‘How would you like it, Mr Quo, if your son or daughter turned Red and went off to China? What would you do?’

‘Before the Emergency,’ replied Quo Boon, ‘it was only natural for our children to go back to China in order to complete their studies. There were no universities in South East Asia, not anywhere. And now that there is a University of Malaya, it does not admit students from Chinese schools … they go to China to study … what can they do here? There is no future for them in Malaya. Careers are closed to them. They can only go into trade, or become labourers or rubber tappers.’

‘That’s not the point,’ replied the General. ‘These youngsters haven’t got any loyalty to this country. We want to teach them loyalty. Look at this hand,’ said the General suddenly.

He extended his right hand and Quo Boon peered.

‘Do you know what happened the other day?’ The General had become impressive. ‘We were having a bunch of fifty-five Tamils up here. Fifty-five. On a civics course. To teach them loyalty. I shook hands with each of them. Each one. That had never happened before. They’d never been to a house like this before. You should have seen their faces,’ said the General happily,’ as I shook them by the hand, one by one.’

He looked at his hand with great satisfaction, perhaps discovering in his palm some lingering evidence of its prowess in shaking the dark hands of fifty-five Tamils.

‘That’s what I mean,’ he continued. ‘Loyalty. Freedom and democracy. All pull together. We want to teach these youngsters that. And the best place is in the regiments. Make them all feel as one. Teach them patriotism.’

‘Then,’ said Quo Boon, ‘to teach them to be loyal, to be free, and to be patriotic, you must first of all stop treating them as aliens, unwanted and unworthy to belong to this land.

‘At the moment, they have nothing to reach for commensurate with their ability and their ambition. Their school lives are a I perpetual agitation, because they have no future except frustration. You must give them opportunities, General.

‘Since you cannot abolish Chinese education in Malaya, you must recognize its place, along with Malay and English. And having done that, you will find one day your best patriots (whose absence you deplore) and your ablest leaders (whose scarcity you complain of), where you found them once before, among the Chinese of Malaya.’

The General sat back, eyes intent upon Quo Boon. He said: ‘That is impossible. The Malays won’t have it.’

Quo Boon sighed at the often encountered excuse. The Malays, the Sultans, were always invoked, an ever-present brake upon action. ‘The day may come when the Malays and the Chinese of this country, and the others, will come together, work together, and discover how much they have to learn from each other, and how they cannot do without one another.’