‘Yes, I am,’
The purser looked down a list. ‘You are in cabin number 1 on the port side. I’ll call the cabin boy’ and he pressed a button on his desk.
‘Port?’
‘Yes, “port” means ‘left”.’
‘Am I sharing it or have it to myself?’
The purser smiled. ‘You would only share it if you had booked to share it. You are on your own.’
‘May I ask who is in cabin number 2?’
The purser looked down at his list. ‘Someone who will mean nothing to you, a Captain Jason Rance, the OC Troops, going both ways, like you.’
Ah Fat pretended to look blank … Tradecraft! But what a wonderful opportunity! We won’t have been together for so long since we were schoolboys.
***
Thursday 13 November 1952, Singapore Docks: Jason reached Jetty number 10 and saw a Movements Warrant Officer, Class 1, with a nominal roll standing in front of the leave party and went up to him. ‘I am the OC Troops, Sergeant Major. You are going to check everybody as they embark, families and single men alike?’
‘Correct, sir. My name is Mr Hutchinson,’ he added frostily as only Commanding Officers were deemed eligible to call such a senior person by his rank when he spoke to him. Every one lower than a lieutenant colonel was expected to address such a person as ‘Mr So-and-So’. He was a bluff, burly man, obviously competent at a certain level yet Jason had the feeling he would be easily waterlogged beyond the shallows of the commonplace.
Jason made that august warrant officer look uncomfortable as he saluted him and said, ‘Mr Hutchinson, I am merely Captain Rance. Please give me details of how you are managing this task.’
Mr Hutchinson had the grace to grin ruefully. “I will call them forward, first families with the name of the head, Gurkha officers to go to their 2nd Class cabins and finally single men by units, checking them as they walk up the gangway.’
Jason nodded and in a loud voice so that all waiting to embark could hear him, repeated that in Nepali. ‘ … and once you’re all safely on board I’ll come and see you.’ He knew that his own battalion’s Gurkha Major was among the leave details and called out so all could hear, ‘GM Saheb, when I am ready I’ll call you over the Tannoy system to come to the Purser’s Office and we’ll go round together.’
‘Hunchha Hajur.’
‘Before you go, sir, do you know that I have two members of the Corps of Military Police, Red Caps, escorting a prisoner among the men you are responsible for?’ Mr Hutchinson asked.
‘No, that I don’t. Where and who is he?’
‘Mr Hutchinson looked at his list. ‘He is a rifleman, demoted from acting sergeant, from 1/12 GR and his name is Padamsing Rai.’ The man I spoke to on the phone before going to Kelantan! He is in the detention cell in one of the buildings on this jetty. He will be in the brig on board. The two Red Caps will be responsible for exercising him each day and escorting him to and from his meals. They are also responsible for taking him the whole way to Calcutta and once there will sign him over to the civil police who will, so I’ve heard, escort him as far as the Gurkha Recruiting Depot in Darjeeling, I think it is. Once there he will be paid what he is due, given his release documents which won’t make ‘ealthy reading, I can assure you, sir, and officially dismissed,’
‘I suppose I ought to go and see him and warn him to behave himself once he’s on board.’
‘I’ll take you along once all your troops are inside.’
It took a long time to get everyone embarked, what with frightened and fractious children having to be carried on board when they could have walked. There was one little girl who was so ill she had to be taken to the sick bay rather than to her parents’ cabin. Jason was assured that there was a competent ship’s doctor on board.
‘Captain Rance, sir. I’ll take you along and show you the prisoner.’ He glanced at Jason’s shoulder titles. ‘From your lot, sir. Bad news.’
Jason agreed that it was and most unusual in a Gurkha battalion. They went over to the cell, a pokey little room which was almost unbearably hot. The door was opened and the prisoner was ordered to stand to attention by one of the Red Caps who had been standing outside.
‘Rifleman Padamsing Rai. I am Captain Rance, the OC Troops. I am responsible for you till you get to Calcutta. I don’t know why you are here or what has happened to make you no longer a soldier but, until you are discharged, you are still under military discipline.’
‘Rance saheb. You and I spoke on the phone some time back when you told me you were to be OC Troops and were on your way to Kelantan.’
‘Yes, you must be the one. I can now remember seeing you in the battalion.’
A tear came into the Gurkha’s eyes. ‘Sir, there has been a dreadful mistake. I am not guilty of any misconduct. I can’t understand why I am being dismissed.’ He had been surprised, shamed and shocked when he was found in the same bed as the British sergeant by two members of the Special Investigation Branch, as had the British Sergeant also been. Such behaviour was anathema to the British Army and there were government laws strictly forbidding it. To say it never occurred between consenting hill men could be wrong but it was so rare as to be taken as never happening. Rance guessed that the man’s removal from the army was the result of his report and was secretly relieved to see him on his way out but surprised at the speed of such happening. As for the Gurkha himself, he had not put his untoward behaviour down to his discharge and had thought that his communist activities must have been found out and were responsible for it. Just in case something serious happens to me I will never let on what I joined up for he vowed to himself. If Ah Ho finds out he could reach me back at home.
He heard Captain Rance say ‘I don’t know either. Sorry, nothing about changing the decision in your being dismissed is in my hands’ before he moved away.
The Movements Warrant Office said to the Military Police Corporals, ‘Take him aboard and put him in the lock-up. I believe the purser knows about this. In any case, check before and, don’t forget, get a signature for him when you hand him over to the Calcutta Police. The prisoner was led away and at long last Jason saw it was his turn to walk up the gangway with his suitcase.
His first impression on boarding the Chinese vessel was the strong small of cooking, something he had not noticed on other ships he had sailed in. He went to the Purser’s Office and reported in. ‘I am Captain Rance, OC Troops for the voyage, both ways,’ he said in English.
The purser looked at him, trying to hide his dislike of all Europeans who, to him, smelt of bad meat. ‘You are in cabin 2. I’ll ring for the cabin boy who will take you up.’
‘Thank you but I’d prefer it if he merely took my case. I must go and see if my men have settled in properly and have anything to report. If you need to talk about the prisoner you can contact me at any time.’
‘I understand.’ Law Chu Hoi, not used to thinking that red-haired devils had any interest in anyone but themselves, hid his surprise. ‘If that is what you wish. If you need help in finding your way around the boat I’ll give you someone to help you.’ It’s my job to be civil … He also gave the OC Troops details of meal timings, reporting sick and made mention of boat drill.
Jason asked the purser if he could use the Tannoy loud speaker and, reluctantly and somewhat rudely, pushed the microphone through the bars at him. He asked the Gurkha Major to come to the Purser’s Office and told the deck passengers that the two of them would visit them shortly. Cabin passengers were not included but he would visit them with any ship’s inspection on the morrow.
Up in cabin 1, Ah Fat, who was lying on his bunk, drowsing, not having had such an idle time for as long as he could remember, shot up, smiling, when he heard that oh so familiar voice. I thought he’d never come! Ah Fat understood quite a lot of Nepali, having worked with Gurkhas, so knew it would be a while before Jason reached his cabin. I’ll surprise him he chuckled softly, but how?
Meanwhile someone had taken Jason’s luggage to his cabin and Ah Fat heard the door open. He slipped his door open quietly but no Jason, only his baggage. He’ll be along later.
After the GM saheb had come to the Purser’s Office the two of them, along with a ship’s guide, took them to the mess decks. Everyone seemed as content as they could be when herded together in a hot, sweaty and cloistered atmosphere. On each mess deck Jason told them details of meal timings and what to do if a man became ill. At the end the GM invited Jason into his cabin where his wife and three children were, all still a bit afraid of their new surroundings. In his wonderful way Jason used his ventriloquist skills to get the children shouting with laughter and their mother smiling broadly so they forget their fears. ‘I’ll be on my way now, GM saheb’ said the OC Troops, making namasté to the mother and waving to the children, went up a deck from the 2nd Class cabins to the 1st.
As he was opening the door a pair of hands covered his eyes from behind and ‘Guess who?’ was whispered in his ear.
He spun round. ‘P’ing Yee. It can’t be true,’ but of course it was. ‘What a wonderful and unexpected surprise’ and they embraced warmly. Separated they looked at each other and both started talking at once. That made them made them laugh out loud. ‘Flat Ears, let me have a shower and a change as I need both and then we’ll have a great chat. It must be extra special for you to be on board here. I’m dying to hear all about it.’
