‘Yes. Go on your Thai passport and fly to Kuala Lumpur on Thai Airways. I won’t lay down how long you will be away but try to come back within a couple of weeks.’
‘Comrade, with your permission, I’ll take my Bear with me. In these times it is always best not to be by oneself.’
Chin Peng considered that without answering for so long that Ah Fat sensed danger but he need not have worried. ‘I was wondering about the budget for two weeks for two of you. Go and see the Comrade Paymaster and work out the cost for the two of you for ten days. If it too expensive you must go by yourself.’
‘Comrade Secretary General, I’ll go and make arrangements and report to you before I go.’ He stood up and saluted but by then Chin Peng was talking to someone else and did not notice, or if he did, he did not bother to respond.
Listening in to the conversation were the Head of the Psyops Department, Lee An Tung, and his Deputy, Chien Tiang. They exchanged glances, nodding slightly. That meant that there was something new to keep tabs on. Neither man had any sense of humour and both took life seriously, as opposed to the MRLA who took life as and how it could. The senior Political Commissar also took it all in but said nothing. Basically sound but too early for comment.
2 September 1954, central Malaya: After the withdrawal of A Company from the Jelebu pass area, Brigade launched a three-battalion Operation, Red Tidings, against 2 Regiment, MRLA. 1/12 GR’s task was to concentrate by helicopters in an area north of Bahau to search for contacts around various ‘gardens’. It was a vast area and even if no traces of guerrillas were found, crops were to be destroyed by uprooting, a laborious and unmilitary task not all that pleasing to the soldiers. Jason’s company was sent to the northernmost area, one map sheet of which had not been surveyed so most of it was white, so indicating places pure guesswork. His platoon commanders looked at it dubiously. ‘How will we pin-point our grid references?’ one asked.
‘By keeping a record of the direction of our axis of advance and of covering one map square in one hour of normal movement.’
By Day 3 they had found that the two gardens located by aerial recce had already been harvested. That evening Jason once more called Corporal Kulbahadur Limbu to him. ‘Kulé, Chakré and I were told that the daku know that the area to our north is a white map and they could well go there, hoping that we won’t find them there. Tomorrow take your section and see what you can find. If you come back with NTR, “nothing to report”, that will mean not a twig, blade of grass or leaf is out of place.’
‘Saheb, when have I come back with NTR?’
‘Not often!’ and both of them smiled knowingly, with a wealth of hidden knowledge.
Late that evening the section returned with a grin on every man’s face. ‘Tracks for at least twelve men found moving north, Hajur, into the start of the white map area,’ he reported. ‘They can’t be more than two days old.’
‘Well done. Give me the grid reference and I’ll tell Battalion HQ tomorrow morning.’
‘Send in your airdrop demand soonest for another five days’ rations and any clothing requirements then follow up,’ was the reply. He was also told that Major Henry Gibson was now the new CO and a lieutenant-colonel,’ so don’t refer to him as Sunray Minor any more.’
Two days later the airdrop had been distributed among the men. One of the joys for the soldiers was the tins of fifty cigarettes that came for each man. The great joke was ‘Seven a day and one extra because the Sarkar doesn’t make tins of forty-nine sticks.’
By then CT tracks were only occasionally visible and movement with full packs was slow. By noon next day the tracks had disappeared.
There were two main methods of patrolling: one, ‘fan’ patrols, moving on the pattern of ‘ribs’ of a fan, usually ten degrees apart, and the other used in hilly country along the ridges and down on either side, ‘linear’ patrols. Jason’s orders were ‘2 Platoon will move east and 3 Platoon west, 1 Platoon and Company HQ stay here and quietly prepare an overnight base. I’ll move with 2 Platoon.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s nearly 3 o’clock. We’ll patrol for a couple of hours and be back by dusk at the latest.’
About half a mile along the ridge, Jason said ‘let’s go downhill from here’ and halfway down the hill the lead man held up his hand and then put it on his shoulder: OC. Come forward.
‘Saheb’, the soldier said softly, ‘look through the gap in the trees at the top of the next ridge.’
Jason saw several pairs of trousers hanging on a vine, presumably drying after being laundered.
‘Back we go,’ and they cautiously went back to their overnight camp. When the other patrols had returned, Jason held another ‘O’ Group. ‘There’s a guerrilla camp at …’ and he described it. ‘I have been told not to attack it but to put up a marker balloon …’ He was interrupted by a ‘stray’ Auster aircraft, which unpredictably flew overhead and circled twice round where the trousers had been seen.
Blast it fumed Jason, knowing that the guerrillas had to ‘stand to’ if an Auster overflew their camp and to evacuate it if it flew round more than once. ‘No time for a marker balloon. We’ll have to surround it now.’ He detailed two platoons to approach from opposite directions and the third platoon and Company HQ to stay where they were and be ready to move forward at short notice.
It had, unusually, not rained for some days so the undergrowth was cracklingly noisy. Not to alert the guerrillas to their presence, movement was, therefore, slower than normal. After nearly an hour with nothing happening, Jason became impatient. ‘Chakré, tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go to just below the camp and signal to the surrounding troops who can’t be far away to move in quickly. You and the LMG gunner with Company HQ, stay by the stream at the bottom. Keep me covered.’
When about fifteen yards below the edge of the camp, Jason crawled upwards and slowly lifted his head to see if he could see the encircling troops. Nothing. On up higher for another look.
The last two guerrillas were on the point of leaving when one of them heard a suspicious noise. He went to the edge, rifle ready cocked and slowly lifted his head to see what was causing it. He saw nothing but recognised the noise of foliage being crushed. He put his rifle to his shoulder and waited, expectedly.
At the bottom the two soldiers saw an armed guerrilla peering over the edge. They then saw him put his rifle to his shoulder and wait. The saheb, too brave at times, is only just out of sight, both of them thought.
Jason crawled a bit higher, not seeing where the camp edge was from his prone position, lifted his head once more and was momentarily stunned when a bullet was fired at him from about four yards’ range, so close to his right ear that he was deafened. At the bottom the LMG gunner opened rapid fire at the guerrilla and Jason saw bullets hitting the trees only inches above his head.
At the first pause in the firing he yelled, ‘Cease fire,’ voice shriller than normal. As the firing ceased, the surrounding platoons charged in, amazed to see the OC unsteadily getting to his feet and the camp empty. One of the soldiers said, ‘Saheb, we heard a voice shouting “cease fire” and thought it was a female daku,’ grinning broadly as he did.
Jason subdued his feelings and merely said, ‘I saw the man who shot at me limping away. I’d like to follow up but it’s too late.’ They returned to their overnight base.
The guerrilla who fired at Jason was hit in the leg and so afraid of being captured and tortured was he that, using his rifle as a crutch, he caught up with the others who were waiting for him to join them, hoping he had not been killed. They examined his wound by the light of a fire and one of them gouged out two bullets, put on a rough bandage and bound it as well as he could. ‘Are you sure you hit him?’
‘Couldn’t have missed,’ he averred. ‘Must be dead. He was the gwai lo commander.’
‘That was good work killing him. First thing tomorrow morning we must move away quickly, even if it means carrying you,’ and they settled down to an uncomfortable night.
That evening’s sitrep reported the incident. ’96 Foxtrot overflew an occupied camp twice during our patrol just after seeing some pairs of trousers hanging up to dry. Despite your standing orders about not attacking camps, I judged the situation needed immediate action as it was late in the day. Roger so far, over.’
‘Acorn speaking. Wait out, I’ll fetch Sunray.’
Jason ‘waited out’ until he was told Sunray was on set. Coldly, Jason thought, he was told ‘Say all again.’
This Jason did, adding that one of the guerrillas was wounded.
‘Your reason is accepted until I have a full report. Your task is to follow up the guerrillas. With a wounded man progress will be slow. If you come across a camp you will not, repeat not, attack it but put up your marker balloon. Out.’
No arguments there!
That night, as he lay down to sleep, he rehearsed what had happened earlier on. The corporal in charge of the shorter encircling group has recently come from the Signal Platoon so was relatively untrained. Then his thoughts drifted to his near miss … I may have lost a wife but I still have my life … he was walking up the aisle and his best man beside him leant over and whispered, ‘Why are you wearing jungle boots?’ He looked down and saw he was bare-footed. ‘Your shirt is hanging out at the back,’ came another frantic whisper’ and he felt around and found he was wearing jungle greens and not his Number 3 Tropical Ceremonial Dress. He woke up, Chakrabahadur’s hand on his shoulder. ‘Saheb, are you all right?’
‘Chakré. Why aren’t you asleep?’
‘Saheb, I heard you moaning and so came to see what the trouble was.’
‘Oh that is kind, very kind,’ and, overwhelmed, he said, ‘Chakré, you as well as everyone else knows that my woman has run away. In my dream I was to get married and it was going wrong.’
In the dark he did not see Chakré’s grin. ‘Saheb, don’t worry. No river only has one fish,’ and he went back to his place. Jason drifted back to sleep with a smile on his face.
6 September 1954, Police HQ, Kuala Lumpur: The phone rang in the office of Too Chee Chew, a.k.a. C C Too, the brilliant propagandist in Special Branch. He was a short, balding man with large horn-rimmed specs and a serious expression which belied a nice sense of humour.
‘Too speaking.’
‘Mr Too. I’m a friend of yours from up north. You can recognise my voice, can’t you?’
‘Yes, yes, of course I can. Where are you now?’ It was obvious to C C Too that Ah Fat wanted to keep his identity quiet.
‘Ten minutes’ walk from your HQ.’ He changed from English to Mandarin, not Cantonese. ‘Have you got a Chan Man Yee working anywhere near you?’
‘Yes, but not in my office. She is in Registry.’
‘If I come and see you can you ensure she does not see me?’
‘Hm. Like that is it?’ Without waiting for an answer, ‘You know where I live, don’t you?’
