‘To get any Gurkhas over to Borneo Comrade Xi can contact our comrades in Singapore who, quite how I personally don’t know, can contact our Borneo comrades to make plans for serious disruption of normal life sufficiently to get the Gurkhas over from Malaya. The man to arrange for this to happen is Sim Ting Ong, Secretary General of the Sarawak United People’s Party, who lives in Kuching. He will be contacted by comrades going there by boat from Singapore. The man to contact in Singapore is Chen Geng, he has the same name as a general in the People’s Liberation Army which he is secretly proud of. He has an office in Pedder Street. Wait.’ He took a note book out of his pocket, searched for and found what he was looking for and continued, ‘at number 47. His work there is in a normal trading concern so it is safe to ask for him by name. That is the outline for that part of my plan. For the other, the “disillusion” part shall I call it, do you remember what Comrade Lee Soong told us when he came back from that meeting in Calcutta in early 1948?’
‘Remind us, remind us,’ was chorused.
‘That a renegade Nepali from the Darjeeling branch of the All-India Gorkha League’ – he used the English words, even pronouncing the ‘r’ – ‘with some comrades, has enlisted in the army and is, I believe, in Singapore. He was at one time in Seremban. I have learnt that his name is Padamsing Rai of the 12th Gurkha Rifles. He is the senior renegade to have been infiltrated. To start with he was a clerk in their first battalion. He is a well-educated man, far more so than the average Gurkha soldier and I have heard that he is now instructing Gurkhas in an army educational school in Singapore, an ideal place to disseminate our philosophy. He and any others like him could indeed be the catalyst we need for gradually influencing Gurkha soldiers to leave the army and behave in a mutinous fashion till they get home. As you probably know he will have visited one or more of the three rubber estates in Negri Sembilan that have a Nepali workforce to make contact with them. He will have great influence there as I believe he has relations among them.’ Again he looked at the other comrades. ‘Do you agree with me so far?’
‘We approve, we approve,’ was shrilled with applause.
Comrade Lee An Tung continued. ‘Once we have made contact with him and heard how the renegades plan to work, we will plan how best we can help them. I don’t see how we can fail but fail we must not. Getting the Gurkhas away from Malaya, east and north, so preventing them from winning, will be the juin jit dim, the “turning point” for our victory. Let “Turning Point” be our operational codeword.’
Sitting quietly at one side was the non-voting member of the Politburo, Ah Fat. He listened carefully, saying nothing. He knew that ‘tipping’ rather than ‘turning’ was the English equivalent to what was meant in Chinese and also that while ‘turning point’ was not necessarily irrevocable ‘tipping point’ was, even if ‘history turned on a very small point’. In his mind’s eye he saw that his secret work in the south of the country would be his personal Operation Tipping Point to thwart such plans. He had no conception of how he could achieve such a task. It won’t be me if I can’t he thought. The art will be to recognise the chance when it comes rather than bank on it beforehand. A thought struck him: they have not considered stopping Gurkha recruiting!
In due course Comrade Ah Fat and his team moved off southwards in their quest for possible leaks. There was no given time for their return as there was no point in skimping such an important job, was there?
***
Friday 12 September 1952, Seremban, Negri Sembilan, Malaya: After thirty months of continuous jungle operations a period of six weeks ‘re-training’ was decreed for 1/12 GR by Higher Authority. Men were tired and needed refreshing and re-training, so all companies withdrew into their permanent base camp. This not only included certain aspects of modern warfare and weapon classification on the range but also involved a drill competition, inter-company soccer and basket-ball matches making the overall winner the Champion Company. When it was over and before the battalion re-deployed, it was decided to have a ‘Mess Night’, the time-honoured mystical communion of a communal meal undertaken according to strict protocol handed down over many military generations. However, it so happened that the battalion was caught up in an operation code-named Janus, caused by the renegade British officer Hinlea, trying to abscond to the guerrillas. The ensuing attempt to capture him – successful, to everyone’s relief and satisfaction – had meant that the Mess Night had had to be postponed. The following week would see the battalion deployed once more on operations so this Friday was the only day it could be arranged.
Tropical mess kit had not yet been introduced so officers wore ‘Penguin Order’, black trousers edged with black ribbon, white shirts, black bow ties and a green cummerbund. On the long ebony Mess table silver and crystal floated and a row of candlesticks seemed to march in stepless union. In the middle was the centrepiece of two silver cannon, opposite which sat the Commanding Officer, the ‘Karnel Saheb’, father of the battalion, whose word was law and who represented, in person, the Queen. The meal was over by half past eight, the table cleared and dusted down. Only three glasses remained in front of each person, one for each of the individual preference of drink for the loyal toast. At the top of the table sat the President and at the other end the Vice President; from either end three decanters, port, Madeira and whisky, were religiously started on their left-hand journey to the other end, to be passed on by each officer after filling his glass. They only left the surface of the table when raised to pour out their precious contents, otherwise they were slid from person to person to finish up at the opposite end from where they had started.
The buzz of chatter stilled, resurged, then died down at a knock on the table with a gavel. All eyes turned to the President, Major O’Neal, the Second-in-Command, a pre-war regular, now standing up, glass of port in his right hand, blinking with the nervous tic caused from having been a prisoner in Japanese hands for over three years, to propose the loyal toast. ‘Mr Vice, the Queen.’ ‘Queen’ still sounded strange after so many years of hearing ‘King’ since August 1947 and ‘King Emperor’ for so many years in India beforehand.
The Gurkha Mess Sergeant stood rigidly to attention behind his chair.
Major O’Neal, sad-faced, balding and wrinkled, was now burnt out. From the earliest days of his service he tried hard to get to know his men, speaking their language ‘well enough’ although not as fluently as some of the wartime commissioned officers spoke it. To him the soldiers were ‘the little men’: he had been accepted by them because he was acceptable, an English saheb in the same mould as they, their fathers and their forefathers had known British officers for nearly a century and a half. Over those many years of soldierly comradeship, in war and peace, a most remarkable bond of trust and friendship, loyalty and devotion, had been acquired and developed, seemingly unending.
At the other end of the table the Vice President, Captain Rance, now stood up, clutching his glass of port in his right hand. He personally had been instrumental to the success of Operation Janus. Before joining 1/12 GR he had served in Burma with 4/1 GR. He had been engulfed by the war and, like so many others of a similar age, had quickly become older than his years. With his linguistic ability, nimble brain and tactical flair, he got the best out of the soldiers. He had a sense of humour and was slow to show anger even when he felt it, to say nothing of the gift of always appearing cheerful. Initially the Gurkha officers of 1/12 GR, finding him of a different calibre from the staider pre-war regulars, had not quite known how to react to him but they accepted him quickly enough once they found he was genuine, tolerant, reliable, firm, just and fully understood them. He was, in fact, the quintessential regimental officer, yet his obvious ease with the soldiers had drawn caustic comments, mostly behind his back, from the elder generation of British officer who either envied his ability or just did not understand it. Bad for discipline some muttered but they were, in fact, gravely wrong.
‘Gentlemen, the Queen.’
In answer to those sonorous words of the toast, everybody stood up, as one, clasping their filled glass in their right hand, scowling sternly as they faced their front, their turn to intone this semi-mystic litany:
‘The Queen,’
As glasses clattered back onto the table, the field officers added their privileged amen, ‘God bless her!’
Seated once more, from either end of the table the three decanters were once again religiously started on their left-hand journey to the other end and glasses were refilled. Cigars were cut and lit; snuff was sniffed. Then, pleasantly relaxed, Major O’Neal leant back in his chair, head slightly turned, and the Mess Sergeant bent forward to hear what was to be said although he knew the order would be for the pipers and drummers to come and play. At his sign through the open door at the end of the room there was a drone and squeal as the pipers, bags full, started piping. Seven Gurkhas, four pipers and three drummers, two tenor and one base in his leopard-skin apron, dressed in rifle-green jackets with miniature medals peeping through and trews, black leather belts and Highland pattern shoes with white spats, entered the room and what little talk there was dried up. In step, they moved, with slightly swaggering gait, round the table, pipes squealing and drums thumping. They moved with a striking dignity in their bearing and how they comported themselves, erect bodies, in step with slightly swinging gait, brown faces inscrutable and medals aglint. They circled the table twice before the lead piper, the Pipe Major, who carried the Commanding Officer’s personal banner, embroidered with his family crest, swayed gently as a signal for a change of tune. After two more circuits they halted behind the Colonel’s chair, turned towards the table and continued playing.
Some officers nodded their head in time to the tune, some strummed on the table and a few sat stock-still. The Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Williams, caught the eye of Captain Jason Rance, who met his senior’s gaze unflinchingly. Of all my officers, thought the Colonel, that young man will either go the furthest or be the most disappointed. He is brave, clever and has a wonderful rapport with the soldiers who respond to him in an unusually out-going way. As a linguist he has fully made his mark and his razor-sharp brain with almost total recall are all hallmarks of potential. Very different from when I was a young officer, he mused, drawing on his cigar and watching the pipers and drummers march out.
Right hands beat acclaim on the table and cries of ‘shabash’, well done, ended when the seven men played themselves out of the room. The Pipe Major came back by himself, marched at the quick, rifle-regiment pace, to just behind the Colonel’s chair, halted, turned inwards and saluted. The Colonel stood up, took the quaich of neat whisky from the silver salver held ready by the Mess Sergeant and handed it to the Pipe Major.
‘Well done, Pipe Major. You played well. Drink this with our special thanks.’
The Pipe Major took the quaich with both hands, raised it to the level of his mouth and gave the formal toast, ‘Tagra rahau.’ May you remain strong.
‘Tagra rahau,’ answered the officers in a base rumble, words neither formulaic nor perfunctory; they expressed everyone’s wish at this most exacting of times. The Pipe Major drained the contents in one, gave the empty quaich to the Mess Sergeant, saluted, turned to his right and marched away to more applause.
Outside, out of sight and out of hearing, the drummers and the other pipers were also drinking their tipple.
Rance, meanwhile, unaware that the Colonel was still studying him, had turned to his neighbour and was engrossed in conversation. Can he read my thoughts? Colonel Williams asked himself. Highly successful or disappointed: he can turn from a smiling, equitable person to one of intense action with a hard bright flame burning inside him.
The Pipe Major came back, playing a solo lament and, that finished, marched out of the room and, as he stopped playing, there was a short silence before the table was hit harder and the shouts of applause came louder than before. Having left his pipes outside he quick marched back again for another toast: ‘May you remain strong’. Again the answer. Again the applause as he marched out.
Then the last toast of the evening: ‘Mr Vice! The Regiment!’
‘Gentlemen! The Regiment!’
Post-dinner drinks with conversation followed until the CO left. As no one could leave before him, everybody left quickly afterwards.
***
Tuesday 16 September 1952, Port Dickson, Negri Sembilan, Malaya: It was the end of recruit training for the Second Battalion of the Malay Regiment. It had been a stressful, rushed period as there were many more recruits to be trained than in the previous year. The majority of officers were British, seconded from their regiments in the British Army. As a colonial regiment this was accepted but the officers were not long-term incumbents as were British officers in Gurkha infantry units. They served for three-years on secondment only, so maintaining tip-top standards was always a great challenge. They were worried that the time for successful training had not been long enough for a really good result at the final inspection.
The inspecting officer at the field exercises, first at section level, followed by a platoon attack against the ‘enemy’, members of the First Battalion, and finally a company attack was none other than the High Commissioner-cum-Director of Operations, General Sir Gerald Templer himself. The General had heard a British officer give out orders in Malay, had heard others speak to the soldiers and, in general, was not all that impressed with their linguistic standards.
That evening there was a battalion meal, officers and soldiers eating in the same place, a different ceremony from the Gurkha Mess Night, but a significant bond of union nevertheless. The officers wore mess kit, white monkey jackets, white shirts, bow ties, miniature medals and green trousers with a broad yellow stripe. Because the soldiers wore their hats all evening so did the officers, a dark green velvet songkok with the addition of a single gold band. The General, looking superb in his mess kit, with his many orders on his chest, flanked by the CO, entered the dining hall. The Malay RSM ordered the men to stand to attention, drew himself up to his full height, saluted the General and ‘barked’ ‘Selamat petang, Tuan’, Good evening, sir. ‘Askar Melayu yang kedua, boleh makan, Tuan?’ can the men of the Second Battalion eat, sir?
The CO asked the General’s permission for the meal to begin. ‘Yes.’
The CO thanked the RSM. ‘Terima kasih, makan-la’, thank you, you may eat. The RSM turned to the men and said one word. ‘Makan!’ In a flash the men, four hundred of them, sat down, all smiles and attacked their food, mutton or chicken curry and rice, with various side eats. Drinks were iced orange juice or rose water.
Next morning, after his second cup of tea at breakfast in the CO’s quarter, Templer said to his host, ‘shall we go into your office and talk matters over before I fly off?’ There was a note of bluntness in his voice that those who knew his plain speaking would have noticed. The CO, new to the General, didn’t notice it.
‘I was not altogether impressed yesterday. Oh, the men certainly tried hard but they were not sharp enough. I thought that some of your British officers were slack. Listening to their Malay, not that I’m a linguist, I felt that they should have been better. When did the new batch of recruits enlist?’
‘Sir, it should have been in April but that was the fasting month so they came in May when they were still not as strong as they should have been.’
‘But that’s all of four months ago. Surely that’s long enough to get your men up to scratch.’
