Free And Fire Falls by Peter Watt Page B

Japanese well. Before the war he had lived in Tokyo, assisting trade negotiations with the British Empire. He knew that there was an MI6 dossier on his relationship with the Japanese military government, but his social contacts had ensured he’d still been given a commission in his father’s old regiment when he returned to England in 1936. There he had made contact with those in high places sympathetic to Herr Hitler on the eve of war. It was obvious that the Allies could not win the war against the Germans, and the pro-Nazi sympathisers grew in strength with the fall of France in 1940. Had Hitler not conquered all Europe in a matter of weeks? Was he not even now pushing into the heart of Soviet Russia? It was only a matter of time before even Britain would have to concede defeat.
    In Asia, the Japanese were repeating Hitler’s success, and the future Lord Ulverstone had come to admire their martial spirit. It had helped his posting in Singapore that he was also fluent in Japanese, and he had already been secretly decorated by the Japanese for his dedication to furthering their imperial aspirations in Asia and the Pacific. When the British Empire fell, and the Americans were forced to make a treaty with the Japanese after their crushing defeat at Pearl Harbor, men like himself would be asked to take the role of leadership amongst the conquered. He was not a traitor but a realist. He had made a final transmission to his Japanese controllers that he had a flight out of Singapore on a seaplane. Ulverstone had also sent the seaplane’s serial number, and all he could do was hope that an eager Japanese fighter pilot did not target the aircraft.
    The staff car had trouble manoeuvring between the numerous bodies of civilians lying in the street and rubble from shops and houses brought down by bombs and shells. The city was in its death throes and General Percival had recognised the plight of the civilian population with his surrender.
    The staff car arrived at the docks where a motor launch was waiting to take them out to the seaplane. Both Captain Lydell and Major Ulverstone showed their passes to a British military policeman who waved them onboard along with a group of civilians. Ulverstone noted with disdain that one of the other passengers was a Chinese woman holding a baby, and a grizzled older man whose accent marked him as a Canadian. The Canadian held the hand of a frightened young boy Ulverstone guessed to be around five years old.
    Overhead, high-flying Japanese bombers droned, while lower flying fighter escorts strafed the docks. Each and every person on the motor boat zigzagging amongst the wrecks of shipping in the harbour held their breath – even Major Ulverstone. Thankfully, the reassuring fuselage of the big four-engine seaplane came into view, and a crewman hauled the passengers through a side door as the aircraft rocked on the waves caused by bombs exploding in the sea around it.
    Ulverstone noticed that the Canadian was greeted by the pilot as an old friend. ‘Cyril, you old bastard,’ the man said in a New Zealand accent. ‘Where the hell is Diane?’
    Ulverstone was hauled aboard and did not hear the Canadian’s reply. He and Captain Lydell found a seat, and when he looked around he saw civilians whose faces were pale with fear. Only the children made a noise, whimpering as the sound of the dying city reached them from across the bay.
    The pilot made his way forward to the cockpit and the engines that had been at idle commenced to shudder the aircraft as they powered up for takeoff. Then the big seaplane moved forward, the waves pounding the hull as the aircraft gathered speed.
    *
    Cyril occupied the copilot’s seat as his long experience as an aircraft engineer had taught him the rudiments of flying such a large aircraft.
    He and Tyrone stared tensely through the perspex of the cockpit at the course ahead, ever alert to floating objects that could rip the belly out of the tough seaplane.
    ‘I think