Spit and Polish

by Carl Muller

  The British had their ‘moles’ in the Penang Units and even in the Ceylon Department. Hundreds of Ceylon Tamils living in Malaysia did not see the worth of ousting the British from Ceylon. They, the Tamils, were well looked after. Why, the Tamils of Ceylon held more white collar jobs than the majority Sinhalese! It was easy to get word to the British that saboteurs were being sent to the east coast by the Japanese.

  Corr1 has told how the brave Sinhalese boys of the Penang units, together with some Indians, were put ashore at Trincomalee where they launched a series of acts of sabotage. But they were quickly discovered, identified and shot. Corr makes mention of four Sinhalese youths.

  Bhargava & Gill2 tell of how the Indian saboteurs fared. They, too, were executed. There is little doubt that some Ceylon Tamils in Malaya had sent information to the British in Ceylon. It told the Sinhalese men of the INA that they had to watch their backs!

  In Rangoon, Burma, the Japanese launched the third component of their war machine—the broadcasting of anti-British propaganda. It was a Lankan, Dodwell Cooray, who was given the task of heading the broadcasting station. The Japanese were wrapping up their preparations for the attack of India. Gladwin Kotelawala went to Cooray’s father who was Malaya’s best-known journalist and on the Malay Mail. Kotelawala was most persuasive. He wished that a small propaganda unit accompany the Indian forces. This unit was to broadcast to Ceylon about the aims and intentions of the Japanese.

  The Japanese, Gladwin insisted, were fighting to liberate all Asians who were suffering under imperialism. The Japanese would establish a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Furthermore, Gladwin argued, a propaganda unit was vital. He reminded that when the first Japanese troops landed in Malaya, they had made terrible mistakes because they were ignorant of local customs. This would not happen again if the propaganda unit heralded them, paved the way.

  Gladwin wanted the elder, Francis Cooray, but Cooray’s wife was adamant. She would not let her husband go. Instead, son Dodwell volunteered. From Rangoon, he broadcast daily, every evening—broadcasts in English and Sinhala. He identified his station as the Free Lanka Unit of the IIL and regaled listeners in Ceylon with the progress of the war, the many Japanese successes and of the many strides in the establishing of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

  All in all, it was with this propaganda machine that the Ceylonese served the Japanese-INA war machine best. Even Bose had conveyed to Kotelawala on more than one occasion that the Lanka Unit and the Ceylon Department were simply there to show that the Ceylonese in Singapore and Malaya co-operated with the IIL.

  Was all this, then, mainly propaganda? The fact is that the Lanka Unit was never sent to the front, had no active military role. In the same way, Cooray’s Free Lanka Unit, which churned out anti-British, pro-Japanese propaganda, also had in the main, an obvious supportive role for military action.

  Yet, Ceylonese did die. Young, inspired Sinhalese who were prepared to walk, even with the devil, to rid their country of the curse of the white sahibs.

  7

  Of Ghosties and Shore Brawls and the Leeches of Fox Hill

  It was Van Dort who told of the ghosts of Rangalla. ‘This place, you know? In wartime Italian prisoners had. Lot died. Somewhere, somewhere buried and put. Died in huts.’

  ‘Huts? What huts?’

  ‘There, where now you are. In night funny noises coming. Boot polishing noises and like pineapples swallowing.’

  ‘Swallowing pineapples? Balls! What sort of a noise is that?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Van Dort darkly, ‘pineapple if have to just swallow without even cutting, making very bad noise, no?’

  ‘Balls!’

  ‘Balls not. One day you will hear. I’m just telling afraid not to get.’

  Carloboy got a few cronies together. If the ghosts of Italian prisoners-of-war went around Rangalla, polishing boots and swallowing pineapples, it was time they were revived if only for the general good of the camp. Also, there were a few soft-spoken, nervous little ticks who still missed home and kept writing to mummy and kept receiving large parcels of goodies which were quickly requisitioned and distributed to everyone.

  ‘But that’s my parcel. My mummy sent it to me!’

  ‘Of course she did. Who said no? Very nice, your mummy, to send like this.’

  ‘So why are you opening it? Give it here!’

  ‘Anney, mummy’s lickle boy is getting angry? See, sent you a nice pink towel and a tin of cigarettes,’ (the cigarettes are carefully put aside and the towel tossed to the owner), ‘ah, toothpaste . . . and a bottle of ... hmm . . . sha! chocolate toffee. Your mummy makes chocolate toffee? Or your sister made? You have a sister?’

  ‘Never mind my sister! Give me my toffees!’

  ‘Wait, men, how to see anything when you’re shouting like this . . . ah, plastic box with cake. Right. Now all can share.’

  It was to the everlasting credit of the mess that distribution of all such goodies, irrespective of who the owner was, was done on a strict basis. The owner received a proprietor’s share of a quarter. Nobody balked at this but the owner, of course.

  ‘So what are you grumbling for, you cunt? You got a quarter, no? All of us have to divide the rest.’

  ‘But that’s my cake!’

  ‘So you’re going to eat the whole bloody cake and purge here? Tomorrow if I get a parcel, you also get a share, no?’

  ‘Who wants your bloody parcel? This my mummy sent to me!’

  ‘So you don’t want? Good. Anyway my mummy never sends anything. She’s got enough troubles.’

  Yes, there were always a few sticky types who didn’t want to be a part of the tribe. And now there was this business of ghosts (and Italian ones too) and they became quite nervous as darkness fell and refused to leave the hut as evening deepened and came to dread sentry-go, especially those night watches from 2000 to 2359 hours and 0001 to 0400 hours (this latter watch being universally referred to as the graveyard watch). They began to plead sick and this meant that others had to double on their watch turns. It was decided that, for the good of all souls, the ghosts of Rangalla should walk.

  Strategy was plotted carefully. ‘Will the buggers die or anything?’

  ‘Can’t say . . . Might get a heart attack or something . . .’

  ‘Better if we begin slowly. Scare them a little at a time.’

  That night Thiaga, gently at first, and then quite determinedly, scritched his shoebrush on the woodwork of his bunk. At half hour to midnight it sounded as if Yusuf was combing his pubic hair.

  ‘What’s that?’ Nugawira barked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Someone brushing something, I heard.’

  ‘Just go to sleep, men.’

  ‘No. I heard. There! Can hear?’ Nugawira sat up. Others sat up. Thiaga scritched frantically. The mummy boys were all up.

  ‘Wha-what is that?’ one asked faintly.

  ‘Bloody funny noise,’ said Sims, ‘like as if polishing boots, no?’

  ‘Shh. Lissen,’ Carloboy hissed.

  Thiaga, tired of sawing away, had stuffed the end of his sheet in his mouth and begun to mumble.

  Winnie, in the next bunk, squealed, ‘Ca-ca-coming from near here somewhere,’ and leaping to the floor, began to crawl away, seeking refuge.

  ‘Poo-poo-put on the light,’ someone chattered.

  ‘Mad?’ Roy Fernando said, ‘after lights out? All will get punished tomorrow.’ Thiaga bubbled on his sheet, then yanked the end out and said ‘Yowk!’

  ‘My God, what-what-what was that . . . said something, somebody said something.’

  ‘Mus’ be Italian,’ said Carloboy.

  Silence. Five long minutes of absolute silence. Winnie had apparently gone to sleep on the floor. Then the shoe brush symphony began again.

  From under a blanket, a voice quavered, ‘Our far-far- father who-who artin hay-hay-heaven . . .’

  Nobody laughed, nobody stirred. The night’s performance was over. Carloboy reminded th
at there were more nights than years and also, there was the piano accordion, and that had special potential.

  Carloboy had this quite untutored ability to play any keyboard. He would perform most creditably at a piano and would make Eardley’s hair stand on end with his performances on the accordion. He had picked up this old Crucianelli which he carried around, brought to Rangalla. Eventually, it was consigned to the Bay of Bengal, but that comes later. The conspirators decided that Thiaga should continue.

  ‘A few more nights,’ Sims said. ‘Make the buggers nervous wrecks.’

  Thiaga had a nerve-racking repertoire. Nights were filled with frenzied brushings, chatterings, gibberings, gulpings, groanings, gratings, yammerings. He even reached over and squeezed cold toothpaste on Winnie, who shot up with a yell and spent the rest of the night under Stembo’s bunk.

  ‘What’s that? What’s that? My God—what’s that?’

  ‘Shut up, Koelmeyer! Can’t even sleep.’

  ‘I-I heard.’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘The go-go-ghost!’

  ‘I want to go hooooome!’

  Carloboy told Thiaga, ‘Tonight you keep quiet. Let them sleep. But watch the fun. First we’ll get that Hendricks bugger. Bloody sneak. Went and told the duty petty officer that we took the soap from the PO’s bathroom.’

  They slept, so soundly that it was close on three that a nagging subconscious barged through the curtains to remind Carloboy sternly that there was work to be done. He woke Sims and Nugawira with some difficulty.

  Nugawira, a small, stocky fellow, swarmed up to perch on Carloboy’s shoulders.

  ‘Don’t kick the bloody accordion,’ Carloboy hissed, ‘Sims, put the blanket nicely. Can’t see a fuck. You will have to take us to Hendrick’s bed, right?’

  Sims slung a white Whitney blanket, draped over Nugawira, to fall in snowy folds at Carloboy’s feet. The result was most gratifying. The composite was a tall, white indeterminate figure, about eight feet tall.

  Sims chuckled, ‘Like the bloody abominable snowman. Wait, I’ll wake Todwell.’

  Even Thiaga shrank into his pillow when he saw the ghost. Todd grinned.

  Slowly, and with extreme caution, they shuffled to target.

  Hendricks slept, dreaming of home, of chocolate toffee, of all those that made life so pleasant. The ghost stood at his bed—a white, silent mass. Sims tiptoed away and Carloboy made a wheezy sound with the bellows of the accordion, then struck a doleful bass chord that was a muffled ‘veeeeoooom’. Hendricks slept on. This time it was a huffier chord, full a clashing flats, like cats in a lavatory, and Winnie stirred, opened his eyes and focussed blearily.

  Carloboy and Nugawira were not aware of an audience. More rude sounds on the accordion and Nugawira began to rock and said, ‘Ooooooo! Oooooooo!’

  Winnie gave a strangled sob and shot out of bed as though he had just been introduced to a brood of porcupines. ‘Heeee-lp! A Thing—a Thing!’ he screamed, and Hendricks woke, sat bolt upright, yammered and sprawled to the floor, caught in a tangle of sheets. The sight must have been, to him, more awesome, more threatening, from floor level. He screamed. A loud, piercing scream. It woke the whole hut. It unnerved Nugawira too, who fell off Carloboy’s shoulders. Outside were the sound of running feet. The camp was abroad.

  Hendricks, kicking out in terror, saw a ghost topple onto him. With a rowing motion which, if his bum was a tyre, would have left three inches of rubber on the floor, he was up and away, swinging for the door. Winnie, seeing him come, dashed ahead, leading the way, and Nugawira dragged Carloboy in a tangle, both falling across the bunk with the accordion slamming into Carloboy’s midriff and causing a painful ‘Ooof!’

  Two sentries heard the awful scream. ‘My God,’ one said, ‘someone is fucking someone’s arse! There, in the hut!’ They rushed up with a clatter of boots and a swirl of Burberrys to be caught in the Winnie-Hendricks stampede. Others, too, hadn’t waited for the door. Many had leaped windows and were putting much distance from the hut.

  Todwell pointed at the sentries and howled, ‘Italian ghosts! Run!’ and the sentries did just that.

  It all ended with half the hut running after the other, and in freezing cold at that. Hendricks and Winnie were finally seized and sat upon while the whole camp came awake. They were allowed to sleep in the regulating office for the next two hours (with a light on, mind) and were read the riot act in the morning. The quartermaster almost tore out his hair, trying to restore order. The duty officer was hopping mad. He should have been in camp, but he would usually spend his night-duty hours in the married quarters beyond the perimeter, where he busily screwed a petty officer’s wife.

  At five, the bosun’s pipe screeched. ‘Clear lower decks!’ It brought the whole camp tumbling out again. The duty officer was furious. He wished to know how an otherwise stable camp could go haywire at three in the morning.

  He was told it was ghosts.

  ‘Rubbish! Indigestion! These bastard are eating too much!’

  Hendricks and Winnie were produced.

  ‘Ah, so these are the two? You saw ghosts? You are bloody idiots, you heard! Idiots!’ He elaborated, of course. He said they were not fit for man or beast, that they were stark staring and obviously the runts of their mothers’ litters. ‘QM,’ he said testily, ‘place these two under close arrest!’ and he went away, rather moodily. No sense going back to the PO’s quarters now . . .

  As the weeks crawled by, it was decided that the recruits were ‘disciplined’ enough to ‘go ashore’. The duty officer would descend to the liberty parade and cluck, and remind Sims that he had to see a barber and tell ‘Dizzy’ Wise that his cap was not as white as desired.

  ‘One thing,’ he later told the CO, ‘our Burghers always look well when they’re kitted out. Carry themselves well.’

  The CO nodded. Somehow, the Navy took pride in its Burghers. In Carloboy’s time, there were lots of Burghers in the Navy and Air Force. Not many in the Army, because somehow the Burghers scorned the Army, especially the lower ranks which they thought were too lowlife even for their expansive tastes.

  Burgher parents were quite proud that their sons were in the Navy. To them, the Navy as a fighting force, came first; then the Air Force, and finally (as a last resort) the Army. Why, this could be so to this day, but by the seventies the armed forces of Sri Lanka saw very few Burghers. Many had emigrated, true, but the forces, too, went ape. Commands are given today in Sinhala and drill instructors jabber in Sinhala and a Burgher recruit would find himself plunged, uncomfortably, in a world where ships sail in Sinhala and an Army fights in Sinhala and planes fly in Sinhala and signals become, to Burgher eyes and ears, as complicated as Rubik’s cube.

  Carloboy’s time saw Burghers ‘carry themselves well’. In the mid-fifties, even the Captain of the Navy—the big cheese with Rear Admiral status—was a Burgher, and ranging from lower deck to wardroom were Burghers of every calling.

  Yes, the Navy was proud of its Burghers who looked good in white and blue and looked even better when full- trimmed, swinging confidently in public parade or at a guard rail when stations were called for leaving harbour.

  Also, the Navy forgave a lot. Burghers, especially of the lower deck were the hellions of the fleet. They got into incredible scrapes, thumbed noses at authority, flouted regulations cheerfully and had little regard for the QR&AI which was the manual of Queens Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, the equivalent of the Navy Bible. The trouble was, all agreed, that the Burghers did not know the meaning of reverence!

  In Diyatalawa, there was no place for a recruit on liberty to go. The whole territory was a vast training establishment for the Army, Navy and Air Force. The only bright spot was the old Regal Cinema which used to be wrecked regularly between 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. on Sundays, when recruits of the Navy and the Army met in the darkened hall to pour scorn on each other’s merits as a fighting force.

  The Navy referred to the Army as a bunch of coconut-tree c
limbers—a direct hit on the largely village type who enlisted because the Army was not over-particular about the type of yokel it took in. The Army in turn called the naval recruits puk-kollo1 which, once said, was sufficient cause to start all manner of anguish of a most extreme kind.

  The recruits strolled out, and once past the Army camp where, the law of uniformed etiquette demanded that they salute any Army officer they chanced upon, they flipped their caps back and looked around for trouble. Navy regulations decreed that caps should be worn square—plunked down to completely obliterate the forehead, making the most serious face quite clownish. This was always ignored.

  Liberty for the Navy soon became a matter for serious review and debate. The CO Rangalla told the Officer Commanding, Army, that Diyatalawa lacked the facilities to keep the recruits entertained.

  ‘You want to entertain them?’ the OC had barked, ‘if they have nothing to do, give them extra work. See what I do ... send all the yakos2 to Fox Hill3 and make them dig trenches.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s good. But sailors dodn’t need trenches. That’s for you fellows.’

  ‘Pah! Your fellows, my fellows, what’s the difference? Here all are recruits! Get them to do anything!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lieutenant Dharamdass wisely, ‘But you want me to send my buggers to dig with your buggers? Will kill each other with the spades and we’ll have to bury them in the bloody trenches.’

  ‘That’s also true,’ the Army OC said gloomily.

  ‘Only thing is to say that Bandarawela is a red light area.’

  ‘And if go to Haputale or somewhere . . .’

  Eventually, a happy thought struck the officers. It needed Air Force co-ordination too, and after much discussion and lots of wardroom whisky, liberty days were rotated. Let the Navy out on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the Army on Mondays and Fridays, the Air Force on Thursdays and Sundays.