Tan Wing Hoong, who had kept out of sight but had monitored the Land Rover’s departure, cursed fluently at the near miss and vowed for another opportunity, another day. He paid an advance for the injured man and later on that day as he passed the Police Station he saw a young Chinese, dressed in civilian clothes, enter. On an impulse he stopped the car and called out to him. ‘Can you help me, please?’
The other man turned. Neither knew each other. ‘If I can, yes.’ Instinctively he noticed the car’s registration number. P 9678.
‘I wanted to talk to a British officer I saw earlier on. I thought I knew him but was not sure,’ he lied plausibly. ‘Do you know who I mean?’
‘Yes, his name is Major Rance, a fluent Chinese speaker. May I know your name please?’
Unthinking, he gave his alias, Tan Wing Bun, not his real name so happy was he in having solved the mystery of ‘that’ voice. ‘I think I have seen him before,’ he dissembled. ‘He was the one who told me he’d be working up here. Am I right?’ he asked, smiling guilelessly.
‘Did he tell you that?’
‘Oh yes, that is what he told me. Thank you,’ and he drove off, not knowing that the man he had spoken to was Special Branch Inspector Wang Liang. The Bear’s son had already come across the name and knew the owner was a dedicated Communist. He reported it and the answer came back, ‘Be alert for any re-appearance.’ I’ll most certainly mention that to the Siu Gaau Sinsaang – the ‘Major sahib’ – when he next comes here. He made an entry in the report book but did not follow it up with any vigour.
As Tan Wing Hoong drove away a frown creased his brow as he tried to work out how best to get his own back now he knew who his enemy was. He was responsible for killing my father in the jungle. Where best to kill him? In the jungle, yes, but where? It was common knowledge that 2 Federal Infantry Brigade was conducting operations in Temiar country. That gwai lo can only have been in Grik for future work with the t’o yan, he mused. Then it struck him: he had heard ‘next week’. I’ll get him in the jungle and where better than with the Temiar? he asked himself, smirking. All these military people give their operations names so I’ll have mine. An idea flashed into his mind. I’ll get him killed by poisoned darts from blowpipes – a lingering death – so the name of my operation will be Blowpipe. If not immediately, later: I don’t mind how long it takes. My Operation Blowpipe will be victorious.
The Bear’s son had met Jason when he and his father were about to go and get some secret documents Ah Fat had ‘stolen’ from Chin Peng’s safe during the Baling Peace Talks at the end of December 1955. The two were being prepared for their task by C C Too in the house of his girlfriend when the Bear’s wife brought her 15-year-old son round, unexpectedly, to meet Jason. Wang Ming said that he had often spoken about how Jason had initially won them over and it would be a great kindness if Shandung P’aau could show his son his tricks. Jason, realising a happy companion on a dangerous mission was always better than an unhappy one, adroitly played up. He held Wang Liang spellbound and so had a friend for life before Wang Ming sent them back home with a smile, the boy chuckling all the way.
Ah Fat had seen the Bear’s hideous torture and after his own recovery, sadly only temporary, he went and told the Bear’s widow and son what had happened. Both were utterly disgusted and the son felt that his one job in life was to revenge his father’s death. His problem was ‘how to?’ He asked ‘Uncle’ Ah Fat who was against the son’s trying to work his way up the ranks of the guerrillas and be a ‘mole’ or by trying to organise a group to make a raid into Thailand – ‘that’s only for cowboy-type films’ – but a better and less targeted idea was to join the Malayan Police and see if he could get a posting into the Special Branch. For this ‘Uncle’ Ah Fat suggested ‘Uncle’ Too had the answer so went to see him. Because of the sterling work the Bear had done for his country over many difficult and dangerous years a generous reward for his family would not be out of place. Indeed there was an answer but, unfortunately, not one that could be bypassed. It was explained to the lad in detail: potential recruits needed certain basic laid down physical standards and academic qualifications, the latter the Cambridge School Certificate, with a Pass in the English language. The Recruit Selection Board, which always included a senior Special Branch officer, would determine from the interviews who among the successful candidates were potentially suitable for such work. When the Probationary Trainee Inspectors passed out from the Police Depot, they were posted to different branches of the Force, and those already earmarked for Special Branch work were posted to that branch.
Uncle Too asked Wang Liang what his school results were and, on being told, pursed his lips. ‘You are just about good enough for an ordinary policeman but for Special Branch work you also need to be able to write Chinese and speak one more, better two more, dialects.’ He saw the lad’s face fall but knew that a really keen recruit was not easy to find. ‘Look, I’ll tell you what. If you really, really intend to do what you have vowed, I am prepared to fund you’ – he had his own sources – ‘you will have to work hard but if ever I see you not up to standard, I’ll stop the funding.’
‘Uncle. I’ll do my level best, I promise you. I won’t slacken.’
‘Once I am sure you can manage, I’ll recommend that you join the police force as a Probationary Trainee Inspector if you pass. Let’s say you do and we both hope so. You have to undergo six months police training at the KL Police Depot. There you will learn foot drill, arms drill, weapons training, law (focusing on the Criminal Procedure Code, the Penal Code and the Evidence Ordinance) and Malay. Are you prepared for all that?’
‘Yes, Uncle,’ was the answer, given confidently.
‘Let us say you are successful and become a Probationary Trainee Inspector. You will pass out from the Police Depot and, if already earmarked for Special Branch work given your ardour and your family background, as I am sure you will be, there you will be posted.’
The boy nodded his head.
Uncle Too continued: ‘You will be given on-the-job training and, not necessarily immediately but certainly at some time in the future, you will be sent on courses at the Special Branch Training School in KL.’
The lad stood up and sincerely thanked Uncle. ‘Now go home, tell you mother all about it and I’ll let you know in a few days which school to go and study at.’
By August 1968 the Bear’s son was a Special Branch Inspector in the Grik office, where he had the added job of learning about those he knew as t’o yan, Temiar aborigines, although this last word was no longer politically correct in all circles.
Jason knew that before he could extract the two Gurkha ex-prisoners-of-war from Thailand he had to penetrate then use the Temiar for knowledge of the border area and around Ha La on the Thai side. He knew that without a good knowledge of Temiar he would not succeed. He thus had acquired a good working knowledge of Temiar. Now, years later, Mr Too had asked him to try and find out about Ah Soo Chye, Tek Miu and Lo See as sources about them had dried up. Initially, even with the support of the one Temiar who by then was not afraid of him so could help him, Senagit, it took quite a time for the leaders of the Temiar community, including Headman Kerinching, to trust him enough to talk to him. One of Jason’s original ploys was to tell them that if he was successful he would try and get the Gurkha soldiers then on the ladangs, not liked by any of the orang asli, removed. So before any headway could be made in getting some Temiar to go with him and a small team of Gurkhas to the border to meet and escort the ex-prisoners of war to safety and rescue, movement to their border crossing synchronised, a meeting was held. Jason was hopeful that any progress he could make would be a bonus. In the end he was not as optimistic.
One of Jason’s three Gurkhas was making a recording of the talk without the Temiar realising it. It was later edited and a copy sent to Special Branch in KL. The report on that meeting Jason submitted was seen as a hallmark of how the Temiar mind worked: Mr Too and the Director of Intelligence circulated it to all concerned: ‘I had earlier been told by one of the Temiar that tapioca in a nearby plot was being stolen. I wanted to find out if it could be Ah Soo Chye who was digging the stuff up or was it a rumoured man – but from whose ladang? After I had persuaded the senior men of the ladang I wanted to have a talk with them and hear their views, they came to where I had a temporary base. They sat in a semicircle on the ground in front of me and my three Gurkhas. Once they had settled down I felt it time to ask them to let me know, one way or another, where Ah Soo Chye was, dead or alive? If alive, what was he feeding on?
‘I did not bother to mention his two lieutenants as I thought it would be too much for them but if they did I could talk about them. By then I was known as “Tata”, literally Old Man, but used to a person as a mark of “one of high standing”. By then I knew that any straightforward question to start with was unproductive so I had to begin carefully. We started talking at 4 o’clock and went on for two and a half hours. The talk went round and round and round, frustrating in its elusiveness. My head swam by the end of it and I did not know what to think. After welcoming them, I started off as a normal Temiar conversation and the report’s conclusion was that it was still uncertain whether Ah Soo Chye was dead or alive and, if the latter, where he would be:
‘With what news?’
‘With no news.’
‘I hear, I hear strong, I hear wind, tapioca it steals.’
‘How you hear?’
‘I hear wind. True or not?’
‘Hear women talk. Talk tapioca it steals.’
‘I hear,’ I continued after that part of the conversation had been repeated many times and had taken five minutes, ‘I hear mad Temiar he from that side of the river, he steals tapioca, true or not?’
‘Tata, I say, and if I say good luck, good, and if I say bad luck, bad, if you are angry, what am I to do? But I say, yes.’
‘Yes, what?’
Came the devastating answer, ‘Yes, no.’
So I started again: ‘Is there a mad man?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘He lives in the jungle. Sometimes he comes. He has long hair and we are afraid. He has no knife. He has no fire. He cannot eat.’
‘Where is he now?’ I asked.
‘Dead.’
‘When did he die?’
‘One day in the past.’
