THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

212 Memoirs of Mustapha Hussain
happen to us? I relegated the ‘ifs’ and ‘if nots’ to a far corner of my mind
and tried to sleep.
14 February 1942
At the crack of dawn 14 February 1942, I awoke with neither sleep nor
rest. I walked over to a nearby building, the Pasir Panjang Police Station’s
main building, where I was surprised to find photographs of KMM friends
Pak Chik Ahmad and Hanif Sulaiman, both from Taiping, on the ‘Wanted’
notice board. But something was amiss. The descriptions could not be
more accurate, but their photos were in the wrong boxes. I slipped this
historical document into my pocket but sad to say it was lost in the ongoing
confusion of war.
Looks like these two men were of greater importance than KMM
President Ibrahim Yaakub and me. These two can in fact be likened to
Malay patriots Datuk Sagor and Datuk Sri Maharajalela of Perak and Mat
Kilau and Datuk Bahaman of Pahang; all of them were wanted by the
British colonialists. Descendants of Pak Chik Ahmad and Hanif Sulaiman
should take pride. These two nationalists had dabbled in a variety of cultural
and social organisations until they found KMM, a body that promoted
their life-long aspirations to liberate Malaya from Western domination.
On the same day, I was taken by F Kikan to the warfront near Pasir
Panjang. It was drizzling, but Japanese soldiers loved it. Looking much
like birds with broken wings, with the drizzle acting as lubricants, they
used their left hands to propel themselves forward on the ground. In that
manner, they slithered with great ease and speed.
Grass on both sides of the road had been blackened by soot from all
kinds of fire. Cows once brown were now greyish-black, but they kept
cropping grass, oblivious to the intense war.
I encountered several groups of mostly Muslim war refugees. Chinese
living in the area, busy digging trenches, were in possession of at least
thirty sacks of rice and other food. I was devastated to see children crying
of fear and hunger, and the refugees appealed to me for help. So I ordered
the Chinese to hand over a sack of rice and some biscuits to the refugees.
After that I instructed the refugees to go to a nearby fruit orchard where
sour sops, papayas and bananas were not only plentiful but ripe.
Death Trap for Malay Regiment Soldiers
We pushed ahead amidst an occasional hail of bullets and shells. On the
ground were tangles of snapped telephone wires, fallen telegraph poles,