A Painter in Penang: A Gripping Story of the Malayan Emergency

by Clare Flynn

  ‘How did you get on? Was it beastly?’ Mary’s eyes were filled with concern.

  She got up from the table and went to Reggie, putting her arms around him and resting her head on his chest. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

  ‘I hope I don’t ever have to go through something like that again.’ Reggie shook his head, his eyes sad. ‘Bloody awful. Poor Verna was distraught. The estate workers are in fear of their lives. There was a miserable little ceremony to bury the three chaps. All far too young. Allison was the oldest and he was only fifty-five. And that poor Christian fellow still in his twenties with his whole life ahead of him.’ Reggie looked away, shaking his head.

  Jasmine bit her lip. She felt conflicted. Bintang’s words were fresh in her mind, but he surely couldn’t condone the cold-blooded butchering of planters? Tying them up and blasting them with tommy-guns was a cowardly act.

  ‘And that useless excuse for a High Commissioner still thinks this is all exaggerated and won’t do a damn thing about it.’

  ‘Surely he’s going to do something?’ Mary, as ever, was conciliatory.

  ‘He’s sent the Gurkhas in, but not enough troops to protect everyone. We planters are going to have to protect ourselves. That means we need to be armed and Gent is doing nothing on that score. I think he thinks if he keeps his head down it will go away.’ He finished off his stengah and pulled out a chair at the table. ‘Well it won’t.’

  Jasmine carried on eating her lunch while she listened intently.

  Reggie helped himself to cold meat and salad, then called out to the amah, ‘Bring me a beer will you, JJ?’

  When Jinjiang returned with the bottle and a glass, he took a swig, then began to eat. ‘I’m going to get the telephone put in here in the bungalow. It’s not enough just to have it out in my office.’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen. And there’s no point as I never use the telephone.’ Mary smiled fondly at her husband. ‘If anyone wants to reach us they can get you at the office. And if you’re not there, the clerk always knows where you are. Honestly, Reggie, please don’t bother. Save the expense.’

  He looked up at her. ‘No arguing, darling. Decision already made. They’re coming to fix it next week. I want you to be able to get hold of me if anything happens or you’re worried for any reason. And the other way round – if I think something’s afoot I can call you so you can either get away or hide.’

  Mary opened her mouth to respond but must have thought better of it. Jasmine wondered if her presence at the table was, as she had learned in her French lesson the previous week, de trop and whether she should excuse herself so they could talk freely.

  Before she could decide, Mary spoke again. ‘Who was at the funeral then?’

  ‘Everyone within driving distance. Usual suspects. Afterwards we all repaired to the FMS Bar in Ipoh. The talk was around how we’re going to keep safe from these devils and how we’re going to get the damn government to take this seriously.’

  ‘What do they want to do?’

  ‘First thing is self defence. All the estates over there have run barbed wire everywhere and put a guard on the gates – we’re going to have to do that here too.’

  Mary looked stricken. ‘Surely that’s not necessary here on the island. I can’t bear the thought of being hemmed in by barbed wire as if we were in a prison camp.’

  Reggie leaned across the table and took her hand. ‘I know, my darling. I don’t like it either. Better that though than putting ourselves in danger. And if those idiots in Whitehall and the useless waste of space sitting in Government House in Kuala Lumpur pulled their fingers out, this could be all over by Christmas. But as they likely won’t, we need to get used to being constantly alert.’

  Jasmine was desperate to ask Reggie if he’d seen Howard Baxter at the funeral but didn’t want the Hyde-Underwoods to think she was interested in him, when she wasn’t, was she?

  But her curiosity was answered when Reggie said, ‘Our friend Baxter was there too. Asked after you, Jasmine.’

  She felt her face turning red.

  ‘How was he?’ asked Mary. ‘I don’t imagine he expected to walk into this when he decided to come to Malaya.’

  ‘None of us did.’ Reggie’s face was grim. ‘But yes, he seems a resilient chap. If he’s half as good with a sten gun in his hands as he is with a cricket bat, he’ll be safe enough at Batu Lembah.’

  ‘A sten gun? I thought he said he only had an old gun that didn’t work.’ Jasmine didn’t like the sound of this at all.

  ‘O’Keefe managed to get hold of some sten guns. Only problem is they haven’t got the ammunition for them yet. A delegation of planters has gone down to KL to see the High Commissioner. Intend to read the man the riot act. I think things may start to move in the next few days. He can’t keep pretending there’s nothing happening. Old fool.’

  A fully functioning sten gun with no bullets or a broken Japanese castoff. Neither would be much use to Howard if the terrorists came calling. He’d be better off with his cricket bat.

  Mary got up from the table and went to fetch The Straits Times. ‘Did you have time to read the editorial today?’ she asked Reggie.

  ‘I read the front page on the ferry.’ He took the paper from her, turned to the editorial and started to read. He gave a long whistle. ‘They haven’t pulled their punches, have they? “Govern or get out!”. Maybe that will convince Gent that he can’t sit any longer in his ivory tower with his head up his–’

  ‘That’s enough, Reggie.’ Mary’s voice was quiet but authoritative. ‘With the newspaper spelling it out like that I don’t think he has any choice but to act now.’

  Reggie nodded. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  * * *

  The newspaper editorial had the required effect and the following morning the High Commissioner, Sir Edward Gent, extended the state of emergency nationwide. Over the following days, terrorist incidents continued, as planters took to driving in armoured vehicles. Barbed wire surrounded plantations and mines, traffic police wore guns, even in the cities, and there were soldiers and special constables everywhere. This was not enough to stop the communists, who could slip in and out of the jungle at will without detection.

  One evening as they ate supper, Reggie said, ‘Next week we have a guest. He will be staying with us overnight.’

  Mary looked up sharply. ‘Who? Why?’

  ‘Some chap from the military. Anti-terror division. He’s coming to undertake a security assessment and help us prepare our defences.’

  ‘What?’ Mary put down her knife and fork. ‘You’re not serious, Reggie. What defences?’

  Reggie coughed and looked down. ‘That’s the point. We don’t actually have any. That’s what he’ll be doing here. Assessing what we need to do. How we prepare ourselves so nothing untoward happens.’

  ‘Nothing untoward? What exactly do you mean by that? Are you telling me we’re in danger? We’re under threat?’ Mary looked quickly at Jasmine who was listening intently.

  ‘Goodness, no! I certainly hope not. We’re a long way from the communist terrorists over here. It’s more of a precaution. And a reassurance. Making sure the place looks like a stronghold will help to keep any CTs away. If we look entirely unprepared it’s an invitation. All cosmetic really. And a case of being ready, should things break out over here on Penang.’ His eyes darted between the two women. ‘Which of course they won’t.’

  Jasmine looked sideways at Mary and saw her jaw was set tight and hard.

  ‘You’re right of course, Reggie.’ Mary reached across the table and took his hand. ‘We need to be ready for anything. And we will be. We’ve been through worse. We’ll get through this. But we can’t forget we are responsible for you, Jasmine, and we’re going to have to let your parents know exactly how the land lies.’

  ‘I’m not going back. If Mummy and Arthur say I’m to come home I won’t go.’ Though she spoke the words defiantly, she realised she couldn’t stay at Bella Vista if the Hyd
e-Underwoods refused to allow her. ‘If you won’t let me stay here, I’ll stay somewhere else. I’ll ask our old amah, Aunty Mimi, if I can stay with her in George Town. Please don’t scare Mummy into insisting I go back.’

  Another glance passed between the Hyde-Underwoods.

  Reggie stretched his mouth into a grim line. ‘Here’s what I think. We should wait and see what this army chap has to say. Once we get a proper assessment of the situation, we can decide what to do.’

  ‘When is this man coming? And what’s his name?’

  ‘He’ll let us know but it’s likely to be the middle of next week as he’s working his way through and I imagine we’re near the bottom of the list. He said his name was Harris. Don’t know which regiment.’

  Mary smiled. ‘It wouldn’t mean much to me if you did. I’m not exactly well-versed in the construction of the British army, darling.’

  Jasmine wasn’t looking forward to meeting another stranger and having to make polite conversation over the dinner table. She had come here to Penang expecting the calm and tranquillity of her idyllic childhood home, and now here she was in a country on the brink of what looked like becoming a civil war. After the suffocating atmosphere of her convent school and the tedium of the rote learning she was expected to do in order to pass her school certificate, being in the middle of a war was a very different prospect. Whatever it was, Jasmine was ready for it.

  20

  Jasmine had been putting off doing something she considered her duty – going to visit her father’s grave. Before the Japanese invasion she and Mummy had regularly gone to tend it and she was feeling guilty that she hadn’t yet fulfilled her promise to Evie to stop by there every now and again.

  Her memories of Douglas Barrington were perhaps filtered through a rose-coloured, childhood lens. To be honest, she had to admit she hadn’t known Daddy all that well. There had always been a distance between them – imposed by him not her. For a start, he’d spent most of his time at Batu Lembah and only weekends with her and Mummy in George Town. He’d always been kind to Jasmine, but it would be stretching things to say he had been affectionate. He wasn’t that type of man. But she had nonetheless loved him with an intense devotion.

  ‘Would you like me to come with you?’ Mary asked her over breakfast. ‘I could leave Frances with Jinjiang.’

  ‘No. I’ll manage. It’s something I have to do. And it’s probably better that I do it on my own. Bintang will make sure I’m safe.’

  In truth, Jasmine was looking forward to spending some more time with the driver. There was so much she wanted to talk to him about.

  * * *

  They set off at around nine, Jasmine as usual in the back seat, Bintang silent, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Trying to talk to the back of his head when she couldn’t read his facial expression was awkward, so she settled back against the leather upholstery and stared out of the window as they descended to George Town, wishing she could be seated beside him in the front where conversation would be easier.

  The cemetery was on Western Road, at the foot of Penang Hill. The graveyard had been the Christian burial place since it superseded the Old Protestant Cemetery in the late nineteenth century. Diseases such as cholera and malaria meant early European settlers had died in large numbers and the old graveyard had rapidly filled.

  Bintang parked outside the gates and Jasmine walked under the tile-roofed entrance porch and into the grounds. She looked over her shoulder and saw he was following her at a distance. Probably Reggie’s instructions.

  The cemetery was a quiet and shady sanctuary, full of trees, peaceful apart from the omnipresence of mosquitoes. She stopped, as she had done as a child, by the grave to Andrew Duncan, a man who had died in the previous decade, before the war. His simple slab tombstone was made distinctive by the addition of a large white marble dog who was lying across the grave as though pining for his master. According to the inscription, he had been only forty-three when his wife Evelyn had dedicated the memorial. The same age as her father when he’d died. And Evelyn was Evie’s name. When Jasmine had seen the tomb as a child these thoughts had not occurred to her, so taken had she been with the large, white, grieving dog. Daddy had had a beloved mastiff too, Badger, overlarge, black and not a little intimidating. After her father’s death, Reggie Hyde-Underwood had taken care of Badger, who had survived the war, the Japanese occupation, and Reggie’s imprisonment, only to die a few weeks before Jasmine had arrived at Bella Vista.

  She walked on, uncertain of the way to her father’s plot. After more than ten minutes in which she was starting to think she’d never remember where the grave was, there it was in front of her. Moss and lichen speckled the surface of the stone but the inscription was still clear. She had brought pagoda flowers, wanting something native to Malaya – a mass of delicate clusters of red, white and orange blossoms. Jasmine arranged them in a tall stone jar, which she filled from a nearby tap, adding two sprigs of foliage from a rubber tree. Her father had been passionate about growing rubber. He had lived and breathed it and was never so happy as when striding along the serried ranks of rubber trees with Badger at his heels. But rubber and Badger had been the cause of his premature death – he had fallen down a disused tin mine shaft while looking for the dog who had run off into the jungle on the edge of the estate at Batu Lembah, and Doug had died as a result of his injuries.

  Jasmine supposed she ought to say a prayer for him, but she wasn’t in the habit of praying and, to the best of her knowledge, Douglas Barrington had not been a religious man. She cleared away some encroaching creepers and pulled up some weeds, then sat back on her haunches and surveyed the grave.

  How would her life have been had her father lived? Would they still be living in the house here in George Town, while he spent his weekdays at Batu Lembah? Would he have survived the war? Would he have been one of those men who stayed behind during the war, like Arthur, or might he have died anyway doing hard labour on the Siam railway, or starving to death in Changi prison? Mummy would have been still with him, instead of living with Arthur in Africa. Wishing Daddy to be alive would be the same as wishing Mummy to be unhappy. For, whatever she thought of Africa herself, Jasmine couldn’t deny that Evie was happy with Arthur and she couldn’t begrudge her that.

  Her reverie was interrupted by the arrival of Bintang, who had evidently been lurking out of sight while he smoked one of his blessed cigarettes. He came to stand beside her and looked at her father’s headstone.

  ‘Good you have place to come to remember dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bintang. I know you have no grave to visit for your parents.’

  ‘Maybe they not dead.’ He gave a shrug. ‘I have place for Siti, but it bad. Not peaceful place like this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We bury Siti where Japanese men kill her on edge of field. Grandmother put wooden sign but it wash away in rains. There is jackfruit tree. After Siti die, no more jack fruit grow.’

  ‘Gosh.’ Jasmine didn’t know what to say. Bintang always appeared unhappy, filled with repressed anger and resentment. But it was little wonder, given the terrible events he had witnessed. ‘That’s awful, Bintang. I’m so sorry.’

  He nodded towards the flower arrangement she had constructed. ‘Flowers for the tuan besar.’

  ‘I’d like to place some flowers for Siti. Would you take me to her grave some time?’ She hoped he wouldn’t be offended. ‘Perhaps I could meet your grandmother too?’

  His face clouded. ‘Grandmother speak no English.’

  Somehow, she didn’t think that was a genuine objection. If it were even true. Yet the expression on his face made it clear a visit from Jasmine would not be welcome. How she wished she could win his trust.

  She scrambled to her feet.

  ‘I don’t want to go back to Bella Vista yet. Will you take me somewhere else? Penang Hill?’

  He frowned, his dark brows dipping over his brown eyes. ‘Tuan say I must stay with you all time. If you g
o in train I must go too.’ He looked uncomfortable.

  ‘That’s all right. We can go up together.’

  ‘You not want to go in train with servant.’

  Jasmine laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Bintang. What difference does that make?’

  His face was expressionless but he drove the car in the direction of the funicular, clearly uncomfortable about riding in the rail car with her.

  Once they were on the train, he tried to stand, but she told him to sit down beside her. ‘If you stand up, you’ll block the view.’

  He sat beside her and stared in silence out of the window.

  Jasmine remembered the last time she had been here, when Howard had talked nonstop to the man in the car who was explaining how the railway worked. Today, they were the only people in the carriage and the silence was deafening.

  When they reached the top Bintang followed behind her, as he had done in the cemetery.

  Jasmine turned round and stopped. ‘For goodness sake, Bintang, please walk with me. I feel very odd walking along with you trailing behind me as if you don’t know me.’

  Scowling, he complied and they walked on in silence.

  When they reached the panoramic view point, where she had stopped with Howard, Jasmine sat down on a bench and signalled to Bintang to join her.

  ‘Visiting Daddy’s grave always makes me sad.’ She stared out over the island below her. ‘He shouldn’t have died. But he was lying in agony for hours at the bottom of an old mineshaft in the jungle until they found him. By then his injuries were so badly infected that the doctors couldn’t save him. I wasn’t allowed to see him as he was so poorly. I wrote him a letter and Mummy read it out to him.’

  Bintang said nothing. He was staring down at his feet. Jasmine noticed how shabby and scuffed his shoes were.

  ‘When I was little I was brought up by the nuns. They used to say that when you died there were four possible places you could go. Hell if you were really bad, Heaven if you were exceptionally good, Limbo if you were good but not a Christian or died as a baby before you had a chance to be baptised, and then Purgatory.’