The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 85

We could not believe the Japanese did not understand exactly what we were doing... why didn’t they knock hell out of us?

Situated off the expressway east of Keppel harbour, the station building is a monument to early-1930s engineering with each concrete pillar at the entrance dedicated to commerce, industry, and agriculture, aspects of what once made Malaya the industrial diamond of the Empire.

The railway travels north-west until it meets and runs alongside the Upper Bukit Timah Road that merges into Woodlands Road. Farther along the line, at Woodlands Point, the train halts at a check point before it traverses the causeway spanning the Johore Straits that separate the mainland from island.

From the train window, I saw a stream of cars and men on motorbikes flying past and imagined the night in January 1942 when Angus, the Argylls and 30,000 British, Australian, and Indian troops withdrew over this causeway from the mainland.

At a conference on January 28, Percival put Ian Stewart in charge of the withdrawal. Much later, Stewart wrote to David Wilson: “What ought to have been done was to have Archie Paris and 12th Brigade in the job of commanding the whole rearguard, i.e. someone with a proper staff.” All Stewart had were a few trusty Argylls and marines like Lieutenant Jock Hayes, who were ordered to find a flotilla of boats and small craft for a quick getaway if the enemy scotched their plan.

Anticipation

From his HQ in a bungalow on a hill overlooking the Straits east of Johore town, Stewart, with Rose and David Wilson as adjutant, arranged an outer perimeter of four miles held by the Australian 22nd Brigade and the Gordon Highlanders, while his 250 Argylls managed an inner perimeter, less than a mile in depth.

This was risky. Intending to thwart III Corps’ retreat, the enemy’s aim was to advance inland from the west and, if their plan succeeded, Singapore, with its small garrison, would have to surrender and a costly assault for Japan across the strait could be avoided.

But by the end of January, III Corps, albeit minus several units including the entire 22nd Indian Brigade lost in remote jungle on the east coast, reached the northern side of the causeway in south Johore. Writing decades after the event, Wilson remembers his feelings of anticipation as he and his companions prepared their positions two days before the withdrawal. ‘We knew we had been given a vital job and for the first time if things went badly wrong we would be Horatius holding the bridge at all costs.’

Built in the early 1920s, the causeway was a gargantuan stone structure with broad foundations that descended many feet below the water’s surface. 1,100 yards long and 23 yards wide, it accommodated a road and railway line. For the British and Indian sapper, it’d be a nightmare to demolish, although they had gained plenty of experience.

These men made elaborate preparations to blow a sizeable hole – 60 yards wide – into the causeway. In the end, the demolition was only partly successful, resulting in a fordable gap of four feet at low tide. As it was the largest, most important demolition job of the campaign, personnel from the Royal Navy laid depth charges to destroy the steel road, railway bridge, and pipeline that supplied Singapore’s reservoirs.

Exodus

The weather preceding the withdrawal was beautiful, with brilliant, cloudless days and a waxing moon at night. As the troops assembled on the north side of the causeway, Japanese aircraft rained down British bombs acquired from captured airfields. “It was a long night for us all,” remarked Lieutenant Hayes. “We could not believe the Japanese did not understand exactly what we were doing... why didn’t they knock hell out of us?”

David Wilson compared the cleverly-orchestrated withdrawal to the last act of the Aldershot Tattoo. As darkness fell, trucks, ambulances (Percival, Heath and Bennett rode across in one to observe the event from the Singapore shore), carriers and motorbikes began the exodus. These vehicles passed over with no headlights, as it was a full moon.

Next came row upon row of infantry, with the persistent thump of their boots on the asphalt road. The Australians followed and then the Gordon Highlanders. As the sun rose, an Argyll piper stepped up, set his drones astir, and began to play Blue Bonnets over the Border.

The skirl rose high in the early-morning air, as the remarkable strains caught not merely the imaginations of the marching Gordons but their Digger companions also, not to mention the ears of the Japanese.

Half an hour after the Australians and Gordons crossed over, the Argylls began their withdrawal to the piping of Charles ‘Boy’ Stuart and Piper McLean, who played A Hundred Pipers and the Argyll quick march, Hielan’ Laddie. “They came swinging past behind the bagpipes, mostly small men, I noticed. Hard, dour and as tough as leather, they marched with a long supple stride, and there was an arrogant confidence about them,” wrote Geoffrey Brooke, RM.

The Battalion HQ, and Signals followed with Wilson and two platoons of their rearguard, leaving Stewart, Hayes, Tam Slessor, Drummer Hardie and Company Sergeant Major Bing as the final group to withdraw, covered by Harry Nuttall in Stirling Castle with Michael Blackwood.

When they were all safely over, Stewart, who made sure he was the last man across, gave the signal for the Indian sappers to blow the causeway and at 8.15am, a colossal explosion was heard all over the island.

They had miraculously succeeded in transferring over all 30,000 men with their vehicles from the mainland. “Lars Porsena missed his cue and Horatius had to take his bow alone!” wrote Stewart.

When Major John Wyett, an Australian officer, asked Stewart why his soldiers marched over to the sound of the pipes, the phenomenal warrior replied: “When the story of the Argylls is written you will find they go down in history as the last unit to cross the causeway and were piped across by their pipers.”

Stewart’s aide from the Royal Marines, Jock Hayes, unstinting in his admiration for the Argylls, said. “If there were to be sticky moments, then there were none with whom I would more gladly have shared them than with those tough, courageous, and business-like officers and men of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. The country does well to honour them.”

More tomorrow