In the Mouth of the Tiger (100 page)

She crouched by the window staring out, and was surprised but not shocked by how close the gun-flashes were. Men were running towards the house, shooting as they came, their Sten guns ripping the air with long bursts of noise. When the bullets started banging through the timber walls she realised with a jolt that she was hoping to be hit. She tried to push the thought away, to think of Andrei on the bed behind her, and of the new life growing inside her. But the thought, the
wish
, came back stronger than ever. She wanted to die in these frantic, thoughtless moments, to be saved from the pain of tomorrow and from the long lonely years ahead bringing up Eugene's children without him.

She stood up in front of the window, careless and glad, and a burst of fire caught her in the chest. Lying on the floor with her mouth full of blood, she tried to say sorry to Andrei, tried to reach out and protect him with her
mind, but it was no good. All she could really think about was Eugene, and how good it would be to be in his arms again.

And at the end, just for a moment or so, she was in his arms again, and happy.

According to the press reports we read later, the attack that killed Tanya and Andrei was beaten off with heavy Communist casualties. But there was a second attack, this time directed at the front of the house. A suicide squad which had been hiding in the estate school house stormed across the tennis court and into the bungalow through the front door. Tim faced them in the hallway, firing his service revolver at point-blank range. Tim was a good shot and three Communists went down, but not before one of them had lobbed a grenade into the room behind him where Jan and the girls were crouching. Tim must have known that the savage blast would have killed his family because he came storming out of the smoke and the bloody wreckage, his eyes wild, firing at everything that moved. When his pistol ran out of bullets he calmly re-loaded, then kept shooting, walking up to the dead and dying Communists and shooting them where they lay.

And then he put the pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.

‘Women and Children Die in Savage Attack,' the
Malay Mail
reported. It was not even on the front page: that was given over to the appointment of Sir Henry Gurney as the new High Commissioner of Malaya. I read of the attack while sitting on our balcony having breakfast, and when I came to the names of those killed, the bile rose suddenly in my throat and I was violently sick. Denis was beside me in a second, catching me as I tried to rise and nearly fell.

‘It's Tanya,' I said. ‘She's dead. And so is Jan. And all the children. Tim's in a coma and they don't think he'll live.'

Denis took the paper from me, and I remember thinking that I might have got it wrong.
Please, Denis, tell me that I have got it wrong
.

But of course I hadn't. I sat out on the balcony for some time, trying to come to terms with the awful reality. I began to tremble, and Denis slipped my dressing gown over my shoulders. ‘I'm going to ring the police station at Bentong,' he said. ‘See if there is anything we can do. Poor Eugene must feel desperately alone.' Of course we didn't know then that Eugene was also dead.

The line to Bentong was busy, and it was nearly half an hour before Denis finally spoke to someone. He came back out on the balcony and sat
in front of me, taking both of my hands in his. ‘I'm awfully sorry, darling,' he said. ‘Eugene is also dead. He was killed in a motor car accident just before the attack. They'd been trying to get away from a raid on Argyle Estate which didn't eventuate.'

‘So the Aubreys and the Featherstones are no more,' I said. ‘They've been wiped off the face of the earth just like that,' and I snapped my fingers in the air.

I spent that day in a daze. It seemed impossible to me that two entire families could simply wink out of existence in a moment, and I raged against everybody, including God, that it had been allowed to happen. But my special rage was reserved for Chin Peng, the smiling, polite young man who had become a bloody murderer.

At first, wild anger kept grief at bay, but after dinner, when the children had gone to bed and we were sitting in front of the open fire, I could no longer resist the memories that crowded into my mind. Tanya's face as she had told me about the new baby, cornflowers in her flaxen hair. Tim in our KL days, showing off his dark green Triumph. Eugene with his stiff, artificial Englishness that was somehow finer than the real thing. Jan, shaking her head with happy annoyance because she looked too young. And, of course, the children. Andrei running out to the car to tell us that Frances was sleeping in
his
room, and beaming when Frances nodded her solemn imprimatur. The twins on the lawns at Bentong, their red hair flying as they chased each other through the lilac bushes.

I sat there, tears streaming down my cheeks, staring helplessly at Denis. Pleading for help. What sort of help I had no idea. ‘It's Chin Peng's fault,' I said suddenly, grasping hold of my anger once again and sitting up straight and furious in my chair. ‘I thought he was a decent man but he is a monster. Can't we do something to stop him? He was once a British agent, after all. If you let the papers print that, his friends in the jungle will give him short shrift. They won't want a traitor in their midst.'

Denis didn't answer me immediately. He got up and walked over to the window, staring out at the blackness, his hands clasped behind his back. He seemed to stand there for ages.

‘We mustn't talk about Chin Peng,' he said finally. ‘We certainly mustn't say anything about him having been a British agent.' He swung around to face me. ‘I want your word on that, darling. You became privy to a secret that perhaps you should never have known.'

‘But everything's changed,' I said angrily. ‘All bets are off now that Chin Peng's turned traitor, surely?'

‘It doesn't quite work like that,' Denis said. ‘If you give that secret away, you'll put at risk a lot of people who were also part of the plot. People you've never heard of, but whom we are still obliged to protect. I do want you to give me your word, Norma.'

I gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Of course I give you my word. But I hope someone shoots him soon. I didn't think I was a vengeful person, but the thought that a two-faced murderer like Chin Peng might escape the noose makes my blood boil.'

There was to be a joint funeral for the Aubreys and the Featherstones at the small Anglican church at Bentong, and we decided to drive down for the service and stay the night in KL on the way home. The service was scheduled for two in the afternoon and so we set off immediately after breakfast, just as the mist was lifting off the jungle. It was a Friday, and we had given the children the day off from school so they stood on the lawn and waved us goodbye, with Ah Khow and the amah smiling reassuringly in the background.

At Ringlet a convoy was being assembled, with cars and trucks lining up on the side of the road as they waited for the police escort to join them. ‘Shouldn't we wait and join the convoy?' I asked. ‘It might be safer than going down the hill alone.' Most ambushes in the area took place on the narrow, twisting mountain roads, where the overhanging jungle provided ideal cover for the bandits.

Denis looked at his watch, then frowned and shook his head. ‘If there is going to be an ambush, it'll be on the convoy. A single car will take them by surprise.' And we were off, spinning down the mountain between high green walls of vegetation.

I can't say I was happy. In fact I was absolutely terrified. I found myself literally sitting on the edge of my seat, both hands gripping the dashboard in front of me as if my life depended on it. Five minutes passed, then ten. As the minutes passed I began to relax. After about twenty minutes I finally sat back and began to breathe regularly again. One can't hold one's breath forever, however frightening the circumstances.

When I had summoned up enough courage to do so, I shook out the newspaper and pretend to read. ‘Not a great deal happening in the world,' I said after a moment or two, stifling an affected yawn.

And then it happened, as I had feared it would. We swept around a corner to come upon a double line of men moving up the road, their guns aimed straight at us. I clutched at Denis, frozen with fear in that last moment of life, my mind an utter blank. But the bullets didn't come, the car purred steadily through the double rank of small green-clad men, and then we had passed them and were around the next corner.

My mind began to work again. ‘Bandits!' I gasped. ‘We could have been killed!' And then: ‘Why didn't they shoot us?'

Denis didn't answer, and in the silence two memories came back to me, like fragments of a jigsaw falling into place. As we had passed the group Denis had lifted his hand, almost as if in greeting. And one of the bandits had lifted a hand in reply. The memories found an echo. A dream I'd had, long ago, in which exactly that had happened.

‘We caught them by surprise,' Denis said finally. ‘They were no doubt expecting to hear a whopping great convoy grinding down the hill.'

We arrived at Bentong in time for an early lunch at the Bentong Club. Tim and Jan had been a very popular couple in Dunlops, and the club was full of planters and their wives down for the funeral. They were a noisy bunch, dealing with shock and grief in their own way with lots of Tiger beer, forced laughter and stories. Denis knew most of them but he didn't join them, preferring that we sat out on the verandah by ourselves.

We had arranged to have lunch with the Reverend Jock McDowell who was to conduct the service, and he joined us mopping his vast, bald pate. ‘Another scorcher!' he grumbled. ‘Pahang is far too hot for the white man. Always said so. Always will. But nobody takes the blindest bit of notice.' Exactly how one could ‘take notice' and change the situation beat me but I grinned sympathetically.

Jock McDowell wanted to say something about Tanya and Eugene at the service and was counting on us for information. I told him a lot about Tanya, but I knew so little about Eugene that I couldn't really help. ‘I think he was originally Armenian,' I said. ‘But I think he'd prefer it if you didn't mention that. He liked to think of himself as British. He was very British towards the end. He'd even got the accent down pat.'

‘Lot of them in the East,' Jock said with a tinge of contempt. ‘More British than we are. Fall apart in a crisis, of course. Once a Wog, always a Wog.'

‘Eugene was an officer in SOE during the war,' I said stiffly. ‘He was
behind German lines half the time, blowing up enemy soldiers.' I was suddenly furious, my hands trembling in my lap. ‘What exactly were
you
doing in the war, Jock? Writing sermons?'

Jock pulled himself upright in his chair. ‘Steady on, Mrs Elesmere-Elliott.'

‘Jock was in Changi,' Denis said evenly. ‘We all did what we could, so let's not throw brickbats at each other.' He turned to Jock. ‘Eugene was a perfect gentleman, Jock, and I hope you say as much when the time comes. He was an honest businessman, a loving husband and a doting father. He died in the most damnable way. I rather think your God has something to answer for.'

The exchange had cleared the air a bit, and over coffee Jock even offered a rather clumsy apology. ‘We all have our inbuilt prejudices,' he said gruffly. ‘Sorry I implied that your friend was . . . well, less than sound. I didn't mean it that way. I have no tact or sense of timing, which is probably why I'm still an up-country parson after forty years in the ministry.'

The service was a dreadful, dreadful experience. The coffins had been lined up in front of the altar and covered in flowers. There were so many flowers that they almost disguised the reality of what had happened. But the awful truth poked through: three big coffins for Eugene and Tanya and Jan, three tiny coffins for their children. A massacre had taken place. A massacre of innocents.

Jock's eulogy was workmanlike. He talked of Jan's impish humour, and of the loveliness of the twins. He told us that Tim was still in a coma in the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore, but that his spirit was here with us, grieving for his family, and very close to God. He told us of Eugene's fine war record, and about his business success before the war. And how he had wooed and won Tanya, the loveliest girl in pre-war KL. ‘It is not for us to question the actions of the Lord,' he said, ‘for they are beyond the understanding of men. But if we rail against the Almighty, even berate Him for what He has wrought, does He not see into our hearts and see our grief, and forgive us for our impiety?'

Then we went outside into the harsh sunshine and saw the coffins lowered one by one into the red soil of Malaya. There were a lot of people in the dusty churchyard, planters and their families, the three European assistant managers from the Bentong Estate, neatly-dressed Indian clerks, Malay officials in their sarongs, and even a scattering of Chinese businessmen from the town.

Chinese, I thought bitterly. Probably trying to impress the police with their sense of loyalty. And then no doubt they will go home and count the days until Malaya is a Communist Chinese colony.

Denis and I stood in the scant shade of a grove of nipah palms, Denis surrounded by planters. He was an ‘old Malaya hand', and the youngsters wanted to be reassured that all was still well. I watched him for a moment or two as he listened to them, his hands linked comfortably behind his back, his head inclined thoughtfully, occasionally saying something in his quiet, judicious way. Then my eyes strayed to the six red mounds of earth. The remains of so many dreams and so much promise. I felt the tears rising and fought to keep them down, biting down hard on my bottom lip. And then Catherine Koh touched me on the arm.

I knew it was Catherine immediately, despite the dark glasses and the broad-brimmed sunhat. My first reaction had been to clutch at her for comfort, but then the knowledge of who she had become drove out all feelings except dark, bitter rage.