The Plantation

by Di Morrissey

  I tried to digest this remark. ‘Gone? Where? Where is my father, Ah Kit?’ I knew my voice was rising.

  He lowered his head, not looking at me. ‘Dead, Captain. They killed him.’

  ‘No, no. How did this happen?’ I asked, scarcely believing what I was hearing, but realising the truth of the matter.

  ‘Tuan Elliott would not leave the estate. He sent us all away. But many of his people would not leave. It was their home, too. Several days after you and the mems left, the Japanese soldiers arrived. Tuan Elliott met them on the steps of the big house and told them that they were not to hurt the plantation workers, who were not at war with Japan. But the Japanese soldiers laughed and one of them shot him. They tied the tuan’s body to a tree in the yard and told us that if anyone touched it they would be shot, too. Then the soldiers went to the kampong and raped many of the women and killed some of the tappers who live there. Ho and I were too frightened to cut down the tuan’s body, but after two or three nights, we decided to try. The Japanese soldiers had found the alcohol that tuan always kept in the house and many of them were drunk, so we quietly moved into the garden and cut down the tuan’s body from the tree and buried it in the kampong, where no one will find it. The Japanese soldiers said nothing the next day because I do not think that they wanted their officers to know that they had been drinking.’

  I tried to straighten up. I wanted to leap to my feet but I knew my legs would not hold me. ‘So these soldiers are still in my home?’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  ‘The workers?’

  ‘All gone away.’

  ‘The plantation? The trees?’

  ‘I do not know. I left too.’

  ‘There’s no one to look after anything. Ah, Bill, this is terrible news.’

  ‘I am sorry, Roland. Your father was a very good man.’

  ‘How long have you been a communist?’ I asked Ah Kit.

  ‘A long time, Captain. On Utopia I know that tuan Elliott was a good man. He was concerned for his workers and yet we were not treated as equals, only as cheap labour. We work many hours for little pay so that your family can be rich. I do not think that is fair. I think that the British exploit us. I think that the British should leave Malaya.’

  I had known this man all my life and yet I found that I really knew nothing about him. I had seen Ah Kit playing around the Kampong when we were young but later I knew him only as a servant. Now I learned that he not only had political views very different from my own, but that he was a brave soldier.

  ‘Ah Kit,’ I said, ‘first you must help us get rid of the Japanese.’

  As soon as we could, we got the radio working and let Delhi know that Roger was alive and well. We were ordered to stay in the jungle and continue the reconnaissance work. And so began many months working in the jungle with Bill, Roger and Ah Kit. Sometimes we worked separately other times we worked together.

  Ah Kit introduced us to more men from the Orang Asli, people who seemed willing to work with us. These natives were clever at being able to locate Japanese patrols and enjoyed terrorising them by quietly seizing the last man and silently killing him. This meant that the Japanese were terrified to go into the jungle and so, if we kept our heads down, we were pretty safe in our kampong. The Chinese communists brought us intelligence about ammunition dumps and watchtowers and the deployment of the Japanese soldiers and we would radio this information back to HQ.

  Since we had this network of Chinese communists, and we thought that we could trust the villagers, we began to move about the jungle and into other areas. This decision led to one or two close calls when we were betrayed by a loose tongue or a villager who wanted a Japanese reward.

  Probably the worst of these events occurred one night when I was alone and came across a Japanese encampment comprising of eight soldiers. Before I got close to them, I made a fatal error. Believing that I could get a better view of their camp, I decided to leave my jungle cover and try to cross the small river that lay between me and the Japs.

  I was lucky that it was only one guard and not the entire patrol who saw me. I was hit in the shoulder, a sharp burn, the force pitching me forward. I rolled into the shallows of the river and pulled myself beneath the surface, holding my breath, and tried to move downstream with the current. The jungle came down to the water and when I couldn’t hold my breath any longer I raised my head and found I was in the long grasses, roots and weeds fringing the bank. I lay there holding on, beginning to feel weak, knowing I was losing blood.

  No more shots were fired. I suppose that the Jap thought I was a native, for I was dressed in a sarong, and as I was in an impenetrable section of the river, he had decided not to follow me.

  I considered my options and thought that all I could do was pull myself out of the water and try to get some sort of foothold on the bank and hope that I’d be found, though I had no idea if I’d last until then. There was a tree with low overhanging branches and a thick trunk. I finally reached it and managed to secure myself to a stout branch with my sarong. If I passed out, I would not slide back into the river.

  The last thing I recall was the screeching of monkeys.

  I’m told I lost a lot of blood and nearly forty-eight hours passed before I was found by Ah Kit and one of the native trackers who’d been searching the river for me. They carried me for several days, back into the jungle and towards one of the safe villages. All the time I drifted in and out of consciousness. I have no idea how they managed to carry me on a very rough stretcher. We were still quite some way from safety when we nearly stumbled into another Japanese patrol. The native, poor soul, realising at once that if they were caught with me they would be executed, fled. But Ah Kit told me to be very quiet and hid me under some leaves and jungle detritus. We remained safe. Ah Kit told me to stay there and he would get help. I completely lost track of time but when I opened my eyes, I found that I was looking at Bill.

  I took quite a while getting over that adventure. Ah Kit managed to find some bandages and some Condy’s crystals and, amazingly, the wound did not become infected. There was no doubt that Ah Kit saved my life. But when I tried to thank him, he only replied that he needed me alive to help him fight the Japanese.

  During the time we spent in the villages of the Orang Asli, I came to learn that Ah Kit was looked upon with great respect by the other communists and even the Orang Asli. I enjoyed sitting and talking with him when we had the chance, although it was obvious that apart from our intense dislike of the Japanese, we now had very little in common.

  ‘When this war is over, old boy, you’ll have to do something for Ah Kit,’ said Bill.

  ‘I certainly will. He can hardly go back to being my house-boy for, as much as I would like that, I don’t expect he would.’

  We continued our work for several more months, but Roger’s malaria attacks were becoming more and more frequent and severe, and Ah Kit was finding it harder to supply him with quinine. Then the radio started to falter. The high humidity was certainly playing havoc with it. Ah Kit managed to get some spare parts smuggled in to us, but, often, by the time he did and we repaired the thing, all the passwords at HQ had changed and we had difficulty persuading our contact that we were legitimate and not being held by the enemy.

  Eventually, HQ decided that it was time to get us all out. The plan was that we would travel over the mountains and through the jungle to the west coast, to meet up with a submarine, which would be waiting for us off one of the coastal islands. By this time, none of us was feeling all that fit. All of us had been ill with various tropical diseases. Bill had had a particularly nasty bout of blackwater fever, as well as the ever-present malaria. The long trek down to the coast was daunting.

  When we looked at our map, Bill said, ‘If we were to walk due west from here, we would get out of the mountains much faster that if we go north-west.’

  Roger nodded in agreement. ‘It certainly would be easier, but then we are exposed to quite a long hike along the coast and t
he Japs are very likely to spot us.

  ‘Not if we were disguised. We were Sikhs to get here, couldn’t we do the same thing again?’ I suggested.

  ‘You and I don’t know the lingo, old chap. We’d be caught as soon as we opened our mouths,’ replied Roger.

  Ah Kit had been sitting very quietly. ‘Plenty of Chinese coolies on the west coast. Maybe you should be Chinese.’

  ‘But the problem still remains. As soon as we have to speak, the Japs will know we’re English,’ I said.

  ‘I will come with you and I will do all the speaking,’ said Ah Kit.

  Ah Kit seemed to have little trouble procuring clothes for us, and a few weeks later, after we thanked the villagers for their help, we made our way to the coast and the rendezvous spot dressed as coolies, carrying large, although not very heavy, loads on our backs.

  Once we reached the coast, we were amazed by the numbers of Japs that we saw. They seemed to be everywhere. Ah Kit did all the talking and we kept to the edges of the road and inside any plantations as much as we could.

  One evening, after we had been walking all day in the tropical heat and wearing very uncomfortable sandals, we camped under some rubber trees for the night. Ah Kit went off for a while and returned, bringing us some coconuts, which cheered us up because the coconut milk was very refreshing.

  ‘It is a pity, Captain Elliott, that we did not have coconuts when you were wounded. The milk is very clean and many people use it to wash wounds,’ said Ah Kit.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘And the taste is wonderful. A lot nicer than Condy’s crystals.’

  Our luck held. Ah Kit managed the Japanese very well. Although they shouted at us and questioned us about where we were going, Ah Kit was able to answer them in such a way that none of them came close enough to our party to discern that we were not Chinese. And I must say that we looked so ragged and unhealthy that they were probably quite pleased to give us a wide berth.

  Our meeting with the submarine was to be off one of the coastal islands, and so we had to hire a boat to get there. This was the most dangerous part of the journey, for there would be no way a boatman would not notice that we were not Chinese, but Ah Kit assured us that this problem could be solved.

  ‘I have been told by Chinese friends which of the Malay boatmen on the coast can be most easily bribed. And my friends have given me enough money to be sure that no questions will be asked and that the man they have named will take you safely.’

  ‘You’re not coming?’ I asked.

  ‘No, Captain Elliott, there is no further need for me.’

  ‘I don’t know how we can thank you,’ I replied. ‘I owe you my life. In fact, one way or another, we all do.’

  Ah Kit smiled. ‘I hope that after the war is over and we both want different things for Malaya, you will remember that.’

  Roger and Bill both shook Ah Kit’s hand and also thanked him.

  ‘Great chap,’ said Roger, when Ah Kit had gone. ‘Wonder what he’ll do after the war. I don’t suppose he’ll settle down to being a houseservant, again. Good men, those Chinese commies, good fighters, but I think they might cause the British problems when the war finishes.’

  That evening there was no moon and the boatman sailed us to the island. While we were sailing across, we made radio contact with HQ and we were told that the submarine would be able to collect us the next night. So we met it and sailed back to Ceylon and from there we made our way to New Delhi and some very mundane war work, since we were judged not fit enough for anything more exciting.

  ‘Disappointing, but I think we did our bit,’ said Bill.

  We were still in New Delhi, when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and the war ended.

  When I finally returned to Malaya and Utopia, nothing could prepare me for the devastation of the plantation. The trees had been destroyed and the kampong and the workers’ huts were burned. The big house was in surprisingly good condition because the Japanese had used it as an administration centre, but Margaret’s and my house had not been so well cared for. The furniture had been badly damaged and the garden destroyed.

  Several months later I was joined by my wife who had seen out the war in Australia and I was reunited with my son, Philip, who had spent the war in a Japanese internment camp in Sarawak with my sister-in-law, Bette.

  Gradually the estate workers and their families came back and I was able to replant the rubber trees. Ho, who had survived the war, showed me where he and Ah Kit had buried my father and I reburied him at our little family churchyard.

  ‘It will never be the same,’ said Margaret one night, not long after we came home. ‘The parties, the friends, the servants, the lifestyle, the luxuries we enjoyed. That life won’t come back.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But while it might be different, it could be better. One day it will be,’ I replied.

  There the memoir ended. Julie closed her grandfather’s small book and put it to one side. She sat there, quite stunned. She wanted to call her mother immediately and say, ‘Oh my God! Great Aunt Bette and your brother Philip were in a Japanese POW camp during the war and we didn’t know. How could Gran not have mentioned this?’ It seemed inconceivable.

  She found her two cousins still up, sitting with bran-dys, watching a football game on the satellite TV.

  ‘Hey, we thought you’d gone to bed,’ said Shane.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ said Peter. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Absolutely. Thank you. I’ve read Grandfather’s memoir and I’m in shock.’

  ‘Turn the sound down, please, Shane,’ said Peter, rising to get Julie a G & T.

  ‘What’s upset you?’ asked Shane.

  ‘I finished reading our grandfather’s memoirs and at the end I discovered that your father and Great Aunt Bette were in a POW camp. My mother and I had no idea. How on earth? What happened? I mean, I can’t believe my grandmother never ever mentioned this? Why?’

  The two boys stared at her, realising that this disclosure was a huge revelation for their cousin.

  ‘Do you really mean that you had no idea of what had happened to them? Dad mentioned it to us but all he said was that he was very young, a small boy at the time and that he didn’t recall much,’ said Shane.

  ‘Actually, he didn’t want to talk about it at all,’ added Peter.

  ‘But he was there with his aunt and not his mother. Why was that? I mean, it seems incredible to me. And for how long? It must have been years. Our grandmother said she sat out the war in Brisbane . . . And all the while her son and her sister were interned!’ Julie shook her head. ‘Do you know, I don’t think that my mother knows about this either. Why? Why would our grandmother have kept it quiet all this time?’

  ‘I suppose things happened during wartime. Grandfather talked about hiding in the jungle, about how crazy the war years were with the Japanese occupation,’ said Shane. ‘No, when I think about it, he really didn’t say much about the war. Most of what we know came from that memoir.’

  ‘Grandfather was rather self deprecating, very modest,’ said Peter.

  ‘When we did ask him what he did in the war, he talked about the lighter side of things,’ said Shane.

  ‘Such as how he and his friend Bill dressed up as coolies, that sort of thing. In retrospect he made it all sound a bit of a Boy’s Own Adventure. We were adults before we realised how courageous he was,’ added Peter.

  ‘After Grandfather died, so many people came forward with stories about how brave he’d been. But he always downplayed all he’d done,’ said Shane. ‘It was Bill who spoke at his funeral and said that Roland should have been given a lot more recognition for his actions behind the lines.’

  ‘Because they were an intelligence unit, a lot of what they did was kept secret and didn’t come out for years,’ said Peter. ‘Then we realised the little we knew was from his memoir. Grandfather was very reserved and rather formal. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t done to blow one’s own trumpet, y’know.’

&
nbsp; ‘We both admired Grandfather but we were a bit in awe of him and maybe we thought him a bit stuffy, in an old-world kind of way,’ said Shane.

  ‘I wish I’d known him,’ said Julie. ‘My, our, grandmother, Margaret, never talked about him in personal terms. And she never talked about why they split up. It’s all such a mystery.’

  ‘Well, perhaps it was the era,’ said Peter. ‘Perhaps Grandmother Margaret was also not one for airing one’s true feelings, like our grandfather.’

  ‘And Grandfather doesn’t say why or how our father got captured in that memoir,’ said Peter. ‘I read it long ago, but I don’t think that he explained how Philip was separated from his mother. And, I must confess, it wasn’t the part of the story that intrigued me so much. Our father was little and always said he didn’t remember much and would only say we should appreciate what Grandfather and those like him did to help save us from the Japanese.’

  ‘Maybe. But I’m still very curious. Are there any other notes, diaries? Anything of our grandmother’s here?’ asked Julie.

  ‘No, nothing at all,’ said Shane.

  ‘I suppose it must have been a traumatic time for a small boy, which is why he didn’t talk about it,’ said Julie. ‘He was how old?’

  ‘About three or so. But really, I think he took a note from Grandfather and didn’t want to talk about the war. But he was very young,’ said Peter, looking at Shane as they tried to recall what their father had told them.

  ‘That’s right. But he had a playmate, Marjorie . . .’

  ‘Mrs Carter! They were in the camp together. He used to say she was like his big sister who looked after him, his war amah,’ said Shane.

  ‘She was in the camp with him?’ exclaimed Julie. ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘She was Marjorie Potts then. Her family were Civil Service people, I believe,’ said Shane.

  ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Peter. ‘She’s as fit as a fiddle and great company.’