In the Mouth of the Tiger (54 page)

Denis drew on his cigarette thoughtfully. ‘It is a very old story, Chu Lun. Because the cement factory cannot be bothered buying shell in small amounts, the middlemen have the kampongs over a barrel. It would be different if the kampongs agreed to club together and insist on a fair price for them all.'

Chu Lun shook his head. ‘That will never happen. The penghulus in each village are too keen to make sure that their shell is sold. They don't care about anyone else. They would never abide by an agreement to bargain together.'

There was a thoughtful silence (these sorts of discussions always had their gentle rhythm), and then Denis stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Do you have any idea how the problem might be fixed?' he asked.

‘It did seem to me,' Chu Lun said modestly, ‘that if a man could be found with enough money to buy up all the shell on the south coast, he could bargain with the cement company directly. He would bargain from a position of strength, because more than half of Singapore's shell comes from the south coast. If he sold the shell directly to the cement company, he would make the profit that the towkey would have made.'

‘And what would stop this man taking the same advantage as the towkey?' Denis asked. ‘No doubt he would be a businessman as well. It is in the nature of businessmen to make as much profit as they can, and it would be good business to bargain separately with the kampongs.'

Chu Lun allowed himself a smile. ‘Because the businessman would be a man of honour. He would be you, Tuan.'

Discussion had gone on as the sun had sunk into the sea to the west, and the clouds had turned gold and red. I thought such deep matters deserved a second round of Tiger beer and brought it out myself, remaining to hear how things would conclude. They concluded well. It was agreed that a three-man partnership would be formed and formally registered, comprising Denis, Chu Lun, and the penghulu from Mata Ikan representing the people of his kampong. Under the partnership agreement, Denis would provide the funds, Chu Lun the administration, and the kampong the transport and labour
needed to collect all the shell and transport it to the cement factory in Bukit Timah.

The breaking of the sea-shell monopoly was the Three Man Kongsi's first success but by no means its last. After a while the Kongsi began to play quite a significant role in the economy of our little part of rural Singapore, with meetings held regularly on the lawns in front of our verandah. These meetings were invariably held at sunset, with the Three Men – the penghulu, Chu Lun and Denis – sitting in easy chairs while a crowd of villagers sat around them on the grass in their best
bajus
and sarongs, listening intently as issues of great moment were discussed before them in polite Malay.

Our first formal dinner party at Whitelawns was held just before Christmas 1939. The excuse for the occasion was to celebrate the downfall of one of Malaya's most confirmed bachelors. Ivan Lyon, who had romanced every pretty girl in country without once losing his heart, had finally met his match – the beautiful dark-haired French girl Gabrielle. The Deans were there of course, with the Lyons, Bob and Babs Chrystal, and Roger and Evelyn Hornung. Denis had also invited John Dalley, a man much in the news in Singapore at that time because of his plan to recruit a local militia battalion from within the Chinese community.

The fact that the Hornungs were coming worried me a little. We hadn't seen them for a couple of years, and I was worried that Evelyn might be in one of her moods. In the event she was charming and much more mature than I remembered her, and I wondered how much my earlier perception of her might have been the result of my own insecurity. She had after all known Denis a lot longer than I had.

Gabrielle was of course the centre of attention when we gathered for pre-dinner drinks on the verandah, and I admit to being curious to meet her myself. The story of her meeting with Ivan, and her taming of our famous Celtic bachelor, was the talk of the town. Apparently Ivan had heard of a beautiful French girl on the island of Pulau Condore in the Gulf of Thailand and – as was his way – he had chased up there on his yacht
Vinette
, fully intending to add her to his list of conquests. At first, things went perfectly according to plan. The girl's father, the governor of the island, was impressed by his gallantry and bearing and invited him to stay while Ivan pretended to repair a hatch on his yacht, giving him plenty of opportunity to deploy his charm. But from then on things went wrong. Rather than swooning into his
arms, Gabrielle had stood back and tossed her dark Gallic curls in disapproval at his wildness. ‘You drink too much,' she said frankly. ‘And you act too often without thinking.'

The result was of course that Ivan fell hopelessly in love. It was even rumoured that in order to convince this awkward girl to marry him he had promised to curb his drinking, and to act with more responsibility.
Quel accomplissement!

I liked Gabrielle from the moment I met her. She was a gamine thing with long dark hair and the most soulful eyes you ever saw, but she also had a determined little chin and a no-nonsense glint in her eyes. ‘I'm sure you and Ivan will be happy,' I said when we shook hands. I meant what I said – Ivan needed someone to keep his feet on the ground and I suspected that he had found her in Gabrielle.

I didn't have Teng Swi to help me with the dinner, but Amah proved more than up to the challenge. With the help of her two daughters she had prepared a delicious Nonya meal. The main course was
pulau ayam
, a chicken dish cooked in coconut, followed by
gula malacca
, a pudding made of chilled sago, palm sugar and coconut milk. Not cordon bleu, but all of us present had been in the East long enough to appreciate local cooking, and the best local fare by far was Nonya.

Conversation during dinner was about the war in Europe. This was the period of the phoney war, when Poland had been swallowed up but nothing else seemed to be happening. ‘It'll be all over in six months,' Bob Chrystal said confidently. ‘Almost a shame, really. We've all been so keyed up waiting for the Japanese to attack that I feel rather let down that there won't be a scrap after all. The Japanese will hardly attack if the German and Italians are wiped off the face of the earth in a couple of weeks.'

Ivan Lyon shook his head doubtfully. ‘I wish you were right,' he said. ‘But I can't see the Germans and Italians giving in that easily. Hitler and Mussolini have invested too much national pride to back down now. The real war will start pretty soon, mark my words, and it won't be pretty.'

I turned to John Dalley. ‘Do you think your Chinese will be needed after all?' I asked.

‘I hope not, but I fear so,' Dalley said quietly.

‘How good will they be?' Ivan asked. ‘Are they getting any useful training?'

Dalley grimaced. ‘That's precisely the problem,' he said. ‘The Government
hasn't given us any arms. The only training I can give them is parade drill and some basic fire-and-movement exercises. Bloody terrible situation – grown men charging about with wooden rifles like a pack of kids. What's absolutely dreadful to contemplate is that if we are called on it will be because Malaya is
in extremis
. My fellows will then be chucked into the thick of it without any real preparation whatever.'

‘Why
won't
the Government give you any arms?' I asked.

‘Because they don't trust the Chinese. Consider them all Communists who will turn their guns on the white man as soon as we hand them out.'

‘What rubbish!' I said hotly. ‘The Chinese – particularly the Peranakans – would die for Malaya! Some of my closest friends at school were Peranakans, and they would put the English to shame when it comes to patriotism!'

‘I couldn't agree with you more, Norma,' Dalley said seriously. ‘But the blasted administrators out here are besotted with the Malays, contemptuous of the Tamils, and downright scared of the Chinese. Most of them need a serious boot up the backside.' John Dalley had a reputation in the FMS Police as something of a firebrand, and I could see why.

Dalley came back to the subject of Dalforce (as the
Straits Times
had christened his Chinese battalion) over pudding. ‘You said you grew up with a lot of Peranakan families when you were at school,' he asked turning to me. ‘Do you still keep in touch?'

‘I have lost touch a bit,' I confessed. ‘But some of my closest friends are still Peranakan. Molly Tan for one – and she's probably the best-connected woman in Penang. Why do you ask?'

Dalley finished pouring melted brown sugar over his sago pudding, and put the silver sauce dish down carefully. ‘We need someone with your background in our office,' he said. ‘We're getting a flood of applications to join Dalforce and we need someone to vet them. You know, give us an idea of a chap's standing in the Chinese community. You couldn't spare a day or so a week helping us out, could you?'

I laughed. ‘I don't pretend to know
all
the Chinese in Malaya,' I said. ‘But I'd be delighted to do whatever I can to help you get your battalion together.'

‘Capital!' Dalley rubbed his hands together. ‘I've set up a battalion HQ in Holland Road. Abandoned school, actually. I'll send you a chit with all the details later, but please consider yourself appointed to the staff of Dalforce as of right now.'

I saw Margaret's eyes on me, shining with excitement. ‘Isn't this grand?' she said. ‘We really are playing a part in this war. It's like being characters in a novel.' It was still early days, of course. The casualty lists had not yet commenced in the
Straits Times
. We
did
think we were playing roles in some wartime epic. How shocked we were to be when the real war began. When friends died and we saw bombs falling and fires raging, and dead children drifting on the oily surface of the sea.

But that night the magic was still in the air. We finished dinner and strolled out to the edge of the lawn where we could hear the breakers on the beach below us, the women smoking cigarettes in ivory holders, the men with their Cuban cigars. That night war did seem rather a game. We'd all feared its coming but now it was here, and nothing had changed, we were beginning to see it as an adventure rather than a tragedy.

Life at Whitelawns settled into a delightful pattern. Denis and I would be woken with a cup of tea at dawn. We'd shower and change into riding kit, and then stroll down to the stables as the eastern sky flooded with pink and gold. Thor and Dame Fashion would be saddled and waiting, and we would be off together, giving our mounts a pipe-opener along the beach before slowing down for the climb up through the coconut groves to the Changi road. We'd reach the Changi padang while it was still cool, and perhaps take a jump or two, or just dawdle through the lovely morning until it was time to canter back to Whitelawns. We had developed a taste for waffles and maple syrup at the KL Riding Club and on our return we'd usually have them for an informal breakfast, lounging on the verandah with the morning papers on our knees.

The war may have been six thousand miles away, but it did have some effect on our daily lives. For a start, there was the business of Denis's commission. Soon after war was declared he was told was being given a commission in the Straits Settlement Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Originally, this was to be in the Pay Branch, the branch into which specialists, including intelligence people, were traditionally commissioned. The advantage of a commission in the Pay Branch was that virtually no training was involved. The disadvantage was that a Pay Branch officer could never command a ship in action.

‘I'll never accept it,' Denis snapped when the official offer of a Pay commission arrived in the post. ‘Damned cheek! Can you imagine Nelson accepting Pay rank? Better to be a private in the FMS Infantry Reserve than
a desk-wallah.' Denis tore up the small brown envelope with its ‘flimsy' into tiny pieces. He was completely serious. He was utterly determined not to be stuck behind a pile of paper if or when the shooting war came to Singapore.

‘Admiral Manisty is Paymaster-General, isn't he?' I asked mildly. I had rather hoped he would accept Pay Branch rank. It sounded much less risky than being a deck officer.

But my comment did not help. Even when Captain George Yeo dropped in on us that evening Denis had been obdurate. ‘It's sheer common sense to accept a commission in Pay Branch,' the Captain had said, seating himself primly in one of our long steamer chairs. He was in full tropical uniform, his cap, dripping with gold braid, still clutched in his hand. ‘A commission in the Executive Branch would be a damned nuisance to you, Denis. It would require you to get a watch-keeping certificate, keep up your sea-time, and pass exams in navigation and gunnery. Waste of time for a man in your position, I can assure you.'

‘If I'm to be a naval officer, I want to be a naval officer in the full sense of the word, not some paper-pusher stuck into a fancy uniform. I'll accept a commission in the Executive Branch or nothing at all.'

Captain Yeo's features froze over. ‘Then it will have to be nothing at all,' he said coldly. ‘Because I'll be damned if I'll let you have a deck commission!' He literally swept from the room, calling for his driver. Months later we learnt that Captain Yeo was himself a Pay Branch officer.

Yeo must have changed his mind or been overruled because Denis received his commission as a sub-lieutenant in the Executive Branch the next afternoon. He telephoned me from Government House, struggling hard to keep the satisfaction from his voice. ‘Be a darling and dig out all the
Hornblower
novels you can find,' he requested. ‘I'm going to have to learn a few naval terms . . .'

The downside was that he had to report to HMS
Sultan
, the RNVR headquarters, for full-time training almost immediately. His absence, first doing an officers' training course on
Sultan
, then doing sea-time on HMS
Tenedos
, took him away from Whitelawns for over a month. It was the longest that Denis and I had ever been parted, and it was incredibly hard for me. I went back to my gramophone records, winding up the HMV and sitting in the fading afternoon light as I listened through the old favourites one by one. And a new favourite – or rather, an old lullaby with new significance: Bobbie Shafto. When I sang Tony to sleep with the words ‘Bobbie Shafto's gone to
sea, silver buckles on his knee', the tears ran down my face. ‘Have you been cutting onions again, Mummy?' Tony asked with a cheeky grin. He knew perfectly well why I was crying but as a precocious three-year-old he liked to try his hand at a little humour.