Knight's Move (Kirov Series Book 21) Page 5

  The only thing certain for the man now was a long, arduous and often brutal stint as a P.O.W. The Japanese were already shooting and bayoneting any captured prisoners who could not walk. They were not about to nursemaid them along under the rules of the Geneva Convention. Theirs was not the cautious, plodding position game of chess that the British expected. Instead it was a daring leap by a knight, bypassing the carefully placed pawns and appearing right in the heart of the enemy camp. Yes, it was a Knight’s move….

  As the last of the defenders to escape boarded trains in Kuala Lumpur, about 50 miles to the south, a railway manager looked sheepishly at a group of eight rail cars that had just been loaded with supplies.

  “What will I do with them?” he asked an officer. “There’s too much traffic on the line south to Singapore. They won’t be able to move for hours.”

  “Well what did you load on them?”

  “Just the usual, sir, beef tins, biscuits and boxes.”

  “Then just leave them here and don’t bother with them. We’ve plenty of beef and biscuits in Singapore as it stands.”

  The Japanese would be very pleased when they arrived and found those eight abandoned rail cars loaded with supplies. One little windfall was in the “boxes,” a stack of detailed printed maps of the city of Singapore that were a dream come true for Yamashita and Tsuji. As late as October of 1941, Japanese “tourists” had been visiting Malaya trying to find decent maps, and Yamashita had nothing he ever deemed adequate, until that lucky find, just another of many oversights on the part of the British, who were too flustered by these unorthodox moves, and found the whole Japanese attack simply too untidy for their liking.

  Chapter 5

  Percival had conceived his defensive plan, and gave it the flamboyant name of Operation Matador, as if the British defenders would swirl their capes at the boldly charging Japanese bulls, never giving an inch and sticking them with a lance as they rumbled by. Yet the troops he sent north to hold a territory as big as England itself were two under strength Indian divisions from III Corps, each missing one of its three brigades. They were not the toughened troops that had fought for Britain in North Africa, but illiterate cast offs, pressed into the service, shipped off to a foreign land with little training, and even less equipment. It was a British practice to stiffen these brigades by always including a battalion of British regulars, but of the six available in Malaya, only three were sent north to backstop this thin defense. It was no more substantial than the Matador’s cape, and just as fleeting. So the bull leapt right over this hapless toreador, then turned and gored him in the back.

  Yes, it wasn’t very sporting, but it was a tactic of war that was quite effective. A defense that might have held for months if properly established was rolled up in a matter of a few weeks, and soon Yamashita’s men would be approaching the next bridge they needed near the Muar River. This time it was the men of the 8th Australian Division on the line, 2/30th Battalion commanded by Colonel “Black Jack” Gelleghan.

  “They’ve taken positions by storm so often that I think we can hoodwink them here,” he said. “We’ll set up south of the bridge, and then let them come trundling right over the bloody thing. Once they get here, have the engineers blow the bridge behind them.”

  Black Jack’s battalion would hold up the Japanese for two days, inflicting a thousand casualties in the process, as they fell back from one stubbornly defended position to the next. They would prompt Yamashita to order a major attack by the air force to pave the way for his renewed advance. The Diggers showed what could be done by disciplined troops willing to roll up their sleeves and start thinking like their enemy. They anticipated many planned Japanese countermoves, and laid some very skillful ambushes, but there just were not enough of them to matter in the end. In spite of their valor, Yamashita would continue to drive relentlessly towards the last obstacle between his rampaging 25th Army and Singapore, the Strait of Johor.

  In what seemed like desperation, Churchill had wanted to send Prince of Wales and Repulse to the aid of this most valuable jewel in the crown. But those two ships would meet another doom off the coast of Northwest Africa. Dissuaded by Admiral Tovey, he instead sent two aircraft carriers, Indomitable and Illustrious, their decks laden with Hurricane fighters to be flown off for operations from airfields on Singapore.

  Yet that was not all that Churchill sent. He hoped he could reverse the inexorable momentum of the war by sending a secret weapon—a single man in fact, one of his closest advisors, Brendon Bracken. A financier and businessman, and a long time supporter of Churchill, it was Bracken who advised Churchill not to say a word if Lord Halifax was named as a possible successor to Neville Chamberlain. In fact, he held Churchill to a promise that he would remain silent. As Bracken predicted, Halifax had his name put forward, and Churchill said nothing, a long two minute silence that was eventually broken by Halifax himself, stating he did not think he was in the best position to form a government. Lord Beaverbrook would later claim that was “the great silence that saved England.”

  So Bracken was delighted when Churchill became Prime Minister, and was soon a member of the Privy Council, and Churchill’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. He would also serve as the Minister of Information, and it was this commodity that he was carrying with him to Percival on Churchill’s behalf that day—information.

  In an effort to stiffen Percival’s resolve, Churchill dispatched his trusted associate and confidant to Singapore on the eve of the final battle, hoping to put into his mind that the attack that would soon come must certainly fail, if only he could maintain his resolve and stand fast.

  * * *

  “What do you mean by this?” said Percival. “You say the Japanese are bluffing? Then how did they manage to chase my entire army 700 miles in the last two months? That was no bluff, Mister Bracken, no matter what the Prime Minister might think. It was a shameful performance on our part, and I’m fully prepared to shoulder the responsibility for that. If I had it all to do over, I would have held the line much closer to Singapore, as General Heath of III Indian Corps suggested. We were trying to protect the airfields up north for the RAF. Without their air cover, how could we expect to receive reinforcements here by sea? That said, my Operation Matador was the wrong plan at the wrong time. I’ll admit that much.”

  “General,” said Bracken, running a big hand through his wavy hair. “What I am now going to suggest is that you do indeed have a second chance here. As Minister of Information, I come by a few tidbits that may prove interesting from time to time. Mister Blair?”

  He turned to an aide, a man who worked as a clerk which he brought along to manage the files and papers he would now present. He had fished him out of the imposing stone edifice of the Ministry building, a humdrum clerk doing a little war time work there. Unbeknownst to him, Clerk Blair was much more than he seemed, a prolific writer with a political edge, and an eye for things that would soon come to pass in the shadow of the war.

  “Mister Blair here will present you with some rather detailed information as to the real force the enemy now has outside your keep. As you will soon see, it is hardly the invincible host you may think it to be. The Japanese 25th Army, if it could be called that, is actually a force of no more than 30,000 men—less than three divisions. That was what he started with, and his forces may be whittled down considerably by now. Why, you have 33,000 British troops at your disposal here, and another 17,000 Australians. Along with the Indian Units, your force totals at least 100,000 men. Am I correct?”

  “30,000 men?” Percival could not agree. “My good man, the Japanese must have at least 150,000 out there by now. As to our own forces, I have more like 85,000 men, and of those I would deem 15,000 to be non-combatants. No offense to you or your ministry, but you have been out of the picture as I’ve seen it here, and your information is simply wrong.”

  “But surely you have enough with that to throw the enemy back should they attempt to cross the strait.”

  Perci
val was quick to reply. “Yet I have to cover 70 miles of coastline. The Japanese can pick and choose their points of crossing, and hit us there with everything they have.”

  The big Irishman sighed, pursing his lips and extending an open hand to his clerk again. “The letter, Mister Blair. I probably should have presented it first. It is the Prime Minister’s own hand and mind, and I urge you to heed it in the strongest possible way.”

  Blair fished out an envelope, and Bracken handed it to the General stiffly. “I must say, General, that I have spent more than a good amount of time burning the proverbial midnight oil with Mister Churchill. I am, you see, one of the few men in the government who sees him after that hour.”

  Percival opened the envelope and read the note: General Percival, I am sending you this letter to reveal the full scope of what British Intelligence has now come to know concerning the forces arrayed against you. You can take it on faith, in spite of your own setbacks in recent weeks, that the Japanese will not have 30,000 men to put against you in this fateful hour, and your own troops certainly number many times that. This is not conjecture or speculation. We have this information from a most reliable source, which for reasons of national security, cannot be revealed in this letter.

  Beyond that, the condition of the enemy is precarious. They are presently at the end of a very long rope, low on food, supplies and certainly ammunition. You simply must oppose them now with every sinew of war you can muster. The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs… Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honor of the British Empire and the British Army is at stake.’

  Percival raised an eyebrow at that, slowly folding the letter. Later he would write back to the Prime Minister: ‘In some units the troops have not shown the fighting spirit expected of men of the British Empire. … It will be a lasting disgrace if we are defeated by an army of clever gangsters many times inferior in numbers to our men.’

  “I trust you will accept what I say now, sir,” said Bracken, his hand again in the thick hair that seemed plastered on his wide round head. “You must do as the Prime Minister urges. Do you realize that if Singapore falls, it will be the most disastrous military setback in all British history? We thought losing Gibraltar was bad enough, then Hong Kong, but this is the Gibraltar of the East, and we simply must hold on here. I do not also have to tell you that capitulation will be forever associated with your name if you don’t stand up now, something I am sure you might prefer to avoid. Why, it would be the most ignominious surrender of British forces since Cornwallis. Now then, in light of that letter, what is this business I hear about your not wanting fortifications built on your northern borders of the city?”

  “Bad for morale,” said Percival, a tall, thin man, beady eyed and with a tiny wisp of a mustache above prominent rabbit like teeth that protruded whenever he spoke. He looked more the office clerk than the man Bracken had with him. “Fixed fortifications send the wrong message—bad for both the troops and civilians alike.”

  Bracken shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Well what in god’s name do you call all those heavy naval batteries facing south, if not fixed fortifications! That is what makes this island impossible to assault from the sea. You must build an equally tough defensive line to the north, facing the Strait of Johor.”

  “And you must mind your manners, sir, notwithstanding your close association with the Prime Minister, you are certainly not a military man, or in any position to understand what we’re facing here.”

  “General, I understand you quite plainly. The Prime Minister might have sent General Wavell, but he’s tied down with some big decisions in North Africa. So I’ve been sent in his place, and I’ve just told you what you are facing—less than 30,000 hungry, tired Japanese troops, who have little ammunition to prosecute a long siege. If you hold out, stand firm, then your name will forever be associated with something much more palatable—the defense and salvation of Singapore. The Japanese will propose your surrender, but you must not listen to them, or even treat with them seriously. This is an order, not from me of course, but from your government. No consideration must be given to surrender here.”

  Percival was quiet, a manner he had lately come to adopt at strategy sessions with his subordinate division and corps commanders. A shroud of gloom seemed to hang over his thin shoulders, and if anything could be said to be in his eyes now, it was not the light of determination to stand and fight. Rather, a look approaching desperation seemed to haunt him, an indecisiveness that Churchill’s messenger could clearly perceive.

  “Remember,” said Bracken, “You are the Rock of the East.”

  “The Germans took the other one easily enough,” said Percival.

  “Only after they threatened to pour gasoline into the tunnels from above and set the whole bloody place to an inferno,” Bracken shook his finger. “I hardly think the Japanese are capable of such depravity.”

  That was to be an understatement, for at that very moment, the Japanese had come across a group of Aussies on the other side of the Strait, cut off, all wounded, and quietly waiting for their war to end, thinking the hardship of a prison camp might not be half as bad as the jungle. The Japanese officers who came across them decided to spare them that fate. Thinking it was time for their samurai swords to be blooded, they summarily beheaded each and every man. Atrocity and depravity lay dead ahead, and Percival stood there, completely unknowing, and oblivious to the fate that might soon overtake his island fortress.

  The history books Fedorov read had pointed out the bayoneting of patients and hospital staff in Hong Kong, and the ravaging of nurses on their bloodied bodies, but the real atrocity would be the slaughter of 50,000 to 70,000 Chinese civilians in Singapore, and up country in Malaya, all summarily executed for being ‘anti-Japanese.’

  They would call it the Shingapōru Daikenshō, or “great inspection of Singapore,” but Western historians would name it the Sook Ching Massacre. Their troops would swarm into the steamy warrens of Chinatown, smashing the carts of the street vendors, overturning the fleets of rickshaws, breaking into the small family owned shops, putting the torch to lavish silks, exotic teas, ransacking the pearl and jade markets, looting, raping, and dragging out all the young men for “inspection.” Those from wealthy families thought to be financing resistance movements were of special interest, as were communists, civil servants, and any who might have been in a militia group. Those with tattoos were also selected out, for they may have been members of the Chinese “triad” gangs. Simple possession of any weapon could result in summary execution.

  The old Amahs, grandmothers, and wizened old grandfathers would watch like shadows from the shrouded windows of the tenements. The mothers screamed and wailed as their young sons were dragged off, many never to be seen again. Those that managed to “pass” inspection had the word “Inspected” stamped onto their foreheads or clothing.

  Out on the water, the sampans clustered there like birds on a pond would be put to the fire, and on Nankin Street, hundreds of squalid families would be rousted out of their tiny stalls, herded like animals as the troops gave them a liberal treatment of rifle butts, bayonets, and then simply began shooting them. But most “selectees” were herded out to designated sites, like Changi Beach, where the Kempetai would line them up and gun them down. It would be a death toll that would exceed the total number lost to US forces over 10 years of fighting in Vietnam, and it was all put to the sword and fire in a two to three week period after the fall of Singapore.

  But none of that had happened yet… There was still the Strait of Johor, 100,000 men, and General Percival between Yamashita and his prize, and Brendon Bracken was there to see that they held the line.

  “Mister Bracken,” said the General. “You can go back to London with every assurance that I will do my level best here to hold on. And while you’re there, you might ask around as to when we might expect relief.”

  Bracken smiled, realizing now that Percival would have to say as m
uch in this situation, but still not seeing any real resolve in the other man. He realized he had to offer the General something to bolster his morale, and was authorized to do so by Churchill. So he lowered his voice, stepping closer, as if to confide something of a sensitive nature.

  “My good general,” he began. “You didn’t think I’ve come all this way merely to give you a pep talk, did you? What I will tell you now is to be kept secret, a matter for discussion between you and your senior division commanders only.”

  “Of course,” said Percival, waiting, with just the barest light of expectancy in his eyes.

  “You should know that the Prime Minister was dead set on sending a strong naval force to your aid, but his battleships have been seeing to another problem with the French and German fleet in the Atlantic. In their place, however, I can tell you that a powerful naval squadron is presently in the Indian Ocean, and with every intention of intervening here at the eleventh hour. The aircraft carriers Illustrious and Indomitable have been dispatched, and with another 45 Hurricanes each to send to your immediate aid. Now, you said yourself that much of your thinking involved protection of those airfields to insure relief by sea would remain possible. This is the aim of this flotilla, and you can expect support directly.”

  There, that was his bait, and now the artful Bracken had only to hope the General would take it, and allow him to reel this fish in and get a net on him.

  Chapter 6

  “I see,” said Percival, looking a bit more hopeful. “The RAF boys will certainly be glad to hear that. As it stands, the only thing they can do in those unwieldy Buffaloes is out dive the Japanese fighters to escape from having to dog fight with them. They can’t get up after the Japanese bombers. It takes them all of 30 minutes to climb to 30,000 feet, and by the time they get up there, it’s usually too late. Needless to say, that is of little help to our cause.”