In the Mouth of the Tiger

by Lynette Silver

‘I mean it,’ Denis said seriously, climbing to his feet as Agatha brought Tony in to say goodnight. We kissed our sleepy son, a ragged half bar of Cadbury’s still clutched in his hand, and then Denis took me into his arms again and kissed me properly.

  Just as I was dozing off that night I suddenly thought of something and joggled Denis awake. ‘Did you buy Kuala Rau too?’ I asked. Mother’s complaint about Denis buying up worthless properties had triggered the question, and I stared down at Denis through the darkness, trying to read his face.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes I did. I still own the place. I bought it in case we ever needed somewhere in the jungle near Raub. Though I rather think I also wanted to give your mother some money.’

  I relaxed back on the bed, my whole body tingling with happiness. Our code was well and truly back in place.

  I dreamed about Happy Valley that night, something I hadn’t done in years. I was sitting amidst the ferns, looking down from Robbie’s path, and I saw Malcolm and a line of policemen scouring the valley below me. Malcolm looked up, his dark, handsome face tense with anger. ‘We’ll get him, Nona,’ he shouted. ‘It’s only a matter of time, but we’ll get him.’

  I woke up with a feeling of dread. I didn’t know who they were looking for, but I could guess.

  Denis left at dawn the next day for the Naval Base, and again Tony and I waved goodbye as the little Marvelette bounced off down the drive. We were both subdued. The harsh reality of war was that it went on and on. One could keep a stiff upper lip, and smile, and be brave for only so long, but every instance of danger, every parting, chipped away at one’s resources. And for us the war had only just begun. I thought of those in Europe who had already been at war for over two years. How weary they must be, how sick of telling themselves that everything would be all right.

  I expected Denis back that night but instead I had a call from Captain Mulock, the Extended Defence officer. He was brief but kind. ‘Penghulu is on long patrol,’ he said. ‘Probably for a few days. Thought I’d put your mind at rest. You would have been expecting him back tonight.’

  ‘Have they gone up north?’ I asked, and immediately wished I hadn’t because there was a long silence on the phone.

  ‘You know I can’t answer that, Norma,’ he said finally, his voice firm but still kindly, and I felt my heart sinking.

  The next day, a story began to sweep Singapore that the Japanese had taken Penang. Amah mentioned it at breakfast, telling me that people from the kampong had heard a Japanese broadcast to that effect. I pooh-poohed the idea.

  ‘We must stamp out these false stories, Amah,’ I said severely. ‘The Japanese start such stories to damage morale. Every time we repeat the story, we help the Japanese. Please tell everyone you meet that I spoke to friends of mine in Penang on the telephone only this morning. Tell them that everything is fine up there.’

  Amah nodded, her face placid but unreadable.

  I tried to phone Tanya, but the operator told me the lines to George Town were down. ‘We think things will be back up and running later today,’ she said brightly. ‘The lines must have been cut by bombing. We have people out looking for the break and once they find it, it won’t take long to fix.’

  Margaret and I spent the day at the Swimming Club, but even there rumours were abroad. ‘My houseboy heard that evacuees from Penang are being landed at the Naval Base’, a woman told us, breathless with the news. I tried my ‘let’s not help the Japs by spreading stories’ routine, but she shook her head violently. ‘I’m not spreading stories,’ she said fiercely. ‘I’m telling you what all the natives are saying. Penang has fallen to the Japs and our people are not telling us!’

  I still refused to believe such a stupid story, but a worm of worry began to twist and turn in my belly. What if something was happening up at Penang? What if a battle was raging? The thought struck me that Penghulu might be up there, in the thick of things, and I had a vivid mental picture of the little ship with its tangle of sweeping gear and its brave White Ensign being bombed as the Prince of Wales and the Repulse had been bombed. They wouldn’t stand a chance.

  That night the phone rang. It was Tanya, and I breathed a long sigh of relief. ‘You don’t know how glad I am to hear your voice,’ I said. ‘There have been rumours in Singapore that Penang had fallen. I was worried about you.’

  ‘I’m in Singapore, Nona,’ Tanya said flatly. ‘They’ve evacuated Penang. Abandoned it to the Japs. Eugene and I were taken off two nights ago. We’ve just checked in to the Europe.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Was there a battle?’

  Tanya sighed. ‘Nobody really knows what happened,’ she said tiredly. ‘We heard the Japs were in Kedah, and then the Military Governor ordered an evacuation. We got six hours’ notice to be at the Eastern Harbour with hand luggage. They put us on a little Straits Line ship which took down to the Naval Base here in Singapore. They’ve only just let us out of the Base.’

  ‘Did you see any navy ships on the way down?’ I asked.

  ‘Lots. Little ships were everywhere.’ She must have realised I was asking after Denis and her voice changed. ‘There was no shooting or bombing,’ she said. ‘It was all very quiet. But Penang was in an awful mess when we left. There were gangs roaming the streets, looting shops and even killing people for no reason at all. Everyone had gone mad.’

  I thought of Molly, and my heart froze. ‘How many people did they evacuate?’ I asked.

  Tanya did not answer for a while. ‘They only evacuated Europeans, Nona. No Asiatics or Eurasians were allowed to come. They said they didn’t have room for them.’

  My first reaction was disbelief, then I felt a wave of pure, white-hot anger. It was the Peranakan Chinese community in Penang which was at most risk from the Japanese, not the fat, complacent tuans and their po-faced mems. The Peranakans of Penang had nailed their colours to the mast years before by publicly declaring their support for the Chinese Nationalist government in its war against Japan. The rich Peranakan families, including the Tans, ran the United China Relief Fund, which had poured millions of dollars into the anti-Japanese war effort. On top of that, most Peranakans were members of the Kuomintang, an organisation the Japanese hated almost beyond reason. And recently, Peranakan Chinese had been in the forefront of the United Malaya Movement, which aimed to unite all races in Malaya behind the war effort.

  The Japanese would know precisely who their enemies were in Penang, and as soon as they were on the island they would hunt them out and kill them with the ruthless efficiency they had hunted out and killed their opponents throughout China itself.

  I felt tears of futile rage in my eyes. So much for the Governor’s sanctimonious promise that the Colonial Administration would treat all races equally! Let our white sisters and our brown sisters stand shoulder to shoulder together, supporting each other in the common cause. The Governor’s fine words rung in my ears, hollow, hypocritical and treacherous.

  ‘Are you still there?’ Tanya sounded tired and irritable.

  I made a tremendous effort. ‘You and Eugene must come out and stay with us at Whitelawns,’ I said. ‘We would love to have you until you find a house. Come over first thing tomorrow, Tanya.’

  Tanya paused before replying. ‘We’re going to Durban tomorrow. I’ve got us tickets on a Dutch ship. Eugene is still very ill. He doesn’t want to go, but I threw a fit and made him promise to come with me.’

  ‘I’ll come down and see you off,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t, please. Eugene feels bad enough about leaving Malaya. If he sees you he’ll be reminded that you and Denis are staying, and that might change his mind. But he missed joining his stay-behind party so I can’t see any point in him remaining in Malaya now and risking his life for nothing.’

  I didn’t know what to say, so we talked some nonsense and then I said I’d better go. My mind was on Molly and all the people I knew in Penang. So many of them would be on the Japanese blacklist. They might be being hun
ted down and killed as we spoke.

  ‘Don’t ring off just yet.’ Tanya sounded suddenly uncertain. ‘I have to tell you something. I need your advice.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘I tricked Eugene,’ she said softly. ‘He was asleep when the army came to pick him up. They were going to go into the jungle near Kuala Kangsar. I told them Eugene was too sick. And when Eugene woke up I told him the army wouldn’t take him because he was sick. He was furious, but then we got the evacuation notice so he couldn’t do anything about it. I’m worried he’ll find out what I did. I think he’d leave me if he did find out. He puts so much weight on his damned sense of honour, and I know he’d think he let his friends down.’

  I sighed. ‘Don’t tell him, Tanya. Swear black and blue they wouldn’t take him because he was too ill. If they’d seen him, they probably wouldn’t have taken him anyway.’

  ‘Do you tell lies to Denis?’ she asked. ‘We’ve always told each other the truth. I’m frightened that if we start lying to each other something will be destroyed.’

  ‘Truth is the first casualty of war,’ I said, quoting somebody or another. ‘Sometimes you have to bend the truth for the better good. What good would it do Eugene to know exactly what happened? He’s missed going in with his party. The truth will only make him feel bad for no purpose.’ I thought of Denis and me, and our talk about truth, and I crossed my fingers. War seemed to make everything, even the truth, somehow cheaper. Or perhaps much more precious.

  ‘I’ll do what you say,’ Tanya said. ‘I do need him, Nona. I need him so much.’

  After I had rung off I went out to the kitchen, where Amah and Chu Lun were sipping tea with several of their children. They stopped chatting as soon as I came in, and I knew exactly why. They’d known about Penang all day while I had been busy denying what had happened.

  ‘I’m sorry I told you a fib this morning, Amah,’ I said. ‘About ringing Penang. I didn’t believe that Penang had fallen and I wanted to squash what I thought was a rumour. But it wasn’t a rumour at all. They have evacuated all the Europeans and left the place for the Japanese.’

  ‘We have just heard that the Japanese have taken over George Town’, Chu Lun said, gesturing to the radio which was burbling quietly in the corner. ‘There was a Chinese language bulletin from Penang Radio. The British wrecked the radio station when they left but the Japanese have got it working again. They are broadcasting the news about Penang in Chinese and Tamil.’

  Amah came up to me and touched me on the arm. ‘Mem, I do not blame you for believing that it was a rumour,’ she said. ‘I could hardly believe it myself.’

  ‘I have heard that they left the Chinese and other races behind,’ I said bitterly. ‘I’m sorry. It was an awful thing to do. I only hope and pray that the people who were left behind are all right.’

  One of Chu Lun’s grown-up sons was looking at me from the corner of the room with angry, accusing eyes. He was a tall, pimply youth who had been working in Seremban but had returned to Singapore after the bombing had commenced. ‘They said on the radio that the Chinese leaders who helped the British have been dragged out of their houses and executed,’ he said. ‘The British just ran off and left them to be killed.’

  Chu Lun got up and turned off the radio. ‘We do not know what is happening in Penang,’ he said sharply. ‘We have only heard what the Japanese say is happening. It may be Japanese propaganda, aimed at frightening people into not supporting the British. Let us wait until we know what really happened before we make any judgements.’

  The young man gestured angrily and turned his back on both of us. I couldn’t honestly blame him.

  Later that evening the radio alerted us that there was to be an important statement from Duff Cooper, a British Cabinet Minister who had been sent to Singapore as Churchill’s personal representative. The papers had been full of Duff Cooper, Churchill’s ‘man on the spot’, and I sat up waiting for his statement. It had to be about the fall of Penang, and surely, I thought, it would deal with the dreadful mistake someone had made in evacuating only Europeans.

  I was to be dreadfully disappointed. Duff Cooper had the nasal, plum-inthe-mouth accent of the worst kind of self-satisfied, upper-class Englishman. What he said turned the bungle of Penang into an unmitigated disaster for morale throughout Malaya. ‘During the past two days,’ he said comfortably, ‘British soldiers, sailors and airmen have carried out a textbook evacuation of the island of Penang. Under the noses of the Japanese, we have successfully evacuated all our forces without so much as a single casualty. We have also evacuated the civilian population to prevent them falling into the bloodied hands of the Japanese. We can only be thankful that so many people have been safely removed.’

  Of course, he was only talking about the European population. Millions of Asians throughout Malaya heard his words and drew the obvious conclusion. It was only the Europeans who counted. All the fine words about all races in Malaya being treated equally were no more than that – fine words. Asians were expendable.

  I felt so furious that I rang Government House, hoping to get a message to Shenton Thomas. The young Chinese receptionist asked me to wait, and then the Governor came on the phone himself.

  ‘I know why you are calling, Norma,’ he said. ‘You are one amongst many. The switchboard here has been very busy since Mr Cooper’s talk and I suspect it will be busy for the rest of the night. I’m going to have to be brief, my dear. The Colonial Government had no part in the decision to evacuate only Europeans from Penang. I am as angry and upset as you are. We cut and ran in the most contemptible way, deserting those we should have been looking after just to save our own precious skins. I am doubly enraged at Duff Cooper’s stupid and insensitive broadcast. There is little I can do, but I am going to ask the leaders of the Chinese, Malay and Indian communities to meet me here at Government House tomorrow so that I can offer them a personal apology.’

  A personal apology. It seemed small reparation for what must be happening in George Town.

  We heard what had happened in bits and pieces as some of the ‘natives’ who had been left behind in George Town escaped and made their way down to Singapore. One of them was Jenny Tan, Molly’s sister-in-law, who arrived in Singapore just after Christmas.

  It had been far worse than anyone had imagined.

  On the 13th of December the Military Governor had issued secret orders to all Europeans to be at the wharves at a various set times that night. The orders went out only to ‘pure-blooded’ whites – even the Eurasian wives of British nationals not being included. The evacuation went like well-oiled clockwork, so that people like Molly awoke the next morning to find George Town abandoned by its rulers. Molly only found out what had happened when she turned up for duty at the Penang General Hospital to find a brief note in her pigeonhole from her English supervisor telling her she had been ordered away, and wishing Molly ‘all the best’. With virtually all the department heads missing, the place was in chaos, with nursing assistants literally running from ward to ward in panic and confusion. A single brave Englishman, Dr Evans, had set up a triage point in the casualty department and was trying to run the entire Penang Medical Service on his own.

  It was still early when Molly drove home through streets eerily empty of normal officialdom. No police on point duty. No ARP patrols. Even the radio was dead. She drove up to Fort Cornwallis but there was no sign of life there either. The Union Jack still fluttered at the flagpole but it bore a lonely look.

  Molly went home and tried to call her brother Paul at his office, but of course the phone was dead. He arrived about an hour later, cool and collected, and took her to his house to await the Japanese.

  ‘They will find us anyway,’ he said quietly, ‘and I think it would be undignified if we tried to hide.’ Molly agreed, and the two of them kept themselves busy as the time passed with agonising slowness. They played mah jong, with Paul’s wife Jenny sobbing gently as they played so that her tears fell on the ivor
y tiles. Molly took the Tans’ children for a walk, and helped to feed the youngest, a chubby little girl who gurgled with happiness at the extra attention.

  All day and all that night they waited for the Japanese. They came at last in the middle of the next afternoon, a truck pulling up sharply outside and a swarm of small, nuggetty soldiers with rifles that looked too big for them rushing through the house. The officer in charge had a book of photographs, and after consulting it he ordered Jenny and the children from the room.

  ‘Japanese Army kills all enemies of the Emperor,’ the officer said bluntly. ‘We cut your head off now.’

  Like many members of the Kuomintang, Paul was executed in the front garden of his home. He was forced to kneel beside his prize rose bushes while the officer drew his sword and swung it high into the sunshine before bringing it down on Paul’s unprotected neck. It had killed too many people that day and only half did its work so that the officer swore and had to use his pistol to finish the job.

  They did not bother to take Molly out for execution. Women were simply not worth the trouble. A private soldier put his rifle into her mouth and pulled the trigger. The rifle was empty, so he had to reload as Molly sat quietly on a cane chair before him, looking fixedly past him at an oil painting on the wall. It was of green English pastures and I hope it gave her peace.

  The Japanese were frighteningly efficient. They had the names and addresses of over a hundred ‘enemies of the Emperor’ and sought out and killed every single one of them in the first two or three hours of occupation. The Kempeitai, the Japanese secret police, had been doing its job well over the past few years.

  Denis came home two days later, and we didn’t have to speak. We just hugged each other, oblivious of the children shouting for his attention. Later, Denis told me that he’d heard about the abandonment of Penang while patrolling off Port Dickson, the message coming by lamp from the Australian minesweeper HMAS Goulburn. It had been sunset on the 16th of December, and the sky had been a glorious vault of pink speckled by high, gold clouds. The coast of Negeri Sembilan had been a long, white line to the east, and ordinarily Denis would have stood on the open bridge of the Penghulu appreciating the wild, lonely beauty of up-country Malaya.