The Treasure of the Tiger

By Duncan Watt

In the seventeenth book in the Wallace Boys series, Nigel and Bruce arrive in Singapore in South-East Asia, having sailed nearly halfway round the world in the Silver Spray. They meet up with two Singaporeans, Kheng Peng, a Chinese boy, and Zainal, a Malay. A radio mayday message, in Kheng Peng’s possession, from a Japanese ship in the closing stages of the Pacific War together with a visit to a former fighter of the Japanese in the famous Malayan stay-behind Force 136 lead the boys to realize they are on the trail of adventure; namely, General Yamashita (the ‘Tiger of Malaya’) Tomoyuki’s legendary treasure.

Their trail takes them to a small island, Pulau Tulai, near Malaysia’s Pulau Tioman where they find more clues to the location of the treasure - and they find these clues under an unexploded World War Two bomb! Following an intensive scuba-diving course for the two Singaporeans, the boys set sail across the South China Sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Duncan Watt
• Release date: May 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476392929

Duncan Watt

I was born in Africa where I grew up; but I have lived in countries like England, America, Papua New Guinea and Japan. I have now lived in Singapore for 35 years.When I was teaching in Zambia I wrote a couple of books in simplified English for my students and these were published by Oxford University Press. Since living in Singapore, where I have, among other things, appeared on the TV News for nearly twenty years, I have written 20 books in my Wallace Boys Series - 11 of which were published here in Singapore.Please visit The Wallace Boys Web Site to find out more about the books, and there is more about me too.

Book preview

The Treasure of the Tiger

An Adventure of the

Duncan Watt

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright Duncan Watt 1994

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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The Straits Times and Newsweek have kindly given their permission to use their articles.

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The picture of the ‘black & white’ colonial house has been most kindly supplied by Gregory Bracken who has produced a guide book of fascinating line drawings - Singapore: A Walking Tour published by Times Editions, Singapore (2001). The writer is very grateful.

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The writer would like to express his sincere thanks to Harold Ong for the use of a number of his drawings, taken from his book Scenes of Singapore published by Graham Brash, Singapore (1993).

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Permission has been given by the Hydrographer of the Navy to use the reproduction of the Compass Rose taken from Admiralty Chart 769. The writer would like to express his thanks.

Cover and illustrations by Paul O’Shea

Maps and scuba-diving diagrams by Duncan Watt

Contents

1. A General Hangs

2. New Friends

3. The Wireless Message

4. A City on the Equator

5. The Old Man’s Story

6. Making Plans

7. Malaysian Interlude

8. Pulau Tulai

9. The Cave

10. Learning the Basics

11. A Whole New World

12. Out into the South China Sea

13. Underwater Search

14. The Hana-Maru

15. The Treasure of the Tiger

16. Shark!

17. Where Were You?

18. The Earth Opened Up

Postscript

Glossary

Note on South-East Asia

Maps and Diagrams

South-East Asia

Singapore

Southern end of the Malay Peninsula

Mersing/Tioman

Tioman and Tulai

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The Profile of the Silver Spray

The Deck Plan of the Silver Spray

The Silver Spray looking good

The interior of the refurbished Silver Spray

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To the late F Spencer Chapman

(Headmaster of St Andrew’s College,

South Africa, 1956 - 1962)

from whom I learnt so much.

(His name gets mentioned in the story!)

The writer has donated part of his royalties to the Nature Society (Singapore) for their marine conservation, especially in their efforts at re-locating and re-establishing coral reefs in Singapore waters.

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The Wallace Boys find that staying with Kheng Peng and his family near the Singapore. Botanic Gardens is more comfortable than their cramped berths aboard the Silver Spray. Drawing by Gregory Bracken

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1

A General Hangs

The trial was short. The verdict was certain even before the trial began. General Yamashita Tomoyuki[1] was on trial for his life for things he personally hadn’t done, hadn’t even condoned. He was the first commanding officer in history to be tried and executed for things done by men under his command.

For two weeks General Yamashita faced the prosecution, an onlooker for much of the proceedings. Days went by when his name wasn’t mentioned in connection with any of the crimes and atrocities committed by the occupying army of Japan in the Philippines during the last months of the war in the Pacific.

General Yamashita, a heavy-set man in his early sixties, hair close-cropped, sat in stony silence in the stifling Manila tribunal courtroom which had been set up in the High Commissioner’s Residence. The high ceiling fans circulated the hot air but brought little relief. Outside in the bright sunlight, the Stars and Stripes hung listlessly from the tall flag-pole. He knew that his American defence attorneys were fighting a losing battle; at first he had thought that these men might just be making a pretence at defending him, but very soon he realized that they were really working for him, at no little risk to their own lives and future careers.

But they never had a chance.

With General Douglas MacArthur, Officer-Command-ing the American forces in the Pacific, breathing down everyone’s necks, the outcome of the court proceedings was a foregone conclusion.

Every time Frank Reel, General Yamashita’s attorney, stood up to object to something, he was invariably overruled and the military court inexorably came to the conclusion that was expected.

While those sitting in judgement on General Yamashita were away making their final deliberations, the Japanese general leant forward with his high-domed forehead cupped in his hands. His mind went back to those heady days of late 1941. He and his army had swept down from China into Indo-China, and he had overrun and taken Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, all French territories[2]. Thailand capitulated rather than face the horrors of the war that Japan had earlier unleashed on China.

South of Thailand lay the rubber rich lands of British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. From his headquarters in Saigon, General Yamashita planned the next steps of his campaign. On the night of the Pearl Harbour bombings, Japanese troops landed on the north-eastern coast of Malaya, and Singapore, the South-East Asian prize, was bombed. He chuckled to himself when he remembered hearing that some fool in Singapore couldn’t find the switch to turn off the street lights as his planes dropped their deadly cargo. Singapore had been a blazing beacon to the night fliers, and the smile of British complacency had been smartly wiped off their smug faces.

From early December, he and his men made their way down the supposedly impenetrable jungle-clad peninsula towards Singapore. His spies had told him that all the massive fortifications of Singapore, the Gibraltar of the East, were pointing southwards out to sea. He knew that he had to take Singapore from the north. Relentlessly and ruthlessly, the Japanese 25th Army leapfrogged down the Malay Peninsula; men on bicycles mopping up all British resistance. It had been like taking candy from a baby, he thought, and then by early February he had reached the Straits of Johor, the narrow strip of water between Malaya and Singapore, joined only by a single causeway.

In one night, they had crossed to the island and, for the first time, some form of real resistance was put up, but it was too little too late. On Sunday, February 15th, in the late afternoon, General Percival walked up part of Bukit Timah Road to the Ford Motor Factory, the site chosen for the surrender to take place. Here, Yamashita put on his finest show. With his fist hammering the teak table to drive home all his points, he made his demands and put down every one of Percival’s requests. Had Percival known what was in Yamashita’s mind, if he’d been able to get behind the bullying, arrogant facade of the man known as the Tiger of Malaya, things would have turned out very differently.

In the Philippine courtroom General Yamashita heard a step and looked up. He thought the judges were returning, but it was his attorney’s assistant, Carmelita Zapanta. She had moved her chair and looked across at the general and smiled encouragingly, though she knew in her heart what the outcome would be.

General Yamashita’s thoughts returned to that late afternoon in February 1942 when he faced Percival; poor man, he thought. How could he ever have been made a general? So extremely skinny, with such an absurdly weak chin and those ugly buck teeth. He looked like a frightened rabbit[3] as once more Yamashita had thumped the table vehemently.

General Yamashita recalls the defeated Britishmarching to their surrender up Bukit Timah Road.

Lieutenant-General Percival

I want to hear whether you want to surrender or not. If you want to surrender, I insist on it being unconditional. What is your answer? Yes or no? General Yamashita roared.

Percival replied, Will you give me until tomorrow morning?

Tomorrow? I cannot wait, and the Japanese forces will have to attack tonight.

Percival conceded a few more hours. How about waiting until 11.30 tonight Tokyo time?

Yamashita shook his head. If that is to be the case, the Japanese forces will have to resume attacks until then. Will you say yes or no?

The British general facing him said nothing, head bowed.

I want to hear a decisive answer and I insist on an unconditional surrender. What do you say?

There was complete silence in that office of the Ford Motor Factory. Eventually, utterly defeated, Lieutenant-General AE Percival, Officer-Commanding Malaya, gave his reply. Yes, he said softly.

Broken, General Percival[4] signed the surrender document, and, deep inside himself, Yamashita heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. He had pulled off the biggest bluff of his career; talk about a poker player! The British hadn’t any idea how overstretched his army was; he was down to the last rounds of ammunition[5] and his thirty thousand men were exhausted after their headlong flight down Malaya. He was outnumbered three to one! Had the British continued with the struggle for a mere few more days, they would have realized just how weak the Japanese forces actually were and may have been able to hold them off, possibly forever, from taking over Singapore.

But now, General Yamashita had the whole of Singapore in his grasp, along with more than one hundred thousand British troops and the finest defences east of Suez. It was only just a matter of time before the Dutch East Indies would be part of the area known as the Greater East-Asia Co-prosperity Sphere; after that, Australia and New Zealand. In 1942, it seemed that, together, Germany and Japan were going to conquer the world, and nothing would be able to stop them.

However, at last, General Yamashita’s luck had run out, and here he was with his lawyers on this December 1945 afternoon awaiting the verdict. If anyone wanted surer proof that this was a show trial, today was exactly the fourth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbour! Yamashita sat calmly, dressed in his field-green uniform with the white shirt of a Japanese Staff Officer, the collar turned out. Various campaign ribbons decorated his chest. Dejectedly, Frank Reel began sorting out his papers and handed some documents to Carmelita. Briefly he looked up, but his eyes hid what he was really thinking.

At that moment, the doors at the end of the courtroom opened and the judges came in, faces set and grim. They had reached their decision, and, whether they believed in it or not, they were here to deliver it.

Earlier General Reynolds, President of the Tribunal, had passed an order that, irrespective of the verdict, there was to be complete silence and no demonstration of any kind.

General Yamashita stood up and Reynolds began reading from the single sheet of paper. The commission finds you guilty as charged and sentences you to death by hanging.

Yamashita nodded gravely and, with head erect, he was led from the room back to his cell upstairs. Here, he smiled wanly at his attorneys and shook each of them by the hand. He wanted to acknowledge his thanks and he distributed some keepsakes - his watch, campaign ribbons, good-luck coins from China and his spurs. He turned to Carmelita Zapanta. From the breast pocket of his tunic he pulled out a sheet of much-folded paper.

Thank you, Miss Zapanta, for your kindness, sympathy and support at a time when your countrymen and women revile me, and possibly with justification, but you... Words failed him and, in the silence that followed, almost reverentially he opened the piece of paper out. If this riddle can be solved, you will be the possessor of a great fortune, my dear. You could be rich beyond your wildest imaginings! You must get it translated. That’s all I can say.

Carmelita took the buff-coloured sheet that seemed to be an official form of the former Japanese Imperial Army. It was covered with Japanese handwriting. Nothing seemed to make any sense, but her hands shook as she folded it up again and put it carefully into her handbag.

Thank you, Miss Zapanta. Yamashita’s harsh voice was a mere whisper.

From Manila, General Yamashita was eventually taken to Los Baños prisoner of war camp, and on 22nd February, 1946, he learnt that the following day he would die. Sleep did not come easily that night, and all that long night he thought back over the last hectic years of his life. His success in Singapore had not been popular with Prime Minister Tojo of Japan who was intensely jealous of General Yamashita, and very soon he had been shipped unceremoniously out of Singapore. He took command of a backwater post in Manchuria, until, with the war definitely being lost, he was sent to the front again to fight a losing battle in the Philippines. It was during this time that the Japanese committed perhaps some of the worst civilian atrocities of the war, despite his strict directives against such behaviour. Could he have restrained his men, he wondered? His men, by this stage in the war, were uncontrollable; they must have known in their hearts that they were losing, and their excesses were the result of frustration and humiliation; they were fighting mad.

Then came the surrender of the Imperial Troops in 1945. He wondered how such a catastrophe could have come about.

He recalled a ceremony in Singapore, when Japan was at the height of her power in June 1942, when he received a ‘gift’ of $50 million from the Chinese. He had explained to the delegation that it was only natural that the Japanese should win; the Japanese were descended from the gods and the Europeans from monkeys. In any war between gods and monkeys, he said, the gods must win!

The humiliation of Yamashita’s personal surrender in the Philippines was complete when he saw among those present at the ceremony General Percival, recently released from a prisoner of war camp in Taiwan[6].

The next morning, very early, General Yamashita climbed the thirteen steps of the hastily-erected scaffold. He was wearing United States Government issued khaki shirt and trousers. He wore no insignia or medals on his chest. He bowed in the direction of the palace of the Emperor of Japan.

He was buried in an unnamed grave in the cemetery of Los Baños prisoner of war camp. The monkeys had won!

Marching up Bukit Timah Road to surrender.

The surrender of 100,000 British troops!

2

New Friends

This is something I never expected, Bruce called above the sound of the rushing water and the wind in the sails. This is a huge city.

Nigel, at the helm of the Silver Spray, looked about him and nodded. The yacht had just rounded the eastern tip of the resort island of Sentosa and the whole of downtown Singapore had come into view on the port bow. Tall, modern buildings of interesting designs, interlaced with looping expressways, stretched in an arc in front of the two boys. And everywhere the boys could see, in the roadstead, hundreds of ships; ships of every size, shape and description; cargo boats, container ships and oil tankers. Astern, in Keppel Docks were the great orange mobile container cranes looking like giant giraffes, shuttling back and forth with their immense loads.

They say that Singapore is the world’s busiest port, and I can see why, Bruce shouted. "Gee, it’s hot and humid. I