Zhdanov, sensing impatience, blenched visibly and quickly covered some more details before saying, slightly more robustly than before, ‘You will notice that I have not mentioned the two white countries, Australia and New Zealand.’ He went and pointed out on the map the counties so far mentioned before returning to his seat. He looked firmly at each member in turn and continued: ‘Let me explain. Recently I have had the General Secretary of the Australian Communist Party, Comrade Lawrence Sharkey, “Lance” to his friends, with me. He has gone back to Australia, where he needs no help from us at the moment, with our Chairman’s orders to brief all potential leaders in the colonial countries concerned that I have mentioned through their trusted intermediaries. The last I heard from him was that he had indeed managed to contact all relevant comrades who need to be involved. Now, with the help of his Indian comrades, Sharkey has arranged to attend an innocent-sounding gathering, a Southeast Asia Youth Conference, to take place in early 1948, probably in February, followed by a full Indian Communist Party Plenum, both in Calcutta. The delegates will be fully briefed on how they should put their anti-imperialist plans into action, each according to circumstances in their own particular country and reinforced by our concept. Comrade Lance Sharkey will be our link and his intimate knowledge of the Orient will be the main means of that concept being successfully promulgated in full and final detail. We can do no better than that. The Calcutta conference will be our “tipping point” to eventual victory.’
He looked around the table, expecting acknowledgement, nor was he disappointed. There was nothing in his project to upset any hardliners. He had everyone’s attention.
‘It is my opinion,’ Zhdanov continued, ‘as soon as the Indians have punched the British out of the ring, the time will be ripe for a knock-out blow in the rest of their Asian colonies to push them through the ropes. The virulent anti-British propaganda employed by the Indian Congress Party has been immeasurably helped, in fact, from this very room, as indeed has the basis of all anti-colonial rhetoric.’ And he allowed himself the ghost of a smile of satisfaction. ‘So you can see that Comrade Lance Sharkey’s efforts will merely be pushing at an open door. Not only that, I have persuaded him,’ he added proudly, ‘on his way back to Australia to have a full meeting with Singapore’s and Malaya’s comrades about starting the armed struggle soon so that matters can come to an early and successful conclusion before any more British troops can get there after leaving India, probably in early 1948.’
‘Excuse me, Comrade,’ broke in the Foreign Minister, an elderly man whose face was all angles and planes. ‘Surely British troops will have gone back to the United Kingdom when India has self-rule and not to Malaya where, my understanding is, there are only two British Army infantry battalions and one gunner regiment at most.’ He paused, shrugged and made a grimace of superiority. ‘Nothing local guerrillas can’t cope with, and the colonial Malay Regiment is no threat either.’ He brushed a lank forelock from his forehead with a smile as warm as a skull.
The Director of the Joint Planning Staff, who worked at 19 Frunze Street, broke in. ‘We have nothing on our books or in our files as a counter to any threat posed in that context.’
‘Comrade,’ continued Zdhanov, with a nod at the Director, ‘I agree with you but I have had it from my chief source in India, Mr Bugga, that great efforts are being made to get some of those excellent fighters, the Gurkhas, from the Indian Army transferred into the British Army. Most are due to go to Malaya, some to Hong Kong. Comrade Sharkey’s visit will not be before the British Army Gurkhas are deployed there but my sources have other plans to delay Gurkha deployment.’
‘So, it will be so much easier if Gurkhas don’t go to Malaya’ another member commented.
‘So much the easier, I agree, but go they will. I am planning that one of my Indian agents will try and postpone their leaving India by one year so that our Malayan comrades can get a firm, unshakeable foothold that a late Gurkha arrival won’t be able to dislodge. In any event I have already made another plan to scupper any permanent lodgement there. I plan to use an asset, cultivated by our man Vikas Bugga in Darjeeling,’ he rose again and pointed it out on the map. ‘He is our link both with comrades there and the delicious tea that the British started setting up commercially in 1852.’ He felt he had to show the others the extent of his research. ‘Our man there has his own network of young anti-British, Darjeeling-based Gurkhas he can use.’
‘I thought the Gurkhas came from Nepal, not India,’ someone objected.
‘Correct, Comrade, they do but there are some Indian-domiciled men from Nepal who have been working in the Indian tea gardens for fifty or sixty years. I understand that they have lost their innate Himalayan robustness by living in British India but they are the better educated for living there. I really do have the right person to ensure that our project goes as we wish it to. Also, I have recently found out that, when was it now?’ a pause while he thought, ‘yes, in 1904, some Gurkhas from those tea gardens went to Malaya to work on the rubber plantations there. I have heard there are three such British-run places with Gurkha labour. Comrade Sharkey has enough knowledge to ensure they must be used as an essential link in our task of influencing the British Army Gurkhas favourably to our cause after their arrival.’
‘Just one more point,’ said someone else. ‘Surely, with our potential in India, we could arrange for a cessation of any British Gurkhas by “leaning on” the Indian prime minister who will, in turn, “lean on” the government in Nepal. It will not have escaped anyone’s attention that India has its fingers on Nepal’s jugular, Nepal being land-locked.’
He laughed and the assembled company clapped in appreciation, both of the concept and the amount of planning detail that had so obviously been achieved to put it into action. The participants had to pretend that their approval was needed although everyone knew such was only a formality. Indeed, Zhdanov would never have started on the project in the first place had it not initially received the Secretary General’s ‘blessing’.
The Head of the MGB, which had its main office at 2 Bolshaya Lubuanka Street, said, ‘What is needed is a secret office for intelligence-gathering, gazvedka, which was, as we all know, a critical part of operational doctrine during the Great Patriotic War.’ Well into his stride he continued ‘Vnezapnost’ – surprise – ‘and maskirovka’ – deception, concealment – ‘must be our permanent watchwords. It was those two aspects that immeasurably helped our victory against the Germans.’
He looked around: there was no dissent. ‘I can’t say where but somewhere in Asia where it can act as a point both for the collection of and dissemination of information essential to helping our cause and so hindering the colonialists. Is Darjeeling suitable for this?’
At that Zhdanov felt he had lost some ground in his presentation so, to make up, said, ‘I have ordered some Darjeeling tea to be made ready if you would like to use that as a token toast to our potential victory.’
Stalin raised his hand in pleasure. ‘I agree. Tell the Duty Officer to have it brought in. We will drink it as it has been drunk in our Rodina for as long as we can remember.’
Two white-coated orderlies brought it in on silver trays. ‘With no Germans in the queue there’ll be plenty more of it later even if we run out of it soon.’ Seldom had the Secretary General been seen in such a good mood.
Tea was poured out into cups with a small amount of white-cherry preserves. They drank it in the traditional way, first putting some of the sweetened cherries into their mouth, then letting the tea wash around them. It made conversation awkward, but it was Russian in style and taste. As they sipped, Zhdanov started to give more details but was interrupted by Stalin, ‘Let me sum up for Comrade Zhdanov. Before now the sun never set on the British Empire with their colonies coloured red on maps. The colour will still be the same but the red will be the red of our flag and of the sun that will never set on any of our devoted comrades, only on our bourgeois and beatable enemies.’ Zhdanov was the hero of the hour.
It was after dark when the meeting broke up. The inside perimeter of the Kremlin walls was lit with harsh, blue-white light floods. MGB troops and soldiers of the Taman Guards Division, ceremonial troops with minimal weapon training stationed at Alabino outside Moscow, appeared and disappeared in splashes of floodlights as they patrolled the area. As the black Chaika limousines, with their distinctive Central Committee number plates beginning with the letters MOC, carrying their senior Comrades, rolled out of the front entrance, they were smartly saluted. They sped down the centre lane reserved for the vlasti, the elite, the fat cats in what had become of Marx’s dreamed of classless society; a society rigidly structured with layer upon layer of ossified, hypocritical inefficiency and class-ridden as only a vast bureaucratic hierarchy can be. But as long as the way these people ran affairs, Rodina would be safe for ever, surely? – but, like so many other plans made by the Soviet Union, there was less in this one than met the eye, with appearances having more weight than reality and perceptions seen as more important than facts.
***
Friday August 1947, Darjeeling, Bengal, India: The British and Indian communities celebrated Indian Independence Day in their own fashion and inclinations, the British ineffably sadly and the Indians gloatingly gladly. The only Englishman to be glad was a Captain Alan Hinlea, a Gunner officer on leave there. He and his father in England were both devout card-carrying Communists and son Hinlea was so thunderstruck by Britain’s leaving so many in India dirt-poor that he just knew that India would redress affairs now it was independent. He had happened to hear someone, a young Nepali, addressing a crowd saying that it was wrong to have Gurkha soldiers in the British Army in Hong Kong and Malaya. It should be stopped if it had started and prevented if it had yet to start. It so cleared Hinlea’s mind that he followed the Nepali when he left, to try and find out more of his ideas.
He saw him stopped by a hirsute Indian outside a teashop and addressed as Padamsing Rai and the Gurkha answering, calling the other man Mr Bugga. They went into a tea shop and Hinlea followed. Upstairs he sat at a table in hearing distance of the other two men who ordered a pot of tea and some honey sandwiches. When he overheard the conversation turn to Padamsing Rai being ordered by the Party to join the British Gurkhas in Malaya in his role of influencing them against the British Army to such an extent that they’d be disbanded, Hinlea could hold his patience no longer and joined them, showing them his Communist membership card that he always carried.
He learnt that before joining up Padamsing was due to attend a South East Asian Youth Conference in Calcutta. ‘I have an idea, please listen,’ He broke in excitedly, ‘Let’s work together. I hear 12 Gurkha Rifles is to be made into Gunners. I am a Gunner. I’ll volunteer so you also try to join that regiment. Together we’ll manage to disrupt matters so efficiently, we’ll both be Politburo heroes.’
And in the fullness of time that is what did happen.[2]
***
Friday 28 November 1947. Red Fort, Delhi: The senior British Army officer left in India was a Brigadier, known as Commander, British Gurkhas India. A tall, handsome man, honoured with several bravery awards, a natural leader, tense, responsive and one hundred per cent dedicated, he had served with the Gurkhas his whole career. Now his task was to liaise with the Indian authorities, pricklier by far than any hedgehog ever knew how to be, to arrange for the five remaining Gurkha battalions and four regimental centres, with some still in West Pakistan, to leave India for pastures new. Three battalions detailed for Crown service were already in Rangoon. The difficulties were almost insurmountable, with problems unending. Scheme QUIM, Quit India Immediately, had 31 December 1947 as a deadline for all British military personnel to have left, a seemingly impossible date to meet. Relevant queries, all of the highest priority, were ridiculously slow in being answered, if answered at all. Payment, correct and timely, for everything was now the norm: for clothes worn, stores to be taken, food eaten, fuel for vehicles, fodder for mules, handing over barracks lived in, in one case for more than a hundred years, and paying for any damages – cracked windows seemed unnecessarily expensive! – transport to railway stations, then for trains, then finally for shipping all had to be paid in full before any movement was authorised. The Brigadier had a minuscule staff of Indians, not Gurkhas, and was completely overburdened.
His small office was on the third floor of one of the buildings near the entrance of the Red Fort complex.
Came a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ he called out, wearily and warily.
His Indian clerk entered. ‘Sahib, a visitor has come to see you. Here he is.’
In walked a middle-aged, suave Indian whom the Brigadier had met before but knew only slightly. ‘I am sorry to disturb you, Brigadier sahib. I know how frantically busy you are.’ The man’s English was perfect. ‘My name is Dutt, Anil Dutt.’
‘Not at all, not at all.’ The Brigadier had stood up, glad to stretch his legs. ‘Please sit down, Mr Dutt,’ the Brigadier said, pointing to a chair to one side of his desk. ‘I can certainly spare you some of my time.’
The Indian visitor had a beak-like nose and strange, jutting mouth with a thin upper and a thick lower lip which protruded beyond a sullen, bony jaw, a rugged, ugly face. The Brigadier felt that there was something about him that did not ring true, hard to pin down quite what. For his part, the Indian, now seated, saw one whose eyes demanded attention, cool wells of reserve, flanked not by laughter lines but creases of careworn deliberation, belonging to one who was having a running battle without knowing who or what awaited him.
He’s on the defensive and a hard one. Will I be successful? Mr Dutt thought, refusing an offered cigarette, came straight to the point. ‘Brigadier. I am an advisor to a cabinet sub-committee. I have come to see you in your role of Commander, British Gurkhas India. We, too, are overburdened with new problems, to say nothing of a completely unwanted struggle over Kashmir. We can fully appreciate how hard you are finding moving your Gurkhas overseas.’
The Brigadier, a man of few words, nodded.
‘We have heard, true or false but probably true,’ the Indian continued coyly, ‘that standard accommodation both in Malaya and Hong Kong will not be ready for most units for at least another year.’
‘Yes, Mr Dutt. Indeed that is a problem but I don’t think it is as severe as you are making out.’ What business is it of his? What’s behind this? Why now when everything has been settled?
‘The purpose of my visit is, so far unofficially, to get your reaction to my government offering your government accommodation and all facilities, on payment of course, for a year while your accommodation is being built.’
The Brigadier, ever courteous as only an English gentleman can properly be, stood up. ‘I thank you, Mr Dutt, for your kind offer which I can tell you here and now I totally reject. It will not be worth my reporting it to the War Office in London,’ and, making for the door, opened it.[3]
The Indian left without a word and neither man offered his hand. I knew it would be hard to sell. I’ll have to alert Sharkey and let Pavel Dmitrievich Yerzin know. This last was Dutt’s MGB handler who had recently arrived in a ‘trade’ guise.
***
Friday 19-Tuesday 30 March 1948, Calcutta, India: The Conference of Youth and Students of Southeast Asia Fighting for Freedom and Independence, familiarly known as the Southeast Asia Youth Conference – a youth being anyone up to thirty-five years old – lasting from the 19th to the 23rd of March, took place in Wellesley Street under the ægis of the Indian Communist Party but orchestrated by the Soviet MGB. Its organisers had thought that the shortened and unassuming title was a way of avoiding suspicion and undue scrutiny. Its genesis lay as far back as 1946 when Soviet anti-imperialist policy was formulated with the aim of indoctrinating those whose job would be to spread Communism all over colonial southeast Asia by teaching the participants how best to prepare for and then launch the Communist-inspired risings against the imperialist colonialists.
Apart from such representatives, the rough-tongued Secretary General of the Australian Communist Party, ‘Lance’ Sharkey, had accepted an invitation to attend and, as he was rated as a ‘star’, to address the meeting. He was a tactless, forceful bully, hostile to his own government and had never allowed anyone or thing to stand in his way. His face chimed in with his character, frowning, bellicose and alert for insults.
He had flown from Australia to Singapore and now, aboard the SS Rajula alongside Keppel Dock, hot and sweaty, he was parched. He quickly went to the nearest bar and ordered himself a pint of ice-cold beer. That went down in two long, gorgeous gulps. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, ordered a refill and sat down on a long-legged stool. Ignoring the other drinkers, he thought back to the recent past. Having got his visa, he had flown to Singapore the week before, staying in a small hotel in Beras Basah Road, not far from the Chinese comrade, Lee Soong, a fluent English speaker, who had been a member of the post-war British Military Administration’s Singapore Advisory Council as well as on the Town Committee of the Communist Party of Malaya, MCP. He had been to Prague the year before as a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth and was a skilled operator.
Sharkey had paid a protocol visit to the new Secretary General of the MCP, Chin Peng. Nothing substantial was discussed and an invitation was given to the Australian to attend the MCP’s 4th Plenary Session on his return from Calcutta.
Thinking about what had happened to date and well into his third pint, Sharkey had not realised that the gangways had been withdrawn with the thick hawsers unwound from the bollards. Neither did the withering blast of her deep-throated horn make any impression on him as the SS Rajula slowly made her way out to sea, bound for Rangoon and Calcutta, nor did it register when the boat slowed down prior to letting the pilot off.
‘You Lawrence Sharkey?’ A drawling, upper-class, English voice intruded into his thoughts.
Sharkey looked around and saw a middle-aged Englishman in white uniform. ‘Yeah, what of it?’ was his surly answer.
‘Just come to warn you to keep your bloody Commy nonsense to yourself. You’re not the sort of person we like in this part of the world or on board. Understand?’
‘And who the eff are you, for God’s sake? An effing Pom dressed in fancy white.’
