The Rose of Singapore (30 page)

In this house of worship, Peter asked the questions, many of which Lai Ming could not answer.

They visited Clifford Pier, Raffles Place, Collyer Quay—all places Peter might not have visited had he not had Lai Ming as his knowledgeable and charming guide. They took walks together along the wide and long Esplanade situated next to the Padang. There they listened to the lapping of the waves on the foreshore below, and watched sleek liners, a variety of merchant ships, huge oil tankers and many other vessels, big and small, lying at anchor beyond the detached harbour. Inside the harbour, smaller vessels—the water carriers, tramps, tugs, junks,
sampans
and the many customs gunboats—maneuvered in the Inner Roads, weaving crazy patterns upon the surface of the water.

One interesting afternoon was spent in that fine, historical building, the Raffles Museum and Library, standing mightily in a picturesque setting enriched by the avenue of swaying palms, recently mown lawns, thick-trunked trees at the entrance, and a host of green bushes festooned in sweet-scented pink blossoms ringing the building. Lai Ming chatted and laughed happily at Peter's side, pointing at the stuffed monkeys, then passing on to where the bear with its family of cubs were at play.

Another afternoon, Lai Ming suggested a visit to Haw Par Villa, or as it is more commonly called, the Tiger Balm Gardens. These famous gardens, situated on the west of the island, consist of seven acres of wonderland known the world over. Equally well-known are its owners, Mr Aw Boon Haw and Mr Aw Boon Par, whose names when translated into English literally mean ‘tiger' and ‘leopard' respectively. These two well-loved and respected men financed the building of Haw Par Villa.

Peter readily agreed to Lai Ming's suggestion, especially as he had already enjoyed a visit to another of the three Tiger Balm Gardens in the Far East, the one in Hong Kong.

Shortly after Peter had finished an enjoyable lunch of shrimp salad and a Carlsberg beer, Wan Ze shouted up the stairs that she had hailed a cab and that it was waiting for them at the end of the alleyway. It was always safer for the
amah
to hail the cab than for Peter to wait in full view on the corner of Lavender Street and Bendemeer Road.

From Lavender Street the taxi turned right into Kallang, sped down Victoria Street and New Bridge Road, then turned left into Keppel Road with the Empire Docks and West Wharf on the left and the railway station to the right. A few minutes later they were at Pasir Panjang where the narrow road ran between the beach and the sloping entrance leading up to the well-tended Tiger Balm Gardens.

On exiting the taxi a mob of unofficial guides approached them. Lai Ming, waving them aside, purchased a guide leaflet from a stall at the entrance. Hand in hand they walked up a concrete path beneath an elaborately decorated archway built over the incline at the entrance leading up to the villa. There was no entrance fee. They had only to pass the guard at the gate, a ferocious tiger about to spring, fortunately lifeless, man-made and harmless. As they passed the tiger, Lai Ming laughed and said, “Here is the guardian big cat. He looks at us with anger but allows us to pass unharmed.”

Thus, the two stepped into another world, a world of fantasy and make-believe, the work of specially engaged artisans brought from China who had created scenes depicting ancient Chinese stories in many forms—of statues and shrines, flowers, shrubs and trees, animals, birds and reptiles of many varied species.

“Almost every scene you will see here in this garden depicts an ancient Chinese story, also our history,” said Lai Ming. “I shall do my best to explain, but also you must read the paper. I think you will find the Tiger Balm Gardens interesting.”

Peter laughed light-heartedly. “I'm sure I shall,” he said.

Once inside, they worked their way upward along a path flanked by porcelain dragons, sculptured rocks and shapely trees, all hand-carved. Soon they came upon gigantic, life-size, as well as miniature, carvings of men, beasts and reptiles, some in forms of unnatural life of which Peter couldn't grasp a meaning. Lai Ming did her best to explain.

Branching away from the main path, off to the right and walking on flagstones, they worked their way further upward amid squatting, giant brown and green bullfrogs with big, bulging eyes, and with monstrous lizards crawling all over them. Also, there were huge turtles, enormous pythons about to strike, open-jawed crocodiles, monkeys at play, rats at war, birds upon boughs, fish in ponds, swans amid lily pads, all life-like, artificial and man-made. There were mermaids combing flowing tresses while basking in the sunshine on rocks, while above them, nude little boys cast fishing lines hopefully into the water. Then they came upon a gorilla, huge and ferocious-looking, with eyes filled with hate, sitting upon the fallen trunk of a tree.

Peter, puzzled by a scene even more so than by others, stopped, stared and studied it. A huge white sow lay on her side suckling not piglets but instead a variety of young animals, though not one of the same species: a bear cub, a kitten, a tiger cub, a baby rat and a puppy.

“How strange, Rose!” Peter exclaimed, puzzled. “Can you explain this to me?”

“Oh, yes! I can,” Lai Ming answered, laughing. “Mother pig is feeding what represents all the animals of the forest.”

“Why?”

“Because it is a Buddhist symbol. It means much. The best I can describe this scene is that it depicts being charitable to the needy, to be patient and tolerant to all.”

“Hmm. Perhaps an animal can be so inclined, but I doubt whether humans will ever attain such merit. Many are too selfish.”

“Yes. It is sad, but you speak the truth,” said Lai Ming.

Next, they stopped where a fierce battle raged between white rats and black rats. “Here, for example,” said Lai Ming, “the moral of this scene is to show how senseless it is to fight because the other is of a different colour.”

Resuming their walk, with Lai Ming leading the way, they reached a narrow entrance to a man-made cavern. Lai Ming turned and beckoned Peter to follow her into the cavern, which he did. “Here, in these works of art, is the story of the soul being judged after the death of the body,” she said. “I think you will find it interesting.”

“The whole place looks like a torture chamber to me,” said Peter as he looked about him.

“Yes, you are correct. It is a torture chamber, a place where those who committed sins in life are punished.”

“Hey! Don't rush me,” Peter exclaimed, laughing. “I must fathom this out.”

A plaque on the wall proclaimed in both Chinese and English, “The Purgatory, where punishment in torture form is allotted out to the souls of the dead for the sins committed when with life. The souls of the sinners are judged by ten courts.”

Together, Lai Ming and Peter Saunders visited each of the ten courts and ten punishment cells.

In one, a monk who had paid visits to brothels was being sawn in half for his sins. In another, a habitual liar was having his tongue cut out. Adulterers were being thrown into a vat of boiling oil, a devil standing by fanning the flames. A woman procurer of young girls into a life of prostitution against their will was being disembowelled while strapped to a stake. Corrupt officials were being pounded in a pit of nails. A woman who ill-treated her stepdaughter was suffering her fate in Hades by having her heart and liver cut out. Males who frequented gambling houses were either thrown into an inferno or grilled to a crisp on a hollow bronze pillar with a great fire inside it.

As the couple approached the tenth judge, Peter chuckled, wondering which of the ten fates would finally befall him.

All punishments having been meted out, the souls were lined up to await their turn to be fed a great spoonful of ‘the tea of oblivion' proffered by an old woman. Once taken, the world they had recently passed through is forgotten, and their souls are spun out of the so-called ‘spinning wheel of life'. But now they are in the form of some other living matter; perhaps as a human being, or maybe this time as a bird, or a fish, an animal, an insect, anything that is living, depending on the life led in the last world and sins committed.

The afternoon being hot and humid, they paused for a while to sit and relax in the shade of a great green breadfruit tree, enjoying orange drinks bought from a stall at the side of the winding path. When rested they continued their sightseeing tour of the gardens.

Birds, beasts, idols, they were everywhere. A phoenix, the legendary ‘bird of fire' stood proudly on a rock with wings outstretched. There were foxes and wild boar in typical fauna of the Malayan jungle, all man-made. Lai Ming and Peter stopped to study a miniature Chinese garden with tiny figures of man and animals, flowers and trees, and palaces and tiny temples of worship; all beautiful works of art. Peter marvelled at everything he saw at the Tiger Balm Gardens.

Finally, the two climbed to the highest point in the gardens and from there looked down upon all that they had seen, a fantasy land perhaps, but everything in that garden, and almost every scene depicted there had a story and a moral behind it, stories going back thousands of years in Chinese history.

Peter would never forget that enjoyable afternoon with Rose chatting so carefree and happily at his side.

18

When the March winds doth blow, we shall have snow. Or shall we?” said LAC Peter Saunders looking up at a cloudless blue sky. “I don't think so, eh, Charlie?”

“No. That's for damned sure. At times I've wished that it would snow. I'm sick of this bloody heat,” said Peter's lanky companion, Corporal Charlie Brown, an RAF military police dog-handler, as they left the airmens' mess together and walked along the concrete path that led to the road.

“This climate suits me,” said Peter Saunders. “I feel like a monkey with its balls frozen off when in cold weather. You know, Charlie, I'm dreading returning to sunny Devon where it rains six days out of seven, and on the seventh it pisses down. Rain! That's just about all we get, there's seldom sunshine.”

“You can give me rain anytime instead of this blasted heat. It gives me such a headache. I've got a headache now, throbbing as though I've been belted by a sledge-hammer, and my whole body feels as if it's burning up.”

“Christ! No wonder, Charlie. You've really caught the sun. You're as red as a beetroot. What happened?”

“It's my own fault, Pete. After I came off duty this morning, I went to the beach for a dip and then fell asleep on the sand. I must have lain there for two or three hours. I caught far too much sun.”

“You can say that again, Charlie. You're baked. You should go to the sick quarters and get something for that sunburn, and for your headache.”

“You think I should?”

“Of course you should. One of the medical orderlies will put you right.”

“I doubt it,” said dog-handler Corporal Charlie Brown. “Not the way I bloody-well feel.”

What a difference in size there was between the two airmen walking side by side along that concrete path. Five foot four and slight of build, LAC Peter Saunders barely reached Corporal Charlie Brown's shoulders who, at nineteen, was extremely tall, six foot six and still growing. Corporal Brown, with his tea mug and eating irons in hand, having just eaten at the airmens' mess, was wearing his KD uniform, white webbing, white gaiters, a white police hat with the RAF badge fixed to the front of it, and very shiny black boots. He was not wearing his revolver, and would not be wearing it until he reported for his next duty and signed for it and his dog at the guardroom.

Peter, dressed in his civvies, was walking to the bus stop overlooking the main runway on Changi Road. He was going to Lai Ming's home and would not be returning to camp until lunchtime the next day. That morning he had worked the early shift at the sergeants' mess until Sergeant Muldoon showed up, which was well after two in the afternoon. He had then returned to the catering block where he showered and changed his clothes, and as it was already five o'clock and tea time at the airmens' mess, he had stopped awhile to eat a light meal of bread and jam and drink a cup of tea. Now, on leaving the airmens' mess, he had met Corporal Charlie Brown, who had just finished his tea, and together they walked towards the road.

Just three months ago, Corporal Charlie Brown completed his RAF police training in England and was immediately posted together with his police dog, Wicked Witch, to RAF Changi. A happy-go-lucky type, Charlie made friends easily, including Peter Saunders and several other members of the catering section. He was always ready to indulge in a good yarn-spinning hour in the airmens' mess at night with the duty cooks, over a mug of tea and slabs of buttered toast.

Still discussing Charlie's sunburn, the two reached the road. Good-naturedly, Peter said, “You moon-men will never learn. You come out here thinking you can play around with Mister Sun. Well, you can't! You've got to take it easy, Charlie. Work up to it. First get acclimatized and then eventually you'll be able to safely lie around all day. This sun is hell.”

“Don't I know it. Got a match on you, Pete?”

“Nope. You know I don't smoke, Charlie.”

“Aw, that's right. I forgot. Perhaps a smoke will clear this lousy head of mine. I feel as dizzy as hell and as sick as a dog.”

“Well, I've given you my advice. Go up to sickquarters and get something for it. Then go to bed and get some kip.”

“I wish I could get some kip, but I'm on duty at nine over at the signals section. I won't see my bed until six or seven tomorrow morning. Going to visit your girlfriend?”

“Yep.”

“Lucky bugger. I wish I had a girlfriend out here.”

“What about your girlfriend at home?”

“She's not here. And I've still more than a year to do before I return to good old Blighty and get demobbed. This two years of National Service has really screwed me up. It seems a lifetime.”