Jason rang the estate, using Malay.
‘Bhutan Estate, chief clerk, Mr Hemlal Rai speaking.’
Jason answered in Nepali, hearing a gasp of surprise from the other end. He explained who he was and what he wanted. ‘Yes, I remember Rabilal Rai. We all wondered what had become of him. So the poor man is dead.’
‘Yes, Hemlal-jyu and I want to tell his parents about it.’
There was no immediate answer then ‘although I would much like to meet you and talk face-to-face, if you can tell me without your coming here it will be more, how shall I say? it will be easier all round. Wartime captives under the Japanese still don’t like talking to army officers if it can be avoided. You would have to meet the manager were you to come here. He was a prisoner of war.’
Jason had already found out that European planters who had been taken captive had such a low opinion of army officers for ‘having let the side down’ by being beaten by the Japanese that they would refuse to meet them if possible. He also knew that many officers from the ill-fated Malayan campaign looked on the planters as a ‘whisky-swilling’ lot and not wholly to be trusted. There was antipathy on both sides.
‘In that case, chief clerk saheb, merely tell them that their son was my bodyguard and friend but was unfortunately killed at the end of the war. We made the correct obsequies for him.’
‘Thank you, Rance saheb. I will tell them and please excuse my having to tell you it’s better this way. I hope we can meet each other some time.’
Negri Sembilan-Selangor border, early April 1948
The village of Sepang, just inside the state of Negri Sembilan, was not much more than a group of Chinese shops huddled around a crossroads in one of the under-populated parts of the country. It had a small Police Station with a plain-clothed Chinese detective, and a minor Malay administrative functionary, the Assistant District Officer, known as the ADO. Chinese in government posts were unheard of other than when needed as linguists or in an Intelligence role.
To the east, a few miles off, was the sea, the Malacca Straits. Fishing villages, houses perched on stilts, bordered the shore and spread some short way inland. Those nearest the sea were inhabited by Sumatrans, more militantly inclined than Malays, who had sailed over from the Dutch East-Indies; those villages farther inland had Malays in them.
The other three sides were filled with rubber estates, all European-owned bar one, and, behind the westerly ones, the Serting ‘forest reserve’ jungle. Sandwiched between the two and peopled by Chinese – known as ‘squatters’ in that they were living on land without any title deed – was an untidy, overgrown area consisting of homesteads with vegetable plots, fruit, such as pomelo, papaya and jackfruit, pigs and poultry, out-lying tapioca patches and secondary jungle. This last was where the primary jungle had been cut down and a thick profusion of head-high growth, difficult to move through and always too hot for comfort during the day, proliferated. No Malay policeman would ever venture there except under extreme circumstances and then always led by a British gazetted officer, nor would any of the European rubber planting fraternity unless in a group with shotguns. As this area was just inside the Selangor boundary and a long way from the nearest Police Station it was seldom if ever visited by police.
Even before the war the area had a bad reputation. Received wisdom had it that many of the area’s male inhabitants under forty years of age had been Communists fighting against the Japanese during the recent war. They had supposedly disarmed after the war so had no weapons or ammunition – or had they some hidden? Nowadays, on meeting any European, they avoided contact and a pernicious rumour was that they were preparing to re-start their armed struggle for Communism against the British imperialists now that they had got rid of the Japanese feudalists.
The immediate area around Sepang itself was quiet, not because there was no crime but because what crime there was went unreported as it was controlled by the Ghee Hin, or Green Dragons Secret Society, whose members lived in the squatter area and who made sure that whatever happened there was their business and nobody else’s.
One evening in April, three middle-aged Chinese men were sitting round a small wooden table in the back room of a ‘society’ shop behind Boonoon Estate, the one estate not owned by a European concern but Chinese. It was thoroughly under the control of the Green Dragons, whose tattoo on one shoulder was a green dragon or, sometimes, 義興公司 or just 義興, the former including the full name, ‘kongsi’ whereas their enemies, originally based in Penang were a ‘society’. They were still deadly enemies despite the truce, known as the Pangkor Treaty, signed in 1894 for reconciliation between the two factions.
The shop was owned and run by an elderly man whose eyes were described by the Chinese as ‘fighting cock’ eyes, so he was known as Dow Gai Ngaan Yeh Yeh’, Boss-eyed Grandfather. He was famous for his breakfast char siu bao dumplings filled with barbecued pork and his speciality were dai bao, twice as big and filled with hardboiled egg, chicken meat and mushroom, to say nothing of his char siu, crispy roast pork belly. He was known to have tight lips, otherwise the three Chinese who had come to eat there would never have done so. The shop sold items the Chinese needed, amongst which were rice, dried fish, spices, vegetables such as brinjal, bean, bitter gourd and pumpkin, mostly brought in from the squatter area, as well as basic household articles, including cheap clothes, local medicines and condensed milk that Chinese mothers gave their babies.
The three Chinese, senior Ghee Hin men, all had nicknames, the Killer, who worked on assassinations, the Blood Sucker, because he was more insistent than any leech in getting under people’s skin and got what he wanted, and the Collector, who raised money.[1] There were three others, similarly tattooed, bodyguard and understudy to each of the three senior men. All six were illegally armed with a pistol. Although the Green Dragons ruled supreme in this part of Malaya, they were always on their guard against another secret society, the Hai San, or Five Districts, whose sign was the numerals 108. They had regarded them as deadly enemies for more than a hundred years. Turf wars were endemic and the nearer a large town the more vicious they became.
‘Before we start to talk seriously, let’s have a drink,’ said the Killer, a bullet-headed man with narrow-set eyes, a straggly beard and long arms. ‘Shamsu or brandy?’
They decided on brandy, the grape making a better drink than did rice. ‘Hey, you outside. Bring in two bottles of brandy and three glasses,’ the Killer shouted out to the shop owner. This he quickly did, put them on the table and, ‘Prepare a meal for us,’ he was told as he left. He showed no interest or intimacy – neither would have been worth his while. The three bodyguards ate and drank by themselves in another room.
The Killer poured out four-fingers’ worth into each glass and, with the obligatory toast of ‘yam seng’, ‘drink to victory’, they downed the contents in one. As custom dictated, hands were laid over each glass as if to say ‘no more’ but no resistance was made when their hands were removed so that more drink could be poured in. ‘And again,’ and again it was. Down it went in one and they wiped their lips with the back of their hand.
‘Now listen, time to talk before our meal is ready,’ said the Killer. ‘You know how we thought that those arrogant British would not have the impudence to return here after the war in which their soldiers were so inferior, though better than those drunken Australians I will admit, and even though there were some of them who stayed in the jungle with us, none of them was anywhere as aggressive or skilled as we were.’
The other two fully agreed with him. ‘However, they have yet to learn their lesson and they have come back. Early on today I received orders from our Politburo to prepare for active duty against them by defeating their army before taking over the government. We start by disrupting the economy by eliminating their European rubber planters and tin miners by threat and murder, so force the others to leave. We will then make the country into a Communist republic, without all those puppet Malay rulers.’
A gasp of surprise and appreciation burst from the other two. ‘Not before time,’ muttered the Blood Sucker.
‘We have to wait for a couple or three months before we start. Between now and then we will open up that arms and ammunition dump so there will be no delay when we get executive orders. We must make sure that the ‘cow-horn’ type of machine guns, and the smaller ones, are in fully working order.’
The ‘cow-horn’ type referred to the Bren Light Machine Gun, the magazine of which curved as did a cow’s horn.
They chatted about training, to include range work, tactics and jungle craft, until their meal was brought in. They kept quiet while they concentrated on scooping up the glutinous rice and fried pork with their chopsticks. No Chinese ever wanted to waste time talking at meals.
After belching their satisfaction, ‘to continue: besides needing sufficient money and supplies, there is another matter we must not forget about. You,’ and the Killer pointed at the Blood Sucker, ‘are the best educated among us. You need to find out the latest situation about pamphlets, training ones and propaganda, while you,’ and it was at the Collector that he looked now, ‘get each of the huts in the whole of the squatter area to put some extra rations, not that there is a great deal, to one side. We may have to take them into the jungle at short notice.’
The other two nodded acceptance at these orders. It made sense and they were expecting them. It had happened during the war and now it was infinitely easier without any Japanese.
‘My last point tonight is one that may make a difference to the way we have to operate. You know the estate of Tei Po Lo-Si’ – the nearest he could get to Theopulos – ‘don’t you?’
Of course they did.
‘His coolies are Goo K’a yan’ – the nearest he could get to ‘Gurkha men’ – ‘who did not fight with us against the Japanese. There were military Goo K’a bing who were beaten by the Japanese at the start of the war. There are now six battalions of Goo K’a bing in Malaya, the nearest being in Seremban. From what we know of them there will be little to fear from them. In any case, and this you will at all times keep to yourselves, I have learnt that there is a secret plan afoot that could make them into “paper tigers” just as the “running dogs”, their masters, already are.’ He was referring to the rumour of being gunners not infantrymen.
This the other two promised.
‘Time to go back,’ said the Killer, hawking and expertly spitting a gob of phlegm out of the opened wooden shutters and, heady from the drink and the excitement of what lay ahead of them, they called their bodyguards and quietly left for home, having given a right-handed, clenched-fisted salute, little realising that the Malay Communist Party now had a policy of not letting secret society men become members although they were extremely useful for strong-arm tactics.
Boss-eyed Grandfather pretended to hear nothing, likewise his son who helped serve the food and drink, but both of them had heard everything.
‘What have those soldiers based in Seremban been doing? What reports have you two had?’
It was a week after their last meal in the shop in the squatter area and the three Chinese Communist leaders had been busy. The Killer had visited Tanjong Sepat with a group of squatters and had taken out from a hidden dump sufficient arms and ammunition for their immediate needs and had also been deep into the jungle to inspect weapons and ammunition dumped there at the end of the war. Only about half seemed serviceable so a known armourer was put on the job of refurbishment where possible. Some he had brought back a couple of days later and suggested that a ‘sample be tried out on the rifle range’. This was a tract of comparatively open land which was too far for firing to be heard from the Killer’s own house and details of its use were left to a subordinate who lived nearer.
The Collector had visited a printing press in Seremban and picked up some Communist propaganda and receipt pads, while the Blood Sucker had made an extensive tour of the squatter area, detailing how many pigs and chickens had to be kept in reserve for emergencies as well as checking on rice stocks.
‘And during your travels, what have your learnt about the Goo K’a bing and their “running dog” commander?’ the Killer asked. ‘What reports have you for me?’
Apparently they stayed in their camp in Seremban, doing nothing to disrupt the guerrillas’ plans.
Saling Rubber Estate, 17½ Milestone, Johor Bahru-Kulai Road, Kulai, Johor, 10 May 1948
