David Waddington Memoirs by David Waddington Read Free Book Online Page B

for the first time, I found that the army mind did not work quite as mine. I was told in no uncertain terms that the day for my martyrdom had not arrived and that in the colonel’s viewI was in no way to blame for what had occurred. If a sergeant was told to carry on, that meant that or, rather, it meant the opposite of that. He had not to carry on. He had to stop carrying on and do his duty even if that meant denying himself a drink, etc., etc.
    ‘B’ Squadron then returned to Ipoh and the routine was dawn patrols along the roads surrounding the town. A few days later Julian Brougham was orderly officer and said he didn’t feel well. I said I’d relieve him if he didn’t improve and an hour or two later when I went to see him he was so obviously ill I called the doctor. The next day he died of polio. A short time later I was on guard duty and had to wake a fellow officer to tell him that his wife had also died from the same cause.
    In October 1951 Sir Henry, the High Commissioner, had been murdered by communist bandits, and Sir Gerald Templar had been sent out to replace him. Already, vigorous policies launched before his arrival were beginning to bear fruit. Isolated villages were being shut down and the inhabitants moved lock, stock and barrel to newly built villages surrounded with barbed wire and watch towers. In this way the terrorists were prevented from preying on the villagers and demanding food and other supplies from them. But descending on a village at dawn and herding terrified men and sobbing women and children into lorries with only what they could carry was not a pleasant task.
    The new High Commissioner soon began to make his mark. He set about seeing that the police were reorganised and retrained, took steps to see that intelligence was properly coordinated and that the information services were smartened up so that people knew what was going on and why. Gerald Templar was very popular with all who had dealings with him. He was particularly nice to junior officers, full of enquiries about their families, careers and ambitions . On one occasion I was responsible for providing an escort for him and, over a meal in a village hall, engaged him in conversation.He was limping badly and I asked him at what stage in the War he had been wounded. ‘Wounded?’ he said. ‘I was getting a grand piano out of the mess at Naples ready for our move up to Rome when someone dropped it on my foot.’
    One of my troopers was of hideous aspect with broken and blackened teeth. And I discovered why. We stopped at a roadside café for a drink and rather than wait for the man who brought the beer to produce a bottle opener, he struck the bottle forcibly against his bottom teeth and the beer foamed forth.
    My next posting was to the Cameron Highlands to command an enlarged troop responsible for escorting food lorries up and down the hill. My troop sergeant, Sergeant Greetham, had won a Military Medal in North Africa during the War, and no one could have had finer support. The village or township of the Cameron Highlands was spread out around a golf course and two rather fine hotels, and at 5,000 feet the temperature was superb. From one end of the village a road wound its way down to the plain. At the other end there was a police post at a gap in the wire surrounding most of the settlement and the dirt road then meandered away across the plateau for thirty miles or so past various tea plantations managed by intrepid Europeans in almost permanent fear of their lives. Some had gone native and had Malay or Chinese girlfriends or wives. Most seemed to get their sustenance from gin or, in one case, cherry brandy.
    One particularly demoralised planter invited us to stay for the night and he laid on a concert for our benefit. Some very beautiful girls danced for us – or rather they looked like very beautiful girls but at the end of the show turned out to be men. We were enjoying the entertainment when a volley of shots rang out and