(3 of 4)
Cold storage, electricity and the automobile had in recent years made life in Singapore so pleasant that many British, both officers and men, had become a little hazy about the threat to their possessions and habits. The officers had fallen into a routine to which they considered themselves entitled: stengahs or gin slings at the Raffles, diversions at two cricket clubs, a swimming club, a yacht club, a golf club, purely social clubs like the exclusive Tanglin, a race course complete with the most modern of totalisators, leisurely perusals of the Straits Times, excursions, for mad dogs and Englishmen, into the noonday sun, naps late in the afternoon, pahit (cocktail) parties, must dress, late nights, good times.
General Pownall had found in the city plenty of monuments in stone and bronze, but almost none in flesh, to a spirit which would have been more than equal to Malaya's jam—that of Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of the city. Besides the great ramshackle Raffles Hotel, Singapore boasts a Raffles Place, a Raffles Institution, a Raffles Library, a Raffles Museum, a Raffles statue—but not a Raffles soul. There were not many men in this Singapore who would bother, as Raffles did, to learn the Malayan language at 25, to undertake the
Governorship of a black, uncharted Java at 30, then to deal fairly with natives, to write a history of Java, to collect maps, curios, flora, fauna—and finally, against the opposition of his elders, to snatch an island and found a city (at the age of 37) dedicated to free trade, vigorous justice, mixed honor and unceasing labor. This was a pungent man; Britain needed more like him in the East.
One Man. How pungent General Pownall would prove to be in his new job, no one could tell last week. Like all men entering on new duties, he was praised. But the only true test would be his performance—the immediate index of which would be results in Malaya, the ultimate index results in all eastern Asia.
His main fame is based on his brilliant work before and at Dunkirk. As Lord Gort's Chief of Staff—the same job in France as this one in Asia-he carried the entire responsibility for the details of withdrawal. With scarcely any sleep at all, he moved G.H.Q. eight times in 20 days, took the worst news without blinking, seldom referred to maps because he carried a large-scale one around in his head.
Besides this record, he has some qualities which though they may not hold Malaya or take back Hong Kong, suggest that he is a good fighting general. He is young—54. His superiors think him bright: he first came to public view in 1938 when he jumped 100 seniority places to become Director of Military Operations and Intelligence. He looks and sounds like a man with the juice of command in him: short, stocky, broad-shouldered, spruce, calm-voiced, neat, a pipe-smoker. He is a man of few words—"a most precise fellow," says a colleague—but the words are peppery and to the point; he once reported a three-hour Imperial war conference in eight lines.