The Empire Trilogy (195 page)

‘Enjoy the view,' called the departing fireman, leaving Matthew alone on the roof. He turned his attention to the fire. From this position he could look down over the godowns and he wondered whether Adamson realized how far gone they already were; it seemed unlikely that a single jet could make any difference. However, he played the jet over the roofs on the river side, trying to let it stream down the outside walls to cool them and keep them standing as long as possible.

Soon he began to savour the strange sensation of being marooned above the city in the hot darkness; he was pervaded by a feeling of isolation and melancholy. The occasional drone of a bomber in the black sky above him, the slamming of distant doors from the ack-ack guns, the dull thud, thud, thud of bombs falling, the rapid popping and sighing of the Bofors guns, even the deep bark of the artillery … all this seemed perfectly remote from his vantage point over the rooftops. Up here he was only conscious of the moaning and creaking of the branch against the railing and the faint steady hiss of the jet as it curved down towards the fire. He could see a considerable distance, too: he could see the rapid flashes advancing along Raffles Quay and the Telok Ayer Basin as a stick of bombs fell, and the hulk of what might have been a barge burning near Anderson Bridge at the mouth of the river and another vessel blazing brilliantly in the inner roads, and yet other fires scattered here and there in the densely crowded residential quarters to the south and east of New Bridge Road. ‘If a bomb fell here,' he thought suddenly, ‘nobody would ever find me,' and he peered anxiously down towards the street to see if anyone was being sent up to join him, but with the smoke he could see nothing.

After a while he grew, calm again, soothed by the regular creaking of the branch. He was so remote from what was happening down there, after all. It seemed impossible that anything happening on the ground could touch him. Below was the fire, and beyond the fire and all around lay the city of Singapore where two hostile armies were struggling to subdue each other in the darkness. Up here it made no difference. All that concerned him was the fire raging below him: he must concentrate on playing the jet where it would do most good. But soon he found himself wondering whether his efforts might not be superfluous. With a change in the tide, burning oil from a stricken vessel at the mouth of the river was already beginning to flow up towards the tightly packed
sampans
and barges in the heart of the city. As the sky grew pale on the eastern horizon Matthew watched in dismay the leisurely advance of this fiery serpent.

‘The Blackett and Webb godown is threatened. Walter's inside and refuses to leave. Someone on his staff got in touch with Hill Street and they passed it on to us. Perhaps you wouldn't mind having a shot at persuading him?'

Matthew and the Major were sitting on the kerb beside the Blackett and Webb van which had once carried eight outstretched arms in various colours reaching for prosperity. These arms had not proved very durable and most of them had broken off going over bumps or pot-holes, some at the shoulder, some at the elbow. Only two still remained intact as far as the grasping fingers: Matthew suspected that they were the white ones but could not be sure. The steady precipitation of oily smuts from the sky had rendered white, yellow, light brown and dark brown and even the van itself a uniform black colour. Everything else in sight appeared also to be black, or grey like the sky and the smoke.

‘I'd go myself,' said the Major, ‘but I must get all this lot back to the Mayfair for some rest and food.' He stared vaguely at the palms of his hands which were raw and bleeding from handling hose in which the broken glass which littered the streets had become embedded. Matthew's palms were similarly flayed. They were waiting their turn while one of the regular firemen went about with a pitcher of iodine, dripping it on to the other men's wounds to a chorus of jokes, curses and cries of anguish. Adamson sat with them, holding out his own raw palms for this painful ritual. The dog slept with its head on his shoe. When, presently, Adamson got up to go for breakfast at Hill Street, the dog had to be shaken awake.

Matthew set off past a dismal row of buildings which had burned during the night: now they loomed, dripping, gutted shells in the grey light. Turning a corner he came upon half a dozen hoses lying side by side, still swollen into thick veins by the water coursing through them. A little further on the branches, perhaps abandoned during a raid, were rearing and flailing like a many-headed monster in the deserted street. He walked on, wondering where Vera was. He hoped that by now she had returned to the Mayfair. It might still be possible, somehow or other, to get her away from Singapore before the Japanese took over.

Matthew had visited the Blackett and Webb godown on the river once before, in the company of Walter himself, as it happened, in the first days after his arrival in Singapore. He had glimpsed it again when with Vera he had visited The Great World (now bleak and deserted except for an ARP post) for it lay close by. But he had found nothing particularly interesting about it, except that it had his own name painted on it in large white letters. Now, strangely undamaged amid the bomb-shattered buildings on either side, it looked somehow more impressive than he had remembered it.

Inside it seemed very dark at first, and quiet. What little light there was came from above, falling from a great height into the dim amphitheatre in which he stood. And there was a pleasant smell in the air, perhaps from the bales of rubber that mounted around him, if not from the old building itself.

‘Walter?' he called uncertainly, his voice sounding very small in this great space. It seemed for a moment that there would be no answer but then there came the sound of footsteps from the half-floor above and a familiar voice asked impatiently: ‘What is it?'

‘It's me, Matthew Webb. I want to talk to you.'

‘Who? Oh, it's you. Well, all right … I suppose you want to destroy all this rubber, do you?' Walter uttered a grim laugh. ‘I don't know what your father would have thought of all this madness that's got hold of everyone.'

‘It's not about that. D'you mind if I come up there?' Without waiting for an invitation Matthew began to climb a ladder which he dimly perceived nearby. He found Walter waiting at the top, looking restless and irritable. He paused to recover his breath, peering at him uncertainly. ‘Could we go somewhere where there's a bit more light?'

‘All right. Come this way.' Walter led the way down corridors of rubber. At a turning an old rat stood in their path and stared at them insolently for a moment before limping away down a side alley. Around the next corner grey daylight issued from a little cubicle of wood and glass. A row of huge fruit bats, neatly folded, hung from a rafter overhead and slept. Walter ushered him inside and offered him a chair. Before taking it Matthew went to the window, anxious to see what progress the fire had made towards them. But although it faced east, the direction from which the fire was being driven, his view was so obscured by smoke that he could see nothing. He knew that it must be very close.

‘You can't stay here, Walter, you know. Have you made no arrangements to leave Singapore?'

‘I suppose like everybody else you want to get me out so you can burn the place down,' said Walter grimly.

‘Don't be absurd. It's going to burn down without our help, I'm afraid. In any case, we're trying to stop fires, not start them.' He paused, noticing for the first time Walter's dishevelled appearance. The clean clothes he had put on the evening before were already covered in dust and even his hair was thick with it; both his eyelids were red and swollen, perhaps from insect bites. His eyes kept wandering restlessly from one place to another, without meeting Matthew's gaze for more than a moment.

‘I'm glad your father didn't live to see this,' he said presently with an air of resignation. After a silence he added with a sigh: ‘There was some fool here yesterday, an army chap … D'you know what he said to me?'

‘Well, no …'

‘I'll tell you. He had the gall to tell me that we were leaving the troops to do the fighting while we only thought of feathering our nests! Can you beat it? He tried to claim that civilians have been trying to stop his demolition squad from doing its work … He actually said …'

‘But Walter, it's true. That
has
been happening in some places … Look, we must go now. We'll talk about it another time.' Matthew got up and again looked anxiously out of the window: this time a bright banner of sparks was floating by. ‘Have you no way of getting out of Singapore? It's obvious we aren't going to hold out much longer.'

‘As a matter of fact, I have,' said Walter, chuckling grimly. ‘Certain business acquaintances are anxious to share their boat with me. What time is it now? They talk of leaving this evening from Telok Ayer Basin. You'd better come too, I should think. They wouldn't refuse to take a Webb, even if it meant throwing someone else overboard!' And Walter gave a sudden shout of laughter which rang in the rafters high above them. The row of bats slept on undisturbed, however.

‘After all,' he went on presently, following some train of thought of his own. ‘War is only a passing phase in business life … No, it was Lever of Lever Brothers who said that, not me! Yes, it seems that in the Great War he wanted, naturally enough, to go on selling his … what did he call it? Sunlight Soap to the Germans … He made quite a fuss when they wouldn't let him. He argued that the more soap they let him make the more glycerine there would be for munitions … which is true enough when you come to think about it. If you want my opinion there's nothing like a spot of patriotism for blinding people to reality. Now they'd do far better to leave certain things in Singapore as they are … Though destroy the oil the Japs need by all means, I don't hold with people standing in the way of demolition squads if they're acting sensibly … But no, you can't argue with these people. You can't say, look here, let's discuss it sensibly! They swell up with patriotic indignation. They refuse to believe that in due course, probably in a matter of months, we'll have come to some understanding with Japan and everything will continue as before. Except that in
this case
it won't continue as before … why? Because a lot of self-righteous bloody fools will have destroyed our investments, lock, stock and barrel … and we shall have to start again from scratch!'

‘Walter,' exclaimed Matthew, standing up excitedly, ‘it's not self-righteous fools who are destroying your investment, it's the bloody Japanese bombers! My God! Look at this …'

A momentary shift in the wind had peeled the smoke back from the river like a plaster from a wound. Near at hand a row of blazing godowns pointed towards their window like a fiery arrow whose barb had lodged in a shed burning directly beneath them. It was not this, however, but the river itself which had caused Matthew's dismay for it seemed to be nothing but flame from one bank to another. The blazing oil which had surged up on the tide from the mouth of the river had enveloped the small wooden craft which clustered thickly over almost its entire length and breadth except for the narrow channel in the middle. Fanned by the breeze from the sea the fire had eaten its way up the twisting longbow-shaped course of the river, past another fire at Ord Road, under the Pulo Saigon Bridge and almost as far as Robertson Quay.

Matthew turned away, shocked, hoping that Adamson had managed to evacuate the thousands of Chinese families who lived on the river. Walter had joined him at the window, staring at the shining snake twisting all the way back to Anderson Bridge. He muttered: ‘Terrible! Terrible!' and then turned away. ‘But look here,' he went on, after a moment, ‘you forget the heavy responsibility that a businessman has to carry …'

‘Oh, Walter, please, not now. We must go.' Matthew sniffed, certain he could see smoke eddying up between the bales of rubber. One of the sleeping bats stirred uneasily. But Walter had slumped heavily in his chair again.

‘You may think a responsibility to one's shareholders is nothing of importance but I can assure you … Think of the poor widow, the clergyman, the spinster who has trusted her savings to your hands and whose very life may depend on the way you conduct your business. I can assure you, Matthew, that it makes you think twice when you have the well-being of other, perhaps vulnerable, people to protect. In the early days your father and I often used to work long into the night after everyone had gone … Yes, I sometimes used to fall asleep at this very desk here from sheer exhaustion … And what made me do it? I was quite simply afraid that Blackett and Webb, on whom so many poor people depended for their living, might have to pass their dividends! Yes, scoff if you want to, I don't care!'

‘I don't want to scoff, Walter. Of course I don't! I just want us to leave here before it's too late. We may be trapped.'

Walter again ignored him. ‘Well, I suppose the world was a different place in those days. The spirit of the times was quite different from the way it is now. Singapore was different, anyway, I can tell you that much! We had none of the comforts when I was a boy that people seem to expect these days. You would hardly believe it but we didn't even have water you could drink out of a tap … In those days when my dear mother was alive she always used to filter it through a muslin dripston … you don't see them any more but in those days … And did we have these fine roads and storm-drains and whatnot? Of course not. We had to put up with the monsoons as best we could. Sometimes the only way you could get about was in a rowing boat! Not like today when down comes the rain and it's all over in a few minutes.'

‘Walter, I can hear a crackling sound from down below … Listen!'

Walter nodded sadly. ‘It was fun for us children, of course. Oh yes, we used to think it was great fun to have a change from the rickshaw. Mind you, we had fun in the rickshaws, too. Each of us kids had his own rickshaw and a coolie to himself. Yes. We used to make 'em race with us and see who'd win and we'd have a grand time. Yes … Grand! Grand!'