At that time the Sarawak United People’s Party, SUPP, was not illegal and the two found out that the office of Sim Ting Ong, the Secretary General, was in Jalan Tan Sri Ong Kee, an out-of-the-way place not easy to find. Find it they did eventually, hot and tired, and Ah Ho knocked on the door. No answer. He looked to see if there was a bell: no. He knocked again, louder. An eye appeared at the Judas window, the two men were studied and the door was opened as far as the chain securing it allowed.

‘Who are you?’ a Chinese man asked, tersely.

They gave their names, adding ‘We have heard a lot about Mr Sim Ting Ong and would like to meet him. We come from Singapore, where we have commercial interests.’

‘I am his secretary. Stay here. He normally doesn’t want to meet strangers. I’ll go and ask.’ He was back in a few minutes. ‘Follow me,’ he said curtly, leading the way upstairs and knocking on a door. They heard a gruff command to enter. They went inside and saw an elderly, gnarled and desiccated Chinese man, seated on an upright chair behind a desk. His eyes were like extinct craters, grey, inaccessible and hard as volcanic rock.

The two men from Singapore introduced themselves and explained that, although one of them was a businessman, both had other significant interests. ‘He who sent us here by boat, on which we have to return on board on Sunday, needs a report, positive or negative, about a proposition he has for you. He has heard so much good of you he hopes that he and you are tung chi’ – equal thinkers – ‘about common concerns.’

‘Equal thinkers’ was a term that almost invariably defined a ‘comrade’, nearly always a Communist one.

‘Common concerns? What have you and I in common? ‘The voice was like gravel on a chalkboard, the result of throat cancer surgery which had left him with a profoundly unnerving intonation and a repulsive neck scar to match. He muttered some imprecation under his breath. ‘I say again, concerns about what? I am only a simple politician and not a businessman.’

‘I think it will help you understand if we tell you who sent us to contact you. You may have heard of him.’

‘I’m not interested but, yes, tell me his name.’

‘His real name is Ong Boon Hua but he is widely known as Chin Peng and, like you, is Secretary General of a party. He is a little hazy on details but he remembers hearing, in 1946, the White Rajah, Charles Vyner Brooke handed Sarawak to Britain’s Colonial Office. There was an incident when two youths stabbed Duncan Stewart Brooke, who would have been his successor, wanting to have Sarawak independent and not under the British.’ Ah Ho was delighted that the research he had done in Singapore’s public library was coming in so useful. ‘Chin Peng’s idea is for history to try and repeat itself and Sarawak become ours, the Party’s, not Britain’s.’

Sim Ting Ong’s expression did not change although it was obvious that he was impressed by his visitor’s knowledge. He took out a key from his pocket, gave it to his secretary and told him to open the safe next to the wall behind the desk and take out a small black note book.

The secretary opened the safe, felt around inside, found what he was looking for and handed it over with the key. Sim Ting Ong opened it and turned some pages. A look of recognition passed over his face. ‘And if you are bluffing?’ he asked in a grunted threat.

‘Test us how you like and if you don’t like what we say you can hand us over to the police as trespassers.’

‘You seem sincere so I’ll hear what you have to say. And your purpose? There must be a reason for such a high-level executive to send you to me.’

‘Comrade, there is. We have come to ask you a big, big favour which we are sure you will appreciate. We sincerely hope that after we have explained our aims there will be enough time in the next four days for you to give us your answer.’

‘Tell me all.’

This Ah Ho did and, to his relief, the SUPP Secretary General nodded his approval, saying, ‘Let us eat first then we’ll talk of plans.’  He called out to his secretary, ‘Brandy and three glasses.’  They talked banalities until their meal was brought in. After the plates had been taken away, Sim Ting Ong said, ‘Give me an outline of what you have come to tell me.’

‘It is rather a delicate subject. Initially in Malaya we all thought that those arrogant British would not have the impudence to return here after the war in which their soldiers were so inferior, though better than those drunken Australians I will admit, that they lost both Malaya and Singapore to the fascist Japanese. Even though there were some of them who stayed in the jungle with us to operate against the Japanese, none of them was anywhere as aggressive or skilled as we were. Then the mercenaries from Nepal …’

He was interrupted. ‘Who, where?’

Ah Ho chided himself. He had forgotten no Gurkhas had ever fought in Borneo so obviously they were not known about. He explained them, saying how they had in no way lived up to their fearsome reputation ‘so we thought we could beat them easily. But we found they proved tougher than ever we thought and now we want to get rid of them.’

‘But what is that to me?’

‘I am coming to that. That is why we are here.’ And he told him, in as much detail as was needed to get his points across. The idea pleased Sim Ting Ong and the upshot was that he decided to arrange a plenum for the Sunday morning to discuss it and, hopefully, to get approval – ‘I can’t gather them before then’. If so, they would thrash out a general plan in enough detail for the two men from Singapore to give a satisfactory report on their return. It was only during the plenum did even Sim Ting Ong come to learn that the military forces in the country, the Sarawak Rangers, did not possess any machine guns, sub or light, so could not prevail against the SUPP planned insurrection.

***

Sunday 9 November 1952, 25 Robinson Road, Singapore: Reggie Hutton’s phone rang when it was dusk. ‘9928,’ was the bleak answer.

‘Mr Hutton have you got your hat on sir? Is it too late to come and see you? There are two of us but I don’t think you know my friend.’

‘Where are you calling from?’

‘We have just arrived on the day train from KL and have decided to wait in the station precincts till dark before ringing you. We have yet to fix accommodation for our stay.’

Reggie thought that one out quickly. His wife was away in England and his house had a spare room. ‘Look, you say you haven’t booked anywhere. We haven’t met for a long, long time. We’ll have a lot to talk about, old times et cetera. Come and spend tonight with me.’

‘Yes, we’d like that: old times and new ones also.’

‘Do you know your way around Singapore?’

‘Afraid not but tell me where you live and we’ll come by taxi.’

‘No, stay where you are, I’ll come and fetch you.’

Ah Fat and his Bear stood in a shady place outside the station precincts. When an expensive car drove up and the driver got out, Ah Fat recognised his wartime friend. ‘Come on. Over to the car.’

It was a joyous reunion, they had not met since during the war. Ah Fat introduced his Bear and on the way back to Reggie’s place he explained the way they had joined forces. Reggie Hutton needed to know enough about him to trust him as much as he trusted Ah Fat.

‘I have heard that you and Captain Rance are great friends. When did you last meet?’ and that led on to a brief explanation of what had happened on Operation Janus when his friend had saved his life.

‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘No sir. I don’t.’

They reached Reggie’s place and he offered them a room and a wash. ‘Freshen up before we have a meal’ and went to tell the cook to make ready for two more people.

After eating they sat down for a talk and Ah Fat told his host and friend all that had happened since the killing of the thirty-five guerrillas. It took quite some time to tell. Although it was not in Reggie’s territory as such it was of general background interest to him and he welcomed hearing it. He was particularly interested in Chen Geng – that, in fact, doesn’t surprise me but does confirm my suspicion – and was fascinated to learn about the Sarawak ploy.

‘Now that really is something,’ he said out loud. He was a personal friend of the Commissioner General for southeast Asian colonies, whose residence, ‘Bukit Serene’ – known as ‘Bucket Latrine’ by the expats – was near Johor Bharu and who had considerable sway with the Colonial Office over such matters: looking ahead, it was that relationship and Ah Fat’s briefing that put paid to any uprising in Borneo so there being no movement of Gurkhas there. Members of the SUPP were dismayed when they tried to organise risings in the main littoral towns and found that the Sarawak Constabulary were ready for them. Some SUPP members were arrested for disturbing public order and others fled. In fact it took about a decade before the SUPP became effectively anti-government once more. However, the news of trouble spread to the Iban community with a vengeance, literally, as many of them saw the proposition of an uprising as a cover to look to their own business …

***

Saturday 8 November 1952 and onwards, Sarawak: … Ibans in the Ulu Ai area of the Second Division of Sarawak were probably more fractious than any others. Except for normal family feuds and quarrels about hunting rights, Iban had no quarrel with Iban. The larger political issues of the day were normally too remote for the longhouse dwellers to be affected. When they were, however, parochial outlooks coloured all opinion so much that most Government edicts, orders, plans and ideas were greeted with vociferous antipathy or mute disdain, more likely the former. But the news for action did not come from the Government so could not be ignored.

The Ibans were known as head hunters. The habit of lopping heads off, dying out until it was rekindled during the Japanese occupation, may have been a relic of tribal strife but was now far more likely to be the result of a hen-pecked husband driven to distraction by a nagging wife or a young blood wanting to impress some deliciously nubile lass in order to wed her – both men clocking up enough points to redress an adverse balance in the ‘manhood stakes’. Head hunting was often done by waylaying a small child or an old woman washing in a stream away from the rest of the crowd, in an area probably some two or even three days’ walk from the predators’ own longhouse. Having lopped off the head, the great thing was to get it home before relatives bent on revenge caught up with and lopped the lopper’s off in retaliation.

Each time a head was topped, a joint of the fingers on the left hand, starting with the top of the little finger and working downwards then towards the thumb, was tattooed. Only a few men’s score was so many heads that the back of the left hand was also tattooed. A man’s personal score could thus easily be counted.

One youth, languishing in love but not having any favours given to him, resolved to find a head to show his ‘intended’ how much he was worth. His longhouse, twenty doors long, was situated on the junction of the rivers Sumpa and Ai, in the area of Jambu. The youth’s grandfather, Empikau, was, besides being a Pengara, chief of many longhouses, a famous head hunter with nineteen tattoos, spreading to the back of his left hand. Looking at him one saw an ugly, pockmarked face, heavily tattooed, as were his arms and thighs. He was strong and a skilled hunter, cunning and cruel. From even before the war he had practised head hunting. When, during the war, lost Japanese blundered into his area the temptation was too much. One Japanese officer, weak and hungry, particularly angered him. In his rage he had broken both wrists and ankles and thrown him under the house, which was raised about ten feet off the ground on strong stilts and entered by climbing a notched pole. The wreck of the man had to move on knees and elbows, fighting with the dogs for scraps thrown down. He died within the week. His sword was Empikau’s prized possession.^[3]

The youth’s grandfather’s actions inspired him and although he knew he could never better or even equal them, he could at least start off by getting one head. For that he had to move well outside the area, even where there were no Ibans but another of Sarawak’s many ethnic groups.

He went a couple of days away to Belaga, then moved upstream along a smaller river. At dusk he reached a house where he was allowed to stay the night. The house was of a different pattern from his familiar longhouse in that it was built on the ground and was not a ‘long’ one. Indoors, on one side were separate rooms with, at either end, a raised portion, rather like a small stage. In the middle was a board on legs and, from time to time, plates of grisly and putrefying fish, mud and river, and meat, monkey or pig, were brought by the women of the house. When hungry, people came and sat on a bench next to the board and ate as much as they wanted.

At hand on the floor were large pottery jars, knee-high, with dragon motifs, in which was either putrefying rice or tapioca. Two bamboo tubes protruded through a wooden bung in which water was poured into the neck of the jar onto the rotting matter inside. The men folk took turn and turn about at sucking the water through the tube and at chewing the bits of smelly stuff that were small enough to come through it.

Large gongs were banged intermittently the whole night. Singing, riddle asking and quip making; dogs yapping and snarling when thumped because they got in the way; women talking shrilly; pigs, under the house, squealing; chickens clucking and cocks crowing at various intervals; children crying and shouting all added to bedlam that lasted till dawn. That meant no chance of a chop there or even a good night’s sleep.

He was a determined lad and he helped the group he had fallen in with pole and paddle upstream some three to four hours next morning. The house they went to the next night was just as noisy as the other house had been.