‘Moby, I do not want to take as big a force as a platoon. I am relying on speed but were we to meet any CT, my two ex-guerrillas, wearing caps with red stars and a shirt that looks like one of theirs, will provide me with enough time to sum up the military problem, shoot and scoot or just scoot, kind of effort.’
‘Yes, I see your point. In other words, you can keep the initiative that way.’
‘That’s about it, yes, Moby. Now here comes my “but”: what I am about to ask you is forbidden by military convention. I and my two Gurkhas also need to wear similar hats and shirts, not the trousers particularly. If I were to suggest this or even tell my CO he would make a row, tell me I’d be for the military high jump if I wore such kit so that means I don’t tell him. Nor do you. Please, not even your friend C C Too.’
Moby nodded his agreement. ‘In that case I’ll give those two men the kit, tell them it’s spare and not mention who it is actually for. Okay?’
‘Correct. Now, arming and rationing them. They can carry what arms they prefer or what you allow them to but for food, I am taking ten days hard tack, tea, biscuits and high-protein chocolate. It won’t be popular with my three nor, probably with your two but, needs be where the devil wotsits, or something like that.’
Moby grinned. ‘You’re a hard man at times, Jason, aren’t you?’ and without waiting for an answer, went on to say that he had funds for that. ‘If you agree, I’d really like to ask C C Too if he has funds to give my two something extra.’
‘How long will it take to get hold of those two men? Can you call them here and now?’
‘Give me ten minutes and they’ll be here.’ He called the duty policeman and gave the orders and ten minutes later both men came into the house. They seemed delighted to see Jason who, as normal, cracked a joke with them and got them laughing. He told them he had an important task to do and asked them if they were willing to go with him for ten days. Before they gave their answers he said that the food would be like it was when they went to deliver Tan Fook Leong’s radio. ‘Can you manage that again, please?’
‘If we can buy some extra rations on our return, yes we will go with you.’
‘I’ll arrange that and thank you. I will fully brief you once we have started but before that I’ll come and fix details,’ and off they went, back to their lines.
‘Give C C Too a bell now, will you and let me ask him.’
Moby rang and got an answer. ‘Sir, it’s Ismail Mubarak here talking to Major Rance. He’d like a word with you, please. A very quick one.’ Moby handed the phone over to Jason who said he was sorry to bother him at this late hour. ‘I have personally spoken to the two men I plan to take other than my Gurkhas and they are happy to go with me. However, when told they would only eat hard tack for ten days they both asked if they could have some money to make up what they had missed in the food line. Rashly I said I’d arrange it so I am putting my word in before Moby asks you officially.’
‘Major Rance, you are one cool operator. Hand him over,’ which Jason did and permission was granted.
Jason finished his tea. ‘Moby that was great. I hear my vehicle outside and I’m ready to go back. I’ll let you have firm details as soon as I can.’
Moby escorted him to the front door and they said their farewells. Jason got in the vehicle and told the driver to go back to the battalion. He thanked the driver, went to the Mess, bathed, changed, had a hurried meal and went to bed, thoughts churning in his head. He hardly slept a wink and woke up tired.
Monday 13 February
‘I don’t like my company commanders being pulled out from their normal jobs for “funnies”,’ fumed the CO, with Jason standing to attention in front of him, fixedly looking ahead. ‘Well, what have you to say for yourself?’ Jason had been called from his office to report to the CO at exactly 10 o’clock.
This is not how it’s meant to be going! ‘Sir, if you are suggesting that I pre-planned any of this without your knowledge and behind your back not only are you wrong but by showing so little faith in me tell the Director of Operations to cancel his operation and get me posted to 2/12 GR’ – and slap my wrist at the same time – ‘if I have misunderstood you, I apologise and cancel my last transmission.’
The CO sighed deeply and played with some pencils in front of him on his desk. He said nothing – counting to ten so he won’t burst out again? – shook his head and started again. ‘Major Rance, yes, now I come to think of it you could not have started this lark as you were in that rubber estate for four days and so were out of circulation, weren’t you.’ The CO had suddenly remembered that the Director of Operations had specifically said that the intelligence plum had been ‘dropped from the tree’ that day. ‘I will still ask you what have you to say for yourself, in answer to being summoned by the Great Man in person so there was no need to have gone off into an unseemly huff at being asked.’
‘Sir, I will tell you my task. I have been given it as there is a man from the Chinese communist party now in Thailand who wants to come over to our side and one of his conditions is that he needs a Chinese-speaking escort in case he meets Security Forces on the way down who won’t recognise his documents. The chosen escape route from Baling down into Malaya is through the jungle to the Malay-Thai border where I have been asked to meet him and bring him down the line of the Sungei Perak as far as the top boat point where a Police Field Force boat will take us to Fort Tapong to be helied out to KL. Thence I come back here, sir. Estimated time of journey is five days up and five days back.’
The CO mulled that over. ‘You say “us”. Who are “us”?’
‘Corporal Kulbahadur Limbu, Lance Corporal Minbahadur Gurung, as radio operator, Rifleman Chakrabahadur Rai, my batman and two of the men who went with me to try and get Ten Foot Long to surrender.’
‘The General has only asked for you, for no one else. Let him work out who “us” are.’ The CO looked searchingly at his junior, a smirk playing on his lips. ‘And you really believe six can manage? That no back-up is needed? That you can manage any casualties? That your two Chinese won’t turn against you?’ He pursed his lips, shook his head and, with a small smiling malice shining in his eyes, said flatly, ‘No, I won’t risk my Gurkhas, even only three of them, on such a wild-goose chase. But I can’t stop you, can I, as the General has personally asked for you? So, Rance, I do not agree with who you mean by “us”.’
Jason braced his back as he did when angry, this time inwardly seething. Don’t answer back. Let him think he’s won. ‘I cannot comment on that, sir. Have I your permission to leave?’
‘Yes, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul if you have misjudged your prowess. When are you due to leave here?’
‘I have planned for the 19th, sir.’
‘In that time you will hand your company over to Major Kent and when you come back I’ll send you on longer leave. Six months in England should be good for you’ – if you come back. ‘You are dismissed.’
Major Rance saluted and went to his A Company to tell people about the hand over and his departure.
See My Side of History, Chin Peng, Chapter 22. ↵
See Operation Red Tidings. ↵
Your author was invited to spend Christmas day 1962 with the Police Field Force in Fort Tapong. ↵
5
February 1956
Every orang asli settlement, or ladang, was a masterpiece of making houses with nothing but bamboo and rattan and the Temiar ladang belonging to Headman Kerinching was no exception. He was the most powerful headman west of the central range of mountains that divide Malaya. Middle-aged, he was dark-skinned, with a flattened nose, a deep frown, creased lips and a receding hair line. His large eyes were two stones of shining hard coal.
The ladang was an hour’s walk from the Sungei Klian, a small tributary of the Sungei Temenggor – itself a tributary of the Sungei Perak – about thirty ‘air’ miles south from the Malay-Thai border, roughly in the middle of the area the rump of the guerrillas tried to dominate. To reach it from the river one got out of the boat at the remains of a pre-war ‘halting bungalow’ used by the tin dredgers and now in disrepair. Twenty minutes later an old open-space tin mining area was crossed and some way beyond that, there was the ladang.
That particular evening, it happened to be the 1st of February 1956 and had that been mentioned it would have meant nothing at all to any of them, was a festive occasion as the three guerrillas most liked were present. They were Ah Soo Chye, the senior guerrilla and his two lieutenants, Tek Miu and Lo See, and a small armed escort. The Temiar liked them because they treated them well, not as many Malays did by looking down on and being inclined to bully them. Headman Kerinching had previously been given a shot gun by Ah Soo Chye. The three senior men sometimes stayed together and at other times operated separately against the Security Forces in the far north of Malaya. The reason they were there was because Zhong Han San, leader of Killer Squad in south Thailand, had been sent down on a rare visit to check that the MCP presence was as active as it could be expected to be. He was a sadist, a bully and had perverted tastes yet could be pleasant if he wanted to be. The hard-faced hitmen of his Killer Squad were unsuited to think kindly of the Temiar.
The three senior guerrillas, with their few followers, spent much time in ladangs with a ‘wife’ in most of them. Temiar women normally did not marry until they knew the father of the child they were carrying as the language reflected, kuäsh, a child when the mother did know the father and papõöd when she did not. Neither did the Temiar normally use names but relationships instead – such as akoody, elder uncle, keloq, elder sibling, pöq younger sibling – apart from the senior man Ah Soo Chye, who was known by the respectful name of Tata, literally ‘old man’ but also a designation of respect. Fictitious relations were sometimes used with strangers.
After their evening meal the people of the ladang had assembled, lit by a fire to one side. Everyone was happy and the whole atmosphere harmonious. Bare-buffed maidens sat on one side and sang. Their voices were not inharmonious and the pieces of bamboo they beat on a log as an orchestra produced an enjoyable, simple clunking cadence in time with their song and dancers’ footsteps as a line of young men, wearing only a loin cloth, with a bunch of cut grass tucked in at the back and a crown of long grass on their heads – left, left, right, right, round and round. Some of the elder women followed the men.
One of the elder dancers wandered out of the line in a trance, mesmerised by the repetitive plunking noise, fell to the ground, writhing. The three Chinese leaders looked on, wondering whether to be amused, worried or to ignore what was happening. They saw an elderly man, followed by three others, younger, leave the audience and go to the writhing man. ‘Who is that elderly person?’ Zhong Han San asked Ah Soo Chye who, in turn had to ask because what had happened was so unusual he had never seen it before. He knew simple Temiar and the some of the Temiar spoke a little Malay.
‘He is the senoi bar halaaq. He has gone to cure him.’
None of the three Chinese knew the words but presumed, correctly, he was the shaman. They saw the shaman grab hold of the writhing man’s head and pull strongly, once, pause, twice, pause … and wait … and then the last pull. This time the man stopped writhing, got to his feet and moved off, unsteadily. The Chinese did not know that only three pulls were allowed and if the third had not been instantly successful death would have followed.
A group of men bearing blowpipes and slinging a wild boar from a pole with its feet tied with vines to prevent it falling off came into the firelight and put their prize on the ground. They were led by a small man with peppercorn hair, probably in his thirties. A man sitting next to the three Chinese asked if they knew the Temiar name for a blowpipe. He only knew the Malay, sampitan. ‘No, we call it blau.’ He shouted out for the leader to bring his over to teach the three Chinese the names of the outer casing, log, the inner tube, tenaq blau and the mouthpiece, tabog.
‘We’ll try and remember,’ Lo See said.
Zhong Han San was interested in how much damage a blowpipe dart could cause otherwise he was disdainful of all else he and his group had seen.
Ah Fat and his loyal Bear returned to Betong as planned and the next day, the 12th of February, met the Secretary General, at least Ah Fat did. He gave a heartening report about Chan Man Yee not having left anything incriminating and also brought news of British troop reductions now that conditions were much quieter. ‘I also heard that there will be an increase in the Royal Malay Regiment but I don’t know how many battalions.’
Chin Peng shrugged that off. ‘Won’t affect us here at all,’ he said in a scoffing tone of voice. Ah Fat asked to be excused, he was always ultra polite even though he had to force himself into being so, and went to his quarter, fully expecting the Emissary to visit him before long. Nor was he disappointed.
Ah Fat had a book on the birds of Malaya which he opened and put on his table, ‘in case we are disturbed.’ Meng Ru was almost beside himself for details and seeing Ah Fat was not looking doleful presumed he had good news, saying so.
‘Yes, as far as the Malayan authorities are concerned, you have permission to go and meet them. They will make some sort of card for you and you will be given it when you meet them. They do not want you to have it on your way down because of security for your sake if you were captured by the Communists, here or in Malaya. Without it you could say you lost your way but whether they would believe that is another matter. However, in case of such an eventuality, which we all hope won’t happen, they agree that it is crucial you have an Englishman with you.’ He didn’t bother with other British nationalities, keep it simple! ‘You didn’t come armed so you can’t go armed. Don’t worry. Your escort will be armed. You will wear a khaki shirt and a cap with a red star in the front as cover. You will be guarded at all times so there is no need to worry.’ Ah Fat was ‘adlibbing’ but he knew Jason’s methods well enough to be sure of what he said.
‘Now for some disappointing information: the planning authorities have decided that I had better not leave this camp for quite some time nor in any way be connected with your disappearance, for obvious personal security reasons. That goes for Wang Ming also. For the Chinese-speaking Englishman I have got my schoolboy friend, an army Major, to come and meet you at the border, on the Gunong Gadong pass …’
‘The what pass?’
