In the Mouth of the Tiger

by Lynette Silver

  There was utter silence in the room. The three men behind the desk looked at each other. The MI5 man was the first to speak.

  ‘I don’t think it is quite that easy,’ he said. ‘We have a duty to act on the evidence we have. On that evidence you are guilty of treason.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Norton.’ It was John Morton, his voice low and angry. ‘We are going to have to suspend this inquiry until we have checked with Sir Stewart.’ Then he turned to Denis, his face livid, his voice barely under control. ‘Why the devil have you put us through this charade, Denis? Why didn’t you tell us right at the beginning that you were acting under orders? I think that at the very least you have treated us with the most abominable contempt.’

  Denis swung round to face him. ‘I needed to know what Bryant managed to unearth. Stewart Menzies needs to know. I don’t have to tell you how important it is that all that material – every scrap of it – is collected and destroyed.’

  Again there was silence. The enormity of what had been suggested was only now being absorbed – that the Communist insurrection in Malaya, with all the death and agony it had caused, had been engineered by MI6.

  If such knowledge became publicly known it would certainly bring down the British Government.

  Morton squared his shoulders. ‘If what you say is true, then clearly the material collected by Bryant must be destroyed. But first things first. I will return to KL where I can get a secure cable to the Director-General, and I will seek his instructions. Until I receive those instructions, I have no alternative but to assume that what you have told us is the truth.’

  ‘So he’s going to simply stroll out of here?’ the MI5 man asked angrily. ‘What if he is a double agent? He’ll be long gone before the Director-General can get back to you.’

  ‘Clearly the appropriate course would be for Captain McManus to continue to keep me and my family under protective custody,’ Denis said promptly. ‘I give my word that I will not attempt to leave Cameron Highlands, but in return I must have complete freedom of movement while I am up here. As soon as you have had word from C, I intend to move my family to Penang or to Singapore, and from there we intend to sail to England.’

  Morton knew when he was beaten. He shuffled the papers back into the manila folder and tied it tightly with pink ribbon. ‘I will give McManus the orders you have suggested,’ he said, his voice now pleasant, almost affable. He scratched his head. ‘What do we do with Bryant?’

  ‘He has done nothing wrong,’ Denis said. ‘To the contrary, he has been far too good at his job. But clearly he cannot remain in Malaya. A position will have to be found for him in Hong Kong, or even in London. A promotion. By the way, how is the poor blighter?’

  Morton’s manner was now almost obsequious. ‘Whingeing away down in the hospital at Ringlet. The shoulder is fine, but the poor fellow is awfully upset about losing his ear. I rather think vanity is one of his weaknesses.’ And then he laughed, a thoroughly unpleasant sound.

  John Morton was working hard to get back on to the winning side.

  PART 4

  Pure Golden Fox

  ‘But it was a fine hunt for all that, and

  although hounds and hunts-man had again

  been defeated, there was consolation if not

  actual joy in the thought that the golden

  fox lived to run another day.’

  CAPTAIN GEORGE CHEAPE OF WELLFIELD: THE HISTORY OF THE LINLITHGOW AND STIRLINGSHIRE HUNT 1775–1910

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Denis came back to Honeymoon Cottage in the same jeep in which he’d left, with John Morton fawning by his side and Captain McManus sitting poker-faced in front with the driver. I tried my best to seem cool and indifferent but McManus saw through me and when he climbed out he paused beside me. ‘I don’t know what happened at the Barracks,’ he confided quickly, ‘but things have changed. We really are a guard of honour now.’

  ‘I truly am sorry you have been inconvenienced, Norma,’ Morton said with an ingratiating smile. ‘Bureaucratic nonsense, but of course we had to go through with it.’

  ‘We won’t invite you in,’ Denis said with perhaps just a shade too much emphasis. ‘I know you will want to push off as soon as you can. The sooner you get to KL and that secure line to London the better.’

  Morton looked almost crestfallen as he stuck out a hand. ‘Then I suppose it’s cheerio,’ he said. ‘And I really am sorry . . .’

  ‘Shove off, Morton,’ Denis said. He said it with a smile but there was no doubt John Morton was not in his good books. I remember thinking how extraordinarily quickly things can change. Only hours before I had been picturing Morton’s cold, judgemental eyes with dread: now it was Morton’s turn to be the worried supplicant.

  The rub is of course that things can change back just as quickly.

  The next few days were something of a circus. The children were escorted to school each morning by the Gurkhas, the other guests looking on in amazement. They came back in the afternoon in similar style, with two and sometimes three armoured jeeps crunching to a stop under the porch to disembark their cargo to a background of shouted orders and clattering weapons.

  When Denis and I went out the same thing happened, but with even more pomp and circumstance. McManus had ordered that we be given the courtesy due to officers of Field rank and consequently if we went anywhere we would arrive like minor royalty, with a crash of glossy boots and the slapping of arms against manly chests as our Gurkhas came to the General Salute.

  It could be a little embarrassing. One afternoon we decided on the spur of the moment to take afternoon tea at the Smoke House Inn. The heavilyarmed motorcade assembled at the hotel and then drove the half-mile or so along the Jalan Basar Road to the Inn under the startled eyes of hotel guests and golfers on the nearby links. As we sipped tea beside the traditional log fire in the Den I saw Mrs Warin staring at us from the hallway, too impressed to intrude. I could imagine her thinking: My golly, those two have changed their tune! I told them to take care, but I’d no idea they’d rope in half the Gurkha infantry to look after them . . .

  On another occasion a large, vivid woman bailed me up as I was looking for a book in the hotel library. ‘I say!’ she said. ‘I’ve noticed that you and your husband have been given a small army to guard you from the bandits. How did you manage it?’

  ‘Oh, they more or less insisted,’ I said vaguely. ‘We didn’t ask for them, I assure you . . .’

  ‘My husband is Robert Standish,’ she said. ‘He was Surveyor-General in Kashmir before Independence but he’s out of his territory over here and nobody seems to know who he is. Do you think you might drop a quiet word? We would appreciate some sort of protection when we move about.’

  ‘I’m afraid nothing I could say would do any good,’ I said truthfully.

  The woman gave an audible ‘humph’. ‘I really think you might try,’ she said. ‘I see so many underemployed Gurkhas sloping about the place. Surely they could be doing something useful? I assure you that Robert would have been afforded the courtesy of a guard in the old days . . .’

  I suddenly felt sorry for her, and reached out to touch her arm. ‘I’ll mention your husband’s name to Captain McManus,’ I said, feeling an awful fraud. ‘I’m sure he’ll do what he can.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, suddenly pink in the face. ‘It’s so dangerous here, isn’t it? We were shot at in Srinagar once, you know. An awful business, with one of the Indians with us killed outright. One can never quite get over the shock . . .’

  We thought we might have trouble playing our regular round of golf. After all, the average golfing party isn’t trailed by half a platoon of battlehardened Gurkhas. But in the event it turned out to be almost fun. The Gurkhas kept an eye on us, but stayed well clear while we were out on the links. Captain McManus accompanied us on these outings, and played in our foursome. He was a fine golfer and a good mixer, and so the game was always enjoyable. So were the good-humoured comments from others w
e met on the course. ‘Brought your lads along to keep track of the ball?’ someone would shout, or ‘Taking your forays into the rough a bit seriously, aren’t you?’

  Afterwards, in the clubhouse, we’d have a drink with our friends and perhaps join in the singing that was one of the club’s traditions, and if anyone wondered why the soldiers were still there, waiting on the verandah to escort us home, they were too polite to ask.

  But of course it wasn’t all beer and skittles. At night, in the security of our room, we’d talk about what Menzies was going to say in his reply to Morton’s cable. ‘I feel pretty sure he’ll do the right thing,’ Denis would say, but I could sense that he was a little concerned. It was a concern that I shared.

  ‘Isn’t it in Menzies’ interests to cut you adrift?’ I’d ask. ‘Isn’t that how it’s done in the secret service? If you’re caught out, you’re left to your own devices . . .’

  It was very early in the morning of our fourth day in Honeymoon Cottage when Captain McManus tapped on the front door and I knew in an instant that the answer had come back from London. Denis swung out of bed with a grunt. ‘Hardly six o’clock. The young devil must have insomnia.’ But his face was grave as he paused and looked back from the doorway, his fingers crossed for luck.

  They spoke for a long time in our tiny lounge room, and hard as I tried I could not read anything in the tones of their voices. And then Denis stuck his head in the bedroom door: ‘I’m afraid the blighters have tired of us, Norma. Captain McManus has orders to withdraw our guard of honour. We’re on our own again.’

  I felt so much like running up and hugging him that I had to wrap my arms around my knees to stop myself. ‘It’s not like that at all,’ McManus called from the lounge. ‘It’s been an honour, Ma’am, but all good things must come to an end.’ I did get out of bed then and ran into the lounge, scandalising the hotel boy who had just brought up our tea by planting a kiss on McManus’s cheek.

  Morton had in fact offered to leave our guard with us until we left the highlands, but Denis had refused. I understood his refusal completely: the Gurkhas were a physical reminder of the world he now desperately wanted to forget. But their departure did cause me some disquiet. The small garden around Honeymoon Cottage suddenly seemed so still, and when I stared into the jungle beyond the hotel boundary we seemed suddenly so vulnerable. I understood perfectly how Mrs Standish felt.

  Before they left, the Gurkhas had paraded one last time to say goodbye. It was a surprisingly emotional moment as they crashed to attention and slapped their guns to their chests, and a lump rose in my throat when their sergeant, a nuggetty little man called Jangahabur Rai, presented me with a huge bunch of flowers. ‘For a brave lady who always smiles,’ he said. ‘We will miss that smile, Memsahib.’

  That evening I asked the hotel boy to bring up a bottle of chilled champagne, and after we had put the children to bed I led Denis out to our little patio and poured a couple of glasses. ‘I know you’ll not get any public recognition,’ I said. ‘But I for one appreciate what you have done. You have made sure that Malaya will never, ever suffer under the iron heel of Communism.’ I lifted my glass. ‘Let us drink to a task well done.’

  Denis half-lifted his glass, then let his hand drop. ‘Do you mind not?’ he asked. ‘To be perfectly frank, Norma, I’m not proud of what I did. In fact I rather think that what I did was wrong.’

  There was a moment of silence, a moment that grew and grew until it engulfed us. It was so still that I could hear sounds from the restaurant below us, the clink of glass and cutlery, the gentle hum of conversation, the tinkle of a laugh. I wanted to break the silence, to say something positive, but nothing came to me however hard I tried. Because, in my heart of hearts, I agreed with Denis completely. Operation Maugham may have saved Malaya from Communism, but it had also led directly to the death of countless innocents, including many of our dearest friends. And what victory could possibly be worth that price? A Japanese saying came into my mind: On the scales of Heaven, the weight of a single human life is heavier than the weight of the whole world.

  I had to say something, and finally I found my voice. ‘You did your duty,’ I said as forthrightly as I could. ‘You can’t do much wrong by doing your duty.’

  ‘I think you can,’ Denis said. ‘I think sometimes you can invest too much in an abstract idea, and forget your duty as a human being.’ He paused a moment, frowning down at his untouched champagne. ‘I was angry after the war, you know. Dreadfully angry. At the cruelty and unfairness of it all. All I wanted to do was to strike back somehow. I can see now that in that state of mind it was all too easy to convince myself that the ends in this business justified the means.’

  I came around the table and put my arms around him. ‘I knew you weren’t yourself,’ I said. ‘At times you almost seemed a stranger. A very angry stranger. I was frightened that the war might have stolen away your soul. But it hasn’t. You are you again, and I love you more than ever.’

  We left Cameron Highlands the next day, just as the morning mist was lifting and the sun was rising behind Mount Brinchang. There had been no ambushes on the Tappah road for over a week so we didn’t wait for the daily convoy but drove down by ourselves, as we had before. This time I felt no apprehension at all, but sat back and enjoyed the cold, sharp air and our silent speed through the green jungle. We reached Tappah at nine o’clock and stopped for petrol and ‘provisions’ for the children (bulls-eyes and toffee, and cold bottles of Coca-Cola), and then we were off again, driving north through the lowland heat and the sameness of grey, regimented rubber trees.

  And then it happened, as it had happened so often in my worst imaginings. Denis began to slow the car and I glanced up to see logs drawn across the road. Simultaneously there was a rattle of gunfire and a sharp ‘clang!’ as a bullet struck the right front mudguard. I wanted to scream but knew I mustn’t for the childrens’ sake, and then Denis was out of the car and strolling forward, shouting in Cantonese.

  The shooting stopped, and Denis paused and took out his silver cigarette case, lighting up in the stippled shadow of the rubber trees as if he were in the smoking room at the Ritz. I think it must have been amazement more than anything else that stayed the Communists’ hands.

  Denis took a long draw, and then began again, his Cantonese crisp and certain even to my untrained ear. There was one answering shout, then Denis climbed back into the car. Two men ran out from the shadows between the trees and dragged the logs aside, and we were through, the car purring like a sewing machine, the children shouting for an explanation.

  The whole business had lasted less than a minute.

  I turned around to the children and stilled their clamour with a hand. ‘Daddy told the bandits to go away or he would set you lot on them,’ I said. ‘They ran away like rabbits.’ I said that despite the scream I was holding in, and the vision of all five of us lying dead in the wreckage of the Wolseley still before my eyes. But of course it all came out a little later, the shock and the stifled anguish. First the shaking, then the tears. We didn’t stop – we dared not stop – but as the children dozed in the back seat Denis hugged me close with his left arm and promised me so much. That I’d never again hear the sharp, flat crack of a gun aimed my way. That never again would I fear for all our lives. That from now on everything would be a bed of roses.

  Impossible promises, and of course he couldn’t keep them.

  I don’t know what saved us from being killed on that lonely road that day. Perhaps it was something that Denis said. Perhaps the Communists took pity on us, because it is now known that about that time Chin Peng issued a general order not to target innocent families. Or perhaps the ambush party simply decided to wait for a more important target.

  But it was a miracle nevertheless, and I give the credit to our Talisman, Ah Khow, whose magic I like to think lingered on to protect us one last time.

  We sailed for England a week later from Penang.

  As the MV Ruys threaded its way thr
ough the ships lying in the Penang Roads, I stood by the rail with Denis, watching the outline of the island merge with the hills of Kedah on the mainland. It was a poignant moment. The first memories I have are of Penang. It is where I ran wild as a child, and where Mother abandoned me after Robbie’s death. It was where I had grown up, from a gangling, uncertain schoolgirl to the person I had become. It was where I had met Denis for the first time, in a dream, when I lived in a tall, dark house on Argyll Road.

  Denis put his arm around me. He was sharing my thoughts, as people often do when they love each other. ‘It’s important to me, too,’ he said. ‘My first sight of Malaya was of Penang. They called it the Pearl of the Orient, and when I saw it for the first time from the deck of the old Kalian it looked just like a pearl, turned pink by the rising sun. When we got closer I saw the beaches and the coconut trees, and people moving about with the lazy grace of the Orient. You would have been there then, of course. Funny, isn’t it? We’d spent our lives half a world apart but on that day, my first in Malaya, we were as close as dammit. Right from the beginning, someone up there had their eye on us.’

  The light was fading before we left the rail, and as I turned away from the darkening shore I threw a kiss at all those we were leaving behind. The living and the dead.

  Tim Featherstone was not amongst the dead. A couple of days before we sailed I had received the most extraordinary news from the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore. Tim had woken up from his coma, simply opening his eyes one morning while the nurses were washing him and staring at them unblinking as if to say: ‘What on earth are you all doing?’ He had been able to talk after a fashion before the day was over, and the chances of a full recovery were apparently very good. ‘He doesn’t remember a thing about what happened at Bentong,’ the ward sister told me over the phone. ‘But he does know that his wife and the twins are dead. It knocked him flat for a while, as you can imagine, but he rallied well and he’s now very positive. Dunlops have been terrific, and Tim’s even talking about going back to Bentong.’ Tim’s mother had come out to Singapore a month before, and had sat at his bedside day after day, talking to him, encouraging him, even scolding him. I am quite sure it was her faith and her determination that reached out to Tim in his darkness and pulled him back into the light.