CHAPTER 23 The Flood

1. The prediction in my December report, that the 1963 monsoon would be I comparatively mild,' was the worst weather forecast since Noah's wife told him it was only going to be a passing shower! It turned out to be the heaviest and most prolonged monsoon and the worst flooding in the recorded history of the Labuk. The north east winds blew steadily in from the Sulu Sea from the beginning of December. From then on, we had heavy rain on no less than 105 out of the succeeding 110 days. The sun virtually disappeared for the duration and we recorded an average of only 1.8 hours of sunshine per day for the entire period. The rainfall statistics understated the real figures, because our weather station was actually submerged for a couple of days during which the rainfall went unrecorded. In spite of this our rain-gauge showed a total of 117 inches of rain for the period of the monsoon.
2. We had of course, seen heavy rains during the previous monsoon. This was different however. For the first few days of January, the rain poured down with such intensity that it looked almost as if a giant hand was scooping the water out of the Sulu Sea and emptying it down on us in sheets. The Tungud River, which had been rising steadily throughout December, rose to levels which no one had seen before.
3. The flooding came in three phases. In the first phase, the storm was centred on the estate. In the second phase, the storm surged on up the Labuk Valley, as far as the eastern foothills of Kinabalu. Although the rainfall on the estate eased off, the Labuk River rose to amazing levels and a wall of water swept down on us with a ferocious and frightening power. The third phase, when we all thought the worst was over, consisted of a series of smaller storms. Minor flooding continued on and off until the 20th March, and these floods although less dangerous to life and limb actually caused the most serious damage to the planted areas.
4. Very fortunately Olive and the children were still in Devon. Following the departure of Moray Graham and the Wyngartens, the only two expatriates on the estate were myself and Donald Pettit, the new assistant manager. Donald was a batchelor, a large, typically unflappable Englishman, educated at Rugby Public School. He had worked with me previously in Africa. I had specifically asked London office to transfer him to us because I knew he would be able to take the vicissitudes of life in Borneo in his stride. Throughout the floods, although he could not as yet speak more than a few words of Malay, he was a tower of strength.
5. After our experience with the previous monsoon, we had taken as many advance precautions as we could think of. We ensured that the shops were fully stocked and that there was enough rice to feed all our workers for a month. Each headman and overseer had been provided with a canoe and a small Seagull outboard-motor. We had sent our two bulldozers down to Sandakan so that they could be repaired, serviced, and be ready for work as soon as the weather dried up. (This was a good idea in theory. However it did not work out as planned. The tug towing the scow hit a violent storm in Labuk Bay. The scow broke loose. Both bulldozers sank to the bottom of the bay and were never recovered. Fortunately they had been insured for the journey.)
6. We had managed to complete the workers permanent houses in the new Ulu Village by the end of November, and all the married families had been moved up there from the temporary camp downstream. We were very proud of the new houses. They were larger than the standard required by the Labour Department. As the wives had requested through the JCC, each house was provided with a kerosene cooker so that the kitchens could be kept free of wood smoke.
7. After the huge deluge in the first two weeks of January the Tungud River burst its banks and the entire planted area was flooded. Day by day, as the rain poured down without a break, the floodwater continued to rise, until the whole village site was inundated to a depth of a few feet. We were fortunate in one respect. The Tungud is a comparatively short river. Since the rainstorm was centred on the estate and its immediate surroundings, there was no serious current to contend with. The water spread out over the palms like a placid pond, and there was little chance of anyone being swept away. However, with the rain still teeming down, the level of the Tungud rose further. Eventually it came up almost to the floors of the houses, on their six- foot high posts. The water was now too deep to wade from one house to another and the families were marooned in their homes.
8. The headmen patrolled the whole village night and day in their canoes, to reassure the wives and families. Donald himself had a little motorboat and he buzzed around his division tirelessly, with his pipe clenched in his teeth, exuding an air of calmness and imperturbability. As the water continued to rise, something had to be done. Donald and I held an emergency meeting with the JCC, the headmen and overseers. We decided that, in the interests of safety, we had to evacuate the whole village to higher ground, before the flood rose any higher. There was plenty of hilly land, further away from the riverbanks, but of course it was still under jungle and not reachable by boat.
9. The only accessible patches of dry land within the cleared area were the two hills on which we were currently building the first two management houses. The hills, perhaps a hundred feet high and no more than perhaps an acre each in extent, were now like small islands, emerging from a huge lake. Fortunately the first house, which I was waiting to move into was already roofed. It only awaited ceilings, doors, windows, plumbing, wiring and decorating. With three bedrooms, verandas, and large servants quarters, it could house, in an emergency, most of our married families for a few days. Every boat we owned was pressed into service for the move. All the men, women and children and their possessions including their goats, ducks and chickens, were loaded on the boats. It was like the evacuation of Dunkirk. Our Armada, consisting of our new scow, our diesel kumpit, the management launch, the catamaran and several assorted canoes set off, loaded to the gunwales and, sailing right over the top of our submerged palms, disembarked their passengers on the slopes of our management hill.
10. There was a lot of building material on the building sites, such as lengths of wood, concrete blocks and roofing sheets. We also raided the central company store for tarpaulins and corrugated iron sheets. Kong Miew and his building team helped by every able-bodied man on the site, swiftly erected dozens of small huts all round the hill. That afternoon, twenty or thirty of the Kadazans from the upper Tungud came downstream to seek sanctuary. For the first time any of them could remember, their houses had been submerged and Rangga thought they would be safer on our estate. I was pleased to find my old gardener Urut Turut amongst them.
11. To the consternation of our Muslim workers, they had brought with them a few domestic pigs. We swiftly sorted this situation out by allocating the second hill on its little island to the Kadazans, and to Changai and his group of pagan Dyaks. We soon erected more temporary huts for them. The two hills began to look like South American shanty towns, but at least everyone was now secure, dry, and had a roof over their heads. In all we had over five hundred people to look after.
12. As regards food we were in good shape. Titi had already transferred all the rice and provisions from his shop up to the hill site. I purchased his entire stock from him and we decided that for the duration of the flood, food would be distributed free of charge. The ever-resourceful Maria, commandeered one of the bathrooms and served a continuous supply of hot sweet coffee out of the window. Each headman arranged a central point for his own group.
13. Some of the wives had brought their precious kerosene cooking-stoves with them, and the distribution and cooking of food proceeded fairly smoothly. Fires were lit in the little huts outside the main house and soon they had clothes hanging up to dry around them. The children thought the whole thing was great fun, and they scampered around naked in the rain. Although food was no problem, I was worried about drinking-water. The only water supply was of course, the muddy river, and there was a danger of an outbreak of dysentery or cholera. Fortunately our storekeeper reminded us that he had dozens of water-filters in stock. We distributed them around our emergency camp. Our dresser, Mr Mathen patrolled all the huts tirelessly, ensuring that the water was first filtered and then boiled, before consumption.
14. It was a miracle that we did not have a single serious case of stomach trouble amongst the workers or families during the period of the floods. What we did have however, was an outbreak of babies! The records show that Ivy John, our redoubtable Indian mid-wife, during the lengthy 110 days of the monsoon, delivered no less than 15 healthy babies, often in conditions of extreme discomfort to herself as well as to the mothers. The first night after the evacuation, the flood reached its peak and the water came half way up the walls of the evacuated houses. This meant that it was ten feet over the ground level at the village. We were relieved that we had managed to get all the inhabitants up to safety in time.
15. After the community had been living a few days on the two hills, the rain started to ease off. We caught a glimpse of sunshine and blue sky for the first time in ages, and the level of the Tungud River began to recede. Rangga and our Kadazan friends loaded their possessions and their livestock into their canoes and set off back upstream. I was surprised how cheerful they all were. Ibrahim told us that with their semi-nomadic lifestyle, they were quite used to moving their huts at the drop of a hat. It was their custom to move house whenever they had a death or even sickness in the family, and all the construction materials they needed were readily available in the surrounding jungle. When they got back upstream, they could carry out any repairs needed to their houses in a matter of hours.
16. One day later the flood at the new village had dropped to only a foot or so over the ground. The houses emerged undamaged, except that we would have to give them another coat of paint when things dried up. The wives were eager to get back to start the cleaning up operations whilst there was still water under their houses. There was an hour or two of sunshine and we took the opportunity to get the Armada loaded up and underway for the return journey.
17. The scene now shifted to the Labuk. The storm which for a couple of weeks had been centred over the estate now moved inland, following up the course of the Labuk River to hurtle itself against the rocky face of Mount Kinabalu. We heard later that at Telupid they recorded 79 inches of rain in three days, and that the river had risen by an incredible 50 feet. The United Nations Survey Party who had been working near Telupid were washed out. They were forced to abandon their site and move back down-river to Sandakan until the dry weather arrived. On their way downstream they picked up my friend George Lyall who was employed by the mining group Naylor Benson, prospecting for bauxite in the Bidu Bidu Hills. George was in a bad way. He had not expected the river to rise to the level it did. His workers, after unsuccessfully trying to persuade him to move out, had eventually fled, leaving him on his own for several days. His entire camp had been washed away.
18. The UN team rescued him and brought him down to us with nothing more than the wet clothes he stood up in. I could not believe the change in George since I had last seen him. He was emaciated and haggard. He refused to go on to Sandakan with the UN contingent however. He wanted to be able he said, to get back upstream as soon as possible to sort out his lost equipment. He asked if he could borrow some dry clothes and stay in our rest house, for a day or two until the flood level dropped. There would be no problem about that, I reassured him. George was a regular and a welcome visitor. He often stayed a night with us on his way up or down the river. He was from the north-east of Scotland like myself, and we got on well. He was an intelligent man and incredibly well-read. He could quote large chunks from the Bible, Shakespeare and Robert Burns at great length. We had spent many evenings together in the rest house over a glass or two of malt whisky.
19. I called Attan, the rest house cook, and he reassured me that he had sufficient food to cater for George for a few days. One of the UN Team asked if he could use our phone. I told him that the exchange was under water and the phone had been out of action for weeks. "Did you hear the BBC World Service on the radio yesterday?" he asked "There was a report about huge floods throughout North Borneo, and the Labuk Valley was specifically mentioned as the worst hit area." This was something I had not thought about. If either Olive or Colin Black had heard the broadcasts, they would be worried about us. I decided that I had better take the first opportunity of going down to Sandakan to phone them.
    Before he departed, the leader of the UN Team took me on one side. "Leslie, I am very worried about George," he said. "He is extremely depressed you know." "Yes, not much wonder," I replied.
    "No, I mean he is really, really depressed. He has been acting very strangely."
    "We'll keep an eye on him," I assured him.
20. Since the estate-office, and the temporary management houses were on the tidal reaches of the Labuk we did not expect the flood levels to be as dramatic as they had been on the Tungud. However for the next couple of days the level of the Labuk continued to rise steadily. Eventually it came over the floor of the office. We organised a team of workers to build a huge raft and we transferred all our office furniture, files and equipment to it. The rising water swamped our central stores. Lengths of timber and empty oil drums were bobbing around the office padang and sweeping down the river. We rushed round trying to rescue anything we could and transfer it to the management hill.
21. Our germination shed, with its valuable stock of seeds for future plantings was at the nursery site, on the highest point in the planted area, a few hundred yards back from the river. Eventually even this was submerged. Kenganathan with a team of workers battled manfully to get all the seeds to a place of safety on the management hill. There was nothing we could do about the nursery palms, but we did not think they would suffer unduly by being submerged for a few days.
22. I was quite exhausted when I got back to my house in the late afternoon of the 25th January. Ivy John's canoe was tied up at the back. My driver's wife, Norlini, who was Mahid's eldest daughter, had just been delivered of a healthy baby girl, and there was much rejoicing amongst the Cocos Islanders in the servants quarters. Ivy stayed for a cup of tea with me and then departed upstream. Fortunately our house was higher than the office, because it was on eight-foot high piles. The Labuk River had risen further however. It was now only a few inches below the floorboards, and it was still creeping higher. I thought it wise to call for our launch to be brought down near to the house in case it was needed.
    
23. The flood had now covered the far bank, and the current, cutting off the corner up stream, was now hurtling straight at us. There was a constant roaring noise. Huge trees and debris were sweeping past, sometimes missing us by a few feet. Looking out from the veranda, there was now nothing but water except for the tops of a few trees, as far as the eye could see. It was like standing on the deck of a ship with the water rushing past. As I was looking at it, a small hut bobbed past and was swept off downstream. Wait a minute, I thought, that looked like our garage! I called my driver, Benchiron, from the servants' quarters. Yes, he confirmed, it was indeed our garage. It seemed there was a counter-current swirling past the back of the house. It must have carried the garage up and round into the main stream and it was now on its way to the Sulu Sea... But hang on, our new Land Rover was in the garage! Benchiron dashed to the back of the house and poked into the murky water with a long pole
    "Don't worry Tuan," he said reassuringly, "Its still down here. I can feel it." Mahid joined us silently.
    "I think Tuan you had better go across to the rest house. My son Attan is very worried about Tuan Lyall." I suddenly remembered that, dashing around frantically as I had been for the last few days, I had not clapped eyes on George since he arrived. It was just getting dark when I got into our canoe and paddled across to the rest house. It was a foot or two lower than my house and the water was already over the floor boards.
24. As I tied up the canoe, I was met by a rather bizarre scene. George dressed in a sarong and one of my shirts, was sitting, quietly smoking a cigarette and reading, by the light of a kerosene lamp. The water was rushing past his ankles. He tossed his cigarette butt into the water and it was swept away to the back of the house in the strong current which was flowing across the floor. As I waded towards him one of the side tables at his elbow took off and floated away. George did not even glance at it but continued reading. Attan waded through from the kitchen and put the side table on top of the billiard table. The green baize surface was now piled high with boxes, bed linen, dishes and sundry kitchen items. I asked George how he was feeling.
25. "Ravenously hungry," he replied, rather unexpectedly. "I have not had a bite to eat since I arrived here." I spoke to Attan who was now behind the bar, quietly gathering the bottles of spirits, and putting them in boxes. He was indignant.
    "Yesterday he had three big meals. Today I cooked a leg of lamb for his lunch, with beans and potatoes. He ate nearly the whole leg, and an hour later he asked me why I had not given him any lunch." I collected a couple of glasses and a bottle of Royal Lochnagar, George's favourite malt, and I sat down in a cane chair opposite him. We chatted companionably for some time.
    As usual the darkness fell swiftly. Attan pumped up the kerosene lamp to give us a bit more light. The water continued to rise slowly, until it was just below the cushions of our chairs. I was beginning to get quite worried about the situation. To start with, George seemed perfectly normal apart from his conviction that he had not eaten for days.
    
26. He was quite lucid until, out of the blue he asked me, "Did you hear me laughing yesterday?" I confessed that I hadn't. "I laughed for the whole evening," he said.
    "What were you laughing at?" I asked.
    "You," he replied. "You think you have all of us fooled but I know you are the leader of the pirates who operate in this region." He held up a dog-eared notebook. "I have a detailed dossier on you in here. Now, I know you are wondering why I'm risking telling you this," he continued. "There are two reasons. First I have sent a copy of this to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, in code. Secondly, even if you want to kill me to keep me quiet, you cannot, because I am completely invulnerable."
    George seemed to be getting agitated. He lit cigarette after cigarette and tossed them into the water when they were half-smoked. He was talking more and more wildly, as the level went down in our bottle. Suddenly he leant forward and gave me a fierce stare."
    "You don't believe a word of this Leslie. You think I'm mad don't you? I assured him hastily that nothing could be further from my mind.
    "Do you have a gun?" he asked. I said I had one but it was locked up.
    "Let's get it. I will prove to you that I am invulnerable. You can load it, put it to my head, pull the trigger and nothing will happen. That should convince you."
    It was a surreal situation, I felt. The lamp cast small circle of yellow light on the two of us sitting on our cane chairs with our glasses in our hands, and our feet in the black flood-water which was sweeping past us. The scene has remained etched in my memory. It was time however that we moved out. Attan had already been paddling the canoe to and fro transferring his belongings across.
    "It's not safe here," I told George. "You
27. Must come over to my house. The piles are longer and we will be a bit higher out of the flood." He laughed.
    "You haven't been listening to me. I am the one who is invulnerable. It is you who should move in with me for safety."
28. George protested feebly as Attan and I half dragged him into the canoe and we paddled the few yards across to my house. The rain had stopped for an hour or two. The storm clouds were clearing away and the moon was beginning to appear. However the water-level was still rising, and when we got back I saw that it was now coming well over our floor-boards. Mahid and his family were busy transferring as many of our possessions as they could into the Puyoh, which, under the command of Lai, our sarang, and with my old friend Tundah as his Mate, was temporarily tied up alongside our front steps. This was a wise precaution, just in case the level rose any higher.
29. I did not think however that we would have to evacuate the house. No matter how much rain came down the river, I reasoned, the level of the Sulu Sea was not going to rise. The tide was, I knew, due to turn sometime in the early hours, and by tomorrow morning, I thought, the flood level would probably have dropped. Mahid produced an impromptu meal which George ate ravenously. Whilst we were eating, a large log hurtled out of the night and crashed into our veranda. The whole house shook on its piles. We all rushed to the front rail, with long poles. With some difficulty we pushed the log away and watched it disappear into the darkness. This I realised was now the greatest danger. If a pile of logs was allowed to accumulate, the posts holding up the house would be under immense pressure.
30. At least two men must now be on duty the whole time. There were six men in the house. Mahid, his two sons Thaib and Attan, my driver Benchiron, and of course George and myself. It was going to be a long night. I drew up an impromptu duty roster. George had quietened down after his evening meal and was behaving quite normally again. He and I decided to take the first watch. The others went off to the servants' quarters to comfort the women and children and to try to snatch some sleep.
31. Log after log was hurtling down the river, washed away from the timber operations upstream. We kept a powerful torch trained on the black current. When we spotted a log coming towards us, we stopped it with our poles, guided it along the front of the veranda and it was snatched away downstream by the fierce current.
32. It was not difficult, but it was exhausting work and we could not relax for an instant. By the time Attan and Benchiron came through to relieve us at I a.m. I was almost dead on my feet. George went through to the spare bedroom. I flung myself fully clothed on my bed and dropped off to sleep instantly. Something woke me. The flood had obviously risen further and now came up to the level of the bed. The mattress I was lying on was bobbing gently in the water. A torch flashed in my face. George was standing in the water beside me. He was shouting furiously, and waving a parang.
33. "I'm going to kill you, you bastard. You have drowned my dog." I rolled off the other side of the bed swiftly and backed away.
    "You haven't got a dog George." Attan and Benchiron splashed through with a kerosene lamp, to see what the commotion was about. George's mood changed abruptly. He sat down on my bed with his head on his hands and started to sob.
    "You've drowned my lovely dog . You've killed it." I sat on the bed with him and tried to comfort him. He handed over the parang without any protest. George now seemed almost unable to walk. We half carried him back to the lounge against the current, with the water up to our thighs.
34. We gave a gasp of dismay. Whilst we had been occupied with George, a huge uprooted forest tree had floated into the house. We all pushed at it, but it could not be dislodged. Within minutes more and more logs piled up behind it. This was what I had been afraid of. The speed of the current was now terrifying and the roaring noise got so loud we had to shout to be heard. Suddenly there was a loud crack and the house shuddered. We did not need telling that one of the piles had snapped under the weight of the logs.
35. Lai had now tied the Puyoh in a grove of trees about twenty or thirty yards upstream of us in order to keep it out of the current. With some difficulty he and Tundah manoeuvred it back to the house. Mahid's family piled on to it. His wife Emah, and daughters Nordi, Silah, and Norlini, with the new baby wrapped in her arms were all taken down to the cabin and made comfortable. As we were splashing around, collecting a few last minute items, there were more loud cracks, as post after post snapped under the water. One side of the house started to sink. Lai insisted that it was dangerous to keep the boat tied to the steps. We cast off and the Puyoh battled back against the current to its mooring in the trees.
36. The moon briefly emerged from a bank of clouds. We stood on the deck, watching silently. There were a few more loud cracks. One side of the house rose high in the air, then it swung round, righted itself, sank a few feet deeper into the water, then, very slowly at first, it floated majestically off down the river.