The Day Gone By (59 page)

So began the most unorthodox and extraordinary job of my whole time in the Army. We had always been taught that R.A.S.C. officers had to be highly flexible and capable of turning their hand to whatever might arise. Well, here was a real ingenuity test. Poett was not a man likely to be patient with slow results, either.

After a bit I found a Chinese civilian called Mr Kwek Choon Chuan, who confessed to having been a refrigerator engineer before the fall of Singapore. He explained to me that the ‘fridges all ran on some fluid called ‘Free-own'. But there wasn't any Free-own: not anywhere in the Dai Nippon Co-Prosperity Sphere. There wouldn't be any nearer than Ceylon. If only he had some, he could set about the job of tackling each ‘fridge individually and making it work. Without Free-own, the job couldn't even be attempted.

Mr Kwek, like everyone else, needed money, for at a stroke all Japanese currency had been declared invalid, possessing no exchange value. He had struck me right away as a nice chap and we got on well. I at once obtained authority to have him paid a reasonable wage. However, this still left two problems: how to procure the Free-own from Ceylon and where to find the manpower and transport I would need to get the ‘fridges to Mr Kwek (or him to them) and then distribute them to the various officers' messes.

Those who know the Army will appreciate the impracticability, at such a time, of indenting in writing to Ceylon for urgently needed Free-own. We were in a city where we had arrived to find nothing working - no repaired roads, no gas, no electric light, no refrigeration, no air conditioning (Singapore is spot-on the Equator), no telephones, nothing potable out of a tap - you name it, we hadn't got it. From Singapore to Ceylon is something like 1,500 miles. (No jets in those days.) The foremost out-going priority was for sick and/or dying men. I could never have got a place on a ‘plane for Ceylon. I doubt whether the Brigadier himself could have got one. Of the inward priorities I have no idea: they must have been worked out daily, I imagine, at a far higher level than mine. Mr Kwek's English was good, but not up to explaining to me in detail exactly what sort of a fluid Free-own was, how it worked, how it was packed, how it behaved at equatorial temperature, whether it evaporated, how it ought to be stored, how long it lasted and how much we were going to need. How much space would it take up on an incoming ‘plane? Apart from all this, I didn't even know whether there
was
any Free-own (or any to spare) in Ceylon; and if there was, who was in charge of it, where to look for it or whom to ask for it. I didn't know the answers to any of these questions, and I was going to see my first Heffalump, in the form of Brigadier Poett, quite shortly.

It was at this point in the story that the grey-eyed goddess Pallas Athene appeared. As the reader will recall, she often used to appear in the likeness of somebody or other. This time it was Frank Espley, no less.

Walking along the street with Mr Kwek, I became aware of a soldier wearing a shoulder-flash which I had never seen before. It was quite big - almost as big as a Pegasus flash - and depicted, if I remember rightly, a yellow aeroplane on a blue ground. The regimental flash above it was ‘R.A.S.C.' I stopped the man and asked him what his unit was. He told me that they were something very new in the R.A.S.C., namely, an air supply company; he wasn't sure how big, but it was a major's command. I told him to take us to his leader forthwith. Into his jeep we piled and off we set for the outskirts of Singapore.

The major turned out to be Frank Espley! A field officer at twenty-five. This wasn't so very surprising. Frank had always stuck out a mile - a born officer. He had been promoted Captain at twenty-one and given a virtually independent command; R.A.S.C. transport officer in a medical field ambulance unit. Well, here he was in Singapore, with the command of a completely new kind of R.A.S.C. unit, whose work involved daily co-operation with the R.A.F. (and with the Yanks, too, I gathered, if the situation should require).

We fell on each other's necks and talked long and happily of old days (three-and-a-half-years ago!) in Northern Ireland. Of course there was no kind of lifemanship between Frank and myself, but all the same I felt easier because if he had a crown, I at least had wings. It amused and delighted me to hear his men speak of ‘Major Espley this' and ‘Major Espley that'. As far as I could make out he'd become a sort of John Gifford. They obviously thought the world of him. Did he send chaps to Doullens twice by night? I wondered. He was proud of his company. They could do anything, he said - and had already proved it in many a tight supply corner.

In this way, quite naturally, came up the matter of the Free-own. Frank listened carefully and asked for all the necessary information - most of which, as I've explained, I hadn't got. Finally he said ‘Right, Jeep' (it was splendid to be called ‘Jeep' again): ‘I can't go to Ceylon myself, obviously, but I've got a first-rate chap who goes regularly and he's top-hole in emergencies like this.'

Frank thereupon sent for his trusty subaltern (whose name I can't remember) and told him, in effect, not to bother to come back from Ceylon next time unless he brought untold floods of Free-own with him. In less than three days I had it in my possession and at my disposal.

I knew where all the ‘fridges were and so did Mr Kwek. We had the power to commandeer them. What we now needed, however, was manpower, transport, floor space and people who were ready-to do what Mr Kwek told them. (In those days Europeans didn't usually like working
to
the instructions of non-Europeans.) Frank's lot were far too busy to help and anyway, 5th Para. Brigade's ‘fridges were none of their business.

It was here that desperation brought forth ingenuity. To explain, I must digress.

Each of the two British airborne divisions included, as divisional troops, an Independent Parachute Company. Their special job, in an airborne operation, was to jump first, to secure the dropping zone, mark it out with coloured smoke and fluorescent panels and then do whatever might be necessary to hold it for the in-coming troops. After the drop, they came under the direct control of the Divisional Commander as a tactical reserve. During the Arnhem operation, 21st Independent Parachute Company, under their famous commanding officer, ‘Boy' Wilson, had played a vital part, first in holding the dropping zone and then in the defence of the Oosterbeek pocket. With 22nd Independent, their counterpart in 6th Division, I had not had a great deal to do until 5th Brigade actually reached Singapore. However, I had certainly got to know them then, as we went about our task of patching and mending the bled-white city.

As you might suppose, the people in the Independent companies tended - some of them, anyway - to be highly individual, not to say well-nigh idiosyncratic, in character. They were entertaining. Not only was the relationship between officers and men more personal and rather less formal than in the infantry battalions, but the sort of people you were likely to come across - at any level - were in some cases distinctly out of the ordinary. Apart, of course, from physical fitness and a high standard of self-reliance, what the Independent companies really valued was motivation. As long as a man possessed that in a high degree, they seemed positively to welcome unconventionality. You were quite likely to find yourself dealing with a former lecturer from Warsaw university, a couple of George Orwell's old comrades from Spain, an ex-Dutch Resistance man, or indeed anybody at all whose one overwhelming desire was to get at the enemy. They cared little for any officers but their own, and the quality of those officers was high.

22nd Independent had a very nice, comfortable little mess, in a relatively high-up and airy location on the outskirts of Singapore. Compared with other units, there were relatively few officers and, as in 250 Company, there was a pleasantly friendly, informal atmosphere. The commanding officer, Major Lane, was a quiet, down-to-earth, direct man who seemed to take everyone as he found them (he probably needed to, in his job). He had a marvellous line in rude stories, but he didn't compromise his position as C.O. by telling them very often. If ever an officer's authority rested on individual personality, it was Major Lane's.

22nd Independent - like every other unit in the Brigade in those early, exiguous days in Singapore - often found that they could do with the services of the Brasco. I took good care to cultivate them, their informal readiness to oblige you without military formality (and their relative carelessness about rank) being a great help to myself, who often had problems that needed a hand or two, and no soldiers of my own to draw upon. I took good care that 22nd Company got their fair share - their distinctly fair share — of whisky, cigarettes, chocolate and whatever else was going in the way of amenities.

They liked Mr Kwek and treated him as they treated people of all nationalities who were on our side. There was no awkwardness for him in their mess.

It was in these circumstances that there grew up a friendship between myself and Independent's second-in-command, Captain Doug. Campbell. Doug., although very different from Paddy Kavanagh, also (I should imagine) must have struck a lot of people as the very acme of a parachute officer. He was a big, broad-shouldered man, whose sheer physical appearance was impressive. Instead of the bravado and sometimes rather exhibitionist dash of Paddy, he had an air of smooth, easy-going optimism and unshakeable reliability. In story-book terms, you could picture Doug. putting his shoulder to a heavy, barred door while the others stood back, and the door collapsing inwards, Doug. thereupon remarking ‘Well, I reckon that ought to be all right now.' His quiet good nature and self-confidence - the self-confidence of a titan - must have made a very firm fulcrum for that disparate bunch of unorthodox heroes.

It wasn't long before Doug. and I discovered that something we had in common was a passion for swimming. By this time the Brigade had managed to get one of the swimming pools in Singapore into working order, but it was usually as full as you'd expect and anyway what Doug. and I fancied - if we could get it - was something to extend us a little more. This was how we came to invent point-to-point swimming.

There are two huge reservoirs - great, inland lakes, each about two miles long and half a mile broad - on the island of Singapore, known as the Peirce and the MacRitchie. At this time neither of these was under any supervision whatever. They were remote and lonely. The Peirce, actually, was too remote for our purpose, for it lay in rather dense jungle in the very centre of the Island; the access roads were in bad repair and the overgrown shore seemed a likely place for snakes. The MacRitchie, however, was exactly what we wanted. The open, sandy foreshores were accessible and there was no one about at all. The temperature of the water, of course was well up in the eighties or even a little more.

The MacRitchie is irregular in shape, with points and inlets all round the circumference. Doug. and I - it gives me a pang now to think how very fit and energetic we were - used to take a jeep out to some convenient place and stroll down through the trees to the shore. Then we would select some bay or point to swim to on the far side of the reservoir - anything from half to three-quarters of a mile away. It was splendid to find yourself far out in open water, making leisurely for the other shore. Having got there, we would lie around in the sun, relax and talk about nothing until we felt ready to go on. Then we would select another place to make for, this time usually somewhere further along the same shore, perhaps across an inlet or round a point. In this way we might quite often I suppose, have swum two or three miles in an afternoon, before drifting lazily back to the mess for whatever there might be in the way of a drink and a meal. Looking back on it, I can't remember many things I have ever done which were more enjoyable than this.

My own anxiety was for my batman, Tommy Hearn. Tommy couldn't swim a stroke, but he didn't want to be left out of the fun to pass the afternoon idling by the jeep. So he used to thrash across the reservoir on an inflated inner tube. The trouble was that he wouldn't keep inshore: he was determined to follow us across. We left him to his own devices, for we had come to extend ourselves and settle into the satisfying rhythm of fairly long-distance swimming. When you were at last lazing on the warm sand of the destination beach, however, it didn't exactly add to your peace of mind to see Tommy flailing along, more than four hundred yards out.

‘What on earth is he going to do if the valve blows?' I asked Doug. ‘Or if something punctures the tube, come to that?'

‘P'raps it won't,' replied Doug. sleepily. He was a man who positively seemed to create calm and security. In his ambience, things didn't go wrong much. Anyway, he was relaxing after what must have been a very bad, stressful year: I don't know - I never asked. I expect he'd have manhandled Hearn out somehow or other; if not, well, many airborne soldiers were silly, reckless sods, anyway, and it was my batman, not his.

From all this the reader will no doubt have grasped that, although I had no soldiers under my own command - apart from my administrative corporal — I was nevertheless able to find a few spare people to give Mr Kwek a hand with the refrigerators. We got the job done, every mess in the Brigade duly received its working model and I reported as much to the Brigadier. However, he was now somewhat preoccupied with other matters.

Singapore was by this time getting back on its feet and the place was daily becoming more normal. So was the military set-up. Several fresh units were arriving. A regiment of Ghurkas came into camp next to us. It was the first time that I had had any experience of these renowned soldiers, and I was as deeply impressed as everyone else who has had to do with them. Not only was Lord Mountbatten in Singapore (he had presided at the formal surrender of the Japanese on 12 September) but also General Slim, the commander of the 14th Army, which had first retreated through and then re-conquered Burma.