The devils circle, p.8
The Devil's Circle, page 8
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
“Since this morning,” answered Karim.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I assured him.
As I re-crossed the bridge Karim called to me. “Tell the Orang Puteh that we will never give up our sister Mariam. We will fight.”
11
I WAS in a really foul mood when I got back to the office. The authorities had no business stopping law-abiding folk going about their affairs. But what upset me more was the thought that somehow I had been responsible. If only I had kept my big mouth shut about Marge, none of this would have happened. I didn’t know how I was going to face Ahmad. But first I was going to have it out with Simon da Silva.
“What on earth possessed you to tell the authorities where Marge was?” I stormed, bursting into his room without knocking. My dramatic entry was somewhat marred by the fact that he wasn’t in. George popped his head through the connecting door.
“I gather you’ve heard?” he said.
“Heard? I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” I responded heatedly. “Troops around the kampong. They won’t let the folks out. How did they find the place? Only June and I knew. I haven’t told anyone and June’s been at home.”
“We’ve rather underestimated our dear Simon,” said George. “He’s not quite as simple as we thought. He knew that she was in Ahmad’s kampong. So he did what we did; asked around the office and then passed the word on.”
“The blithering idiot! Does he know that there could be bloodshed? Ahmad’s sons are up in arms, and I mean that literally. They’re ready to fight.”
George whistled. “I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“The question is, what do we do about it?”
“We calm down,” said George, guiding me by the arm into his office. “Uncle Clarence is on it. Went off straight to see Newman the moment he heard.”
George filled me in. It transpired that the old harpy Miss Rider had collared Simon on his way out of the office the previous evening and threatened him with disbarment or, worse, blackballing at his Club. He had capitulated immediately and promised to find out about Marge. He was as good as his word. The upshot was that a certain Major Ridley had appeared early that morning and asked to see Marge, with the result that I already knew.
“Ralph told me that things are a bit sensitive with the Malays right now,” I said, “what with all this talk of the Sultans losing sovereignty and all. Surely this Ridley knows this?”
“I’ve had a word with Ralph too,” continued George. “He knows the fellow. Ridley’s a nasty piece of work. He was a planter upcountry and managed to get out before the Fall. He’s come back to re-establish the prestige of the Empire. This is insurrection. Insurrection has to be nipped in the bud. He doesn’t like it when the natives don’t know their place. And keeping a white girl from her family definitely fits that description as far as he’s concerned.”
I was depressed. We had hoped and prayed for the return of the British for so long. Everything would be all right then. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
D’ALMEIDA returned shortly before dinnertime, with a chastened Simon in tow. He had an unexpected companion too.
“We have managed to sort things out for the time being,” he said, “with the invaluable assistance of Colonel Newman.”
Newman inclined his head in acknowledgment. “That damned fool Ridley nearly set a match to the tinder,” said Newman. “The word’s got out among the kampongs. More armed Malays were coming to protect Margaret. This business has got them pretty riled up. We’ve managed to intercept them, so far without bloodshed. But that won’t last.”
“What did Ridley think he was up to? Surely he must have known how the Malays would react to troops coming to grab Marge,” commented George.
“Ridley’s the sort who thinks that the only way we can rule is with an iron fist in an iron glove. That’s the way he treated his ‘natives’ as he calls them. And after the god-awful mess that we made in ’42 people like him aren’t inclined to show any weakness when faced with this kind of situation. He thinks that anything less than total subjugation of the natives would be fatal to the white man’s prestige. Our right to rule depends on our power to enforce that rule.”
George’s brow darkened. “If he thinks that, he’s going to be disillusioned quickly. Force is going to be met with force for sure.”
“Exactly,” replied Newman. “The more force we use, the greater the counter-force. There’s a neat German word that describes it: Teufelskreis, a devil’s circle — what you’d call a vicious circle. The more troops we send in, the larger the rebellion; so we send even more troops, which fans the flames hotter until the whole thing burns out of control. The tighter we try to hold Malaya — or India, more importantly — the quicker they will slip from our grasp. But Ridley and his sort can’t see that.”
“So you’ll let Malaya and India go?” asked George, unable to hide the eagerness in his voice.
“Far from it,” responded Newman. “I didn’t fight the Communists and the Japs for a decade just to wring my hands and watch the dissolution of the British Empire helplessly. My job is to restore stability. To do that, we’ve got to get people used to obeying the law again. We’re going to resolve this properly and within the law. Not with troops and a whiff of grapeshot.”
“And how does this help Marge?” I butted in.
“We worked out a compromise,” said Newman. “Miss Rider won’t be pleased, but the kampong folk reckoned that they could go along with it. For the time being.”
“This is where I will need your assistance again,” said d’Almeida, addressing me. “It has been agreed that the issue of custody of Miss Barron should be referred to the courts as soon as possible. When that will be no one knows. In the interim, the young lady will leave the kampong and stay with a neutral party.”
I winced inwardly. Every time there was a fight over some kid, we ended up doing the hosting at my place. It was like we were running a half-way house for wayward waifs.
“That neutral party will be me,” continued d’Almeida. “Ahmad has agreed to it. But I have no experience looking after a young girl.” He paused. “That is why I would like you to ask your Mak whether she would consent to your cousin June undertaking the task.”
I was relieved and surprised at the same time. “But why don’t you ask her youself?”
“If I were to ask your Mak,” explained d’Almeida patiently, “she would feel obliged to agree. It is a great imposition, what I am asking. I do not wish her, or Miss June, to feel that they must accede. It would be better if the request came through you. Then they can answer frankly.”
“Yes, of course, with pleasure,” I answered truthfully. I was glad that we weren’t going to be lumbered with Marge, having just gotten rid of Gim Huat. I even more glad that June would be put in charge. She wouldn’t have Eng Tong hanging around her all day at d’Almeida’s place. A sudden thought struck me. “What does Marge feel about all this?”
“I’m afraid,” answered Newman solemnly, “that what Miss Margaret Barron feels is neither here nor there. This is a matter of public interest. And that means that private interests have to go by the board.”
12
ALL of a sudden I felt as if I was drowning in work. Cuthbert came back from Bahau bearing cases. I started suffering from piles. Every morning I’d come in to work and the piles were there on my desk. No matter how much I did they never seemed to go down. Every settler had a legal problem of some sort; a claim, a counterclaim, a cross-claim … it never ended. On top of everything d’Almeida seemed to think that I had agreed to help out with the Habibullah case. Then, to cap it all, came the notice that Nakamura’s case had been fixed for hearing and would I please be ready in two weeks.
Truth to tell, there was little I could do to get ready. I needed someone to testify that Nakamura had been ordered to do what he did. That was his best chance to avoid the noose. But the rest of his bunkentai had committed mass hara-kiri the day after the Surrender. His immediate superior was dead. The only hope left was to find someone higher up to give evidence of the orders people like him would have received.
I needed to get to see Lieutenant-Colonel Sumida. As Hojo had suspected, he was in the hands of the British. Newman told me where to find him and even made arrangements for an interview. I was puzzled.
“Why are you being so good to me?” I asked. “Aren’t you on the other side?”
“I am on the other side,” he replied. “I want to see the war criminals brought to justice and given their just desserts.”
“You could just shoot them,” I said, “and save a lot of trouble.” And not make me any more unpopular than I already am with my neighbours, I added silently.
“We could,” he responded, “but then we’d be no better than the Kempeitai.” He offered me a cigarette, which I declined. Putting away the pack, he got out his pipe, filled it and took a deep breath.
“Listen,” he said, “we fought this war to wipe out a great evil. We’ve made the world a better place. At least I hope we have. But we can’t pretend to be democrats at home and run the Empire like Fascists. Some people thought that we’d be welcomed as liberators. I don’t delude myself. The Netherlands Indies declared independence just before the Japs surrendered. It’s clear that they don’t want the Dutch back. We’ve got troops over there now, trying to keep the peace. It’s the same in Tonkin and Annam. Ho Chi Minh has just proclaimed the independence of the whole of Vietnam. The French will have the devil of a time retaking the place. Even here in Malaya, we’ve got nationalists who want to be part of the new Indonesia. And don’t forget our friends the Communists; they may be our allies for the time being, but they’re out to take over by fair means or foul. We need the support of people like d’Almeida and you and even Singham. We won’t get it if we go around behaving like the master race.”
“Very enlightened of you,” I said. “But I don’t get the impression that it’s a widely-held view.”
“No, there are those who think that the only way to hold on to the Empire is with blood and iron. But the SACSEA gave orders that there’s to be no witch hunt and no suggestion of victors’ justice.”
“The SAC-what?” I asked. The alphabet soup of acronyms made my head spin.
“Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia,” explained Newman patiently. “Admiral Mountbatten himself. We’re to deal with the renegades and war criminals in accordance with the law. I’m taking him at his word.”
“Good for him and good for you,” I responded.
As I left he made a parting shot. “By the way Chiang,” he said, “try not to get Nakamura off if he doesn’t deserve it. Justice means that the guilty should pay.”
NEWMAN’S help didn’t do any good. Sumida didn’t want to see me. He had his own troubles. The Adjutant-General’s Department was in the process of gathering evidence to prosecute Sumida and his subordinates for the Double Tenth atrocities. This had arisen out of the Anglo-Australian raid on shipping in Singapore Harbour in 1943. The Japanese were convinced that the raiders must have had local help. They didn’t, but no one knew it at the time. The Kempeitai were turned loose on 10th October. A lot of innocent people were dragged in, tortured and killed. The raiders had a second go the following year and were caught. It was only then that the Japanese realised that they’d made a mistake. By then it was too late for many of the poor souls who fell into the clutches of the Kempeitai on the Double Tenth. Sumida and seven others from his unit were later convicted of responsibility for the atrocities. They were hanged in 1946.
Anyway, none of this was known to me at the time. All I had was Nakamura. A second visit to him had proven as fruitless as the first. He cringed away from us when we came to see him in prison; from Eng Tong, at any rate. If I hadn’t been there, I’m sure that Eng Tong would have made him pay personally for all the atrocities inflicted by his compatriots on the Chinese people since 1931. He had a habit of firing questions in a tone of unconcealed hostility as if he were interrogating the man. The answers were always the same: he had nothing to say, no excuse to offer. It was as if he had resigned himself to death. Perhaps Hojo had been right; this was his way of expiating his sins, offering up his life in atonement for failure. Strange how a bully could turn so completely once the trappings of power were removed. Whatever may have impelled him, it gave me precious little to defend him with. If only he had shown some spark of dignity or courage like the traitor Ormonde had, I might have been able to cobble together a mitigation plea with some semblance of conviction. As it was, I was left only with pure abstract law, which would have been fine for supervisions in college but was not the stuff that tended to impress military tribunals composed of hard-nosed war veterans.
It certainly didn’t impress my family. “Why do you defend this Jepun?” asked Gek Neo accusingly. “They are thieves and murderers. You should not be doing this.”
“Because it’s how the system works,” I answered without much conviction. “Every man has a right to have his case put fairly and objectively to the court.”
“You are right if he has a reason for what he did,” she responded. “What is his reason?”
She had me there. I could think of no adequate reason to justify the torture of civilians, even in the name of wartime security. It was a good thing that there was no jury. Nakamura would have swung before I even finished my closing submissions.
ENG TONG disturbed me. Now that Ralph had pointed it out, it was obvious even to me that he was paying an awful lot of attention to June. I couldn’t read June. She never spoke of him, at least not to me. But she did seem to go out of the way to spend time with him.
June continued to see Gim Huat regularly although it wasn’t really necessary. In fact, we could have just let the matter go to sleep. Legally, it was straightforward. Gim Huat was Lao Leong Ann’s only son. There were no other relatives. By the law of intestacy the boy would get everything. We only had to wait for the courts to start functioning again and then we could apply for letters of administration. With the three would-be mothers out of the way there could be no complications.
However, June had other ideas. It was true that she had developed a real bond with the little boy. She popped over at least once a week just to check up on him. Ostensibly, she professed to be determined to find Gim Huat’s true mother. How she intended to do this was a complete mystery. Singapore was full of displaced persons. In fact, the whole of Malaya was one gigantic refugee camp. The Japanese had shipped labourers from Malaya to Siam. Prisoners and comfort women had been sent to Japan. Emigrants had left Singapore to make a new life in Endau and Bahau and Bintan. Those with relatives upcountry had left the city in the last year of the war, hoping to escape the hunger and the shortages. This whole mass of displaced humanity was on the move. The municipal records were in complete confusion. The chances of finding Chan Sew Neo were nil — assuming that she was still alive. But June wouldn’t give up. She spent hours combing back copies of the Syonan Shimbun with Eng Tong at her side. My suspicious mind wondered whether this was the true reason for her pursuit of her quixotic quest.
The family were unanimous in their disapproval of Eng Tong as a potential suitor for June. Maybe it was social snobbery. We were after all old money, except without the money. Our family had been in the Straits for over a century. He was a sinkhek, a newcomer from the old country with neither family nor fortune. For June’s sake I tried very hard not to let this prejudice me. She was thirty after all, way past the sell-by date for a Nonya. She affected not to care, but I had seen her with Gim Huat. She loved children. Eng Tong might be her last chance to have her own. But try as I might, there was something about him that I couldn’t take to. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt that somehow he was dangerous. I was glad that June was moving out from our Cavanagh Road house.
I HADN’T realised how much Mak was troubled by this until she took me aside one day and said, ”Boy, can you take me to visit your Uncle?”
For a moment I was stumped. “Uncle? Which Uncle? The one in Joo Chiat?”
She clicked her tongue. “Ayoh, you are a gobblock. Your Uncle, Pa.”
I felt really foolish. Pa was my father’s brother, who had taken me into his family when my parents died. He was an aloof man, who left my upbringing and that of my girl cousins entirely to Mak. Though I was told to call him Pa, it was clear to me that he wasn’t my real father. I remembered little of him, having been packed off to England at an early age to be educated in one of those penal institutions they call public schools. He died long before I came home. It wasn’t often that Mak went to visit Pa. Once a year, during the Cheng Beng Festival in spring, she would go to his tomb to clean it. Usually she went with Gek Neo, since the rest of us had given up the ancestral religion. May had been converted to Methodism at school and brought along her sister June and her half-sisters Julie and Augusta, so it was a good package deal for the missionaries. Gek Neo held out despite all blandishments, more I think from a sense of duty to Mak than any attachment to the old customs. Strictly speaking, Pa wasn’t Mak’s ancestor, but that little technicality didn’t bother her. Someone had to do it; it should have been me, as his foster-son and the eldest male relative of my generation. But she never asked me. At least, not until now.
I borrowed the Morris for the day. We motored out to the big cemetery at Holland Road. The paths were overgrown, but Mak knew the way. Pa’s tomb was on the hillside facing south. It was a large semi-circular structure faced with marble, built for more than one. He was interred there with his first wife, June’s mother. His photograph was mounted in the centre. On the right was his wife’s photograph. On the left there was a blank space. This was to be Mak’s resting place when her time came.
The tomb itself was structurally in good shape, but the rank weeds had grown wildly around it. I cleared the undergrowth with a small scythe. We cleaned the stonework carefully. The marble was chipped in some places, but otherwise in relatively good condition. Tombs were forever; those who had the means made sure they would last. Mak laid out the offerings that she had brought: a bowl of rice, a couple of eggs, some vegetables from our garden. This was all that we could afford in those straitened times. When all was arranged, she lit her joss sticks and prostrated herself. Mak had a very personal form of syncretic religious belief. She was as happy attending novena as praying to Kuan Yin. When she was troubled, she found solace communing with my departed uncle. I moved away to give her some privacy. I felt an interloper in this conversation between husband and wife.
