around him, he heard a voice in the scheme of things. Leaves rustled out of time with the breeze; grasses swayed and shimmied; the trunk of a dead tree groaned.
That voice told him of a battle, and a man who was to die.
And Gabriel knew that he had to reach that man before death took him away.
Two
I WAS USED TO BEING AFRAID. I had been close to death many times over the previous few weeks—had shaken hands with it on several occasions—and it felt like a constant part of my life. I had seen my friends die, I had killed and I knew that it was only a matter of time before I was killed as well. I only hoped that it would be a bullet to the head rather than the gut.
We had fought our way down through Malaya, harried all the way by the Japanese. Bombed, mortared and machine-gunned by enemy aircraft, our numbers had dwindled drastically. Hundreds of men had been killed, many more wounded. Those wounded too severely to be moved were left where they fell. We realised later that it would have been far kinder to these poor blokes to have finished them off—the Japs were fond of using injured soldiers for bayonet practice.
Now we were dug in alongside a road leading to Singapore. It was crawling with people fleeing to the city, thinking that they would find safety there. And for a time, I had believed that they would be safe as well. How could such a powerful place fall? How could a fortress like this—defended by ninety thousand troops—succumb to an attack from out of the jungle and across the river?
But the last twenty-four hours had presented a harsh reality: we were going to lose, and the Japanese would take Singapore. Every bullet we fired now, every grenade we threw, was simply delaying the inevitable.
“Really close now,” Roger ‘Davey’ Jones said. He was lying next to me with the stock of his .303 Bren pressed tight to his shoulder. I’d seen him kill three men with a bayonet back in the jungle. He and I had become good friends. “We’ll see them soon.”
We listened to the sounds of battle from the north. Small arms fire, grenades and the intermittent thump thump of artillery. We still weren’t sure whose artillery it was, ours or theirs. Behind us lay Singapore City, and above it hung a thick black cloud from an oil-dump fire. The sky buzzed with aircraft, and miles away, we could hear the sound of aerial bombardment.
Several open trucks trundled along the road. I recognised the dirty white smocks of British nurses straight away. I’d made friends with one of them on the ship on the way over, and I’d often thought about her during the past few weeks, hoping she was still all right. I raised myself from the trench and watched the trucks rumble closer, praying for a familiar face.
“Must be close if they’re evacuating the hospitals,” Davey said.
“I heard the Japs are massacring the injured.”
“Down, Jack!” Davey grabbed my belt and hauled me back into the trench, and then the aircraft roared in.
We’d been bombed and strafed many times since leaving the jungle, but the fear never lessened. It was the growl of the aircraft’s engines, the cannon fire, the whistle of the bombs dropping, the impact of their explosions, the stink of battle, the endless crackle of shells striking metal and mud and flesh, and the knowledge of what we would see when it was over. There was never any hope that the planes would miss; we were sitting ducks, and those poor bastards in the trucks didn’t stand a chance in Hell.
It was a single aircraft this time, which was something of a blessing, but the pilot was a daring one. Instead of coming in over the fields, he flew straight along the road, cannons spitting death at a hundred rounds per second.
I pressed my face to the mud and squeezed my eyes shut. I could feel the impact of bullets through the ground, as though each death jarred the soil. I heard shouting, screaming, and then an angry roar that made me look up. Davey was kneeling with the Bren
That voice told him of a battle, and a man who was to die.
And Gabriel knew that he had to reach that man before death took him away.
Two
I WAS USED TO BEING AFRAID. I had been close to death many times over the previous few weeks—had shaken hands with it on several occasions—and it felt like a constant part of my life. I had seen my friends die, I had killed and I knew that it was only a matter of time before I was killed as well. I only hoped that it would be a bullet to the head rather than the gut.
We had fought our way down through Malaya, harried all the way by the Japanese. Bombed, mortared and machine-gunned by enemy aircraft, our numbers had dwindled drastically. Hundreds of men had been killed, many more wounded. Those wounded too severely to be moved were left where they fell. We realised later that it would have been far kinder to these poor blokes to have finished them off—the Japs were fond of using injured soldiers for bayonet practice.
Now we were dug in alongside a road leading to Singapore. It was crawling with people fleeing to the city, thinking that they would find safety there. And for a time, I had believed that they would be safe as well. How could such a powerful place fall? How could a fortress like this—defended by ninety thousand troops—succumb to an attack from out of the jungle and across the river?
But the last twenty-four hours had presented a harsh reality: we were going to lose, and the Japanese would take Singapore. Every bullet we fired now, every grenade we threw, was simply delaying the inevitable.
“Really close now,” Roger ‘Davey’ Jones said. He was lying next to me with the stock of his .303 Bren pressed tight to his shoulder. I’d seen him kill three men with a bayonet back in the jungle. He and I had become good friends. “We’ll see them soon.”
We listened to the sounds of battle from the north. Small arms fire, grenades and the intermittent thump thump of artillery. We still weren’t sure whose artillery it was, ours or theirs. Behind us lay Singapore City, and above it hung a thick black cloud from an oil-dump fire. The sky buzzed with aircraft, and miles away, we could hear the sound of aerial bombardment.
Several open trucks trundled along the road. I recognised the dirty white smocks of British nurses straight away. I’d made friends with one of them on the ship on the way over, and I’d often thought about her during the past few weeks, hoping she was still all right. I raised myself from the trench and watched the trucks rumble closer, praying for a familiar face.
“Must be close if they’re evacuating the hospitals,” Davey said.
“I heard the Japs are massacring the injured.”
“Down, Jack!” Davey grabbed my belt and hauled me back into the trench, and then the aircraft roared in.
We’d been bombed and strafed many times since leaving the jungle, but the fear never lessened. It was the growl of the aircraft’s engines, the cannon fire, the whistle of the bombs dropping, the impact of their explosions, the stink of battle, the endless crackle of shells striking metal and mud and flesh, and the knowledge of what we would see when it was over. There was never any hope that the planes would miss; we were sitting ducks, and those poor bastards in the trucks didn’t stand a chance in Hell.
It was a single aircraft this time, which was something of a blessing, but the pilot was a daring one. Instead of coming in over the fields, he flew straight along the road, cannons spitting death at a hundred rounds per second.
I pressed my face to the mud and squeezed my eyes shut. I could feel the impact of bullets through the ground, as though each death jarred the soil. I heard shouting, screaming, and then an angry roar that made me look up. Davey was kneeling with the Bren
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