The Rose of Singapore (48 page)

And as Peter stood there with bowed head, he realized that his vision was blurred. Taking off his glasses, he examined them and saw that the lenses were not only smeared with dirt and blood, but one was also cracked. He took a clean white handkerchief from his pants pocket, the only thing on him that was not filthy dirty, and spitting on the lenses, he very carefully cleaned them with the handkerchief. Though a simple task, it helped steady his nerves.

Their cleaning complete, he put his glasses back on and returned the handkerchief to his pocket. Then, with rifle in hand, he carefully made his way back towards the edge of the road, passing a dead British soldier and two RAF chaps, neither of which, to his relief, was Rick. Nearer the road, shaded by low bushes, he came across the corporal whom he had shoved off the lorry. He was dead. Tulip was close by, crying and holding up his mangled hand still dripping blood. An uninjured RAF senior aircraftman who Peter did not know was trying to comfort him. Seeing the uncovered bloody mess that had been a hand, Peter pulled the white handkerchief from his pocket. “Let me put this on your hand, Tulip,” he said.

In shock, and quivering with fear and pain, without saying a word Tulip held out his mangled hand. Carefully, and as best he could, Peter wrapped the bloody mess in his handkerchief. “Just hold the handkerchief on there, Tulip,” he said. “Help will soon be on the way.” He turned to the other airman. “Have you seen Rick?” he asked.

“Who's Rick?” asked the airman.

“The fellow who was sitting with me at the tailboard.”

“No, I haven't seen him,” was the reply.

“Stay with Tulip,” Peter said. “I'm going back to the road.”

Just feet from the road he came across two more airmen, alive, uninjured but obviously very frightened, whispering to one another. He asked them the same question. “Have either of you seen the fellow who was sitting with me at the tailboard?”

One of them, an LAC, said, “He got clear. I saw him going that way,” and he pointed towards where the centre of the convoy should be. “He wasn't going downhill. Looked like he was keeping parallel with the road.”

“Thanks,” said Peter.

“What a fuck-up,” said the LAC

“Yeah, it is,” agreed Peter. Turning his back on them, he headed in the direction the airman had pointed, coming across more bodies as well as several wounded; some were civilians, some military, but there were no RAF personnel among them. Peter hurried onward, through more tangled undergrowth until he came to an opening where he could look up and see a burning jeep on the road above. Unsure as to where he was along the length of the convoy, he cautiously approached the road's edge and peered over.

An awesome sight met his eyes. Crashed and burning vehicles, both military and civilian, littered the road. Many were jammed together. Dead bodies lay strewn about upon that whole stretch of road, while others hung like limp rag dolls from bullet-riddled and wrecked vehicles. There was no sign of any living person.

Suddenly, to his amazement, Peter saw a near-naked Chinese youth, a machete in hand, run down the steep bank and leap onto the road almost opposite to where he crouched behind the road's edge. On impact with the road the youth staggered, regained his balance, then ran fleet of foot to where a man and a woman's body lay on the road close to an expensive looking white car with a flag, a British Union Jack, fluttering from its bonnet. The couple was middle-aged, obviously of European descent and well dressed in light-coloured clothing. First, the youth ran to the side of the woman and without hesitation and with one whack from his machete, he slashed off all her fingers from a hand. Stooping, he picked up rings and those fingers still adorned with rings and slipped these into a pocket of his sole garment, a pair of dirty khaki shorts. So quick and so audacious was he, Peter was astounded, and for moments watched in horrified amazement.

The young Chinese terrorist, who could not have been older than Peter, cast furtive eyes about him and must have thought there was no one near him except the dead because, almost casually, he bent over the body of the man and removed a watch from the limp, dead wrist. The watch followed the rings into his pant's pocket. A Sten gun lay at the side of the dead man. The Chinese youth bent forward to pick up the gun. In another moment the rapid-firing Sten gun would be in his hands.

“No, you can't have that gun,” Peter yelled, standing up in full view and firing his rifle from the hip. The youth, knocked backward by the impact of the bullet, screamed in sudden terror and pain. The second bullet caught him between the eyes and immediately silenced him. His dead body fell across that of the dead woman. “That'll teach you, you bastard,” Peter said. “That'll teach you,” he repeated.

Peter was sorely tempted to retrieve the Sten gun, and was about to do so when a bullet smacked into the road inches from where he stood. Pretending he was hit, he dropped back over the edge of the road and froze, and remained thus for more than a minute. Then, cautiously, he peered through long grasses, his eyes methodically sweeping the hillside overlooking that stretch of the road. He was now the hunter. “Ah! That's where you are,” he said softly on locating his prey. He had seen a slight movement behind a low shrub high up the hillside, almost to the next ridge. Then he spotted a face peering between branches of the low shrub. “You're as good as dead,” he whispered, sighting his rifle so that the bullet would strike the centre of that face. “Here's one on your nose,” he said, squeezing the trigger. His eyes, not leaving that spot high on the hillside, watched as a man with his head blown away fell out of the shrubbery and rolled then bounced down the steep embankment. “Sorry about that, old chap,” Peter said. He then slid deeper into the undergrowth.

Keeping parallel with the road, he resumed his search for Rick, and had not gone far when he suddenly tensed. “That's odd,” he said to himself. “I could have sworn I heard a baby crying. I must be going bonkers.” Holding his breath, he listened, but at first could hear only the noise of gunfire. Seconds passed, and then there was more crying, coming from quite near to where he crouched. “Yes, there it is again,” he said quietly to himself.

Pushing the undergrowth aside with his rifle, he stealthily made his way towards the plaintive cries. Soon, he could distinctly hear words spoken by the child, that sounded like Chinese but in a dialect he could not understand.

More Chinese words flowed from the child, and then Peter realized that the child was now speaking in Malay. He had learned several words of Malay when stationed at KL, also from Rose. “
Amah! amah dimana? Mari sini,
” the child was calling out. Her words were followed by a burst of sobbing.

“
Amah!
Where are you,
amah
? Come here.” Peter whispered to himself, translating the Malay into English.

“
Amah!
” wailed the child.

“There it is again. I must be going around the twist,” Peter muttered. “But that's definitely the voice of a child. I swear it is.”

There were more plaintive cries in Chinese followed by words in Malay. “
Cepat mari amah. Tolong saya.
”

“Come quickly,
amah.
Help me,” Peter translated. Creeping forward he carefully pushed aside tall grasses that had impeded his progress. Now, the whimpering of the child came from directly ahead, and very near him. Parting more tall grasses ahead of him, he whispered as loudly as he dared, “
Kamu dimana
?” (Where are you?)

There was no answer, just the noise of gunfire coming from the vicinity of the road. Had he imagined that he had heard the cries of a child, he wondered. Was his mind playing tricks on him after all he had seen and been through this last hour.

As loudly as he dared, he repeated, “
Kamu dimana
?”

“
Sini atas,
” came back the reply.

Peter froze as he translated the two Malay words. “Up here!” he exclaimed in puzzled surprise. Parting a mass of undergrowth growing in profusion above his head, he stared upward, his eyes barely penetrating the thick greenery. Then, astonished by the sight which met his eyes, he exclaimed, “What the hell are you doing up there?”

High in the bushes, as if caught in a giant spider's web, hung a little girl clad in a white dress, her arms and legs outstretched, her feet ensnared in a mass of tangled vines clinging to a bush-like tree, which appeared to be taller than all other nearby vegetation. Peter could not see the face of the child, just black hair which was the back of her head, and little bare feet and legs, and tiny hands which clung tenaciously to supporting branches of the main bush. There was no answer from the girl, but she did turn a frightened face towards him.

“Well I'll be damned! A baby Chinese girl! How did you get up there?” Peter asked. It seemed all too silly. He was staring up at her, and she looking down at him with fear in her eyes, watching his every movement.

Peter Saunders looked down at his filthy uniform, knowing that his hair and face was matted in blood and dirt. “Christ, no wonder you're scared of me shitted up like I am. We'll I'll be damned, I still can't figure out how you got up there.”

The girl whimpered, her tiny hands clutching at higher creepers as if she was trying to escape from him.

Peter gazed up at her. “You're sure in a rotten predicament. Of all the daft things possible, this must be just about the screwiest. Fancy me finding a little Chinese girl caught up in the middle of a tree in the heart of the Malayan jungle.” Tension flowed fast from him. He wanted to talk. He wanted to free his mind from all he had seen and heard that day.

“Well, girlie, there's one thing for sure, somehow or other you'll have to come down from up there. You can't go hanging around in the treetops all day, can you? It beats me, though, how the hell you got up there in the first place.”

Then, suddenly, understanding came to him as he noticed a gap in the dark mass of greenery immediately above the girl, a gap through which he could just make out the drop-off from the road above.

“So you came down from the road, eh, sweetie pie? You jumped down, I suppose. That's some jump for a little girl your size.”

The girl began to whimper again.

“Do you speak English?” There was no response from the girl. Next, Peter spoke to her in Cantonese, which she did not seem to understand either. Finally, he spoke to her in broken Malay. “
Tunggu. Saya tolong kamu.
” (Wait a minute. I'll help you.)

The whimpering ceased. And now the gunfire had suddenly lessened. Peter wondered if any terrorists remained on the hillside. Surely, he thought, with their mission accomplished and with the element of surprise gone, they would be hurrying away from the massacre. Had they already departed from their ambush positions and at this very moment were hurrying quietly and unseen through a maze of jungle paths they alone knew, to their jungle encampment? Perhaps the security forces were now firing at no one.

Except for the occasional shot ringing out, and the shouts of men in the distance up on the road, the jungle was strangely quiet. The birds, bullfrogs, praying mantis, and all other creatures of the jungle hid and uttered not a cry, their quietness their sanctuary. Those creatures would bide their time before making sound again.

Peter leaned his rifle against the moss and creeper-covered trunk of a rotted fallen tree. It should be safe now to allow his rifle out of his hands, he thought. Thrusting his hands and arms up amid tangled wet creepers, he caught hold of a thick vine and, hand over hand, pulled his body upward. He cursed the thick web of plant life that seemed to grasp and hold onto him, yet at the same time, as he made his way higher, he used them as if they were rungs of a ladder. He was now no more than a few feet below the girl, looking up at her with a stupid sort of grin on his face. She was staring down at him, frightened and wanting to keep her distance.

“Don't be scared. I won't hurt you,” he tried to reassure her. She didn't understand his words, but now she seemed a little less frightened of him. “Just a baby, a little Chinese girl. Well! This really is some kettle of fish. Hold on, ducky! Your Uncle Peter is coming.”

She lay among the branches quiet and still, watching with those big brown eyes his every move. Now he was close enough to reach out and touch her. She did not shrink from his touch but just stared at him. Now, she was almost in his arms. Her ankles, both badly scratched and bruised, were jammed between a criss-cross of creepers, which had kept her from falling. Now, because of her struggle to free herself, her position was precarious. One wrong move and she would topple over and hang upside down.

Reaching for the creepers that trapped her feet, Peter tugged at them, all the while prepared to catch the child should she fall. He stopped for a moment to reassuringly stroke a tiny hand and to look as friendly as he knew how into her frightened little face. “I'm not going to hurt you, little girl. I'm going to help you down from this big old tree,” he said in Malay.

A first smile suddenly appeared on the little girl's face. “
Terima kasih, tuan,
” she said in a whisper. (Thank you, sir.) And then again, “
Terima kasih.
”

“That's all right, ducks. Anything for a little lady.” And Peter was surprised to see that she had suddenly begun to giggle, as if she thought him funny. “Some bloody sense of humour you've got!” he said, holding on to keep himself from falling. “Anyway, girlie, your Uncle Peter will soon have you down from here.”

29

A gloating Fong Fook had watched as the little blue sports car careered off the road and plunged down the jungle-clad hillside. He fired next at the male driver of the vehicle that had been ahead of the sports car, but missed. Cursing, he fired again, this time hitting the driver in the shoulder. Scrambling from the car and throwing up his hands as if in protest, the man screamed obscenities as he fell off the edge of the road and disappeared from Fong Fook's sight.