By Melvin Sterne

It was Monday afternoon, December 8, 1941, when the rumour caught fire and Evangeline called Gerald and asked him to meet after work at Curley's Bar down at Boat Quay. Gerald got there first and settled in at a table off to the side with a view of the river. He ordered a pitcher of iced tea with lemon and two glasses, then looked out at the twakow, the peculiar small, narrow, canvas-covered boats crammed into rows three and four deep by the banks of the river, and the Chinese and Malays and Indians crowded along both banks. They were busy loading and unloading and winding ropes and haggling over prices and carriage and wages and quality and god-only-knows what-all else. Perhaps they, also, had heard the news. It was late afternoon and cool outside, for Singapore, and Gerald was grateful for that, though there was a still strong smell of fish and sewage and salt-water rot from the river.

Evangeline arrived not long after Gerald. She had rushed from work — not bothering to change from her white gown. She was a pretty woman, green-eyed, brown-haired, average height, with full lips and a wide smile and dimpled, almost child-like cheeks. Like most nurses, she was not prone to panic or hyperbole. She sat down and Tan, the Chinese waiter, was instantly at their table with a tall pitcher and the glasses. He set a plate of sliced dragon fruit between them and poured their tea, then proffered menus. Gerald waved him off. Evangeline said, "You've heard?" Without waiting for Gerald's reply she continued, "I guess we're in for it now. A real kerfuffle."

"We've been expecting this all along," Gerald replied. "We knew it was coming."

"How bad was it?"

Gerald glanced down at his hands. "Best not to talk about that. Besides…the situation is ongoing."

Evangeline looked at Gerald: tall, muscular, square jawed, blue-eyed, hair mostly blond but with a hint of red glinting in the orange afternoon light. His khaki uniform was perfectly starched, his body stiff and straight and tree-like, a proper British officer, and Evangeline loved Gerald for his calm, assured, self-possessed self-discipline. Yet she could tell by the way he looked at his hands that the news was bad even though those hands were steady, his manner the stoic calm one expected to find in a Captain.

"You were there, what? Three years ago?"

"Yes."

"I hope none of your friends were killed or injured."

"Me, too." He sipped his tea and added, "It comes with the uniform, dear. How's mother?"

"She's all right. Complains about the mosquitos. The fans. The bread. The tea. The maid. The food. She likes the flowers, though. And the birds. She saw a wild green parrot this morning. She worries about falling coconuts."

Gerald chuckled, then said, "I expect she'll be cutting her visit short now."

"Do you think it will be safe to sail?"

"Not as safe as before, but it'll get worse before it gets better. The sooner she leaves, the better. For all concerned."

"You've never liked her."

"Oh, I like her well enough. It's just that we're both likely to be buried in our work." Gerald winced at his choice of words, and he would never forget the way that Evangeline looked up at him. A poor time for a careless slip of the tongue like that.

"Are you hungry?" Evangeline asked. "You should eat. You were off early this morning." She picked up the menu. "There's a note that the fish is good today. Poached grouper."

Gerald shook his head. Evangeline droned on, probably about the importance of eating times like this. But Gerald had stopped listening. Phillips had walked into the pub. He was an American naval officer, newly arrived in Singapore; mid-20s, tall, thin, with jet-black hair and thick, caterpillar-like black eyebrows. Gerald had met Phillips a couple of times and didn't think much of him. The Americans in general were aloof and somewhat secretive about their activities. They looked down on their British counterparts and flaunted their supposed "gregarious rugged individualism" as though Americans had invented the very concept. But something about Phillips' present state struck Gerald so that he set down the piece of dragon fruit he was about to eat and watched the man, in uniform, now drumming his fingers impatiently on the bar and leaning over and raising his voice and repeating himself to make certain that Chang, the barkeep, understood him.

"Hold on a moment," Gerald said. He pushed back his chair and stood and walked to the bar where Phillips, now standing alone, glared at Chang as the barkeep anxiously plucked bottles from rows of colourful bottles lined up in impressive array on long shelves that towered over the bar and ran the length of the wall.

"Hello, there," Gerald said, extending a hand. "Phillips, right? From the Hammann? Am I correct?"

Phillips grunted, then nodded and shook Gerald's hand.

"Won't you join my wife and I?" Gerald gestured in the direction of the table from which Evangeline was watching.

"Won't I be intruding?"

"Not at all. Glad for the company. I'm sure it's been a difficult day for you."

"You can say that again," Phillips said.

"That again," Gerald replied.

They sat down and Gerald introduced Phillips to Evangeline saying, "I'm sorry that I don't remember his first name, Angel, but this is Lieutenant Phillips of the United States Navy."

"Ahh," Evangeline said, that soft, nurse's tone sweetening her voice. "I hope you're all right. Shocking news today."

"Well, we're in for it now," Phillips replied. "It's all or nothing."

Tan appeared at their table and Gerald gestured for another glass. "Well, we've suspected something like this was coming," he said.

"Of course. But to be caught like that. How did they — ? Tan set a glass in front of Phillips and poured it full of tea. Phillips eyed Tan with suspicion until he was gone.

"The Chinese are no friends of Japan," Gerald said. "Even the locals."

"I still don't know how you tell them apart."

"They've been at war with Japan for four years now," Gerald said. "Actually, much longer if you think about it. They fought a war back before the Great War. They've got a whole history of animosity and rivalry."

Phillips stroked his chin.

"They raise money for the Chinese resistance."

"The nationalists or the reds?"

"Some of both, I presume."

Phillips nodded and sipped the tea. "This is good," he said.

"Excuse me," Evangeline said, "but you wouldn't know Edward R. Murrow, would you?"

"No. Why?"

"You sound a bit like him. That slow, drawn-out baritone. I thought you might come from the same neighbourhood."

"I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I think Murrow is from the south someplace. Maybe the Carolinas?"

"I see," Evangeline said. "And what did your family do there? In Lincoln?"

"My father ran a hardware store. He wanted me to take it over someday, but I wanted to see the world. My older brother joined the navy so," Phillips shrugged, "when I graduated college, I joined up. And here I am." He raised his glass in a mock toast and looked around the room.

"And I'm sure you'll see a great deal more of it before this is all over," Gerald said.

"We sail tomorrow," Phillips said.

"I wouldn't spread that around," Gerald replied.

"Yeah," Phillips said. "But any fool with eyes can see. Cranes. Nets. Boilers fired. Greasing the anchor chains."

Tan appeared and placed a tall glass of what looked like pink fruit juice on the table in front of Phillips.

"What is that?" Evangeline asked.

"Singapore Sling," Gerald said. "Am I right?"

"Is," Phillips replied. He picked up the glass. It was chilled and beaded with cold water.

"You're a fan of gin?" Evangeline asked.

Phillips looked from Gerald to Evangeline, then back. "Actually, I am. Quite the fan." He snorted. "Have you tried it?"

"Not much of a drinker myself," Gerald said. "I stick to tea."

Evangeline said, "I like gin sometimes. Never had one of those, before. How do they get that lovely colour?"

"Fruit juice," Phillips said. "And cherry liqueur. Would you like a sip?"

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all."

Phillips handed the glass to Evangeline and she sipped.

"It's delicious," she said. She offered Phillips the glass, but he held up his hand.

"Keep it," he replied. "I don't know what I was thinking. I shouldn't drink. Especially at a time like this."

"We're all a bit shook, I'm afraid," Gerald said. He winced again at his choice of words.

"I like the tea better anyway," Phillips said.

Evangeline finished the drink.

Gerald would never see Phillips again. Early the next morning the Hammann, a destroyer, steamed out, presumably to join the American fleet at Midway where she would be sunk the following June during the battle to defend the island. Evangeline's mother would return to England only a few days later, as quickly as Gerald could finagle passage. She would live out the war and outlive her husband, but never warmed to Gerald. Evangeline herself would refuse to depart Singapore with her mother despite Gerald's every effort to persuade her. Her place, she insisted, was by her husband's side. And anyway, the army faced a shortage of good nurses. She would die in January of 1942 while attempting to evacuate as the Japanese noose tightened around Singapore. Gerald was captured in the British surrender and spent most of the war in POW labour gangs in Burma. He survived dysentery and malaria and dengue and cholera, weighing 62kg and unable to walk when finally liberated. He would return to England to work as a court stenographer. He lived with his in-laws, never remarried, suffered frequent bouts of crushing depression, and would never learn the details of his wife's death — knowing only that she had boarded a small craft bound for Indonesia and was never seen again.

But Gerald would return to Singapore once, in 1979. He visited the approximate site of his former residence, now levelled and replaced with a gleaming new condominium. Curley's was gone, though the building was occupied by another restaurant. Gerald visited Fort Siloso and Fort Canning, then wandered along Boat Quay wonderstruck at how much had survived the bombardment. After all, General Percival had disobeyed orders to "fight to the last man" so as to spare the city and its citizens the utter destruction of house-to-house fighting. So here it was, still standing, but at what price? Nearly all the 100,000 British troops who surrendered had died in captivity.

Two things triggered Gerald's return to Singapore. The first was a cancer diagnosis. The second was a short, two-page account that he read in the AA Grapevine, the official monthly publication of Alcoholics Anonymous. The article, entitled "Kerfuffle," was the story of a young American naval officer, a recovering alcoholic, who upon hearing the news of Pearl Harbor, and learning of the death of his older brother in the attack, had set out to get good and drunk. The officer was in Singapore at the time. He'd walked along the Boat Quay and settled on a random bar, but before he went inside, he said a short, silent to prayer to God that if God really didn't want him to drink, He should send a clear and unmistakable sign right now. The man went into the bar and ordered a drink. But before the bartender could serve him, a British naval officer and his wife — a man the American sailor barely remembered meeting — recognised the man. They invited him to join them at their table. They were drinking tea. They made small talk, nothing important, but by the time the waiter brought the sailor his drink, the sailor had decided not to get drunk after all. The man would go on to survive the war, to survive the sinking of, not one, not two, but three ships, and to remain sober for more than 30 years following the war. He would marry and raise a family and attend his own son's graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy. The war was difficult, the anonymous author wrote, but not nearly as difficult as life would have been had he picked up a drink that afternoon. That, he wrote, was the real "kerfuffle." The account was signed, "JP — Oceanside, CA."

Gerald would never know for certain if this story was told by the same young Lieutenant Phillips whom he and his wife had met on what was to be the last normal day of their earthly existence. But the story gave him pause. Gerald had never mentioned his own recovery from alcoholism — only that he preferred tea. And he wondered how it was possible that, in the midst of all that death and destruction — and all the death and destruction that would follow — how one simple act of kindness to a virtual stranger could possibly make any difference. And yet, somehow, it had. And in the last days of his life, Gerald found that thought comforting.

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