The Empire Trilogy (192 page)

On this Tuesday, while Walter was smashing whisky bottles four or five miles away, General Percival at Sime Road was doggedly trying to get a clear picture of where the leaks had sprung in his line of defence. This was not easy. The heavy shelling of the north shore had to a great extent destroyed telephone wires; wireless reports, when they came in at all, were confusing. In the course of the morning a flying-boat dropped out of the cloud-covered sky and landed in the harbour, bringing General Wavell, the Supreme Commander, from Java. Percival, therefore, now found himself having to deal with the tricky job of reorganizing his defences with the gloomy glass eye of his Supreme Commander fixed on him. Together they drove to Gordon Bennett's new HQ on Ulu Pandan Road, just off Holland Road to the south of Bukit Timah village. Wavell's lined and rugged face grew increasingly sombre as Percival passed on what he knew of the night's events. The deep furrows which ran from his nose to the corner of his mouth grew deeper, his brow puckered, and his good right eye seemed to recede further into his skull. His lips were slightly parted as if he were on the point of making some bitter remark about the competence of Malaya Command and of Percival himself. He remained silent, however.

Nor did he brighten up at the sight of Gordon Bennett whose optimistic and aggressive spirit had cheered him earlier in the campaign on the mainland. Indeed, his gloom deepened as Bennett began to explain that he had little information about developments in his area. Bennett himself was much subdued. How had the Japanese broken through the Australian troops with such comparative ease? This had come as a great shock to him. He could still hardly believe it. Consequently there was little sign of his normal ebullience as the three generals began to survey the situation.

But hardly had they begun their discussion when anti-aircraft guns started up all around them like waking guard-dogs. Within a few moments the whistling of bombs could be heard. ‘Take cover!' yelled someone outside and each of the generals dived under the nearest table. Instantly the room erupted in a blizzard of flying glass and plaster. The foundations of the house quaked as more bombs fell all around. As he crouched under the table Percival noticed something bright and gleaming roll towards him. For a moment he thought: ‘My God! It's Wavell's glass eye!' but on closer inspection it turned out to be only a fugitive from a box of child's marbles left in a corner!

When the three men stood up and dusted themselves off it was discovered that none of them had been hurt. Moreover, although one corner of the building had been demolished by a bomb (which fortunately had failed to explode) and both Percival's and Wavell's cars had been wrecked, there had been no casualities at the HQ itself. This seemed a miracle. The generals shook the plaster and broken glass off the map they had been studying and resumed their conference. ‘Really,' declared Wavell presently, ‘these constant withdrawals won't do, you know. You must attack, you must attack.

Percival and Bennett nodded thoughtfully, but what was in their minds as they stood there, all three of them, in this suddenly shattered room, as if in a tiny vessel tossed here and there in a mounting sea of confusion?

More cars were found. Wavell, determined to find out what was happening in the Causeway area, had decided to go forward to see General Heath at 11th Division. Just as they were leaving the Australian headquarters Percival was dismayed to see a group of Indian troops in filthy uniforms shambling along the road, rifles held any old way and not even properly formed up into column of route. He could not help glancing at Wavell: that merciless glass eye betrayed no emotion but Percival guessed what must be in his mind. How dreadful! Undisciplined men shambling about under their GOC's nose, that is the sort of thing that can have a bad effect on a fellow's chances if the rumour of it gets back to the Powers That Be. Of course, compared with everything else that had gone wrong this was a minor matter. The trouble was that this column of Indians was not alone by any means. Behind them, like a wound filling up with pus, Singapore Town was harbouring an increasing number of stragglers and deserters; in particular, it was reported that deserters from the untrained Australian reinforcements at the General Base Depot were running wild.

Exhausted though he was, Percival maintained a stoical determination to do his best with whatever opportunities the military situation offered. He was determined to show no sign of defeatism in front of Wavell. It was, however, only when they reached General Heath's headquarters that the really heavy blows began to fall. From Heath they learned that the 27th Australian Brigade under Brigadier Maxwell had withdrawn during the night. Maxwell? Was he not that same militia officer, a doctor by profession, whom Bennett had promoted as his protégé to the command of the 27th Brigade despite his lack of experience and seniority? This withdrawal had left a crucial gap between the Causeway and the Kranji River: this meant in turn that the most important road on the Island (that which began at the Causeway and headed south for Singapore Town by way of Bukit Timah village) lay open for the Japanese to push southwards
behind
the Jurong line which Percival had been hoping to hold. This was simply disastrous. Why had Maxwell withdrawn from his crucial position? He asserted that Gordon Bennett had authorized the move. The result, in any case, was that Percival now found his entire defensive edifice crumbling. He promptly ordered Maxwell to counter-attack to recover Mandai village and reoccupy his former position. He also ordered three battalions of the 18th Division to come under Bennett's command on the Bukit Timah Road, concentrating them at the racecourse to act as badly needed reserve. But these, as Percival well knew, were desperate measures.

It was half past two in the afternoon before Wavell and Percival returned to Gordon Bennett's headquarters. Here Bennett denied having authorized Maxwell's withdrawal during the night. In any event, there was worse to come. Brigadier Taylor's 22nd Australian Brigade, already shattered in the fighting which had taken place during the night, had been obliged to fall back to the Jurong line. Now, while Percival and Wavell had been visiting other units, news had reached Bennett that in the meantime Taylor had received the secret contingency plans for the last-resort perimeter round the city itself, including details of the sector south of the Bukit Timah Road which had been allotted to his brigade. Taylor had interpreted these plans as an order to fall back to this position. Accordingly, the last defensible position before Singapore Town, failing a successful counter-attack, had been abandoned without having been seriously put to the test by the Japanese. Given the confusion which now reigned behind the British lines, however, the units out of touch with their headquarters, the traffic jams, the communications difficulties and the hazards of organizing resistance with heterogeneous forces in territory that was unfamiliar to them, there seemed little prospect that a counter-attack would succeed.

By the time they had returned to Command Headquarters it was four o'clock in the afternoon. Now Percival was met by a worried Brigadier Torrance: a report had come in that the Japanese were approaching Bukit Timah village. Apart from its alarming general implications this news also indicated that the large reserve petrol depot to the east of the village was in danger of being captured. Percival ordered its immediate destruction and by six o'clock it had been set on fire. Wavell, meanwhile, had himself driven to Government House to see Sir Shenton Thomas. He was tired himself after the long day of visits and conferences. What must it be like for Percival and the others who had had no respite for days or weeks? Passing through the gates of Government House his eyes happened on a great basket of orchids decked with bright ribbons lying on the grass a few yards inside the railings. They had evidently been hurled over by some well-wisher too shy to present them. Most likely a sign, he mused, that the British were still popular among the native population in spite of their military reverses. He sighed as the car came to a stop and the door was opened for him. He must make a point of persuading Lady Thomas, who was sick, to return with him to Java in the Catalina.

At nine that evening, before leaving Singapore, Wavell went to Flagstaff House to say goodbye to Percival. The day, which had begun with at least some cards still held by the defenders, had ended with the defence a shambles. Nevertheless, before leaving, he had Ian Graham, one of his ADCs, type out a final exhortation for Percival to pass on to his troops; this was inspired by a signal he had received earlier in the day from Churchill comparing the British resistance unfavourably to that of the Russians and the Americans elsewhere and instructing the British troops to fight to the bitter end. Then, having ordered the last remaining squadron of Hurricanes to be evacuated from the Island, he shook hands with Percival and set off through the dark streets to the waterfront in the second of two cars, accompanied by Count Mackay, a member of his Java staff, and by Air Vice-Marshal Pulford. On the way they heard occasional shots. Looters, sensing the imminent collapse of the city, were already beginning the sack of shops and stores in the less frequented areas.

The Catalina was moored in the middle of the harbour. The car stopped beside the sea wall in the darkness and Pulford got out to look for a motor-boat to take Wavell and his party out to it. He was gone such a long time that Wavell, in frustration, suddenly opened the door on his left-hand side, the side of that blank, glass eye which throughout the long day had been picking up reflections of the British collapse. He sprang out… but the car had parked so close to the sea wall that there was no ground left on this side of the car. He fell several feet in the darkness on to some rocks. He lay quietly where he had fallen for a little while, breathless with the shock and pain, thinking: ‘Singapore is done for,' until presently he managed to shout and his ADCs, groping anxiously, located him and carried him to the motor-boat. He was laid in the bottom of the boat and presently they forged out on to the black waters, lit here and there by the fires burning on the shore all around. When they at last reached the flying-boat it was found impossible to lift Wavell into it without unshipping the machine-gun which had been mounted at the door. The Dutch crew of the flying-boat, unfamiliar with the mounting, set to work on it as best they could. At last they succeeded in removing it and Wavell was hoisted up from the swaying boat. But even when Wavell was safely aboard and had been given whisky and aspirins to dull the pain he was suffering and the sacks of government documents which Sir Shenton Thomas had entrusted to him to take to safety had been stowed beside him, the flying-boat still could not take off. The pilot reported that such was the number of small craft trying to escape from Singapore under cover of darkness he was unable to find a long enough stretch of clear water. It was not until it at last began to grow light that they eventually managed to take off for Batavia, leaving the chaos and destruction of Singapore as nothing but a tiny smudge on the horizon, insignificant compared with the vast, shining sea beneath them.

Matthew had returned from fire-fighting to find a note from Vera saying that she had gone to Bukit Timah village to look for a friend who might be willing to hide her from the Japanese. Matthew clasped his brow in horror when he read this. Had she gone mad? Did she not realize that she was going to what must be the most dangerous part of the Island? Neither Matthew himself, nor anyone else he met, had any clear idea of where the front line might be, but it seemed likely from the noise of the guns that the Japanese were already advancing towards Bukit Timah. He hoped that there would be road-blocks to prevent her going forward, as seemed likely. But after some minutes spent pacing about, uncertain what to do, he decided to go and look for her himself. Even though he knew that his chances of finding her in the darkness and confusion were slim, at least this would give him something to do. And so, in due course, he set out on Turner's motor-cycle.

Matthew had only ridden a motor-cycle once or twice before and felt by no means confident that he could control this one, particularly on a pitch dark night with a masked headlight and the prospect of bomb-craters in the roads. But after five minutes practice in the compound under Turner's tutelage, wandering a couple of times round the tennis court and through the flowerbeds in the darkness, he gripped the knob of the hand gear-lever on the petrol tank and prepared to release the clutch. The machine pounced into the road like a tiger.

In a flash he was careering up Stevens Road through the warm tropical darkness in the direction of the Bukit Timah Road. As he charged onwards his searching foot kept finding an outcrop of metal which ought to be the brake … yet when he trod on it he only seemed to go faster, and the more alarmed he became, the faster he went, not realizing that in his excitement he was involuntarily twisting the throttle with his right hand. Dark objects loomed and vanished on either side with horrifying speed. On he sped, foot still searching for the brake-pedal. At the junction with Dalvey Road he at last realized that his frenzied grip of the throttle was what was causing the machine to bolt with him. He relaxed it and managed to slow down a little, and not a moment too soon, for here there was a roadblock. A masked flashlight waved to him to stop. He drew near, his foot searching more desperately than ever for the brake as he wobbled towards it.

‘I can't stop!' he shouted at the dim figures standing in the road ahead. In his excitement he again forgot not to twist the hand-grip; again he found himself hurled forward. The figures scattered to right and left.

‘Silly bugger!' one of them shouted furiously after him as he shot by. But already he was at the corner of the Bukit Timah Road. Then, just as he was certain that he must hurtle to his doom in the stream of traffic ahead, his foot alighted on another outcrop of metal which this time proved to be the brake. By a miracle he avoided ramming a lorry that loomed across the end of Stevens Road.