Dead in the Dog

FOUR

Next morning, Steven Blackwell sat alongside his Malay driver as the dark blue police Land Rover turned into the gates of the garrison. The barrier went up and the superintendent raised his stick to return the stiff salutes of the two red-capped MPs outside the guardroom. Unlike the hospital compound, the much larger enclave of the Twenty-First Commonwealth Independent Infantry Brigade had a central road passing straight up from the main gate, with a number of side lanes reaching across to the perimeter track that ran round inside the wire. The Headquarters was near the centre, an untidy collection of brick, concrete and wooden buildings set around a parade ground, where the Union Jack and the blue flags of Australia and New Zealand hung limply from a tall flagpole.

The driver, wearing his songkok, a black boat-shaped cap, pulled up at the side of a flat-roofed two-storey brick building, which should have been the despair of any self-respecting architect. Telling him in Malay to wait in the car park along the road, the police officer climbed a metal staircase to the upper floor and went into a short corridor. Familiar with the place from many previous visits, he tapped on the second door and went in unbidden. It was an outer office, with some spartan desks behind which a couple of corporals were working. A staff sergeant in the far corner turned from a filing cabinet.

‘Colonel Flynn’s expecting you, sir.’

He tapped on an inner door and stood aside to let Blackwell enter. The inner office was almost as dreary, but large maps pinned to the walls brightened it up a little.

Three men were sitting around the solitary desk and rose as he came in. He knew them all well and after a handshake and a few pleasantries, they all sat down again, with the colonel in his own chair behind the desk. The Director of Operations was a tall, lean man with slight stoop, a pair of intelligent eyes peering out from beneath bushy fair eyebrows. Each shoulder carried the crown and pip of his rank and he wore the flash of the Airborne regiment from which he had been seconded. He was a military planner, who with the more senior brass in the Brigade, coordinated the campaign against the terrorists in that area, subject to the directions — or what he often felt was the interference — of Command Headquarters down south in Seremban, and their bosses at GHQ FARELF in Singapore.

The other two soldiers were a rather plump captain from the Intelligence Corps and a burly SIB staff sergeant from Ipoh, who looked every inch the Coventry detective he had been before joining the Special Investigation Branch of the Military Police. Though a non-commissioned officer, he had a ponderous presence that made him seem a peer of the senior men. The office sergeant brought in mugs of tea and when he had left, they got down to business.

‘We have to decide what this damned affair at Gunong Besar was all about,’ began Flynn. ‘We’ve got a big operation planned up towards Grik and I don’t want it to be sidetracked by a wild goose chase nearer home.’

‘Yet we can’t shrug it off completely,’ said Steven Blackwell. ‘The planters are entitled to all the protection we can give them. Someone has to grow the bloody rubber and one of Chin Peng’s objectives is to damage the economy in Malaya.’

The colonel nodded abruptly. ‘I couldn’t agree more! I’m damned if I’d like to sit out in some lonely bungalow with my wife and be shot at by some murderous bastards.’

‘But the point is, sir,’ growled the SIB man, ‘which lot of murderous bastards was it?’

The Intelligence officer, Captain Preston, wiped some sweat from his pink forehead with a khaki handkerchief.

‘That’s what we must try to decide, isn’t it? Was this a CT escapade — or some local Johnny banging away with a three-oh-three?’

‘So you tell us, Willy,’ retorted the colonel, rather shortly.

‘There’s nothing to indicate that any of the known Commie cells is active around here at the moment, though of course, that can change overnight. The sods can trek through the hills and appear next day twenty miles away from where we last spotted them.’

The police superintendent added his own knowledge.

‘The last activity I know of through police channels was a fortnight ago near Sauk where they tried to blow up a sub-station on the hydroelectric grid coming down from Chenderoh dam. Otherwise, it’s been pretty quiet up here for a couple of months. They seem to be concentrating more down south in Johore and Negri Sembilan.’

‘The point is, gentlemen, am I to recommend to the Brigadier that we send patrols out into the hills beyond Gunong Besar? He won’t like that, as he wants the West Berkshires and the Gurkhas to get prepared for this push up around Grik. The alternative is to write this off to some local thuggery and let it ride?’

‘With some extra protection up around the estates, I would hope,’ cut in Blackwell. ‘I’ve increased the police presence along the road, but there’s only so much I can offer with the manpower I’ve got.’

The Director nodded curtly. ‘We’ve promised that already — and we’ll certainly keep it in place for a number of weeks. I’ll get some of these dozy soldiers off clerking and painting flagpoles and truck ’em up and down to Kampong Kerbau every few hours.’

The raw-boned sergeant joined in, to justify his drive up from Ipoh.

‘If it’s not the CTs, sir, what’s the alternative? Why should any local Malay or Chinese want to shoot up a couple of bungalows?’

‘Or an Indian, as it could be a disaffected tapper or latex worker,’ Blackwell reminded them. The two policemen began a dialogue, leaving the Army men out of it for the moment.

‘There’s no suggestion that any of the workers at Gunong Besar have been sacked or victimized lately,’ replied Blackwell. ‘Though the owner certainly isn’t loved by one and all up there, I’ll admit.’

‘No possibility of any Europeans having it in for him, is there, sir?’

The superintendent smiled rather wryly. ‘There might be a few who’d like to take a swing at Jimmy Robertson, but I doubt they would want to shoot him!’

Colonel Flynn’s laugh was more like a bark.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Steven! But spraying two bungalows and the workers’ lines with bullets is hardly an effective way of going about an assassination!’

‘What about these bullets, sir?’ asked the humourless SIB man, who had a craggy face with a lantern jaw. ‘Have they been identified? And what about the cartridge cases?’

They looked at the local police chief for information.

‘We’ve got them all, they were all standard three-oh-three to fit either Lee-Enfields or Brens, but I don’t see what they can tell us, with no chance of getting any weapon to test. I’ve sent some of them, together with bullets that my inspector dug out of the woodwork, down to the Government Chemist’s place in Petaling Jaya, just in case.’

This was the nearest they had to a forensic laboratory, in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.

‘Maybe the Ordnance Corps boffins could tell us when they were manufactured or issued,’ suggested the Intelligence Corps officer.

‘They’d probably have to send them back to the UK for that, but it’s worth trying,’ said the sergeant. ‘Trouble is, there’s so much of that stuff knocking around. The CTs have stolen some and a lot is still left over from when they were fighting the Japs.’

‘These were all single shots, according to the witnesses,’ continued Blackwell. ‘So it’s unlikely they were fired from a Bren. Someone had to keep pulling a trigger and working a bolt, which seems a bit odd, with about fifteen shots fired.’

‘That’s if it was one person, sir,’ observed the sergeant, cussedly. ‘It could have been twenty persons firing one shot each — though that’s bloody unlikely, I know.’

The discussion went on for some time and the eventual conclusion was what the colonel wanted, which was to avoid a major hunt through the many square miles of hills beyond the rubber estates on the Kampong Kerbau road. When they eventually broke up, the SIB man drove his own vehicle over to the police station to collect a couple of the empty shells that Inspector Tan had retrieved, to send to the Army ammunition experts. After he had gone, the superintendent decided to take a trip up to Gunong Besar to reassure the Robertsons about the increased patrols on the road.

As he sat in the Land Rover’s passenger seat for the fifteen-minute drive, he absently watched the clean, straight lines of the rubber trees passing by and like so many expatriates and military, wondered what it was like back home now, just before Christmas. He came from Derbyshire and nothing could be more unlike the winter-cold heathland and crags of the Peak District than this steamy, lush land of padi, rubber and jungle-covered mountains. His wife had gone home in October, on a six-month visit to be with their eldest daughter, who was having her first baby in the New Year. Steven Blackwell had been in Malaya since the end of the war, taking the chance of promotion from a sergeant in the Manchester force to Inspector in Malaya, helping to re-establish the police after the Japanese occupation. Now forty-five, his ability and dedication had pushed him up to Superintendent and if he could stay alive for another five years, he would be eligible for a good pension and the chance to start another career back home. Wryly, he thought that though he had been exempt from military service during the war, he was now as much soldier as policeman, a large part of his duties being anti-terrorist, especially this liaison with the military.

As the heavy tyres whined on the hard-packed earth of the track, he wondered what the locals thought of their country being turned into a battlefield for year upon long year, for ideological reasons. Maybe they would have been just as contented — or discontented — under the Communist Party of Malaya as under the imperialist British? He doubted that, as though the Malays were generally a placid people, there was little love lost between them and the Chinese, who held the commercial power in the country. There had already been bad riots and plans for independence were well advanced. Blackwell stole a look sideways at his driver, a smooth-faced, amiable Malay and suspected that he was not too bothered about who ruled in Kuala Lumpur. He had regular pay, his family was housed in two rooms in the police compound, he had a nice uniform and he could drive around all day — the acme of ambition for many Malays being a job as a syce, a chauffeur.

Steven sighed, maybe all the Europeans should just bugger off home and leave the natives to get on with it — what business was it of ours, anyway? Another disastrous war had not long finished in Korea, but there was little sign of Chin Peng giving up here, though he was slowly being forced back by measures introduced by the stern genius of General Sir Gerald Templer, who had recently returned to Britain to become Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

Blackwell threw off his attack of introspection as they were coming through the cutting on the last lap before Gunong Besar. These moods must be from living alone since Margaret went home, he thought irritably. As they came in sight of the knoll on the right, his driver pulled over to let a Ferret armoured car pass them in the opposite direction, one of the frequent patrols that the Army had promised. With a wave to the driver just visible behind his protective flap, his driver turned up the slope and climbed to the flat area in front of the larger bungalow. As he climbed out, he could see Diane come to the rail of the verandah above, attracted by the sound of their vehicle.

He touched the peak of his cap in greeting. ‘Hello there! Is James about?’

The blonde waved a glass and Steven realized that he had rarely seen her without a drink in her hand.

‘He’s around somewhere. Come up and have a stinger.’

Though he rarely took a drink in the daytime, it was approaching lunchtime, so he climbed the steps and accepted a small gin and tonic, which Siva brought, along with another larger one for the ‘Mem’. She was looking as desirable as usual in a slim green linen dress and the police officer had no difficulty in appreciating why she caused so much man-trouble in the area.

‘Siva will go out and look for his lordship,’ she said with scarcely veiled sarcasm. ‘He’s probably down in the sheds with Douglas, doing whatever they do with that stuff.’

Her dismissive description covered what Steve knew to be a complex process that needed large open sheds for coagulating the raw latex with formic acid, then rolling it into sheets before drying in the smoke sheds, ready for export. However snooty she might be about it, it kept her if not in actual luxury, at least in new dresses, shoes and gin.

‘Did you see the new patrol go by just now?’ he said encouragingly. ‘They’re using an armoured car now, as well as the usual Land Rovers.’

‘Great! I wish they’d park one right outside. What happens in the hours between patrols? We could be shot dead five minutes after they’ve passed!’

The superintendent sipped at his gin, which was still stronger than he wanted at this time of day. ‘I don’t think you need worry too much, Diane. I’ve just come from a meeting in Brigade with Army Intelligence and the SIB. We’ve come to the conclusion that it wasn’t any organized CT gang. The best money is on it being someone with a grudge against the estate. That’s why I’ve come to have a word with James.’

‘There’s quite a few people with a grudge against my dear husband, some not very far from here. In fact, I’m one of them, but I didn’t shoot the swine, much as I might like to sometimes.’

Blackwell couldn’t think of a suitable response to this, but thankfully he was spared the task, as the crunch of tyres outside heralded James’s arrival in the mud-encrusted Series One Land Rover that he used around the estate.

‘Staying for lunch, old chap?’ he brayed as he swaggered into the lounge, his big body immediately dominating the room.

‘Sorry, have to get back. I just came up to tell you that we’ve markedly strengthened the patrols up and down the road, as I was just telling Diane.’

He related the gist of the meeting they had at Brigade that morning and emphasized the theory that the shooting may have been from a single disgruntled person.

‘I asked you before, but can you think of anyone who might have a serious grudge against you or Douglas Mackay?’

The heavily handsome planter ran a hand through his thick wavy hair and pursed his lips as he gave the question some serious thought.

‘Every employer has a natural turnover of workers. Some get fired, if they’re no bloody good — either lazy or thieving or stirring up trouble with the others. But that’s been going on for years, no more at Gunong Besar than any other estate. In fact, I know that Les Arnold had an actual punch-up with one of his truck drivers a few months back.’

‘I know, we arrested the fellow — he got a couple of months in Taiping jail for assault,’ replied Steven. ‘So you can’t think of anyone who could have done this?’

The estate owner shook his head impatiently. ‘No! And I still think you’re wrong. The bandits had a go at this place six months ago and that was genuine enough, because you even shot one and he turned out to be a CT. So why the hell should this be any different?’

Nothing would shift James from his conviction and the policeman felt that the planter was keen to maintain his status as valiant hero against the communist hordes. After some more inconsequential chat, Blackwell took his leave. As the police vehicle drove down the drive, Diane watched from the verandah, chewing her lip as she saw the Land Rover turn into the road and vanish towards Tanah Timah.

That night, in the twilight before dinner, Peter Bright sat morosely in his room in the Mess, drinking a small whisky from his toothglass. He was no secret alcoholic, but kept a bottle of Black Label in his cupboard for the occasions when he preferred his own company to that of the anteroom across the way. Tonight he was in one of his antisocial moods and slumped in his unlovely easy chair after writing his monthly duty letter to his father, a family doctor in Sussex. His mother had died some years ago and he faithfully kept in touch with the old man, though tonight his letter was not up to his usual cheerful standard.

With the whisky getting warm in his hand, he glowered at the wall of the spartan room, his eyes fixed on a garish calendar supplied by the Chinese garage that serviced his MG, though the image of the simpering girl in a cheongsam failed to reach his brain. He was thinking of Diane Robertson and of all the unspeakable things he would like to do to that bastard James to get him out of her life.

As he had done at intervals for the past couple of months, he fantasized about ways of disposing of the husband, from poison to running him down with his car. He had fallen for the blonde very heavily indeed and though their flirting had progressed to energetic consummation, Diane had so far refused to consider a divorce. In fact, she seemed to have cooled off appreciably these past few weeks and the little red devil of jealousy that sat on his shoulder kept whispering that she had found someone else — possibly in the plural.

Peter threw down the rest of the spirit and unusually for him, got up to pour another. As he walked to the wall cupboard, few of his patients would have recognized their senior surgeon. Usually his major’s uniform was immaculate, with razor-edged creases down the sleeves and legs of his smartly tailored ‘jungle greens’. Tonight, after his shower at the end of the block, he had wrapped a cotton sarong around his waist, a red and white chequered tube that looked like a kitchen tablecloth. With bare chest and feet, he looked like some desert-island castaway, but the waved blond hair and the classical features made him look more like a Hollywood Tarzan than Robinson Crusoe.

He took his drink over to the desk and sat on a hard chair to drum his fingers restlessly on his writing pad. In two months’ time, his three-year tour in the Far East would be over and he had been promised a posting to the Royal Army Medical College at Millbank. After ten years in the army and having endured the first half of this tour in Korea, it was likely that after London, he would be promoted to lieutenant colonel and either given a senior post in the surgical hierarchy or even offered command of a hospital. But two months from now, he would be five thousand miles from Diane and all chance of securing the beautiful and passionate woman for a wife would be lost for ever. He deliberately thrust away any niggling doubt that she might no longer want him for a husband and concentrated on what action he could take.

Throwing down the last of the scotch, he made his decision.

Something drastic must be done or he might regret it for the rest of his life.

As the surgeon was mentally beating his bare breast and cudgelling his brains in the Officers’ Mess, his surgical teammate, anaesthetist David Meredith, was sitting in the stifling heat of a cinema in the garrison compound across the fence from the hospital. He was in the inflatable auditorium of the AKC — Army Kinematographic Corporation — which looked like the top half of a silver barrage balloon tethered to the ground.

With no air conditioning, the fug from a hundred sweating bodies, most of them smoking their free-issue ciggies, was almost unbearable, but his discomfort was balanced by the fact that he was holding hands with Lena Franklin in the near darkness. The QA sister had wanted to come to see this particular film, rather than go down to Ipoh where there was one air-conditioned picture house. The attractions of Humphrey Bogart in Beat the Devil outweighed the near-asphyxia of the AKC and the dark-haired Lena was gazing with rapt attention at the screen where ‘Bogie’ was romantically chatting up Gina Lollobrigida, to whom Lena bore more than a passing resemblance. In fact, her absorption in the film worsened David’s gnawing concerns about her feelings towards him, as although his moist palm was enfolding her fingers, she made no effort to respond, not even an occasional squeeze. The gasman was almost oblivious of the flickering screen and of the scratchy soundtrack that could just be heard above the chugging of the air-pump that kept the bulbous structure inflated. His mind was on Lena’s fading interest in him, at a time when he was becoming so infatuated with her that he had been getting ready to pop the big-M question to her. A month ago, they had managed a weekend away at a beach hotel in Penang and two nights of passion had convinced him that come hell or high water, she must be his soulmate for the rest of his life. Then the rot seemed to set in and though she was still willing to go out with him now and then, he felt that something had changed. Her eyes roved elsewhere when they were together and his hyper-acute senses, inflamed by jealousy and injured pride, told him that Jimmy-bloody-Robertson was behind it. Ten days ago, he had been desperate enough to follow her in his car, when he saw her setting off in a taxi from the Sisters’ Mess. She had been dropped at the further end of Tanah Timah’s main street where she made a show of inspecting rolls of silk in one of the Chinese fabric shops. Within minutes, an armoured Buick had rolled up and whisked her off in the direction of Ipoh.

Now he sat in the gloom with her hand in his and a leaden feeling in his chest, as he felt her interest in him melting like snow in the sun. Until that bastard from Gunong Besar had decided to become predatory, life had been wonderful — now it was ashes in his mouth. As he felt the unfamiliar burn of hatred glowing inside him, he knew he must think of some way to sabotage this passing infatuation with that arrogant sod, even if it meant some really drastic action.

Tom Howden missed the dance at The Dog the following Friday evening, as he was doing his first session as Orderly Medical Officer. He should have gone on the rota earlier, but the others thoughtfully gave him a few days to settle down. The OMO spell of duty ran from nine in the morning to the same time next day, though unless there was some emergency, there was little to be done during the daytime, as the regular staff coped with any problems. He spent the day in his laboratory, where he now had had a full week to get the hang of the routine.

After being nothing more than a junior to consultants and registrars on Tyneside, he revelled in his new-found independence. None of the other doctors here knew anything about laboratory practice and he was left to carry on more or less as he wished. True, there were set procedures laid out by the Deputy Assistant Director of Pathology down in BMH Alexandra in Singapore, but that was four hundred miles away and the DADP was said to come up to inspect only once in a blue moon. Tom’s real bosses were his four technicians, who knew the business backwards and tactfully allowed their captain to think he was in charge, while they carried on blithely as they had done for the last month, since his predecessor had gone RHE.

There was Sergeant Derek Oates, a smart young Regular soldier with a clipped military moustache, who was a well-qualified medical laboratory technician. The other Brit was Lance Corporal Lewis Cropper, another Regular who had been a full corporal, but had been busted back to private when in Germany and had only recently climbed back to one-stripe. He was an engaging, but rather dodgy character, decided Tom — the type of Cockney from whom you would never buy a used car! He was thin and scraggy, with a lock of mousy hair that fell over his forehead and a uniform that fitted him even worse than most of his comrades. However, he was an excellent worker and prepared the best microscope sections of tissue that Tom had ever seen.

The other two technicians were locally enlisted Malayan Other Ranks — ‘MORs’, as they were known, both having been trained by the Army in the FARELF lab down in Singapore. It was a close little family and after this first week, Tom was perfectly happy and enjoyed every minute of his working day. He had a small room off the main laboratory, with a desk and a good microscope, a shelf of books and an oscillating fan — what more could a man want, he asked himself! The window looked out towards the main corridor, so he could watch the comings and goings of the whole hospital — within a few days, he could recognize every QA by their ankles without having to look up at the face under the crisp white headdress.

It was also an early-warning system in case the CO took a fancy to call, other than on the official weekly inspection of the whole hospital, which O’Neill did at ten o’clock every Tuesday morning. Then there was much cleaning and polishing to be done before the procession arrived, protocol demanding that each member entered in strict pecking order. First the RSM would clump in to call the staff to attention, his gleaming nailed boots rattling on the concrete floor. The technicians would stand rigidly alongside their benches, as behind the RSM came the Commanding Officer, stick under arm, followed by Doris Hawkins, the QA matron, blinking benignly at everyone. The Quartermaster was next, an ageing captain with a bulbous nose and a dyspeptic mouth. Though he had a strong Liverpudlian accent, he rejoiced in the name of Robert Burns. Alf Morris, the Administrative Officer, brought up the rear, carrying a clipboard, ready to note down any commands, complaints or pearls of wisdom that might fall from the colonel’s lips.

The pathologist was more fortunate than some other sections of the hospital, as the inspection of the laboratory was relatively perfunctory. Tom wondered if this was because O’Neill, who had been a public health specialist, knew absolutely nothing about pathology — or whether he was afraid of catching something nasty if he rubbed his fingers on the furniture and fittings to look for dirt. The first inspection lasted about two minutes, with a rapid perambulation around the central bench and a quick look into Tom’s office and the little histology lab where Cropper cut his sections and made the tea. With a few grunts and throat-clearings, the CO ended by demanding to know if Tom had any problems. Then with a curt nod, O’Neill left the new pathologist to breathe a sigh of relief as he saw the cavalcade leave and march into the dispensary opposite to persecute the staff sergeant who ran the pharmacy.

This was now the routine of his new life and he enjoyed every minute of it, with just an occasional pang of homesickness for faraway Tyneside.

The past week had been enlivened by Christmas, treating Tom to another bizarre experience, seeing hospital staff in tropical kit going around with red Santa Claus caps — and in the children’s part of the Families Ward, even a few with cotton-wool whiskers. In the sweltering heat, wards were hung with paper chains and cardboard reindeers. Carols and Christmas pop songs blared out from record players in the barrack rooms and messes. Tom volunteered to help with the decorations in Lynette’s ward and even joined the carol singers who paraded the corridor on Christmas Eve, belting out ‘Good King Wenceslas’ in competition with the cicadas and bullfrogs.

A few days after New Year was celebrated, the OMO rota again brought Tom on Friday duty. After dinner that evening, Tom sat in the deserted Mess, quite glad of some peace following a busy day. Almost all the others had gone to The Dog, though Peter Bright had left a note to say that he was in the NAAFI library in the garrison, in case there were any major surgical emergencies that couldn’t be handled by Eddie Rosen. As well as the OMO, there was always a rota for a surgeon and anaesthetist, which meant that like the Orderly Officer, they had to remain sober for the night. There was another ‘gasman’ apart from David Meredith, a Regular captain who lived in married quarters and rarely came to the Mess.

The pathologist lolled in one of the easy chairs, reading yesterday’s Straits Times, which carried all the British sports news on its back pages, making home seem less far away. As he relaxed, Number One brought him a pint glass of Frazer and Neave’s grapefruit soda, a satisfying drink for those temporarily on the wagon. He lay back contentedly to catch up with the recent fortunes of Newcastle United.

When he finally put the paper aside, Tom just sat quietly, listening to the endless chirrup of the crickets outside the open doors and the gentle whirr of the fans overhead. The strangeness of being dumped halfway across the world within a few weeks of leaving a cold, wet England was beginning to fade, though he still had fits of unreality about the whole business. He had rarely before been more than fifty miles from his native Tyneside. During the worst blitzes of the war, his parents had evacuated him to an aunt’s farm in rural Northumberland, but apart from rugby trips and some childhood holidays to Scarborough or Whitby, he had been very much a home bird. Even as a medical student in Newcastle, he had stayed in Gateshead, living in the semi-detached with his parents and younger brother. His father was a draughtsman in the huge Swan Hunter shipyard across the Tyne in Wallsend and Mum was a dedicated housewife.

Tom’s life had been happy and uneventful until now, the only major excitement being his getting a scholarship grant from the grammar school to go to university, as the family certainly could not have afforded it themselves. His parents were slightly overawed by having a doctor in the house, after generations of unambitious industrial workers in their family. When on his embarkation leave, he dressed up for them in his uniform with his three new pips on each shoulder, they stared at him as if he was a stranger from another planet, unable to recognize their ‘wee Tommy’ in this alien being.

Some of this went through his head as he sat alone in the cloying heat of a Malayan night. He had already written home a dozen times and this little attack of nostalgia decided him to start another epistle later that evening. He had a pack of flimsy airmail envelopes in his room, all with strips of greaseproof paper under the flaps to stop them sealing themselves up spontaneously in the humidity. It was little things like that which brought home to him how far away from home he was — along with the egg-cup full of anti-malaria tablets on the breakfast table each morning and the free issue of a tin of anti-foot-rot powder. There was also a free issue of fifty cigarettes each week, but as he had given up smoking at the age of twelve, he gave them to Ismail, the young Malay mess boy who made his bed, cleaned his room and polished his shoes.

Lim Ah Sok padded in again from his kitchen-cum-bar, to ask if he wanted another drink.

‘No thanks, Number One, on duty tonight. Must keep a clear head in case Chin Peng comes!’

He immediately wondered whether he should have make such a feeble joke to another Chinese, but the razor-thin steward merely grinned and made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

‘Those devils not come anywhere near here — too many guns in garrison!’

Tom wasn’t so confident, as he had heard the tale of BMH Kinrara, where the terrorists had come up to the perimeter wire and shot up the Sisters’ Mess, fortunately without injuring anyone. Before he left, Number One bent towards Tom as if to impart some confidence.

‘That trouble at Gunong Besar, that not CTs, sir. No, not at all!’

He grinned again and tapped a lean forefinger against his nose in a cryptic gesture, before padding out to share a bottle of Bulldog stout with his wife. Tom was left suspecting that the servants, especially the Chinese, knew more about the local situation than all the Army’s intelligence system. They seemed to have their own Mafia-like organization amongst the hundreds of civilians who worked for the military, full of information from all the houseboys, mess servants and gossip in the central market, shops and eating stalls of Tanah Timah. Tom’s only previous experience of Chinese was confined to one laundry in Gateshead and films about Fu Manchu. He had assumed that they all looked the same to Europeans, but it was patently obvious that there was more diversity in their features than amongst whites. As for being inscrutable and impassive, a walk down TT’s main street had soon proved that they could be as garrulous and noisy as a bunch of drunken Italians. In spite of his sometimes dictatorial manner, Number One was really a patient and kindly fellow and had more than once quietly asked Tom if there was anything he needed to help him settle down so far from home.

The clock over the Queen’s picture showed half past ten and the pathologist shook himself out of his sleepy reverie to grope in the pocket of his bush jacket. He pulled out the folded sheet of paper supplied by Alf Morris. Its poorly duplicated typing faintly set out the duties of the Orderly Medical Officer and he studied it once again to remind himself and make sure that he wouldn’t fall foul of the CO at tomorrow’s Morning Prayers.

He had already been to Casualty near the front of the hospital and checked that there had been no new customers since Alec Watson had left at six o’clock. The next instruction was to check with the Duty Sergeant in the RSM’s office that the sentries were in place at the main gate and that the internal gate between the hospital and garrison compound was locked. He had to check with Night Sister in the Matron’s Office, then visit each ward and speak to the nurse or orderly in charge to make sure that all was well. If there were any patients on the DIL or SIL, they had to be visited and their status recorded.

Finally, the OMO had to go to the armoury — known to all as the ‘arms kote’ — at the back of the compound and check on the security. Before his first OMO duty, Alf Morris had impressed on him that the CO was particularly strict about this and any cock-up would call down the colonel’s wrath upon him. Only after doing this could he go to bed, prepared to be hauled out at any time if anything untoward occurred. This was usually someone being brought in as an emergency to Casualty — or if there was a sudden crisis over one of the patients.

Tom hauled himself out of his chair and took his hat and belt from the table, before ambling out into the still night air. The damp, scented warmth reminded him of the inside of an orchid house in one of Newcastle’s parks, which he had visited with his parents many years ago — and again he had one of his periodic attacks of unreality, momentarily refusing to believe that he was on the other side of the world, within sight of hundreds of miles of impenetrable jungle, swarming with oriental terrorists who, given the chance, would be delighted to kill him.

As he walked down the road towards the end of the main corridor, the hospital compound looked ethereal in the dim light from the lamps spaced around the perimeter fence and under the roof of the corridor, around each of which flitted swarms of moths and other insects. The brightest spot was down towards the Other Ranks barrack rooms, where a badminton court was illuminated by a battery of fluorescent tubes. Ahead of him in the distance was the closed gate into the main garrison compound, its lights silhouetting a row of coconut palms that ran down inside the dividing fence. On this side of the gate to the right of the road, was the QA Officers’ Mess, as silent as his own quarters on this dance night at The Dog.

Tom turned into the open corridor and walked down its length without seeing a soul, a contrast with the daytime, when it was a bustling thoroughfare. At the front of the hospital, he turned right and went to the small office belonging to the RSM, where the night Duty Sergeant camped out. Tonight it was Staff Sergeant Crosby, a pharmacist from Essex, who occupied the building opposite the laboratory. He was a neat, dapper young man with spectacles, a seven-year Regular with ‘two to go’, working for some extra qualification that would set him up well in civilian life. Tom found him busily writing in an exercise book, copying from a large Pharmacopoeia propped open in front of him.

‘Plenty of time to study, doc!’ he announced cheerfully. ‘And plenty of experience out here, though I doubt I’ll have to dispense many antimalarials when I get back to Epping Forest.’

They chatted for a few minutes, the pathologist unconscious of the usual gulf that the Army set between its officers and ‘other ranks’. To him, they were just two disciples of different branches of medicine. The pharmacist rapidly confirmed what Tom had already discovered, that the main trade in BMH was disease, not injury. Though at the RAMC’s Keogh Barracks near Aldershot, the new medical officer recruits were subjected to grisly displays of battle scenes, complete with horrific wounds and fake blood, dramatically enacted amid shouting, screaming, thunderflashes and smoke-bombs, most of the injuries seen here were from being run over by Land Rovers or putting fingers into moving machinery. The vast majority of the work was diagnosing and treating all manner of infections, from malaria to hookworm, from amoebic dysentery to the sewer-workers’ Weil’s disease, leptospirosis, caught from water contaminated by jungle rats. Sometimes, a whole patrol would have to be pulled out of the jungle because they had succumbed to one of the many tropical diseases on offer. Athlete’s foot, gonorrhoea, glandular fever and appendicitis were all common grist to the medical mill — even many of the gunshot wounds were from ‘friendly fire’, a euphemism for careless idiots who should never have been allowed anywhere near a firearm. True, there were frequent real emergencies, when a plane or helicopter crashed or there was a major jungle firefight or an ambush on road or rail, but BMH Tanah Timah had been lucky for several months, in that relatively few casualties from terrorist action had been brought in. As Tom rose to leave the sergeant after this illuminating chat, he fervently hoped that this situation would continue, especially on the nights when he was on duty.

He ambled back up the main corridor, calling into each ward to speak to the nurse or orderly, usually standing with them at the main door to the ward and looking down at the two rows of mosquito-netted beds, each bed set between the open doors on to the narrow verandahs. It reminded him strongly of his house surgeon days in Dryburn Hospital two years ago, before he gave up the wards for the laboratory. The same nocturnal atmosphere of settled calm, with the occasional cough, snore or fart to break the silence — though the muted whirr of the overhead fans and incessant twitter of insects from the grass between the wards reminded him that this was a world away from County Durham!

Halfway up the long corridor, he met the night sister coming the other way, doing her own rounds in the reverse direction. He was delighted to find that it was Lynette Chambers, who he’d not seen to speak to since the previous Friday in The Dog — though he had recognized her ankles several times from his office window. They met as they were both turning into Ward Seven, the one that had the two small air-conditioned rooms for special patients. Feeling easy in each other’s company, they sat in the ward office for a few moments, drinking orange squash which the QA corporal fetched from the kitchen fridge. Again, Tom had a deja vu sensation from his days as a house surgeon, drinking coffee in the small hours with a pretty nurse in a Northern hospital.

Lynette was easy to talk to and though their conversation was about nothing in particular, he suddenly felt that he had arrived at some watershed in his life, a peculiar sensation that flooded through him pleasantly, like the effects of a double whisky. After a few minutes, they left rather reluctantly to visit the solitary SIL, who had come off the Danger List the previous week. He was lying awake in one of the cool rooms, a tough trooper from 22 SAS based in Sungei Siput. He replied in broad Brummie accents, when asked how he felt.

‘Fine, sir, now that them bloody shaking fits have gone! When can I get out of here?’

The sister explained that he’d be in for a week or two yet, before being sent for convalescence to either the Cameron Highlands or Penang. This brought a wide grin to the man’s rugged face. ‘Almost worth being bitten by them bloody mozzies, sir!’

Tom wagged an admonitory finger at him. ‘I wouldn’t try it again, lad, you damned near died, you know. Keep on taking the tablets!’

The pair went out of the little ward and the humid heat instantly wrapped itself around them like a damp blanket.

‘Phwah, air conditioning makes it worse when you come out!’ grumbled Tom, running a finger around the inside of his collar.

Lynette pointed to the other special room opposite, its humming cool-box sticking out of the wall. ‘No one in there tonight. The OMO often sleeps there if it’s empty.’

‘Maybe I will — if you’ll bring me a cup of tea in the morning!’

‘Some hope, Captain! I’m off duty at six and straight back to my own bed, thank you.’

There was an undercurrent of playfulness in the innocent exchange and Tom felt an inner warmth steal through him, unrelated to the outside temperature.

‘I’ll tell the corporal you’re staying, so that she can get some sheets put on for you.’

‘Thanks — I’ll have to go up the rest of the corridor first, then over to the armoury.’

As they parted, they waved at each other, though Tom felt the urge to kiss her, which no doubt would be an offence against Queen’s Regulations. He plodded up the corridor, making quick enquiries in each of the remaining wards, where all seemed peaceful enough. At the top of the corridor he crossed the road and went across a wide patch of gravel to the arms kote which was placed between the two Officers’ Messes, each a few hundred yards distant. Behind it was the high perimeter fence, lit at intervals with lamps that threw yellow pools of light down on to the gritty ground. Beyond, Tom could just make out a dim glimmer from the scattered Malay huts that lay in the scrub between the hospital and the jungle that clothed the hills that rose half a mile away.

He crunched up to the small building, which was a flat-topped concrete blockhouse with a heavy metal door, like a larger version of the defence pillboxes that had been scattered around Britain during the war.

According to Alec Watson, the place was not a dispensary of weapons to the staff of BMH in the event of a siege, but a temporary repository for the guns of soldiers admitted to hospital. The all-knowing Alec had also repeated Alf’s admonition that their Commanding Officer was obsessional about its security and advised Tom to stick to every detail of ‘Part Two Orders’ concerning the armoury. These mysterious commandments were the Standing Orders for the Unit, as opposed to ‘Part One Orders’, which were a day-to-day update of tasks and events. From Alec’s description, Tom had almost expected them to be carved in tablets of stone set outside the colonel’s office, but eventually discovered they were rather dog-eared typed sheets pinned up on a notice board outside the Admin Officer’s room.

There was a low-wattage bulb over the door of the armoury and Tom stood under it for a moment to remind himself once again from his sheet of instructions.

‘Knock on door,’ was the first obvious command and he did so, using a fifty-cent coin on the thick steel panel. There was some shuffling inside and he waited for a ‘Who goes there?’ in true military style. Instead, a small panel slid aside at eye level and a rather frightened Malay voice quavered, ‘Who dat?’

‘Orderly Officer. Captain Howden!’ he replied, putting his mouth near the trap, which looked like a small letter box.

There was a silence while the body behind the door digested this. Tom had the suspicion that this was the first time the MOR occupant had been lumbered with this duty; it was certainly not the same chap that was there last time.

‘Identity card, sah?’ came the voice again, sounding more confident now that it was probably not Chin Peng himself who was standing outside the door.

Tom pulled out his identity document, a celluloid-covered card bearing an almost unrecognizable photograph that had been taken at the Depot in Crookham.

He pushed it through the slot, generating more shuffling and muttering. Then there was much scraping and scratching of bolts being drawn and the massive door slowly swung open enough for him to squeeze through, when it was immediately slammed shut again to keep the bandits out. The pathologist was now in a cell-like room which contained only a small table and one hard chair, apart from the diminutive Malay lance corporal. On the table was a gaudy vacuum flask, a glass half filled with water and a copy of the Koran. The small space was suffocatingly hot, even though there was a fan in the ceiling below some kind of vent through the roof above, but the corporal seemed oblivious of the heat. He handed Tom’s card back with a tentative smile on his smooth olive face.

‘Everything OK, sir,’ he confided, his almond-shaped eyes taking in the shiny new brass of the officer’s cap badge and pips.

Tom nodded at him and consulted his creased sheet of paper again.

‘I have to look in each of the magazines, corporal. I’m rather new at this business.’

The Malay’s face stretched in a conspiratorial grin. ‘Me also, sir. I got posted from BMH Kamunting last week. Another fellow from here sent back there — is crazy!’ He looked suddenly doleful. ‘My wife and my two kid still in Taiping.’

Tom muttered his commiserations at the habitual waywardness of the British Army, but wanted to get out of the stifling heat as soon as he could.

‘I suppose I’d better look in there, corporal.’ He waved his paper at a pair of steel doors, one on each side of the room. The soldier went to the table and took a bunch of keys from a drawer, then unlocked the doors and switched on the interior lights. Tom put his head inside the first and looked at a motley collection of weapons, some clipped in wall racks, others on the floor or on top of ammunition boxes. Most had OHMS labels tied to the trigger guards, with names and numbers written on them. He knew little about guns, but could recognize Lee-Enfield.303s, some Stirlings, Stens and a few more modern-looking weapons which he assumed were the NATO Fabrique Nationale rifles.

In the other room, as well as more rifles, there was a Bren gun on the floor and a row of grenades and a couple of revolvers sitting on top of a box. In spite of the CO’s alleged mania about the armoury, the place looked like a second-hand shop, but presumably Albert Morris or someone knew exactly what was in here.

‘You want to see book, sir?’ The MOR scrabbled in the drawer again and for a moment Tom thought he was going to pull out a girlie magazine, which seemed an odd companion for the Koran. But it was a worn red ledger that the corporal displayed and when Tom opened it, he saw it was a listing of all the weapons and other armaments that had been left there, with signed entries for each deposit and withdrawal, though there were some crossings-out and corrections here and there.

‘God, I hope wasn’t supposed to check everything against this list!’ he muttered aghast, urgently consulting his piece of paper again. But there was nothing there about making an inventory, only an exhortation to sign alongside the time and date of the inspection, so with sigh of relief, he scrawled these in the back of the book and told the corporal to close up the doors and let him out. After a precautionary peep through the letter-box, the MOR unlocked the door and creaked it open, to let Tom escape into the comparative coolness of the night.

As it clanged shut behind him, he stepped out in happy anticipation of a good sleep in an air-conditioned room — hopefully the first time for a fortnight that he would stop sweating.