Then a torrent of excited Portuguese splattered out from the tannoy on the bridge.
“I’ll find the Purser,” said Loss. “But I know what it is.” He listened. “There’s been a signal. There has been a signal from Colombo. Singapore has fallen to the Japanese!”
“The Japanese? What have they to do with us?”
“We have seen no newspapers. We have heard no news since Christmas. We have been nearly four months aboard.”
“Singapore is impregnable.”
“It seems not.”
After dark, very slowly, the ship began to move on towards Colombo, though whether, said the Purser, they would get their refuelling slot was uncertain. Black smoke covered all the hills. The rubber plantations were all on fire. The dawn seemed never to come as they sailed nearer and nearer the murk.
And they were all at once one of a great fleet of battered craft, most of them limping towards harbour, a macabre regatta, their decks packed with the bandaged and the lame.
“They’re wearing red flowers in their hats,” said Eddie. “Most of them.”
“It’s blood,” said Loss.
Some of the bandaged waved weakly and uncertainly put up their thumbs and, as the boats reached harbour, there came feeble cheering and scraps of patriotic songs. “They’re singing,” said Eddie. But There’ll always be an England trailed away when the refugees on board were near enough to see the whole port of Colombo crammed with other English trying to get away.
“They look numb,” said Loss.
“They look withered,” said Eddie. “Like they’ve been days in water. Shrivelled. Hey — you don’t think Singapore can really have gone?”
Loss said nothing.
Then, “Look ashore,” he said, and pointed at the thousand fluttering Japanese flags that were flaming on every harbourside roof and window.
“I don’t think that they will be any safer here,” said Eddie.
“Nor will any of us,” said Loss.
All at once, high above the Fragrant Isle and to the South, there was a startling scatter of light. Several groups of tiny daylight stars, triangles of silver and scarlet that the sun caught for a moment before they were lost in the smoke. Aeroplanes.
“Like pen nibs,” said Eddie. “Dipped in red ink.”
“Japs,” said Loss.
The British Army was everywhere on the quays, top brass striding, the Governor with his little cane, the refugees being welcomed but too dazed to understand. A procession of stretchers. Eddie saw one old woman on a crutch asking courteously if anyone had seen her sister, Vera; then collapsing. Crowds hung over the rails of the Customs and Excise who were unhurriedly examining credentials even of the stretcher cases.
“What will happen to us?” said Eddie. “We’ll vanish in all that. The bombing here will start any time.”
“We’re to refuel and turn round,” said Loss — he had found the Chief Engineer. “It’ll be quite a time before we’re refuelled though, and we’ll be taking on refugees.”
“Turn back?” said Eddie. “To Sierra Leone again?”
“No. Back to England. All the way. Probably via Cadiz.”
“I must get a message to my father.”
“If you send a message, it will have to be in Japanese.”
The ship somehow sidled into the madhouse harbour, the engines shuddered loudly, then stopped, and they were tied up and the first gangplank let down. Loss and Eddie stood above it, side by side, like lamp-post and bollard. Loss, now that Eddie looked down, had with him his suitcase and haversack.
“Feathers, I’m staying.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m staying here. D’you want to come with me?”
“You can’t stay. You’ve no money. You’ll be on your own.”
“I’ve a bit of money and I won’t be alone. I’ve a couple of uncles. Attorneys. Everyone’s an attorney in Colombo. I shall be an attorney one day. So will you, I can tell. I’ll be safe from the Japanese. I’m not British. Not white. Come with me. My relatives are resourceful.”
“What about the customs?”
“Oh, I am adept at slithering through.”
“Loss, you’ll disappear. The Japs’ll be here in a week. After they’ve bombed Colombo into the sea. If you don’t get killed by a bomb, they’ll dispose of you and no one will know.”
“I tell you, Feathers, I am lucky. I am The Albat Ross. I’ll give you my pack of cards. An Albat Ross feather. A feather to Feathers. Here you are. Oh, could you give me your watch? For emergencies?”
“It’s my father’s.”
“I may need it.”
The masked face. The humourless, cunning, dwarf’s eyes. .
“Yes, of course.” Eddie took it off and put it in Loss’s outstretched hand.
“See,” said Loss. “You’ll be safe. Just look—,” and he pointed up behind Eddie at the mast-head “—an albatross. You don’t often get them this far South.”
Eddie looked and saw nothing. He turned back and Loss had gone.
THE DONHEADS
Cracks like shots and a roar followed by heavy black smoke emerged from the region of the bonfire, just off-stage from Filth’s sun-lounge, and Garbutt, looking older now, went rebelliously by with yet another load of leaves.
I don’t know what’s the matter with the man. He knows how I feel. It’s too soon to burn. The stuff hasn’t died down. He’s not normal.
Garbutt came back, past him again, a fork over the barrow for the next load. Each time he passed his jaw was thrust out further, his eyes more determinedly set full ahead.
He’s a pyro — pyro. Pyro-technic? Pyrocanthus? Pyrowhatever (words keep leaving me). He’s destructive as old Queen Mary. Pyro — pyro? How can I get on here?
And to whom could he complain now old Veneering was gone?
He was amazed at his regret for Veneering. It was genuine grief. Veneering the arch-enemy had become the familiar and close friend. The twice-a-week chess had become the comforting note in an empty diary. There had been visits to the White Hart for lunch, once even for dinner, in Salisbury. Once they had taken a car to Wilton to look at the Vari Dycks. Veneering turned out to be keen on painting and music and Old Filth, trying to hide his total ignorance of both, had accompanied him. Veneering read books. Filth had not been a reader. Veneering had introduced him to various writers. “Only of the higher journalism,” he’d said. “We won’t tax our addled brains. Patrick O’Brian. You were a sea-faring man, Filth, weren’t you? In the War?”
“I hate the sea,” said Filth, putting down O’Brian.
“I’d quite like a cruise,” said Veneering, but saw Filth look aghast. “I’d not have even thought of a cruise once,” said Veneering. “I was beyond cruising before you came round that Christmas Day.”
“Yes,” said Filth with some pride. “You were in dry dock.”
Muffled up, the two of them walked sometimes round the lanes, Filth instructing Veneering in ornithology.
“You are full of surprises,” said Veneering.
“My prep school Headmaster,” said Filth. “He went off to America in the War and I suppose he died there. He didn’t keep up with any of us. He’d done his duty by us.”
“Very wise.”
“I tried to find him when I came back from my abortive attempt at being an evacuee. We had to turn for Home, you know. Took three months. Four months, going out. Singapore fell before we got there. My father was there. He died in Changi.”
“I’d heard something of the sort.”
“I used to make a joke of it. Dinner parties. All the way to Singapore, and about turn, back again.”
“It can’t have been a great joke.”