Raub. I was made to do the accounting of the gold mine’s stock and John Miller was made to carry on the work of the mine. We were put in separate rooms and we weren’t allowed to speak to each other. At work, we wrote things down and a Japanese soldier would take them between us. We were allowed a ration of food and a bath each day but at night we were locked up separately.’
‘Your father, Akiro, was a first lieutenant to his father the Gensui Teizo Kawaguchi. He was one of the most powerful men in the Kempeitai or Japanese Secret Police in Malaya. With his three henchmen, Lieutenant General Arinaga Atuzawa, Lieutenant General Akimasa Hachirou and Colonel Akari Takafusa, they oversaw security. As far as I know, they were all Yamaguchi-gumi. Or, as they are called more often, the Yakuza. I don’t know about Akiro then, but I thought he was one of them. The so-called Secret Police were hated by their own soldiers and the mainland Japanese, as well as the territories they invaded, and with good reason.’
‘I am not sure what made us become, not friends, but let’s say, careful for each other as and when we could be. We hardly spoke, but it seemed to me that Akiro looked out for me. For us. John and me.’
‘How do you mean, looked out for you?’ Yoshiro asked.
‘It’s hard to make it sound sensible. He managed to keep John and me away from the attention of the four monsters when any of them visited or were near. They knew who we were and where we were, of course. He was scrupulous about making us obey the rules. We were watched at gunpoint most of the time and believe me, we kept our heads down. But Akiro, by seeing that every order was obeyed to the letter, kept us out of sight as much as he could.’
‘That went on for six months or so and then a Japanese manager and a book-keeper were sent from Japan and they were not military personnel. We, therefore, were out of a job. We ended up back in Kuala Lipis as labourers replacing sleepers on the railway line. The Brits had scuttled as much of it as was possible in the time, they had to thwart the Japanese attempt to use trains to carry troops to the south.’
‘This was much harder work so least said. We had a sadistic bastard overseeing us and the Chinese lads suffered wickedly. John and I came in for our fair share but again Akiro tried. We ended with a civilian overseer who would at least give us water. We were surprised when one fine day a new General turned up and pulled us out of the work gang. We both expected to be killed and as we were now working buddies, we consoled each other as best we could.’ Mac stopped and said to Yoshiro, ‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’ At his nod, he continued.
‘Akiro, your father, acted as our interpreter and we spoke through him. I was asked for confirmation of what I had done at university. Hearing that I had studied minerology, and that John had worked as an assayer in the Raub gold mine, we were told that our new job would be prospecting and that we had better behave.’
‘Now, what you must think on is that there were several Japs, as well as Taiwanese, who had been sending information back to Japan about routes and business in Malaya. It turned out that a Taiwanese bloke had known about a local Chinese – one Wong Ah Pek, who had been talking of a fantastic deposit he had found in the jungle north-west of Kuala Lipis. He had been canvassing some rich men and banks for a loan to set up the mine and to start digging properly. Ah Pek was dead, having told under torture, everything he knew, including the location of his find. Anyone else he had told about it was either in prison or dead.’
Yoshiro glanced around the room. The men’s faces were rapt. He realized that none of them knew anything about what Mac was telling them. The old man’s voice was strong and his lined old face alive with memories. He went on with his tale.
‘General Akimasa Hachirou headed up the interview along with Lieutenant Colonel Akari Takafusa of the Kempeitai or secret police. These two were the hounds from hell. The Gensui, was the boss and no mistake, but they were both Yakuza members.
‘Because Akiro spoke English, he was the translator for the interview. We were told that we must go to this mine and to make it operational. We would have fifteen Japanese soldiers to accompany us on the search, and when it was found, we would get enough workers conscripted from the locals to work it. Akiro was to see to the arrangements and he set about organizing the picks and shovels etc, for the mine.’
The Gold Mine
‘John and I were dragged through the jungle as we were. Our rubber slippers and the clothes we had on our back were all we had to protect us from insects and thorns. One soldier was bitten by a cobra just before we crossed a concrete bridge over the Jelai River and died before he could be taken back to Kuala Lipis hospital. The captain Akiro had charged with our care could do nothing much for him or us. He made sure we were fed and had sleep. What he did do though was to make the soldiers break down the jungle for us to follow them. We were surprised and grateful. This was not something those fellows were happy with and they got at us in other ways as often as they could. John commented that “we must be valuable to someone.” ‘
‘The captain let the soldiers be. He knew they would kill us given the chance, however he warned them to watch out because the Gensui had marked us and that he would have their guts if we came to real harm. We learned that it needed only a mention of the Gensui and most of the soldiers froze. I inadvertently helped our relations with them when a soldier went over a cliff and I instinctively went after him. John helped me get him off the rock he’d fallen on. We hauled him up the bank then tied his broken arm to his chest. The bloke screamed a bit but shut up when his arm was steady. The others gave me a drink and someone found some boots for the two of us and we were able to work better together. They were only shitty when they were overtired.’
‘We found the cave north-east of Kuala Lipis. I had only made a rough calculation, but thought mebbe, sixty to eighty miles. About three weeks of awful jungle bashing. The captain sent a couple of blokes back to tell the general, and after a few more weeks another fifty prisoners arrived. They were in a terrible mess from carrying spades, picks and axes. God, you never saw the like!’ Mac shuddered at the memory.
‘I had realized early on that the captain must know where we were heading. He had maps and a compass which he used. John and I tried to look at the sun. But that’s a useless thing to do because it just sails in an ark across the sky. We found that the mine was in a cave and what a cave! We were forced into a sloping hole in a scraggy-looking rocky outcrop. A soldier went first armed with a kerosene lamp. We were made to follow him.’
‘We didn’t know it then, but we would not see the real sky for two years or more. We stumbled along a narrow opening hardly head high for about twenty feet before it opened into a great vaulted cavern with a ceiling covered with thousands of bats. God, those bleedy things went berserk. We, all of us, cowered on the floor while they whizzed about. I think the captain was more scared than we were. They settled after a while and from then on became a permanent part of our lives.’
‘The soldiers lit a fire and made a meal of sorts. It was a cold, strange, but very beautiful place. The rock formations were fantastic. We were allowed to sleep and we were told where to lie down to keep out of the bat shit that fell perpetually. The air was fresh and I thought that there had to be other openings but we had no chance to look. The soldiers were not letting us out of their sight. We thought perhaps that there were so many pillars and curves about that they knew we could get lost or escape easily. So, we were watched closely.’
‘We spent days and days searching first one gallery and then another looking for the gold. I figured it must be a seam because the ground was not promising and the bat guano made digging difficult. The cave was a wonder. It went on and on twisting about and turning back on itself. I recognized the calaverite(6) seam after weeks of looking in an area deep in the sixth cavern we searched. The veins were rich, but we had to dig that Bleedy mine by pick-axe and hand-cart the stone out, and we did, from dawn to dark,
