Yet everyone is tired of the raids. They’re willing to sleep it off by the poor odds of a bomb hitting their home. Just yesterday I saw a crowd watching planes battling in the midst of a day raid. Can’t blame them. I wouldn’t dash into a shelter at the first siren and waste my day there, either. Some say we should take cover only when we hear ack-ack fire. Then again there would be no ack-ack fire if our planes are engaging the Jap bombers.
A few concede that the best solution is to wait until the bombers are overhead, just before they drop their bombs. But what they ought to do is put up more roof spotters to authenticate the threat before sounding the siren.
We finally closed Robinsons after a bomb struck us for the 2nd time. It went right through the roof of the northern wing and blasted out the front of the men’s department, just yards from the café. The general manager has been most gracious to offer the homeless food and lodging at the furniture section—most of them even got to bathe in sparkling new bathtubs. It was sad to flush them from our basement: Caucasians, Chinese and Indians. Had a few Malays, I think. We also cleared out valuables and destroyed our wine stock this afternoon. All gas lamps have been extinguished since the first bombs fell. Feels like such a long time ago. Now it is dark everywhere. It is no longer unusual to see an unlit street or headlights wrapped in burlap.
The mood is grim after this morning’s air raid. From the grapevine I gather that things are steadily deteriorating for the defenders and that a most bloody battle has been raging at Pasir Panjang since this morning. The smoke from the burning Normanton oil depot has filled the sky for days. We were made to believe an elaborate fabrication intended to prevent undue panic.
Everyone now believes we are going to fall.
I have heard that the Japs love Indians. If that is true then I reckon Amal will be safe. They probably love Malays too and hate the Chinese to the core. I can’t help but wonder what they’d think of me.
It’s such pity to close the store. Everyone loved the café—my café, because I’ve been running it alone since the first air raids. Many gathered there for their elevenses and from them I heard of a great many things.
I used to think the Great War was bad. This one can only get worse.
Count to Arthur: 1,298 of 5,475 days
29
FEBRUARY 1942
ANTON AWOKE TO the fan’s icy draught. The ward was dark but dawn wasn’t far because he could hear the hooting whistle of the Asian koel. His sleep was restless. He drew a deep breath in a yawn and filled his nose with the sharp twang of iodoform disinfectants.
He last remembered taking a walk outside his house after penning a journal entry. The air raid siren had gone off; on the way to a trench shelter an exploding bomb knocked him into a ditch and sent salvos of metal and wood into his legs. He remembered screaming at the pain but he hadn’t panicked because he knew an Air Raid Precaution post was nearby. And true enough, shortly after the bombers passed an ambulance arrived wailing and ferried him to the Alexandra Military Hospital.
The doctors didn’t do much beyond a bit of disinfecting and suturing. Anton found that he could still walk, albeit very stiffly. They were keeping him in hospital as a precaution against gangrene. Otherwise his wounds did not even warrant a bed. They laid him on a broken litter.
He fell back to sleep and awoke again, this time to sunlight and activity. The ground-floor ward was noisy with chatter and the clatter of soles upon the linoleum flooring. The ward had twelve beds, each complemented by a metal spittoon painted in reds and florals. A corridor passed outside the ward and beyond which lay a luxurious expanse of lawn under the sprawling canopies of raintrees.
A number of Malay and Chinese patients reclined on litters laid out in the spaces between the beds, which were occupied mostly by Caucasian patients in varying degrees of wretchedness. A few read, some groaned, and the rest either went on sleeping or lying on their sides and seeing nothing.
One of them, a handsome young man with ginger hair and a moustache, habitually pinched an unlit pipe between his lips as he flipped a page of a novel. He had a leg wound near the ankle, where the dressing bulged with copious layers of gauze. It took Anton a moment to realise that it had been an amputation.
“Hi, Anton,” a voice sang.
He looked: it was a nurse dressed in the white drill and red-blue armband of the Medical Auxiliary Service. A white headdress adorned her pincurls. A sense of recognition, though vague, rendered him speechless. “Hey, I…” he fumbled and wagged his forefinger at her. “I know you…”
The nurse put a hand to her hip and gave a teasing chuckle, her eyes arching into half-moons. “Have you really forgotten me? It’s been what, two years?”
He went on wagging his forefinger, failing miserably in his attempt to recollect.
The nurse couldn’t wait. “Vivian,” she said.
“Vivian!” Anton declaimed like an operatic paramour on stage. He gestured at her uniform with open hands, shrugging. “Were you doing this before?”
Vivian frowned in disbelief. “Taxi-dancing? Bootlegging? Remember?”
“Vaguely,” Anton lied, but his blank countenance gave it away.
“Good morning, lovely,” said the handsome man with the ginger-coloured moustache. He removed his pipe and rested it on his belly.
Anton saw Vivian roll her eyes, not from annoyance but amusement, as if she was enjoying the attention. “Good morning, Monty.”
“Oh, Vivian,” Moustache Monty moaned like a jilted lover, his arms falling limply to the sides. “Is that all you could say? I’d gladly lose a leg to acquire a lifetime of you.”
More like an ankle, Anton thought.
Vivian had her attention on the clipboard and did not look at him. “For that you’d have to lose more than a leg, Monty.”
“Anything for you, love,” said Moustache Monty, deliberately souring his face. “Come,” he patted out a spot on his mattress. “Surely you could afford a morning chat?”
Vivian looked cheekily at him over a shoulder. “Later, Monty.”
A streak of jealousy wormed its way into Anton when he saw the kind of glances they exchanged. “You know him?” said he.
“He’s been here longer than you think,” Vivian reached over and retrieved a few tin spools of adhesive plaster from a cabinet. Anton leaned aside for her. “They’re all the same: expecting some wheedling from anything female, plus a kiss or two.” She checked her clipboard and resumed looking at Anton. “You really don’t remember how we left things off?”
“No,” said Anton. “I supposed you—went away?”
“Goodness, did you see a doctor?”
Anton gave a shrug of disinterest. “You’ll have to fill me in.”
“I was dancing at Great World until the requisition order came.” Vivian held the clipboard to her chest. “Then I heard they needed people for the MAS and I signed up.”
“As a nurse?”
“I helped at the mobile canteens,” said Vivian. “Then they gave me some training and registered me as a nurse about a month ago. They were rather desperate for nurses once the wounded started pouring in.”
“Must be hard.”
“Only when someone dies on you.” She turned to the window when a thump of artillery was heard. “You know what’s the best way to observe Death?”
The question took Anton by surprise. “No.”
“Poison a house gecko with insecticide from a spray pump.” Vivian gave a smile that didn’t match her words. “Death comes slowly enough for you to appreciate its presence.”