‘Oh, Captain Rance, I am so glad you took my advice.’
‘The dead girl’s parents were also glad to have made, how shall I call it, a clean break. Gurkhas keep so much inside, it would have been almost unnatural for them to have thanked you.’
The Captain bowed his head in appreciation.
‘Sir, just one strange point for you. I found this on my bed in my cabin when we left Calcutta. I thought I wouldn’t bother you as we were moving but now we are tied up and you are free to see me, I can give it to you with a clear conscience.’ He handed the letter over.
The Captain opened both envelopes and read the letter. A puzzled frown creased his face. ‘But, how strange. How … ‘
‘Sir, I rudely interrupt. I have absolutely no idea so it is useless your asking me. I bid you farewell.’ He saluted, made his way back to collect his luggage and left the boat as quickly as he could.
Neither Jason nor Ah Fat would ever know that Captain Lam Wai Lim was shocked to the core when he read the inner letter, though they both guessed he probably would be. The purser could not explain the letter that was signed by Dmitry Tsarkov and had the Soviet consulate address on it. He could truly swear on oath that he personally had never been to the consulate, which was, of course, perfectly true, but that could not hide the fact that the letter was addressed to him, Comrade Law Chu Hoi, Purser, SS Eastern Queen. Despite passionate protestations of innocence, even wishing he had known about it earlier, it was the ‘Comrade’ that stuck in the Captain’s gullet even more so when the purser eventually admitted his allegiance to the Party. He lost his job although the purser of SS Princess of the Orient kept his.
***
The last of the returning leave details was getting into the coach provided to take them to the Transit Camp as Jason, seeing no other transport, quickened to board it. ‘Sir,’ the Movements Warrant Officer called out to him. ‘Please wait. I have something for you.’
And miss my transport! The Warrant Officer joined him. ‘I have just had a phone call in my office. A staff car is coming to fetch you. You are wanted to go to Tanglin, GHQ, and meet someone.’
‘Do you know who and why?’
‘No, sir. No details. The car will be here shortly. It will have a pass to come to my office. Come and have a seat till it arrives.’
The car drew up there and then. The driver, a locally enlisted Malay, got out, went over to Jason and saluted. ‘I am to take you to GHQ, Tuan,’ and gave him an envelope.
Jason pleased him immensely by answering in fluent Malay, thanked the Warrant Officer and got into the car. He opened the envelope, eyebrows lifting as he read the letter. It was from the Military Assistant to the Commander-in-Chief. ‘You are to report to GHQ. Please come in plain clothes. Walk behind the main block where there is a wire enclosure. The gate is locked. There is a bell. Ring it. You will be met and taken inside. Tell nobody your actual destination. If asked, say it is a debrief from your last operation. Have your ID card ready. When you have finished come and see me.’ It was signed illegibly by a Major someone-or-other, MA to the C-in-C.
Exciting. Unusual. Another challenge? Even so,I’d rather go back straightaway to my company, my battalion home, time to sink once more into the seeming infinity of jungle work, sweaty body, aching limbs, taut nerves and a camaraderie seldom found elsewhere.
Jason reached for his suitcase and asked Mr Hutchinson if he could use his office to change into mufti. Dressed as a civilian he bade the Movements Warrant Officer farewell, got into the car and was driven to GHQ. At the car park he got out, thanked and dismissed the driver. He went round the back of the main building and there was the gate in the wire. He walked up to it, saw the bell, pushed the button. A civilian escort soon came and asked to see his ID card. He examined it minutely, saying nothing. He opened the gate and beckoning Jason to follow. They went along a short concrete path, flanked by two wire barricades, to another gate where he rang another bell. There he was wordlessly handed over to a second escort. Again, no word was spoken, merely the new man’s finger beckoning him to follow along behind. Spooky! The two of them went to a red-brick, one-storey building, the outside door of which had no handle. The silent escort rang yet another bell. A Judas hole opened and an eye peered at them. The escort left and the door opened. A middle-aged man, again without speaking, beckoned Jason to follow him down a passage to another door and knocked.
‘Come in,’ came a voice and, slightly dazed by now, in Jason went to be greeted by a grizzled, middle-aged civilian with a ferocious expression on his face, sitting at a desk. Another man, tired-looking and lanky, also in plain clothes, was sitting in an arm chair and introduced as ‘coming from the War Office’, with no other details.
The expression of bewilderment on Rance’s face showed his interlocutor it was time to tell him why he had been called in. Jason, innately wise, did not ask any questions about whom and where he was, nor was he told.
‘I have called you in because I have had a lengthy letter from Lieutenant Colonel James Heron whom you so adequately briefed in Rangoon. So important do we consider your report that my guest’ and he nodded to the officer from the War Office, ‘that London also wants to hear you say it all again and answering what questions we put to you.’
Jason could not answer some of the questions, one being the size and number of the array of aerials on the roof of the consulate and another were there any obvious microphones in the room. Others came easily: descriptions of the Russians, the Indian, the contacts in Tangra and the purser.
Jason answered all of them convincingly, until they came to Ah Fat. He looked at both officers. ‘It would be an insult to question your probity, the more so as you are trusting me. I have never told anyone more than that he and I were boyhood friends in Kuala Lumpur pre-war, that we played together and that is how I learnt Chinese and Malay, that he fought with our stay-behind people against the Japanese during the war. Isn’t that enough?’
It plainly was not enough. Both men shook their head. ‘No. How was it he was on the boat in the first place, went to Tangra and had an interview with the Rezident?’
‘I have never told anybody why. There is someone in Police HQ in Kuala Lumpur who knows the story and only he. I never tell anybody because, if it got out, it would mean a long and painful death for him, which nearly happened before but I managed to rescue him at the last moment. I am not ready for that to happen ever again`.’
‘You mean he is a double agent?’ It was the man in the chair who asked.
‘And a non-voting member of the Malayan Communist Party Politburo.’ Spell it out for him. London won’t know what MCP means.
‘Understood and accepted.’ Both men spoke together as though they had practised beforehand.
Satisfied at last, they thanked him for all the data and details he had provided. ‘Unique,’ said the man from the War Office.
‘Just one more question before we go to lunch,’ the man sitting at the desk asked. ‘How did Vikas Bugga manage to be so unexpectedly rude and uncomplimentary to the Rezident?’
Jason grinned. ‘Another top-secret matter lost.’ They looked at him quizzically. ‘I am a ventriloquist and I chose the words for him.’
The other two roared with laughter. ‘That deserves lunch. Come.’
They took him by car to Ulu Pandan, to an eating place named Balmoral. The only thing that did surprise Jason was when the man who had sat behind the desk said, ‘Our lot had this place built.’
***
Jason met the MA, a cavalry officer who wore his handkerchief up his sleeve and his watch on the inside of his wrist. ‘Home and dry?’ he asked with a wink.
‘Not home yet but, surprisingly, dry – or at least I think so.’
‘Strange that you should use that phrase, “not home yet”. There is going to be a large seminar on jungle fighting in a week’s time and you’re needed to get the subjects straight before we start. We have your CO’s permission for this. You will live in Tanglin Mess. You will get back to your battalion in time to enjoy Christmas. Here are the details …’
***
Friday 12 – Monday 22 December 1952, Singapore and Malaya: Ah Fat’s journey back to MCP’s HQ was not straightforward. He was now nearly back in his own stamping ground and, although admittedly Singapore was not where he normally worked, he felt he had a duty to Reggie Hutton to visit him once more, as promised. On leaving the dock area he walked to the nearest café. Inside he saw that there were booths, curtained off so that there was privacy if needed. He ordered a snack and a coffee, took his plate and cup to a table next to the window and, looking outside, slowly nibbled and sipped. He ‘felt it in his bones’ that, somehow or other, he would be checked up. Tradecraft was essential. Movement caught his eye: he saw a Chinese man nonchalantly moving up the pavement on the other side of the road, as though he was looking for something – or somebody. Could be anyone, couldn’t it? he asked himself.
He was just about to ask if he could use the phone in the café, when he saw the man return, talking to … yes! none other than Chen Geng. They crossed the road, making for the café. Quick as a flash he picked up plate and cup and went to the end cubicle, drawing the curtain but leaving a gap for him to look out of.
The two men came in, ordered something at the counter and came to sit in the next cubicle. Their snacks were brought in. ‘Don’t disturb us,’ Chen Geng said. As soon as the waiter had gone out of earshot the two started talking. Ah Fat listened carefully.
‘Did you see the comrade come off the boat?’ Chen Geng asked.
‘No, not off the boat. I went to the place where visas are shown and the man there said, “Yes, an Ah Fat has already left us. I have no idea where he went. That is not my job as his passport was in order.”’
‘I have had an order to contact him. There’s nothing serious but the Politburo in Malaya want to make sure he was on the boat, that he came back.’
‘You mean that they fear he might have decided to defect?’
‘That’s putting it bluntly but yes, I presume that is what they meant.’
‘But he has returned. There can’t be any chance of him defecting, can there?’
‘No, even though he was operating openly, not revealing his true identity.’
‘So, do you want me to continue looking for him? From your description I could recognise him.’
‘I can’t think it necessary. Those people hiding in the jungle get inflated ideas. And fears, too. What I’ll do, no need to tell you the details, is to get a message through to them saying that all is well.’
‘Is that enough? Do you need to tell them when he’ll get back?’
‘Not at all. He operates in his own fashion. There are certain places it’s safe for him to go and certain other places where he has to take great care. A man like him can find his own way back. If the Politburo can trust him to go to Calcutta and back, it has to trust him to go from Singapore up country back to base.’
