The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [692]
When the three men stood up and dusted themselves off it was discovered that none of them had been hurt. Moreover, although one corner of the building had been demolished by a bomb (which fortunately had failed to explode) and both Percival’s and Wavell’s cars had been wrecked, there had been no casualities at the HQ itself. This seemed a miracle. The generals shook the plaster and broken glass off the map they had been studying and resumed their conference. ‘Really,’ declared Wavell presently, ‘these constant withdrawals won’t do, you know. You must attack, you must attack.
Percival and Bennett nodded thoughtfully, but what was in their minds as they stood there, all three of them, in this suddenly shattered room, as if in a tiny vessel tossed here and there in a mounting sea of confusion?
More cars were found. Wavell, determined to find out what was happening in the Causeway area, had decided to go forward to see General Heath at 11th Division. Just as they were leaving the Australian headquarters Percival was dismayed to see a group of Indian troops in filthy uniforms shambling along the road, rifles held any old way and not even properly formed up into column of route. He could not help glancing at Wavell: that merciless glass eye betrayed no emotion but Percival guessed what must be in his mind. How dreadful! Undisciplined men shambling about under their GOC’s nose, that is the sort of thing that can have a bad effect on a fellow’s chances if the rumour of it gets back to the Powers That Be. Of course, compared with everything else that had gone wrong this was a minor matter. The trouble was that this column of Indians was not alone by any means. Behind them, like a wound filling up with pus, Singapore Town was harbouring an increasing number of stragglers and deserters; in particular, it was reported that deserters from the untrained Australian reinforcements at the General Base Depot were running wild.
Exhausted though he was, Percival maintained a stoical determination to do his best with whatever opportunities the military situation offered. He was determined to show no sign of defeatism in front of Wavell. It was, however, only when they reached General Heath’s headquarters that the really heavy blows began to fall. From Heath they learned that the 27th Australian Brigade under Brigadier Maxwell had withdrawn during the night. Maxwell? Was he not that same militia officer, a doctor by profession, whom Bennett had promoted as his protégé to the command of the 27th Brigade despite his lack of experience and seniority? This withdrawal had left a crucial gap between the Causeway and the Kranji River: this meant in turn that the most important road on the Island (that which began at the Causeway and headed south for Singapore Town by way of Bukit Timah village) lay open for the Japanese to push southwards behind the Jurong line which Percival had been hoping to hold. This was simply disastrous. Why had Maxwell withdrawn from his crucial position? He asserted that Gordon Bennett had authorized the move. The result, in any case, was that Percival now found his entire defensive edifice crumbling. He promptly ordered Maxwell to counter-attack to recover Mandai village and reoccupy his former position. He also ordered three battalions of the 18th Division to come under Bennett’s command on the Bukit Timah Road, concentrating them at the racecourse to act as badly needed reserve. But these, as Percival well knew, were desperate measures.
It was half past two in the afternoon before Wavell and Percival returned to Gordon Bennett’s headquarters. Here Bennett denied having authorized Maxwell’s withdrawal during the night. In any event, there was worse to come. Brigadier Taylor’s 22nd Australian Brigade, already shattered in the fighting which had taken place during the night, had been obliged to fall back to the Jurong line. Now, while Percival and Wavell had been visiting other units, news