Once outside the house Jason said, ‘Where’s the car? I thought you left it under this lamp post.’
‘I did but I thought better of it so parked it over there,’ indicating with his head, ‘in the shade. Less likely any urchin muck it up.’
On reaching the car the Adjutant said, ‘It looks all right. I doubt anything untoward would have happened had I left it where it was when you got out.’ That remark was, neither of them were ever to know, the understatement of the evening.
When Siu Tae’s uncle heard no news about the death of two British officers he was at a loss. He just could not understand how the bomb had not exploded. He had been so sure it would have. He did not know who to ask to find out where he had gone wrong. It was a few days before the remains of the burnt-out car were found and reported to the police. The disappearance of Wang the Collector was never commented upon and Deng Bing Yi never heard about it so, for him, the car’s non-explosion remained an unsolved mystery. When it was time for the Adjutant’s car to go to his garage for servicing he was utterly bewildered at finding nothing. When he again did meet up with the old schoolmaster and tell him how hard he had worked and what had happened, Ngai Hiu Ching felt it would do Deng Bing Yi’s self-esteem no good if he suggested he had put the bomb in the wrong car, nor would he believe it, so tactfully he said nothing.
As for Siu Tae, she inwardly raved when she learnt that nothing had happened to ‘that’ officer: it will have to be my unborn son …
Sometime in 1954
A Company, 1/12 Gurkha Rifles, was one of many, many rifle companies engaged in a shooting war against the Communist Terrorists. For Malaya there were Malay infantry battalions, Police Jungle Squads, a Home Guard and some aborigine orang asli fighters as well as a squadron of armoured cars manned by any Malayan acceptable. From overseas there were eight Gurkha battalions, a Fiji battalion, a Rhodesian African Rifles representation and a Nigerian Regiment unit to say nothing of British battalions, made up of National Service and regular soldiers, and sometimes units with a specialist role. They were backed up by artillery and air reconnaissance, helicopter transport and supply planes, as well as an extensive staff, all of whom went back to their home country after three years, except for Malayans, Gurkhas and their British officers. Against them there was a diminishing band of guerrillas with no three-year limit, battle-hardened whose existence was tougher than any soldier’s. Their tenacity was, in its way, inspirational, but history was not on their side yet even after six years of such an effort, no end of the conflict was in sight.
For both sides, sometimes good luck came its way, at other times bad luck but the unending slog of jungle work was common to all.
A stroke of good luck combined with clever tactical sense came to the commander of 2 Regiment, MRLA, Tan Fook Leong, on Friday, 13 August, when his ambush killed the CO of 1/12 Gurkha Rifles but his luck ran out a couple of months later when his camp was bombed and he was killed. His camp had been found by Special Branch putting a minute contrivance into his hand-held radio which, when switched on, could be picked up and the position located by a bomber flying to a flank. The Director of Operations in Kuala Lumpur had felt that such a ruse was unsporting and had suggested a really fluent Chinese speaker go to his camp masquerading as a surrendered terrorist to try and persuade Tan Fook Leong to surrender and lead a normal life. Commonly known among British troops as ‘Ten Foot Long’, the guerrilla had earned himself a good name and it seemed a shame not to give him the chance of living longer.
The person thought best to carry out this delicate task was Captain Jason Rance, well known, if only by a relatively few people, for being able to speak Chinese like a native. However, before he took his company into the jungle on this gruesome task, he remembered he had Tan Fook Leong’s home number, wife’s and son’s names in Penang. Although he felt he was, in fact, wasting his time in so doing, he felt it worth his while to ring the number so he phoned the house.
After several rings a male voice answered, giving the phone number, not his name.
‘Wei, is that Tan Wing Bun, Tan Fook Leong’s son?’ Jason hoped that a Penang youth was a Cantonese speaker. He was.
‘Yes, who are you?’
‘Is your mother, Chen Yok Lan there?’
‘What is that to you whether she is or she is not? Who are you?’
‘Just someone telling you that shortly I am going into the jungle to talk to your father and unless you or your mother tells me to tell him you want him back home alive, he’ll be dead within the week.’
Jason heard a loud intake of breath at this harsh and unexpected ultimatum. Silence. This man cannot be a comrade. He’ll be a government man, probably a turncoat. If I can recognise his voice and find out where he lives, maybe I can eliminate him if he is responsible for eliminating my father.
‘May I know if you have Politburo permission to address a comrade’s family so abruptly?’
‘I’m afraid there is neither any time nor any sense it contacting the Politburo on such a matter.’
‘Who are you? Can’t you tell me that?’
‘I am just a simple foot soldier whose name would mean nothing to you or the Politburo. Paan chue sek lo fuu.’
Feigning to be a pig he vanquishes tigers! Who can that be? ‘I am puzzled, say that again.’
‘No, why should I. You obviously understood it. Here’s another for you: “convenient water, push boat”.’
By now Tan Wing Bun’s mind was working overtime. He had another proverb ready, ‘“a soft-hearted person is liable to be victimised as a tame horse is to be ridden”. No. Let my father suffer for his belief. For him to abandon all he has fought for since he was a youth is unthinkable.’ As Tan Wing Bun put the phone down he told himself he’d never forget that voice but whose is it?
The announcement, on Radio Malaya and in the newspapers, English-language and vernacular of Tan Fook Leong’s death caused cursing among the Communist Terrorists, especially in the Politburo now safely in south Thailand and relief, rather than joy among the Security Forces, although only a few knew how he was killed. One who did was Chan Man Yee, the woman Registry Clerk in Police HQ, a long-time Politburo mole. When Xi Zhan Yang, a special courier between Chan Man Yee and the Politburo next met up one evening after her work, he was told about how Tan Fook Leong’s demise had happened. The commander of 2 Regiment was a personal friend of the MCP Chairman, Chin Peng. Both of them had marched in the Victory Parade in London in 1946 and both esteemed one another.
‘His wife and son will have to know how that happened,’ Chan Man Yee said, then asked, ‘Do you go back to MCP HQ by way of Penang where they live?’
Xi Zhan Yang considered that. ‘I’d rather not, you know. Somehow I wouldn’t feel safe.‘Could you fight with the electric speech?’ That phrase meant to ‘telephone’.
‘I don’t have the number.’
‘I can get it from the office when I go tomorrow. Stay safe in my flat. You can phone from here.’
That was agreed upon.
She brought him the number and he rang the house, properly identifying himself. He could scarcely believe the conversation with a Chinese speaker using four- or five-character phrases and he said he would try and find out who was responsible.
After he had rung off he thanked Chan Man Yee, not knowing that the phone had recently been bugged and that the Police HQ recording device had the whole conversation.[5] That did not stop a report being made to the Politburo. When Ah Fat heard about it he said nothing but felt Jason, it had to be he, who else, needed to be more than careful.
Tan Wing Bun was so incensed at what had happened to his father and that unexpected and worrying phone call that he decided only long-term revenge was the answer. He decided to offer himself as a member of Special Branch and work against the colonial, imperial oppressors from within. He told nobody of his intention.
In Malaya the Passive Phase started in 1928 by when Communist agents from China had established a South Seas Communist Party in Singapore, although the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) itself dates from 1930. It consisted of the penetration of such organisations as local government, trades unions, student unions, touring repertory groups, newspapers and broadcasting (especially the person who chose what items to broadcast and how to slant them), school masters and college professors, and even government security forces. Governments tried to foil this by use of their counter-intelligence agencies and police force, not by military means. ↵
Guerrillas raided Police Stations for weapons, coerced, intimidated, burnt busses, destroyed or mutilated identity cards, slashed rubber trees and generally made life uncomfortable, if not dangerous, for those who did not submit to these pressures. Government forces could not give the public unlimited protection because the Communists had the initiative. Men attracted by a spirit of adventure joined them as did many criminals ‘on the run’ from the police, those whose womenfolk were threatened if their man did not join the cause and, lastly, the genuine zealot who, though few and far between, was the most deadly of them all. Such a situation provided the ‘sea of people’ for the Communist ‘fish’ to swim in. For the army that meant knowing how to live, move and operate in tropical rain forest terrain and become skilled in attacking Communist camps, tracking, ambushing, patrolling, river crossing and the other aspects of jungle movement that such work demanded – and always to be ready for that split-second contact – you or them. ↵
Your author was the person who put the record straight in the Nepalese consulate in Rangoon and heard the coolies shouting. ↵
See Operation Janus. ↵
See Operation Red Tidings. ↵
II
1956
4
