Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [16]
As we walked up the driveway, the harbour was below us and to our right. A metal fence was erected below the driveway, no doubt to keep non-paying guests from coming up from the sea through the small fringe of jungle and crashing the Siloso party.
On the right side of the road was a blockhouse, which I guessed was the true entrance to the fort proper. On the left was what must have been the original guardhouse. I could see mannequins dressed in the uniforms of a previous century on display inside.
We arrived on a wide terrace to find a quartet of sizeable pieces of heavy ordinance positioned there. The long barrels of the guns pointed across the harbour towards the city. At least this time round the artillery was positioned the right way, albeit a few decades too late.
There was a long two-storey building to the left. Downstairs was a souvenir shop. The signs identified it as The QuarterMaster Store. Upstairs, according to the brochure I had been given with my ticket, were the surrender rooms.
“Watch for watchers,” I breathed to Simone as we stood shoulder to shoulder taking it all in. The roadway carried on up the hill, past a battery of short fat mortars before turning in a switchback and cutting back to the left. There were several buildings up there with their entrances facing towards us. The rest of these various structures appeared to be buried into the ridge behind.
Drums and bugles were sounding loudly in the still, sticky air. The fort’s sound system was not going to let us off easy. There didn’t appear to be anyone paying any attention to us that I could see. There was a small group of tourists above us on the roadway along the side of the ridge. They had a guide in attendance. There were also one or two other people in view, some walking along pathways in the trees behind The QuarterMaster Store. I couldn’t make out anyone obviously standing or sitting staring at us, or anyone else for that matter. That, of course, didn’t mean there was no one in the bushes or at the windows of any of the buildings and various structures scattered on the side of the hill.
Then I realised that indeed there were two sets of eyes on us. Two girls standing outside the souvenir shop were looking our way. They were fort guides and they were obviously waiting to offer us their services when we came into range.
“Let’s get guided up and do the full nine yards,” I said to Simone. She agreed cheerfully, jolly tourist wife that she was. She, of course, had no idea that I was going to be very focussed on one specific part of the complex when we eventually got to it.
We advanced on the waiting guides, purchased bottled water and set out to explore Fort Siloso in the company of a pretty young lady.
Our guide was Wenn. She was nineteen years old and a student. This was a part-time job for her. She was enthusiastic and informative. She had learned her lessons well. I doubted I was going to have to read up on the history of the fort. I just had to log her words into my memory banks.
Our enthusiastic young guide was intent on showing us around the entire fort complex. I knew that would take forever. I wanted to get to the surrender rooms. I explained we had limited time and asked for the quick tour. Wenn agreed and decided to start us at the very bottom, and it was down there that I found an excuse to loiter. I lit a cigarette while Simone distracted our guide with girlie conversation.
We were at the lowest point in the fort complex. The sign said we were at the Fire Direction Tower at Siloso Point. The channel between the island and the small promontory on the mainland was maybe only a couple of hundred metres wide. It may have been more. Distance across water can be tricky to judge, but no matter the exact meterage, it wasn’t far at all.
“Look at ways of getting