In the Mouth of the Tiger (71 page)

‘There is always time for a last cup of tea.' He took my face in his hands and kissed me gently on the lips. ‘Thank you for being so sensible.'

We drank tea under the loggia, the boys sprawling on cushions, Denis and me sitting at the cane table, playing ladies and gentlemen. ‘You remember your part of the bargain, I hope?' I asked. ‘It's now up to you to find some
way of joining us. If you welch on our deal I'll never forgive you.' There was an emptiness growing around my heart but I was determined not to let my sadness show.

Denis caught the mood. ‘Just look over the taffrail of your ship,' he said cheerfully. ‘The chap you will see swimming after you like the blazes will be me.'

Tony took the comment literally and sat up, his Dinky-toy car in his hand. ‘We could let a rope down, Daddy,' he said seriously. ‘Then all you have to do is catch the end and climb up.' He frowned suddenly. ‘We'll have to hide you in our cabin, though, cause they might ask to see your ticket.'

Fortunately we didn't have time for too much thinking that afternoon. I gave the horses a last apple and then Denis was urging us all into the car. Agatha and Christine, dressed in their starched uniforms and as composed as ever, sat in the back with a boy each in their laps, with Amah, who felt it her duty to oversee the evacuation, squashed between them. With Denis and me in the bucket front seats, there was no room for Chu Lun, who had decided to accompany us as far as Bishopscourt. Refusing to be left behind, he sat on his bicycle, clinging to the passenger side window as we went.

As we drove off, I turned for one last look at Whitelawns. The house seemed so beautiful, so serene and safe that I felt a moment of horror, wondering if we hadn't done the wrong thing. I made the sign of the cross, an instinct from childhood, and mouthed a prayer: ‘Dear Mother of God, please let it be that we have made the right decision . . .'

We had just turned into Tanah Merah Besar Road when the Zero appeared, low above the coconut trees and dead ahead of us. Time froze. I saw the speckle of flames from the guns on its wings, and then the whole world went mad. Machine-gun bullets lashed the left side of the car, exploding the windscreen and tearing off both the passenger side doors. I saw Chu Lun's bicycle cartwheeling through the air and then we ploughed into the bank on the side of the road, my head cracked the dashboard, and everything went black.

I remember I had one thought in my head: if Denis or the children are dead, I don't want to wake up.

‘Well, that's torn it.' Denis's voice was so normal, so cool and collected, that I found myself breathing again, relaxing, opening my eyes. I must have been unconscious for only a second or two because Chu Lun was only just getting up from the grassy bank. He seemed perfectly all right, and I snapped my head around looking for the boys. They were both safe in the arms of their
nurses, though Christine had bumped her nose and a thin trickle of blood ran down her face.

We clambered out, the boys suddenly boisterous, Denis laughing as he dusted Chu Lun down. ‘You won't be riding this anymore,' he said cheerfully, holding up the battered frame of the bicycle.

The Zero was coming back. I heard the sudden roar of its engine and then it was there again, guns sparkling. But even as I braced for the stream of bullets I saw that something was different. The pilot had misjudged his turn and instead of coming straight for us the Zero was slewing to the left, is nose pointing upwards as the pilot fought to pull out of the shallow dive. There was a devil of a bang, the plane disappeared from view, and then there was a huge explosion and fire and smoke rolled up from behind a line of banyan trees.

‘Clipped a tree,' Denis said with satisfaction. ‘Serves the blighter right.'

I was dizzy from the bump on the head and shaking so much that I had to sit beside the car for a while. Even then Denis had to support me, an arm around my waist, while Amah clicked her tongue and fussed. ‘Mummy's not used to war, is she Daddy?' Tony observed with an air of infuriating male superiority.

‘I am!' Bobby piped up. ‘I'm used to war, aren't I?'

Denis dropped on his knee and turned both boys towards him.

‘Nobody ever gets used to war,' he said seriously. ‘We were very, very lucky this afternoon. So don't tempt the gods by boasting. Just say a little prayer in your heads. Say thank you that we are all alive, and ask God to keep protecting us as he did just now.'

The Singer was able to limp the short distance back to Whitelawns, but it was clearly a write-off. Denis did suggest that we might make a try in the Marvelette but I shook my head. ‘I've had enough,' I said. ‘I promise I'll go to Bishopscourt tomorrow, but I couldn't even try tonight. You don't mind, do you?'

In truth, I was not sure that I would try tomorrow. I wondered if the Zero hadn't been sent to us as a sign. After all, I had been praying to the Holy Mother for guidance when it had appeared. Perhaps she was telling us that it was safer to stay at Whitelawns than trust our luck trying to escape. It was dangerous enough just getting on a ship, and the danger would certainly not stop there. So many vessels had gone down trying to escape from island that the run from Singapore to the Banka Straits had earned the nickname ‘Bomb Alley'.

Denis rang me during the night. He had intended to return early the next morning with a Navy car to drive us down to Bishopscourt, but had just received orders to sail at first light, ferrying evacuees out to their ships. ‘I've asked Graham-White to run you over,' he said. ‘Promise me you will go?'

That put me in a pickle. ‘I'm not sure we should go,' I said. ‘I'm not being stubborn but I really am torn two ways.'

‘There are no two ways about it. The Japs are going to take Singapore. You know our people have already started demolishing the Naval Base?'

‘A lot of people are getting killed trying to get out,' I said. ‘Don't you think it would be wiser to stay put? Or perhaps we could get hold of a boat and try and get out ourselves?'

‘It's past that.' Denis's voice was abrupt, almost angry. ‘Please do as I say, Norma. Join Bishop Wilson's party.'

There was a long pause, and then I suppose I got to the nub of my difficulty. ‘I'm loath to leave you,' I said simply. And then it came out. ‘You are everything to me, Denis. Like Robert was for Catherine. I simply wouldn't want to go on living if you were not around . . .'

The line went dead. For a split second I thought Denis had rung off but then I realised that the line was down. It had happened a lot recently, either due to bomb damage or simply because the system had become prone to faults because of the lack of proper servicing.

There was no way the line would be up before morning, which left everything up to me. It was a terrible responsibility to carry, and I wandered out onto the verandah and stared up at the stars. I suppose I was looking for guidance. They glittered, timeless and beautiful, but of course they had no answer for me. I'd never felt quite so alone in my life.

The next day was the Day of the Smoke. The Navy's huge oil tanks on Pulau Bukum and Pulau Subaru had been deliberately set alight to prevent the oil falling into Japanese hands, and smoke rolled across the sky in a thick, black pall that blocked out the sun. All day, the light held a strange grey hue as if we were in the middle of a storm, but no rain fell and the heat was unbearable. An American pilot with the RAF, Arthur Donahue, flew the last Hurricane out of Singapore on that day. He wrote later:

My final memory of Singapore is of a bright green little country, resting on the edge of a dark, tragic mantle of smoke which towered over it like a great, overhanging cloak of doom. The city itself, with huge leaping red
fires at its heart, seemed to rest on the floor of a vast cavern formed by the sinister curtains of black smoke.

At Whitelawns, the smoke penetrated everything, tainting the water we drank, getting into our clothes and hair, even seeming to dull the taste of food.

Our discomfort was increased by the persistent air raids. It seemed that no sooner had the all-clear sounded for one raid when the warning sounded for the next. The children became fractious, their misery compounded by my irritability: I simply could not decide what we should do. I wandered about the place in an agony of indecision, at one moment convinced that I should be sensible for the children's sake, the next determined that come what may Denis and I would see it through together. Our packed bags, standing in a neat pile at the end of the verandah, seemed to rebuke me for me weakness.

I had dreaded the thought of Archdeacon Graham-White's arrival but when he did finally arrive I felt overwhelming relief. Now I would be forced to come to a decision. Now at last the agony would be over.

He arrived in a Model-T Ford, a curio even in those days. He was a tall, upright man and when he climbed stiffly from his old-fashioned, upright motor car, dressed in an old-fashioned dark-brown alpaca suit and with a flat parson's hat on his head I almost laughed. He looked the epitome of Father Brown in the G. K. Chesterton stories.

We sat on the verandah, the Archdeacon puffing a small cigar while I sipped tea. He was younger than his appearance suggested, a good-looking man with kind eyes and a humorous mouth. I'd not really got to know him at the time of our wedding, and I now wished I'd made an effort. He was the sort of person who made a good friend.

‘My Uncle Claude knew your husband,' he said. ‘They met at Maxine Elliott's place in France. Denis tells me you knew her too.'

I was so surprised that my cup hung frozen in mid-air. Maxine Elliott. The south of France. The Château de l'Horizon. They all seemed a million miles away. I had a sudden, vivid memory of Maxine staring at me with her candid grey-blue eyes. ‘You understand, don't you, Norma?' she had said. ‘We all meet up later, don't we? Somehow, somewhere, we all meet up again. And laugh about the game we've all been playing.' I wished I'd remembered those words the day before, when I'd been with Catherine. But then, they would probably have not meant anything to her in the immediacy of her pain.

‘How did your uncle meet Maxine?' I asked.

‘Oh, he was by way of being a bit of a hero many years ago. A pioneer of aviation. He caught Maxine's fancy, and she supported him and his dream of flying around the world. He used to land his plane at Heartsburn Manor, her home in England before the Great War.'

He fitted the picture, I saw that. A man of action, and if his nephew was any guide, darned good looking too. I smiled. The talk of Maxine, of another, finer world, had cheered me up immensely.

The Archdeacon sat up and stubbed out his cigar. ‘You know you've got to try and get away, don't you?' he asked. ‘For the children's sake, and for the sake of the baby you are carrying.'

‘I know my duty,' I said a little stiffly. ‘But it's not quite that simple. If we make a break for it, there is every chance we'll die anyway. I've heard that eighty per cent of vessels leaving Singapore are sunk within the first day. If I am to die – if the boys and I are to die – I'd prefer it to be on our terms. And I'd like to be by Denis's side, come what may.'

Graham-White took out another of his little cigars, nipped the end off and lit it. He leaned back as if he had all the time in the world, and let the smoke from his first puff spiral up to the roof. He was the picture of composure. Little did I know that inside he was writhing with anxiety. The Bishop's party was to board the Blue Star Line
Empire Star
that afternoon, and he had bare minutes to convince me to return to Bishopscourt with him.

‘It's Denis, isn't it?' he asked finally. ‘If Denis were coming with you, you would take your chance on the ocean?'

I drew a deep breath. ‘Of course I would.'

He winked at me. A slow, deliberate wink that said as plain as day that Denis would be on the
Empire Star
with us. I had absolutely no idea whether he had the right to convey that impression, or whether it was an outrageous bluff.

‘How could it be that Denis would be on board?' I asked.

‘He's too valuable to leave behind,' Graham-White said. ‘Knows too much about who is who and what's happening in Malaya and in the region. And the Japs know who he is. If they caught him they would torture him for information and then kill him. Why do you think they blasted poor old Alec Dean's place off the face of the earth? They thought it was Whitelawns.'

I sat with my mouth open, staring into the bland, smiling face. ‘I'd go with you if I knew for a fact that Denis would be on the
Empire Star
,' I said
stubbornly. ‘Can you promise me that he will be?'

Graham-White didn't flicker an eyebrow. He just sat there in silence, smoking his little cigar. And then, almost theatrically, he put his finger to his lips, lowered his eyes to mine, and nodded slowly.

We left for Bishopscourt almost immediately. There was no room in the Model-T for Agnes and Christine, so I hugged them tight and pushed money into their hands. The sooner they could get rid of their starched uniforms and resume life as ‘natives' the better. The Japanese picked on anyone who had had anything to do with ‘Imperialists'.

I hugged Amah especially tight. ‘Take anything you can from Whitelawns,' I said. ‘I'd like you and Chu Lun to have it rather than the Japs. Please feed and water the horses.' I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to tell her how much I had enjoyed our times together. How I had loved arranging the flowers with her in the cool of the morning. Preparing for a dinner party, the two of us arguing gently about how the table should be set. Rearranging the furniture in one of the rooms, just because we wanted to. But Archdeacon Graham-White was honking the horn and I had to go.

This time I didn't look back.

Chapter Twenty-Six

T
he drive from Whitelawns to Bishopscourt was an almost surreal experience – a tiny, dreamlike interlude in the reality of war. I sat in the front seat of the Model-T feeling almost prim, with the Archdeacon sitting stiff and upright beside me as he navigated the smoky streets with precise turns of the old-fashioned timber steering wheel. The road was littered with wrecked cars and bomb craters and at one stage sirens began their urgent wail, but somehow I felt impervious to these dreadful things, as though cocooned in an impregnable bubble of peace and sanity. I suppose it was reaction to the strain I had been under, and relief that our fate was no longer in my hands alone. I also think that the Archdeacon's calm demeanour had something to do with it. He sat there chatting away as easily as if he was making conversation at a garden party, and I couldn't help responding in kind. ‘His Grace has been so very busy,' he said solemnly. ‘I know he intended calling on you and Denis out at Whitelawns, but with the bombing and so on . . . I do hope you will both forgive him.'