Evie stared at her. Where was the woman who had rolled her eyes and groaned at the thought of supplies of French champagne drying up? The woman who claimed war and politics were such a bore. She remembered Arthur telling her that Veronica was a consummate actress and knew how to play the part of the colonial administrator’s wife to perfection. She was clearly doing that now.

Veronica soon disabused her of any notion that this change was more fundamental, when she added, ‘Singapore’s terrific fun at the moment. Uniforms everywhere. Parties at the club every night.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘And I do so like a man in uniform.’

Noticing the anxious look on Susan Hyde-Underwood’s face, she quickly added, ‘Don’t worry, Suze, losing Singapore would be unthinkable. Our boys will stop the Japs before they get anywhere near. Righto, I must go.’ She looked back at Evie. ‘I’ll try and find your friend Mary. She can have that hotel room.’ Then she walked away, her right hand raised and twirling in the air in a gesture of farewell as she vanished into the crowds.

30

Australia felt like exile to Evie. She was relieved to have brought the children to safety but was desperate for news of her friends. She devoured the newspapers and discovered that Europeans from the entire Malay peninsula had crowded into the small island of Singapore. Officers as well as the rank and file of the retreating British army, engineers, planters, tin miners, civil servants, and their wives and children, all racing for safety to the impregnable fortress that Singapore was claimed to be.

The men were drafted into service to lay barbed wire on the northern shore, which had been left undefended in the misguided assumption that the only conceivable attack by the Japanese would come by sea from the south.

But on the 15^th February, the island that had been the strategic pivot of the British Empire in the east, the gateway and presumed defence to the dominion of Australia, was toppled in what would later be described by the Australia Prime Minister as ‘an inexcusable betrayal’ by the British. The Japanese had achieved the unthinkable and Singapore and the Malayan peninsula now flew the imperial flag.

Of Mary Helston, Evie heard nothing. There was nowhere to make enquiries regarding the whereabouts of unrelated individuals and the assumption was that, unless she and her parents had escaped before the fall of the city, Mary would now be in a civilian internment camp.

The women were placed in cramped accommodation via the Red Cross – Perth and the surrounding areas were awash with refugees, not only from Malaya but also from Darwin and Hong Kong. After delays during which they were granted government loans of around three pounds a week, both women were able to access their own funds via the Australian banks. They managed to rent a bungalow together, pooling the childcare and supplementing their income by taking in paying guests.