And out it all came, faithfully recorded on the tape in the basement as well as in Bluff Road. Avenues of misdeeds, of penetration and of finding out of where guerrilla sources lurked were revealed.
At a quarter to midnight Ah Fat said he would have to leave her. ‘I will let our comrades know just how well you are doing,’ he said as he left. As he reached his house he heard his wife answering the phone. ‘Here he is,’ she said, handing it over to her husband.
‘Well done, you’ve hit a gold mine.’ C C Too was jubilant. ‘When will you go back north?’
‘I have permission for a few days yet. I can’t tell you how marvellous life here is after my other …’
‘No need to say it. We are richer by far for what you’re doing. We owe you a large debt. I’ll get the paper delivered to your house tomorrow.’
11 September 1954, Kuala Lumpur: ‘Tell me what you have in mind about this watermarked paper,’ Mr Too asked Ah Fat.
‘At the back of my mind I have an idea: you and I only to know how to put a, what, warning at the start of any publication that it is I who doctored the text.’
‘Sounds intriguing. Tell me more.’
‘Jason and I are pals from way past and if I can involve him somehow in this it will be a “feel-good factor” for me. How to? I will use our nicknames. However, I have never forgotten how my nickname had been known to some of the comrades when Jason saved my life back in 1952. I can’t take chances on still being unknown so I’ll disguise them.’ He picked up a piece of paper and a pencil from Too’s desk. ‘Any document that I have monitored my name P’ing Yee, with the Yee &ص, Ear, in P’ing Yee ,٪-&ص, will be miswritten as )y, ‘suitable’, the first impression the reader would get is that the writer must have meant ‘cheap’, Pian Yee, +K)y’ as he mentally saw it, writing down the characters as he spoke. ‘Or even the character P’ing,٪- in P’ing Yee, ‘flat’ combined with the character Yee for ‘suitable’, would give a nonsense meaning of ‘flat suitable’ in English that makes no sense so would be taken as a misprint. As it also makes no sense in Chinese, the reader would probably try and determine the meaning from the context. For Jason’s name, Shandung P’aau, Shandong Cannon, $s*F،٦, make the third character miswritten as B’aau, ٪], meaning bun or bread roll, so Jason can hide his name as Shandong Bun, $s*F٪].
‘I don’t think it matters if suspicion is smelt as quite often there is no obvious sense where there is no counterpart in Chinese that has to be translated from a foreign language or even when writing a non-Chinese phonetic rendering, the sounds required must have their original basic meanings.’
13 September 1954, central Malaya: At dawn Jason and his three men set off to go as far as the small stream where the cutting was heard to fill the canvas bucket, followed by 2 Platoon. One man filled the bucket to the brim and brought it back. Jason felt that any surging by the chemicals would waste them so emptied about a quarter of the water. ‘Get the balloon out, unroll it and lay it flat. Open the end and be ready to hold it over the bucket as soon as I’ve put the powder in. Hold your noses, it’ll stink,’ he said softly as he undid the tin and poured the granulated chemical into the water. It hissed loudly and smelt vilely. Quickly two men held the end of the balloon over the bucket and gradually, gradually it filled with the gassy effervescence the chemicals had generated and lifted itself upright.
Once it had started tugging one of the men held on to it to keep it steady. Jason saw the bubbling in the bucket had ceased. ‘Grasp the balloon’s neck before you double the end back to cut it so no gas escapes, then tie the end as tightly as you can, let the balloon rise to the end of the string and tie it to the lowest branch of that small tree,’ he pointed out with his chin.
The water was poured into the stream to try and get rid of the smell and away they went, back to their overnight camp.
Looking at his white map and trying to work out how much ground they had covered, at what speed and what his previously reported grid references were, Jason sent a message to Battalion HQ telling them where he thought it was most likely he had put the marker balloon up.
At midday the set was opened again and a priority message was sent from base. ‘Move back four thousand yards now. Bombing will come in early tomorrow. Then advance with all speed to assess damage.’
They packed up and almost untactically fast, back they went.
As there were no guerrillas in the area and it had rained heavily at dusk, Jason told his platoon commanders to gather logs and let the men dry their clothes before bedding down. The RMO had always wondered why A Company’s sick rate was less than the other three companies’: this was the reason.
In the guerrilla camp it was time to cook their morning meal which was normally around 10 o’clock. Down to the water point the fatigue party went to fill their pots. One man sniffed. ‘Has the water gone bad?’ he asked.
Another man put his nose near the water and sniffed. ‘Yes, it smells of chemical.’
‘Go back and tell the Comrade Political Commissar and the Comrade Military Commander to come and see if they agree with us.’
He did but both senior comrades were scathingly recalcitrant but, after insistence, went to the stream. ‘Yes, you are right. The enemy is trying to poison us. Go back and bring the Duty Section.’
Off he trotted and brought the Duty Section back. ‘Follow the stream for as long as you can smell the strange odour. If you find anything come back and tell us. Go very carefully, it could be an enemy ambush. They are capable of many dirty tricks.’
The comrades moved off, snail-slow, noses stream-wards, eyes jungle-wards. ‘Comrade, look at that in the water, ‘the man in front turned to the senior comrade. ‘Is it a tortoise or what?’
‘Three men take a prone position where you are and don’t move until I tell you. I’ll take the others back to camp and get a force to search the jungle either side to see if there is an ambush.’
The Political Commissar stayed back and the Military Commander took a section to the right and a senior comrade a section to the left. Nothing was found and as they went to see what was in the water, a bright young comrade saw the string of the marker balloon jerk as the balloon was pulled by the wind.
‘Comrade, look at this string. What is it?’
The Military Commander went over to it, pulled it and felt a weight. He looked up and saw a large red balloon on the end. ‘The cunning swine,’ he ejaculated viciously. ‘That can only mean they will come and bomb us. Cut the string, go back to camp, get ready to evacuate it then we’ll move out, AT TOP SPEED.’
Away they scuttled and by dusk they were several thousand yards away.
A Company spent an expectant night, trying to visualise the bombing. The men said that the aircraft would kill all the guerrillas and how clever it was for the OC Saheb to do what had been done. The radio was opened for the morning call and the message was the same as before, ‘Move back fastest and search the bombed area.’
‘Wilco, out.’
Before the five Lincoln bombers of the Royal Australian Air Force reached their target, an Auster flew over the suspected area. ‘No balloon,’ the pilot reported. ‘I’ll put a smoke marker where I believe the balloon should have been then leave the area to you.’
The message was acknowledged and the bombers dropped their bombs where they saw the smoke. In A Company’s position the earth shook as though there was an earthquake.
The pilots then overflew the bombed area and heavily machine-gunned it, ‘that’ll keep the bastards’ heads down, Mate, won’t it?’ one said.
‘Sure will,’ he answered, unaware that as A Company was getting ready to move out several empties from the machine gunning were being scattered near where they were.
No movement through the jungle had ever been quicker than A Company’s approach march. At the scene of the bombing flattened trees were everywhere … except near where the balloon had been flown, which was still pristine jungle. ‘Saheb, look there,’ one man excitedly called out, pointing.
Jason could hardly believe his eyes: an unexploded bomb! ‘All searching stop,’ he called out. ‘Go back to the nearest stream. Put out sentries and cook your morning meal.’
As he turned to go he saw that he was where the daku had been in their camp and noticed a patch of white on the ground. Ash! He bent down to feel it. Cold. That meant they could not have left when the Auster flew over before the bombers came but yesterday. A thought struck him: did they find the balloon string, cut it and leave then? Looks like it. There’ll be no point in searching locally. In bitter disappointment he went back and joined his men.
The operator called Battalion HQ and Jason was immediately asked for a report by Sunray. ‘My personal camp recce was text book. However the bombers had to be sent for, an exercise in optimism over reality. I quote “some are wise and some are otherwise” unquote. The area where we recced the camp and put up the marker balloon is untouched and where we heard the Charlie Tango is an unexploded bomb. I found some ash in their camp site which is cold so it looks as if they found the balloon and left yesterday. They will be a long way from here now. We are keeping well away from the bomb in case it goes off. Roger so far, over.
‘1, roger, but you must control your bitter language, over.’
‘I strongly recommend that I leave the immediate area now and search for tracks a day’s walk distant. I suggest move north-easterly. Your views, please, over.’
