The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 90

Angus’s golf clubs, cricket bat, fishing rod, shot gun, not to mention his letters, photographs, camera and clothes, disappeared in the conflagration

The summons to escape was often unexpected: some men were still in the front line of battle, while medical staff might be in theatre performing an operation, when an order arrived for them to report immediately to the docks. On Saturday, February 14, Brigadier Paris was ordered to escape. To accompany him, he chose Angus and Captain Michael Blackwood, also Stewart’s batman, Drummer Hardie.

The group reported to the operations room at Singapore Fortress headquarters, which was a bomb-proof underground bunker at Fort Canning, located in a park overlooking Orchard Road in the heart of Singapore.

Battlebox, the name given to this underground warren, was General Percival’s lair to which he and his staff moved on 11 February when the Combined Operations headquarters at Sime Road, close to the golf course, was in danger of capture by the enemy.

This unique site from wartime Singapore, with 22 rooms filled three feet deep with water and an old motor-bike rusting in the corridor, was sealed off from public gaze until it was rediscovered in 1988.

With help from veterans and staff from London’s Imperial War Museum, Battlebox was restored. Concrete On arrival at Fort Canning, my daughter and I bought our tickets, designed to resemble wartime security passes, and were led towards a heavy iron door in the side of the hill.

Recorded sounds of air raid sirens and bomb blasts met us as we descended a flight of concrete steps into a maze of underground rooms.

It was cool but our guide assured us that when it was in operation and filled with army personnel, it would have smelled like a midden in spite of its recycled air supply.

Battlebox is more than a Second World War site; with life-size wax models of important figures in Britain’s Malaya Command, it offers the spectator a chance to re-live that fateful morning of Sunday, February 15 1942 when Lieutenant General Percival and his staff surrendered to the Japanese.

Using animatronics, these 24 life-sized wax figures move (albeit jerkily), talk, and some even appear to breathe.

However, the overall effect borders on the absurd, as a serious historical event is brought to the level of a second-rate puppet show.

The first room has a telephonist at the switchboard (the telephone was more reliable than the wireless and, to safeguard codes, Malaya Command changed them every 48 hours).

We followed the arrows until we arrived at the Surrender Conference room where, seated around a large table, were wax models of Lieutenant General Percival and senior staff: Lieutenant Generals Heath and Bennett, Brigadiers Torrance and Newbigging.

In the neighbouring room, under the glare of a bare light, we saw hieroglyphics scrawled on the wall by the Japanese Kempeitai (the military police), who chose this place as their headquarters after the surrender.

“But they soon changed their mind and moved to the YMCA building on Stamford Road,” said our guide.

It was hardly surprising, we thought, as we peered around a corner and found a row of urinals. Beyond these was the air filtration unit that could, if necessary, handle a poison gas attack.

Each evacuee had permission to carry a small suitcase containing their belongings but, after the fire at Tyersall, most men possessed few personal effects. Documents Angus’s golf clubs, cricket bat, fishing rod, shot gun, not to mention his letters, photographs, camera and clothes, disappeared in the conflagration.

Stewart lost his family documents and David Wilson, a regimental sword passed down to him from his father and grandfather.

With his brigadier, Angus and others approached the camouflaged entrance to Fort Canning’s Battlebox. As they descended the flight of cement steps and entered the operations room, they felt they were being sucked into the jaws of hell.

It was hot, and the cramped rooms smelled of sweat. At the top of each door a section of iron had been sawn off to allow a greater flow of air to pass into the room from the corridor.

The machinery vibrated, and it was noisy with male voices at the switchboard, stenographers at their typewriters, and constant requests from senior officers asking to speak to commanding officers.

The man at the switchboard kept calm, army discipline having been so firmly instilled in recruits that it helped keep a semblance of order at a terrible time. Major General Keith Simmons entered the room and handed each man a signed chit giving them permission to leave Singapore.

Unlike the colonel and his staff who escaped a day earlier, Paris’s band was unable to embark for their getaway on any cruiser or known ship. All they could find was a small craft such as a sampan, tonkan, junk or launch.

Some days previously, Angus, Michael Blackwood, David Wilson and Angus Rose agreed that when Singapore fell they would collect a sampan and row it in the dark to the Singapore Yacht Club, where Angus and Michael’s yachts were moored and stocked with food and water. Getaway In one or other of these vessels, they would make their getaway. Oddly, if a serviceman attempted an escape one minute before the official surrender (8.30pm on Sunday, February 15), he was deemed a deserter and liable to be shot.

If, on the other hand, he made a bid for freedom two minutes later he was seen as a hero and congratulated for his pains.

As it happened, all four officers received orders to evacuate the island but their yachts had already been snitched.

A few days before their departure, as the enemy advanced from the island’s northwest towards the yacht club in the south, where many private boats were moored, the authorities realised these could be used for escape.

On the eve of February 10, a call went out for airmen with basic seamanship skills to use them as their aircraft had been sent for safe-keeping to Sumatra. So Angus and Michael’s yachts had gone and were likely to have already been sunk by Japanese bombers. The rush, then, was on for anything that sailed or floated.

Up until the 11th hour, the authorities had insisted there was little to fear. Singapore was a great naval base with guns on the island of Pulau Blakang Mati guarding the south-west, while those on the northeast repelled assault from the east. More on Monday © 2017 Mary C Gladstone, all rights reserved, courtesy of the author and Firefallmedia; available in hardcover and paperback online and from all booksellers.