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By Root 5780 0

fluttering and darting shadows like sparrows in a leafy thicket. He got on well with the Asiatics, so it was not that … They liked and respected him. No, of all his preoccupations the most disturbing was that in these troubled times unless he remained alert he might not be able to prevent the dignity of his office from being eroded. Duff Cooper and the Military watched the powers he held as Governor the way greedy schoolboys might watch a pie cooling on the window-sill. He did not mind for himself, he was not a selfish man, but for the Colonial Service and for his successors. And for the natives, too, lest they should be abused. Beside him the telephone dozed peacefully in its cradle. In a few minutes it would awaken and begin to shriek.

Not everyone was asleep, however. In the Operations Room at Sime Road a considerable amount of excitement was developing. When Sinclair had come on duty (at one a.m., not midnight as he had told Monty) he had found a discussion taking place between the GSO2 and the Brigadier General Staff as to whether the code-word ‘Black-Out’ should be sent out. The BGS, however, had declared that this was the Governor’s responsibility. Not long afterwards the ‘green line’ telephone had suddenly started to ring. Sinclair, beside himself with excitement, had watched the RAF officer on duty pick it up. It was the aerodrome at Kota Bahru on the north-east coast near the Siamese border. Suspicious shipping had been detected standing off the coast. Pulford, the Air Officer Commanding, had been summoned. GHQ Far East had been contacted and asked to identify these ships because it looked as if they could only be … Sinclair shuddered with the effort of maintaining an impassive appearance as he worked rapidly to assist the GSO2 in the preparation of the Situation Report. He was going to be present at the beginning of war in the Far East, he was certain of it!

Nor was General Gordon Bennett, the commander of the Australian Imperial Force in Malaya, asleep. As a matter of fact, he was not even in Singapore but hundreds of miles away in Rangoon. He had been obliged to stop there on his way to Malaya from Egypt where he had been visiting the Australian troops in the Middle East. Now, while waiting for an aircraft to convey him to Singapore, he was spending the night at the splendid old Strand Hotel beside the Rangoon River. Instead of sleeping, however, he was sitting in the dark beside the open window of his room, gazing out surreptitiously into the sweltering night towards the window of another room and holding his breath with excitement.

On account of the heat the window of this room, too, stood open and a light was burning there despite the lateness of the hour. Thanks to the angle of the building Gordon Bennett could see into it across the intervening courtyard. And what could he see in that room but four men who he was pretty certain were Japanese busy poring over maps which he was convinced were maps of Malaya. Japanese spies! What else could they be? He had already telephoned Military Headquarters in Rangoon and told them, guardedly at first, that he had uncovered a nest of spies. Then, since they did not appear very interested, he had had to make it explicit. Jap spies hard at it, spinning their toils practically under his nose! But although the blockheads in charge had told him, soothingly, that they would see about it, he had been watching for hours and they had still done nothing. Meanwhile, he had been staring so long and so fixedly at that nest of spies that he was finding it difficult to keep his eyes focused on them. He ground his teeth in frustration. Why didn’t the police come? This heat was quite unbearable. Every now and then he was obliged to close his aching eyes. So the night wore on, the spies scheming, Gordon Bennett grinding his teeth.

Back in Singapore the Major had opened his eyes to find himself still in his cane chair with a burned-out cigar between his fingers. He must have dozed off for a moment. What time could it be? Presently he would go across the road to see whether Matthew