‘Wilco, sir,’ called out Jason after his final salute, forgetting his customary decorum in his excitement. He glanced at his watch. Twelve thirty. Just time to go back to the stores and let the Quartermaster Sergeant know that there’d be no more checking today or for quite some time.
He reached the stores. The soldiers there stood up and saluted, a look of enquiry on each face. The answer was completely unexpected but then this new saheb was different from the others.
‘At the top of the sal trees how green the leaves are,
We’re on our way, we’re on our way to the war.’
Jason’s brown eyes a-twinkle and elastic face a-twitch, he sang an exact imitation of a Gurkha voice’s timbre, patting his stomach as though it were a madal, the cylindrical Gurkha drum essential on all musical occasions.
The men burst out laughing and the song continued;
‘Even with gold and money proffered, all in vain,
The happy days of carefree youth will ne’er be seen again.’
That resulted in more laughter as the men shared glances. ‘Saheb,’ one of the senior men ventured. ‘Isn’t that one of your western songs?’
‘No longer. From now on it’s as eastern as you are. And the reason I’m singing it is because the day after tomorrow we are going to the war, not all that far away and the leaves will not be of the sal trees but of the jungle and rubber trees. We are not chasing proper dushman but Cheena daku. I’m taking one troop from here. The others will come to support me if we run into trouble. We leave after our morning meal the day after tomorrow.’
‘Saheb, I have a question,’ the Battery Quartermaster Sergeant asked. ‘After winning the war in Burma the British gave it away and after saving India from the Japanese they gave that away too. My question is, if there’s a war in Malaya, will the British give that away after we’ve won?’
Jason’s answer was noncommittal: ‘In matters of god, government and games, only the referee can decide who wins and who loses.’ Before dismissing them he had a thought. ‘You may not know it but I was born in Malaya and had a Chinese childhood friend for many years. We used to go and camp in the area we’re due to go to. I have not been there since I left Malaya when I was sixteen, about ten years ago but it may be of use if we meet anyone I knew before and I have to ask the way.’
‘Saheb, if you had a Cheena as a friend, can you speak it?’ one of his men asked.
Then, to his men’s utter astonishment, Jason extended his arms and, with palms outwards, and as he opened and closed them, one hand spoke in Malay and the other answered in Chinese. He brought his arms down and smiled at the flabbergasted men. ‘Yes, and write Chinese but I keep quiet about it so that if I hear any Cheena speak I can understand without them knowing about it so please try and keep it a secret.’
Heads nodded in assent and he dismissed them.
‘Embuss!’
On Captain Rance’s command, twenty-six men of 5 Troop, Q Battery, divided into three sections and a small headquarters, clambered aboard the three 15-cwt [hundred weight] trucks ready to drive off into the unknown, the first time a sub-unit of 1/12 Gurkha Rifles was going on operations in the British Army.
Earlier Jason had inspected them after Sergeant Ruwaman Limbu, the Troop Sergeant, handed them over to him; weapons, the Section Commanders’ 9-mm Sten Guns and the soldiers’ Number 4, Mark 1, Lee-Enfield rifles, bedding rolls, cooking equipment, ten days’ rations and the spare fuel. So short of kit were they that there was only one map and one compass, no wireless set, no binoculars or medical pack although each man had his ‘First Field Dressing’.
Satisfied that all was as it should be, he shouted out ‘Start up and follow me!’ got into the lead vehicle and away they went. The journey should take not much more than an hour. A straight line from Seremban to Sepang was no more than twelve miles but there was no direct route and the roads were winding and that more than doubled the distance they had to travel. Also the small convoy drove slowly as the drivers were only recently trained. As they drove past rubber estates with rows and rows of trees planted in straight lines at regular intervals, Jason let his mind wander. He was the only officer in the regiment with his linguistic background, he was going to an area where he had played around in the jungle when a youngster and Kamal Rai knew him from before as well as a lot else. It was an auspicious start.
He glanced at his watch. They had left the lines at half-past 11 and it was now a quarter to 1. Sepang, 2 miles’ he saw on a mile stone. ‘Nearly there,’ he said to the driver. ‘Once we’re in the village keep your eyes open for a Police Station. The Commanding Saheb said he’d get a message sent down for them to be expecting us around now.’
They drove into the village and the Police Station was easy to spot. Also, a young Malay constable was waiting outside and waved them down. Jason got out of his vehicle and greeted him. ‘Selamat tengah-hari, Enche.’
The policeman grinned at this strange orang puteh, ‘white man’, getting both the greeting correct for ‘midday’ and knowing how to address a policeman. Many got it wrong, saying Orang mata-mata instead, ‘Mata’, an eye: ‘mata-mata’, eyes, the man with eyes, not the policeman but the detective. In fact the young Malay’s eyes were not the only ones watching the Gurkhas’ arrival. Furtive Chinese stares came from every shop that saw them and each shop keeper noted the trucks and saw that Gurkha soldiers were looking out of the back.
The Chinese detective, the only person in the Police Station who could speak English, came out and introduced himself. Jason did not let on that he was a Chinese speaker. ‘Tuan, you are to drive to the ADO’s compound which is your base. Here are the keys for it. The Tuan ADO is not there. It is completely empty, no telephone and no furniture but there is wood for cooking. You see that track leading up to that small hillock?’ and Jason identified where he was pointing.
‘Yes, I see where you mean. Is there anyone here I need to report to?’
‘No, we know you’re here. The Police Sergeant will make a note of it in the Station Diary.’
‘May I know your name?’
‘Call me Enche Ah Wong.’
‘Have you a phone I can use, Enche Ah Wong?’ and he was led inside. As Ah Wong leant forward to show Jason where it was his shirt was pulled open and Jason saw 海山 tattooed on his shoulder. He knew it was the sign for Hai San, the Five Districts secret society, based in Penang. More mischievously than anything else, he said to the detective in English, ‘Inche, you come from a family based in Penang don’t you?’
He was answered by a look of amazement. ‘Yes, Tuan, how do you know that?’
‘An inspired guess,’ he answered lightly as he phoned the Adjutant, telling him that they had arrived safely and, once unloaded, would send back one of the trucks. ‘I’ll only contact you if there is anything important.’
The men in the shops saw them drive off to the ADO’s house, realised that matters were to become more involved and that news of the troops’ arrival needed passing on quickly. Eight to ten soldiers in each truck. Not Malays but those Goo K’a bing. A long-nosed devil in charge: why have they come and for how long? They bode no good.
‘And who are you, then, driving up to my office in a military vehicle, armed to the teeth with a squad of soldiers, without any warning?’ came an unseen angry voice.
Jason had got out of the vehicle, told the men with him to get down and stretch their legs and was looking around when the tirade came from behind him. He wheeled round and gave the angry man a butt salute, bringing his left arm over to the rifle he carried in his right hand, middle finger through the trigger guard and arm extended.
A tall man, with a lined, florid-face and angry eyes, greying at the temples and wearing a short-sleeved shirt with an open collar, thin slacks and black leather shoes, must have come out of the end room of a one-storied building, presumably his office. There was a small patch of grass in front of it and, on the others side, three larger buildings, an open-sided garage, a large, evil-smelling factory for processing the latex ‘tapped’ from the rubber trees and what looked like stores. One or two armed men in the uniform of Special Constables lounged unobtrusively in the shade.
‘Good afternoon, sir. I presume you are Mr Theopulos, as this is Bhutan Estate. I am from the 1st/12th Gurkhas. I and my men are based in Sepang having come from Seremban,’ he looked down at his watch, ‘two hours ago.’
‘Yet you have the impertinence not to forewarn me, the manager? I shall make a complaint to your CO.’
‘Sir, I apologise on his behalf. I do not have your telephone number and had expected someone in Seremban, possibly the CPO, to have alerted you by now as we are here because he wants us here but he obviously hasn’t.’
‘Well, now you’re here, what do you want?’
Jason had an aversion to being bullied yet he knew that he had to appease this angry and probably frightened man. He was obviously in no mood to be asked about Reggie Hutton and Kamal Rai.
‘I personally don’t want anything more than to be of service to the planting fraternity who, I gather, are worried and upset by recent rumours of trouble caused by Chinese guerrillas in the vicinity.’ That sounds high-falutin’ and condescending. As that Indian babu once told me, ‘Sir, lower your falutings.’ He noticed an elderly Gurkha peering at him out of a window in the middle of the block.
The choleric manager stayed silent, gritting his teeth.
‘As you seem to think I can be of no help, I’ll leave and go now to see as many other managers as I can, who may think I can be of help to them, today and the next few days, to find out what information, if any, they can give me of the squatter area behind their estate. Then I will act on what information I have gleaned which may include pin-pointing a rifle range that has been reported and bugle calls that have been heard. Good day to you, sir.’
Without any more ado, Jason called out to his soldiers in crisp Nepali, ‘Back into the vehicle. Driver start up.’
The order was obeyed instantly. Just as he himself was about to climb into his he saw the elderly Gurkha quickly come out and say something to Theopulos who had been taken aback by his uninvited guest’s decisive way of taking the initiative from him. The Gurkha, who had to be a senior functionary in the office, Jason presumed, raised his hand almost as a protest at him, as though willing him not to move off, while the manager went back into his office.
The elderly Gurkha came up to Jason. ‘Telephone, Saheb. The manager saheb has been called by your Commanding saheb. I am Hemlal Rai, the chief clerk here. How wonderful to hear an Englishman speak our language almost better than we do. We spoke on the phone and now you can understand why I felt it better you didn’t come here in person. You’ll be glad to learn I have told Rabilal’s parents. They had thought that maybe he was dead as indeed an old shaman from Darjeeling had told them so but they are pleased to learn that you managed to carry out the correct obsequies.’
‘Thank you, chief clerk saheb.’
‘I have something else to ask that Rabilal’s father asked me to enquire if you knew what had happened to the son, Tor Gul Khan, of Akbar Khan, a Pathan lawyer, Indian Association and Indian Independence League, and his two nephews so he can pass on any details you might have.’
Kindness rather than circumspection was Jason’s uppermost reaction. ‘All tried to kill me and, in turn, all were killed. Tor Gul was shot in a Burmese temple when I was there but it was not I who shot him and the other two had parachuted into Burma and were captured, both times trying to kill me. They were hanged in New Delhi on the Viceroy’s order for wearing the uniform of the King-Emperor’s enemies. There is no mercy in such cases. I had to give evidence against them and was there when the death sentences were delivered.’
‘But they were not Indian Army soldiers,’ said the chief clerk.
‘No, but all of them had joined the Azad Hind Fauj even though none was an enlisted Indian soldier they were wearing uniform of an army fighting against the King-Emperor.’
