A Different Sky (16 page)

The organisers of the Youth League, a committee of elders and wealthy businessmen from the Indian community, although dimly aware of Krishna's radical background, did not fully comprehend his true mission in life. They were grateful, for his regular talks on Indian history and politics were so well attended that extra chairs must often be hastily found. Yet, although the evening might be advertised as a lecture on Indian history, world history, Indian philosophy or any other of the topics Krishna spoke on, his slant on each subject was narrow. His mind was focused on the freeing of India from British rule. Of world history Krishna chose only to discuss the history of revolution. Similarly, in Indian history he picked out the tales of famous Indian revolutionary zealots, Velu Thampi, Tipu Sultan and the Rani of Jhansi, or he might talk about the Indian Mutiny or the unscrupulous doings of the rascal Robert Clive, hailed as a hero in his home country, but whose ruthless rape of India was impossible to catalogue. Philosophy for Krishna was always Marx and Lenin, Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi.

‘When an older generation of leaders have failed, youth have the responsibility of reconstructing society. We must prepare to defend India's pride and glory. We must end British rule. We must prepare to shed our blood, and sacrifice our lives if necessary for the independence of our motherland.' Krishna's voice began to rise, and the words flowed powerfully from him.

Raj was always fascinated to watch the transformation in the schoolteacher as he talked. Krishna appeared a self-effacing man and his lectures began in a mild enough manner, yet within minutes he was transformed into a fiery preacher. Men sat forward on their seats and sucked their lips in concentration whenever the schoolteacher spoke.

Raj looked about the room at the rapt and attentive faces and knew, with some sense of disappointment, that he could not share the enthusiasm around him. Listening to his new brother-in-law, Raj was aware all too clearly of the gulf between himself and the idealistic Krishna. He thought of the great men Krishna admired, Einstein, Bose, Marx and so many others, men of revolution and reinvention. Idealists though they were, Raj viewed these men not as dreamers like Krishna but as pragmatists. In their special worlds each had known that opportunity must be seized. So it was also with Raj. Through the schoolteacher he had entered a world in which men would lay down their lives for an idea. Yet commitment of this nature appeared insubstantial to Raj; practicality was the only realistic way forward in life. He knew already that money was what he wanted, and it was not of great consequence to him in what political circumstances he lived as long as he was able to acquire it.

H
OWARD HAD NOW BEEN
working more than a year at the Harbour Board, at an office in an old godown near Collyer Quay. Aunty May had a friend whose husband worked at the Harbour Board, and through him an opening there had been found for Howard.

‘You'll have a good future at the Harbour Board,' Rose forecast. A job at the Harbour Board was not without status, and many Eurasian men aspired to such work. Once he finished his probationary period he was promised a rise in position to Assistant Traffic Supervisor, and this pleased her further.

‘It always helps to see your way up the ladder. You'll do well, just like your father,' Rose told him.

Howard swallowed his disappointment. He was not happy at the prospect of a life at the Harbour Board but did not want to disappoint his mother.

‘Many men would envy you such a job. You should be proud; the King trusts us Eurasians to run the colony above all the other races here,' Rose said, impatient with his lack of enthusiasm.

‘There is the Public Service Examination. That would open the way to a higher level of employment,' Rose suggested at last, unable to watch her son's crumbling hope, knowing his dream of further education after finishing school.

From then on each evening Howard sat at the writing table before the open doors of the balcony adjoining his room, hunched over books on economics and accounting; determined. He slept briefly but woke most nights to his own restlessness and turmoil. The residue of strange dreams washed around within him and fragments of memory slid away before he could grasp them. Often, waking like this, he put on the light and went back to his books in the dark and silent house, focused on his hopes.

Much to his mother's amusement he began to read the
The Straits Times
, which was delivered to Belvedere each day for the benefit of
the lodgers. It was not a newspaper for local people, being read almost exclusively by the European community, but Howard now absorbed the pages with concentration, hoping to glean new knowledge. For the last few weeks a debate had raged in its correspondence column on the rights of the local-born communities, and Howard had followed it with growing awareness. He noticed that none of the letter writers appeared to be local people. This omission, and the fact that the issues blithely discussed were written about by those who would never have to deal with them, filled him with anger. Until then, he realised, he had never considered that he might have rights under a colonial government, but had accepted his mother's reverence of all things British as the only valid perception.

At times, as he worked each night at his table, he wondered with trepidation if perhaps he was studying too hard, was too intent upon the future and all he felt bound to achieve. Everything was against him, and if he did not succeed, how would he cope? Nothing was more important to him now than breaking with the past. He did not want to be like his father who had grown tired of deferring to highhanded young Englishmen twenty years his junior whose expertise in matters of the Asiatic Petroleum Company was inferior to his own. Deep down Charlie Burns had always hoped that with his European colouring he could transcend the inflexible landscape of race that rooted him to his place. He could not accept that as a local person, merit meant little before colonial superiority. His death while at work had been unobtrusive. For some time after he died he had sat at his desk listing gradually to one side, before it was noticed that something was wrong. To Howard now it seemed the final dismissal that, even as the life seeped from his body, his father should sit on at his desk, ignored. He felt he understood the anger his father had lived with, and that now, more and more, seemed to sit upon his own shoulders.

Although part of his day at the Harbour Board was given to paperwork at a desk, Howard was also required to go on to the ships, to learn the work of the quay and the management of labour. His office was situated at the dock and was subject to the constant comings and goings of ships in the harbour. All vessels arriving and sailing must be listed along with their tonnage and details of cargo and crew. The unloading of cargo must also be checked and supervised, each ship examined and repairs arranged, sick crew must be dispatched to
hospitals and ship chandlers summoned to replenish supplies. Timings must be confirmed and complaints investigated.

Howard was part of the boarding team that examined and counted cargo and stores and processed the crew of each vessel under a Senior Boarding Officer. The office was no different from any other in the colony where a regiment of Eurasian men, and a few educated Chinese or Indians with a good command of English, worked under the order of a European. John Calthrop accompanied his men to the ship, but always returned as soon as he could to the coolness of the office. His thinning hair revealed a patch of reddened skull that, like his face, became quickly inflamed in the sun. Howard soon came to welcome any time away from Mr Calthrop who sat sweating sullenly at his desk all day, barking out orders and delivering reprimands. His blue eyes, sad and cold as chips of ice, roved the room like a vindictive schoolmaster seeking someone to thrash.

‘Bloody heat,' he said many times a day, using the words like a curse, wiping his damp red neck with his handkerchief. Or, ‘When I next go on home leave, God be praised, it will be the blessed winter.' From further comments it was clear that Calthrop was an unhappy man, whose father and grandfather before him had met early deaths in India.

‘Do you lot ever think of the sacrifices Englishmen have made to bring you a civilised life, to make you part of the Empire? Bloody heat, insanitary conditions, dead children, dead wives, tuberculosis . . .' Calthrop never finished the list of inconveniences life in the tropics could bring. In different circumstances Howard might have sympathised with the man and his fate as an empire builder. As it was, he took care to avoid him.

From the beginning Calthrop's eye had settled upon Howard and he picked on him for one small thing or another. An elderly clerk, Teddy de Souza, whose desk was near Howard's, soon put his finger on the problem: Howard was the only one in the office studying for the Public Service Examination, and such ambition in a local man Calthrop found presumptuous.

‘It irks him. You're too bright, boy,' Teddy de Souza told him with a nervous grin. He had worked all his life at the Harbour Board in a clerical capacity, struggling hard for each small promotion. ‘Don't get stuck here like me. Do something with your life, but for the moment try not to anger Mr Calthrop. He has been overlooked for promotion and that I believe is his trouble,' Teddy warned.

The relationship with Calthrop was not helped when the following week
The Straits Times
, to Howard's shock and horror, printed a letter he had written on an impulse, entering the debate on the rights of the local-born in the correspondence column. One long letter, written he was sure by someone local like himself, had challenged all the previous letter writers and set Howard off on a trail of thought he had never pursued before.

The future of the peoples of Malaya depends upon the complete cohesion and co-operation between local-born communities . . . there must be a Federation of Local-born Communities covering the whole of British Malaya. The aim of local administrators in bringing a decentralised scheme into being is to divide Malaya into different political compartments, preventing cohesion and co-operation between them, damning the hopes of the people for a government of the people for the people of Malaya. It remains to be seen if the administrators can get away with it. There are thousands of local-born men and women who will rise up to recognition if they can only have an outlet for their activities.

It was all put so succinctly that Howard wondered why he had never thought about such things before. Soon, his mind was charged with new ideas and he could not rest until he wrote them down. To his surprise the words had flowed easily. Old memories floated up, things he had all but forgotten: the Englishman in the lavatory of the Great World and the wounded Chief Inspector in the riot at Kreta Ayer, whom he had so fervently wished dead. He remembered the cracking of shots and the bleeding bodies under straw mats in the road. As he recalled these things, his anger grew; it surprised him to find that unknown to himself strange seeds of thought had germinated deep within him. He looked down at the letter in his hand and was amazed at what he had written.

The dream of the local British administrator is that of a Malaya where European British subjects can continue with their princely salaries, special allowances and great residences . . .

Not all letter writers signed their own name but Howard had seen no reason not to do so, had given no thought to the consequences, just pushed the letter into an envelope and sent it off, never thinking it would be published. He had just needed to get the words out of himself and never thought of who might see them. It was Teddy de Souza who brought a copy of
The Straits Times
into the office and read the letter aloud during lunch break, the men crowding about him, peering over his shoulder: ‘. . . local-born races are denied the right of advancement to the highest posts and influential positions or equal remuneration with Europeans for the same work . . . condemned to economic and political stagnation'. Teddy broke off and the men about him murmured in embarrassment. Later Teddy took Howard aside, the newspaper folded neatly now in his hand, his thin face wrinkled with perplexity.

‘What's the use of writing all this? You're asking for trouble, boy,' Teddy said in sad disapproval. Howard struggled to find an answer, wishing he had never put pen to paper, wondering where these complicated thoughts and outlandish words had come from.

‘It needed to be said,' he mumbled sullenly, feeling both angry and contrite.

‘Look, boy, we don't have politics here, with elections, political parties, people shouting out their crazy views on soapboxes and all that. We must count ourselves lucky; we've got British rule instead. We can just sit back and leave everything to
them
. Don't you have all you want? I can tell you, Mr Calthrop is very upset.' Teddy spoke patiently, as if to a child, shaking his head all the while.

‘There are some people in this office who think they are too clever by half,' Calthrop announced frostily the following day looking straight at Howard but elaborating no more, his sad blue eyes promising further engagement.

Surprisingly, Belvedere's new lodger Mr Patterson commented positively on Howard's letter. ‘It's a changing world and we Europeans must wake up to the fact.' It had been after dinner and they met near the stairs as Wilfred prepared to go up to the Lodgers' Lounge. The man had stopped Howard and held out his hand to congratulate him. The blood rushed to Howard's face as he mumbled embarrassed thanks and hurried away, acutely aware that Patterson was himself a journalist with
The Straits Times
. Wilfred looked after him, unable to reveal
to Howard that the real reason his letter had been published was not to add fuel to the argument in the newspaper's correspondence column, but as an example of the upstart thoughts that nowadays filled local heads.

Rose too was full of shocked disapproval. ‘I cannot believe it. Do you know where we'd be without the British? If you lose that job at the Harbour Board you'll have only yourself to blame. It's shameful – how can I face the young men in the dining room? What am I supposed to say to them?' Rose slapped the paper angrily down on the table, tears of distress in her eyes.