Forgotten Wars_ Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia - Christopher Bayly [79]
The reference to ‘Chan Hoon’ (i.e. ‘Chang Hong’) is telling. Purcell had met ‘Chang Hong’ and other senior British officers in Singapore on 24 and 25 September; they had discussed co-operation with the BMA and ‘Chang’ had then introduced Wu Tian Wang and other Singapore Party leaders. But it seems that the British did not discern Chang’s true identity, and he then disappeared from view. Of the man the British knew as Lai Teck there was now no sign. Rumours about him continued to circulate, and they broke into print in the Penang newspaper, Modern Daily News, in October. An anonymous article accused an unnamed official of the MCP of betraying comrades to the Japanese. It called for a public investigation at which the author would appear and give evidence. It was written by Ng Yeh Lu, who had been perhaps the most prominent public spokesman of the MCP before the war. It was he who had represented the Party in discussions that led to the British arming the Chinese for a last-ditch defence of Singapore. Although he was never a Central Committee member, he was English speaking and a formidable polemicist. After the fall of Singapore, Ng Yeh Lu was arrested by the Kempeitai; he was detained and then worked for the Japanese as a court translator. It was at this point that he became aware of Lai Teck’s treachery, but Ng Yeh Lu’s own record discredited his testimony in the eyes of most Party members. It seems that he had been kept alive by the Japanese for this very purpose. Yet it was Lai Teck who had remained at large and in a position to expose his comrades. Ng Yeh Lu – or ‘Yellow Wong,’ as he was now known – never regained standing in the MCP. There was a report that Lai Teck attempted to have him assassinated by the Singapore Party, but the local leaders stayed their hand.92
There were signs of dissent within the Party. A flurry of statements by various MCP organs appeared in the press enquiring after the health of ‘Mr Light’ or ‘Mr Wright’ and paying glowing tributes to his leadership. Eng Ming Chin, at a tea party in Ipoh in late November, made a speech in which she ‘exposed the conspirators against Lai Teck’.93 But other leading Party figures began to act on their suspicions. Yeung Kuo, the Party leader in Selangor, disenchanted with the moderate policy followed in August, managed to orchestrate the exclusion of Lai Teck from the MCP’s key organizing committee. But Lai Teck still possessed an aura of invulnerability, and fought back. It is unclear how much the British knew about all this. The first hard evidence seems to have come to H. T. Pagden, an etymologist by training, who was working as a Chinese-affairs officer in Singapore. He was given a detailed report, written by Ng Yeh Lu, which itemized Lai Teck’s treacheries including the massacre of the MPAJA high command at Batu Caves in 1942 and the betrayal of Force 136 officers. Among the latter was the Chinese Kuomintang agent Lim Bo Seng. In December Lim’s remains were exhumed from the grounds of Batu Gajah prison in Perak, where he had died at the hands of the Kempeitai. There was a public funeral in Ipoh, from where the cortège proceeded to Kuala Lumpur and then Singapore for a moving commemoration ceremony. He was, observed Victor Purcell, ‘already a legend’.94 Around this time Pagden was visited by a senior Kuomintang leader, a close friend of Lim Bo Seng, who threatened that, if the British did not bring Lai Teck to trial, ‘certain people would probably make it their business to put the matter in the limelight’. Pagden took the matter to the head of the Malayan Security