Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [269]
‘Refugees.’
‘Of course, but why is nothing being done by the Government to take care them? We can’t possibly be expected to feed them all. And what about sanitary arrangements? We’ll have an epidemic in no time if they stay here. I thought schools had been taken over to house them. Perhaps you could enquire, François, and see if there’s somewhere for them to go … The poor things are obviously too exhausted to find out for themselves.’
Dupigny smiled at his friend and made a gesture of helplessness; his experience of administration in Hanoi told him that even in the best conditions it would take several days or even weeks before Singapore was again able to cope adequately with its administrative problems, of which the refugees were only one. What about the water supply? The burial of the dead? The demolition of damaged buildings? The repair of damage done to vital roads, to gas, electricity and telephone installations? And then there was the storing and distribution of food, the struggle to prevent an epidemic of typhus or cholera, and a hundred and one other difficulties … None of these matters, Dupigny knew without any doubt, would be dealt with adequately, for the simple reason that there were not enough experienced men to do the job … some of them, he explained to the Major, would not be dealt with at all unless people took matters into their own hands … ‘Like this fellow here,’ he added.
They had passed through another little community, this time living in army tents scrounged from somewhere, and had come with a certain relief to an open space which led presently to the little wilderness of rare shrubs beyond which lay the Blacketts’ compound. Beneath the shade of a rambutan a Chinese was digging a grave, or rather he had already dug the grave and was now shovelling earth back into it. On closer inspection the Chinese turned out to be Cheong who, for the past few days, had been working with astonishing energy and fortitude to provide meals at intervals for the ever-increasing number of volunteer firemen and their dependents. And now, not content with feeding people, here he was burying someone single-handed.
‘Ah, Cheong,’ said the Major peering into the grave where, however, nothing could be seen but the well-polished toes of a pair of stout English shoes. ‘Good show,’ he added, wanting to make it clear how much he appreciated Cheong’s efforts.
‘Whose grave is that?’
Cheong, without pausing in his digging, muttered a name which the Major had to cup his ear to catch.
‘Not old Tom Prescott!’ cried the Major in dismay. ‘Why, François, I knew him well. He used to do a trick at parties with an egg.’ And the Major gazed into the grave in concern.
Dupigny shrugged, as if to say: ‘What else can one expect, the way things are?’
They moved on a little way. The Major, upset, mopped his brow with a silk handkerchief. ‘Poor old Tommy,’ he said. ‘What a card he was! He used to have us in fits. Mind you, he was getting on in years. He’d had a good innings.’
The Major, too, Dupigny could not help thinking, was beginning to look his years; the lack of sleep and the ceaseless activity of the past few days had given his features a haggard appearance, accentuating the lines under his eyes; even his moustache had a chewed and patchy look, perhaps singed by drifting sparks at one of the fires he had attended.
‘People are like bubbles, Brendan,’ declared Dupigny in a sombre and sententious manner. ‘They drift about for a little while and then they burst.’
‘Oh, François, please!’
‘Not clear bubbles which sparkle, but bubbles of muddy, blood-stained water. Prick them and they burst. Moreover, it is scientific,’ he added, narrowing his eyes in a Cartesian manner. ‘We are made of ninety-nine per cent water, we are like cucumbers. So what do you expect?’ If you prick a cucumber it does not burst, the Major thought of saying, but decided not to encourage his friend in this lugubrious vein.
Having returned to the bungalow they found Ehrendorf who had disappeared for an hour to drive some of the women