Alone in our room at last I gripped Denis’s lapels and forced him to look at me. ‘I’m not sick,’ I said desperately. ‘I’m probably in shock, but I’m not sick. I spoke to Malcolm Bryant tonight. He knows that you are working with Chin Peng. He knows what’s happening up at Moonlight. He’s going to bring Gurkhas up here tomorrow to arrest us all.’ I hated having to say it so baldly, and I searched Denis’s face, looking for the hurt and anger he must feel because I had found him out.
But he just smiled and put a hand on my brow. ‘Poor little thing. I think you might have a temperature. Let’s get you straight to bed.’
‘Denis,’ I said as forcefully as I could. ‘They know you’re a Communist. I know you’re a Communist. I saw you talking to Chin Peng last night. I heard you talking to Chin Peng.’
Denis led me across to the bed and took my nightgown from under the pillow, thrusting it into my arms. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ he said firmly. ‘Now be a good little girl and pop into bed.’ Denis could employ a particularly infuriating tone on occasions such as this, and I stamped my foot.
‘I am not going to bed until we talk about this,’ I said. ‘For Heaven’s sake – we have got to decide what we’re going to do tomorrow. What we’re going to do with the children. We can’t take them into the jungle with us.’ I had it firmly in my mind that we would have to go down the Sakai trail to Krani Hondai’s village. Long, desperate years in the jungle stretched ahead, with no end in sight. But it would be better than seeing Denis dragged off. And then shot, as Heenan had been shot.
‘The children can go to the Battens,’ I said. ‘We can leave a letter for the soldiers. I know Aunt Batten will have them . . .’
Denis sighed. ‘We are not going into the jungle, Norma.’ He sat down on the side of the bed and patted the spot beside him. I sat down like an obedient schoolgirl.
‘I’m not going to talk about Chin Peng tonight,’ he said. ‘But we will talk about all that later, I promise you. As for running off into the ulu because Malcolm Bryant is going to trot up here with his Gurkhas, you can forget it. We’ve got absolutely no reason to run away from anyone.’ His face was now deadly serious, and immediately I felt the fire of panic inside me banking down. It was the measure of the trust I had in this man that despite everything, despite the patent evidence of his guilt, I could still believe in him.
‘What are we going to do?’
I asked. ‘We are going to bed.’
It was inevitable that I would dream that night, and dream I did. I was in the strangest jungle I had ever seen, with pot plants and waiters amidst the lush foliage. There were tigers, and men in evening dress, and Chin Peng was trying to explain something to me but I didn’t want to listen. ‘He is a Communist,’ Chin Peng said finally. ‘He has been a Communist since he was a schoolboy. That’s why they will have to shoot him. They don’t want one of their own fighting against them.’
I woke up to hear gentle rain splashing on the balcony. The room was pitch dark, the moon obviously obscured by cloud, and I reached instinctively for Denis. He was awake too, and we turned towards each other and nestled in each other’s arms.
‘Are you a Communist?’ I asked.
‘I wish I were,’ Denis said. ‘Or rather, I wish I could believe in something so completely that it made life simple. But I can’t.’
I dozed and dreamed again, this time a friendly dream. We were in the bamboo cottage down in the Telom Valley, listening to rain on the atap roof. But we were not alone. The children were there, and Ah Khow popped his head in too see that everything was all right.
A hundred miles away, the same rain that was falling on Starlight was falling on the manager’s bungalow at the derelict gold mine at Kuala Rau. Catherine Koh heard it, lying in bed beside Wu Sing. But as commander of the 6th Tiger Regiment of the Malayan Races Liberation Army, it meant more to Catherine than it did to me. It meant that the sentries she had posted to guard her camp would not be at their posts but in their bamboo sleeping huts, probably asleep. More importantly, it meant that the detachment she had posted five miles away on the junction with the Kuala Lipis–Bentong road could not warn her of an approaching enemy. They had no radios, only flares, and flares would be blotted out by the downpour.
Some instinct made her get up. She did so quietly, so as not to disturb the man sleeping beside her, and as she shrugged herself into her khaki uniform she stared down at his face.
She loved Wu Sing, but had never told him so. Perhaps because it was not the correct thing for a Communist leader to say to her deputy. Perhaps because there was no need to say it. She had demonstrated her love for him in a thousand ways, as he had demonstrated his love for her.
But this morning, in the murky light of a monsoonal dawn, she felt she wanted to say the words.
‘Wake up, Wu Sing,’ she said so softly that he would not hear. ‘I love you, comrade. Did you hear what I said, Wu Sing? I love you.’
Wu Sing stirred, almost as if he had heard the words she breathed, and then he turned on his left side, his right arm reaching out for her in his sleep.
Catherine took up her submachine-gun and checked that it was loaded. There was a silence beneath the sound of beating rain that worried her. At dawn the jungle was usually alive with birdlife, even in the rain. Today the bird calls were absent.
It could mean anything. A predator in the jungle: a tiger, or a panther. Perhaps even a sun bear, one of the mountain bears that sometimes penetrated this far down from the Main Range. But whatever it was, it had to be investigated.
Catherine stepped out of the bungalow and surveyed the scene with wide, clear eyes. The bare yellow tailing dumps with their scattering of weeds. The row of bamboo huts where her soldiers slept. The rusting lumps of machinery from the days Kuala Rau had been a working gold mine. And around it all the heavy presence of the jungle, almost black behind the curtain of falling rain.
Her eyes went automatically to the road that ran back through the jungle to Kampong Rau and ultimately to civilisation, and for just a second she wished she and Wu Sing might take it, and run away to the sort of life she had once known. A vivid picture came to her mind of her uncle’s house in Bukit Timah, full of people, full of laughter, full of music because Koh Soong loved the banjo. And then she remembered Robert, and April, and why she was here, and gripped her Sten gun so tightly that it hurt.
At first she walked through the rain briskly, without purpose, keen to get back to bed. Then she squared her shoulders. She had got up for a reason, she told herself. To make sure her Tiger Regiment was safe in its jungle hideaway. She decided that she would walk to the kampong and wake up the sentries she was sure were fast asleep. The rain pelted down, making her hair look like a black cape about her shoulder.
She had gone perhaps a hundred yards when she heard the first sound. It was soft and some way in front of her, probably half a mile or so, which would put it near the kampong. She tried to work out what it might have been but couldn’t. Perhaps it had been metallic. A village bicycle falling over, or one of her men adjusting his weapon.
The second time she heard the sound there was no mistake. It was the sound of something heavy being dragged across a metal surface. She knew of no such surface in Kampong Rau.
She was close to the kampong now, far from her troops back at the mine, and seriously worried. It had dawned on her that the sound could have been the sound of a truck being unloaded, which would mean that there were British troops in the kampong. Her heart began to thump, but she kept moving forward, slowly now, with extreme caution.
She had to know who, or what, had made that sound.
And then she heard another sound: the squelch of footsteps in the mud. Instinctively, she plunged into the thick jungle beside the road and flung herself flat, her Sten gun protruding in front of her. Almost immediately they came into sight through the curtain of rain: British soldiers advancing in a silent double line toward the mine.
She had a number of options. She could lie wh
ere she was, and avoid the ambush altogether. But that was not really an option at all because the British would catch her people unprepared and kill the lot. Including Wu Sing. Her second option was to wait until the soldiers had passed, then alert her people with her whistle. They would have a chance, and so would she. The third option would be to open fire when the British came abreast. That way she would kill several of them before she herself was killed, and at the same time alert her troops. In the bad old days that would have been her choice, but not today.
Because now she loved Wu Sing.
She felt for the whistle on its cord around her neck, waiting for the soldiers to pass. She wondered who had betrayed them, and thought it could only be Chin Peng. It suddenly seemed clear to her: he was betraying them all, one by one, the very best of his fighters. Chin Peng was a traitor! The thought flared in her mind, distracting her.
And then she saw Wu Sing, ambling down the road, peering shortsightedly at the men advancing towards him through the rain. Clearly he had discovered her absence and come after her, as was his way. The leading British soldier dropped to one knee, his Sten gun aimed at Wu Sing’s midriff, and Catherine saw him disengage the safety-catch.
Wu Sing ambled on, oblivious to the danger. He really was a rotten soldier.
Catherine stepped onto the road, her submachine-gun chattering, and all hell broke loose. She shot two men, the only casualties ever suffered by Ferret Force, the crack British deep jungle penetration unit. Then she died, hit by sixteen bullets to the head and upper body. Wu Sing charged like a madman, but he had forgotten to unclip his safety-catch and he was cut down before he had taken half a dozen steps, falling just before he reached Catherine.
They died together on the muddy road at Kuala Rau. Wu Sing, whose poetry is still read in the Chinese schools in Singapore, and Xiao Lao Hu, ‘Little Tiger’, who despite everything is still revered as a hero for her resistance against the Japanese.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
When I awoke the rain had cleared and the sky was a dome of cobalt blue over the vivid green jungle. Ah Khow was laying the breakfast things on the balcony and I could hear Denis humming cheerfully under the shower. It was hard to believe that I was in a Communist stronghold which was about to be raided, and that Denis was up to his armpits in a web of treachery.
We sat out on the balcony as if it were an ordinary day, the children preoccupied with some secret project, Denis deep in the morning paper, and the amah pottering about with clean linen in the bedrooms behind us. Only I was agitated and on edge, staring down the road, unconsciously listening for the sound of trucks.
I remember catching Denis’s eye in a mute appeal, but he didn’t seem to realise how concerned I was and merely gave an encouraging grin. ‘You’re not a hundred per cent yet, darling, are you?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘An early night tonight, perhaps?’
And I’d thought Malcolm was the unrealistic one. We might very well be in gaol, or dead, before the day was done.
We drove the children down to school, and as we swung out onto the Jalan Basar Road I saw the trucks immediately, lined up neatly on the grass verge. A couple of platoons of Gurkhas sprawled in the shade of the roadside willows, some of them staring curiously at us as we passed. An English officer sitting beside the leading truck looked away as soon as he spotted us, guilt written all over his face.
‘Very untidy,’ Denis said easily while I sat stiff and tense beside him, unable to look at the little stacks of guns, the belts of ammunition laid out on the grass, and the dark, intense faces of the soldiers.
We kissed the children goodbye as we always did, but I must have held on too long because Tony squirmed away. ‘It’s only for a day,’ he said contemptuously, and I prayed that he was right.
On the way back I clutched Denis’s hand. ‘I’m so frightened,’ I said. ‘Why are we playing this charade? Those soldiers are going to come up to Starlight in a few hours with their guns. Shouldn’t we be doing something?’
Denis patted my hand. ‘No we shouldn’t,’ he said firmly, ‘because we have absolutely nothing to hide. If Malcolm does blunder in on us he’ll make a complete idiot of himself.’ He scratched his jaw thoughtfully. ‘I wonder why he’s taking his time?’
‘He’s waiting for me to get clear,’ I said in a small voice. ‘He was going to give me until lunch time.’
‘Then he’s a damned fool,’ Denis said, and there was genuine anger in his voice.
I fussed about the bedroom for an hour or so, itching to pack or to do something constructive but Denis wouldn’t let me. ‘It is an ordinary day,’ he said again and again. ‘We must do ordinary things.’
Just before lunch I caught sight of myself in the wardrobe mirror – a harassed, pale-faced woman with defeated eyes. So I stood there and stared back at myself, my hands on my hips. ‘Buck up, Nona,’ I said aloud. ‘And don’t be such a baby. You’ve been through far worse than this, my girl.’ I’m not sure I had, but saying it seemed to help. I felt the panic receding, leaving me almost calm, almost brave.
I changed into gardening clothes and joined Denis on the terrace, where he was stretched out in a deck chair reading. I even remember the book: The Tuttles of Tahiti, a light-hearted comedy set in French Polynesia. He had brought out a portable radio to hear the news and it was burbling quietly in the background.
We had two huge stone flowerpots on the terrace, chock full of lupins, stock and hollyhock, and I crouched down on the flagstones, weeding between the stalks with vigour. It was pleasant, undemanding work, and the activity took my mind off things so that I began to feel almost human.
There was a flourish of trumpets on the radio, heralding a special announcement: ‘Authorities have confirmed that one of Malaya’s most wanted terrorists was shot dead this morning during a British attack on a Communist camp deep in the Pahang jungle. The body of Xiao Lao Hu, the female leader of the Communists’ feared Tiger Regiment, was positively identified by police in Kuala Lipis about an hour ago.’
I stared at Denis and he stared at me.
‘Details are scarce at this stage but it is understood that the British attack took place at dawn in the Kuala Rau area about twenty miles south of Kuala Lipis, and was the result of a high-level tip-off to police. The number of Communists killed was not disclosed, nor were details given of any British casualties.’
I pulled off my gardening gloves and threw them on the ground. ‘You betrayed her!’ I shouted at Denis. ‘I heard you telling Chin Peng to have her killed!’
Denis sat stock still, his book still open in front of him, staring at me.
‘You murdered Catherine,’ I shouted again. I could hear the rising note of hysteria in my voice but I didn’t care. ‘I don’t understand you, Denis. You’re not satisfied to betray your own side, are you? You betray the enemy as well! And now you’ve killed darling Catherine. Why?’
Even as I asked the question the answer came to me. Because Catherine knew that Chin Peng had betrayed Lau Yew. And the poor girl had trusted me with that information.
I was responsible for her death.
I walked up to Denis. He rose from his chair, tossed his book onto the coffee table beside him, and faced me. He spoke before I could say anything. ‘I didn’t tell Chin Peng to have her killed,’ he said softly. ‘I asked him to have her looked after. I was worried about her. I’m as shocked as you are.’
A crimson tide washed over me. ‘Liar!’ I screamed. ‘Liar! You are a murderer and a traitor, and I’m not going to let you trick me ever again.’ Then it all just bubbled out, the pain and the puzzlement that I had been bottling up, like hot lava spilling from a volcano. ‘You killed that man on that island, didn’t you? Just to protect a code! And the crew from the Baralaba – you killed them too, didn’t you? You didn’t put them on an American ship at all! And what about Skripkin? You betrayed him to the Communists because he wanted to defect. You might just as well have pulled the trigger yourself. And now it’s Catherine’s turn. When are you
going kill me, Denis? Later this afternoon? Tomorrow? Next year? Is that what this charade is all about?’
I stood there breathing hard, and saw the real Denis for the first time. I had broken through the protective nonchalance to the man beneath. His eyes blazed vivid blue with anger and he gripped my shoulders so hard that I flinched. ‘You can accuse me of a lot, but not of treachery,’ he said. ‘I won’t have that, Nona, because it isn’t true. I am no traitor.’
I believed him. However nonsensical it seemed, however impossible it seemed, what he said was the truth. The naked truth, wrenched from him because he was in shock.
But behind the anger I saw something else. There was uncertainty in his eyes as well, and that was the ultimate betrayal. Because I had followed him blindly, and now I knew that even he thought it might all have been for nothing. It might all have been a giant mistake. A miscalculation that had cost too much to contemplate.
I think that in that moment I went a little mad. I turned on my heel and started walking away. Away from Starlight, away from Denis, away from the pain and the ambiguity. Away from grief and fear. I reached the road and turned towards Tannah Rata a mile below me. It would be a long walk, but I rejoiced at the thought. Every step took me further away. I didn’t think about what I was leaving behind. I didn’t think of the children. I didn’t think of Denis. I only knew that I had to escape.
The jungle closed around the thin ribbon of road, making it into a cool green tunnel. I could see orchids that we’d never seen from the car. Great ferns and tangled lianas, and deep in the shadows I heard the sounds of life. The buzzing of insects, the chirp of birds, even the tok tok of a tiny plandok deer.
I thought that by now Denis would have come after me. But of course he wouldn’t. He would have stood for a moment, pained and vulnerable, then slipped back into the protection of his lazy smile. He’d pick up The Tuttles of Tahiti and stretch out again in his canvas chair. I had walked away, so he would never, never follow.
In the Mouth of the Tiger Page 80