Singapore Grip - J. G. Farrell [85]
‘What fools those men are!’ exclaimed the Major, and the tip of his cigar glowed fiercely in the darkness. But after a moment he added humbly: ‘Of course, they may know things that we don’t.’
19
At the end of the first week of December a little group of men wearing overalls or boiler-suits or simply shorts on account of the heat gathered one afternoon in the shade of the tamarind tree in the Mayfair’s compound. They belonged to the Mayfair Auxiliary Fire Service unit (AFS for short) and they had been summoned, although today was Sunday, to an urgent practice. The morning newspaper had carried news of a convoy of unidentified transport ships heading south from Japanese-occupied Indo-China and the Major, who was in charge of the Mayfair AFS unit, feared the worst. The Major, at the moment, was not under the tamarind tree but in the garage beside the house, struggling with a tarpaulin. Matthew, who had just been enrolled in the unit, was assisting him. There was no ventilation in the garage and the day’s sun, beating down on the corrugated iron roof, had made it like an oven inside. Matthew had already been suffering from the heat: now he felt the perspiration running down his legs and collecting in his socks.
The Major had dragged the tarpaulin off a large box-shaped object which proved to be some sort of engine, gleaming with steel and brass pipes and fittings. Matthew stared at it blankly. It had two large dials on a sort of dashboard and, instead of wheels, two carrying-poles like a palanquin.
‘It’s a Coventry Victor,’ declared the Major with pride. ‘Brand new!’
‘But what does it do?’
‘It’s a trailer-pump. The trailer is over there. I’ve had a bracket put on the back of my car so we can tow it about if need be. Give me a hand and we’ll carry it outside. We’re going to have a drill with it when our instructor gets here. He’s an ex-London Fire Brigade man and when he’s sober he knows his stuff … which isn’t always, unfortunately.’
Presently, the instructor arrived. He turned out to be a short, bald and red-faced man in his fifties called McMahon. After a lengthy altercation with the taxi-driver who had brought him he advanced swaying towards the Mayfair Building. The Major had explained to Matthew that Mr McMahon, like many firemen, had started life as a seaman. It became clear, however, as he collided with a bush, shouting, on his way round the house, that this was not the explanation of his rolling gait.
The Major had drawn up the members of the Mayfair AFS unit in a line beside the tennis court ready to be inspected by their instructor. They stood at ease, waiting uncertainly, while Mr McMahon weaved his way towards them, cursing. Apart from the Major himself, the unit consisted of Dupigny, a Mr Sen and a Mr Harris, both clerks who were occasionally lent to the Mayfair by Blackett and Webb (the former was Indian, the latter Eurasian), Mr Wu, a friendly Chinese businessman, the Chinese ‘boy’, Cheong, who had surprised the Major by volunteering and who, though his face remained perfectly impassive in every situation, had proved easily the most efficient of the recruits, Monty Blackett, who had volunteered (the lesser of two evils) to avoid conscription into the Local Defence Force but was still hoping to achieve, if not a complete dispensation, at least, a more agreeable position in Singapore’s active or passive defences, and finally, a handsome young man called Nigel Langfield, the son of Walter’s arch-rival and enemy, Solomon Langfield: Nigel was wearing a very new blue boiler-suit with AFS prettily embroidered in red on one of its breast pockets; from time to time he would lower his nose to sniff the satisfying