Part 59 (1/2)

Meanwhile, as a descant to Dr Brownley's rather anxious elucidations (the good doctor, though for years he had been medical officer to Langfield and Bowser Limited, had never been faced with such a problem before ... And just think of it! The Chairman himself! A heavy responsibility indeed!) there came Ehrendorf's reasonable tones, gently chiding Matthew for being selective in his view of railways in the colonies, for conveniently forgetting their positive aspects ...

'What we are doing is subsidizing the white man's business operations at the expense of native welfare ... Now, I agree with you, this would not matter if the profits stayed where they were produced, but they don't but they don't ... they're whipped off back to Britain, or France, or Belgium or Holland or wherever ...' ... they're whipped off back to Britain, or France, or Belgium or Holland or wherever ...'

'A three-gallon bottle with two gla.s.s tubes pa.s.sing through the rubber stopper, yes, I've got that ... One tube reaches the bottom of the bottle to take up the liquid and pa.s.s it out to a rubber tube and then to the injection canula. I see. The other gla.s.s tube through the stopper you attach to the bicycle pump ... Oh, I see, a foot pump ... I thought you might mean ...'

'Let's not forget that railways act as an instrument of civilization,' said Ehrendorf vaguely, his eyes probing the darkness for some sign of hope, 'bringing isolated people into contact with the modern world.'

'Slavery used to be defended in those very words! Besides, in Africa natives died by the hundreds of thousands just in building the d.a.m.n things. Look at the Belgian Congo under Leopold! You see, what I'm trying to explain is how everything in a colony, even beneficial-sounding things like railways and experimental rice-growing stations, are set up in one way or another to the commercial advantage of the Europeans or Americans with money invested in the country ...'

'D'you mind if we just go over the sites of injection once more,' cried Dr Brownley in a voice of despair. 'No, operator, this is an important matter, a matter of life and death. I'm a doctor, will you kindly get off the line, please. Now, fluid equal to fifteen per cent of body weight into the arterial system? 450 cc to a pound, yes, I've got that. Two per cent body weight to be injected into each femoral artery towards the toes. One per cent into each brachial artery towards the fingers, yes. One common carotid artery towards head with two per cent. Inject same carotid towards heart with seven per cent. Total amount of fluid should come to fifteen per cent body weight. What happens, though, if the blood in the artery has clotted, as I'm afraid it might have by now, and you can't force the fluid in? Wait a moment, I'm trying to note it down, yes ... the extremity should be wrapped in cotton wool soaked in the fluid and then bandaged ... and you keep on soaking the cotton at intervals. Good. Another thing I want to know is whether one has to inject fluid into the thoracic and abdominal cavities?'

'How frightful!' thought Walter, and despite the heat his skin became gooseflesh and even the bristles on his spine rose in horror. Meanwhile, the two young men had reached the foot of the white marble steps which curved up to the portico and thence to the verandah. Still talking nonsense they began to ascend.

'How about the rights of the individual, imported along with a Western legal system? Isn't that worth having, Matthew?'

'Freedom of the individual at the expense of food, clothing and a harmonious life, of being swindled by a system devised to the advantage of those with capital? If you had asked the inmates of the coolie barracks in Rangoon, dying by their hundreds from malnutrition and disease, I'm sure they would have told you that wonderful though being free was, just at the moment so wretched was their condition that it wasn't much help. It's no good calling somebody free unless he's economically free, too, at least to some extent ... Is it? ... however much lack of individual freedom may horrify an English intellectual sitting at his desk with a hot dinner under his belt.'

'Yet even if one admits, and I'm not saying I do,' replied Ehrendorf, 'that the natives in British and other colonies have been placed at a disadvantage, or even swindled and abused, can you actually say that they would have been better off left strictly alone? You could say that the coming of Western capital is simply a bitter pill that they have to swallow if they are ever to achieve a higher state of civilization ... In others words, that capitalism is like a disease against which no traditional culture anywhere has any resistance and that, in the circ.u.mstances, in Malaya and other colonies it could have been worse and will certainly get better.'

'Perhaps,' said Matthew dubiously, 'at some future period men will be able to look back and say, why, it was merely a bitter pill they had to swallow before achieving their present state of felicity, but for the moment, although it's clear what they've lost with their traditional way of life, it's not so easy to see what they've gained. Improved medicine in some places, but mainly to combat new illnesses we've brought with us. Education ... largely to become unemployable or exploited clerks in the service of our businesses or government departments ... And so on.'

'I say, Walter, are you there?' called Dr Brownley who had left the telephone and was peering uneasily out on to the darkened verandah. 'Oh, there you are, I didn't see you at first. What a business!' he added, mopping his brow. 'It seems we must wash the entire body with the fluid, including the face, ears and hair ... and we can get rid of any post-mortem staining of the face by ma.s.sage.'

Walter did not reply. He was looking at the silhouettes of Matthew and Ehrendorf who had paused by the wire door to the verandah and were looking out towards the restlessly moving searchlights over the docks. Dr Brownley, distraught, began to think of a matter which had occupied his mind almost exclusively for the past few days: walking with an innocent mind and a serene, untroubled expression on his face along the street his eye had happened to stray to Whiteaway's window and there, alas, had found itself locked in the basilisk stare emitted by a certain article of an almost infinite desirability, agreed, but costing $985.50. How could a man afford such a price? Yes, but how could a man do without such an article? These were the horns of the Doctor's dilemma. But first he would have to deal with this dreadful business of embalming old Langfield.

'There's only one way, it seems to me,' said Matthew with a sigh, 'in which our colonies could begin to get the benefits of their contact with us ...'

'And what's that, I should like to know?' came Walter's forbidding voice from within, startling the two young men.

'Oh, h.e.l.lo, Walter. Well, by kicking us out and running the mines and plantations for their own profit instead of ours. In other words, a revolution!' He smiled wearily. 'The only trouble with a revolution is that it seldom improves things and very often makes them worse.'

'Obviously they too are subject to my Second Law,' smiled Ehrendorf.

'But it wasn't that that I wanted to see you about, Walter. I wanted to ask for your help in another matter entirely.'

'And what might that be?' Walter did not sound encouraging. Matthew explained that he was trying to help Miss Chiang to leave Singapore because she would run a particular risk if the city fell to the j.a.panese. It seemed impossible, however, to get her the necessary pa.s.sport and permit to leave. Perhaps Walter could do something ...?

'I don't see how I can help,' said Walter testily. 'With all the red tape I can't get anything done myself these days.' Although there was some truth in this, Walter would not have felt inclined to help in any case. He considered it a sign of 'the spirit of the times' that Matthew should be seeking a favour for a Eurasian woman with little concern for propriety as if she were his wife.

'I thought it might be easier to get her an exit permit if she were travelling with someone who had a British pa.s.sport. Presumably Joan will be leaving soon? Perhaps she could go with Joan if you have no objection?'

'That's up to Joan,' replied Walter shortly. 'You'd better ask her and Nigel.' From his tone it was plain that he did not want to discuss the matter further.

When the two young men had retreated, in silence this time, the way they had come, the Doctor cleared his throat. 'I say, Walter, d'you think you could give me a hand in the dining-room for a few minutes. I can't get hold of anyone to help me on account of these d.a.m.ned air-raids. This job shouldn't be too difficult, fortunately, but I've never had to do it before ... And by the way, please don't let me forget to plug the a.n.u.s, mouth and nostrils with cotton soaked in the embalming fluid. Oh yes, and what I wanted to ask you was this: do you think that the Langfield and Bowser shareholders will want to keep the body a long time? I mean, they aren't thinking of keeping it in a gla.s.s case in the board-room or anything like that, are they? Because the thing is this: If they do want to keep it we shall have to rub it with plenty of Vaseline and bandage it to prevent it from drying out ... I say, Walter, is anything the matter?'

57.

'I'll make sure that she has money, of course, and take care of the ticket. We think it may be easier to get her an exit permit if she is employed, at least nominally, by someone with a British pa.s.sport. She won't be any trouble, Joan, I guarantee.'

'Nigel,' Joan called to her fiance, invisible in the room behind her, 'Matthew wants to know if we can take someone with us? I don't think we can, can we?'

'I don't think you realize how urgent it is ...'

'A Eurasian girl, you say? An amah amah? A servant? Really, it's impossible.'

'Not a servant ... a friend.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Joan, this isn't just anyone. It's someone you know know. She'll be in deadly danger if the j.a.panese ever take Singapore and she's still here. Vera has told me that you were there when the j.a.ps arrested her in Shanghai ... You know better than anyone what will happen to her if they find her here!'

'Nigel, there's nothing we can do, is there?'

A voice called something from the interior of the room which Matthew was unable to make out.

'Sorry, Miss Chiang should have thought about all this earlier in the day. There's nothing we can do, I'm afraid.'

'To h.e.l.l with you then, you b.i.t.c.h!' cried Matthew in a voice that took even him by surprise.

Since the air-raids which had on successive days devastated Tanglin, Beach Road and the central part of the city, many Europeans had at last come to realize the extreme danger that they ran. Even if it were improbable that the j.a.panese would be permitted to land on Singapore Island itself, the fact remained that their air force, whose control of the sky was no longer seriously disputed by the few and rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng fighters of the RAF, could inflict all the damage that was necessary. Such was the confidence of the j.a.panese bombers that they now droned constantly over the city in daylight, flying at a great height, twenty thousand feet or more, in enormous packs that for some reason were always in multiples of twenty-seven, causing Europeans below to think that there must be something sinister and unusual about j.a.panese arithmetic. At such a height they were well beyond the range of the light anti-aircraft guns which made up the greater part of Singapore's air defences. And so the truth had begun to dawn on the inhabitants of the city: if attacked from the air they were defenceless.

Many European women who had bravely declared that they would 'stay put' now had second thoughts or at least yielded to the demands of their men-folk that they should leave forth-with. The result was that every day crowds a.s.sembled at the s.h.i.+pping offices in search of pa.s.sages to Europe, Australia or India. But, although earlier in the month many s.h.i.+ps had sailed from Singapore with room to spare (Mrs Blackett and Mrs Langfield had marvelled at the deserted decks and echoing state-rooms of the Narkunda Narkunda) now, quite suddenly it seemed, you were lucky to find a berth on any sort of vessel going anywhere. Partly this was the result of the chaos in the docks, where unloading had almost seized up under the bombing; partly it was the result of the diminished ability of the RAF to defend incoming convoys in the sea approaches to the Island, now rendered hazardous to a distance of twenty miles or more by prowling j.a.panese bombers.

Matthew's efforts to help Vera had so far been frustrated as much by the perplexing regulations which governed departure from the Colony as by the rapidly swelling numbers of those who wanted to leave. Moreover, so much of his time was taken up by his duties as a fireman that he had little time or energy to spare to help and encourage her. One of the major difficulties was to find somewhere for her to go somewhere for her to go. After a series of tiring and time-consuming enquiries he had at length succeeded in discovering that it was government policy that women and children, irrespective of race, should be allowed to leave if they wanted to. To begin with he had thought it would be best to send Vera to Australia ... but Australia had agreed to accept only a limited number of Asiatics and Vera had returned empty-handed from their temporary immigration office, depressed and exhausted after many hours of waiting.

Why had she been refused? Were her papers not in order or was there some other reason? Vera shook her head; she had been unable to get any explanation from the hara.s.sed and impatient officials at the office. Her papers certainly did not look very convincing. Under the Aliens Ordinance, 1932, she had been given merely a landing-permit which she had been obliged to exchange for a certificate of admission valid for two years and renewable. Matthew nudged his gla.s.ses up on his nose and examined the doc.u.ment despondently: it identified Vera merely as a landed immigrant resident in the Straits Settlements. If she needed a pa.s.sport would she be able to get one at this eleventh hour? And what country would give her a pa.s.sport? Time was running out so quickly. He was somewhat heartened, however, by the knowledge that it was official government policy that Vera, in common with other women, should leave if she wanted to.

Next, Vera had gone to another office to enquire whether she would be permitted to go to India. She had again been obliged to wait for many hours and once more it had proved to be in vain. On this occasion, although there had been no racial difficulty as there had been with Australia, she had been asked for evidence that she would have enough money to support herself in India. She had had none and by the time Matthew had taken out a letter of credit for her with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and sent her back again another two precious days had pa.s.sed and she was once more obliged to join a long line of anxious people besieging the office ... it had closed before she had been able to get anywhere near the counter. To make matters worse, Matthew could see that with weariness and disappointment Vera had grown fatalistic: she no longer believed that she would be allowed to leave Singapore before the j.a.panese arrived. Matthew, who in the meantime had been waiting fruitlessly on her behalf in another equally anxious queue at the Chinese Protectorate to apply for an exit permit, had secretly begun to wonder whether she might not be right. However, he did his best to rea.s.sure her, saying that certainly she would be able to escape and that the j.a.panese would be most unlikely to take Singapore.

Matthew was so tired these days that his few off-duty hours were spent in a waking trance. If he so much as sat down for a moment he was liable to fall asleep immediately; it seemed that his mind would only work in slow motion. If only he had had time to sleep he felt he might have been able to think of some solution, some way of getting through this baffling maze of administrative regulations. Add to that the difficulty, under constant air-raids, of accomplis.h.i.+ng the most simple formalities. In search of a doc.u.ment you went to some office, only to find that it had been evacuated, n.o.body knew where. Then further exhausting searches through other offices, which themselves might have removed themselves to a safer area outside the city, would be necessary before you could locate the office you wanted.

While in the queue at the Chinese Protectorate Matthew had been told by some of the other people waiting that Vera would need pa.s.sport photographs in order to obtain her exit permit. She had none and these days it had become impossible to obtain them. Change Alley, which had once swarmed with photographers who were only too willing to snap you in any official pose you wished, or even in a grotto of cardboard tigers and palms, was deserted, for the photographers had all been j.a.panese and were now interned. So what was to be done? Matthew considered buying a camera and taking the photographs himself, but this was hardly a solution: he would still have to find someone to develop and print them. To make matters worse Matthew had heard from the Major, who had heard from someone at ARP headquarters, that the troops.h.i.+ps, the West Point West Point and the and the Wakefield Wakefield, which were bringing the 18th Division, would soon be able to take a great number of women and children to safety, provided that they could avoid the j.a.panese bombers. To know that only bureaucratic formalities prevented Vera from having this chance of escape filled Matthew with bitterness and despair. After five days of roaming the hot and increasingly ruined city with her in the last week of January, obliged to take shelter at intervals in the nearest storm-drain, he felt utterly exhausted and demoralized.

'Don't worry, we'll find a way,' he told her as he was leaving her one evening after another unsuccessful search for a photographer. 'Didn't you once have a camera?' He remembered that she had wanted to show him some pictures of his father. Yes, but it had only been a box-camera and anyway it had been stolen. Vera was lying on her bed in an odd, crumpled position, the very picture of hopelessness. She gave him a wan smile however, and told him in turn not to worry. After he had gone, she would get up and go and see someone she knew who might be able to help. Some hours later, returning from the docks with the Mayfair AFS unit, he pa.s.sed near where she lived and asked the Major to stop for a moment so that he could ask whether she had been successful. With refugees from across the Causeway the number of people living in Vera's tenement had greatly increased and he had difficulty making his way past those sleeping on the stairs and in the corridor. When he had at last reached Vera's cubicle he found that she was still lying on the bed in the same odd position, just as he had left her. It seemed that she no longer even had the will to move.

'You must come with me to the Mayfair,' he said. 'Bring a toothbrush and whatever else you need.

But Vera shook her head. 'No Matthew, I am better to stay here. Soon I will feel better.'

'But it's dangerous here. You're too near the river and the docks.'

Again she shook her head. Nothing he could say would make her change her mind.