And of course what was there to talk about but the Emergency, the Emergency in the rubber? One never seemed to talk of anything else. Che Ahmad was at the moment planning to capture Mustapha Kling, the Malay Communist leader, whose doctrine was infiltrating the Malay kampongs.

‘He uses the Holy Religion. He tells the people it is not contradictory to communism. And many listen to him.

‘The New Age has come to our people too, although more slowly than to others. We Malays have always been divided into two classes; the Sultans and the officials above, representing the Will of Allah in their will, and below the raayat, the common people, who submit to their will as to God. But it is not so now. Our raayat are no longer hypnotized by authority, they want more opportunities, less poverty, less inequality, not only compared with the Chinese but also with their own upper class. They are no longer satisfied, in spite of the Koran. They see Indonesia, and Egypt, and other countries remain Moslem, and yet have revolutions. And now we Malays want independence, merdeka, and the running of our own country.

‘It is the wealthy Chinese, and our Sultans and our Malay bureaucrats who on the whole do not want independence, the first because they feel that when the British go they will have a worse time than now, in spite of the discriminations against them, and the others because they fear to lose their power and their sinecures. But the time for subjection has passed, and we Malays want Independence. If we don’t get Merdeka then discontent will come, agitators thrive and preach communism, for they exploit all grievances, among the kampongs too. But I will catch Mustapha Kling,’ he added irrelevantly, ‘with the help of God.’

We both looked at Luke Davis, plunged in a gloomy trance. Che Ahmad said he had found Luke Davis at the Mess and taken him to the Chinese wayang, then to a Malay open-air dance. ‘Mr Davis works too hard,’ he said affectionately. ‘Nearly like a Chinese. He must learn to relax.’

‘I didn’t know you liked Chinese wayang,’ I said.

‘Of course I do. I have a lot of Chinese business friends,’ added Che Ahmad proudly. ‘In the mosque our priests always tell us that we must be more practical, we must go into business like the Chinese, we must work as hard as they do … it is true,’ he added charmingly, ‘that we do not work very hard.’

At which Luke could not help laughing, and Che Ahmad joined the laughter, knowing it friendly and not contemptuous, happy that Luke’s sadness had been dispelled. Suddenly it seemed ridiculous to struggle, to work hard aggressively, to toil and to suffer, as Luke did, as the English did, as the Chinese did, as I did, instead of looking beautiful like Che Ahmad, but then I remembered the children, blind with malnutrition, because their Malay mothers spent so much more on dress than on food. …