The Plantation

by Di Morrissey

  Julie shifted in her chair. ‘Oh, well, they had work to do and the living conditions were very primitive.’

  Martine smiled at her. ‘And? I sense there is something else?’

  Julie returned her smile. ‘Trust a woman! Actually I was a bit uncomfortable, no, annoyed, actually, with David Cooper. He overdid the tuak, the rice wine, and made a pass at me . . .’

  ‘That stuff’s lethal. But you can’t really hold that against him, can you?’ said Peter.

  ‘That’s such a male thing to say,’ said Martine. ‘You can’t use tuak as an excuse, especially if one doesn’t reciprocate the feelings.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Julie. ‘He’s one of those men who’s always touching you and being overattentive. If you like the guy – fine. But he’s just not my type, not that it registered with him. I certainly didn’t want him looking after me. It became unpleasant, so I came back under my own steam, and here I am.’

  ‘Well, you timed your return well. We were planning a quick trip and thought you might like to come along and now with your early return from Sarawak, the timing is perfect,’ said Shane.

  ‘Where were you planning to go?’ asked Julie.

  ‘Langkawi Island. Friends of ours run a resort there, which is rather fun. There’ll be several of us going. Do you think you’d like to join us?’

  ‘I’d love to, if it’s not wildly expensive. What’s at Langkawi?’ asked Julie. She thought that an island resort would be a nice change from the jungle setting she’d just experienced.

  ‘There is a series of islands north of Penang, bordering Thailand. The main island is Langkawi and it has rainforest, resorts and some nice eateries.’

  ‘And very lovely spas,’ added Martine.

  ‘We’re planning to share a house for a few days at a resort which is made up of old traditional Malay houses . . . but they are done up with comfortable furnishings,’ said Shane.

  ‘So maybe there’ll be seven or eight of us. I wish my girlfriend was here,’ said Peter. ‘Do you like fishing, Julie? We can hire a boat. Chris is coming. You met him here. The RAAF chap. He’s mad for fishing. And we can always climb up to the lake, if you’re feeling energetic.’

  ‘I love the spa and relaxing by the pool,’ said Martine. ‘It’s a very stylish place.’

  ‘That sounds good to me, too,’ said Julie. ‘I like fishing but I’d like to explore too, as I might never get back there again.’

  After dinner that evening, Shane took Julie into their great grandfather’s library. She tried to ignore the glassy-eyed mounted animal heads and watched as Shane opened a drawer in the large, elaborate old desk in the corner. He pulled out a bound notebook and handed it to her.

  ‘Roland’s memoir. It’s the original. I thought you might prefer to read it in his hand.’

  ‘How wonderful.’ She fingered the old notebook. ‘I don’t think that I’ve ever held anything that belonged to him before. Can I read it here?’

  ‘Yes. It’s not a diary, it’s really a short account of his war years. It wasn’t meant for publication or anything like that. I don’t even think that it was for the family. I know that many men who served wrote some account of their time in the war,’ said Shane. ‘It may have been the highlight of their lives. In our grandfather’s case, his whole life was quite eventful, but when you read this, you realise that he revelled in his years fighting in special operations behind the lines.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to reading it.’ She glanced at the handwritten title neatly underlined in red ink and when Shane left her, she began to read.

  Behind the Green Curtain. A Memoir. By Roland Elliott.

  On reflection, one wonders how more people didn’t see it coming. The war. The invasion. The rise of communism. I suppose hindsight is a wonderful thing. We thought that we were important to England, but found that we weren’t. Whitehall had more important priorities in Europe and we were betrayed. Even after the Japanese war was over, the times have changed and the mood is no longer complacent in our neck of the woods. Life on our plantation appears to have returned to normal, but the scars run deep. Even now, I realise that the halcyon prewar days will never return and I am doubtful that Malaya can become united. Too many races, cultures, creeds, too much betrayal. But, as my dear father was wont to say, ’twas ever thus.

  But that is now. The days before the war were carefree. The word of the white man was obeyed without question and we had the best of times, the best of whatever was available from here and from abroad, and, along with the sense of privilege, we also had the freedom to do as we wished. We were treated as honoured guests in the villages, given a meal that could have cost a family a day or more of hard toil. And we took it as our due. And when the war came, when we were reduced to being no better than coolies in the eyes of the invaders, when the loyalties of those we’d looked down upon came to save us, to help us shelter or escape, and inevitably, at the end, we let them down.

  Of course, many never expected the war with the Japanese to come anywhere near us in Malaya or Borneo. Life went on at its indulgent pace with parties, dances, hunting and tennis, love matches, courtships, and the business of making money. If you were rich, influential, educated, no matter what your skin colour, you mixed with us. My father occasionally commented that Malaya was run by the British for the benefit of the Chinese or, depending on your viewpoint, Malaya was a country run by the Chinese to benefit the British. The Malay elite had a sense of entitlement, which perhaps is not surprising. It was their country, the other races were immigrants. But, of course, if you have money, position, power, you can enter any of the worlds of Malaya. But the poor, the Chinese coolies, the Indian plantation workers and the native Malays, with neither wealth nor influence, were overlooked or dismissed by the ruling powers. This was the Malaya I lived in before the war, which changed it all.

  Although war had erupted in Europe in 1939, it was thought, especially in England, that the European war would never touch the Pacific. Indeed Whitehall thought that the strategic defences of Malaya could be kept minimal. The belief was always that ‘Singapore will be held’, an invincible island fortress, we were told. And who would attack us? The Japanese had already invaded Manchuria and then China and it was well known that they wanted to control the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies, but Father thought that was all very unlikely. So life went on, keeping up appearances, a stiff upper lip, and worrying about family back in the old country. My mother was living there with her elderly parents and my father was concerned for her safety.

  But some of us, myself included, were worried about the Japanese. We knew that the Jap community had been busy for years, poking about in the jungle around the estates. They also had holdings at important rail and road junctures, in mining areas. One could hardly avoid noting the ore that was being shipped to Japan those past years, undoubtedly to be put to use in making armaments. Later we found out that their business organisations were not only sharing important information with their government, but were a cover for spying and intelligence gathering and other political activities. Small businesses were established at convenient locations where they could observe the activities – or lack thereof – happening at the aerodromes, ports, around the bays and coastline, in the jungles and the swamps. We had been carefully observed, measured and our metier taken since the 1930s. Too late we learned of secret caches of arms and bunkers hidden in rubber estates owned by the Japs. We had been complacent to our cost.

  Blame for this ignorance can be placed at many feet, for when information was being collected by natives, telling planters of Japanese activity in the jungles and the remote coast and islands, along with the observations by fishermen, rangers and miners, and sent to the authorities in Singapore, it was, sadly, ignored. Even when I raised the subject with other planters about the rumours swirling around Malaya, my views were considered to be alarmist.

  But little did we know that the defence of Malaya had been scaled down by the heads in Whitehall. The war in Euro
pe was considered far too serious to give any thought as to what might happen in their far-flung eastern empire. However, we, in Malaya, pressed on, doing our bit with petrol rationing, rising prices and the inconvenience of routine blackout trials. Even when the Japs moved into Indo-China, the administration did not feel unduly threatened. The feeling was that, ‘They wouldn’t dare! And if the Nips made any move, we would be ready for them.’

  Why did they say that? We had so few defences which, we later learned, were in all the least strategic positions. But anyone who dared to question was pooh-poohed. Everyone with any authority, any connection with the military, became so puffed up with their own importance, so petty minded, bureaucratic and downright insufferable, that the tokenism of our war efforts were laughable. Sometimes I really did indeed think that our society was becoming rather like something from a Noel Coward play or from the pages of a novel by that dreadful Somerset Maugham. Nonetheless I felt I had to do something constructive and I joined the Perak Volunteers. My father wanted to do his bit, but I talked him round. Staying put, I thought, was the best thing for him to do.

  Then on December 8th 1941, we were stunned to hear that not only had the American fleet been destroyed at Pearl Harbour, but that the Japs had landed at Kota Bharu in northern Malaya. They were also bombing the main airfields in the north-west of the country, destroying half of the Allied aircraft stationed there. Three days later we heard news that was considerably worse. The battleship Prince of Wales and the cruiser Repulse, which had been sent to reinforce the British defences only days before, had been sunk with a huge loss of life. Morale dropped.

  The consequences of these Japanese actions were catastrophic. As the disaster continued to unfold, my father and I sat in the evening peacefulness at the end of another balmy day, enjoying a stengah on the verandah as flowers fell lightly to the grass in front of us. My wife and her visiting sister gossiped quietly while they sat and knitted for the war effort, which had once seemed so far removed from us and yet unmistakably was coming closer.

  Then events moved more quickly.

  The inevitability of the war was brought home to us a couple of days later, when the Winchesters, friends of ours from Penang, arrived at Utopia with just a couple of suitcases. Penang had been savagely bombed and they were fleeing the town, leaving almost everything behind.

  ‘My dear,’ said the distraught Mrs Winchester, ‘we’ve had to leave everything. I just want to get to Singapore, where we’ll be safe. Hopefully we might be able to get a ship from there to South Africa. I can’t believe what is happening. The planes just came over Penang without any warning and bombed the place. There must be thousands killed. We were lucky, as we live on the hill and the Japs only seemed to be interested in destroying the town and the harbour, so we were able to get away, but still, it’s all such a disaster.’

  (They were never to return. They lost their home and all their possessions in subsequent fighting.)

  My wife Margaret and her sister Bette comforted Mrs Winchester, but the news that these people were running ahead of the Japanese forces unnerved Margaret.

  ‘Heavens, Roland,’ she said. ‘We just can’t sit here and wait for the Japs to get to Utopia. We have to do something.’

  So I decided then and there that my wife, my son Philip, a mere three years old, and my sister-in-law must also try to get out of Malaya and return to their family home in Australia.

  ‘Margaret, you’re right. You have to try and get a ship back to Australia. I’m sure that the authorities will be organising some sort of evacuation from Singapore, which I suppose is safe enough. I’m going to have to join my unit straight away, so you’ll have to take Bette, Philip and Father and get to Singapore. But you’ll be fine. Hamid will drive you as far as KL and you can get the train from there.’

  My wife stared at me. ‘You can’t be serious. You can’t just abandon us to take our chances.’

  ‘What choice do I have?’ I tried to explain. ‘I have to stay and fight the Japs.’

  ‘Margaret, we’ll be fine,’ Bette, her sister, assured her. ‘We’ll have Eugene with us and he knows the country better than anyone, and Gilbert’s in Singapore, trying to ship out rubber for his company. He’ll organise things for us when we get there.’

  But my father had other ideas.

  ‘I’m not leaving the plantation,’ he said. ‘I have built this place from the ground up. It’s been my life’s work. Besides I will not leave my people. They have been faithful and I must remain loyal to them. These people trust me, so what would they think if the tuan besar fled and left them to the Japs. No, it’s simply not on.’

  The decision that neither my father Eugene, or myself would be travelling south threw Margaret into a frenzy of organisation and packing. I tried to persuade her to travel as lightly as possible since time was of the essence and petrol could be difficult to get, but she wanted to take everything. Her sister Bette, a more practical young woman, persuaded Margaret to pack a trunk of her valuables and sentimental possessions, and I quietly buried it in the garden, where I hoped it would remain safe from whatever was to occur.

  Before they could leave with Hamid we had two other late-night visitors, also fleeing south from Penang. They told us more about the bombing and the evacuation.

  ‘It has all been such a shambles,’ said Ethel Bourke, an old friend. ‘We were told that we had to leave secretly. No thought was given to our Asian staff, who were just left to face the Japs. I feel so ashamed that we did that. Surely there must have been some way to help them. Anyway, we came over to the mainland on an old Straits Steamship ferry and then we were supposed to be packed into a train heading south. It was impossibly crowded and I was worried all the time about the train being strafed, but it so happened that my friend Mildred here knew where there was a company car, so we left the train and drove down under our own steam.’

  Their story made me reassess my original plan and, taking Hamid to one side, I told him that he would be driving the women and my son all the way to Singapore. My father briefly laid his hand on Hamid’s shoulder, telling him that since he had been a faithful driver for many years, he could be entrusted with the lives of the mems and the tuan kechil.

  Philip did not want to leave, and he clung to me when I carried him to the car. I told him he was to be brave, to listen and do what his mother and aunt told him. I said that he had to be a big boy until we were all home again at Utopia, when the war was over. My wife flung her arms around my neck.

  ‘You will be careful, Roland. I don’t know how I would manage if anything happened to you.’

  I had decided that Hamid should drive by night, pulling into rubber trees should there be any danger. Hamid said he had friends who would help them and once the women had safely arrived in Singapore he would make his way back to Utopia. I believed him and felt comforted that he would be here for my father.

  I was relieved the next morning that the women were on their way to safety. I said goodbye to my father when I was collected by another volunteer, Bill Dickson, and we drove to meet up with the rest of the unit. Bill, who was some years younger than me, was a fine young man and a cadet in the Malayan Civil Service. I liked him enormously.

  The drive was certainly eventful. We took it in turns behind the wheel. Driving hard, fast and incautiously was perhaps not wise. Although it was a road we traversed often, we were generally in the hands of our syce, and our drivers knew every inch of these roads, whereas Bill and I were often caught unawares. Suddenly we saw the dirt on the road ahead of us exploding. Coming very low towards us over the top of the road zoomed a Jap plane. Instantly, Bill slid off the road into the edge of a plantation and we rolled out of the car, trying to make for shelter in the undergrowth. As we crawled in between the rubber trees, we heard our car being strafed. Seconds later, the plane had gone. We waited, hoping there were no more planes, and were astounded that the vehicle had not burst into flames.

  ‘That was a close call,’ remarked Bill, in a tone
of voice that suggested he was used to these sorts of encounters. ‘How are we going to get the car out of here?’ The task of pushing the car back onto the road was indeed going to be difficult, for although it seemed relatively undamaged, one wheel refused to move as the mudguard was flattened against it.

  While we were trying to straighten out the mudguard, a frightened whisper came from further in the plantation. Shyly, an Indian girl, holding an infant, came towards us. In a mixture of Malay, Tamil and English she told us everyone in their village had left because a Jap plane had machine-gunned it and they were too frightened to come back. She had been hiding in a rice paddy, but she was now alone, so we offered to drop her and her child off at the next village once we got the car going. As we banged at the jammed mudguard the woman went back into the plantation and returned with a tapper’s knife and small axe. With these we were able to free the mudguard.

  She shook and wept in the back seat, the child at her breast until we left her at a nearby kampong.

  We were near to our destination when I remarked, ‘If we can drive through the back roads and the plantation roads, what’s to stop the Japanese doing the same? Why would they just stick to the main road? They’ll come around, behind our troops.’

  I already knew Bill’s reply. ‘I suppose that’s their plan.’

  We joined our unit, fired with enthusiasm to prevent the Japanese advance. But, to our frustration, annoyance and disappointment, our observations and suggestions were ignored by the officers of the regular troops. The Perak Volunteers were treated as ill-informed amateurs.

  ‘Those regular troops are damned silly,’ said Bill. ‘With our local knowledge of the topography and back roads and our contacts we could set up a great intelligence network. We know which are the best places to take on the Japs.’

  ‘I think that although the regular soldiers are pretty good fighters, their commanders don’t really know what they’re doing. I wonder about their competence,’ I replied.