The General gaped and, recovering his wits, asked ‘So morale’s back to normal?’
‘Yes, sir. It’s high.’
‘And how do you describe “high morale”?’
Jason answered immediately: ‘To be able and willing to give of your best when the audience is of the smallest and you are far from base, out-numbered, tired, hungry and maybe unsure of your position.’
‘So you are prepared to go with the SEP and a small group of your own men?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Jason answered as soberly as he could.
‘I grant you permission, only 51 percent pro and 49 percent anti.’
4-10 October 1954, central Malaya: Moby’s workshop had secreted a tiny bug with a fixed frequency in a new radio and had had it tested with the help of a friendly Auster pilot. Contact could be made and the radio’s position on the ground easy to zone in on.
Jason detailed Corporal Kulbahadur Limbu, Rifleman Chakrabahadur Rai and Lance Corporal Minbahadur Gurung as radio operator to go with him with the guerrillas to the cave area. Goh Ah Wah insisted that only gym shoes be worn: ‘any sign of a jungle boot within a day’s walk could wreck our plans,’ he said. Jason knew that was an open invitation for leech bites: to lessen their impact he decided to buy sixteen strips of oil cloth to wrap round their ankles under their socks and for all of them to carry some pieces of the flannelette used for cleaning rifles made into little bags to contain the salt, tied to the end of a stick which, wetted, were completely efficacious against the most determined leech when dabbed on it.
To keep cooking to a minimum they carried four days’ tinned food, ready for heating, tea and sugar, as well as biscuits and chocolate for calories and as a couple of days’ reserve. The four SEP were equipped, armed with pistols and rationed similarly, with noodles to eat dry instead of biscuits and, as a treat, Ovaltine instead of tea. Jason reminded his three men of their names, Yap Keng and Sim Ting Hok, who had been working in the ‘garden’ and their rescuers, Kwek Leng Ming and Goh Ah Wah, the senior of the pair who carried the doctored radio and batteries carefully wrapped and in a manner that Tan Fook Leong would recognise that a comrade, not an enemy, had prepared the package. He also told the SEP his men’s names.
Goh Ah Wah told Jason that he and his men needed to take two sets of clothing, one to make them look like a member of the Security Forces in case any of them was met and the other to look like a comrade when the placing of the radio was to be done.
Early that morning as they left camp it had, unusually, rained for a few minutes. Jason reminded his men that during the war any draft that left their depot for the front when it had rained that same morning or in the rain, regarded it as an exceptionally good omen.
A helicopter was arranged to fly the eight men to as near to the target as Jason had thought expedient. He had already had clearance that there were no other military units operating in that area. There was flat country in front of the hilly area where the cave was: there should have been no problem for the pilot to have found a suitable LP near the given grid reference, and if not a landing, then a winch-down would be made.
As Jason put it later, it must have been a case of ‘Sod’s Law, not God’s Law’ that caused the pilot to take a map a quarter-of-an-inch-to-the-mile rather than an inch-to-the-mile. He noticed it when he had climbed up the outside and showed his map to the pilot, pointing out where their intended LP was. The pilot traced the way there with his finger on his map and seemed satisfied.
Once over what he thought was the correct target the pilot flew around until he saw an area open enough and clear enough of trees to land. He lowered his machine and the crewman signalled all out. On the ground Jason waved to the pilot, who waved back and, lifting off, flew away.
The four SEP looked around with increasing doubt: they had landed on an old ‘garden’ that they knew was three days’ walk from their cave, not the one day’s that had been planned. Goh Ah Wah told Jason that they were in the wrong area and Jason had no option but to believe him. ‘I’ll scout around to see if there are any clues. You stay under those trees and we’ll be back as soon as we’re sure there’s no unfriendly movement.’
Jason let them go, feeling it was, indeed, a tense moment. Would they come back? Are they bluffing me? But he need not have worried. Back they came with a negative report. Goh Ah Wah looked at the sun and said, ‘I know where we are. It would be wise to tell your people that we have landed in the wrong place and ask if there are any of your own troops in the area between us and our cave.’
Yes, now, before tonight’s sitrep. Minbahadur rigged up his radio and made a call. When he got through and an as-near-as-possible grid reference of their position had been passed, Jason took over and asked for Acorn, who had to be called from his office. What is it this time? he asked himself and was disconcerted to be told that the heli pilot had dropped them in the wrong area, two days too far, as he had been using a small scale map instead of a larger one. ‘Tell Sunray to report this upwards and to ensure that the correct scale of maps is carried by pilots in future.’ The British Army listens to the ‘man on the ground’ in a way other armies do not and, after a lot of chuntering about too many sheets to look at while flying, such came about.
‘1. Wilco. Any more? Over?’
‘1. Yes. Let me know Alpha Sierra Papa’ – as soon as possible – ‘if there are any Sierra Foxtrots – Security Forces – ‘between my Golf Romeo’ – grid reference – ‘and my target area. If so get Big Sunray to order an immediate freeze on their movements until I am where I should be. Call back and confirm.’
‘1. Wilco. I will stress that to my utmost. Out.’
Confirmation was given that same evening and the SEP were satisfied. They spent the night there. Before dark they picked some small chillies, split them lengthways and, with thread from a reel of cotton Jason always carried, tied them by their ends and bound the thread round their head, always a sure way to keep the small stinging ‘eye flies’, always present in such places, off them, otherwise sleep would be almost impossible.
The next three days’ movement was a total eye-opener to Jason and his three men. The SEP’s fieldcraft was on a standard none of them had previously seen: their constant alertness, the way they seemed to listen with their eyes, careful and caring the whole time and sometimes glancing at their Gurkha companions’ jungle skills almost as if censuring them. The time and trouble spent to make their night stops ‘invisible’ when they left them was without parallel.
Corporal Kulbahadur, who already knew that he was the best tracker in the battalion, learnt something new every day. Luckily the two groups got on well together and the Gurkhas’ mangled Malay meant that one-to-one contact was possible.
The first two days passed with no incident and they made their rough camp before the customary evening rain shower. Goh Ah Wah’s jungle lore was animal-like in its perfection and he knew, by looking at the sun, by studying the streams and once by climbing a tree to have a clear view, where they were almost all the time. On the evening of the second day he said to Jason, ‘we are now in the target area. I now know where the cave is. I would prefer Tan Fook Leong is not there so cannot detain me. We four must change into our old uniform and go forward. I will find a place for you, with our packs, to stay until we return.’
Jason had no option but to agree.
The cave was in thick jungle near the top of the highest point in hilly country. At that height the noise from the cicadas in the surrounding jungle was, at times, so loud it was difficult to hear what a person said in a normal voice. When the cave was occupied, a strong defence post was sited with the one Bren light machine gun, neatly hidden, with rifle positions around the perimeter.
On the flatter ground guerrilla outposts were responsible for the safety of the cave by patrolling and ambushing any Security Forces, in order to draw any attacker away from the cave to enable an escape by the senior men.
The four SEP silently approached where they thought the most distant outpost from the camp would be. Flitting from tree to tree, with Kwek Leng Ming in front, they smelt fresh human ordure, always a give-away unless it is buried immediately. Inching their way stealthily forward the next give-away was the faintest smell of unwashed bodies. To the expert, sweat and a dirty body smell of what the person has eaten: British troops with their own rations smell differently from rice eaters and it was rice that tainted the air. Our outpost!
Yap Keng, of the ‘garden’, was beckoned forwards and Goh Ah Wah, putting his mouth to the other’s ear, said, ‘You are the best at making frog noises. Do so now.’
Yap Keng made frog noises, varying in pitch and tone, until told to cease. The four men listened for an answer. None. ‘Forward!’ and they eased themselves about ten yards to their front, taking all of two minutes to get there. ‘Try again.’
This time there was an answer, a frog answer, with Yap Keng answering similarly. Then a voice from in front, ‘Whoever you are you are clear to come forward.’
To his great relief Goh Ah Wah saw that there were two of his old friends hiding in a camouflaged position. Goh put his fingers to his lips for silence as the two sentries stood up and came forward. Hands shaken and bear hugs apiece, Goh took the conversational initiative. ‘Is Comrade Tang in the cave?’
‘No, but he is expected from the north later on today or early tomorrow.’
‘A pity I can’t wait that long so …’ rummaging inside his shirt, he produced the wrapped radio. ‘I don’t know if you heard Comrade Tang talking to two of us about his radio that was not working properly. He had wanted me to try and have it repaired or get a new one from Seremban.’
The sentry nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I did hear something about it but as I was not involved I took no notice of it.’
‘My group was ordered to the most westerly part of our area to rescue two gardeners. I knew all the Security Forces would be drawn away from Seremban so we took a chance and went back there. Lucky we did as Sim Ting Hok was wounded so we four stayed together. We were very daring and, claiming to be civilians – and keeping well out of the way of the police – did manage to buy this new one.’ He handed it over. ‘There are a lot of batteries, the little pen-light type I think they are called, in the package to last him quite a long time. Take care of it all, won’t you?’
‘Of course but won’t you stay and give it to him yourself?’
‘I had thought of doing that but the fewer people who clutter the place up the better and I also want to get back to my own group. I’ve been away from them too long.’
The sentry considered that. ‘A pity you can’t stay. Tell you what, at least I can get you a drink of tea, surely? I can go to the cave and bring you a mugful or go yourself?’
