The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [695]
It was hard to see what was going on. The road appeared to be full of shambling, cursing figures, some going one way, some going another. A military policeman was shouting hoarsely at drivers from the middle of the road beside the storm-canal. Beyond the canal an occasional flicker of light betrayed another vast military column on Dunearn Road struggling in the opposite direction. Someone flashed a torch in his face and shouted at him hoarsely: ‘You’re going the wrong bloody way, mate. That’s the way to the war!’ There were no further roadblocks and nobody tried to stop him, but all along the road men and vehicles continued to thrash in the obscurity like the limbs of some stricken, fettered giant.
Matthew soon became skilful at directing his motor-cycle into narrow gaps between the labouring vehicles but his progress was slow, nevertheless. Near the racecourse a huge fire was flaring a hundred feet into the sky: this was the reserve petrol dump which General Percival had ordered to be set on fire an hour before dark. Against its glare Matthew could see the long-shadowed silhouettes of men and guns, for the most part struggling in the direction of Singapore Town but constantly being arrested by traffic breaking into the stream or forcing a way through it. He, too, soon found it difficult to make any progress, wedged in now between two lorry-loads of silent, apprehensive Indians. Meanwhile, desperate-looking figures continued to pour in the opposite direction, their faces transfigured by the glare. One of these men staggered against him, breathing whisky fumes into his face. ‘What’s going on?’ Matthew asked anxiously. ‘Are we retreating?’
‘You’re damn right we are, sport!’ And the man heaved himself away, laughing hysterically.
Even by the light of the burning petrol dump it was impossible to see clearly enough to recognize someone. ‘How will I ever find Vera in all this?’ Matthew wondered hopelessly. From time to time, among the soldiers fleeing from the direction of Bukit Timah village, there were little pockets of civilians with bundles on their backs or dragging hand-carts; at the side of the road he could see the shadows of men jogging with poles across their backs from which hung boxes, suitcases or other burdens, but they all slipped by, heads averted: only by their clothes could you make a guess as to whether they were Indian, Malay or Chinese. Yes, it was hopeless. He considered turning back, but by now he had passed the racecourse on the right and Bukit Timah itself could not be more than half a mile up the road, so he decided to press on a little further. He rode on in a daze, travelling more freely the further he went. He passed a road junction to the left. This road was quiet and tempting but he ignored it and presently, as the ground rose on either side, he knew that Bukit Timah and the junction with the Jurong Road must lie just ahead in the obscurity.
Suspended between two rows of houses above the wide road a bundle of electric cables spluttered a cascade of white sparks over a scene of such confusion that Matthew’s heart sank. Lorries and turreted Quad cars were wedged together at all angles with a tide of men flowing by on each side of them; military police, bawling at drivers and at each other and at the same time trying to marshal a squad to drag away an abandoned or broken-down vehicle, seemed unable to make any impression on the jammed traffic. In the very middle of this chaos, four brigadiers in an open staff-car were trying to read a map by torchlight and occasionally peering about them into the seething darkness as if wondering where they were.
Matthew turned the motor-cycle and allowed himself to be swept back the way he had come for some distance in the middle of a cantering mob of Indian troops, some of whom had discarded their rifles and boots and were running barefoot, jabbering to each other hysterically as they ran. Matthew, infected by their alarm, kept looking