The Rose of Singapore Read Free Page A

but occasionally one or the other would lift his head to speak to a third youth, LAC Peter Saunders, who was standing a few feet from them, at the water’s edge. Peter was paying scant attention to their conversation, however, his thoughts being elsewhere as his eyes roved across the sparkling blue water that stretched away into the distance to where it reached green islands and the hazy coastline of Malaya.
    Almost two months had passed since Peter Saunders had arrived at RAF Changi, a period in which his health had improved dramatically. No longer sickly white and emaciated, he was now deeply suntanned, several pounds heavier, and once again fit and full of vitality. Brimming over with newly found energy, he had not felt so well since his posting from RAF Kai Tak, Hong Kong, almost eight months ago.
    It was a Saturday afternoon in mid-November 1952. The place: Changi Beach, a popular strip of rather dirty-looking sand separating the sea from the giant air base of Royal Air Force, Changi, situated fourteen miles north-east of the main administrative centre of the island city-state. The temperature was in the eighties, the sun scorching hot. The tidal water of the Johore Strait, separating the British Crown Colony island of Singapore from the vastness of Malaya, was low, but with its swift current was coming in fast. Soon Peter would swim again. He didn’t like to swim when the tide was low because then the water was shallow and the bottom was mud in which slimy grasses grew, inhabited by poisonous water snakes. He would wait awhile, to when the water had risen enough to cover the lower slopes of the beach. Like a vast lake, the surface of the water lay shimmering and blue, ruffled only by the wash of a motorized pleasure boat streaking towards the open sea, and a cargo-laden junk plodding along in midstream, its tattered mainsail up, and its dual outboard motors fighting against the fast-moving current. The few narrow and sleek fishing boats made no wake, they were too slow; nor did the many sailing dinghies from Changi’s yacht club, dotting the water in a slow race as they tacked towards the islands in a light breeze which barely filled their sails. The only other ruffling of the water was the gentle lapping of tiny waves around Peter’s bare feet, caused by the incoming tide.
    Faintly, in the far distance, he could see the most southerly state of Malaya, Johore, its coastline just a blur on the horizon, a watery haze hanging motionless over swamplands and tangled masses of jungle wilderness.
    In the foreground, opposite Changi Beach and roughly two miles away, lay Peter’s favourite island, Pulau Ubin, a long strip of fertile land embraced by thick vegetation, knee-high green grasses and tall coconut palms. On the westerly side of Pulau Ubin, a Chinese fishing village lay nestled in a sheltered bay almost hidden in the greenery. Scattered over the rest of the island were many little homes made from palm planking and thatch, their Chinese and Malay dwellers seemingly happy with their smallholdings of chickens, ducks and goats, and their small plots of land. They could also reap a constant harvest from the bountiful sea.
    To the left of Pulau Ubin, plainly visible, looking like green molehills on a shimmering field of blue, were smaller islands basking in quiet tranquillity. To the right lay ghostly Fortress Island, and the ugly nakedness of dismantled and blown-up gun emplacements—an awful reminder of the Japanese invasion of Singapore. During World War II, all the heavy guns on Fortress Island were pointing out to sea from where, logically, an enemy would begin its invasion. But the attacking Japanese army did nothing logically; they came from the north, from Thailand, marching and riding bicycles down jungle paths in the Malay Peninsula, all the way to the Johore Strait. The guns proved useless against them. The British soldiers who had manned those guns and blown them up at the fall of the island