In the Mouth of the Tiger (87 page)

‘Why don't the Reparations people sell the stuff to the highest bidder instead of selling it through us?' I asked reasonably.

Both men looked at me, and then John tapped the papers in front of him. ‘Because the resources of the War Reparations Commission aren't on the public record. And because information – intelligence – has to be paid for somehow, and paying for it this way means we escape the eagle eye of the auditors and the self-righteous do-gooders who want our Government to know what's going on, but don't want to know
how
they know.'

So that afternoon, in a rather dingy room with a sumatra rattling the windows, we divided the distribution rights to ninety million pounds worth of confiscated tin and rubber, tea and rice, steel and manufactured goods. My job was to keep track of who was going to sell what, and I did it by the simple expedient of ruling a page in an exercise book in half and listing what Denis would sell on one side of the line, and what John would sell on the other. It really was as simple as that.

And then we drove around to the Cricket Club for dinner, and dined on cold sandwiches washed down by lukewarm stengahs because the generators had failed yet again and Singapore was without electricity.

Chapter Thirty-One

C
asuarinas was no substitute for Whitelawns, but we did come to love it for its own unique if awkward charm. It was rather badly designed, with the bedrooms strung out in a long row with our room at the end so that it took an age to fetch a wrap from the wardrobe if the evening cooled, or to come up to find a drink in the middle of the night. The house was also curiously oriented in its acre of garden so that even though we were virtually on the beach we could hardly see the sea from any of the windows. And our own bedroom, large and airy though it was, opened over a fern-choked stream that looked picturesque but hummed with mosquitos all night long. But we had Amah, and Chu Lun, and half the Chu clan to look after us, and sometimes I'd wake up to a hot clear morning and hear the waves lapping on our beach, and feel totally at home.

Denis was immensely busy that first year, setting up his company and establishing his ring of secret agents. ‘Establishing his ring of secret agents', said in cold blood after so many years, sounds bizarre even to my ears. But that was precisely what Denis was doing. Cheng Swee recruited fellow towkeys into his growing circle with offers of credit and cheap goods from the Reparations Commission stocks, and then slowly turned them into agents. At first they were friends and sounding boards, and then, as their obligations and commitments grew, they became loyal sources of information and influence. The tentacles of the organisation spread all over Malaya, with local rings being established in all the commercial centres – KL, Penang, Johore Bahru and Seremban. We even established contacts in Sumatra, both amongst the emerging Indonesian elite and also with the leaders of the various rebel groups. Those were exciting, heady days, and though I didn't actually do anything, Denis kept me so completely in the picture that I felt part of a great
adventure. I would preside at gracious dinner parties, all innocence, cool charm and elegance, and lift a silent toast to my fellow-conspirator through the cigar smoke. We two knew precisely what we were toasting – romance, and secret danger, and duty done.

At night after such a dinner party Denis and I would chatter together in bed like children, happy winners in the game we had chosen to play. And I would feel quite sorry for all those outside our magic circle, decent men and women leading decent, humdrum lives in a banal, predictable world, unaware of the dance of colours just beneath their noses.

Denis still had his moments of pain. He would be sitting there beside me, pretending to be reading, and I would notice that he wasn't reading at all, and put my own book down and look at him. ‘Touch of the Black Dog,' he would say with a slight smile, and I'd nod, and perhaps just touch his arm, and then go back to my book because the Black Dog had to have its day. But such times were becoming a little less frequent: the scars were fading, or perhaps it is truer to say the scar tissue was hardening.

Our old friends were drifting back to Malaya. The Gilmours were the first to turn up, unchanged and unchangeable after four years in New Zealand. Jock in his tartan tam'o'shanter, Georgette as gamine and French as ever. ‘I thought we'd found our Shangri-la in Dunedin,' Jock said. ‘More Scottish than Scotland itself, but with a decent climate. But I'm afraid the East is in our blood. We'll die here in Singapore.' Their home overlooking the Straits of Johore had been untouched by the war, and when we dined there I could hardly conceive that we had not gone back in time.

John Dalley didn't have to come back to Singapore – he had never gone away. He emerged from Changi POW camp blinking in the sunlight and looking like a scarecrow. But after a brief home leave to restore his health he was back in harness and looking exactly the same as he had before the war. He had been appointed to lead a newly established Police Intelligence Unit, and was regarded as one of the most influential men in the Interim Administration that ran Singapore. We bumped into him at a film night at the Swimming Club, and of course I tackled him immediately about Catherine Koh. If anyone outside the MCP knew where she was it would be John Dalley.

‘She is a very different person now to the Catherine you knew before the war,' John said carefully. ‘She was very badly affected by what happened when the Japs invaded Singapore. In fact I've never known a person to change so much.'

‘Do you know where she is now?' I asked. ‘I would love to see her again. There is probably nothing I could do for her, but I would at least like to try.'

John shot a glance at Denis. ‘I think I should warn you about Little Tiger,' he said seriously. ‘She is the leader of one of the Communist regiments still in the jungle, and probably the most dangerous person in Malaya at the moment. That's because she has sided with the hard-liners who think they should all remain in the jungle and turn their guns on the British. They've got the idea into their heads that they drove the Japs out of the country, and that it will be just as easy to get rid of us.'

‘Why is she in particular so dangerous?' I asked.

‘Because of the hold she has on so many of her colleagues. She's something of a legend because of the way she stood up against the Japs. And there is something else there, too. Charisma. A combination of courage and great beauty.'

‘And what does Loi Tak have to say?' I asked.

Dalley didn't answer. We were sitting out on the upstairs terrace, watching some forgettable movie on a screen set up on the other side of the swimming pool, and I saw John take a careful look around. I think it still disquieted him that a slip of a girl like me could be a fully-fledged member of the Linlithgow Hunt. But I was a fully-fledged member, and I didn't want him to forget it. ‘What does Loi Tak think of it all?' I asked again. ‘Don't forget, I was present when Colin McKenzie promised the Communists a political role in Malaya after the war. I hope you're not going to make Catherine the excuse for going back on that promise.'

Denis laid a restraining hand on my arm. ‘John is one of us,' he said quietly. ‘He will do everything in his power to make sure the Chinese Communists are not short changed.'

A steward arrived with a fresh round of drinks and a platter of hot chips and tomato sauce. When he had gone, John turned and looked at me levelly. ‘We're doing our very best to convince the MCP that they will have a role in an independent Malaya. We're even offering jobs to those still in the jungle, hoping to lure them out that way. But no one is listening. Personally, I think they've made up their minds to have a scrap with us. They can see how well Mao Tze-tung is doing in China and they think it will be just as easy in Malaya.'

I returned to the subject when Denis and I were driving home. ‘Loi Tak
and Chin Peng are MI6 agents,' I said. ‘Can't you simply tell them to
order
their people out of the jungle?'

Denis grimaced. ‘It's not that easy,' he said. ‘Loi Tak is in a rather awkward position at present. He played a pretty clever game during the occupation, offering his services as a double agent to the Kempeitai and then using the Japs to bump off his opponents in the MCP. He'd organise a meeting of the Politburo, betray it to the Japs, then tip off his own supporters not to attend. But there has been a cost. Most of the senior people in the party today have their suspicions of Loi Tak, and he has to watch his step. He certainly can't afford to appear soft on the British. Not when people like Catherine are goading them on.'

‘What about Chin Peng?' I asked.

‘Chin Peng's credentials are fine because he spent the war with the MCP regiments in the jungle. But he did cooperate with Spencer-Chapman and Force 136, so he's also got to watch his step. He can't be seen to jump just because we whistle.'

We ran through Mata Ikun, its atap bungalows sleeping under a huge tropical moon, and then took the long driveway to Casuarinas. ‘So what is going to happen?' I asked. ‘Are the Communists going to attack us in our beds? They can be pretty dreadful, I know that. I remember how they ran amok when they took over Batu Arang before the war.' I felt a prickle of fear and reached for Denis's hand. ‘Surely they can't take Malaya over by force, can they?'

Denis squeezed my hand. ‘Nobody is going to take Malaya over by force,' he said flatly. ‘We've learnt a lot since the Japs had their go. Lesson number one is not to underestimate your opponent. Lesson number two is to strike first, and strike hard, and keep on striking.'

I ran into Catherine Koh in Robinsons, of all places. I was going up the escalator to the toy section on the top floor and Little Tiger was coming down, looking quite chic and demure in a white trouser suit. We recognised each other immediately, and I called out, reaching out to her as we passed. For a second I thought she was going to ignore me but then she turned, gesturing to go on up and wait for her.

I stood waiting at the top of the escalator, my heart beating like a drum. Frances was trying to drag me towards the toys and all I could think of was how hurtful it would be for Catherine to see us like this – mother and healthy daughter on the way to buy a doll. If the world had been a fairer place
Catherine would be coming with us, little April clinging to her hand.

I need not have worried. I don't think Catherine so much as glanced at Frances or the toys behind us, and I am sure April never entered her mind. ‘I've just had a cup of coffee,' she said crisply. ‘But I can drink another. Come and sit with me and we will talk.'

Catherine was still beautiful but there was something different about her. Her eyes were like hard black marbles, and though her mouth was smiling it was a hard, forced smile, like the smile moulded on the face of a beautiful doll.

We ordered coffee for ourselves and I asked for a milkshake for Frances. ‘I have heard that you were a hero in the war,' I said when the waiter left. ‘That you spent the whole time in the jungle, fighting the Japanese. It must have been terrible for you because I remember how much you hated anything to do with war and violence.'

‘Did I?' Catherine asked. She looked genuinely puzzled. ‘I must have been a fool, because war is the best thing that can happen to the oppressed. It acts as a catalyst, freeing the energy of the people. Breaking the shackles of habit that turns us all into slaves.'

I reached across and touched her hand. ‘I remember you once saying that you would do anything to bring peace to Singapore . . .'

‘Do not touch me, Mrs Elesmere-Elliott.' Catherine's smile didn't waver but the voice that issued from her smiling lips was cold and hard and uncompromising. She didn't move her hand so I had to move mine. I felt myself blushing and even Frances felt the tension of the moment and stared at each of us in turn.

‘I used to be your friend, Catherine,' I said softly. ‘I touched your hand as a gesture of friendship. Has that friendship come to an end?'

‘It never . . .' Catherine began, then seemed to check herself. ‘We were friends. But that was a long time ago. I cannot be the friend of a mem, of a representative of the class which suppresses and exploits us.'

‘I don't recall ever suppressing you, Catherine. Or exploiting you. I only remember that you and Robert, and Denis and I, were great friends, and that we all once danced on a kalang under the moon.' I thought I had put that rather well, and it was a shame that Frances chose that precise moment to upset her milkshake and cause a minor crisis.

Catherine mopped the milkshake from her side of the table with an impatient flourish of her napkin. ‘Robert is dead. April is dead. The kalang
should have been used to gather fish for the poor, not to provide the idle rich with a platform on which to dance.'

‘Our kalang also gathered fish,' I said, taking Frances in my arms. ‘Is it wrong for something to be joyful as well as utilitarian?' When Catherine didn't bother to answer, I began to gather up my things. ‘Why did you suggest we share a cup of coffee, Catherine?' I asked. ‘You clearly can't stand my company.'

Catherine shrugged. ‘It was the proper thing to do. What do you British say? It was good form.'

‘I don't believe you,' I said candidly. ‘Either the Catherine I used to know is still somewhere deep inside you and you would like to reach out despite yourself, or you can see some advantage in keeping in touch with Denis and me. Unfortunately I suspect it is probably the latter.'

For a second I thought Catherine was going to get up and walk away. And then she laughed. It may have had an edge to it, but it was a real laugh. ‘I must not underestimate you, Norma. I think you are a stronger woman than people think.'

I stood up, but paused beside the table. ‘Why are you in Singapore?' I asked, softening my voice. ‘I was told you were still with your fighters deep in the jungle.'