CHAPTER 28 Konfrontasi

1. It was unfortunate that the acquisition of Kimansi, and the subsequent acceleration of our development operations, coincided with the outbreak of Confrontation, the long undeclared jungle war with Indonesia. When Tunku Abdul Rahman announced his plan for incorporating the Borneo territories into Malaysia, as early as May 1961, there had been no official opposition from Indonesia. Their Foreign Minister Dr Subandrio in a speech to the United Nations in November 1961 stated, "When Malaya told us of their intentions we told them we have no objections and we wish them success with this merger." However this did not fit in with President Soekarno's expansionist plans and it was anathema to the powerful Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, the third largest communist party in the world
2. In April 1963 we began to hear about incursions by Indonesian 'volunteers' along the jungle borders of Sarawak and Sabah. Donald Stephens who was by then the Chief Minister designate (prior to taking over officially in September) invited Dr Subandrio to visit Sabah to reassure him that the population was 100% in favour of Malaysia. This had little effect on the hardening Indonesian opposition. Within a few weeks of Subandrio's visit a well-equipped company of Indonesian regular soldiers from Kalimantan invaded Sarawak and attacked a Malaysian security outpost at Long Jawi, in Sarawak. The garrison consisting of Gurkhas and Dyak Border Scouts was taken completely by surprise and was wiped out. Only one soldier, an SAS corporal, escaped alive.
3. A few weeks later on 29 December 1963, we heard of a further attack, this time in Sabah, at Kalabakan near Tawau. On this occasion several members of the Royal Malaysian Regiment were killed or wounded. By then it had blown up into a full-scale war between Indonesia and Malaysia. The Indonesian army was the largest in the region and it was armed to the teeth by Russia and China. Britain, Australia and New Zealand came rapidly to Malaysia's aid and a mixed Commonwealth force of over 28,000 troops was despatched to Borneo. Indonesian troops mounted half-hearted attacks on Singapore and on parts of Johore nearest Sumatra, but these were easily repelled by the much more disciplined Malaysian forces. Most of the fighting took place deep in the jungles of Borneo. Konfrontasi lasted for a further three years and it only ceased completely with the signing of the peace-accord in August 1966. In all 114 Commonwealth soldiers were killed and many more wounded. It was estimated that the Indonesians lost five times that number.
4. Since Tungud was far from the Kalimantan border, we did not expect to be involved in any fighting. However at the height of the war, we had a visit from Claude Fenner and a group from Special Branch which left us rather worried. Claude was by then the Inspector General of the Malaysian Police force and was playing a leading role in coordinating the activities of the Malaysian and the other Commonwealth forces. I had first known Claude in the early fifties during the Communist Emergency in Johore, when he was a Police Superintendant, but I had not seen him since I left for Africa in 1958.
5. Claude had survived an adventurous career in the Second World War. As a member of Force 136 he had operated behind the Japanese lines in Malaya. After the war, although officially a member of the Colonial Police Force in Malaya, he retained his links with the Special Operations Executive. In the early fifties, many British officials were convinced that it was only a matter of time before Communist China attempted to take over the whole of South East Asia. Claude was made partly responsible for putting together a small team of Malay-speaking expatriates with local knowledge, who would be trained to form "Stay-Behind" Groups and to organise resistance in the Malayan jungle in the event of an invasion. In 1952,1 was invited to become a member of this covert body. It sounded interesting, and I agreed with alacrity.
6. The training, such as it was, took place on my next visit to UK. The first part of the course was held in a room in an anonymous block of service flats in London. It was all very hush-hush. It started with a series of one-to-one discussions on the theory and practice of Communism, with a gentleman who was I believe, a Professor of Political Science. I suspected that the main purpose of this was to confirm that in spite of my liberal views, I didn't have any Communist leanings, rather than to impart any political knowledge. I was then passed on to a different set of instructors to learn the techniques of passing covert messages, following people through crowds, setting up dead-letter boxes, safe houses and so on.
7. It was all great fun. I felt like Dick Barton, Special Agent. One of the practical exercises I was given was to spot a couple of ladies who were due to meet outside Charing Cross Station at 08.30 the next morning. One of them, I was told, would be wearing a light coloured raincoat and the other would be carrying an umbrella. They would exchange pass-words and move off together. I was to spot them, follow them, and report back on their destination. I arrived in good time. There was, in those days, a small cafe on the Strand, right opposite the Charing Cross Station forecourt. I sat in a window-seat and ordered a coffee. I had a copy of The Times with me. I made a hole in it, just as I had seen in a detective movie, and ignoring the curious glances of the waitress, I surreptitiously watched the activities at the entrance to the station.
8. It was just my bad luck that it was raining. At 08.30 a thousand girls streamed out of the station. Five hundred of them wore light coloured raincoats and the other five hundred carried umbrellas. In a panic, I chose two almost at random and followed them. They went across Trafalgar Square and into the National Gallery. I went in after them. They went down to the ladies toilet. After hanging around outside the toilet for a while, I started to get funny glances from ladies going in and out. One of the uniformed attendants came over and gave me a hard look. He obviously thought I was some kind of pervert. I slouched off with a red face. To my surprise I was congratulated by the instructor in the afternoon, for picking out the correct couple in such difficult circumstances. He obviously must have been watching my every move from somewhere.
9. On another occasion I was less successful. I was instructed to be outside Swan and Edgars in Piccadilly at exactly 3 pm, with a copy of the Financial Times under my arm. A lady would approach and after we exchanged the correct password, I had to pass on a complicated message which I had to memorise. It was something about a Communist Ammunition train which would arrive at Wuhan Station at X hours. It would be carrying Y number of shells and Z number of bombs etc. etc. I realised that with my memory, there was no chance that I could possibly retain the message in my head. I came up with a cunning plan! I had lunch that day with an old army friend, in Ah Boon's Chinese restaurant in Gerard Street. I went to the telephone booth at the back of the restaurant and inserted the message, which I had previously written out in full detail, under the Zs in the telephone directory.
10. At 3 p.m. I was on duty as instructed, outside Swan and Edgars. I was approached by a young lady. We exchanged the appropriate passwords. She looked a bit flustered and in a state of high excitement. I imagine she was probably being trained by the Department for a job something like Olive had been performing in Singapore. (Olive told me that she herself had undergone some similar sort of training in London, before being sent to work in the Cypher Department at Phoenix Park.) I pretended I was telling the young lady the time, and whilst winding my watch, I whispered to her "Look, never mind the message. It is something about about a Chinese Ammunition Train. Its too complicated to explain here. Just trot along to Ah Boon's Chinese Restaurant in Gerard Street and look up the name Zabrowski in the telephone directory. You will find all the details there." She moved away furtively, looking right and left. I somehow did not feel that she would have an outstanding future as a modern Mata Hari.
11. The next morning I reported as usual to my instructor at the flat. Again he had watched the entire meeting from afar. He was very complimentary about my act with my wrist-watch. I was very smug. "However," he added, "What in heaven's name did you tell that girl? She came back with some fantastic story that the Chinese Communists and a Russian spy named Zabrowski were involved in a plan to blow up some restaurant in the West End." Well it had seemed to me a good idea at the time!
12. The London course was all great fun, but I wondered what relevance it might have in the event that I was to see action in the jungle. The next part of my training was however far more pertinent to possible future activities in Malaya. It took place at a secret training camp somewhere in the south of England. As far as I could see there was only one other person being trained there. We only glimpsed each other in the distance and we ate separately. The instructors and I used first names only.
13. I was given training in unarmed combat, pistol shooting, parachute drops, and blowing things up with plastic explosives and time-pencils. Having already had some training as a young national service officer and having carried an automatic pistol and a Winchester carbine around with me night and day for the last three years since I became a planter, I thought I already knew a bit about guns. However the training improved my shooting considerably.
14. I particularly enjoyed the final session. It took place in a small room where I had to shoot at a series of cardboard figures of terrorists who fleetingly appeared and disappeared at the windows and the doors. I made one tiny mistake when I put a bullet through the head of one cardboard figure which suddenly appeared at the door. It turned out to be a cardboard cut-out of Field Marshal Montgomery. The training sergeant was not too pleased with that. But nobody's perfect!
15. On the explosives side, we concentrated particularly on derailing trains, and destroying factories, using plastic explosives and time-pencils. I discovered to my delight that I had a particular talent for destruction. Shortly after the course finished, Olive and I were married in Wales and we returned to Malaya together. I had of course to sign the Official Secrets Act and, other than Claude Fenner, the only person I could speak to about my training was Olive, since she was in the business herself. When she knew me better she remarked that she could not understand why they bothered to teach me about explosives. With my talent for Do-ItYourself, she suggested, all I needed to bring a Communist Factory to its knees would be a spanner. Wives can be very hurtful sometimes!
16. But to return to the Labuk and to the reason for our surprise visit from Claude Fenner and the Special Branch people: I was told that they had received information that one of our trainee overseers, a Javanese by the name of Wargo Admodisastro was an Indonesian spy. Wargo was arrested. He confessed under questioning that he had been sent by Jakarta to Pamol to prepare for an uprising amongst our Indonesian workers. It was to be led, it was claimed, by a platoon of Indonesian commandos who would land on our airstrip, and help to take over the entire Labuk Valley.
17. Wargo was taken away and we never heard of him again. After Claude departed, a company of British troops was billeted on our estate for a few months to guard the airstrip. Apparently the Indonesian plan was aborted. We learned that the entire commando platoon surrendered to the allied forces on the Indonesian border a few months later. To me it had sounded like a hair-brained scheme on the part of the Indonesian generals from the outset, since most of our Indonesian workers were Bugis who had come to Sabah to escape from Soekarno and his regime.
18. There was however a curious, typically Sabahan sequel to this incident. Indonesian Konfrontasi came to an abrupt halt following the anti-communist revolution in Indonesia. The new government of Indonesia refused to take the commandos back because some of them had links with the PKI. "You captured them. You keep them," seemed to be the attitude of the new regime. The Sabah government rather to their embarrassment found that they had a platoon of unwanted Indonesian commando prisoners on their hands. Tun Mustapha phoned me personally about it. He suggested that we should relieve the situation by offering them employment on Tungud. Anthony Wong went over to interview them and recruited them all. He reported in due course that they were some of the best workers we had! I often felt that Gilbert and Sullivan could have had a field day if they had been around over this period.
19. What was to affect us much more than the military threat was the fact that because of Confrontation, the border with Indonesia was firmly shut for a few years and (apart from our commandos) all immigration from Indonesia was completely stopped. This was just at the time when our development was at its peak and our need for labour was at its greatest. The situation looked serious, and we were contemplating having to cut back our programme. We were saved, surprisingly, by a timely drop in the price of tobacco in the Philippines. Tobacco was the main crop in Northern Luzon. Thousands of Illocano smallholders were suffering severe hardship. I went over to Manila and through the good offices of our Unilever subsidiary, the Philippine Refining Company, we established a recruiting agency. This proved a great success and soon there was a steady flow of immigrants coming down to Sabah.
20. By 1966 we had 1,800 workers of whom nearly half were English-speaking Filipinos. We were told by the Philippine Ambassador when he visited the estate, that at the time, we were one of the largest employers of Filipinos in the country. The advent of the Filipinos changed the entire culture of the company. Many of them brought their guitars with them, and in the evenings in the club they would get together to sing American and Filipino folk songs. The Filipino ladies who came with them introduced us to their native dances, which were influenced by their Spanish colonial days. The parties in the Labuk club became much more lively. We all had to learn the steps of the paso doble, and the tinikling, the popular Filipino bamboo-dance. By way of exchange, Bryson Middleton started a Scottish Country Dance Class, which the Filipinos took to with enthusiasm.
21. The new arrivals did not only consist of agriculturalists. The standard of education in the Philippines was at that time, by far the highest in South East Asia, and unemployment amongst educated and skilled people was running at a very high rate. Every Filipino kumpit which came up the river brought in workers with a whole range of skills which were useful to us. They included clerical workers, research staff, mechanics, teachers, drivers, draftsmen and builders. On the other hand, since Sabah was the only place a Filipino criminal could travel to without a passport, the arrivals also included one or two bank-robbers, a sprinkling of murderers, and sundry other desperadoes, escaping from the Philippine police-force.
22. Strangely enough, other than the small group who may or may not have been involved in the Great Safe Robbery, once on the estate these individuals gave us no problems, any more than the commandos had. This was particularly surprising since there were no policemen nearer than Beluran. I suspected that the Filipinos were very much in awe of Ibrahim who, I was told, had threatened to kill anyone who stepped out of line. The newcomers were also aware of the reputation of the Bugis and the tattooed Dyaks, and they were firmly convinced that the Kadazans upstream were head-hunters to a man. They were all on their very best behaviour whilst they were with us, just as the Balanini pirates had been.
23. The last management house to be built was the general manager's house. It was to be situated, in keeping with plantation tradition, on the highest hill in the management compound overlooking our future golf-course. It would have a glorious view to the west, with Mount Kinabalu towering up on the skyline. One of the new Filipino immigrants was a trained draftsman, a young man by the name of Pablo. I found in a magazine, a picture of an attractive house on the beach in Hawaii. I made a few changes to it and passed it to Pablo who turned it into a working drawing. It was far too big an operation for Kong Miew to undertake. However the Filipino builders coped with the woodwork and the roof. The stonework was completed with the help of a Chinese bricklayer, one Lee Mau Sang, who came to us as an artisan and who over the years graduated to become a resident building contractor.
24. The new house was light and airy and looked rather Californian in style, with huge central merbau beams which we produced in our own saw-mill. It proved to be very practical. It had a VIP suite attached, which was used over the years by many Sabah dignitaries on their visits to the Labuk. Long after my retirement, I re-visited the estate, and was delighted to see that the management houses were still in as good shape as when we built them forty years earlier. David Martin who stayed in it on his retirement visit, said how delighted he was that we had built it without the help of an architect.
25. With the increase in numbers of Northern Filipinos, we now had a large number of Christians on the estate, both Catholic and Protestant. We had already built a beautiful mosque for our Muslim workers. The Filipino representatives on the JCC asked if we could have a church for the Christian community. In consultation with our leading Christians, I produced a rough sketch. Pablo turned it into a professional-looking plan, and our building gang had it erected in a matter of a few weeks. It was sited on a picturesque spot on the Tungud River beside the new bridge. The Christians contributed nearly half the cost and the company contributed the rest. The church was light and airy, and as in the general manager's house, it made much use of decorative hollow blocks, which Kong Miew produced on the site. We built a spire with a cross on top using some metal pipes. Finally at the request of the Catholics, we built a confessional box in one corner near the back door. On one of my visits to Kota Kinabalu, I contacted both the Catholic and the Anglican Bishops. They were delighted to learn of the new church. They agreed that there would be no problem in having it used, at different times, by both the Protestants and the Catholics. The Bishops agreed that they would come over to the estate together to conduct a joint, ecumenical, opening ceremony.
26. We arranged to have the opening when Colin Black was on a visit to the estate, accompanied by his wife Eileen. There was a large crowd in attendance. We had flown in several dignitaries from Sandakan and Kota Kinabalu. We were disappointed that the Catholic Bishop was unable to attend since he had been summoned to Rome to attend the Ecumenical Council. The old Dutch Priest from Sandakan had been instructed by the Bishop to attend in his place. However he was not happy about sharing a church with Protestants. Although he turned up, he resolutely refused to participate in any sort of joint opening ceremony.
27. The Anglicans were represented by Bishop Roland Koh. He was dressed in resplendent white and gold robes. He had a mitre on his head and he carried his bishop's crook. Eileen Black opened the proceedings by making a short speech and cutting the ribbon across the gate into the churchyard. The congregation then advanced up the path, to assemble in front of the new church. Bishop Koh positioned himself in front of the church door and commenced the dedication ceremony for the Church of St Peter of the Labuk. It was lengthy. The ceremony was being held at mid-day to allow the VIPs to fly back to Sandakan or Kota Kinabalu after lunch. It was blistering hot in the noonday sun. The ladies in their hats and gloves were already showing signs of discomfort. The Bishop in his heavy robes must have felt even worse, but he continued stoically.
28. At last after a final prayer he advanced and struck the door symbolically three times with his crook. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I now invite you to take your places inside the church." Turning to me the Bishop said, "You may open the door now, Mr Davidson." I grasped the handle firmly but with due reverence. To my dismay, it would not turn. I rattled the door but it remained closed. It was, in fact, locked. David Marsh was in the crowd. "I'll get the key," he said and dashed off. He returned after what seemed an age.
    "The building foreman has got it"
    "Good," I said. "Let me have it."
    "No," David replied, "he has the key, but he left for Sandakan a couple of hours ago as soon as they finished decorating the Church. He will be back on Monday."
    The Bishop and I looked at each other and at the waiting congregation. "We shall have to break down the door," I whispered. The Bishop thought that would be very improper, just after he had blessed it. The crowd were beginning to get restive. The VIPs were starting to fidget.
    "Look Bishop," I asked "Is there not a brief de-commissioning ceremony, like they use in UK when they turn churches into bingo halls? If you could perform this, we could break down the door and you could then re-bless it." Bishop Koh felt that this would not be appropriate either.
29. Colin Black was not known for his patience and understanding. He was starting to look testy. The Catholic Father was looking on with an expression which said, "I told you no good would come of having a joint ceremony!" We had to come up with something quickly. "Bishop," I said. "You haven't blessed the back door, have you? Can I suggest we break in from the rear?" Bishop Koh gave his reluctant agreement to this. In a second or two there were loud crashes and a couple of workmen opened the front door from the inside.
30. The congregation filed swiftly into the welcome shade of the church. The interior was beautifully decorated with palm fronds and tropical flowers. The Dutch Father now staged his small protest against the inter-faith service. He was the last person to enter. He marched up the aisle, brushed past Bishop Koh and shut himself in the confession box. When the Anglican Service was over, he popped out like a jack-in-the-box. "Catholics will stay behind for a proper service," he announced. As we returned to the club for our festive lunch, Bishop Koh looked pensive. "Whatever they agree in Rome," he said. "It looks as if ecumenism still has a long way to go in Borneo!"
31. I was not, myself a regular attender either at the Church or the Mosque. However, a few weeks later I was back in St Peter's Church again. This time it was for a big Filipino wedding. Natividad Balangue was a Botany graduate from Manila. She worked for Chris Hoh as a research assistant. She was to be married to George Villacero, who was one of our bulldozer drivers. The wedding celebrations were organised jointly by the research department and Joe Joyce's roads department. Natividad and George were both Catholics. The marriage ceremony was to be performed by the Catholic Father from Sandakan at 6 pm, and it was to be followed by a great feast in the Club, to which almost the whole community had been invited.
32. We had our usual weekly management meeting the afternoon of the wedding. Whilst it was underway, my secretary came in to report that Sabah Air had rung to announce that the plane which we had chartered to bring in the Catholic priest had been cancelled owing to a mechanical problem. It would not be available for a charter until the following week. This was a disaster. Joe Joyce reported that the buffalo had already been slaughtered for the feast. Someone jokingly said that the captain of a ship could perform wedding ceremonies, so why not the manager of an estate? None of us took this seriously however, and Chris dashed off to investigate whether we could bring the priest up by speedboat, or alternatively, if the feast could be postponed by a week. We carried on with the meeting, and Chris did not reappear.
33. When I got back to the house at about 5.30 pm, Olive was waiting for me anxiously, dressed in her smartest clothes. "I'm sorry," I said. "I should have rung to tell you, the wedding has been postponed. The priest can't get in because the plane has broken down."
    "No," Olive said. "The wedding is still on, and we have to be at the church in half an hour. Chris Hoh has just been round to tell everyone that it is to proceed as planned, and that you, heaven help us, are going to perform the ceremony."
    Whilst I bathed and changed, Olive was frantically searching fora prayer book. All she could find was a bible. Whilst we were being driven to the church I searched through it.....Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and so on. There was nothing I could find in the shape of a wedding service.
34. I stood at the alter, with the bible in my hands, facing a packed congregation. George stood in front of me with his best-man at his side. The Filipinos had great style. The church was again beautifully decorated with palm fronds and flowers. (In normal circumstances it is a criminal offence on an oil palm estate to cut a frond off an immature palm, and I shuddered to think of the damage which must have been inflicted on our precious palms.) Natividad's arrival on the arm of Joe Joyce, was heralded by the massed guitars of the Filipino community lined up on each side of the aisle. They were playing, for some mysterious reason, the American marching tune, 'Blaze Away.'
35. Natividad was radiant in an elaborate white wedding gown, and Mrs Castelotte one of our teachers was her maid of honour. I had never attended a Catholic wedding ceremony, least of all a Filipino one. Remembering snatches of my own wedding service, I intoned solemnly "We are gathered here today to witness the joining together in holy matrimony etc. etc." Then I read a lengthy extract from the Sermon on the Mount. It seemed to go down well. The happy couple exchanged rings, with no prompting from myself and Mrs Castelotte did something elaborate with a silk cloth which she tied round both their hands. Then her husband Pio stepped up with his guitar and led the congregation in a very lovely Ave Maria.
    Then it was my turn again. I repeated the words I could remember from past weddings. "Speak now or forever hold your peace ... Let no man put asunder... Do you George Villacero?..... Do you Natividad Balangue? I now pronounce you man and wife.....You may kiss the bride...."
    Joe Joyce said that if we had rehearsed it for a week beforehand it could not have gone more smoothly. Mrs Castelotte said at the wedding feast that it was the first time any of them had attended a Presbyterian form of wedding ceremony. It was, she said, very different from the Catholic type service which they were used to back home, but they had all found it very moving.
36. A week or so later the old Dutch Priest arrived on the estate. He asked to see me in my office. I braced myself for what I expected to be an unholy row. Not for the first time the Father surprised me. "I want to thank you, my son, for performing the ceremony on my behalf. It is of course perfectly permissible for a lay person to perform a wedding ceremony in an emergency. All that remains now is for me to formally bless the union. Natividad tells me that it was a beautiful wedding."