Singapore Red by William L. Gibson

Author:William L. Gibson [Gibson, William L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814423687
Publisher: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd.
Published: 2017-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

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Some long-time residents still referred to Johor Bahru by its original name, Tanjong Putri, when it was merely a coastal fishing village at the foot of the Malay Peninsula. Since 1866, when Sultan Abu Bakar decided to locate his capital at the mouth of the shallow Segget River at the narrowest point of the straits across from Singapore, the village had grown into a booming border town. The Sultan himself spent most of his time either in Singapore or abroad and, through a generous concession program, had convinced many Teochew and Cantonese families to develop the land around Johor. The result was a sizable enclave of Chinese living semi-autonomously in a Malay sultanate a long cannon shot from a British colony. The Sultan had formed a police force, but the Chinese, because of their wealth and power, were largely left to run their districts on their own. Beyond the reach of the British officials, yet a short distance across calm water from Singapore, Johor Bahru had become the base of vice operations for the local kongsi.

The legal business links were strong between the two towns as well, and there had once been talk of constructing a bridge so that the Singapore steam tram could travel unimpeded between the two places, but nothing ever came of these plans. There was a scheme on the books to build a railway from Singapore’s centre to the north coast at Kranji, where steam launches would take passengers directly from a jetty at the railhead across the straits to Johor, but the railway had been held up by political wrangling for years and ground was not yet broken, though every year it seemed it would be. Excepting the telegraph and telephone lines, the separation between the two places was as it had been for centuries.

Hawksworth’s carriage rolled beneath the coconut palms lining Tanjong Katong to Geylang Road, the junction not far from his own bungalow, then headed over the river into the city centre to connect to the Bukit Timah Road that wound another seven miles through the vivid multi-hued greens of planation and jungle to the village of Kranji, where both steam launches and native sampans ferried passengers across the straits. The weather was turning darker in the interior, heavy storm clouds passing overhead, and the Superintendent hoped it would rain just long enough to tamp down the red dust of the laterite road. By the time he reached Kranji, the rain had started, but it was only a brief shower that spattered on the roadway and stirred the air without cooling it.

No steam launches were on the Singapore side when he arrived at the jetty, and not wanting to wait in the heat, he negotiated passage on a single, short-masted Malay sampan. The air was soupy with barely a breeze and the young lad who took him had to row much of the way, sweat glistening on his body. Across the bathtub-warm water, on the dark green of the Johor shore,

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