‘He was billed as Jason Rance being a working name, he being a closet comrade. I can’t imagine anything unpleasant happening to him. There’s one cool man who can look after himself.’
‘So now you will go back to your jungle base. Oh, what happened to your Bear? You haven’t mentioned him.’
‘There was only one ticket for me, nothing for him, so I sent him back to his family. I’ll catch tomorrow’s day train to KL, pick him up and back to base it is.’
‘And C C Too. Will you meet him?’
‘Originally I had intended to but that means a delay and really I should show my face as soon as I can now. Is there any way of your briefing him, even though all I’ve told you is outside his territory.’
‘I’d rather you did if you could. There are some questions I might not be able to answer.’
So, Ah Fat agreed and, it being bed time, both of them turned in, Ah Fat glad that the bed was still and not moving.
At KL Ah Fat met up with his Bear. He was tempted to spend a few days with his own family. He went and saw C C Too and gave him a detailed briefing and it wasn’t till the following Wednesday that the two of them moved north. On Monday 22 December, fortunately having met up with a courier and escort, the two men reported back to the MCP HQ. They were delighted to see them and agog to learn what he had found out and what would the future now hold.
It only now occurred to Ah Fat whether to tell them the truth or let them live in false hopes. ‘I’ll brief a Plenum, Comrade Secretary General, as soon as you can arrange one. But now, so delighted am I to be back, please let me relax for a day or so.’
They fixed a Plenum for two days later. That gave Ah Fat plenty of time to consider what to say. He realised that they would not have heard the false news of mutinying Gurkhas nor about the Barrackpore coolies. He’d merely talk about the meeting in the consulate. In fact, whatever he did tell them, as far as he and Jason were concerned, both Operations Tipping Point had been a success. Yes, and for them let it be a failure.
Having made up his mind, he knew how best he would manage the Plenum. There was a smile on his face when he went to sleep that first night – and on the second. And a broader one, a grin, after the Plenum, there being an inverse ratio to their gloom and his inner joy.
***
Monday 22 December 1952, Seremban, Malaya: Captain Rance travelled by day train to Seremban so it was evening by the time he reached the battalion. The meeting in Singapore, which everyone had judged a success and had congratulated him on his wonderful display of knowledge, had been hard work but worth it. But back in Seremban, in the battalion lines once more, Jason really did feel like coming back home. He put his kit in his room and went to visit A Company, had a talk with Major McGurk, who garrulously kept the conversation to his weird experience and how stimulating the men were before going round the barrack rooms and letting the men know he was back, little realising that they knew that already.
That night in the Mess he was asked by all and sundry how matters had panned out. ‘Lucky devil,’ one said, ‘Bugger all to do except sun bathe on the First Class deck. You were really on leave, both ways, with the Queen paying your fare, board and
lodging.’
‘Quite right, but jealousy will get you nowhere,’ was Jason’s laughing reply. ‘Tell me what’s been happening around here.’ Anything to keep away from my doings! It was a happy evening, banter and counter banter. The Adjutant told him that the CO would like a word on the morrow, after orders,
around 1215.
The CO welcomed him back. His main interest was the two wartime Gurkhas Jason had rescued. ‘Yes, the Singapore High Commission had approached the Indian High Commission because the two men were in the Indian Army when they were captured. They, in turn, contacted GHQ Indian Army for their repatriation. I gather GHQ will contact their Record Office to find out details of back pay. It will take a while to work out how many years they will get it for. Until Indian Independence or when? The two men were especially allowed to go back by air. They could well have overflown you as they went.’
‘I am delighted to hear that sir.’
‘And the journey to India and back? No trouble?’
Jason thought out his answer. ‘I spent a pleasant night with Muggy Day. I met the Attaché in Rangoon: as our first CO in 1948 that was a pleasant bonus. I am sorry I couldn’t get back earlier but the symposium kept me down in Singapore.’
‘Yes, of course I agreed to what they asked. What was your main point?’
Jason thought back over the past month while the CO waited for his answer.
‘We discussed many tactical issues and I was asked a number of questions about how I had managed with my men. I think I gave adequate answers. And then I had a brainwave. Not that I would or could write a book about any of what I’ve managed to do.’ The CO gave his company commander a quizzical smile – OC A Company’s written reports weren’t up to staff work standard. ‘I’d dedicate it “To the Security Forces, especially remembering those whose home ground Malaya is; Malay troops, Malay Police and especially our Gurkhas, whose skill and tenacity reached the tipping point in the Emergency in our favour.”
‘Isn’t that premature?’ asked the CO, dubiously.
‘Only that from the way matters are going in Indonesia and French Indo-China, Malaya will be the only country where the Communists will have lost on ground of their own choosing.’[4]
The CO asked Jason what examples he had given and he said, ‘I mentioned various points about Janus. You may think I finished up a bit pompously.’
The CO smiled. ‘Well, let’s hear it so I can judge.’
‘I said, if ever I’d write a book about it, which of course I never will, I’d dedicate it thus:
And should you ask, where do they live
These men with skill superlative
Who showed superb initiative
Enhanced their name, achieved success
And gave the ‘baddies’ no redress?
– The Jungle is their home address.
The CO grinned: ‘Just as well you’ll never write anything, Jason.’
Rifleman Pahalman Rai’s story is on page 219 of Gurkhas at War: In their own Words: The Gurkha Experience 1939 to the Present [1999], edited by J P Cross and Buddhiman Gurung. Major McGurk told your author that he had said, ‘“I invoke you in the name of God to tell me what you are doing and who you are.” I had no prior knowledge of the casualty.’ ↵
He did manage to start an armed insurrection against the Nepal government. All of 15 years later your author was shown bullet marks in trees where there had been the decisive fire fight that drove him off to hide in India. He died a pauper with a huge drink problem in 1974, a hero for Bengali university campus students. ↵
Your author met the Vice Consul 42 long years later in Kathmandu and they discussed the whole incident once more. ↵
Communism was also beaten in a territory of their choosing in the Dhofar province of Oman, 1970-1975. One of the key factors was that the campaign was developed ‘in the service of the Sultan’ and working with the grain of local Islamic belief. ↵
