Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [274]
The important road which, in normal times, came over on the Causeway and landed on the crown of the elephant’s head continued straight down towards its mouth and trunk where Singapore Town was … that, is in a southerly direction, more or less. Two-thirds of the way across, it reached Bukit Timah Village, thereafter calling itself the Bukit Timah Road for the last lap into the city itself.
This principal road across the Island was straddled by not very impressive hills: Bukit (which means ‘hill’) Mandai, Bukit Panjang, Bukit Timah and Bukit Brown, the only hill terrain on the Island, by a nondescript area called Sleepy Valley, by a race course, a golf club and a cemetery (the latter on Bukit Brown), all grouped around Command Headquarters in Sime Road where Percival was now swatting at flies which were relentlessly trying to land on the backs of his sweating hands as he pored over the maps.
A little further to the east, right between the beast’s eyes, lay the reservoirs which would become vital if the siege were prolonged, and, further east again, the pumping station at Woodleigh. Apart from the water in the reservoirs, great stocks of food retrieved from the mainland had been dumped on the race course. Beside the race course two large petrol dumps had been established, not to mention other food, petrol and ammunition dumps which were located in the Bukit Timah area. Yes, altogether this was an area that Percival knew he must defend at all costs. But then, ‘at all costs’ was how he would have had to defend it, anyway, since Singapore Town was only just down the road.
In the plans which had been laid for the defence of the Island it had been decided that if the worst came to the worst and the Japanese got a solid footing ashore, the eastern and western areas (the elephant’s ears) might à la rigueur be abandoned and that the forces defending them might withdraw to second lines of defence. These second lines of defence, known as ‘switch lines’, followed very roughly the sides of the elephant’s head where the ears were stuck on to it: on the eastern side the ‘switch line’ was obliged to bulge out a bit from the side of the head in order to include Kallang aerodrome; also, the big guns at Changi would have to be abandoned. On the western side the ‘switch line’ was particularly easy to define, thanks to two rivers or creeks, the Jurong and the Kranji, which flowed north and south respectively just where the ear joined the skull. It was simply, then, a question of joining one creek to the other with a defensive line from north to south across the Island to isolate the western ear completely. Nothing could be simpler.
This ‘switch line’, known as the ‘Jurong line’, was accordingly reconnoitred but no effort was made to install fixed defences. This was for two reasons. One was that the troops were already frantically digging themselves in around the northern coast in order to prepare for the Japanese attack across the Strait of Johore and did not have time. The other was that Percival did not really think that the Japanese would come that way. He was pretty well convinced that they would attack somewhere along the top of the other (eastern) ear between Changi and Seletar.
Percival considered that the Japanese attack would fall on the north-east coast of the Island partly because Wavell, when they had discussed the prospect a couple of weeks earlier, had taken a different view: Wavell thought it would fall on the north-western. Nor was Wavell the only one: Brigadier Simson, the DGCD, clearly thought so, too, because he or his Deputy Chief Engineer had been dumping quantities of defensive material west of the Causeway on their own initiative. Ever since December it had been piling up: booby-traps, barbed wire, high-tensile anti-tank