Dead in the Dog

Tom Howden thought it was an opportunity to find out more about the place that was to be his home for most of the next three years – unless the mysterious ways of the Royal Army Medical Corps found somewhere even more obscure to send him. His knowledge of the military machine was rudimentary, as six weeks’ basic training in Britain had only taught him how to march badly, miss every target with a revolver and learn a little about intestinal parasites and numerous types of tropical lurgy.

‘What’s this Brigade you talk about, then?’

The driver sighed under his breath. They shouldn’t let virgins like this out alone, he thought.

‘You’re part of it now, sir!’ He squinted at the pristine green oblong sewn on to his passenger’s sleeve, portraying a yellow lion alongside a palm tree.

‘That dog-and-lampost flash’ll have to come off pretty quick, sir. Your CO will spit tacks if he sees it. That’s Singapore Base District, but we’re Twenty-First Commonwealth Independent Infantry Brigade. Different flash altogether – you need one like mine.’

Tom looked at the dhobi-faded patch on the corporal’s uniform – a blue shield and crossed red swords below the figures ‘21’.

‘Is the hospital part of that, then?’ he asked dubiously.

‘Well, you’ve got your own CO, a half-colonel. Queer bugger, he is too . . . oh, sorry sir!’ The driver had the grace to look sheepish at his gaffe. ‘But the big chief is the Brigadier, runs the whole outfit.’

The explanation was cut short as the Land Rover rounded a bend and came into a village, where they were forced to crawl along behind an ox-cart heaped with dried palm fronds for roofing. The driver swerved to avoid mangy pi-dogs, men on high bicycles, wandering chickens and assorted children scattered across the road. Ramshackle stalls selling fruit and Coca-Cola stood on the beaten earth in front of a few two-storied shophouses, from which taped Chinese pop songs blared out at ear-splitting volume. Malay girls in sarong-kerbayahs, colourful tunics over long skirts, swayed gracefully through the hubbub, resisting the raucous invitations of the shopkeepers to buy tin alarm clocks, dried fish or plastic toys. A dilapidated bus was coming the other way and they were forced to stop for a moment behind a grimy truck, from which several emaciated men were unloading heavy sacks of rice. Across the tailboard large Chinese characters were painted and underneath, Tom read a presumed translation in Roman lettering proclaiming the owner to be ‘Wun Fat Tit’, which left him wondering if it could possibly be true or was just some oriental leg-pull.

As the bus passed, blaring its horn raucously and belching black diesel smoke, the Land Rover pulled out, but almost immediately, the driver had to brake to avoid a Chinese woman wearing a samfu, a kind of floral pyjamas, leading a skinny cow on a length of rope.

‘This is Kampong Kerdah, sir, the last village before our place. Tanah Timah is a proper town, not like this ’ere dump,’ said the soldier, with an almost proprietorial air.

As Howden was thinking that most places in Malaya seemed to have alliterative names, the driver twisted the wheel again and squeezed past the ox cart and accelerated out of the village on to more curves between more rubber estates.

‘Where’s this road go to?’ he asked.

‘It forks at Tanah Timah – or ‘TT’ as everyone calls it. Straight on it goes up a few miles to Kampong Jalong, then fizzles out against the mountains. Big buggers they are, some go up to six thousand feet. The other track just goes through the rubber up past Gunong Besar, with a village at the end called Kampong Kerbau. Damn-all beyond that for ’undreds of miles across the jungle and mountains, until you hit the China Sea. All Black Area that, real bandit country, very nasty!’

He said this with morbid glee, as if he had daily experience of hunting terrorists, though in fact he had never heard a single shot fired in anger during his two years up at this ‘sharp end’ of the campaign.

‘Is this a Black Area?’ Howden looked uneasily at the deserted plantations, where the rubber trees stood in endless ranks, reminding him of the war graves he had seen on his rugby trip to Flanders.

‘Nossir, but this White Area stops just beyond TT. If it was Black here, we wouldn’t be allowed out without an escort – and have to carry a weapon.’

He bent his head towards the officer as if to impart some great secret.

‘Best not to carry a pistol, sir. You only get a ticking off for not having one, but if you lose the bloody thing, it’s a court martial.’

Tom had no intention of carrying anything more lethal than a syringe, especially as Aldershot had proved that he could barely hit a house at ten paces. The vehicle suddenly slowed to a stop and he looked around in alarm.

‘Just thought you’d like to see the view, sir,’ reassured the corporal. He leaned on his steering wheel and pointed through the windscreen.

‘That’s TT down there, you can see the garrison and BMH next to it.’