A Different Sky (27 page)

She turned as a young woman, screaming incomprehensibly, stepped suddenly out of the crowd thrusting a bloody parcel at her. Cynthia stared at the tiny feet protruding from the blood-soaked towel. Usually she could keep a professional distance from a patient's pain, but now she was flooded with horror and quickly looked away. The first weak light of day was growing in the open door of the Admissions Room; she had lost all track of time.

When Howard reached his local Air Raid Precaution station where they had been instructed to gather in an emergency, he was still convinced the raid was a practice. A couple of trucks were lined up outside the ARP station and a warden was issuing everyone with shovels and picks. Most of his group had already arrived and everyone appeared confused. Mr Barber, the group commander, drew up in his Austin car. Abdul, who lived in a nearby
kampong
had been first to arrive at the station, and greeted Howard excitedly.

‘Sky red over Chinatown and docks. Looks like real air raid, real fire,' he announced to a clamour of disbelief.

‘Cannot be,' said Wen Lit, the youngest of the group, a small, delicately boned youth with dark burning eyes.

‘It's the real thing,' Mr Barber confirmed, unusually flustered as he walked briskly up to them. He was a tall grey-haired Englishman with an insignificant chin and an army bearing who, Howard thought, resembled the newspaper pictures of Lieutenant General Percival, General Officer Commanding, Malaya.

‘I have our helmets at last, just in time for our baptism,' Mr Barber said, instructing several boys to bring in the boxes from the car.

As ARP auxiliaries they were supposed to have a uniform and a metal helmet with a badge, but supplies had run short. Mr Barber cut the string of the box and triumphantly pulled out a helmet. It did not resemble the helmets other ARP volunteers were wearing.

‘Sir, it is German helmet,' Abdul pointed out immediately.

Mr Barber blanched and spluttered and bent to the box in desperation.

‘Dear God, what have we been given?' he exploded.

‘Helmet is helmet, sir,' Abdul comforted.

‘Quite right Abdul,' Mr Barber replied, straightening up resignedly. ‘Wherever they're from, they may save our lives. We are needed in Chinatown at the double. Our transport is already outside.'

They were ten in the group, and wearing their new German helmets they filed out to climb into the open truck. Mr Barber swung himself up beside them and the vehicle moved forward. As they neared Chinatown a strong sulphurous odour blew about and street lights illuminated the extensive damage inflicted by the Japanese bombers. Fires blazed everywhere; the Auxiliary Fire Service was already at work. Howard's group was unloaded from the truck, to join other ARP groups from different parts of the city. They marched behind Mr Barber to the wet rubble of a bombed house and were ordered to search for bodies. The AFS had just put out a nearby fire that had raged after the bombing, and moved on. Water and black ash swilled about their feet; a charred odour engulfed them. Gutted houses steamed and dripped from the AFS dousing, a distance away flames still leapt about. A great swathe of the road had collapsed and through the gap Howard could see the houses in the street beyond.

‘Use those picks; use those shovels. Quickly now, there are people under this mess,' a senior ARP warden urged briskly as they began searching for casualties or signs of life. Soon, Howard's mouth was full of gritty dust and he was sweating profusely in the hot night. When he had first joined Air Raid Precaution it seemed to demand only some walking about checking that glass windows were taped, and that all premises had an adequate brownout.

He knew he would never forget the first bodies they found; he turned away to vomit. Sometimes all they unearthed were bits and pieces – a torso, a hand, some arms, three legs; limbs had to be matched to corpses and piled up beside them. The body of a young woman was found intact but without her feet.

‘Her feet, you must find her feet,' sobbed an old woman who had been hovering nearby, the mother or grandmother of the dead girl. Howard began to feel faint; he had lost count of time, they seemed to have been working non-stop for hours. His head sweated beneath the helmet but he dared not take it off. The noxious odour of the blast still hung heavily everywhere, and the stink from smashed honey buckets in the bombed buildings was overpowering. Behind Howard a woman was screaming ‘My baby, my baby!' over and over again.

‘Why must we find her feet?' Howard asked Wen Lit savagely. The boy dug stoically beside him; the pick seemed almost as big as himself and the helmet nearly covered his eyes, the strap swinging loosely under his chin.

‘She cannot be buried without her feet. She must go whole into the next life. If we cannot find her feet they will have to get some wax ones made for her,' Wen Lit told him between breaths, shovelling diligently.

At last, day broke and the sun blazed down upon the smashed road, revealing the destruction in all its grotesque detail. Howard was exhausted. His head ached and his knees were shaking.

‘We need a break,' Mr Barber said at last, coming up and putting a hand on his shoulder.

He led the way to a canteen set up in a truck near the bomb site. Howard took a mug of hot sweet tea and sat with Wen Lit and Abdul on the remains of a crumbling wall. Soon Mr Barber joined them, his face puffy and smeared with dust. Across the road bodies were laid out beside the neat piles of dismembered limbs. Already, the heat and
humidity were rising; the stench of death had come to overwhelm every other smell. A constant stream of people trying to find missing relatives bent to examine the corpses and stray limbs. A Red Cross van finally arrived to carry bodies away to a morgue. Mr Barber drank his tea in silence beside Howard. No one had an appetite for the buns that were offered in the canteen, but Abdul walked over to get some more tea. Within a moment he returned, hurrying towards them in excitement.

‘Hong Kong also bombed by Japanese last night, just before Singapore. And a place from where they are getting pearls in America was also bombed. All American ships there were sunk. Because of this America is also now joining the war. News is on the radio just now,' Abdul announced. Mr Barber stood up in shock.

‘You must mean Pearl Harbor, the American naval base in Hawaii! Is their fleet wiped out?' He strode off towards the canteen where everyone was grouped about a radio connected to a generator.

‘Whole world is now at war.' Abdul smiled happily.

R
OSE SAT AS ALWAYS
on the chintz sofa in the alcove off the dining room, a large mixing bowl resting on her lap. Christmas was no more than a week away and the cake was not yet ready. She prided herself on her preparedness with regard to the festive season; the cake was always baked and regularly doused with alcohol for weeks before the great day. Beyond the roofed patio of the dining room rain emptied down, splashing from the guttering on to the shrubbery. The cook, Ah Fong, hovered disapprovingly near the sofa, a pained expression on his thin face. As Rose drove the wooden spoon through the sticky mix of Christmas cake, his mouth tightened. He was affronted, as he was each year, that he was not left to his own devices with the Christmas cooking. The recent bombing had upset everyone's routine and Rose was so late with the cake it would have no time to mature but must be eaten immediately, although the puddings had been made in September. Yet, whatever the dastardly things happening about her, Rose was determined not to be done out of Christmas. Everyone felt the same. Newspapers were full of the need to ignore the Japanese and concentrate on positive things.

Japan's posturing belligerence was brushed aside in Singapore, although their army had occupied Indo-China, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. The Japanese were establishing bases in the Pacific like a man securing stepping stones over a river, but no one saw cause for immediate worry. The distant rumble of fighting on the peninsula disturbed life in the way a ripple disturbs a still pond. The European community continued to follow their usual hedonistic routine, daring the bombs to fall.
The Malaya Tribune
had announced in bold headlines after the first air raid,
SINGAPORE TAKES IT – WITH A GRIN
, thumbing their nose at the enemy. The management of Raffles Hotel had perfected a blackout technique and the dance band played on. Strawberries, fresh roses and rock oysters were flown in as usual from far and near.
Although a victim of the first air raid, Robinsons department store moved its coffee shop to the basement and was as ever filled to capacity with smart European women. Tennis continued to be played at the Tanglin Club, and cricket on the Padang. Unlimited hard liquor was freely available. The only news received by everyone with a painful jolt on 10 December was that the battleships
Repulse
and
Prince of Wales
, so recently on view at the naval base, had – unbelievably – been sunk.

On hearing the announcement Rose had sat transfixed, the blood running cold in her veins. She remembered the vulnerability of Ordnance Seaman Jefferies's knees, and his toothy smile. She remembered the High-Angle Plotting Table and wondered why it had not served its purpose on that great, unsinkable ship. Where was the picture of the King, nailed so firmly to the wall? Had the clamps on the cooking pots held them in place as the ship turned upside down? Now, as she stirred the Christmas cake mix, she imagined the great vessel lying at the bottom of the ocean like a wrecked cathedral, and her throat constricted with emotion.

A ring of the doorbell brought Rose back to herself. Outside, rain sluiced off the eves and foliage; the deluge had not let up all day. The monsoon seemed heavier than usual. Pillows and mattresses oozed a fusty smell, and in Belvedere the servants were forever putting things out to air the moment they saw the sun. Rose handed the Christmas cake to Ah Fong as she listened to Hamzah shuffling forward in response to the bell. A woman's voice was heard and soon Hamzah reappeared with a middle-aged matron, a hat of purple gauze limp from the rain, slightly askew on her head. With a start Rose recognised her cousin Mavis from Penang. Mavis gave a cry at the sight of Rose and stumbled towards her. It must be ten years since we last met, Rose thought. Mavis had always been proud of her willowy frame but now she swelled generously, an ample bosom resting on her waist. With a sob Mavis threw herself upon Rose, tears spilling down her face.

‘Penang has fallen to the Japanese. They're thick on the ground in George Town and doing terrible things. I could not think of anyone but you. There is fighting everywhere and Singapore is the only place left to come to,' Cousin Mavis wailed. ‘British troops have not held a single town on the peninsula. When they knew the Japanese were coming every European man, woman and child cleared out of Penang overnight and left us to our fate.' Mavis's blue flowered dress was
stained and crumpled; a feral odour escaped her as if she had not had a bath for days. Rose, in shock, steered her to the chintz sofa where, still sobbing, Mavis continued with her story.

‘There was a stampede to leave when we discovered what was happening. But only Europeans were allowed on the launches, and we locals were turned away. A kind English couple got me on to a train full of wounded soldiers along with the European women and children.'

It was difficult to fully comprehend Mavis's garbled talk. Even as a child, Rose remembered, Mavis had been a drama queen. Obviously, she had suffered a terrible trauma and Rose indicated to Ah Fong, who was still standing with the bowl of Christmas cake cupped under one arm and following events with interest, to return to the kitchen and bring some fresh tea. Hamzah reappeared from the direction of the front door, carrying a battered leather suitcase and a dented hatbox. Mavis drew a shuddering breath and continued with her story.

‘The Japanese are coming down the peninsula on bicycles and in tanks; nothing can stop them,' Mavis said. Taking a cup of tea from Ah Fong, she put in four lumps of sugar, picking the cubes up with her fingers and ignoring the silver tongs, much to Rose's disapproval. Lifting off her hat, she placed it carefully on the sofa beside her, revealing short hair plastered damply to her head. She had been sitting tensely on the edge of the sofa, but now she settled her bulk more comfortably. The buttons of her dress strained over mountainous breasts as she turned to assess Belvedere's cavernous interior.

‘You have a big place here, very comfortable, much bigger than I remember when I visited last.' Mavis looked about, her eyes taking in every detail.

Over the years, Rose observed, Mavis had swelled but changed little; there were the same round cheeks and vacant gaze, and the shadow on her upper lip was now a bristly grey. Mavis had married Raymond Dias, a senior clerk in a British paper mill, and had moved from Malacca to Penang before Rose met Charlie Burns. There had been two children, a girl who married well and went to live in England, and a boy who was killed in a traffic accident. Raymond had died of a lingering disease when the children were in their teens. Since then, Mavis had supplemented his frugal pension by working as a stenographer in a bank.

‘You need a bath and a rest,' Rose comforted her, knowing room
must be found in Belvedere. This would not be difficult; the house had emptied at a steady rate with young men returning to fight for England after war began in Europe.

Rose came down the stairs from settling Cousin Mavis to see Arthur Boffort and his wife Valerie struggling into Belvedere with brown paper packages and Cold Storage bags. They were almost the only lodgers left.

‘Here we are, Mrs B – a bit of Christmas cheer,' Boffort puffed, placing before her a bottle of wine wrapped up in coloured paper.

‘They have extra rations available at Cold Storage. Many people are taking the precaution of stocking up. What about you, Mrs B, have you stocked up?' Valerie's voice was full of suppressed anxiety. She was a slight woman with flyaway hair and round grey eyes; her collarbones protruded to such a degree they appeared to be deformed.