Authors: David Wiltshire
By the beginning of May 1940 Fay was still in Singapore, staying with Aunt Blanche on the Cavanagh Road. Worried sick, she had no idea what was happening to Tom, his letters had ceased after she had left Adelaide.
All thoughts of getting home quickly had perished in a welter of confusion and other personal matters – to wit the health and well-being of her aunt.
A lot of passenger sailings into the European war zone had been cancelled. Already U-boats had been active, sinking the aircraft carrier
Courageous
and the battleship
Royal Oak
. To say nothing of the
SS
Artheria
which was attacked, with the loss of 112 lives and a Dutch Liner, the
Simon Bolivar
, victim, in November, to a magnetic mine.
She had thought of throwing in her lot with groups talking of going via Africa and across to France, but it always came back to Aunt Blanche.
It had come as a bit of a shock to Fay, and would no doubt be an even greater one to her father and mother to find that Blanche was now what might be called a frail, ill, distressed gentlewoman. Although the
bungalow
was large it was rather dilapidated and she only had one cook-
houseboy
.
It transpired that her second husband had been a big gambler and, on his death, she had had to pay off all his debts. Slowly, Fay had enticed her to come out of a semi-reclusive life, and was going to meet her later for lunch.
At the moment she was reading all the newspapers she could get,
courtesy
of the Raffles Hotel as she sat drinking a coffee in the main hall.
The frustrating thing was, all the news from home was – that
nothing
now seemed to be happening. It was already being called The Phoney War.
She wondered where and what Tom was doing? At least he couldn’t be in the fighting – there wasn’t any. Some said there never would be, that
Herr Hitler wanted no more than an accommodation with Great Britain.
After she tossed the last paper down, it was immediately seized on by a gentleman in a white suit and a panama hat. She finished her coffee and ordered a taxi. It pulled swiftly in by the steps as a uniformed Sikh commissionaire in his turban opened the door for her to get in.
‘Cricket Club, please.’
She was going to treat her Aunt to lunch. It was the social centre of the colony, and though she had met some very nice people, there were many ‘tuans’ whom, frankly, she found offensive.
The way they treated their servants and the general Chinese
population
at large was awful, and she detected that many of them were not as top drawer at home as they led people to believe.
Aunty Blanche was already there, a slim frail figure dressed in an immaculate, but somewhat faded linen dress, watching the tennis on the padang from the veranda. If it wasn’t for the predominance of Chinese faces above the white coats and brass buttons of the Club’s uniform – ‘the boys’, you could have been forgiven for thinking you were in Surrey she thought, or anywhere in the Home Counties.
‘Darling’. Her aunt stretched up her withered arms as Fay leant down and kissed her on both cheeks, then sat at the table beside her.
‘I’ve taken the liberty of ordering two Slings for us.’
There was no doubt in Fay’s mind that her presence was having a beneficial effect on the old lady.
Half a million pregnant women and thousands of children had been
evacuated
from London and other cities by hundreds of extra trains. Two million men had been called up for military service; there was rationing of butter, sugar and bacon, and wrought-iron railings everywhere were being cut down for scrap metal for the war effort, before Sergeant Pilot Thomas Roxham was allowed to put the coveted wings on his uniformed chest. Now, after four weeks of firing live ammunition at a coastal camp with target tugs, he had been posted directly to a front line squadron.
He was driven in past the guardhouse, manned by RAF Regiment personnel with .303 rifles over their shoulders, tin hats on, gas mask packs on their chests. He arrived in a three tonner with four other sergeants and their kitbags.
He looked across the field. The sleek outlines of his new steeds were dotted around, some were inside the hangars being worked on, some under camouflage netting, others on the strip, engines running.
Hurricanes: he’d got fighters.
For Tom life was great except for one huge, awful thing – he had temporarily lost touch with Fay. Ordinary cables didn’t seem to be getting through. He knew she should be in Singapore, but he’d had no definite news for weeks on end. At first it had been difficult to concentrate – in fact he’d nearly flunked it, but an interview with the senior instructor had helped him see the way ahead.
They jumped out of the lorry, heaved their kitbags on to their
great-coat-
clad shoulders, and made for the adjutant’s office.
A wingless pilot officer went past. Tom, as the nearest of the group, should have put up a salute on their behalf, but his mind was elsewhere, considering whether to contact her parents or not.
‘Sergeant.’
He came out of his thoughts to find a very angry, very red face
pushing
up into his. For the next minute, he was berated, and threatened with CO’s parade before being dismissed. The others were waiting for him.
An Australian shook his head. ‘You took that calmly. I’d have decked the bugger.’
He shrugged. ‘Had my mind on other things.’
The CO was a blunt speaking Irishman from Dublin, scion of an old Anglo-Irish family, the type who had led the likes of Sergeant Whelan in the trenches of Flanders Fields.
‘I’ll be frank, Roxham, if things weren’t so urgent I’d never accept anybody into this squadron straight from training camp. I can’t afford to have you breaking one of my precious aircraft – understand? Now – get out, see the Duty Officer, and go and fly a Hurricane –
and bring it back
in one piece
.’
He did a dual check flight in the ‘Master’ and seemed to get everything right.
Now he was walking out to the Hurricane he had been assigned, for his first ever solo flight. His heart hadn’t beaten so fast since that first ever solo in the Tiger Moth.
The ground crew helped him up on the wing, put on his parachute, and strapped him into the small cockpit. A cockney corporal asked ‘All right, Sergeant?’
He nodded and went slowly through the pre-flight checks. When he was completely satisfied he waved to the waiting ground crew and pressed the starter button. With a terrific cough, a stab of flame from the exhaust, and a billow of smoke, the engine roared into life. The
tremendous
power was immediately apparent. Tom Roxham secured his oxygen mask, licked his lips. This was what he had spent nearly a year working for, a period during which he could have been dropped, ‘bowler hatted’ at any point, or finally, sent to multi engines.
But now, all he had to do was fly this beauty and get it back down in one piece, and he would be a fighter pilot. Tom hoped Hayes, Trubshaw and Dickie Dickinson were going to be proud of him.
And
Fay
.
She received a cable from her father, via the Governor’s Office. It told her that she would be better off where she was, that Tom was safe – he’d checked through the Air Ministry but that he wasn’t allowed to say anything more than that. Initially delighted and relieved that he was all right, her elation gradually gave way to frustration. Her parents more than likely hadn’t told Tom she was safe, and she seemed unable to contact him, in fact, didn’t even know where he was.
She pondered on that as she got on with her work. She was helping the Red Cross, toiling under the ceiling fans on suffocatingly hot days – the temperature always seemed to hover around the nineties. Ever since the declaration, Singapore had been a hive of activity, though strangely remote from the war. Rubber, tin and other strategic materials were urgently needed, and the docks were working day and night to fulfil orders from home, and the USA. Although there was no sense of urgency affecting themselves directly, everybody was keen to show ‘Home’ that they were doing their bit. Consequently Fay was one of many volunteer nurses rolling bandages and filling medical boxes, whilst others were organizing themselves into air raid wardens, auxiliary firemen, defence volunteers, and queuing to give blood to the bank.
It was all done in earnest, but with a sense of unreality – the war was too far away. Admittedly the battleships
The Prince of Wales
and
The Repulse
had arrived at the naval dockyard, but people just took it as an essential safeguard to the supply lines. Life went on as usual, but even more hectically.
She’d got used to the smell of the place, the drains, spices, fish, and the swamp land on which the place was built.
The city districts were colourful and different, the Chinese families eating with chop sticks and washing in the street, men carrying bamboo poles with their wares dangling at each end, washing lines strung from window to window, and a sense of frenzied activity.
In the Indian sections, the smell of spices and curries predominated. The red juice of spat out betel stained the pavements, men wandered about, some hand in hand, or squatted in the gutter.
But everywhere the steaming jungle made inroads into the suburbs, in places down to the water edges, where sampans were moored side by side, whole families living and dying on one boat.
In the white and business areas all was wide avenues, and beautiful cut grass; the Cricket Club padang with the tall spire of St Andrews Cathedral and the cupola of the Supreme Court made for an elegant city centre.
Everybody sweated continually, not helped by the dress codes – which were strictly upheld. These demanded collars and ties, dinner jackets or, for the military, bum freezers – the short white mess jackets.
She’d got books from Kelly and Walsh, medicine for her aunt from Maynards, the chemist, and shopped in the new big department store, Robinsons.
Everything was here in this lively city except one thing –
Tom
.
She pondered how to get a message to him, and decided to visit the Governor’s Office or, failing that, see if the RAF could help.
She knew of several airfields – the closest at Kallang just by the city, then one at Tengah and another at Sembawang, and of course, there was always the Cricket Club. She knew the chief Air Force Officer was an
Air-Vice
-Marshal Pulford who more than likely was a member, if not a
visitor
.
She finished another box, ran a towel over her sweating face and arms and lifted her dress away from her front to let the air pass over her skin. Tomorrow – she would start tomorrow.
He’d been on the squadron now for several weeks, doing dawn patrols out over the North Sea, only coastal shipping interrupting the endless grey waves. Not a dot in the sky, despite all the intense staring that
eventually
led to dots whirling all over the place – in his eyes.
He could still remember the first patrol, with the CO and a wingman. Tom had been keyed up, tense with the thought that he was going into battle, that Huns with live ammunition were going to try to kill him. His mouth had been so dry he’d got ulcers and had had to see the dental
officer
who’d given him a mouthwash and told him to suck lozenges. It was something to do with breathing near pure oxygen. Tom didn’t believe him for one moment – he could still remember the fear.
But as the days passed and nothing happened, he grew used to the routine. The fear stayed with him, but was at the back of his mind, not the front.
And it wasn’t only him getting used to the boredom. The populace in general seemed to have decided the war wasn’t going to happen, despite the events at sea. ‘Forget Hitler, and take your holiday’ was one resort’s slogan.
The news filtered in as Tom was sharing a pint in the local pub with the young Australian, one of the sergeants he’d joined the squadron with on the same day. They’d struck up an immediate friendship.
Tall, gangling George Hawksley was from Western Australia, and happened to have been touring Europe before going home to the family mining business.
Having seen the Nazi Party at first hand in Germany, when he’d arrived in London he’d immediately joined the RAF – much to his father’s disappointment.
He was slow speaking, with a dry humour, often directed at pom bastards – especially anybody with a plummy accent.
Tom’s problems which stemmed from his working-class origins
naturally
drew them closer together.
‘My shout.’
George collared the glasses and went back to the bar to order a couple more pints, leaving Tom. He suddenly remembered, yet again, the phone call he’d made that morning to Codrington Hall. Fay’s lack of contact was beginning to eat into him. Despite the dislike of doing it he hadn’t been able to stop himself.
Wilson answered, and greeted him cordially enough, so Tom asked him if he knew about ‘Miss Fay’. He said he didn’t. Something about his voice made Tom suspicious. He asked if his Lordship was in, and he was not, so eventually Tom found himself waiting for Lady Rossiter.
When she eventually came on the line he was beginning to run out of time and money.
‘Lady Rossiter, I’m trying to find out about Fay – has she been in touch?’
The voice at the other end was remote. ‘No, she has not.’
‘Do you know if she’s all right?’
‘I really couldn’t say. Can’t
you
find out? After all you are her next of kin
now
.’
There was no doubting the implication that she wouldn’t help him
even if she did know, and by then he was sure that they had some idea, something in her voice and Wilson’s, had made him feel that they didn’t seem worried about her – that was something at least.
‘Look, can I give you my address and forces post office number?’
The pips started up. As he struggled with getting more loose change from his pocket, the line went dead. He tried twice more, but it was always engaged. He got the message. He’d have to find some other way. Maybe the CO could help, after all, as her mother had implied, she was an RAF wife.