Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [257]
‘I don’t think you realize how urgent it is …’
‘A Eurasian girl, you say? An amah? A servant? Really, it’s impossible.’
‘Not a servant … a friend.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Joan, this isn’t just anyone. It’s someone you know. She’ll be in deadly danger if the Japanese ever take Singapore and she’s still here. Vera has told me that you were there when the Japs arrested her in Shanghai … You know better than anyone what will happen to her if they find her here!’
‘Nigel, there’s nothing we can do, is there?’
A voice called something from the interior of the room which Matthew was unable to make out.
‘Sorry, Miss Chiang should have thought about all this earlier in the day. There’s nothing we can do, I’m afraid.’
‘To hell with you then, you bitch!’ cried Matthew in a voice that took even him by surprise.
Since the air-raids which had on successive days devastated Tanglin, Beach Road and the central part of the city, many Europeans had at last come to realize the extreme danger that they ran. Even if it were improbable that the Japanese would be permitted to land on Singapore Island itself, the fact remained that their air force, whose control of the sky was no longer seriously disputed by the few and rapidly diminishing fighters of the RAF, could inflict all the damage that was necessary. Such was the confidence of the Japanese bombers that they now droned constantly over the city in daylight, flying at a great height, twenty thousand feet or more, in enormous packs that for some reason were always in multiples of twenty-seven, causing Europeans below to think that there must be something sinister and unusual about Japanese arithmetic. At such a height they were well beyond the range of the light anti-aircraft guns which made up the greater part of Singapore’s air defences. And so the truth had begun to dawn on the inhabitants of the city: if attacked from the air they were defenceless.
Many European women who had bravely declared that they would ‘stay put’ now had second thoughts or at least yielded to the demands of their men-folk that they should leave forth-with. The result was that every day crowds assembled at the shipping offices in search of passages to Europe, Australia or India. But, although earlier in the month many ships had sailed from Singapore with room to spare (Mrs Blackett and Mrs Langfield had marvelled at the deserted decks and echoing state-rooms of the Narkunda) now, quite suddenly it seemed, you were lucky to find a berth on any sort of vessel going anywhere. Partly this was the result of the chaos in the docks, where unloading had almost seized up under the bombing; partly it was the result of the diminished ability of the RAF to defend incoming convoys in the sea approaches to the Island, now rendered hazardous to a distance of twenty miles or more by prowling Japanese bombers.
Matthew’s efforts to help Vera had so far been frustrated as much by the perplexing regulations which governed departure from the Colony as by the rapidly swelling numbers of those who wanted to leave. Moreover, so much of his time was taken up by his duties as a fireman that he had little time or energy to spare to help and encourage her. One of the major difficulties was to find somewhere for her to go. After a series of tiring and time-consuming enquiries he had at length succeeded in discovering that it was government policy that women and children, irrespective of race, should be allowed to leave if they wanted to. To begin with he had thought it would be best to send Vera to Australia … but Australia had agreed to accept only a limited number of Asiatics and Vera had returned empty-handed from their temporary immigration office, depressed and exhausted after many hours of waiting.
Why had she been refused? Were her papers not in order or was there some other reason? Vera shook her head; she had been unable to get any explanation from the harassed and impatient officials at the office. Her papers certainly did not look very convincing.