Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [270]
‘Perhaps you should be on one of them yourself, Jim, unless you expect your army to arrive and rescue us and are merely waiting to welcome them ashore.’
‘While François is still in the Colony I know it must be safe,’ replied Ehrendorf with a smile.
‘You surely do not expect me to leave on … quelle horreur … a troopship. If you have ever been on such a vessel you will know that there is at least one instance in which it is better to arrive than to travel. Besides, I am curious to see how it ends, this Singapore story.’
Matthew, too, arrived presently. He had spent the morning at the Chinese Protectorate trying to get an exit permit for Vera. They now had everything that was needed including photographs and had both been hopeful that at last they would be able to tackle the next obstacle of getting Vera registered with the P & O. But the exit permit had been refused without explanation. Matthew was still shocked by this set-back: he had been so certain that they would succeed. Curiously enough, this time Vera had seemed to be less affected than he was by the disappointment, had comforted him as best she could and had come back with him to the Mayfair.
‘I know someone at the Protectorate,’ said the Major suddenly. ‘I think I shall go and have a word with him.’
It was not until later in the afternoon that the Major found time to telephone Smith at the Chinese Protectorate, asking to see him. Smith was discouraging. ‘We’re very busy here, Major. We have a whole lot of Chinese on our plate. What’s it about?’
‘I’m coming to see you now, Smith,’ the Major told him sharply, ‘and you’d better be there or else you’ll find a dozen young women camping in your office tomorrow.’
‘You’ll never get through. Traffic jams.’ There was silence for a moment, then Smith’s voice asked suspiciously: ‘What’s it about?’
The Major rang off.
Word had now spread that two, or even more, of the troopships that had brought the 18th Division would be sailing that evening after dark. This was a further blow for Matthew, made no better by the knowledge that even if they had managed to get the exit permit they still would not have been able to complete the other formalities in time to get Vera on board. From early in the afternoon those prospective passengers fortunate enough to have been granted passages on the ships that were due to sail had begun to converge on the docks, with the result that delays and traffic jams soon began to develop. Eventually those who were trying to approach Keppel Harbour along Tanjong Pagar Road found that they could no longer move forward at all: so many cars had been abandoned in the road by passengers who had driven themselves to the docks that the stream of traffic had become hopelessly blocked by them. The situation both there and in the other approach roads was made even worse by the bomb-craters, the rubble from destroyed buildings which had not yet been cleared away, and by the efforts of the newly arrived 18th Division to unload their equipment and force a passage through for it in the opposite direction. Everywhere desperate people were sweltering in cars which crept forward at best only a few feet at a time through clouds of smoke or dust, thin in places, dense in others, between rows of heat-distorted buildings, accompanied by a nightmare braying of car-horns, the hammering of anti-aircraft guns and the crump of bombs falling ahead of them. Nearer the docks a number of buildings were on fire: there were godowns with roofs neatly carpeted with rectangles of flame and shop-houses with flames sprouting like orange weeds from every window. Some passengers began to realize that they would never reach the docks in time, but the greater the panic the worse the situation became. It was