The Forgotten Highlander - Alistair Urquhart [31]
If Freddie was the extrovert, his brother Jim was the exact opposite. He was about the same height but slightly sturdier and had very little to say, to the point where I thought he had a speech difficulty. He did not stutter or stammer yet he was a slow speaker and found the right words hard to come by. Maybe because Freddie spoke so fast and so frequently Jim had allowed himself just to fade into the background.
The Brinds lived in Singapore. Their father had completed a twenty-three-year stint with the Gordon Highlanders and his last posting was in India, where both boys were born. On leaving the Army he moved the family to Singapore where he took over warden duties at Changi jail, the purpose-built prison constructed by the British. He stayed on at his post in Singapore and was subsequently captured by the Japanese. The boys’ mother and sisters successfully escaped from the besieged island on one of the last ships out and returned to the family’s original home in Brentwood, Essex.
Like Jim young John never said a word either. He was an Aberdeenshire farmer’s son, tall and gangling, but dour and rather simple. He followed Freddie around like a lamb and I could not get through to him.
Christmas Day 1941 was a day like any other. Bombs were falling and in Singapore City innocent men, women and children were dying. Up-country in Malaya the fighting was intense. Reports cascaded into the office and the boys were as scared as hell. It was the first time in my life that I had not celebrated Christmas and I smiled to myself as I thought of what it would be like back in snowy Aberdeen. How I longed to be there with my loved ones. It was always my job to polish the silver and set the table, a task over which I took infinite care. After gorging ourselves we would gather round the piano and Mum and Doug would take turns to play our favourite tunes. The festivities always ended the same way, with Auntie Dossie singing her party piece, ‘When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day’. I had a good singing voice too and would join in. I thought of them all that Christmas and wondered when if ever we would meet again. And then I vowed that we would meet again and that I would join in singing with Dossie, at the end of a perfect day.
Across the South China Sea in Hong Kong it was anything but a perfect day. After a seventeen-day siege the British surrendered to the Japanese. Hours earlier Japanese troops had entered the city and celebrated Christmas in their own special way – by torturing and massacring sixty wounded patients and doctors in St Stephen’s College Hospital.
Watching the progress of the war through the correspondence that passed over my desk only heightened my anxiety. It was like a tide that could not be stemmed and the Army was in full retreat, fighting valiant but ultimately doomed rearguard actions. Civilians were fleeing down the Malay Peninsula and heading for Singapore, desperate to escape.
During this time, when boredom had well and truly set in for the boys, they either got hold of my hut key or opened its door by force. Whatever their method of entry they managed to get in and rummage through what few personal possessions I had. They found my gramophone and records and went through all of my photographs. When I found them ransacking the hut I chased them out and ordered them into the basement, where I gave them a hell of a rollicking. I lectured them about respecting other people’s property and privacy. Jim and John were very apologetic while Freddie was typically all milk and honey.
They were lucky lads. Just two days later the hut received a direct hit during an air raid. It was blown to smithereens. Nearly everything I owned, including all of my personal belongings, was lost. Luckily I still had some clothes and personal photographs, including snaps of my family and Hazel, in the