Visitors who have always considered their place, their nation, as the zenith of civilization here receive a shock. Vibrant, cosmopolitan Singapore is a major vortex, one of those rare places where the major strains of the human experience come crashing together and swirl madly around until something new is created.
To the delight of visiting American sailors, the British still had a military base there, Changi, and shared it with those stout lads from Down Under, the Australians, who naturally came supplied with Down Under lassies. Australian women were the glory of Singapore. These tall, lithe creatures with tanned, muscular legs and striking white teeth that were forever being displayed in dazzling smiles somehow completed the picture, made it whole. You ran into them at Raffles, the old hotel downtown with ceiling fans and rattan chairs and doddery old gentlemen in white suits sipping gin. You ran into them in the lobbies and restaurants of the new western hotels and in the bazaars and emporiums. You saw them strolling the boulevards and haggling with small Chinese women in baggy trousers for sapphires and opals. You saw them everywhere, young, tan, enjoying life, the center of attention wherever they were. It helped that their colorful tropical frocks contrasted so vividly with the drab trousers and white shirts that seemed to be the Singaporean national costume. They were like songbirds surrounded by sparrows.
“If Qantas didn’t bring them here, the United Nations should supply them as a gesture of good will to all human kind.”
Flap Le Beau stated this conclusion positively to Jake Grafton and the Real McCoy as they stood outside Raffles Hotel surveying the human parade on the sidewalk.
“I think I’m in love,” the Real McCoy told his companions. “I want one of those for my very own.”
The three of them had ridden the liberty boat two miles across the anchorage an hour ago. They had walked for an hour, taking it all in and had developed a terrible thirst. Just now they were contemplating going into Raffles to see if their need could be quenched somewhat.
“After forty-five days at sea, everything female looks mighty good to me,” Flap Le Beau said, then smiled broadly at an elderly British lady coming out of the hotel. She nodded graciously in reply and seated herself in a waiting taxi.
“Well, gentlemen,” Jake Grafton said, and turned to face the white antique structure, “shall we?”
“Let’s.”
The temperature inside was at least ten degrees cooler. The dark interior and the ceiling fans apparently had a lot to do with that, but the very Britishness of the place undoubtedly helped. The heat and humidity could stay outside — it wouldn’t dare intrude.
The American aviators went to the bar and ordered — of all things — Singapore slings. The waiter, a Chinese, didn’t bat an eye. He nodded and moved on. He had long ago come to terms with the curious taste in liquor that seemed to afflict most Americans.
“You sort of expect to see Humphrey Bogart or Sidney Greenstreet sitting around under a potted palm,” the Real commented as he tilted his chair back and crossed his legs.
Jake Grafton sipped his drink in silence. Forty-five days at sea riding the catapults, night rendezvouses above the clouds, instrument approaches to the ball, mid-rats sliders, ready room high jinks, lying in his bunk while the ship moved ever so gently in the sea as he listened to the creaks and groans…then to be baptized with a total immersion in this. Cultural shock didn’t begin to describe it. The sights and sounds and smells of Singapore were sensory overload for a young man from a floating monastery.
He sat now trying to take it all in, to adjust his frame of reference. He had been here once before, on one of his cruises to Vietnam. He tried to recall some details of that visit, but the memories were vague, blurred scenes just beyond the limits of complete recall. He had sat here in this room with Morgan McPherson…at which table? He couldn’t remember. Morgan’s face, laughing, he could see that, but the room…Who else had been there?
Oh, Morg! If you could only be here again. To sit here and share a few moments of life. We wouldn’t waste it like we did then. If only…
So many of those guys were dead. And he had forgotten. That the moments he had spent with them were fuzzy and blurred seemed a betrayal of what they had been, what they had given. Life goes on, but still… All that any man can leave behind are the memories that his friends carry. He isn’t really gone until they are. But if the living quickly forget, it is as if the dead man never was.
“… we oughta go buy some souvenirs,” the Real was saying. “The folks at home would really like…”
Jake polished off the last of his drink and stood. He threw some Singapore dollars on the table, money he had acquired this morning from the money changers aboard ship. “See you guys later.”
“Where are you going?”
He was going back to the ship, but he didn’t want to say that. “Oh, I dunno. Gonna just walk. See you later.”
Outside on the street he stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned toward the wharves. He walked along staring at the sidewalk in front of him, oblivious of the traffic and the sights and the human stream that parted to let him past, then immediately closed in behind him.
The next day Jake stood an eight-hour duty officer watch in the ready room. About two in the afternoon the Real McCoy came breezing in.
“Today’s your lucky day, Grafton. You are blessed to have Flap and me for friends. Truly blessed.”
“I know,” Jake told him dryly.
“We met some Brits. What a bunch they are! How we ever kicked them out of the good ol’ U.S. of A. is a mystery I’ll never understand.”
“A military miracle.”
“These are good guys.”
“I’m sure.”
“They’ve invited us to a party at Changi this evening. A party! And they swore that some Aussie women would be there! Quantas stews. Can you beat that?” Without pausing to let Jake wrestle with that question, he steamed on. “When do you get off?”
“Uh, two hours from now.”
The Real consulted his watch. “I’ll wait. Flap is taking the next boat in, but I’ll wait for you. I’ve got directions. We’ll grab a cab and tootle on over to party hearty. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a glorious opportunity to lower the white count. Oooh boy!”
McCoy strode up the aisle between the huge, soft chairs, past the silent 16-mm movie projector, and blasted through the door into the passageway.
Jake sat back in his chair and opened the letter from his parents yet again. It had been two weeks since the last mail delivery, via a cargo plane out of Cubi Point, and this was the current crop, delivered this morning — one letter from his mother. She signed it “Mom and Dad,” but she wrote every word. Nothing from Callie McKenzie.
Maybe that was for the best. It had been a hell of a romance, but now it was over. She was from one world, he was from a completely different one. Presumably she was doing her own thing there in Chicago, going to class and dating some longhaired hippie intellectual who liked French novels. What was it about French novels?
But he desperately wished she had written. Even a Dear John letter would be preferable to this vast silence, he told himself, wanting to believe it but not quite sure that he did.
Oh well. Like most of the things in his life, this relationship was out of his control. Have a nice life, Callie McKenzie. Have a nice life.
Darkness comes quickly in the tropics. Twilight is an almost instantaneous transition from daylight to darkness. Jake, Flap and the Real had just arrived at Changi by taxi and found the outdoor pavilion when the transition occurred. Whoom, and the lanterns in the pavilion were flickering bravely against the mighty darkness.