We arose rather late on the following day and drove into Singapore to report to the Director of Public Works. As we passed along the Causeway Chinese coolies were drilling the granite for blasting charges and troups were guarding the approach.

Mr. Nunn, wearing the uniform of a Group Captain, received us very warmly and asked us many questions about our work on the way down from Perak. I was struck by the intimate and friendly atmosphere of our interview, and as we left he wished us the best of luck.

Boardman had the address of a young couple from his home town in the north of England, and he suggested that we ask them to put us up for the night; it would be hopeless attempting to find hotel accommodation. We found the house and were made welcome for the night.

Next day we went into the town and spent the day shopping. Raffles Place showed signs of raid damage, the big European stores being boarded up where bombs had shattered the windows. The town was overcrowded with military and civilians, and the banks and stores were thronging with people.

We were reluctant to return to the home of our previous night's host, as we had caused some inconvenience, so Boardman suggested that we try to make contact with a man who had been a fellow-passenger on the voyage from England a couple of months before. We found his address and left the town for the outskirts as the sun was setting.

I was cruising quietly along the road in the wake of Boardman's car when I saw a familiar figure, stick in hand, swinging along the grass verge. I pulled up and hailed Mr. Yell, my acquaintance of the Penang Guest House.

He was as bright and cheerful as ever, and as he related the details of his evacuation from the doomed island, I wondered at the high spirits, splendid condition and abounding good humour of the elderly man. I asked about Alec Cockburn, but he had not heard any news of him, and I made a mental note to call on Alec's firm as soon as possible.

We parted wishing each other the best of luck - that had become the standard form of farewell within the past month - and I hurried after Boardman's car, my mind full of thoughts of my friends in Penang.

Boardman's friend not only arranged for our accommodation for the night but took us out for dinner in a Chinese restaurant. There he told us of his adventures since the war had begun.

He had been a flight-lieutenant in the R.A.F. in England, but had left the Service at the end of his term, just before the war started. He had come out to Malaya with the idea of starting a business, but when the war in Malaya began he volunteered for service in the Malayan Volunteer Air Force. He was a flight-sergeant in the volunteers, and controlled a ground crew who were busy assembling aircraft.

He told us that two hundred and eighty Hurricanes had arrived that week, but that the personnel necessary to assemble them were still on the way. The news was cheering, and when we went to bed we fit much better, owing to the veteran's optimism and confidence.

Something must have gone wrong if his story was true. Either the men who were to assemble the craft never turned up, or there were insufficient pilots to use them. If two hundred and eighty Hurricanes had been available for use we should have had no difficulty in tackling the Japanese air forces whose relative small numbers had hitherto enjoyed supremacy in the air.

On the following morning we left early for Johore, and reported once more at the Johore P.W.D. Office. There we learned that our old 'Circus' had been broken up, its various members having been deployed to separate districts on special jobs. Boardman was to work in a formerly Japanese-owned rubber estate at Kulai, where a satellite landing ground was being made. I was given instructions to take over the whole road running from Johore Bharu along the east coast to the edge of the district, but first to carry out a number of jobs in the town in collaboration with an assistant engineer named Winston.

There had been a considerable influx of people from Kuala Lumpur during our absence, and Boardman and I were at a loss to find room for the night. We were sent along to a deserted Police officer's quarters, but when we arrived we found that there was no bedding, and no cooking could be done on the premises. We were too busy moving in to worry about food, however, and a raw pineapple sufficed for the rest of the day.

The following day was a Sunday, and Boardman left for Kulai. Winston had arranged to put me in his quarters, and removed my goods and chattels once again, wondering if, at last, I could settle down awhile.

As we sat in Winston's lounge, with the sun fading after a hot and tiring day, we talked of the war. Winston was optimistic, but I was struck with his lack of information as to the events in the north. He told me that the place was packed with Australians and that their Commander-in-Chief, Gordon Bennett, had expressed great confidence that they would hold the enemy. They had not yet gone into battle, but would do so when the Japanese reached the Johore borders.

I wrote a long letter home assuring my family that we were going to make a stand. We were so compressed into the heel of the sock that resistance was stiffening. And I firmly believed that what I wrote would be true.

Monday was spent in a tour of inspection with Winston, to enable me to absorb the geography of the district. It was during this day that I saw my first air battle in Malaya.

It was a great fight. The Japanese aircraft had come for Singapore, and had been met over the Straits of Johore. Anti-aircraft fire kept the planes at a high level, and R.A.F. fighters engaged them from above. We had a fine view from the Low Road, which runs along the coast from the town towards the west. The silvery shapes wound and twisted in the bright sunlight, and short bursts of their machine-guns could be heard above the roar of power-dives and the noise of bursting shells. One plane crashed and its twin engines coiled out a twisted pattern of smoke as it fell. About ten minutes later the enemy aircraft made off.

After the distressing absence of air defence in the north the spectacle was cheering, and I felt that here, at last, we should be able to hold out until more aid came from home. The Australian fighting forces, as yet untried in Malaya, were to go into action when the enemy reached the Johore border. Our forces had salvaged almost everything there was to salvage right along the road, had been pushed down into the southern post of the peninsula, and were now compressed into a small, solid block.

On Tuesday morning Winston took me in his car to make inspection of works along the road to Kulai. The heavy rains of the previous night had made him anxious about certain weak bridges and spots in the road where slips might occur.

As we approached the Lee Pineapple Factory, and the site of a large road improvement works, we observed that the river had swollen and water had inundated the low land on each bank. The road was covered by about two inches of water for a quarter of a mile. We ran on to Kulai and had some work to do there for an hour or so.

When we turned back we found that the road was blocked with army and private vehicles. It was half an hour before we reached the pineapple factory again, and a shocking sight met our eyes.

In the short time we had been away the river had risen three feet. The kampong houses on either side of the road were flooded to the eaves, and the road itself was invisible for nearly half a mile. A long bridge which spanned the normal river course was out of sight except for the top half of its parapet railing. A torrent was running across the carriageway beyond the bridge. Chinese women, with their children, were crying out from the flooded areas, hens were squatting in bushes, and banana trees were swaying and finally toppling and floating away under the flow.

There had been a gun-nest at one end of the bridge, and the soldiers had salvaged their gun, placed it on safe ground, and were organising a party to do rescue work. They tied a long rope from the bridge rails to a tree near the marooned dwellings, and one of their number swam to the rescue of the old men, women, and children, supporting each with one arm as he struggled against the current with the other. He would arrive at the rope in a state of exhaustion, pull himself and his charge along to safety, rest awhile in the water, and then go back for the next.

It was pitiful to see old Chinese panting and moaning as they were pulled on to dry land, gleaming moist like river rats, their black sateen slacks and overshirts clinging to their skin. Children were helped ashore, gasping and naked, pale and cold. Young women clung to babes in arms as they clutched at the life-line.

The method was repeated on the upstream side of the road, and the boy who swam out was on the verge of collapse when he had succeeded in beating the current and had tied the rope fast. Young Chinese went in to help the soldiers, and one swam back to safety - pushing before him a naked infant in a tin bath. When the job was done the soldiers were exhausted, and shivering in their wet clothes. A sorry group of limp figures sat or lay on the grass, with teeth chattering and faces white and sick.

I don't know how many lives were saved by the handful of soldiers that morning; the job they had done would never be recorded.

In the meantime Winston and I had been busy and had collected a big gang of P.W.D. coolies and casuals. An avenue of men was formed, standing on the roadside to show the lorry drivers where the carriageway was. Only the larger vehicles could proceed unaided, for the deep water choked the engines of the smaller cars and vans, and the strong cross current pushed them off the road. We had to tow by hand or tie up to a lorry and push.

One Australian Red Cross ambulance attempted to cross and was swept off the road, finishing half-way down the bank at a dangerous angle. We carried the sick and wounded men on our backs to safety, and pulled the van back to the road.

Every vehicle was in difficulties at some time or another, and many had been bogged and extricated before reaching dry road. One huge truck was so badly tipped over the edge of the bank at a bend that it had to be left until the flood subsided.

The flood had begun to fall away by noon, and at two or three o'clock the worst was over, and vehicles could proceed in safety. A few people had been drowned in the kampong dwellings.

Winston left me in the afternoon, and I stayed until I was sure that the situation was in hand. Then it was necessary to find a vehicle which would give me a lift into town, and I walked out of the flood waters to the dry road, my sodden shoes making a great sucking noise at every step, and my cotton stockings dragging over my heels. Three lorries were stopped by the roadside, and I walked up to the stationary convoy to beg a ride.

A young Indian - he could not have been more than eighteen years of age - was tinkering with the engine of the foremost vehicle. A middle-aged Asiatic was helping him to investigate the trouble. As I approached, they turned towards me, and I noticed how dirty, tired, and dishevelled they were.

"Anything wrong?" I asked.

"Bit of engine trouble," was the reply; "I think she's running too hot."

I examined the engine and found that it was a Chevrolet, the same make as my car. I suggested that we examine the plugs, and we removed them to find that they were very dirty and burnt short. After scraping them with a penknife and closing the points a little we tried the engine, and it started without any trouble.

My request for a lift into town was met with an invitation to accompany the older man in his small car, which was standing some distance up the road. As we walked towards the saloon I asked the Asiatic how far they had come that day.

"We've come from Muar," he informed me.

"Had any trouble there?" I asked.

"Yes these boys are my pupils, and we're all in the M.A.S.," he replied. "We've had a nasty weekend."

He went on to describe their experiences. The Medical Auxiliary Service, a voluntary organisation trained by the Medical Service, had been tested to the full in the heavy air raids preceding the evacuation. Casualties had been heavy, and the First Aid Posts had been severely taxed.

"But it was worse yesterday," he said. "We had to collect and bury the dead."

My stomach turned with horror as he told me how those youths had picked up the dead, piled them in their three lorries, and taken them to an open space. There they had dug communal graves and disposed of their grim burdens.

"They've never done anything like this before," the schoolmaster explained. "It's wonderful how they've stuck it."

I asked him what was his next move. He didn't know; but when he asked the boys they said they would evacuate their lorries and medical equipment and take whatever jobs they were given to do in Singapore. To do this they had had to leave their homes without guarantee that they could ever return.

On the following morning the State Engineer took me to the village of Ulu Tiram, at the beginning of the 14th mile up the East Road which leads to Kota Tinggi and Mersing. The river there had washed behind the abutments of a reinforced concrete bridge and undermined the foundations, with the result that the bridge had broken its back and had fallen into the river, leaving a gap in the road sixty feet long. Damage had also been done to a timber bridge across the same river in an adjoining rubber estate, and only comparatively light traffic could negotiate the wooden ramps which had been laid by the A.I.F. on the previous afternoon.

My job was to repair the timber bridge so that the estate road could be used as a detour, and to construct a new bridge across the gap in the main road. The ramps must not be removed until the new bridge was ready, and traffic was not to be held up. I had to find my own materials, and the only labour force available was that which could be borrowed from near-by estates.

After taking a few rough measurements I returned to the office and made inquiries as to timber or steel and ironmongery for the job. The only thing to do, I discovered, was to run round in my car, finding what I could and somehow designing the bridge to fit the materials available.

Five miles along the West Road I found some short ends of rolled steel joists, at the P.W.D. store were small timber sections, two miles along the Kota Tinggi road I saw two long pieces of R.S.J. lying by the side of the road, and from the Timber Controller I learned that two sawmills at Kota Tinggi had stocks of large timbers. When I went home at dusk I was wondering if I should ever manage to do the job.

That night I sat with my notes and designed a strange bridge of an odd mixture of steel and wood; steel of varying sizes and wood of different sizes and strength.

The next problem was to obtain transport for the scattered materials. On Winston's suggestion I rang up the Customs at the entrance to the Causeway, and arranged for them to stop the first empty six-wheeler timber wagon which went past in the morning.

On the following day a wagon was duly requisitioned and the Chinese driver and his mate were very willing to help when I had explained the Job. The steel and timber had been dumped on the site before eleven o'clock. The District Engineer gave me the services of a lad of twenty named Jo Cavallo, a brown-skinned youth of Portuguese origin who had just evacuated from Malacca.

I explained the scheme to Cavallo and borrowed two Chinese carpenters and some coolies from the nearest estate. When I left for Kota Tinggi on the following day many of the timbers were cut and sole plates for the intermediate trestles had been set out and fixed.

The Lee Sawmills and the sawmill at Kota Tinggi had not quite the timber I had hoped, but I amended my design on the job and took what they could give me. They agreed to deliver that afternoon onwards until the order was complete.

When I returned from Kota Tinngi at noon the estate bridge had been repaired and could take light traffic. I got in touch with another estate and was lucky to get two more carpenters. The system of payment was easy: I had been given a fat wad of one-dollar bills, and a free hand as to the wages I should pay. The thing that mattered was to get the job done, and I talked it over with the Chinese. They worked from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m., with half an hour for a meal, and they received three dollars a day. For every carpenter they brought on the job I gave five dollars to the man who brought him.

I had no trouble with the men; they knew the work was urgent, and they toiled like slaves. Japanese aircraft went over daily, and on the first occasion, when the coolies ran into the rubber, I called them back and told them I should give them the word when to take cover. They were content, and after that stayed on the job.

Our days were long. Every morning I had to be at the workshop at 6 to collect nails or ironwork which had been ordered the day before, and then I stood over the job until noon, back to town for a meal and a visit to the office with vouchers for the timber bought, or for more money, then on to the job again, leaving at dusk.

At noon on the third day the traffic was going over the bridge, but we still had to nail in the dog-spikes and cleats, fix a kerb and erect railings to keep the traffic away from the remaining width of the road which was not bridged. We removed the ramps which the A.I.F. had laid down, and widened the bridge another two feet, making it ten feet.

At ten o'clock on the fourth day a young artillery captain stopped to ask me the way to Lee Sawmills. I explained that it was a good way up the road. He looked so distressed that I asked if I could help him.

He had disembarked two days previously and had to go into action that night at Batu Pahat. He wanted some bridging planks to carry his guns over the wide side drains and ditches. I had planks and nails and ironwork, just enough to spare, and I promised to have them ready by four o clock.

When he returned with his lorry at four, and picked up the six gangways, we had a chat about the way things were going in the north. He told me to listen for the news about Batu Pahat, and I should know how he was going on.

I have often wondered what happened to him.

I was returning from the job as the sun was going down, when a car with a familiar number-plate attracted my attention. I looked inside the saloon as it was passing and recognised Horsley, my old chief. He was peering into my car, for he had recognised the Perak numbering, and we both sounded our horns simultaneously, pulling to a standstill a few yards apart. I got out and hurried up the road to greet the tough little Australian as he opened his car-door.

We met in the middle of the road and stopped dead. Suddenly I realised that we had nothing to talk about. We were so glad to see each other that impulse had made us stop.

I never remember Horsley shaking hands with me, even on the first day we met. He was not demonstrative, but rather the reverse. In fact, his off-hand and gruff manner had caused me to misjudge him at our first meeting.

But here we were, blocking the road, grinning at each other like two school kids, ashamed of our show of pleasure at meeting, embarrassed by our involuntary demonstration.

Horsley spoke first.

"Hello, bo'," was all he could muster.

I laughed and asked how he was. Ignoring my inquiry, Horsley pointed to my shoulder, and said:

"Why are you only wearng one pip? Didn't you know you'd been gazetted lieutenant ?"

"No; why's that?" I asked, and Horsley unfolded the story. All the P.W.D. officers were now to have commissions, and our old 'circus' members, the original nine, had been re-gazetted one rank higher.

Horsley was amused, and made scathing comments on certain of our colleagues who would be given ranks. Of course, the thing was a joke now, for there were over a hundred P.W.D. engineers crowded into a small area, with no coolies, no jobs to do, but a beautiful show of bright new crowns and pips.

"Where are you staying, bo'?" Horsley asked.

I told him that I was living with Winston and asked him to come in for a chat one evening. He said he might even come to stay, for he had only that day moved into Johore Bahru from Batu Pahat district.

He came that night and slept on a mattress on the tiled door of my room, refusing to accept the offer of my bed.

We did not see much of each other after that, for we arose early each morning and returned in time for dinner at night. The only thought was to get to bed after the meal, and we fell asleep as soon as our heads touched the pillows. Horsley told me that he was engaged on the confiscation of boats up the river, and went out daily with a naval officer in a powerful launch, picking up the river craft and towing them to the jetty. He was tired, bored, impatient at the job he was doing, and his remarks on the British Navy were strong and to the point, though not, I felt, entirely justified. He was interested in my story of the bridge, and each night he asked me about its progress. But not as he used to do when he was my chief in Kuala Kangsar; a month of war had closed the gap of seniority and the twenty years between our ages.

The bridge was finished a few days later, and in the meantime the traffic had increased considerably. Truckloads of Australian troops were making for the Mersing front, and there was a steady flow in both directions. Cattle trucks were numerous, going towards Johore full and returning to collect more beasts. The trek of evacuees had begun, and men on bicycles were making towards Johore laden with bedding and pans.

The Chinese youths of the village held a demonstration and procession, and I was told that their banners said: 'Give us the weapons and we can fight the Japanese'. They knew what it would mean to them if their country was taken out of British hands. Unfortunately it was too late then.

Landslides had occurred along the road, and the side tables were churned up owing to the inadequate width of the carriage-way. I was given a number of lorries and had to clear the slips and fill the material into the soft places along the road. The estate road, too, was showing signs of wear, and we spent a few days with a small gang on that. The next three or four days were occupied with these odd jobs, a bit here and a bit there, everything we could to keep the roads clear for the convoys.

On 28th January we were told that a withdrawal was to be made across the Causeway. The first job was to dump broken stone along the road at points where it could be used should intensive bombing take place. For one hectic day I was clearing the tools away from the bridge job, stopping lorries and filling them up with stone, and paying off coolies. The next day I made my last trip to Ulu Tiram with rice for the men in the P.W.D. lines. We had not much to spare, one bag for four men. I emphasised the need for economy to the Malay overseers, and they promised to distribute a small initial ration first, then hide the rest.

The Malay Police Force had been disbanded, and I could not help the feeling of dismay that this well equipped organisation should have proved so futile when most needed. At every town, when evacuation began, the Police had been paid off, and their arms and kit evacuated. In a few hours the organisation of many years was thrown away, and the Malay constables returned to their kampongs.

Asiatic troops occupied the police station and shops in the town. The inhabitants had disappeared.

It was my responsibility to see that nothing of value was left. A steam-roller and a motor-roller were abandoned on the road, the drivers having taken fright and fled, and arrangements were made for the R.N.Z.A.F. to drive them down to Singapore. A Malay overseer and I walked to a P.W.D. quarry, satisfied ourselves that the engine and crusher had been smashed beyond use, and broke open the magazines with a crowbar. They contained a small stock of gelignite and fuses, and I put them in my car.

I came down the road to the bridge where a party of engineers was making preparations for its demolition. I gave them the explosives and drove on, sad at the thought that my new work should be destroyed when only a few days old, but satisfied that it had done what was required of it in carrying the guns and the men up to the front and back to safety.

A Tamil in the Coolie Lines at the 11th mile had appealed to me for milk for his wife's baby, for all the cattle had disappeared. I had managed to get six tins for him in the town, and I called in to give them to him. As I was talking to the overseer a small car drew up, and a Eurasian got out and begged a glass of water. He was dressed in the uniform of the L.D.C., the Home Guard of Malaya.

I was curious, for the car was heading north towards the front. I asked him where he was going, and walked to the car to see what he had inside. There was another man, and two women. They were all young, and all Eurasian. The girls were strikingly beautiful, with black hair and full mouths and figures, rich complexions and large dark eyes. The man could have been taken for an Englishman until he spoke, when his inflexion and the pronunciation of certain words showed his caste.

I pointed out that it was unwise to proceed farther north, and they told me that they were going to occupy a manager's deserted bungalow on a near-by rubber estate.

"How many are there of you?" I asked.

"Sixty"; replied the man in uniform. "We have come from Malacca, and we cannot hope to get in anywhere in Singapore; we are tired of running away."

They were well educated and they all talked reasonably. It was no use. They were Eurasians, not accepted in European society, unable by their birth to live as coolies; in fact, as William Brawn had once said, they were neither one thing nor the other. They spoke our language, but were not of us in any other way. As I looked at the girls, at the two men who were quite capable of working and living and fighting for us, I felt that there was something very sadly wrong with our attitude.

Who started this attitude in the first place? I am sure it was not a part of Government policy at any time. Perhaps the women in some place or other a long time ago found that the Eurasian girls were more attractive in the tropics than they, and started a campaign against them. Perhaps some snob, at one time, had had ideas about racial purity, a strange thing if that was so, for we British are very much a mixture ourselves. And we are horrified at the tales of Germany's Pure Aryan Policy. Is not mental cruelty a crime?

I am not inclined, I am sure, to favour any one race more than another. I am English, born in England of English parents, and am thankful that in England the Eurasian is accepted as a social equal, that an Asiatic receives the same privileges as we, and that his race is respected. Coming to the East for the first time, and able to judge as an impartial outsider, I was appalled at the attitude of the English Malayans to these people; and most of all to the Eurasians, who use our tongue and have our habits.

I am convinced that not by this attitude was the Empire built up, not by distinction between man and man will it be regained, nor by these egotists can it ever be strengthened.

The car went on and I wondered whether or not I myself was foolish to keep running away. I cursed myself, realising where my duty lay, and drove off.

I had not gone very far when I saw a crowd of Chinese and Tamils, some running, some staggering under the burden of large kerosene tins filled with some heavy substance. Patches of white were on the road, where tins had burst, spilling their contents. It was sugar.

Out of idle curiosity I ran my car into the yard where the crowd was. There I met two Europeans who told me that a go-down had been opened to allow the people to take as much as they could. There were forty thousand bags of rice and forty thousand forty-pound tins of sugar. They had just twenty-four hours.

Too late—again.

I looked around me. Children were struggling to lift the heavy tins, aged Chinese were attempting to balance a tin at each end of their pickuls - the sticks used for carrying burdens across the shoulder. Old and young women were trying to pull the 180-lb. sacks of rice along the ground. Tamils were sweating with handcarts, young men were heaving tins of sugar on to the carriers of their bicycles.

The sight in the go down was a revelation. Gleaming tins of sugar were piled ten feet high over hundreds of feet of the floor. Men and women alike were scrambling up the smooth stacks, gripping the top tins with frenzied fingers. Surely someone would get hurt, I thought. A mad impulse overcame me, and I went to an untouched stack and climbed up. For half an hour I was lowering the tins to the ground, and as fast as I released them they were snatched away. Cries of "Tuan, tuan," were rising in an insane crescendo all around me, and at last I took fright and ran away.

I dare not look at the two men who were in charge, standing coolly at the door. I was soaked through with perspiration, exhausted, and I got into the car and went home. Of course it was no use; perhaps one tenth had been removed. The next day the rest would go up in smoke.

Early on the morning of the 30th January I packed everything into my car and left Winston's quarters for the workshop. The machinery had been put on lorries on the two previous days, and the remaining vehicles had to be loaded with tools, water fittings, axes, picks, and small apparatus. The Asiatic drivers had run away, and we were going to drive the lorries ourselves, with a few of the R.N.Z.A.F. to help us.

We worked for two hours or so, doing most of the loading ourselves, with but a handful of the remaining faithful Tamil coolies to lend a hand.

Jo Cavallo, who had asked to come with us, was given Winston's car to drive to Singapore, and I had to lead him in mine. We had just set off when the Japanese bombers appeared. They were bombing the road to the Causeway. Anti-aircraft shells were bursting overhead, and we had to take cover. The raid was the first on our side of the Causeway, and it was obvious that they intended to destroy all they could to hamper the retreat.

After half an hour I led the way down the road. Wires and poles were scattered everywhere, earth and bits of brick were thrown in the road, a dispatch rider was stretched out on the grass with his hat over his face. But the road was almost undamaged. A few craters - four or five feet in diameter - had been made near the bridge which carries the road into the town.

We drove on slowly and passed through the guards to the Causeway. This was the last step; surely Singapore would hold out. I said good-bye to the mainland and passed along the strip of solid granite on to the Island.