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HISTORY
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February15
Extract #2: from the chapter “Escape” by
Mary Brown
There was a strange stillness everywhere; I noticed that the
houses were all in darkness and that there was not a soul
about the roads. A rickshaw coolie kept close to me as I walked
back, and as I began to feel a wee bit creepy, I got into the
rickshaw and came home. I shudder to think what might have
been our fate here in the house with the doors all wide open,
and we absolutely unprotected, and all the houses round
about closed up. Our house was the only one in Tanglin that
had any lights burning.
On arriving at the house, Baba [Mary and Edwin’s daughter]
was going to bed, so I heard her say her prayers and popped
her into bed, and then had my bath. When I was partly dressed
the telephone bell rang, and it was Edwin ringing me up from
the Drill Hall, and this is what he said. ‘Molly, there is trouble
among the natives, and you must get yourself, Baba, and
Amah down to Raffles Hotel. Get away at once; I don’t know
how you can manage, but ring up someone to lend you a car.’
So first of all I rang up Raffles Hotel and tried to engage a
room for one night. Raffles replied that they were sorry, they
were full up and couldn’t let me have a room, or even part of
one. I replied that I was the wife of Capt Brown of the Singapore
Volunteer Infantry and I was alone in Tanglin with my small
child, and I considered that I was one of those who ought to
be looked after before the people who had their husbands
with them to help them. (I had no time or patience to mince
matters, you see.)
We now set off into the deserted roads on our journey to
Singapore. It was one of the blackest of black nights, with no
moon. The car simply flew along, and it took us less time than
usual to get to Singapore, speed limits were done away with
altogether. We arrived at Raffles at 9.40pm. The Hotel was
simply crowded with people, nearly all women and children,
and it was here that we first heard the news that the 5th Light
Infantry had mutinied.
Several people we knew had been shot, and there were
800 mutineers marching on the town. I knew that if this was
so, Edwin would have gone out with the others to meet them.
The suspense was simply terrible for one knew that at the
most there could not be more than 200 men with any military
training at all to go and meet them, and of these, more than
half of them were nothing more than Volunteer recruits. There
only seemed to be one thing possible, humanly speaking,
and that was that our men would be wiped out, and then we
did not like to think what our fate would be. We then heard an
awful screaming going on in the Hotel. We were frightened but
soon found out that it was the poor wife of one of the men who
had been killed that afternoon. She had been with him in the
motorcar at the time, and was now more or less demented.
Extract #1: Introduction
Chinese New Year 1915 will long be
remembered in the Straits Settlements. We left
for home, had a tiffin, and went to our rooms for
a lie-off, having arranged to go for a good walk
when the heat of the day was over. We had our
tea, and at 5pm got into the trap, which was to
take us to a point from which we were going to
walk home. We drove along Tanglin Road, into
Stephens Road, and along Bukit Timah Road
to the junction of Cluny Road, and there we
dismissed the syce [stablehand]. We thought
it a curious fact that no-one was playing tennis
… and there was not a soul to be seen on the
garrison golf course … You can imagine our
horror when we found that the 5th Light Infantry
had broken out in open mutiny and had been
in Tanglin that afternoon, and were even then
supposed to be marching on Singapore!
Mary and
Barbara
Brown
with syce
and trap,
Singapore
Mary and Barbara Brown with syce
and family at Burnsall in Rochalie
Avenue, Tanglin, Singapore