‘Can you recall seeing any tall Chinese wearing a white shirt some time last month?’
‘Tall Chinese wearing a white shirt?’ he asked, screwing his eyes up as he thought of Shandung P’aau. ‘No, no tall Chinese wearing a white shirt has ever come to my shop. Truly.’ He was a tall Englishman in a white shirt, he giggled inwardly.
The Collector had no luck there or anywhere else and was at a loss. He also knew that if anyone had known anything, fear of reprisals would have kept them quiet. It was then that Wang, not one of nature’s brightest, remembered something about who else in the area knew Lee Soong from the war years … a man who worked on the estate of Tei Po Lo-Si, a Loi Pok Yi man, as the word Nepali formed in his mind. The name was … was … what was it? Yes, Kamal Lai. Wang decided to contact him. That was not easy but eventually a meeting was arranged.
Kamal denied all knowledge of any shooting incident and only when the Collector insisted he had seen him did Kamal say it was probably a look-alike second cousin serving in the 1/12 Gurkha Rifles.
‘Weren’t you the man who came to my house one night not so long ago?’ Wang insisted.
Kamal played dumb. ‘Sorry, I can’t help you in any way.’
Then, a week later, the Collector’s second cousin’s third granddaughter, who worked as a ‘taxi-girl’ at the Yam Yam night club in Seremban, came home with a message from Kwek Leng Joo, the barman at the night club who was also a guerrilla courier. ‘Comrade Lee Soong wants to talk to you and is sending two guides to take you to him. They know where to contact you at your house in the squatter area.’ There was nothing to do but to wait.
They came. By this time the increase in Security Force activity decreed a circuitous approach to the RV. It had taken the guides two days, mostly downhill but it would take three to go back. Wang was no longer in the first flush of youth and by the end of that day he was finding the going harder than he had expected. Talking and planning were easy enough but it was a different matter entirely on the ground for real. Over-age for hard exercise and not as fit as he should have been because of his taste for liquor, he was an actor by inclination; dazzled by the footlights and indifferent to the audience behind them. Now he was learning. That first night he had spent the first six hours in a deep sleep but was awoken by a combination of mosquitoes, lice and the incessant rattling of mahjong pieces and voices in the next room. He was offered a glassful of tea and a plate of noodles while it was still dark. He was grateful for the food although he was not hungry. He was told that food that day would not be easy to come across.
The three of them moved off just before dawn, walked through a rubber estate that had a thick cover-crop between the trees which made steady walking difficult. His face brushed against vast spiders’ webs, the spiders the size of small birds, their hairy legs and dangerously pointed claws trying to attack him or so, in his panic, he presumed as he tried to brush the stringy, sticky filaments from his face and clothes.
Their journey led them through patches of overgrown vegetation behind villages, often skulking if a civilian was seen or retracing their footsteps and making a detour. They had to cross some minor roads, always peering both ways to ensure no one could see them. By 10 o’clock it was uncomfortably hot and only when they were under tress were they a bit cooler. But rubber estates were the homes of myriads of mosquitoes: there were only different sorts of discomfort. In places they crossed swampy ground, home to large leeches that could suck a pint of blood if left unattached to the skin – four at once had been known to kill an old person as Wang knew as they took one off his leg that he had not noticed, already half full of blood. When there was a possibility of being tracked the three men walked in streams.
In his ignorance Wang had not bothered to take a water-bottle and was too proud to show he was thirsty. By the evening he was famished, parched and exhausted.
Before nightfall the same procedure as the night before was followed. One of the escorts went off to find shelter and a meal. Wang sat on a log and groaned. The escort with him got up and walked a short distance to an open area and looked up. There it was. Bukit Beremban. ‘We should get there tomorrow midday,’ Wang was told.
Halfway up the mountain were two traces, one made by pre-war surveyors and the other for a large water pipeline. Coming from farther north with a new policy directive, a three-man, well-trained, armed and uniformed courier group had spent the night at the junction of the two traces by a stream. They, too, had woken before dawn, brewed up and were about to set off. ‘We’re late,’ said the senior. ‘Wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t banged my knee and hurt my ankle on that slippery rock yesterday. This area has had no activity for quite some time. There’s nothing fresh, no tracks, no cutting, none of those camps the soldiers make. You, Great King of the Air Flavour,’ the leader turned to his Number 2, using a nickname that described his powers of sniffing and smelling. ‘You have always been correct in telling me if any gwai lo foreigner is around – that is why we two are still alive – different tobacco, shit that smells of a meat diet, hair oil, toilet soap, anti-mosquito cream. Have you noticed anything like those around here?’
The Sniffer, grinning in appreciation, sniffed loudly and smiled. ‘No, Comrade. Your morning farting has drowned any other stink that might have been sniffable even before you made yourself scarce for your morning rear,’ and laughed, gently and not loudly, at his jibe. Luckily, the camaraderie between the two overcame normal discipline. The early morning mist over the trees as well as the down current of air the hill water brought with it, masked whatever olfactory clues that just might possibly have assailed his nostrils.
‘So, on our way. I said we’re late. Make haste slowly. They were probably expecting us to reach them yesterday. I expect we’ll meet some of them looking for us fairly soon.’
Off they went.
The escort with Wang ordered a meal to be cooked before they left the rude dwelling at the back of the last village. ‘No food until tonight in the camp where Comrade Lee Soong is waiting for you.’
What will he do to me when I have no news of the traitor? Wang wondered, dismally. I’ll have to have a really good excuse for him. Thoroughly disheartened, dirty and downcast, his spirits fell further when the meal was slow in coming. It was no good being impatient. They eventually moved off, still a bit hungry, at about 8 o’clock and happened to meet the three-man courier group. Before they reached the camp they were met by a messenger telling them that comrade Lee Soong had just received a new directive so had already moved. In fact he would have lost face had he said that the new directive had laid down nothing of the sort but he was scared that his location could now be easily penetrated because his whereabouts were too well known.
Greatly relieved, back Wang’s small group went and a famished, limp, bedraggled, exhausted but thoroughly relieved Collector eventually staggered back into his own house. Administration and common sense were two uncommon aspects of all Communist planning everywhere.
By the end of 1948, even if Big Brother had not heard details of some people in Malaya who were seeking revenge if not recompense for how a certain British officer had been present at the deaths of their family members, the people in the Seremban area concerned certainly did. The name was also known to them, a Captain Rance of a Gurkha regiment.
A large envelope had, earlier on in the day, been handed to Ngai Hiu Ching by someone he already knew, a Min Yuen courier who operated between Seremban and Mantin. In it were the names of six people who had a grievance against the government that would not be redressed except by help from ‘other sources’. Ngai Hiu Ching was the coordinator for such matters. The more he read, the more it intrigued him. A couple of them were of a recent nature but the others concerned people missing from as far back as 1942 and 1943.
A British captain was accused of being responsible for the deaths of three Indians: Tor Gul Khan, Abdul Hamid Khan and Abdul Rahim Khan. The first named was the son of Akbar Khan, a pre-war Pathan lawyer for the Indian Association and, subversively, the Indian Independence League, in Malaya and the other two his nephews. Akbar Khan was not a Seremban man but the report had been initiated from, Ngai Hiu Ching squinted to the top of the page, yes, Bhutan Estate which was certainly in Negri Sembilan. So that’s why it’s come to me. He read it with growing interest and frustration.
Although the three were Malayan boys living in Kuala Lumpur, they had gone to Singapore and joined the Indian National Army, the INA, that fought alongside the Japanese in Burma. The schoolmaster knew about it: it was composed of Indian Army soldiers made prisoners-of-war by the Japanese who then took sides with them against the British and Indian armies. The son had been killed at a village named Negya, near Mount Popa in Burma in 1945. The report came from a Captain Rance, at that time attached to a battalion of the Nepalese Contingent in Burma, who was there at the time of his death. Details were fully given. The same officer had reported that the other two, the nephews, had parachuted into different places in Burma, been captured when this officer had been there, and executed by order of the Viceroy of India. Too much of a coincidence, surely? Ngai Hiu Ching thought.
The next case was stranger. It concerned a Nepali lad from Bhutan Estate. His father had business with Akbar Khan in Kuala Lumpur and had taken his son, Rabilal Rai, with him and the boy had become friendly with the Indians. He too had joined the INA but had not gone to Burma but taken to India by Japanese submarine. His task was to go to the Gurkha recruiting depot in Darjeeling and to spread alarm among possible recruits to prevent them joining up, so weakening the Indian Army in Burma thereby making it easier for the Indian National Army. But, unbelievably, he had been picked up in the water by this same omnipresent Britisher and had even joined the captain’s regiment, the 1st Gurkha Rifles, part of the army he had been sent against. He had even become the captain’s gunman and killed near where Tor Gul Khan had met his death, probably by an Indian National Army soldier who knew he had reneged. However, that was never proved. His father, too, wanted revenge.
Ngai Hiu Ching took his glasses off, polished them, rubbed his eyes that had grown tired and called for some tea. Waiting for it to come he thought deeply about how one man could have been at all four captures and all four deaths.
Sipping his tea he looked at the other list in the envelope. It had complaints from three families who lived in the squatter area near Sepang. The schoolmaster had been there and could visualise the place and the people, scraping a living, trying to feed their children, with life always precarious. Glancing down the pages he saw that even now this man Rance was causing trouble. Three men, he read their names which meant nothing to him, had apparently been climbing a hill in open country near the jungle edge, reason not given, and had met this man and some Goo K’a bing. They were fired upon and two of them were wounded. One died later and the other was hanged on a trumped-up charge of carrying a weapon. The third man, responsible for collecting money to help the Cause and was responsible for getting the wives and sons of the other two to make their report, had escaped. The third man’s report was lucid enough to envisage the whole scene. If there was no party action he was willing to try by himself except that his one difficulty was that he would not recognise who was responsible for the killing if he ever saw him again.
As the elderly Chinese gentleman sat thinking about what to do, another envelope was delivered. Unusually busy day today! This was from the Sumatran villagers of Tanjong Sepat, bitterly complaining about how a British Army captain had had the gall, the effrontery, to come into their peaceful village with some Gurkha soldiers and a Malay Police Inspector and, having evicted the inhabitants of ten houses, dug up their floors, ‘looking for weapons’ was the given reason. The elderly schoolmaster knew all about how weapons had been hidden after the war and how rumours of hidden weapons were now rampant.
Ngai Hiu Ching knew that such a man as this gwai lo, so monstrously evil, could not be allowed to remain unpunished, preferably personally. What, I wonder, is the best way? Get the armed comrades to deal with him? But how to find out where he was, either in a base camp or in the jungle? Or was it a case of increasing punishment on the Security Forces generally by more potent ambushes and attacks on their jungle camps? He was not enough of a military man to suggest tactical methods. Could he suggest any method of finding where this gwai lo was operating?
Ngai Hiu Ching sat long and thought hard. Yes, maybe there was an answer, maybe two answers how to pinpoint this captain for a ‘one-off’ operation: the troops had to have fresh rations. Therefore there would be a fresh ration contractor, unless they bought their own rations in the bazaar when their company was not in Seremban. The contractor was the more likely: he would know where to deliver his goods. And even if the company was in the jungle there would be a rear party in base. If the contractor could get hold of a transistor radio that could net in on the same wavelength as the companies passed their evening reports – what did they call them in English? Yes, ‘sitreps’, surely there could be a way of alerting the comrades in the jungle. And the second answer? It would take a lot to find out but … yes, got it. He knew about Comrade Lee Soong’s activities. He had read about his plans for a Gurkha ‘mole’. Was there one in place yet, and how could he find out?
His answer came in another long and detailed report handed to him the following week. It contained a new name, a Captain Alan Hinlea, a British officer of the Gurkhas stationed in Seremban and had been written by the owner of the Yam Yam night club, Yap Cheng Wu, who had personally interviewed this Hinlea person.[4] It was of the greatest interest. In the report were details of what work this Hinlea did in the battalion. He was the Intelligence Officer who had on his staff a Gurkha from Darjeeling with similar ideas as his, a Padamsing Rai. Hinlea also had entry into the secret part of the Seremban police set-up and had met Lee Kheng, the MCP’s ‘sleeper’. Sounds most promising!
Ngai Hiu Ching wondered where all that was leading to and read on expectantly. Apparently Captain Hinlea frequented the Yam Yam, where he had illicit relations with so many of the ‘taxi’ girls he was known as Sik Long, the Lustful Wolf. After some time he had fallen for one of the girls, Siu Tae, and wanted to marry her, so he had confided with the barman, Kwek Lee Joo, who was a card-carrying member. He had also told the barman that he had no time for his brother officers and did not like any, except for a Captain Rance. Even that did not prevent his one great wish, namely to join the MCP and help the Politburo by advising its members how best to organise propaganda against the British as well as anything else similar that came his way.
The name of Rance appearing in this context gave pause to the elderly schoolmaster’s reading. He personally knew Yap Cheng Wu, a dedicated senior Communist cadre and who could be relied on for anything other than being a manager. Ngai Hiu Ching knew that such matters could not be hurried, seeds of any kind took time to mature, the bigger the plant or tree the longer it took.
There were other difficulties in taking revenge against anybody, especially a British officer. Few people had a weapon and hardly anyone knew how to kill bare-handed and a trained ‘hit man’ would be expensive even if one could be found. Also, apart from anything else, travel on the roads was dangerous and people tended not to go far unless they had to. Trains were being ambushed and civilian casualties occurred too often for people to risk travelling by rail. Ngai Hiu Ching considered his options: could a disguised member of the MRLA shoot a British officer in the town when, say, he was out shopping if ever a willing operative could be found to risk it? It had not happened so far. The best chance was on operations, getting the target to an area where comrades outnumbered the military patrol even if they did not dominate the area. And he knew that Gurkha soldiers, the Goo K’a bing, were tenaciously protective of their officers.
He sighed at his inability to do anything positive there and then. This Hinlea was promising but remote from him and, in any case, needed ‘hands-on’ treatment. Was there anyone else he could use for details that could lead to a successful outcome? Yes, there were three: one was Lee Kheng he had already noted in the report, one was the woman Wang Tao, a table servant of the Officer in Charge of the Police District, the OCPD; and one was the fresh-ration contractor he had already thought about. He was … yes Chow Hoong Biu. For now that’s all the thinking and planning I can do.
He put the reports in a safe place and, to stretch his legs, went for a short stroll – before the evening rain.
Just as it was difficult to take one’s revenge and ensure success and a clean getaway, it was also difficult for Alan Hinlea to plan his clean getaway. He had to be convinced that there was a good chance of succeeding so maskirovka – ‘a trick to fool “them” the MGB (Ministry of State Security) taught me taught me when I was in Russia, son,’ his father had told him – had to be used. His trade craft had to be immaculate. Outwardly he remained loyal, making Jason Rance his friend; inwardly he plotted and planned … and waited … and the time did ripen, but so slowly it was not until June 1952 that matters came to a head.
Before then two things happened. The first was in 1950, when the Malayan Indian Congress, MIC, met in Kuala Lumpur to elect a new president. He was K. Ramanathan Chettiar who only lasted till 1951. At the meeting that elected him, despite travelling difficulties because of the Emergency, there was a goodly gathering. Many old friends who had not met for some time had a chance to renew contacts. After one long session, there was a chance meeting between Akbar Khan and Subramanian Mudaliar, the comprador of Jemima Estate. They were joined by other participants and, for ease, talk was in English as had been the meeting. English was better known than Malay. After their second cup of tea the conversation turned to the campaign against the guerrillas who, although they professed Communism which the MIC did not, did have their support as they were anti-British colonial rule in sentiment.
‘I wonder if any of you had any relative who was lost during the war and have had no news about him?’ Akbar Khan asked.
The others looked at him with curiosity. A strange question to ask five years after the war has ended, they thought.
‘No? Three of mine were missing, a son and two nephews. It was in 1948 I heard how they had died, all killed fighting for our Indian freedom. Shall I tell you how?’ and as the others did not gainsay him, out came the details.
