‘Who is your boss?’
‘An erudite Chinese who has a dedicated Tamil as one of his closest advisers. I’ll let you know how to insert yourself and the code name … wait. I have a secure line.’
With veiled speech and ‘only when we meet’, the code name given was ‘Dover’.
1 September 1954, south Thailand: The Central Committee members were discussing how to handle their worsening situation. One ever-present problem was the slowness of communicating with guerrilla units in Malaya. It often took months for a directive to reach its destination and twice as long for any answer to find its way back. Some never arrived when couriers were killed or captured and that seldom came to light.
‘Comrade Ah Fat,’ the Secretary General called out. ‘I have not had a proper session with you since,’ and he looked at his notes, ‘the 13th of September 1952, two years ago, after you returned from trying to bring back that renegade British officer. You did wonderfully well to get as far as you did although you did not succeed.’
‘Comrade Secretary General, thank you for your kind words. We very nearly did succeed. It’s history now so let’s leave it at that. Since then as you know I have not been idle,’ and he went on to describe how he had been helping the printing section with their cyclostyling copies of Voice of the People, Red Flag and Truth. ‘As you know, Comrade, ever since our Klyne Street publishing house in Kuala Lumpur was shut down, production of our newspapers has been a fulltime job here.’
‘I know, Comrade, and I am grateful for what you and the others have done. However, now is the time for fresh thinking. There is a need to produce another newspaper, unknown to our enemies, with which we can keep our comrades in Malaya informed with what I am trying to plan, an amnesty, which means a ceasefire, and becoming a recognised political party,’ said Chin Peng, nodding as he elucidated his points.
Ah Fat, knowing better than to disturb his train of thought, sat still, cogitating how best to react to whatever came his way. What did was unexpected: Chin Peng took a piece of paper out of his pocket and showed it to him. ‘Commit this name and address to memory. Mention it to no one else. This is one of my sleepers in the Police HQ in KL who will know if anything hush-hush is being planned. I want you to go there as my secret emissary to find out about any amnesty talks or peace plans.’
Ah Fat took the piece of paper and saw the name was Chan Man Yee. A woman’s name. His mind raced with a far-fetched idea as he gave it back. ‘Comrade, if that is your order of course I will obey it,’ he answered, unconsciously rubbing the palms of his hands together.
‘Yes. After your return you must start publishing this new newspaper. Try and persuade this contact to give you some paper with a government watermark which we can claim as government propaganda. Our cadres must be ready with any good news we can offer them after all their efforts over so many years. I can remember being put off going to a Catholic school when young, with all their “good tidings” and I don’t know what, but that word “tidings” for news sticks in my brain,’ and he broke off beaming. ‘So let that be the name of our new secret newspaper, Red Tidings.’
‘That’s a wonderful name,’ said Ah Fat, in as a toadying tone of voice as he could get himself to make, for once keeping his hands still. ‘That is a clever move, Comrade Secretary General,’ he added, smarmily as he inwardly exulted. That is a game two can play at. I’ll make trying to sow confusion in the ranks my Operation Red Tidings. Once in Kuala Lumpur I’ll meet mole Chen and C C Too. My secret code words will be something to do with Jason’s and my childhood nicknames.
‘Comrade Secretary General, do you really think that our comrades will look for a watermark? Also, the typing paper we have been using doesn’t have a watermark.’
Chin Peng, never wanting to be shown wrong, looked peeved. ‘You may be right but in our first issue we can tell them to look for one. Also, we can make our own “government” stories on such paper. Now, to hide our real plans we will adopt the mainland system for encoded communications. Do you know it?’
Ah Fat shook his head. ‘I have only vaguely heard of it but not in detail. As only an observer, not a full member of the Politburo, I have not been indoctrinated into the system.’
‘Then I will tell you about it. We write out our messages so that when they are read their true meaning is lost to non-indoctrinated readers who waste their time in trying to understand them. They may think that the writer has been lax and made mistakes with what characters have been printed; they may think that it is in what the British know as “veiled speech”. In a way it is “veiled” as the real message in the article is only every fourth character. No one expects such an article,’ and he chuckled gleefully. ‘Our code-books are based on and adapted from the openly available standard Chinese Commercial Telegraphic Code book where each character is represented by a group of four numbers. For example, the commercial code numbers for my name, Chin Peng, are 7115 and 1627. In our codebooks 7115 is not Chin nor is 1627 Peng. The codebook users have an understanding between them as to which codebook to use.’
‘That is wonderful,’ Ah Fat gushed. ‘Won’t that be too sophisticated to use for Red Tidings?’
Chin Peng did not immediately answer the question but took another piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to Ah Fat. ‘Show the mole this permit signed by me for permission to tell you everything. To start with, your Red Tidings can tell our comrades what they only need to know merely using the fourth character method. I am sure our – what shall I call them? – normal publications are all sedulously monitored but that way yours won’t be so we can hoodwink our enemies.’
‘That is a clever move, Comrade Secretary General,’ said Ah Fat, unctuously with his secret thought in mind. I’ll work on that later, best done with Mr C C Too down in Kuala Lumpur …
The Secretary General noticed a far-away look in Ah Fat’s eyes. ‘You do understand, don’t you?’ he said slightly sharply, ‘because there is one other point I wish you to make clear to the person whose name is on that piece of paper. From now on whenever the mole sends me anything, for security reasons she must only sign her letters “Ng Heng, Representative of the Malayan Races Liberation Army”. This is especially important in any document that refers to peace talks and amnesty.’
‘I fully understand, Comrade,’ Ah Fat answered, poker-faced. ‘I was just digesting all the implications. I congratulate you on your resourcefulness.’ Chin Peng looked smug. ‘I expect you would like me to go sooner than later.’
‘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.
