THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

264 Memoirs of Mustapha Hussain
One afternoon, four skin-and-bones Malay escapees of the Death
Railway turned up at our village. My stall by the bridge was their first
stop. They were walking skeletons, with festering leg yaws and clothes
that barely covered their private parts. They had crossed thick jungles and
swift rivers to reach Ijok near the border before reaching our village.
According to them, some fellow escapees were recaptured. One was
devoured by a tiger in full sight of others. I instructed them to take a
bath in the river, giving them ash from my firewood stove as soap, and a
change of clothes. I then told my wife to cook rice for sixteen people.
My oldest girl asked, “Why cook so much Father? There are only four
of them!” I answered, “These are hungry men. One person can eat for
four.” After they were through with dinner, not a grain of rice was left in
the pot.
Soon, two of these men who had gone to hell and back left us to
continue their journey home. The other two decided to work on my farm.
One of them left a little later, leaving Dahalan, a most industrious farmer
who specialised in clearing work. The way he swung his razor sharp
machete and chopped the branches was almost an art. A machete in the
right hand could clear tracks of jungle with speed as every branch fell in
the right position, ready to dry naturally and become most combustible.
Dahalan feared to return to his hometown, Batu Gajah, where a misunderstanding
between him and the village headman ended with him
being surrendered to the Japanese as conscript labour. After a year on
my farm, he too left for home. After the British returned to Malaya I heard
he became a successful timber dealer. No wonder! He was so versatile
with his machete. I made a mistake in not looking him up in 1946 shortly
after I was released by the British. It would have been interesting to see
the reaction of a new timber dealer towards a freed political detainee,
once his erstwhile saviour and employer! Almost daily, illiterate or poorly
educated Malays approached me for help to explain various letters,
documents and land grants. I did not disappoint any of them.
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I had already narrated the power rice yielded. What about tapioca sticks?
Are they only for propagation? To be fair to the tapioca, let us talk about
tapioca sticks. Batu 20 youths were tired of a boring existence of work
and more work, eating tapioca and more tapioca, and looking at the same
faces day after day. To go to Taiping, only 20 miles away, was difficult
in times of no public transport and not many running vehicles. Therefore,
“If we cannot go to Taiping, Taiping will come to Batu 20”, they said.