Lieutenant Colonel Gibson came on set and for once his tone seemed to be friendlier than normal. ‘I understand you have captured Sunray minor of figures two regiment. Is that correct? Over.’
‘1. That is what he says. I believe he is telling the truth. The dead man tried to kill me last night when I was having a rear. He’ll smell badly soon. Request a heli urgently here, unless you want me to make my two captives bury him. Over.’
‘1. No, do not bury him. Send him with the others. I’ll arrange for 96 Foxtrot to be over you within the hour. Roger so far, over.’
‘1, roger, over.’
‘Well done. Congratulate the men from me. I will now get Acorn to arrange heli and an LP recce while I appraise Big Sunray. Out.’
An Auster aircraft flew over the camp site within the hour and, ready on the set, told Jason where a Landing Point was. ‘Six hundred yards to your north-northeast,’ the pilot said.
Jason thanked him. He did not ask him if he knew when a heli would be there as he knew that the pilot would have told him if he had known. He heard the pilot call Battalion HQ and waited for a call from Acorn. It came five minutes later to tell him that the heli would take six passengers, that the pilot insisted that the corpse be wrapped up – ‘he will bring a body bag’ – and that the two prisoners would be tightly bound. ‘Send three soldiers with the daku, weapons not, repeat not, loaded but khukris drawn once they have emplaned. ETA 1430 hours. Over.’
‘Wilco, out.’
Jason and Chakré, with an escort, accompanied the two daku, still carrying the corpse, to the LP, getting there in good time. They heard the machine before they saw it and Jason marshalled it in to where panels, always a burden to carry but, today, of great use, had been fixed into the ground. The crewman threw out a body bag.
Once the body bag had been stowed in the heli, Jason, ducking under the idling rotors, climbed up to tell the pilot the body bag was filled and stowed.
‘Good. Please show the prisoners to the crew man who will ensure that their bindings are strong enough. Three of your men as escort?’
Jason nodded.
‘You look tired and you pong but that is not your fault.’
Jason grinned at him. ‘I’ll wash at the next river,’ he chortled back and climbed down onto the ground. He went round to where the crew man was inspecting the prisoners’ bindings.
‘They’re okay so in with them,’ the crew man called out. They were physically hoisted aboard and rolled on the floor before being put in the sitting position in a corner by their Gurkha escort. The door was shut and Jason went in front of the heli and signalled to the pilot with his arms outstretched, hands upwards. Inside, the crew man tapped the pilot’s leg.
Rotors speeded up and away it flew. Jason and his men went back to the camp and reported that the heli had left with the prisoners.
That evening, looking at his map, he reckoned that, using normal speed, they would be out of the jungle onto a main road ready to be picked up in three days so another airdrop was not needed.
23 September 1954, south Thailand: Ah Fat and the Bear, along with the rest of his escort, planned to move down to Ha La. They would need to take a cyclostyle machine with them, a lot of ink and the two types of paper. It would be a slow and difficult journey through the jungle. They could have moved to the east onto a secondary road but that was considered an unacceptable security risk so the slower, more laborious route was mandated. Ah Fat knew that he had his work cut out to find the right balance between what was needed in his ‘mole’ mode and not to cause Politburo suspicion in their edition. It would take time before the couriers would know where to find where the new journals were to be collected. I’ll play it by ear. What was it Jason had taught me? Oh yes, Order, counter-order, disorder.
Just in case he had a bad dream that last night, he tied a cloth round his head, under his chin, to stop any likelihood of his talking in his sleep. I am so near to starting Operation Red Tidings in earnest.
25 September 1954, Seremban: A Company was finally back in camp, tired but delighted with their successes. The other three rifle companies had also been withdrawn and a week’s ‘rest and relaxation’ followed weapon cleaning, re-clothing and re-equipping so as to be ready for more deployment. None had had any contacts and the redoubtable Tan Fook Leong was still in charge of a considerable force.
Big Sunray told the CO to debrief Captain Rance, who was to write a report of ‘what went wrong’ with the marker balloon prior to the bombing, as well as to find out exactly how the ten CT had been killed when they were in an overnight camp. Not only that, how were those captured and sent out by heli able to come so close to Captain Rance’s overnight camp without being spotted? Were Captain Rance’s tactics really that good? ‘Quiz him, get him to include that in his report, and then send it to me,’ were the Brigadier’s orders.
Jason felt that he was being treated with unfair suspicion but finished his report by writing four citations, a Military Cross each for all three platoon commanders and a Military Medal for 21138176 Corporal Kulbahadur Limbu.
At a meeting between the Brigade Commander, his battalion commanders and Head of Special Branch, the talk turned to how Tan Fook Leong could be eliminated. ‘Brigadier, I have an idea,’ said Moby. ‘I have told those four men who surrendered to Captain Rance last month how to eliminate their one-time commander. It is a good plan and I am sure it will work. They are ready to undertake it but, however, there is one stipulation that is not in my hands.’
‘And, pray, what is that?’ asked the Brigadier.
‘Sir, they will only go if Captain Rance goes with them.’
The village of Ha La, in map square VE 2126, was no longer traceable when this book was written. ↵
They were Japanese. About thirty moved to the guerrillas after the war and only two, Hashimoto Shigeyuki and Tanaka Kiyoaki survived and returned to Japan in 1998. ↵
There was a similar case in Seremban in 1958, when a Gurkha pissed on an unsanctified Chinese grave of men the Japanese had killed. In your author’s case a Church of England padre told him that that is what happens when ‘evil spirits were exorcised’. ↵
27 September 1954, Seremban: ‘The SEP will only go back and deliver the radio if Captain Rance goes with them?’ queried the Brigadier with more than a tinge of frost in his voice. Quite ludicrous! ‘Without doubting your word, Mr Mubarak, are you sure you are correct?’ He used the shorthand SEP for Surrendered Enemy Personnel, rather than CEP, captured dittos.
Before being posted to command an active service brigade in Malaya, the Brigadier had served only in Africa and Europe during the war and UK and Germany afterwards, always with British troops. Asians were a ‘closed book’ to him. He was not against initiative but knew that the Army, like the Royal Academy, desired docility in its children and even originality had to be stereotyped. Thus any officer under his command, especially a young one whom he thought had maverick tendencies, was military anathema. His opinion of Rance was ‘too impulsive and too unconventional for promotion above major’.
The good-tempered Moby answered as politely as he could. ‘Sir, if I had thought otherwise I would not have mentioned it.’
‘And why is that a condition, do you think? It is most irregular and I am sure the Director of Operations in Kuala Lumpur would not allow us to risk such a venture.’ Moby said nothing. ‘Henry, what are your views about sending one of your company commanders away on such a far-fetched and irregular jaunt?’ asked with a decided sniff. ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense,’ he added with a pout.
‘Brigadier, I agree with you but, in his own way, Rance is a remarkable man. You may not realise just how talented a linguist he is, far above the normal standard of Chinese speakers. I am told a Chinese thinks he is a Chinese if he hears him and does not see his face. But why the four men are so insistent is beyond me.’
‘Mr Mubarak, will you interview the four men in front of me without Captain Rance being present?’
‘Certainly, sir, if that is your wish. Here and now?’
‘Yes, it shouldn’t take too long if you put a call through on my phone.’ He twisted round in his seat. ‘Henry, send for Captain Rance, will you. We’ll keep him out of sight at first then let them see him.’
As soon as Moby had finished his call, the CO made his to the battalion. ‘Give me the Adjutant,’ he told the exchange operator.
‘Adjutant speaking.’
‘Oh, Peter, CO here. I am in the Brigadier’s office. Get Captain Rance down here quicker than normal,’ and peremptorily rang off.
Waiting for their people to come, the Brigadier asked Moby, ‘what exactly is the plan you have sold to the SEPs?’
