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?’
Ah Fat did.
‘Come and see me this evening at 7 o’clock and I’ll give you a meal.’
‘Yes, I’d like that. Is there any way you can bring Chan Man Yee’s address with you?’
‘You don’t want it over the phone?’
‘Better not. By the way, I’ve got my Bear with me but, unless you want to see him, I’d like to send him home for a couple of days. He has not seen his family for too long.’
‘Understood about the address and let the Bear go home. See you later.’
It was nice for both men to meet up, which they seldom did. After pleasantries and with a drink, ‘Tell me all. It must be something serious for you to be here and ask such a question, especially in Mandarin,’ said C C Too, chuckling.
‘It is. The main cause of my visit is that the Secretary General has asked me to produce a new newspaper, the name of which is to be Red Tidings and it is to be printed on paper with a government watermark. But before I go into details of that, what do you know about Chan Man Yee?’
‘We have had her vetted and she has nothing against her.’
Ah Fat took the piece of paper Chin Peng had given him out of his pocket and showed it to his host. On seeing her name and Chin Peng’s signature, he turned pale. ‘Can’t believe it, can’t believe it,’ he whispered to himself. He wiped his brow and took a long pull of his whisky. ‘Okay, tell me everything but first of all how do this woman and the Secretary General manage to combine?’
