Malayan Spymaster

by Boris Hembry

  Outwardly Jean appeared happy, but discussing our early days together, long after our retirement to England, she said that she was desperately homesick and lonely. I must have been very unperceptive and unfeeling not to have realised this, because I had gone through the same experience. I was extremely happy, with a new wife, doing work that I loved, in familiar conditions, able to speak the local languages, and newly promoted to managership (albeit, a small one) at the early age of 25. Jean, though, had to spend hours on her own, in a strange land, unable to talk even to the servants. Fortunately, there was soon to be a change for the better.

  When the Chinese cook/boy left we engaged an Indian in his place. All went well until one evening we returned from a rugger practice at Ipoh to find the mosquito windows wide open, and the cook/boy nowhere to be seen. I went around to the kitchen area and found him swaying like barley in the breeze, very obviously drunk. This he emphatically denied, which only increased my temper so that I hit him across the side of the head with my open hand. He collapsed and lay flat on his back on the floor. I threw a bucket of water over his head, dragged him to his feet, and ordered him to pack his belongings and leave. I sent for the office kebun (gardener) and instructed him to get the cook off the estate in fifteen minutes.

  I went to the drinks cupboard and, like Mother Hubbard, found it bare. So here we were – at 7 pm, miles from anywhere, two people coming to dinner, no cook, and no drink. Except for a dozen or so bottles of beer. So all was not lost as Frank Vanrenen was a great beer drinker and so, we hoped, would be Bill Harvey, our other guest. Jean managed to produce some food whilst I poured out the beer, which appeared to be very frothy. Frank took a sip and immediately spat it out. We found that all the bottles had been broached and filled with soapy water. Luckily we all had a sense of humour.

  The next evening we went to the Kuala Kangsar Club where we met Paddy McNamara, the same man who had prosecuted me in Sungei Patani in 1933, who was now the OSPC (Officer Supervising Police Circle) at Kuala Kangsar. Over drinks I described the events of the previous evening. Paddy asked his name and then disclosed that he too had employed the same man and had had exactly the same experience. He had locked him up in a cell overnight to sober up before dismissing him the next morning.

  About a week later I received a letter from a solicitor in Taiping advising that he was acting for my ex-cook who claimed that I had thrashed him on the back with a bamboo lathi (stick), so injuring him that he had go to Taiping Hospital, where the doctor had issued a certificate to the effect that there were severe lacerations on his back that could have only been inflicted by a beating. Also, I had dismissed him without paying him his last five weeks salary. Either I paid him $200 or he would take out a summons against me.

  I went straight into Ipoh the next day to consult my own solicitor, George Tyrrill, the son of the famous Malayan judge Mr Justice A’Beckett Tyrrill, and told him everything, including Paddy McNamara’s experience. George said that he would defend me and that it would be an open and shut case. The first snag arose when I asked Paddy to appear as a witness for me. He said that he could not do so for he had incarcerated the cook without entering a charge, which was illegal. The second was that Jean was expecting John within a matter of weeks and I did not want her to have to be cross examined by the solicitor representing the cook, a European named Gartside whom I disliked intensely.

  On the day of the hearing Paddy relented and agreed to appear as a witness for me. I denied thrashing the plaintiff, but admitted to knocking him over with the flat of my hand. I said that he was so drunk that he would have probably fallen over anyway. Also, that I had not paid him his wages for the few days in April as the value of the drink he had consumed was far more than the few dollars I owed him. The cook, under oath, swore that he was teetotal.

  Paddy then told of his experience, and how he had been forced to place the inebriated cook in a cell for the night for his own protection, in case he had injured himself!

  The magistrate, a Malay who later became a distinguished High Court judge in KL, found that the cook was lying, that I had not beaten him, and that Jean had paid his salary for the previous month, March. But he awarded costs against me because I had not paid the cook’s wages for the four days in April, notwithstanding the value of the stolen alcohol. I thought this rather unfair.

  It later transpired that the solicitor’s clerk had met my cook in a coffee shop, and, scenting a case to defend, had taken him home and beaten him, before taking him on to the hospital for the doctor’s report. Gartside undoubtedly knew exactly what was going on. He was that sort of man.

  There was to be a sequel nearly 30 years later in Suffolk. Our friend Dick Duckworth, a former British Resident of Selangor, who had retired nearby, invited us to his house to meet the current Malaysian High Commissioner, who was staying the weekend. I eyed him, I hope surreptitiously, for a few minutes and then asked him whether he had ever been a district officer and magistrate in KK. He had, in 1936. He remembered the case well, as the cook was to appear before him in similar circumstances again. We had a very cheery evening reminiscing.

  There was a story going the rounds at that time about two bachelor planters who messed together and who became aware that the level of their sherry bottle was constantly going down, and they suspected the cook of taking a daily swig. To teach him a lesson they emptied out most of the remaining sherry and each peed into the bottle, before replacing the cork. After a few days, the contents of the bottle having diminished as before, they accused the cook of drinking their sherry, which charge he vehemently denied. However, he did explain that he always laced their soup with the sherry, just as he had been instructed to do by a mem he had previously worked for.

  The weeks went by, and through rugger matches, Volunteer parades and evenings at the Kuala Kangsar and Ipoh clubs, we met fellow planters, government servants, tin miners, solicitors and agency men and their wives, and began to entertain at our bungalow and to be entertained at theirs. Most importantly, Jean was able to meet other women, to discuss the things that women do, especially, I would imagine, now that her baby was due within a matter of weeks. We still had no telephone, which was a disadvantage.

  A very welcome visitor was Jean’s uncle Ben Guy. Ben Guy was the Far Eastern representative for Buchanan’s Scotch whisky, and both looked and acted the part. He was known from Bombay to Tokyo as ‘Honest Ben Guy’. A great enthusiast for the turf, he always planned his itinerary around the various gold cup race meetings at Calcutta, Rangoon, KL, Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai and elsewhere. He appeared to know everyone and everything. It was through Ben Guy that we were to know Charles Martine, then manager of the Penang office of the Borneo Company, and his dear wife Pat, who were to remain such special friends for the rest of their lives.

  Charles was about 10 years older than me, and had served during the last few months of the Great War. A man of great integrity, courage and stamina, he was captured at the fall of Singapore and carried the scars of many savage beatings from Jap guards for the rest of his life, never knowing a day without pain

  During the war, when I was stationed at Barrackpore, I traded on my relationship with Uncle Ben when I called on Buchanan’s agents in Calcutta. I managed to get a case of Scotch out of them for the officers’ mess. It had completely run out of whisky and had been unable to replenish the stocks until my timely arrival.

  Some weeks after the court case Jean and I were having tiffin with Ted and Lillian Wilkie on the nearby Eaglehurst Estate when the telephone rang and after a longish conversation I heard Ted say, ‘Humphrey, I think I know the very chap, and what’s more, he’s sitting here now.’ He put the phone down and said that the man on the line was Humphrey Butler, manager of Kamuning Estate, Sungei Siput, one of the very best estates in the Guthrie Group. Humphrey Butler was looking for an experienced planter to replace his senior assistant who was being transferred to another estate to act as manager, and did Ted know anyone?

  Ted strongly ad
vised me to apply, pointing out again the limitations of a company like Ridsdells. Guthrie’s reputation was second to none and the chairman was John Hay (later to be knighted for his services to the rubber industry), the foremost name in the rubber world. I agreed to see Butler, so Ted phoned back and arranged a meeting for me that very evening.

  I drove down to Sungei Siput as arranged. Kamuning Estate – Kamuning (Perak) Rubber & Tin Company Limited, to give its full, formal title – was situated astride the main north-south road, about 15 miles from Kuala Kangsar and 19 miles north of Ipoh – the 19th milestone was exactly opposite the estate entrance. I arrived at stengah time. Humphrey Butler and I took to each other immediately and it was agreed that he would telephone Guthrie’s in KL first thing the next morning to arrange an interview for me with the managing agents. After this briefest of discussions Humphrey introduced me to his wife Sheila, thus establishing a firm friendship between the four of us that was to last until their deaths more than 30 years later.

  I travelled down to KL on the night mail a few days later and duly presented myself at the Guthrie office where I was first interviewed by ‘Long’ John Anderson, son of Sir John, one of the founders of the Guthrie empire back in the late 19th century. After only a very few words I was taken in to see Roy Waugh, the senior visiting agent. Again, after only a very few words, Roy Waugh asked to be excused and returned in a short while and said, ‘The job’s yours, if you want it.’ It was agreed that I would join Guthrie’s as soon as I could obtain my release from Ridsdells.

  A few days later I was due in Penang to play for Perak in an interstate rugger match, so I made an appointment to see Jock Reid at McAuliffes to arrange my release. Jock was very understanding and promised to cable Ridsdells in London first thing on the following Monday morning, with a recommendation that I should be released from my contract. As Guthrie needed an answer quickly I was to telephone Jock on the Tuesday afternoon to ascertain Ridsdells’ reactions. This I did, to learn that London was prepared to accept two weeks’ notice, but on condition that I repaid three quarters of the cost of my fare from England to Penang.

  In those days, of course, companies only paid the fares of their employees. A wife’s fare was the responsibility of her husband, so that Jean’s fare was not involved in this calculation. I must say, I was somewhat aggrieved at Ridsdells’ stipulation in view of the extra time that I had put in on my first agreement. However, I was not prepared to allow this to be an obstacle to my joining Guthrie’s.

  I moved to Kamuning in early May, little more than a week before John was due to be born. Jean had gone to stay with Pat Martine in Penang, to be near both her doctor and the hospital. The actual handover of Waterloo Estate to Ted Wilkie and the move took no more than a couple of days. The Kamuning lorry and my car were sufficient to transport all our chattels the 20-odd miles.

  I was sad to leave Waterloo. It was, after all, our first married home, and my first managership. But, strangely, we never once returned. I know that Jean came to enjoy the peace and beauty of the place, once she had overcome the homesickness, the totally new and strange way of life, and after she had begun to learn the rudiments of the Malay language. She has often reminded young wives of Ruth’s words to Naomi: ‘whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people’ when they have complained about having to follow their husbands to out-of-the-way and uncongenial places.

  Our wireless occasionally gave us trouble, but we heard the broadcast bulletins at the time of the death of King George V and the accession to the throne of Edward VIII. I invited the English-speaking Tamil clerk to listen to the new king’s broadcast to the peoples of the Empire, after which he said, ‘He is in all our hearts.’ Before the end of the year, of course, he was out of many of our hearts, mine included. I am bound to say that he never struck me as being out of the right mould. And we knew nothing then of his shenanigans with Wallace Simpson.

  So began our 14-year stay at Kamuning Estate. We were to regard them as quite the happiest and most productive and formative years of our lives.

  Kamuning Estate (May 1936 — December 1941)

  After the small estate that I had left, Kamuning was a revelation; it seemed vast. It was more than 8,000 acres in area, of which over a thousand was jungle reserve. It had over 100 miles of roads, and a modern factory. It was very hilly, and was dominated by a large limestone outcrop, which rose up from just behind the senior assistant’s bungalow and was visible for miles around. This, the Gunong Tunjuk (also known as Lion Hill), served as a landmark for aircraft navigation and was also used occasionally by an itinerant hermit. From time to time a light would appear on it, presumably when the hermit was in residence. On Coronation Day 1937 Paddy Jackson and I climbed to the summit and planted a Union Flag which could be seen fluttering for months until it was finally torn to shreds by tropical storms. In December 1941 it was reported that a red light could be seen on the top, placed there, it was suspected, by Japanese sympathisers or fifth columnists as a guide for their aircraft on their way to bomb the airfield at Ipoh.

  The first rubber trees had been planted on Kamuning in the early 1880s as shade for the coffee and pepper, when the estate was owned by the Malay Peninsula Coffee Company, under the management of D’Estere Darby, who later went on to found the great trading company Sime, Darby & Co. In 1899, when the coffee market crashed, the estate was sold to John Anderson and Loke Yew, a Chinese millionaire, who appointed Guthrie’s, of which Anderson was then chairman, as managing agents. Kamuning was floated on the London stock exchange in 1909.

  Some of the best-known names in Malayan rubber industry history had, over the years, served on Kamuning – D’Estere Darby, Darcy Irving, Shelton Agar, George Henning, St Claire Morford, Roy Waugh, Humphrey Butler and Robert Chrystal. I feel privileged to have followed them.

  I have often examined my feelings towards Kamuning. If one can love one’s country it cannot be impossible to love a rubber estate, surely? As an estate it had everything. It was large without being too large. It had magnificent views from its many hills. It was on the main road, within easy reach of both Ipoh and Kuala Kangsar. There were many shops in Sungei Siput village and an excellent market, only five minutes away. It had mains electricity, the telephone, a good, pure water supply piped in from the jungle, high-yielding rubber trees, sound finances with adequate capital reserves, and jungle reserves to permit expansion.

  As senior assistant I was responsible for my own division as well as for the factory, which included manufacture of crepe rubber sheet, which was new to me, the grading, packing and despatch of the finished product. The factory was powered by two huge single-cylinder Ruston & Hornsby diesel engines. These were started each morning by heating the fuel with charcoal and a dozen coolies heaving on the giant pulley belt. They were museum pieces, but had served with the minimum of trouble for nearly 50 years, until I replaced them with electric motors after the war. The loud explosion and the puff of black smoke signifying the engines had started were the signals for me to go down to the office each morning.

  At six in the morning on 23 May 1936 Humphrey Butler phoned with the news that Jean had given birth to our son in Georgetown Hospital, Penang, late the previous evening, and that all was well with both mother and baby. I left for Penang at once, breakfasted at Parry’s Bar at Butterworth, and eventually reached the hospital to find Jean sitting up in bed nursing John, both looking very happy. I sat with them for some time before Pat Martine arrived to take me off for a celebratory tiffin at the E&O Hotel nearby, where we were joined by Charles, after which I took a rickshaw to the post office to cable the grandparents with the good news. I cabled ‘Plain John arrived’, which was not exactly what I had wanted to say, as Jean and I thought our son to be a very handsome baby, but that he was to have only the one Christian name.

  I stayed that night with the Martines. The Borneo Company bungalow was one of the largest and most beautiful on the island, cool and airy, with a large
, well-tended garden. After an early supper Charles took me off to the Penang Club, quite a privilege, as at that time only tuans besar could be members, and the new baby’s head was well and truly wetted.

  I had a very busy week back at Kamuning and phoned the hospital in Penang every evening to check on the progress of Jean and my new son. Both were in excellent health and spirits and looking forward to returning home. I set off to Penang again early the next Saturday and called in at Wearne Brothers, the leading car dealers in Malaya, and changed my car for a brand new Standard Twelve. So, in the course of about a fortnight, I had become a father, changed my job, and bought a new car, all on about £40 a month. Looking back, the change of car was a needless expense, but one that I have often repeated over the years. Apart from in the war years the only car that I have ever had provided for me was the armoured jeep on Kamuning Estate at the start of the Emergency, in 1948.

  Kamuning presented every facet of planting practice, from seed collection, germination in the estate nursery, planting out and husbandry, tapping and rubber manufacture, estate and machinery maintenance, labour management, contracting, accountancy and budgeting, civil engineering (road making and bridge building), jungle clearing and terracing. Even tin mining. There was much to learn and much on which I could employ the skills and expertise that I had acquired over the previous six years. The days passed very quickly.