conversation grew animated. Matthew, still full of bitterness after his experience at the docks and quite unable to put it out of his mind for more than a moment, began to discourse volubly in an anguished tone on the kind of society which must follow this one. It was the injustice which he saw all around him that maddened him! Why should privilege and self-interest rule in everything instead of justice and reason? There was no need for it. A society
based
on justice would get the best out of its members by appealing to their better instead of their worse natures! Dupigny shook his head sadly but did not bother to explain that this view of human psychology was hopelessly ingenuous; he could see that Matthew was upset. But, in due course, when Matthew had turned, as he often did when in a state of nervous excitement, to Geneva in order to make extravagent claims for those such as Emperor Haile Selassie and himself who had foreseen years ago that the devious, unprincipled behaviour of the Big Powers would end in wholesale carnage, Dupigny, pausing only to gargle blissfully with a mouthful of Haut-Brion, could not resist challenging him. ‘I can't believe, even with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia to inspire him, that Haile Selassie could foresee in 1936 the troubles that we now are facing … unless at his court he had a fortune-teller with the crystal ball.'

‘Aha!' cried Matthew. ‘And yet, François, in 1936 he said: “Do the peoples of the world not yet realize that by fighting on until the bitter end I am not only performing my sacred duty to my people
but standing guard in the last citadel of collective security.
I must hold on until my tardy allies appear. And if they never come then I say prophetically and without bitterness, the West must perish.' ”

But Cheong, and perhaps Mr Wu too, had had difficulty in following the Emperor's words and now he was looking enquiringly at the Major. Apologizing for the poor quality of his pidgin, which contained odds and ends picked up here and there on his pre-war Eastern travels, the Major interpreted as best he could. ‘Empelor talkee this fashion … My fightee long time but world people no wantchee savee. My makee number one pidgin my people, same time makee all-piecee nation pidgin. Empelor talkee: Whobody come? My must stop look-see fliend no come by and by. Spose fliend no come, Blitain, Flance, Melika, all catchee too-metchee bobbery! All catchee die, chop-chop! … Er, I'm afraid that's about the best I can do,' and the Major sank back, puffing his pipe.

‘It's always the same, François. Your Foreign Office and mine, instead of making a principled stand on the Covenant of the League of Nations, always preferred some private horse-trading behind the scenes.' Matthew tipped up his bottle and indignantly swallowed half a pint of Laffitte: almost immediately he suffered the odd delusion that he was a lighthouse and that his indignation was a small boat rowing steadily away from him. The thought of Lord Halifax, however, caused it to row back a little way.

With the Major desperately trying to keep up with him in pidgin he described what it had been like in Geneva when Haile Selassie had come with the Ethiopian delegation to protest about the Italian annexation and to demand that the Council of the League should not recognize it. On that occasion Halifax had risen to make what was surely the most grossly hypocritical speech in the history of international affairs: this, too, but involuntarily, Matthew knew by heart, simply because he had been unable to forget it.

‘Halifax said: “Here two ideals are in conflict: on the one hand the ideal of devotion, unflinching but unpractical, to some high purpose; on the other, the ideal of some practical victories for peace … I cannot doubt that the strongest claim is that of peace … Each of us knows by painful experience how consistently it is necessary to recognize that which may be ideally right and what is practically possible …” And so on. If the League was not prepared to use force then it should submit to the “reality” of the Italian conquest in the interests of peace. Is that not outrageous, François?'

‘Lord Halifax talkee this fashion,' explained the Major, struggling to find some way of abbreviating Matthew's harangue. ‘ “League of Nations idea blong plenty proper, plenty fine maybe, but League idea all-same plenty fine motor-car buggerup, motor-car no walkee. League of Nations no sendee soldier-man, no can do. Blitish Government idea yes can do.”' (‘Oh dear, I'm afraid that was a bit complicated,' apologized the Major.)

‘Ah so,' nodded Cheong thoughtfully. ‘League Nation idea no walkee … Howfashion Lord Ha Lee Fax no wantchee League idea?
Maskee,
*
this blong all-same fool pidgin!' And with a shrug of disgust he, too, took a long pull at his bottle of Margaux (making a face, he preferred rice wine).

‘The Emperor replied to Halifax: “The suggestion of Great Britain is to favour general appeasement by the sacrifice of a people. This is contrary to the ideals of the Covenant and those ideals so constantly proclaimed by Great Britain and France,” and he ended, “It is sheer hypocrisy to attempt to strangle a people by procedure!” '

‘Empelor plenty angry,' summarized the Major. ‘Empelor talkee: “You buggerupim League of Nations!”'

Cheong nodded gravely. He had assumed that such would have been the Emperor's reaction, for what other complexion could be put on Lord Ha Lee Fax's preference for ‘realism', the gospel of the corrupt, entrepreneurial diplomats of the West, over principle? What could be expected, in any case, Cheong wondered, of such strong-smelling diplomats? He had more than once, in his previous employment in Shanghai, had occasion to take the coat of a second or third secretary from one Legation or another and he knew what he was talking about. When the new China arose, as he did not doubt that it would, a new type of diplomat, odourless and strong-principled, would strut the world's stage. Then at last things would be different.