A Different Sky, page 31
‘There is nothing more to be done. Communists are not so easily released.’ Raj was irritated beyond measure by Howard’s constant visits. He was also nervous for himself; Shinozaki’s need to keep running around doing good had brought them both under the kempetai’s eye. The diplomat’s own band of spies had now been set to watch their spymaster.
Howard worried about his radio. He no longer felt easy about retrieving it from the space beneath the balcony, to listen to the news on Radio Delhi; he knew he must find a new hiding place for it. Lionel, his mind in free flight on his toddy, did not know what he did half the time. The day before, just as Howard was retrieving the radio from beneath the floorboards, he had stumbled on to the veranda with Ronnie Remedios, who had worked with him before the war in lift repair.
‘He’s a good friend; won’t tell a soul about the radio. Only wants to hear the news,’ Lionel spluttered. Ronnie had nodded agreement, drawn a line across his throat and rolled his eyes to heaven.
‘It’s broken,’ Howard replied hastily, thrusting the radio back into its hiding place. He slept fitfully that night; Ronnie Remedios, with his large soft belly and wide flat nose, loomed ominously in his dreams. However much the man laughed and joked, his eyes remained watchful in his fleshy face. Kempetai informers were everywhere, offering the authorities information in return for their own protection. For this reason Rose had begged him to get rid of the radio, always prowling about anxiously while he listened to the news, on the lookout for anyone suspicious.
To Howard’s relief Ronnie Remedios did not appear the next evening. Later, as Howard sat on his pallet cleaning his saxophone he heard loud guttural shouting coming from the back of the house where Lionel had his bar. There were often inebriated fights about the toddy bar and Howard leaned over the veranda balustrade, trying to see what was happening. He drew back quickly in alarm. The place was surrounded by kempei flashing their bayonets, and Lionel’s friends were fleeing in all directions. A tall thin kempei had got hold of Lionel and was slapping his face and shaking him. Lionel was sobbing and squealing like an abattoir animal, yelling out Howard’s name and pointing into the house. Howard turned in panic, uncertain what he should do, his heart pounding in his throat, sure that Ronnie Remedios had informed the authorities about his radio. As he looked wildly about, Rose appeared before him in a pink flowered housecoat, Mavis behind her.
‘Run. Go to Cynthia,’ Rose hissed, pushing him down the steps.
When Howard reached the Joo Chiat Hospital, breathless from fear and exertion, the Emergency Clinic was almost empty and Cynthia was filling in charts in a far corner. As soon as he told her what had happened, she stood up, took his arm and pulled him after her out of the room.
‘The only reason they didn’t arrest me with Mei Lan was because that boy they tortured only knew her name and not mine. We’re all being watched now in the hospital, those jungle boys can’t come here any more. If your name is on their list, and they know you have a radio, then you have to get away.’ Cynthia opened the door of a broom cupboard under some stairs and shoved him into the blackness inside.
‘Stay here until I let you out, however long it takes,’ she told him. It seemed hours before the door opened and he saw her face again.
‘Quickly,’ Cynthia whispered, thrusting two shoulder bags stuffed with bulky packages into Howard’s hands as she led him to the door.
‘It’s food and medicines. You know how to use the quinine. Brokentooth will take you into the jungle, to their camp. You’ll be safe there. Go quickly.’ She pushed Howard out of a side door and on to a narrow path between two buildings. Brokentooth was waiting: he beckoned for Howard to follow.
They kept away from the road, taking well-worn paths through patches of secondary jungle and then crossed a large rubber plantation. The thick leaves of the rubber trees prevented the sun from penetrating, and trapped the stench of latex from the processing huts. Howard knew he would remember the sickening odour for ever as connected to this night. He stumbled behind Brokentooth. The boy was familiar with the path, only occasionally shining his torch, finding the light of the moon enough. Howard’s heart beat fast and his thoughts were confused. Every few minutes he glanced over his shoulder, fearing the kempetai were following. Possession of a radio was punishable with death: how could he have thought he’d get away with it? Now he was running for his life, filled with remorse at having taken a risk that endangered everyone. He might have escaped – but what of his mother and Mavis? Would Cynthia now be arrested? Everything was his fault; he gave a groan of anguish. Seeing him lag behind, Brokentooth drew to a halt, waiting for Howard to catch up. They were free of the rubber estate. Now there was the smell of the sea and Howard heard the crash of waves.
‘We must cross the water to mainland Malaya before it is light. The overland route is dangerous, we are safer travelling by sea.’ Brokentooth led the way along the beach to a cluster of fishermen’s huts built on stilts above the water.
Howard followed him up a ladder into one of the huts. He had thought Brokentooth was taking him to a hideout somewhere on the island: he had not expected a journey over the sea. Confusion and panic raced through him; he was not thinking properly but just stumbling blindly after a stranger who was a known communist. In the hut a woman crouched over a paraffin stove and heated rice porridge for them by the light of an oil lamp; two children slept in a corner, oblivious to their presence. They ate quickly, listening to the slop of water below the house as the woman’s husband prepared the boat; from the beach came the stink of drying fish. Everything had happened too quickly. How deep in the Malayan jungle was the camp? How long was he to remain in it? When would it be safe to return home? All Howard had were questions, and without answers his anxiety grew. The only thing that kept him following Brokentooth was the thought of the kempetai if he now returned home.
Soon, they clambered into the boat, helping the fisherman to push it from the beach out into the open sea. The boatman took an oar and gave one to Howard and they rowed silently towards the dark coastline of Malaya, Brokentooth sitting in the back of the boat, waiting his turn with the oar. The moon hung low, lighting a narrow path of silver over the dark oily skin of the sea. Howard gripped the paddle, pushing it deep into the water so that a spray sprang up and stung his face and he tasted the brine on his lips. They seemed to row for hours, his body part of the endless rocking rhythm. Only the boat ploughing the water broke the silence of the vast and empty darkness, with the moon their only light. The night swallowed everything, and he felt his smallness on the limitless ocean. Here, existence and death seemed of no more consequence than the breaking of a wave upon the shore and he shivered with new terror. His mother, Mei Lan, Cynthia . . . everyone was far away now. He wondered if Mei Lan shared this feeling in whatever conditions she now lived. If there was a God, he thought bitterly, it must be like the sea, impervious to man’s small trickle of emotion, immune to love or hate, moved only by the laws of its own ceaseless and measureless swell. In that moment, he knew for the first time he would never share his mother’s deep faith in her god.
He had no idea how far they had travelled or for how long. Time had lost dimension. Shadowy inlets, rocky islets and sweeping bays passed, lit faintly by the moon. Then, unexpectedly, the boatman was turning towards the shore. They must be along the coast of Johore, Howard reckoned. Day was already breaking when the boatman left them on the sandy beach of a small cove, and then rowed quickly away. Howard looked back into the emptiness behind him. The first pincers of light were needling open the sky and he wondered when, if ever, he would cross this ocean again. In the course of a night his life had changed.
25
THEY BEGAN THE TREK through the jungle. At first the land was open, with patches of tapioca and sweet potato, and Howard saw butterflies of brilliant colour. Kingfishers streaked across a stream, the warbling of a bird and the constant crackle of crickets were heard. Then, abruptly, the jungle closed upon them and the way forward was dense with vegetation. He was sweating profusely and his limbs, covered by insect bites, itched unbearably. After a while Brokentooth stopped before a tall tree and pointed to markings on the trunk. Clearing damp leaves away from the roots he pulled a loaded sack out of a hole.
‘Rice and salted fish for the camp,’ Brokentooth said, heaving the bundle on to his shoulders along with his own load. Howard wondered how a man could carry such a weight; after the trauma of flight and a night of rowing, all he wanted to do was sleep. Instead, he felt he was floundering helplessly through a dream, enclosed inescapably in its weird universe. A wave of desperation swept through him again.
Unhooking the parang from his waist, Brokentooth slashed at vines and hanging branches as the jungle thickened about them. The light was suffused and gloomy; mist rose from the thick mulch of rotting leaves, fallen trees and branches that covered the jungle floor. Creeping plants wound up to the glow of light, so far above it seemed to be another world. At times the forest canopy fused above them and light almost disappeared, as if they had entered a cave. Then, the sun when glimpsed around the edge of the jungle, appeared like the distant glow of a lamp and the shrieks of birds took on a menacing edge. There were sounds all around them in this primordial forest: the crash of a broken branch, the calls of animals or birds or the knocking of a wood-pecker. Squirrel, wild boar and mouse deer were seen, and once a jungle cat; monkeys swung in the trees. Everything in the jungle lived for centuries, Brokentooth told him. The boy’s resourcefulness and stamina made Howard ashamed of his own weak limbs and thimbleful of energy. The paltry packs Cynthia had given him weighed him down and Brokentooth laughed.
‘Comrades who are part of the food chains bringing provisions into the camps carry forty, even sixty pounds. Everything has to be carried into the camps.’
Gradually, the gloom began to lessen and Howard saw the sun again, cutting down through the trees in thick wedges of light. They emerged into a furnace of heat and began to climb a hill of tall lallang. They were now on a high ridge and either side of them the jungle rolled steeply away in a vista of blue-green slopes. A fast-running stream crashed over the ridge and disappeared into a long waterfall, foaming and pounding into the lush emerald forest a great distance below.
‘Drink only fast-moving water and you’re safe.’ Brokentooth knelt down, cupping the water in his hands, drinking thirstily. Howard sank gratefully to his knees beside him and buried his head in the fresh rush of water.
At this height it was cooler. Howard stood gazing in awe at the endless green swell of jungle-covered hills without sign of human life or habitation. Below this sunny ridge was the darkness of the forest from which they had just emerged; above was the steep climb to the top of the hill and then down again into the jungle.
‘You can’t go home,’ Brokentooth laughed, as if reading his thoughts.
Howard nodded wearily, already certain that, without a guide, he would never find his way out of the jungle alive. Ahead was only more desolate jungle, waiting to close behind him. They walked all day, passing through boggy swamps where mist welled up eerily in ghostly apparitions and even the birds were dull in colour. Howard’s legs ached and sweat ran from him. As the light faded they came upon an attap-roofed hut.
‘This is one of our places,’ Brokentooth announced, putting his bags down on the sleeping bench that ran along one flimsy wall. Howard sat down, grateful to have reached any destination at all. It was then that he saw the black leeches clinging to his legs, fat slugs the size of his thumb, bloated with his blood.
‘It’s part of jungle life; they drop upon you from the trees. See, I have them too.’ Brokentooth laughed at Howard’s horror and lit a cigarette. With the glowing butt he touched each swollen leech, and immediately they shrank and dropped off Howard’s legs, leaving a small red mark.
‘You get used to all this,’ Brokentooth comforted him as he gathered twigs with which to light a fire.
Soon, he produced a rough meal, unwrapping hard biscuits, opening a can of corned beef and boiling up tea. Mosquitoes kept their distance while the fire smoked, but when it died down and they lay in the hut, the insects swarmed viciously about them. Howard covered himself with his blanket, pulling it over his head, but the whine of mosquitoes still hummed in his ears. His sleep was fitful; his dreams were strange and drowned in a green infinity. Beneath the filthy cloth he was hot and sweaty and the rungs of the bamboo bench pressed uncomfortably into his back. Each time he woke the same wave of panic swept through him. Where was he going, when would he return home? At almost this time the day before, he had been cleaning his saxophone in Cousin Lionel’s house.
When at last the next day they came into the guerrilla camp, everyone had just finished eating; no food was left for them. The camp was in a clearing hacked from the encompassing vegetation. A sentry with a machine gun stopped them as they approached. Password, he shouted and Brokentooth shouted back that he did not know the password of the day. After some discussion with a hefty man wearing an Air Raid Precaution helmet who was assisting him, the guard dropped formalities and allowed them to enter the camp.
‘Even known people can be spies; we have to be careful, informers are everywhere. The password changes every day,’ Brokentooth explained.
The sight of the guard’s familiar ARP helmet in such an incongruous place seemed only to emphasise the distortions Howard faced. The letters ARP stamped on the front filled him with nostalgia and memories of Mr Barber and the long-ago first air raid. Before them rattan huts with attap roofs stood about a rough parade ground on which combatants were drilling, a few young women amongst them.
‘That’s a food-carrying party getting ready to leave to bring back provisions.’ Brokentooth pointed out a group assembling beneath a tree. ‘We depend upon the carriers for survival. There are about seventy comrades in this camp.’
Brokentooth led the way to a solitary hut at the top of an incline. As they approached, he withdrew a peaked cotton cap from his rucksack and quickly pulled it on. Inside the hut, seated before a rough table Howard was shocked to see Wee Jack, his head bent in concentration over some papers. Howard halted in confusion: it had never occurred to him that Wee Jack would command a guerrilla camp. Brokentooth entered the hut nervously and stood to attention, giving a clenched fist salute.
‘Chinli,’ he said, head erect, peaked cap with its three metal stars pulled smartly forward. Wee Jack stood up and returned the salute before turning to Howard and beckoning him into the hut. He was dressed in a worn olive green uniform, and observed Howard’s exhausted bewilderment with amusement.
‘Didn’t you expect to see me here? So, you’ve been forced to join us at last.’
At Wee Jack’s invitation Howard seated himself on the sleeping bench beside the Commissar’s desk. The bench was heaped untidily with papers, boxes of tea, tin mugs, propaganda leaflets, a comb, a box of pencils, a peaked cap and a bayonet. Howard hesitantly cleared a space for himself while at the other end Wee Jack searched for a bottle of Camp coffee that he said was buried beneath the mess. Unscrewing the lid, he poured some of the sticky essence into a dirty tin mug. Then, burrowing again into the mound of belongings, he unearthed a tin of condensed milk in which he punched a hole with an army pocketknife. Adding cold water to the drink, he stirred the liquid with a finger before handing it to Howard. Wee Jack had several suppurating jungle sores on his arms and legs and Howard was in no hurry to take the coffee.
‘We don’t think too much about hygiene here,’ Wee Jack announced dismissively as he mixed himself a mug of the coffee.
‘Why have you chosen to join our fight against the Japanese?’ he asked, extracting a creased printed form from beneath the untidy pile on the bench. Already, Howard realised, the balance between them had changed. Wee Jack was now Commissar of the camp and he, Howard, was a dispensable refugee dependent upon his largesse.
‘I have to fill in this form and you must sign it. We are strict about procedures here. This is a military camp and everything is documented; I represent the Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army,’ Wee Jack told him proudly holding a pencil poised above the sheet of paper, frowning over his spectacles, his unhealthy colouring apparent even in the gloom of the hut. As Howard seemed lost for words, he sighed resignedly.
‘We’ll just say you want to fight the Japanese because you hate all Imperialists and, after they have been defeated, you will continue to fight until the People’s Republic of Malaya is established. In the Republic everyone – Chinese, Malay, Indians and all other minority races – will have equal rights and opportunities.’ Wee Jack made a sweeping gesture towards the open entrance of the hut where a flag of the new Republic hung limply on a bamboo pole.
‘As soon as it’s safe I must return home,’ Howard protested.
Wee Jack gave a bark of scornful laughter that turned into a deep, racking cough. After it subsided he spat into a hollowed out coconut shell that stood by his desk. ‘You’re safe here, remain as long as you wish, but while you are here you must obey camp rules and work like the others. We’re all comrades; we allow no differences.’
‘You can write that I agree with a fight against the Japanese, because I do. I have not thought beyond that,’ Howard conceded begrudgingly, as Wee Jack turned his attention again to the form.
‘Then it is time that you began to think,’ he replied curtly, not raising his head from the paper. Beyond the hut Howard observed the thick wall of the encroaching jungle and felt his helplessness, the weight of the miles he had trekked to this spot.
