‘Where is Ah Soo?’
‘If near, near, if far, far, if this side of the river, this side, if that side, that side, if upstream, upstream, if downstream, downstream. If you are angry what am I to do? I hope strongly.’
‘What do you hope?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, what?’
‘Yes, no.’
‘Ah Soo is upstream?’ I asked.
‘Ah Soo is upstream.’
‘Ah Soo is downstream?’
‘Ah Soo is downstream.’
‘How is he upstream and downstream?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, what?’
‘Yes, no.’
‘Where is Ah Soo?’ I started again.
‘In the high hills.’
‘Is Ah Soo in the high hills?’
‘No.’
‘What is no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, what?’
‘Yes, in the high hills.’
‘If he is hungry?’
‘He gets food.’
‘What does he eat?’
‘What he can get.’
‘What does he get?’
‘Tapioca.’
‘From here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, new of it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who, new of it, it steals?’
‘The mad man.’
‘But the mad man is dead?’
‘No.’
‘Not dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, what?’
‘Dead.’
Mr Too said it would have left him crazy; and the Gurkhas listening in, but not understanding, praised their OC for his patience. The mere fact that Jason never showed any impatience whatsoever and kept a smile on his face was enough initially to convince the Temiar of his eventual ability to get troops removed from ladangs, always an imperative, and this is what eventually happened. It was found out and confirmed later that the guerrilla trio had not been in the area for some considerable time, having returned to the Betong area a year or so after the Secretary General had left Thailand for China.
May 1968
By then the Emergency that involved British and Commonwealth troops, later but not then known as the First Emergency, was well over. Malaysia was a fact and Confrontation with Indonesia was already history. The British Government decided that, come the end of 1971, their ‘East of Suez’ policy was that the only UK forces in southeast Asia would be in Hong Kong and Brunei, where the host countries could pay for them in whole or in part. The one unit of the British Army to work full time till the end was the Jungle Warfare School. By 1968 all those army officers ‘with stars in their eyes’ were no longer interested in serving in a theatre where points for promotion were not as valuable as they would be in Western Europe. That meant that officers with sufficient jungle expertise and seniority to command the British army’s Jungle Warfare School were an endangered species.
The Military Secretary, a most senior officer, was wondering who could fill the recent vacancy for the job during the last couple of years of its existence. He called for a list of possible starters – it was a very short one – and his eye fell on the name of Major Rance, 1/12 GR. He asked for his file and read it. He is not as well staff trained as a lieutenant colonel should be but he has earned ‘staff qualified’ for a job he did in Bangkok, he has much jungle experience and a prodigious linguistic ability. ‘Let him be promoted to do the job,’ the Military Secretary advised the Promotion Board, which agreed. Thus it was that Jason Rance, despite the forebodings of the bevy of brigadiers and covey of colonels who had thought otherwise, found himself a lieutenant colonel, the last ever incumbent of the Jungle Warfare School, in July 1968.
Jason’s time as OC of the Gurkha Independent Parachute Company, the job that gave him the most satisfaction in his long career, like all good things, came to an end in the May of 1968. Two days before he was given a farewell that was emotive in the extreme, he had as yet no idea what, if any, his next job would be or if he’d be sent on redundancy. On his last day in office a personal letter was given him by his Chief Clerk, ‘to be opened by you yourself, Saheb,’ he said.
To his utter delight, amazement and relief it was his posting order for promotion and command of the Jungle Warfare School. He saw he was wanted to take over on 1 July. That meant he had a month with nothing to do. He decided to motor down to Singapore to meet old friends. He went to Tanglin Barracks to doss down in a friend’s room. It was on his second day there a uniformed Malay policeman came looking for him, in the evening, just before going to the mess for his meal. ‘Tuan, I have a message for you. Here it is.’
Jason thanked him for it and asked him to wait until he opened it to see if it needed a reply. Inside the envelope was another envelope, marked secret. It came from Special Branch in Kuala Lumpur and was signed by the evergreen Mr C C Too. He wrote that no one had visited the Temiar since he, Jason, had left them those five years before ‘when you produced your famous report’. There was no news of any sort, of guerrillas, or Temiar thoughts of the government. ‘I want you to go there and find out. If you are willing. As an individual. If the Malaysian government and military authorities or the British Army were to know about this you will, I know, be severely punished, even to the extent of not being allowed to stay in the country. And yet you are the only person I know whom the Temiar trust and can speak fluent Temiar. Will you please go, secretly? Take one man, a Gurkha. A pistol each will be lent to you by the police at Grik. I know you have a car. Use that. Report to Grik Police Station and the Bear’s son will arrange for a boat to take you up the Sungei Perak, then the Sungei Temenggor to the Sungei Klian to Kerinching’s ladang. I am calling this Operation Blowpipe. Phone this number and say yes or no the day after you get this at ten a.m. Tell no one, not even your escort, where you’re going till you get there. The Bear’s son will meet you at Grik Police Station and stay with you.’
Jason thanked the constable and said no, there was no answer to take back.
His room boy, Tan Yee Faat, came in and asked him if he wanted his bed tea at the same time tomorrow and Jason, with the letter still in his hand, answered in Chinese only using his first name so calling him Ah Tan, no, half an hour earlier if possible. The room boy said yes, he’d do it, expecting a substantial tip for it.
Jason put the letter on his table and went to the mess. Ah Tan went to look at the letter. As one of the Tan family, he was related to Tan Wing Bun and had heard about a Chinese-speaking English officer. I’ll let him know as soon as I leave here. I know his Penang phone number and the news can be forwarded. In order to keep this secret I’ll tell him to know it as Operation Blowpipe.
