The Devil's Garden (30 page)

Spratt smacked his own leg with the swagger stick as though punishing an impure thought. ‘Damned fine woman, Mrs Rosenkranz—you know the Japs always suspected her of being involved in that brave attack on those swine from Changi, Fukui and the others. She should get a medal but I don't think we need any instruction from her as far as Russians are concerned. As it is, Catchpole, Russians have no money and are not welcome. They sometimes come as uninvited guests, as the Austrians should be the first to understand. Don't they know the war's over? But make sure those admirals are on the guest list. Lists, man! Lists! We can't have people just wandering about. There's been far too much of it. Too much slackness all round.'

Major Spratt quick-marched over to the portico and looked out testily. The untidy riff-raff that had been camping out there had been removed and the grass was growing back encouragingly, if a trifle unevenly, and, next door, the gingerbread YMCA had been closed up, boards nailed over the windows, until some final decision could be made about it. Such was the power of recent history that the locals had it that it was haunted and avoided it like the plague. Sounds had been heard by those passing late at night, screams, howls, hellish laughter. Predawn lights had been glimpsed dancing will-o'-the-wispishly behind the glass as in some witches' coven. Babies had allegedly disappeared from nearby houses and nursing mothers felt ghostly suckling at their breasts at night as strange sweet smells hovered in the air, to be suddenly replaced by foul miasmas of decay so that the Malays spoke knowingly of lurking
pontianaks
. All the usual stuff. He knew there was no point in talking to them about drains and subsidence and bat infestation. The building's reputation had made it easier to clear away the squatters but might now be affecting the museum's own visitor numbers by contagion, so it would need to be looked into sensibly. Perhaps another job for those sappers who so liked to make a nice bang in public every now and then. The important thing was that the museum's dome had been repaired and the front gate repainted—even if the strategic shortage of volatile hydrocarbons meant that it was still wet two weeks later. Although the British had scattered great cities across the globe, they were all comfortingly provincial and could be read in much the same way. Everything in its place. Above the dome, a Union Jack. Beneath the dome, the Singapore Stone glowed in the early evening sun, giving back the heat it had soaked up during the day, and he paused and looked down on the writing and felt brief irritation flare at its incomprehensibility, what seemed like its deliberate and smug obfuscation. Catchpole had enthusiastically shown him a letter from a clearly deranged Malacca man claiming to have decoded it acrostically into statements prophetic of football scores in the Malay League, according to clues taken from the
Times of India
crossword. Talk English damn you. Too many confounded empires. All the mess and fuss of change, all these monuments cancelling each other out, not to mention the expense. At least that was all over now. A time for rest and relaxation, consolidation and conservation. Back to basics and back to business as usual. He took a deep breath of the soothing, aromatic air and about-turned smartly back into the museum.

Also by Nigel Barley, published by Monsoon Books…

Rogue Raider

The tale of Captain Lauterbach and the Singapore Mutiny

N
IGEL
B
ARLEY

It is the First World War and Julius Lauterbach is a German prisoner of war in the old Tanglin barracks of Singapore. He is also a braggart, a womaniser and a heavy drinker and through his bored fantasies he unwittingly triggers a mutiny by Muslim troops of the British garrison and so throws the whole course of the war in doubt. The British lose control of the city, its European inhabitants flee to the ships in the harbour and it is only with the help of Japanese marines that the Empire is saved.

Rogue Raider
is the adventure story of how one ship, the Emden, tied up the navies of four nations and how one man eluded their agents in a desperate yet hilarious attempt to regain his native land. It is fictionalised history but a true history that was deliberately suppressed by the authorities of the time as too embarrassing and dangerous to be known. Revealed here, it brings vividly to life the Southeast Asia of the period, its sights, its sounds and its rich mix of peoples. And through it an unwilling participant in the war becomes an accidental hero.

Island Of Demons

N
IGEL
B
ARLEY

Many men dream of running away to a tropical island and living surrounded by beauty and exotic exuberance. Walter Spies did more than dream. He actually did it.

In the 1920s and 30s, Walter Spies — ethnographer, choreographer, film maker, natural historian and painter — transformed the perception of Bali from that of a remote island to become the site for Western fantasies about Paradise and it underwent an influx of foreign visitors. The rich and famous flocked to Spies' house in Ubud and his life and work forged a link between serious academics and the visionaries from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin, Noel Coward, Miguel Covarrubias, Vicki Baum, Barbara Hutton and many others sought to experience the vision Spies offered while Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, the foremost anthropologists of their day, attempted to capture the secret of this tantalizing and enigmatic culture.

Island of Demons
is a fascinating historical novel, mixing anthropology, the history of ideas and humour. It offers a unique insight into that complex and multi-hued world that was so soon to be swept away, exploring both its ideas and the larger than life characters that inhabited it.

In The Footsteps Of Stamford Raffles

N
IGEL
B
ARLEY

Stamford Raffles is that rarest of things — a colonial figure who is forgotten at home but still remembered with affection abroad. Born into genteel poverty in 1781, he joined the East India Company at the age of fourteen and worked his way up to become Lieutenant Governor of Java when the British seized that island for some five years in 1811. There he fell in love with all things Javanese and vaunted it as a place of civilization as he discovered himself as a man of science as well as commerce. A humane and ever-curious figure, his administration was a period of energetic reform and boisterous research that culminated in his History of Java in 1817 and it remains the starting-point of all subsequent studies of Indonesian culture.

Personal tragedy and ill-health stalked his final years in the East. Yet, though dying at the early age of 44 and dogged by the hostility of lesser men, he would still find time to found the city-state of Singapore and guide it through its first dangerous years. Here, mythologised by the British and demonised by the Dutch, he is more than a remote founding father and remains a charter for its independence and its enduring values.

In this intriguing book, part history, part travelogue, Nigel Barley re-visits the places that were important in the life of Stamford Raffles and evaluates his heritage in an account that is both humorous and insightful.

“A witty, sprightly and elegantly written book”
The Sunday Times,
UK

“Alive with curiosity … a charming and affectionate book”
Times Literary Supplement,
UK

“Barley's irreverent and amusing tone … makes his work accessible to all”
New York Times Review of Books,
USA

About Monsoon Books

Monsoon Books is a leading independent publisher of English-language books and ebooks on Southeast Asia. We publish literary and commercial fiction (historical, crime, thriller, kid's, romance, erotica) and quality nonfiction (biography and autobiography, true crime, food and drink, sexuality, journalism, travelogue and current affairs) from outstanding writers worldwide and we have numerous bestsellers to our name.

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About The Author

Nigel Barley was born south of London in 1947. After taking a degree in modern languages at Cambridge, he gained a doctorate in anthropology at Oxford. Barley originally trained as an anthropologist and worked in West Africa, spending time with the Dowayo people of North Cameroon. He survived to move to the Ethnography Department of the British Museum and it was in this connection that he first travelled to Southeast Asia. After forrays into Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Burma, Barley settled on Indonesia as his principal research interest and has worked on both the history and contemporary culture of that area.

After escaping from the museum, he is now a writer and broadcaster and divides his time between London and Indonesia.

Copyright

First published in print by Monsoon Books in 2011

This electronic edition first published in 2012 by Monsoon Books

ISBN (paperback): 978-981-4358-42-2

ISBN (ebook): 978-981-4358-43-9

Copyright©Nigel Barley, 2011

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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