Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [189]
LULL IN MALAYA: NEW RAF SUCCESS
According to last night’s official communiqué, the Japanese have not been able to maintain their pressure on the Perak front, where our patrols have been active.
RAIDS ON KUALA LUMPUR
Since their first raid on Kuala Lumpur town on Friday the Japanese have returned regularly every day. On Tuesday there were five alerts. The raiders are always met by heavy ack-ack fire. As a result they have not dared appear directly over the town and have not dropped any bombs since last Friday.
Straits Times Thursday, 1 January 1942
Now the New Year of 1942 began and life in Singapore underwent yet another frightening metamorphosis. Little by little people had grown accustomed to the darkness of the blacked-out streets and the military road-blocks, though they had not ceased to be an inconvenience. But now air-raids, sporadic at first and usually aimed at the docks and airfields, came to remind Singapore’s inhabitants of the dangers they ran. And yet, when you thought about it, only a few days had passed since Singapore had been still enjoying the comfort and security of peace-time. How far away those pleasant days already seemed! These days, unless your character was unusually imperturbable, you found it hard to enjoy dining on the lawn of Raffles Hotel in the tropical night surrounded by the fan-shaped silhouettes of travellers’ palms. By now people preferred to dine inside: for one thing there was no light to read the menu by if you stayed outside; for another, although it was still just as enchanting to listen to the sighing of the warm breeze as it tossed the ruffled heads of the nibong palms against the stars high above you, you could no longer be quite sure that the dark shape of a Japanese bomber was not lurking like a panther in those tossing palms and watching you with yellow eyes as you put your spoon into a soufflé au fromage. Besídes, sitting out there by yourself, could you be altogether certain that you would not find yourself sharing your soufflé with a Japanese parachutist?
For Europeans, these days, work swallowed up everything. For no sooner had you finished at the office than you were obliged to report for an evening’s training with the passive defence and volunteer forces. If you were over the age of forty-one you now found yourself, unless exempted for some other essential work, serving with the volunteer police or firemen or with the Local Defence Corps. Nevertheless, it had taken Singapore’s second air-raid on 29 December, and those that followed in ever more rapid succession, to make a real dent in Singapore’s way of life. Sporting activities on the padang came to an end (to Matthew’s inexperienced eye not the least astonishing thing about Singapore had been the sight of thirty grown men engaged in a violently energetic game of rugby a mere few miles from the equator): the municipal engineering department had erected obstacles to deny such open spaces to aircraft or paratroops. Supplies of tinned food were brought up and people began to improvise air-raid shelters in their gardens or in the less fragile parts of their homes.
Outwardly, perhaps, not so much had changed. You could still pause almost anywhere in the city, just as you had always done, and buy a refreshing slice of pineapple, or a bunch of tiny, delicious bananas no bigger than the fingers of your hand, or even, if you were adventurous, scoop out the fragrant, heavenly, alarming flesh of the durian. Some people, no less adventurous, occasionally managed a round of golf under the air-raids, at least until golf links and club-house were taken over to be fortified by the Military despite a gallant rear-guard action by the Club Committee to save it for its members. Others sported and splashed in the wavelets at Tanjong Rhu while Japanese bombers raided Keppel Harbour across the water. Was this bravado or simply an illustration of the time it takes to change from the reality of peace to the new reality of war? Well, you were probably no less safe and a great deal more comfortable having a swim during an