A Different Sky (30 page)

Later, Mei Lan helped her grandfather back into the house for dinner. The great round table was a relic from Lim Villa and days of previous glory when a dozen people had been easily accommodated around it. Bertie hurried in as they sat down, and Lim Hock An frowned at him. Although now adolescent, Bertie was still treated by everyone like a small child and ate excessively to fill those parts of him everyone knew were missing; as a consequence his girth was excessive. Second Grandmother spent much time crooning to him and rubbing his stomach with herbal balm to lessen his dyspepsia. He was an affectionate child, easily returning to Second Grandmother emotions she said made her life worthwhile.

JJ was late as always and when he appeared Lim Hock An said nothing, resigned to seeing the ways of his dilettante son repeated in his grandson. Ah Siew was helping to serve fish soup with noodles when at last he arrived, entering the room with his lazy smile, a tennis racquet in one hand and exuding the pungent masculine odour of sweat. Apologetically, he rushed upstairs to bathe and change. Lim Hock An did not raise his head, concentrating on the noodles as a sign of his disapproval. Nowadays, it needed continual focus to get the slippery strands successfully to his mouth. The ivory chopsticks and the small porcelain spoon knocked against the bowl in his trembling hands. Soon, JJ reappeared smelling of pomade and cologne. Lim Hock An observed him dispassionately; when he had been JJ's age he had been working as a coolie in a tin mine. He drew up the last of his noodles, his eyes on his grandson.

‘Tan Kah Kee is talking to the Governor about forming a Chinese volunteer force to fight beside the British. I've told him you will join,' Lim Hock An announced. JJ looked up in alarm.

‘It's going to be nothing but a group of ruffians. They're releasing communists from jail on condition they join the force.' JJ reported the rumours he had heard, resting his chopsticks on the rim of his bowl and clenching his jaw in anger. Rubbing shoulders with communists, students and rickshaw men, and whoever else might join these motley troops, was not his idea of a war.

‘People like us must set an example,' Lim Hock An answered with something of his old authority, drawing himself up in his chair.

The lights were on in the room and although they heard the siren wail, no one bothered to seek shelter except Bertie. With a terrified scream he dived under the table where, with nervous giggles, he began running his fingers up everyone's legs.

‘Hide and seek!' he cried out. Lim Hock An kicked out at him viciously. Mei Lan left her chair to crouch down beside Bertie in an effort to calm him, and soon Second Grandmother, with the help of a slave girl, knelt down stiffly to join her.

No one saw the rain of silver sticks that were scattered like tinsel over Lim Villa, blowing up that great mansion with a resounding explosion. The blast shook the heavy table and blew the windows out of Bougainvillaea House. JJ dived forward to shield his grandfather, but Lim Hock An was already covered with dust and bleeding from a cut on the head. Lumps of plaster and shards of glass littered the table before him. Although unhurt, JJ was trembling even more than his grandfather and his teeth began to chatter. Mei Lan climbed out from under the table followed by Bertie and Second Grandmother, who moaned in terror at the sight of her husband. Lim Hock An gave a grunt and shook himself free of debris as a dog shakes off a dousing of water.

‘I am not yet dead,' he roared angrily.

As the bombardment increased, the pressure for men to enlist in the army intensified. Advertisements were everywhere for last-minute local volunteers to help defend the city:
Your Country Needs You
. After tossing and turning throughout the night, Howard decided on an early morning at the end of January to volunteer. Once the decision was made, a boundary seemed to have been crossed and he could not turn back. He had said nothing to his mother. Unlike everyone else in the queue at the registration centre, his reasons for enlisting were not patriotic. He was signing up to do something illogical but courageous; he wanted to throw his life away and he did not know why he felt this.

All he knew was that his life seemed like a never-ending tunnel from which he sought to burst free. Each day the same small details were depressingly repeated: the incurably weak water pressure in Belvedere, the bicycle ride to the Harbour Board, the ritual filling in of obsolete forms for ships that never arrived, Mr and Mrs Boffort's bright greeting
each morning at breakfast in the empty Belvedere dining room, the painful view of Bougainvillaea House and his thoughts of Mei Lan. He remembered long-ago punishments in school when he must write down the same meaningless sentence a hundred times. At the Harbour Board bombing had destroyed the wharfs and slowly closed the port. Men were laid off and he was amongst them. Cooped up in Belvedere, his frustration and anger increased.

‘Sign your name here,' a uniformed army man told him, pushing forward a sheet of paper. Howard signed, the decision taken from him as he watched the movement of his own hand. At last his name lay spread before him and below it the date, 29 January 1942. Even as the ink began to dry, he knew his life was irrevocably changed.

‘I will go to confession; I will pray,' Rose said, horrified but proud when at last he returned to tell her the news.

The first week of February was taken up with basic training at a military camp at Ulu Pandan, and was an intensive and constant round of drilling and running and diving down holes or clambering up rope walls. They were told they must prepare for street fighting in case the enemy invaded. When the week of training was over, Howard was issued a uniform that looked as if it had come from a second-hand store; also a gun that appeared no better than an air rifle, a helmet, a metal plate and a mug. Each man was given seven rounds of ammunition and two hand grenades and Howard's unit was called for a briefing. They filed into a packed assembly hall and the commander, a large Sikh in a khaki turban, stood on a stool and addressed them.

‘Yesterday the Japanese launched sustained bombing on the forward Australian positions. There have been many casualties. As a result you will now be sent to the front line, and inserted between Australian divisions as reinforcement. You will leave tonight.'

In the truck Howard sat next to a young Indian called Ravi who, while in the camp, had been full of bravado. Now, under the occasional street lamp, Howard saw one of Ravi's bare knees shaking nervously. On his other side was a Malay Muslim boy, Abbas, who constantly murmured prayers and had to kneel to face Mecca at the required time, balancing himself in the jolting truck while he bowed in obeisance. Howard remembered that it was Sunday and his mother would have prayed for him in church; it was exactly a week since he joined the army and already he was on his way into battle. Every so often the truck
changed gear with a raw metallic groan; everyone was silent listening to the engine, and the rush of tyres over the road.

Here and there the sky was red with the distant flames of bombed and burning kampongs; there was the constant and now familiar hammering of shells. Howard wanted to jump off the truck but instead, like everyone else, stared up at the soft fronds of passing coconut palms silhouetted against the reddened sky. At last the truck drew to an abrupt halt, and they were ordered to climb down. By the dimmed headlights they saw a soldier in a helmet silently gesturing for them to follow him. From what he could make out, Howard thought they must be on a rubber plantation.

‘You've reached the killing zone, boys.' The man spoke with an Australian accent. ‘We're ready to greet the enemy with a giant burst of fire. The Japanese are bobbing over the water towards us in their little rubber dinghies. We have a battery of hidden searchlights and they'll go on as the Japs arrive. Then we'll blast the buggers out of the water. You'll be all right, don't worry. We professionals will be doing the fighting. You're just here as ballast.'

The darkness was constant. The path entered a patch of secondary jungle and Howard stumbled along with his group. The smell of the sea and the thick odour of mud enclosed them. Soon, cold water splashed unexpectedly about his ankles and Howard saw they were in mangrove swamps where they must tread carefully amongst tangled roots and debris. At last they reached a makeshift command post and were taken to their final positions to await the Japanese advance.

‘Just remember, we're not far away from you. When we give the alarm, fire at every Jap you can see. When the lights come on it's show time.' The Australian laughed and disappeared into the blackness.

‘Does he know we have almost no ammunition?' Abbas whispered. They were crouching down amongst the cages of the mangrove roots, the water around their ankles gradually deepening as the tide came in.

‘Did you see the heavy gun that man was carrying? That's the real thing for fighting,' Ravi said and cleared his throat nervously. Howard fingered the grenade hanging from his waist and stared into the unrelenting blackness. In what circumstances would he be required to throw the thing? There was the crash of waves on the shore, and the rustle of crabs making their way through the wet debris around their feet. It was difficult to believe that hundreds of Australian soldiers were
hiding hearby; no sound broke the silence and they seemed quite alone. The land behind Howard appeared to slope upwards into the rubber plantation. On the opposite shoreline a faint row of lights was visible. It was then, staring hard into the darkness, that he became aware of the shadowy armada of dinghies moving over the water and the low purr of outboard motors.

The boats were all but upon them before an order was shouted to fire. At once the crack of guns rang out in a blanket of artillery and mortar fire. It took the Japanese by surprise. There was the sound of desperate back-paddling from the boats as orders to retreat were shouted. Howard's battalion of volunteers shot wildly into the darkness.

‘Where are the lights? Why have they not turned them on?' Abbas whispered desperately, for the darkness remained thick upon them. Angry shouting for light was also now heard from the Australian troops.

Soon, a second wave of boats was heard approaching but still the promised lights did not come on. Without light they were shooting blindly into the night at invisible targets. More shouting rose from the Australians, and Howard guessed something was wrong. Blackness enfolded the beach and, once the Japanese switched off the low whirr of their outboard motors, it was impossible to tell where they were. Another great eruption of firing burst upon them, followed by the sound of splashing water. Cursing and more calling for light from the Australians was now answered by rough shouts in Japanese. Gunshot was everywhere. On the water some dinghies were ablaze and this gave the scene a weak illumination; a smell of burning rubber filled the air. It was in the glow of these flames that Howard saw his first Japanese soldier. The dinghy punted in on the shallow water amongst the mangroves with four or five men preparing to disembark. Howard raised his gun and fired. Beside him Ravi and Abbas fired in unison. Two Japanese in the boat dropped with abrupt precision and then, in a blast of noise, their fire was returned. The Japanese were all around them.

From the raised ground behind the mangroves came the clash of metal as hand-to-hand skirmishes began. Howard's feet were sunk deep in cold mud; he had lost sight of Ravi, but could see Abbas backing desperately away into the wet cages of the mangroves. The mud made a soft sucking sound each time Howard pulled a foot free; his heart thumped uncomfortably. Bullets whistled past his ear. He turned, looking
in terror for shelter, and stumbled over a body half submerged in the shallow water. His gun dug painfully into his chest as he fell into the cold mud. A flare was thrown up, its light revealing the chaos. Sounds of crashing and slashing and firing surrounded him. Howard staggered forward with no idea of where he was going, colliding with trees, breaking free of vines as he scrambled up on to higher ground, desperate only to get away. The land sloped unevenly and he fell once more, losing his gun, hitting brackish water, the salty liquid filling his mouth. A further flare went up and as he searched for Abbas or Ravi or any other member of his unit in its brief light, he heard a deep growl behind him. As he turned, a Japanese soldier materialised before him. The man raised his gun and fired. Howard felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and fell forwards into the water.

W
HEN
H
OWARD AWOKE, FIRST
light was breaking and he heard the sound of lapping water. The equatorial dawn was all but instantaneous: one moment a ray of light cracked the dark and the next sun blazed on his face. The rabid buzzing of flies and the odour of seaweed came to him, and with it the sweet, thick stench of death, a smell he knew now too well. He opened his eyes and saw he was lying on a narrow strip of sand edged by mangroves. Burnt trees fringed the rubber estate behind, dead bodies and abandoned weapons littered the beach around him; the sea crept slowly forward to claim these spoils.

He struggled to sit up and pain shot through him. A wound on his arm was thick with congealed blood, and to move his shoulder was excruciating. For a moment he lay looking up at the sky, trying to remember events, listening to the screech of wheeling seabirds and the roll and suck of breaking waves; the sun was hot on his face. Suddenly, everything came vividly back to him. As he pulled himself to his feet, pain and nausea ricocheted through him so that his head reeled and he felt faint. Only he appeared to be alive on the silent beach. The bodies of Australian soldiers littered the sand and lay amongst the mangroves, lanky young men with golden moustaches, sunburnt faces and red knuckles. Here and there Howard saw Japanese corpses, shaven headed and still clutching their bayonets, their short legs in bound puttees. He staggered forward and almost immediately saw Ravi lying dead, staring open-eyed into the sun. A bayonet had sliced his belly and his innards were spilt out over his uniform in a dried mass of dull grey rope. A fiddler crab traversed his chest waving its one great claw. Flies settled crustily over the entrails, buzzing excitedly. Howard turned aside and vomited.