In the Mouth of the Tiger (83 page)

I didn't know it at the time, but I was never to see Ivan again. He came back to Australia as a hero, but a largely unsung hero because the authorities kept his feat under wraps so as not to compromise a bigger raid he was planning. This raid was Operation Rimau, and it ended with every member of the party dead.

My only consolation is that before Ivan died he was to learn that his beloved Gabrielle and their son Clive survived the sinking of the
Nanking
. Ivan died gloriously, badly injured but firing at attacking Japanese soldiers until his very last breath. The way of his death was fit for for a Wagnerian opera, but I have no doubt that in those last desparate moments Ivan's thoughts would not have been on war or glory but would have been reaching for his family.

If 1943 was the year the tide changed, 1944 was the year of unambiguous victories. All over the world, Allied forces were triumphant, their successes piling up. Finally, on the 6th of June, the longest day of the northern summer, the Allies invaded Europe, storming ashore at Normandy in the largest seaborne invasion the world has ever seen.

The writing was on the wall.

One day Denis came home early, and at first I didn't recognise the tall man by his side with thick gold captain's rings on his arms and gold braid on
his cap. ‘Is that you, Alan?' I asked incredulously.

‘At your service, Ma'am!'

Captain Alan Hillgarth had been appointed Chief of British Naval Intelligence, Eastern Theatre, with his HQ in Melbourne. I sent Shirley to the shops with all our meat coupons, determined to give him a decent dinner.

‘I've been hearing all about your secret work, Norma,' he said, laying his index finger against the side of his nose. ‘Quite a professional, from what I hear.' I could only think he was referring to my work dropping off the Zymotic cables for the Russians, and blushed furiously. Surely this wasn't the stuff one chatted about over afternoon tea?

‘I'm not sure what you mean,' I temporised. ‘I do so much, you see.'

Alan ruffled my hair like a fond uncle. ‘Turning young Ivan Lyon into minor royalty,' he said. ‘I think that was a masterstroke. You know that Commander Long got into the act as well? He put the story out through Vera and Mabel Brookes, and it took off like wildfire.' The DNI's wife Vera was a Carpenter, a member of one of Australia's richest and best-connected families, while Mabel Brookes was the unchallenged doyenne of Melbourne society. With that pair behind the story I was surprised that Ivan hadn't ended up a Prince of the Royal Blood.

We had chops and sausages for dinner – the best the Croydon butcher could do at such short notice – and when the children had gone to bed and Shirley had left to visit one of her girlfriends we settled ourselves on the back verandah and talked. At first we talked about how the war had affected us. I told Alan how awful it had been in Singapore in its last days, and how different I had found Australia, and then Alan told us how dreadful the first years of war had been in an England pounded by the Luftwaffe. ‘We moved our home to Ireland,' he said, almost shamefaced. ‘We have a family place there. I know it sounds like running away, but friends of Mary's kept getting popped off, and death is so final. So I moved her and our daughter to Ballanderry, out of harm's way.'

The conversation turned to the people we knew. Alan had just been with Colin McKenzie in Ceylon so he knew a lot about what was happening in Malaya. ‘We've established radio contact with Force 136,' he said. ‘We've dropped them some radios and other equipment, and even put in some extra personnel.' Force 136 was the group led by Freddie Spencer-Chapman which was working with Chin Peng's Communists in the jungles of Malaya.

‘How is Bob Chrystal?' I asked.

‘Oh, pretty well – except he had an ulcer all along and it's now playing up. Serve the blighter right for not telling us. Colin's just had a message from his HQ in the Telom Valley. The MCP people in his region haven't done much fighting against the Japanese, but they are having a pretty decent go at the Kuomintang forces in the area. Looks like the Communists are taking the opportunity to do their Chinese rivals in the eye while the going's good.'

Back in England, there had been some changes. We had known that Admiral Godfrey had been replaced by Admiral Rushbrooke as the British DNI, but now Alan could tell us why. ‘Godfrey got on C's nerves,' he said. ‘He thought he was an old woman, and I suppose he was in some ways. Godfrey wouldn't go along with the way Stewart plays politics with the secret intelligence he's getting through the codebreakers. He thought it wrong for one man to have so much unchecked power. So he got the shove.'

‘Heard anything of Ian Fleming?' I asked.

Alan pursed his lips. ‘Funny you should ask that,' he said. ‘Ian hung on as personal assistant, and I think it's because he keeps an eye on things for Stewart Menzies. Rumour has it that Ian is the man who makes sure information gets to those C wants it to get to.' He cocked a speculative eye at Denis. ‘And of course you're his opposite number out here, aren't you, Denis?'

Denis shrugged. ‘Von handles his secret stuff himself,' he lied easily. ‘Won't let anyone else touch it.' Von was the DNI's nickname amongst Royal Navy colleagues, earned because of his fascination with German technology while training in England.

‘What about Rob Draper?' I asked. ‘Did he get out of Singapore?'

‘In the can, I'm afraid. A lot of fine chaps are in the can. Including John Dalley. We thought the Japs would bump him off because of Dalforce. But they didn't. In fact, they're treating him better than most. They almost seem to admire him. Rum people, the Japanese.' He suddenly turned to me. ‘The Japs also collared that friend of yours, Malcolm Bryant. He tried to make a break for it by boat but they picked him up on an island when his engine gave out. He's apparently doing great work in Changi Gaol, keeping up morale, running messages in and out of the prison through visiting Malay workers, and so on.'

‘I had a friend, a Chinese girl, who was married to one of the Dalforce sergeants,' I said. ‘Her name was Koh. Catherine Koh. I don't suppose you've heard anything of her?'

Alan gave me a strange look. ‘Of course I know Catherine Koh. Code
name April. She's in the jungle with Chin Peng. If it's the same girl, she is one of the MCP's most ruthless killers.'

Of course she was the same girl. The code name could leave absolutely no doubt. But Catherine a ruthless killer? My mind swam.

‘She must have changed tremendously,' I said. ‘She was so quiet and gentle. The loveliest creature you could imagine. Do you know what happened?' But of course Alan didn't know anything. I had to wait until the end of the war to learn how Catherine became Xiao Lao Hu, the ‘Little Tiger' who killed Japanese soldiers with a smile on her pretty, frozen face.

In Melbourne, the tension of war was gradually lifting from our shoulders, and by Christmas time people were openly speculating about when victory might be ours. It was a strange, heady thought, that the old world we had known and thought forever lost might be returning to us. Prospects that had seemed impossible dreams suddenly became possibilities. At Number 14 Alto Avenue, Denis and I began to discuss returning to Malaya.

‘I wonder how Whitelawns will be?' I mused. The thought of driving down the dusty red ribbon of Tana Merah Besar Road, and seeing the grey shingles appearing through the coconut trees quite took my breath away.

Denis came over and perched on the arm of my chair. ‘I'm afraid I've got bad news about Whitelawns,' he said. ‘The Japs blew it to pieces the day we left Singapore. There's nothing there but rubble.'

The news hit me almost with the force of a physical blow. ‘Are you sure?' I asked miserably. ‘How could you
know
Whitelawns was blown to pieces?'

Denis shook his head gently. ‘I saw it with my own eyes, darling. I drove out there on the morning we sailed. I wanted to collect a few things, but the Japs had flattened the place before I arrived.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘There seemed to be no point. There is a point now, because we might be going back and I don't want you to make plans based on a false assumption. I really am sorry, darling.'

I got up and busied myself in the kitchen, trying to keep memories at bay. When Denis came in to check that I was all right I gave him my brightest smile. ‘Cry if you want to,' he said. ‘I know how much you loved Whitelawns. Tears can quite often cleanse a wound.'

‘No good crying over spilt milk,' I returned briskly, polishing a dinner plate to within an inch of its life.

‘We could rebuild,' Denis said, but I shook my head vigorously.

‘It wasn't the bricks and mortar,' I said. ‘I loved Whitelawns for a whole lot of reasons. We were so very happy there. Remember finding the place on that lovely moonlit night? It started then, you know. The very best time of our lives.' I felt myself losing my aplomb, and hurried on. ‘The house was just the backdrop, so I suppose it's almost better that it's gone. There's nothing sadder than a backdrop to an empty stage.'

The war in Europe ended in May 1945, and a few months later, after atomic bombs had obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it ended for us in the Pacific also. Suddenly, unimaginably, the whole world was at peace. I remember hearing the announcement that Japan had surrendered with no emotion whatsoever. Newsreels would show jubilation and dancing in the streets on that day, but I think that for many people the cost had been too great, the struggle too long, for its ending to engender anything but profound relief.

Certainly I felt no joy. Release from tension, perhaps. A sudden blessed calm. But not joy. Certainly not joy.

In Melbourne the weather was fine and hot, and the DNI brought Vera and their children over for a picnic on our back lawn. While the youngsters romped in the sunshine, the grown-ups sat in deck chairs and talked about the world that had been given back to us.

‘Are you going back to Malaya?' Vera asked.

‘We are,' I said. ‘I know it will be different. I know there will be problems. But if there is anywhere on earth that's home to us, I suspect it is Malaya.'

The DNI leaned forward in his chair. ‘I'll make a prediction, Norma,' he said. ‘I know you will go back to Malaya, and I'm sure you will succeed in your endeavours. But the Malaya that used to be your home no longer exists. The war has released powers that can never again be contained. Nationalism for a start. The Malays will want a nation. The Chinese will want a role in its future. Even the Tamils will need to be catered for. I don't want to sound unkind, but there is simply no longer any room for the British in Malaya. Mark my words, you will find that out fairly quickly, and go back to England, or come back here if you are wise, and leave Malaya to follow its destiny.'

It did sound unkind, and at the time I didn't agree with Von at all. But I look back now and realise what a wise man he was. He was a man out of his time, brilliant but largely unappreciated. He had invented the Coastwatchers, an organisation that probably saved Australia from invasion, and he was
recognised as the best spymaster and tactician on the Allied side by far. And yet he ended the war as a commander, the same rank he had held at its beginning. Part of the reason was no doubt professional jealousy on the part of his colleagues. Part of it was no doubt fear on the part of his political masters of the immense power that he wielded. But in the end it didn't matter that he hadn't been promoted, because his hand-picked people, the NIDites, forswore their own promotions in order to work for him. After the war these people became the new Australian elite: business leaders, ambassadors, senators, judges, knights of the realm, even a couple of governor-generals. An adequate riposte, I would have thought.

But all that was for the future. Within weeks of VJ Day, we tearfully farewelled Shirley, for it was time for her to return to her real family. A few weeks later, Denis and I and our children boarded the
Trans-Continental
for Western Australia, where we set sail for Singapore on the
Charon
. Like Shirley, we thought we were going home.

PART 3

Mouth of the Tiger

‘The safest place in the jungle is in

the mouth of the tiger.'

SAYING OF THE TEMIAR PEOPLE OF CENTRAL MALAYA

Chapter Thirty

I
don't know what we expected when we returned to Singapore in December 1945, but what we found was a city apparently unchanged by four years of warfare. On the surface at least it was the same city it had always been. We tied up at Collier Quay on a still, hot morning to be swamped by jostling coolies, officious Tamil luggage-handlers, and smart Chinese clerks with sheafs of papers in their hands. On the wharf below urchins played and Malay drivers squatted in the shade of their taxis, immaculate in their white uniforms and with neat black
songkoks
on their heads. From the city beyond the wharves came the tinkle of rickshaw bells, the blare of car horns, and the
tok tok tok
of food vendors tapping out their calls on bamboo sticks. And overriding everything was the smell of the East – the pungent smell of sweat, and spice, and open drains, and joss sticks, and frangipani wilting in the sun.

We moved into the Adelphi Hotel in the middle of Singapore, and it was suddenly as if Australia, and the war, and everything that had happened over the past four years had never been. We unpacked in our spacious suite with the fans circling above us, then sat on the upstairs terrace with iced gin and tonics in our hands while the children explored the tropical garden beneath us.

‘I have the strangest feeling,' I said. ‘I feel as if I've just woken up after a dream, and that the syce will soon be coming to take us home to Whitelawns.'

‘I wouldn't exactly call what we've been through a dream,' Denis said dryly. ‘But I do know what you mean. Everything is so much as it was that one is tempted to think that nothing's changed. I suspect that might be a mistake, because an awful lot
has
changed.'