The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [686]
‘But I meant …’ stammered the assistant, astonished.
In the matter of the destruction of liquor, Walter did even better than not taking the law into his own hands: he lent it his active support, ordering one of the remaining secretaries to telephone the Tribune and the Straits Times with instructions for them to send a photographer. His intention was to have himself photographed smashing the first bottle of whisky. In the event no photographer appeared. Nevertheless, he still insisted on smashing the first bottle.
‘We aren’t here to launch a bloody ship, sir, you know,’ said the Volunteer Engineers sergeant who had been seconded to the PWD. ‘We’ve got to get through all that lot and several more bonded warehouses as well. Not to mention the shops, clubs and hotels all over the place.’ Walter nodded: he knew better than anyone how much liquor there must be on the Island. After all, Singapore was the distribution centre for the entire Far East. Blackett and Webb alone must have several tens of thousands of crates containing gin, whisky and wine; he could only guess that altogether there would be well over a million bottles of whisky belonging to various merchants and institutions in store or awaiting despatch from the Island, perhaps even more when one considered that the flow of spirits from Singapore into a number of Far Eastern ports had been dammed up for the past few weeks by the outbreak of war and the freezing of Japanese assets.
The demolition squad set to work on the cases with crowbars. Walter, thinking grimly of his jubilee year, obstinately grabbed a bottle out of the first case to be opened and smashed it violently at his feet.
‘Not here, sir, the fumes will do us in,’ said the sergeant, assuming he wanted to help.
Walter fell back then and watched silently as the bottles were carried outside and smashed against the wall. Presently, in a sort of daze from the heat and the noise of the ack-ack guns, that distant slamming of doors that followed you everywhere in the city, he too picked up some bottles and smashed them against the wall. And he went on doing so, despite the heat. Soon he was obliged to take off his jacket: the sweat fell in salty drops from his chin and his shirt clung to his back. The other men had stripped to the waist but this Walter could not do, because of the bristles on his spine.
The smashing of these bottles filled him with a strange exultation. He felt he could go on doing it for ever. Whereas the other men, conserving their strength, merely made the effort required to break the bottles, Walter dashed them violently against the wall. Once, as he turned too quickly, he thought he saw two other men exchanging a sly grin at his expense, but he did not care. He went on and on. He ground his teeth and smashed and muttered and smashed until his head was ringing. A mound of glittering broken glass rose steadily against the wall and in no time he found himself sloshing back and forth through deep pools of whisky which had gathered on the concrete surface. Even here outside the alcohol fumes soon became oppressive. Once, as he was sloshing through a pool of Johnny Walker, he lost his balance and sat down, cutting his hand on one of the bottles he had been holding and which had broken. He got up immediately, revived by the sharp stinging of alcohol on the