[font="Times New Roman"]December 2, 1941
Singapore
The warm and gentle night belied the roiling temperature of the Royal Navy in Singapore in these early days of December. LT Ronald Clark took ML-311 on the normal patrol circuit of the inner harbor of Singapore, then out and around the many freighters and tankers waiting to load, unload or be sent on another journey from this meeting point of the majority of south Asian trade. The British Empire was in full flower in Singapore, and this was its most impregnable fortress in the East. The magnificent shore defenses on the hills had full scope of the approaches to the straits of Malacca and the harbor. The RN had recently added impressive fleet units to its presence here with the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse along with their escorts.
LT Clark took the boat out with a man on the front machine gun mount and two men scanning the water for unusual activity. Patrols had been stepped up lately and extended to an area very near the straits themselves.
Although the military was increasing it’s vigilance in Singapore, the population of British merchants, diplomats and other foreign officers went about business as usual. This was already a nation at war, although the war was far away, but the materials of war must be acquired and paid for, packed up and shipped to the factories that could turn them into fighting equipment, and Singapore was one of the centers of this wartime activity. The rubber plantations of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies were immensely valuable, the oil flowing from all around the British and Dutch territory was in need, and many other raw materials made the long transit from the East to the factories of the extended Empire as well as to Britain itself.
Australian and Indian soldiers made up the strongest part of the garrison at Singapore, and as had been the custom throughout the Empire for several hundred years, they were requisitioned by Britain in times of need. More were on the way in fact and moving through the Indian ocean to Singapore at that moment. Singapore was an unconquerable fortress, and LT Clark was one small part of the great machine of the largest Empire the world had known, and he took his job very seriously, almost to a fault. Neither he nor anyone else here believed Singapore was really in any actual danger, and his patrol on this night just before the full moon felt remarkably ordinary and routine.
“Bring her around and make for port, Lewis.”
“Yes, sir.”
[/font]
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
