THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

296 Memoirs of Mustapha Hussain
slept on bare cement floor with my arm as a pillow. At night it was cold
to the bone as the walls were mere grilles. (This station was demolished
and rebuilt in 1975 and 1976.)
Daily lunch was a handful of plain rice, more rice husks than grains,
served on a tin plate. Nothing else. Initially I ate just the rice, flicking
aside the husks, but due to hunger, I downed husk and rice regardless. It
was difficult swallowing the gritty husk, like swallowing coarse sand,
but I had to. I had no chance to brush my teeth, comb my hair, or shave.
School children walking briskly past my lock-up reminded me of my own.
Were they in school? Surely not! My guess was right. With four children
aged between ten years and two months, how could my wife send them
to school as well as tend to the farm? They were living from hand to
mouth, yet, my wife did not once grumble.
I was growing feeble and my nervous disorder returned to haunt me.
My fingers shook, my legs weakened and my body felt completely
debilitated. But, like a Godsend, Inspector Abdullah who had for our own
good pretended not to know me earlier on came to assist me. After that,
Malay constables begin to show me some compassion, so much so they
ignored orders from Force 136 or British military officers.
In the short time I was locked up there, I managed to deliver a small
lecture on Malay politics and the plight of the Malays under oppressive
colonial grip. My audience was the youthful Malay guerrillas. Not too
long after, I began to hear rumblings of complaints in Pattani-Lenggong
dialect, “Tuan Dobree used to eat wild-growing fiddle-head ferns with
us in the jungle. Now that he is dining with the Sultan, he hardly
remembers us.” They were slowly learning to size up the white men. It
was only then that they cared to look my way and stopped calling me a
‘Japanese collaborator’. Sometimes, police constables had to reprimand
the guerrillas for interfering in police matters.
The Malay guerrillas later lamented, “We have been asked to
return to our kampungs with $200. That’s all!” They then disclosed their
fear of reprisals from Bintang Satu (Kuo Min Tang under Chiang Kai
Shek) and Bintang Tiga (Kuo San Tong under Mao Tse Tung) members
ready to carry arms to oppose the British imperialists. I could only say,
“Looks like we are indeed in the same boat!” The Malay guerrillas nodded
their heads, “You are right, Enchik, about imperialists. We are fully
aware now.”
One cold and damp night, I dreamt I was fishing under a completely
barren tree by a murky river. When I felt something tugging at my line,
I hauled the line up but it flew back and got entangled in the branches
of the barren tree. This dream troubled me deeply. Even an idiot could