Lone fusilier in the signal corps

As February 9 looms nearer, I am reminded that on that day I was a lone signalman aboard a troopship named The Eastern Prince. There must have been some 2 000 or 3 000 of us aboard the rat, lice and roach-infested vessel, and the intention was to be landed at a place called Khota Baru in Malaya. Luckily, that was not to be. We troops were overjoyed at hearing that Japan had surrendered and the war was presumably over. The Eastern Prince headed for Batavia, (now Jakarta) in the Netherlands East Indies and our mission was to take command of that exotic island Java from the Japanese Imperial Army.

A week later I found myself sleeping in the foyer of the KLM building in central Batavia. The place was swarming with generals, brigadiers and captains and I appeared to be the only soldier from the Royal Corps of Signals. Rolling up my bedding one morning, a nipple-pink De Soto with an open top pulled up outside the building and a rather red-faced brigadier jumped out and ran up the steps towards me. Naturally I saluted him and he returned the compliment. He took just two steps then turned back and pointed to the blue-and-white epaulettes on my uniform.

“Are you signals?” he asked. I nodded. “Yes sir, advance guard of the 23rd Indian division.” Grabbing my sleeve he almost pulled me off my feet.  “Thank God!” he exclaimed. “We are in deep crap, not an effing telephone works in the whole of Batavia.”

My mind whirled. What had that to do with me? I was a signalman sent to establish some form of communication between army headquarters and five brigade. “Er… Sir, I am a linesman, and erect permanent telephone lines at brigade level. I don’t work on civilian communications, that’s their job.” The brigadier’s moustache twitched violently. “I don`t give a monkeys toss who you are or what you do, follow me, dammit.”

“But…” “Gather your bedding soldier, you are under orders.” I remember the road was full of trams and cyclists and the brigadier drove on for some half a mile, then turned into a side road. “What do you know about telephone exchanges?” he asked. My heart jumped because prior to being called up I just happened to be a youth in training, working in an automatic telephone exchange outside London. “Not a lot, sir” I said, thinking it was a wise choice of words.

“Oh that’s good, because the telephone system in the whole town has ceased to function.”
“Nothing works?” I asked.
“Not a bloody thing. Everything is as dead as a doornail.”
We came to a tall, square-looking building and the brigadier and I got out.
“Lovely car.” I remarked. “I like the colour.”
He shot a glance towards the De Soto and said casually, “You can have it if you can fix this bloody telephone exchange.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
“Absaballylutely signalman. Fix it, and it’s yours.”

I recognised that the exchange was a Strowger two motion automatic system, very similar to the one we had in London. Usually they were quite noisy as the line finders and two motion selectors clattered abominably. Batavia Central Telephone Exchange was deathly silent. He was right. Nothing was working. Using a modicum of common sense, I came to the conclusion that there was only one thing which could prevent the exchange from operating. That was that the Japanese Imperial Army had removed the main battery fuse when they capitulated… and fled.

I remember the shower of sparks that flew as I reconnected the large 150-ampere fuse back to its load.
I had solved the problem in 20 seconds flat!
I turned to the brigadier, “I`ll take the keys of your car now, sir.”
He smiled. “Damn, why didn’t I think of that?”
“You are not in signals, sir.”
“True.” He smirked. “But then again, I am G.6 British Central Intelligence.”
Every man to his trade. That nipple-pink De Soto with the open top toured the streets of Batavia for the next nine months. Dare I say, “Picking up bits of fluff?”