And Fire Falls (6 page)

‘I don’t want you to stay, Mummy,’ Patrick said, sensing that his mother’s embrace held a terrible despair. ‘Why don’t you come with me and Uncle Cyril now?’

‘I have to look after other little boys and girls,’ Diane replied. ‘But it’s only for a short while, and I’ll be with you before you know it.’

‘We have to go now,’ Cyril cautioned as the engine built up steam and its whistle sounded.

Reluctantly, Diane let go of her son, then stood and watched as Cyril took Patrick’s hand and guided him aboard the carriage packed with people desperate to leave this place filled with the dead and dying.

The last Diane saw of her son was his pleading face looking out through the window as the train pulled out of the station. She remained on the platform until the final carriage disappeared from view, leaving her racked with both guilt and fear. What if she had got it wrong about the time she thought it would take the Japanese to advance on the Malay town?

She turned on her heel and began walking back to the hospital to assist the doctors tending to the children. She wiped away the tears as she walked and felt the numbness of choosing to let her son leave while she stayed. Somewhere north of the town Australian, Indian and British soldiers fought a desperate rearguard action to delay the advancing enemy.

*

Bruce and Jessie, waiting at the police master’s hut in Kasalea, received a message via one of the native police. They were to accompany him to where Frank Holland had the main body of his patrol, and to bring as much of the remaining food from the camp as they could carry.

Bruce had no shoes and his body was weakened by malaria and a lack of good food, so the journey was a slow one. Eventually, though, they reached Frank’s camp and were immediately fed rice, tinned meat and some pork from a pig that had been butchered. The food was served on a large banana leaf, and both Jessie and Bruce gobbled down the meal. This was followed by black tea without milk or sugar.

‘I think if you survived the massacre at Tol,’ Frank said to Bruce, ‘there may be others who might have got away too. We need to reconnoitre the area before we leave.’

‘The bloody Nips will be all over the place,’ Bruce cautioned.

‘I can only think that the Nips consider a true surrender under a white flag, and we did not get caught that way. All the others were considered as resisters. They’re barbarian bastards, and deserve the same treatment if they fall into our hands.’

‘All going well, we will get you and Jessica back to Australia, where you will get the chance to fight the little yellow bastards again,’ Frank said without disclosing his intention to reconnoitre the Tol plantation district even after Sergeant King’s warning.

That night Frank Holland’s party was joined by three men he had sent out to the village of Ril. They had with them four Europeans. One of them was also a survivor of the Tol massacre and had bayonet wounds to his body inflicted by a Japanese soldier endeavouring to execute him. Somehow he hadn’t died, and when the Japanese soldiers had departed he’d stumbled around in the jungle until he was found by his European companions, and eventually by Frank Holland’s patrol.

That evening Frank took Bruce and Jessie aside. ‘I’m going to send you two to the evacuation point with a couple of my trusted men,’ he said.

Bruce attempted to protest but Frank cut him short. ‘You can relate what happened at the Tol plantation to the Australian government. It’s important that they learn how the Japs are treating captured Australian soldiers.’

Bruce could see the sense in that and the next day he and Jessie set off with barely enough supplies and the two armed Tolai police. They would have to travel through harsh and hostile territory, and both were aware that they were still a long way from safety.

5

D
iane had forgotten what the word sleep meant. The babies and children screamed whenever the Japanese shelling rained down on the town. She and the few nurses left at the hospital would scoop up the babies in an attempt to calm them, swallowing down their own fears as the hospital was shaken by the exploding artillery.

‘A baby has been left on the doorstep,’ one of the Chinese nurses informed Diane as she held a trembling baby to her breast. ‘It is very sick.’

Diane handed the baby she was holding to the nurse and went to the front door, where a baby lay naked on the doorstep. Who and why the baby had been left in their care was not of relevance to Diane as she lifted the crying baby and took her to Dr Cicely Williams, the only remaining doctor at the hospital. The courageous medical officer examined the baby in Diane’s arms.

‘I suspect diphtheria,’ she said. ‘She needs to be taken immediately to the infectious ward over at the Middleton Infectious Diseases Hospital.’

Diane knew the location. ‘I’ll take her,’ she said, knowing
that she would have to walk through the streets under
constant shelling.

Diane stepped into the darkness, the baby in her arms, and commenced the dangerous trek. As she walked she prayed that her own son was safe in Singapore, waiting for her to join him so that they could flee this place of horror. British artillery responded to the Japanese shelling and the noise was stupefying. Diane could feel the shock waves of exploding shells, and her ears rang with the constant din.

One Japanese shell landed so close that Diane was hurled to the ground. She was able to keep her grip on the baby and buffet the impact so that the little body remained safe. For a moment Diane lay on her back, stunned, only half-hearing the baby’s distressed howls. As she recovered she wondered if any of the shrapnel had hit her. But she felt no pain and realised that she must have been lucky this time. She struggled to her feet and checked that the baby, too, was unharmed. The flashes of the Allied guns lit up the street, which was well and truly smashed by the Japanese bombardment. Eventually she reached the infectious diseases hospital and handed the baby over to a terrified nurse.

Diane turned around and walked back the way she had come. By now she was getting used to living in hell, although fear was her ever-present companion. She wished she’d taken the train with Patrick, but the helpless babies and children had no one other than her and the brave staff looking after them.

Back at the hospital Diane found an empty bed and collapsed into a dreamless sleep, oblivious to the continuing heavy gunfire beyond the walls.

The next day she awoke and as she opened her eyes she knew that she had returned to the same hellish world. From her window she could see dispirited soldiers streaming away from the town and it was this sight that made Diane realise that she would either be dead or a prisoner within days – if not earlier. Now all she could do was pray that Patrick
was safe and either on Ty’s seaplane or a ship steaming to
Australia.

Diane sat down on the edge of the bed and allowed herself time to weep for what she had lost. She tried to imagine Patrick’s smile and feel his arms around her. A crying child not far away brought her back to the world she occupied now. Dr Cicely Williams popped her head around the door and explained that she was needed as many of the medical staff had already joined the soldiers and fled the town.

Another night came and the babies and young children screamed when the Japanese bombardment commenced raining death and destruction on the town. A little Malay boy would imitate the incoming artillery shells when the bombardment subsided. ‘Bow wow wow,’ he would murmur, bringing a smile to Diane’s face as she rocked two or three children in her arms.

The day passed and Diane worked alongside Dr Williams, then when night came so did the Japanese shelling, but this time it was even more intense. By sunrise the next morning the artillery had started to target the hospital and Diane helped put the babies under mattresses to protect them from airborne shrapnel.

At around 7 am Diane, exhausted and hungry, went to seek out a bath, food and rest, but her plans were cut short when Dr Williams said to her, ‘We’ve been given twelve minutes to prepare for an evacuation. Ambulances will be arriving to assist us. The Bishop of Singapore has ordered the evacuation and we will be travelling to a general hospital about five miles away. I need you to gather up sheets and rubbers to provide padding in the ambulances. Will you be all right with that?’

Diane nodded wearily and set about preparing for the evacuation of the hospital. Maybe she would get a bath, food or rest afterwards, she thought hopefully, but deep down knew that those were now luxuries.

Ten ambulances and six cars conveyed the sick and wounded children and babies over bumpy roads and past the dead and dying. Diane held one of the babies, a helpless victim of man’s greed to conquer and enslave.

When they reached the hospital they were allocated the dental ward for their use but there was no furniture and only a few Bunsen burners. Diane helped place the sheets and rubber mats on the floor as beds while Dr Williams went in search of food, only to be told there was none for the new arrivals. Undaunted, the feisty woman found a trolley and loaded it up with a sack of rice, a sack of charcoal for cooking, a bag of beef bones, some prunes, some tins of milk and a few loaves of bread. From the surgical stores she collected pots and saucepans. These she brought back to the verandah where they attempted to cook the rice, but moved their cooking inside utilising the Bunsen burners.

A little relief came when some of the parents retrieved their babies and children, but more flooded in. To make matters worse, the water supply failed, cut by the constant shelling. The crump, crump of exploding shells was something Diane now took as given. She sometimes wondered if one would hit the hospital and end her own life. Screaming was a sound she had also inured herself against, and she found her thoughts constantly drifted to Patrick whenever she gazed into the face of any little boy around his age.

People flooded into the hospital, thinking they might be safer there, and the injured and dying crammed the corridors as the surgical wards continued stitching wounds and amputating limbs and the ambulances delivered a steady stream of patients.

Diane was dozing with her back against a wall in the dental ward, a sleeping baby in her arms, when she became aware that Dr Williams was standing over her.

‘I’ve just been informed that there is an armistice in place,’ she said wearily. ‘I suppose we can consider that a surrender to the Japanese.’

Diane shook the sleep from her body. ‘Are they here?’ she asked.

‘Yes, even now they are issuing orders for us to vacate this hospital and take our patients to the mental hospital – apparently they need this place for their own wounded. So I will need you to help with the resettlement of our patients.’

Diane laid the sleeping infant on a mattress on the floor. She needed to stretch her legs, so she stepped outside the hospital into the grounds. Immediately she experienced a shudder of fear. Standing only yards away were two grim-faced Japanese soldiers with long bayonets fixed to the ends of their rifles. It was the first time she had seen the enemy in person, and the shock of their presence made her feel giddy.

One of the soldiers took a step towards her and brandished his rifle at her, indicating that she should return to the hospital. He looked angry and Diane turned to walk inside. She had to accept that she was a prisoner of the Imperial Japanese Army. Her fate was in their hands. But what was worse than capture by the enemy was not knowing whether Cyril had been able to get Patrick safely out of Malaya.

*

Corporal Welsh of the British army signal corps remembered the fire and brimstone sermons preached from the pulpit of his local church in England. Now he was living in the real hell as Japanese aerial bombs and artillery shells tore at the city of Singapore. The noise was deafening and the earth shook as if racked by an earthquake. Corporal Welsh was twenty-three years old and he doubted he would live to see twenty-four.

He huddled over his radio set, earphones firmly attached to his head, and tried to concentrate amidst the chaos of the office he shared with high-ranking army and air force officers who were bawling orders to destroy all military papers. Corporal Welsh had been assigned the task of scanning the frequencies used by the Japanese and was to log the amount of radio chatter for the intelligence section to analyse. It did not matter that he could not understand what was being transmitted; his skill was identifying the ‘fist’ of the user. His hard-won experience had taught him to tune in to the idiosyncrasies of individual Morse transmitters, identifiable by the way they used the dots and dashes.

Rumours circulated that General Percival, the commanding officer of all forces in Malaya, was already negotiating a ceasefire with the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Japanese Army. However, Corporal Welsh was a mere signaller and whether or not they were about to surrender did not affect his dedication to the task of monitoring the radio signals. He was listening to a Morse signal clattering through his headset, and he could tell that the signal originated a very short distance away. The short and long beeps told him it was a Japanese coded transmission; he recognised the sending hand from previous messages sent in the past few days as the Japanese advanced down the Malay Peninsula.

‘Sir, I’m getting that transmission again,’ he called to a harried signals corps lieutenant overseeing the destruction of British code books.

‘I’m just a little busy at the moment, Welsh,’ the junior officer said in his cultured Oxford accent. ‘You see what you can do about it.’

Just then an artillery shell exploded outside, bringing down the side of the building and scattering shrapnel throughout the communications room. Corporal Welsh was flung across the room by the blast, his headset still attached but ripped from the radio set. He lay crumpled as masonry dust filled the room like smoke. He could vaguely hear someone screaming and tried to gather his thoughts. He realised that the door to hell had opened but death had not yet stepped through to take him. He was alive, albeit battered and bruised.

Welsh staggered to his feet. He could see the young officer kneeling, grasping his entrails which spilled out in front of him; a large piece of shell casing metal had torn his stomach open. Another soldier lay dead just feet away without a mark on him; the shockwave of the explosion had caused massive internal trauma as lethal as the effects of flying shrapnel. Other men in the communications room appeared dead or seriously wounded and Corporal Welsh was confused as to what he should do next. Already medical orderlies were filtering into the shattered room to tend to the wounded. Welsh dug through the rubble to find his rifle and decided that it was his duty to try to track down the Japanese transmitter located nearby. Perhaps information from this source had prompted the artillery attack.

Corporal Welsh left the ruins of the smoking building. He would take his information to Major Albert Ulverstone, their detachment commander, and see what he thought. Major Ulverstone’s billet was in the building next door and Welsh could see that it had not been hit by artillery shells. Inside, the house seemed deserted. Welsh climbed the stairs, his rifle slung on his shoulder. He came to the door of the major’s room and knocked. But the crashing din of the enemy artillery muffled his knock. Maybe the major had left to join the communications staff, he thought, and pushed open the door to check.

He was startled to see his commanding officer bent over a radio transmitter. From the doorway he could see that the major was in the act of transmitting on the Morse key and clearly was not aware that he was being watched. Welsh was puzzled; he was not aware that the major had a radio set in his private quarters. Drawn by curiosity, he stepped forward and instantly froze in confusion. He knew that hand! It was the mysterious enemy signaller! When he glanced over the unsuspecting British officer’s shoulder he could see that the transmitter was set to the Japanese frequency.

Major Ulverstone swung around to see the corporal standing behind him.

‘What is it, Corporal Welsh?’ he asked. ‘You should know better than to barge unannounced into the room of your commanding officer, man.’

Paralysed, Welsh stared at the transmitter. ‘I . . .’ He was at a loss for words as the terrible realisation sank in. The treachery was just too much to comprehend. His commanding officer was a respected member of the British aristocracy. Surely it was not possible that the man could be a traitor.

‘What do you want, corporal, spit it out,’ Ulverstone demanded through tight lips.

‘Sir, regulations say that we must account for all radios . . .’ Welsh faltered. Suddenly there was a loud bang and he staggered to the side; the next shot toppled him backwards as the pistol bullet smashed through his forehead. He crumpled to the floor, dead.

Ulverstone leaned over the dead soldier to ensure that he was not breathing. His hand was shaking, but his only regret was that he would not be able to finish his coded message to General Yamashita’s operational headquarters. There was no time to finish the message, he would have to leave straightaway. He dragged the body of the dead signaller across the room and pushed it under the bed. It would not matter if it was discovered in the next day or two by the Japanese. He dismantled the transmitter and placed the parts in a wall cavity he had constructed. He had just finished when he heard the clatter of hobnailed boots on the stairway to his room and a voice shouting for him. He recognised the voice of his second-in-command, who, seeing the door open, hurried into the room.

‘Sir, Percival is going ahead with the surrender. We have to get out of here,’ he said, almost breathless. ‘The coms room took a direct hit and we are no longer able to function. I’ve confirmed the last flight out for us as you said, on that civvy seaplane.’ He rattled off the details of the plane and the flight.