Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [329]
The ruined, baking streets stretched interminably ahead. In some of the shops they passed Matthew noticed that crude Japanese flags had already appeared. Dupigny noticed them, too, and said with a cynical smile: ‘Well, Matthew, do you really believe that one day all races will decide to abandon self-interest and live together in harmony?’
‘Yes, François, one day.’
They struggled on in the heat, stopping now and then to rest for a few moments in whatever shade they could find. Once, while they were resting, an elderly Chinese came out of a shop-house and offered them cigarettes from a round tin of Gold Flake, nodding and smiling at them sympathetically. They thanked him warmly and walked on, feeling encouraged.
The Chinese and Indians who had vanished from the streets after the surrender were beginning cautiously to reappear. By a row of burned-out shop-houses a group of young Indians had gathered to watch the column of Europeans as they straggled by. When Dupigny, limping painfully, came abreast of them they laughed and jeered at him. Delighted, he turned to smile ironically at Matthew.
‘One day, François.’
They walked on. As time passed, Dupigny found it increasingly difficult to keep up with the others. His face was grey now and running with sweat. The Major insisted on having a look at his leg: his wound had opened again and his shoe was full of blood. He told the others to go on without him; he would get a lift from one of the Japanese vehicles which occasionally passed on the road. But the others considered this too risky. Ignoring his protests the Major unfolded the stretcher and made Dupigny lie down on it. Then he and Matthew picked up the stretcher and they went forward again, leaving their suitcases to volunteers in the column behind them; meanwhile, another volunteer searched through the column for a doctor, but presently he returned saying none could be found: it seemed that the doctors had been detained to look after the wounded in the city. They moved on once more: Dupigny seemed hardly to have the strength to brush the flies from his lips and eyes. They spread a handkerchief over his face to keep off the glare of the sun.
Time passed. At last Katong was no longer very far ahead. Dupigny lay with his eyes closed and seemed to be scarcely conscious. Again they passed a crowd of jeering Indians. Hearing them, Dupigny opened his eyes for a moment and his mouth twisted into a smile.
In the weeks, then months, then years that followed, first in Changi, later at the Sime Road civilian camp, Matthew found that his world had suddenly shrunk. Accustomed to speculate grandly about the state and fate of nations he now found that his thought were limited to the smallest of matters … a glass of water, a pencil, a handful of rice. Hope had deserted him completely. It came as a surprise to him to realize how much he had depended on it before.
In the first weeks after his internment, news began to filter into Changi of mass executions of Chinese suspected of having helped the British. ‘Will all men still be brothers one day, Matthew?’ asked Dupigny when he heard about these executions.
‘I think so, François.’ And Matthew shrugged sadly.
‘Ah,’ said Dupigny.
Many of the Chinese who were killed were towed out to sea in lighters and made to jump overboard, still bound together in twos and three. Others were machine-gunned wholesale on the beaches. According to the rumours which reached the camp, in every part of Singapore where Chinese lived they were forced by the Japanese to leave their houses at dawn and paraded in front of hooded informers. Matthew had a chilling vision of the scene … the hooded man, of whose face nothing could be seen but a glitter of eyes behind the mask, moving like Death along the row of waiting people, without explanation picking out