I checked in aboard USMTS General Smith the next morning, rather wet–the Pride of Tasmania had flown through storms the night before and a Gooney Birds one weakness is that they leak. But who minds clean rain after jungle mud? The ship was sailing that evening which was grand news.
Singapore is like Hong Kong only flat; one afternoon was enough. I had a drink in the old Raffles, another in the Adelphi, got rained on in the Great World amusement peak walked through Change Alley with a hand on my money and the other on my orders–and bought an Irish Sweepstakes ticket.
I don’t gamble, if you will concede that poker is a game of skill. However this was a tribute to the goddess of fortune, thanks for a long run of luck. If she chose to answer with $140,000 US, I wouldn’t throw it in her face. If she didn’t . . . well, the tickets face value was one pound, $2.80 US; I paid $9.00 Singapore, or $3.00 US–a small gesture from a man who had just won a free trip around the world–not to mention coming out of the jungle still breathing.
But I got my three dollars’ worth at once, as I fled out of Change Alley to avoid two dozen other walking banks anxious to sell me more tickets, Singapore dollars, any sort of money–or my hat if I let go of it–reached the street, hailed a cab, and told the driver to take me to the boat landing. This was a victory of spirit over flesh because I had been debating whether to snatch the chance to ease enormous biological back pressure. Good old Scarface Gordon had been an Eagle Scout awfully long and Singapore is one of the Seven Sinful Cities where anything may be had.
I am not implying that I had remained faithful to the Girl Next Door. The young lady back home who had taught me most about the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, with an amazing send-off the night before I was inducted, had “Dear-Johnned” me in basic training; I felt gratitude but no loyalty. She got married soon after, now has two children, neither of them mine.
The real cause of my biological unease was geographical. Those little brown brothers I had been fitting, with and against, all had little brown sisters, many of whom could be had for a price, or even pour l’amour ou pour le sport.
But that had been all the local talent for a long time. Nurses? Nurses are officers–and the rare USO entertainer who got that far from Stateside was even more thoroughly blocked off than were nurses.
I did not object to little brown sisters because they were brown. I was as brown as they were, in my face, except for a long pink scar. I drew the line because they were little.
I was a hundred and ninety pounds of muscle and no fat, and I could never convince myself that a female four feet ten inches tall and weighing less than ninety pounds and looking twelve years old is in fact a freely consenting adult. To me it felt like a grim sort of statutory rape and produced psychic impotence.
Singapore looked like the place to find a big girl. But when I escaped from Change Alley, I suddenly didn’t like people, big or little, male or female, and headed for the ship–and probably saved myself from pox, Cupid’s catarrh, soft chancre, Chinese rot, saltwater itch, and athletes foot–the wisest decision I had made since, at fourteen, I had declined to wrestle a medium-sized alligator.
I told the driver in English what landing I wanted, repeated it in memorized Cantonese (not too well; its a nine-toned language, and French and German are all I had in school), and showed him a map with the landing marked and its name printed in English and drawn in Chinese.
Everybody who left the ship was given one of these maps. In Asia every cab driver speaks enough English to take you to the Red Light district and to shops where you buy “bargains.” But be is never able to find your dock or boat landing.