Tanamera by Noel Barber

Author:Noel Barber [Barber, Noel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2013-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

25

In January the raids returned, and the Japanese were soon killing more than two hundred civilians a day. The effect of savage, round-the-clock air attacks was catastrophic. The fires, the explosions, the awful suddenness of death were probably not as severe as they had been in Britain; but the basic problems were magnified by all that the tropics imposed on us – the flies, the heat, the rain, the sweat. It was not the heat of the fires that wore out the ARP men, but the damp enervating heat that never let up, adding a burden which only the toughest could withstand.

The Chinese and Malays in the ARP worked as heroically as their brethren in Europe; but the ARP was understaffed, and all it could do was provide the equivalent of first aid before moving on to the next victim.

Soon the most urgent problem was not so much keeping people alive but finding live people to bury the dead before they rotted. I tried to persuade some of the coolies who worked for us to volunteer, but like many others they refused – not because of the stench of decomposing flesh, soon even worse than the stink of durian, but because more and more men refused to leave their families. A family huddled together in a rickety shack gave an illusion of safety, an added shelter against fear.

One half of Singapore had no idea what the other half was doing. Eric Pretty, the Acting Federal Secretary, and his staff were solemnly burning five million dollars in notes in the government vaults in Empress Place ‘to prevent it falling into enemy hands’, while round the corner Tommy Kitching, the Chief Government Surveyor, received an urgent request from the army to print new bank notes. The army paymaster was running short of money to pay the troops retreating to the island.

With the monsoon adding to the humidity, with people dying in every street, with the danger of plague from foetid bodies, with the enemy approaching closer every moment, daily life took on a nightmarish quality. It was not fear so much as bewilderment. The fiasco over bank notes was typical, though known only to a few; but all of us could see other examples.

When by chance I met Ian Scott in the Tanglin Club he was reading a bold government advertisement in the Straits Times. ‘Look at this,’ he said. It contained a fervent appeal to everyone to start growing vegetables. Supplies of fertiliser, the advertisement promised, would be distributed by the Food Production Office. ‘Don’t put it off until tomorrow – start growing vegetables today,’ said the ad.

On the next page an advertisement for the New World promised ‘Non-stop dancing and cabaret and the usual tiffin dance on Sunday.’ This was not the only bizarre advertisement appearing in either the Tribune or the Straits Times, and as the staff which normally handled these advertisements had shrunk, George Hammonds often had to help out – and was staggered when one came in:

For sale – European guest house in select non-military area.

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