PEARL OF THE ORIENT

The relaxed style of the 'confrontation' campaign by Indonesia against Malaysia when the new state was established in the early 60's became apparent as soon as I landed in Tawau airport, Sabah in October 1965. I was met by a Malaysian officer who wanted to know if I would like to see the Brigadier (Malay). It would have been impolite to say no, so I shook him by the hand and said: "Yes, please." "Well, you can't," he replied. "It's a holiday today."
Holidays are an ever present feature of life in Malaysia and rarely does a two week period pass without a Malay, Chinese or Indian festival taking place. Despite Malaysia being an Islamic country, members of indigenous races enjoy celebrating Christmas and Easter just as much, if not more, than Christians. It's not hard to understand why: the sound of cash registers in all the big shops has long beaten Christmas carols to No. 1 in the Christmas charts.
Another example of the relaxed style with which Malays and Indonesians confronted each other was the presence of at least half a dozen Indonesian sailing boats, known as 'cumpits' at their moorings in Tawau harbour at any one time. These small sailing boats plied their trade without hindrance over a wide area of the South China Sea throughout the troubles.
One of my jobs as Second-in-Command 2/RANGERS was to pursue the 'hearts and minds' campaign. A considerable sum of money had been voted to provide children's playgrounds and this was deemed to be an excellent opportunity to get to know villagers. The procedure went like this: First - a village would be selected and a reconnaissance carried out to see if the villagers wanted a playground and, if so, where it should be sited. Second - the contract for the construction of swings, roundabouts and slides to be drawn up with a local contractor in Tawau. Third - the preparation of concrete foundations in the village and, finally, Fourth - the delivery by me and a working party of the playground, in kit form, ready for assembly on the concrete slabs. The village headman would make it quite an occasion, the children would be given a day off from school and there would be speeches and toasts and, hopefully, declarations of support against the common enemy.
The day before we set off for one of the villages destined to receive a set of playground equipment, I checked to make sure it was complete and then had it loaded on a couple of Army lorries. I and about a dozen soldiers comprising the working party, made an early start as there had been continuous rain during the previous week. Even though it was only a round trip of sixty miles, the roads were so bad that progress could be as little as ten miles an hour. The 'roads' through the jungle were just cleared tracks where trees had been felled by Chinese logging companies. It was quite a useful scheme for all concerned; the Chinese were able to cut down valuable hardwood while the Sabahan government benefited from the revenue paid for timber as well as being able to develop tracks and bridges used by the loggers. Nowadays, many of these tracks have become wide thoroughfares connecting towns and villages which, in my day, could only be reached by sea.
The journey was just as I expected - painfully slow. At one stage, when we were crossing a log bridge, the wheels of one of the lorries slipped between two tree trunks and it took us a few hours to get moving again. As a result, our schedule was badly affected and by the time we had put the playground together and made sure that everything worked properly, it was too late to make the return journey.
This was not a problem; we were operating in Borneo where the pace of life is much slower than most other places in the world. The local PWD (public works department) allowed us to occupy some atap (palm frond) huts in his compound and the soldiers were quite happy to spend a night in the village, where one of them was able to see his family. I had a hut for my own use and I brought a hammock, a mosquito net and a couple of blankets to be on the safe side. I could have joined the soldiers who were making a curry from the contents of their emergency ration packs, but decided, instead, to go into the village for an evening meal.
When I parked my Land Rover near the padang (village green), I could see that the night shift had taken over. Screams of adult laughter rang around the padang as grown men and women gave the swings, slides and roundabouts a thoroughly good test. Some of them recognised me as their benefactor and greeted me again most warmly. I considered that 'hearts and minds' in this particular village had been well and truly captured.
I spent some time with the villagers and then became aware that I had not had much to eat since breakfast. It was only a small place and I did not expect to find anything so sophisticated as a restaurant. I walked around the padang again and someone was kind enough to direct me to a place where food was available.
The door of the house facing the padang was closed, so I walked around to the back. I climbed a few steps, looked through the window and saw a Chinese family sitting down to their evening meal; the father of the family got to his feet and invited me in. I asked him in Malay if he could serve me with food and he led me to a room normally used for that purpose. Seated at a table was a Chinese woman of middle age who listened as the towkay (owner of the establishment) spoke to her in Cantonese. She then spoke to me in excellent English and introduced herself as Pearl Chung.
"I understand you would like something to eat," she said. I was delighted to meet such an agreeable companion and I asked her what was on offer. There was nothing like a menu in this most humble of eating establishments so I told her that anything would do as long as it came quickly. She said that she was waiting for a meal herself, and suggested that she double the order. "Yes, please," I replied, "and what would you like to drink?" She had an empty bottle of Tiger beer in front of her and nodded towards it.
The main course, as far as I can remember, was a pile of rice accompanied by bits of chicken and duck which are usually thrown away by more discriminating cooks. It was food, nevertheless, and when I had finished I was able to give my full attention to liquid refreshment.
Pearl and I sat well into the night drinking rice wine (when the towkay's stock of Tiger beer was exhausted). At about one o'clock in the morning I realized that I would be incapable of driving if I drank any more wine so I offered to drive Pearl home. Getting her down the back steps was quite a job and an even more difficult task was to get her into the vehicle. She directed me out of the village and along the road towards the sea. After we had travelled about two hundred yards, she told me to turn right and follow a track between some banana trees. Eventually, we came to an atap hut with a brilliant white door. "Here we are," said Pearl as she stumbled out of the vehicle.
She told me she was 'attached' to someone and, although our friendship was quite above board, I had no wish to be confronted by a Chinaman who could be excused for thinking otherwise. I was about to drive away when the door opened and a male European dressed in immaculate white drill from head to foot said: "Hello, darling. Who have you brought home?" He grabbed Pearl around the waist with one hand and put the other on the bonnet of the Land Rover. Pearl gave her boy friend, or whatever he was, a kiss and then pointed to me: "This is Bob Smith - we've had a great time together." Short of running over Pearl's boy friend, I was unable to make my exit and, as he showed no intention of enquiring into what sort of 'great time' we had had together, I opened the door and got out. "Andrew Millard," said the man in white, "late of the Royal Navy. Come inside old boy and have something to drink. We don't see many Army chaps around here."
From the outside, the house looked like most other native dwellings, but once inside, I found it was pleasantly decorated. A typewriter on the desk and a wide selection of books on shelves led me to believe that Andrew or Pearl did some writing. I was right in this assumption as Andrew explained that he supplemented his pension by submitting the odd story to the Sabah newspaper printed in Jesselton (now called Kota Kinabalu). I had consumed enough rice wine that night to last me for the rest of my time in Borneo but, over the next few hours, Pearl and I found second wind and by the time I left, at getting on for 3 o'clock, the place was littered with empty bottles.
The story of Andrew and Pearl started in Hong Kong where Andrew was serving with the Royal Navy. He had a shore job most of the time and spent the last three years of his service in the colony. On one of his sea trips, he visited an idyllic village on the east coast of Sabah (then called British North Borneo). He told Pearl about it and when he retired they decided to live there. They bought a ramshackle van which Andrew used as a taxi to carry around employees of logging companies. Pearl, for her part, bought a large refrigerator and went into the ice cream business. Something went wrong with the refrigerator though and when, for the second time in six months, she caused food poisoning among the villagers, they became quite angry and drove the pair out. They had to abandon everything that would not fit into the van and fled to the place where I found them.
Pearl wanted me to stay the night, or what was left of it, but I decided that it was time to get back to my hammock in the PWD compound. A few hours later, I was woken by a soldier offering me a cup of tea at the start of another day. The track had dried out and we had an uneventful journey back to Tawau.
About three months later, I was sitting in my office when the phone rang. I picked it up and a voice said: "Hello, Bob, this is Pearl. I'm staying in the Tawau Hotel for a few days. Can we meet." In a flash, I remembered I had urgent business which would take at least three days to complete on Pulau Sebatik, a large island a few miles from the mainland which was our operational responsibility.
I met her and Andrew once again when I paid a visit to the village to see if the playground was still there. It seemed more circumspect that way!