Part of the government's war programme had been the storage in bulk of rice, staple diet of the Asiatic. Kuala Kangsar had two railway go-downs prepared and 14,000 bags of limed rice, each weighing 180 lb., had been stored for distribution in an emergency. Two important factors were overlooked when the rice was put in bulk storage in this way. One was that a bag weighing 180 lb. requires four men to lift it, and is therefore impossible for rapid handling. The other is that the ordinary Asiatic coolie type will panic at the least provocation, be it a food shortage, or rumour, or the sight of the military taking over the town. It only requires one man to start a panic. God knows who can stop it.

The engineers planned to destroy the rice go-downs, and the District Officer, who was also Food Controller, made a valiant attempt at distribution. With a few English schoolmasters he had opened one go-down, and tried to get the crowd to come up in fours to take the bags. The progress was so slow that the throng became restless with anticipation, and possibly from fear that they might be too late to collect their issue. They rushed the small group of men, and the go-down was closed.

Horsley and I were moved with pity at the sight, and we discussed the problem as we went home.

On the following morning the District Officer rang up to ask Horsley if he could provide some barbed wire and posts, in order to make a barrier at the go-down entrance. The idea was to allow sufficient space between two lines of wire for four men to drag a sack. It was a good idea, if there had been time to do it. Horsley obtained the materials, and worked with his bare hands to erect the barrier. We watched the second attempt, and saw it fail again. I had an idea, which I confided to Horsley, and we asked the District Officer for the gift of the far go-down on the other side of the railway. He was only too glad to let us try our luck.

We were determined that the rice would not be destroyed before we had done everything in our power to distribute it. To help us in our efforts we enrolled the services of Perry, and the Doctor and Health Officer. I took a small omnibus, and drove it myself; and we borrowed a three-ton lorry with driver. I led in the bus and ran it as quickly as possible to the far go down. We had opened the doors, filled the lorry, and closed the doors again before the mob saw us. I ran at top speed towards the P.W.D. coolie lines and called out to the coolies. We had tipped the bags on the roadside in a few moments, and before the crowd had caught us up the rice had been taken away.

I had to think of something else for the next trip, for the crowd was waiting for me, and the second vehicle was already at the entrance. When I drew up to the go-down I observed that the Europeans were surrounded, the mob pressing so close that it was impossible for the huge doors to be opened. Horsley fought his way out and came up to me with a look of despair on his face. "It's no good," he said, "they won't give us a chance."

I looked round the crowd: Chinese, Indians, Malays, dirty and sweating, with hungry faces and the pitiful look of fear and despair in their eyes. Surely we could do something: the thought of fourteen thousand bags of rice going up in smoke whilst thousands of innocents starved was too much for me.

To this day I don't know why I did it - my mere twelve months in the country, compared with the experience of the other men, and their greater command of the language, must have made my action seem childish in the extreme. I struggled through the press and stood with my back to the great doors, a very young figure, not an awe-inspiring sight in my dirty clothes, with my red face streaky with perspiration. I was afraid, fearful lest the mad swirl should overcome me in its insane pressure, but I was there, and there I had to stay, win or lose. I shouted for silence, and was amazed at the power of my own voice. Perhaps it wasn't my own, perhaps it was some sort of madness that had possessed me, or perhaps it was a force given to me to use for these poor wretches who were screaming for food. I shouted again and again; an old Chinese directly in front of me called my name and appealed for a bag of rice. I pushed my face into his and screamed him to silence. Subdued, he murmured to the men around him, and they ceased their shouting. I stood still, with my lips trembling and my knees feeling weak. Then, quietly, I told the front of the crowd that I could not open the door until they had heard what I was to say. The word passed round, and I stood waiting.

It probably took one minute to bring a deadly hush over the whole sea of faces; it seemed an age. I looked to my friends, who were standing by the lorry. They were quiet too, not sneering at my impertinence, but giving me the break I was appealing for. My first stepping-stone was behind me.

In simple terms I told them that we were there to give them all the rice they could carry. But as they were pressing so hard on the doors, and acting like madmen, we could do nothing. The doors would not be opened, I emphasised, until they had gone back ten yards. We would wait until they behaved like sensible men and women.

A murmur rose in the crowd again, and I wondered what was going to happen next. Then the mob receded, and my friends dashed forward to trim the ranks. I got into the lorry, displacing the driver, and started the engine. Still we waited, until the crowd stood silent again. I told the other fellows to get ready to open the door. At the word, the doors opened and the sea of smelly bodies rushed forwards. They were too late, for I had already backed the lorry into the entrance, and the pressure of the mob held the doors hard against the sides.

Standing on the running-board of the lorry, I was able to pick out the familiar faces of a half a dozen of my old coolies, and I beckoned for them to come nearer. I promised them a full bag each if they would work all the morning, loading the lorry and dumping the bags to my orders. They scrambled over the vehicle and worked with the Doctor, Horsley, Perry, and the Health Officer in the go-down. The lorry was filled in two minutes, and I told them to be ready to close the doors as I ran out. The coolies and one of my friends climbed over the sacks on the lorry, and I set off as fast as the crowd would let me. I was singing, supremely happy, for we had succeeded. Half a mile farther on I told the men to drop the bags off the lorry one by one as I drove in bottom gear along a side road. The rice was pounced upon as by wolves.

When we returned, I handed the lorry over to its driver, who had got the idea, and one of the Europeans took charge. Then I repeated the method with the bus. We fed the huge bags through the narrow emergency exit at the back, whilst the Doctor stood guard at the front side entrance.

The atmosphere was almost unbearable. The rice was preserved in powdered lime, and each bag threw out a great volume of fine white powder as it was dumped in the closed bus. The dust hung in the air like a thick fog, and as I was obliged to sit at the driver's seat, directing the loading, my throat felt dry and swollen, my nostrils were burning. I longed for a drink, but had no time to waste in seeking one.

When the bus set off the crowd rushed to clamber on, and some of the more agile Chinese actually succeeded in climbing up to the ledges of the cab windows. I was forced to drive slowly, and hammered at the grasping hands until they loosened their hold and their owners fell in the road. I was in a cold sweat of fear in case I should run over anyone, and my progress was erratic as I pulled my charge just clear of a wide roadside ditch or a pile of railway sleepers. At all events I must not stop, I must go on, on, no matter how slowly, but I mustn't stop. Eager faces lined the side roads now, for the crowd had seen the method we were using, and had left the go-down for the dispersal points. I had to run farther, and they followed me rather as hounds chase a fox, but with a grimmer lust than they. We pushed the bags out of the back and the side as we crawled along at a quiet point.

It went on for ages, and bags were scattered over the whole area of the town along the side lanes. It became a wild game, the crowd waiting to ambush us at all points, and we had to think furiously using our knowledge of the town to outwit them. Once I saw Hussein my former sais, and I confess to a little partiality then, for I called to him to follow, and as he came up running I ordered a bag to be dropped. He sat on it, a comic figure entirely alone by the roadside, unable to move the huge bag, but determined to sit on it until the necessary help came along.

I will say this for the mob: as soon as they saw that we were trying to do our best for them they treated the affair as a friendly game, and their cries of " Tarek, tarek, tarek" echoed my own cries as they pulled at the bags which were jammed in the bus doorways. When the bag was freed, it fell with a thud into the road, bowling over the pullers, and they yelled with triumph and relief as they sat on their prize. There was no fighting over the rice once it had been claimed. One young Tamil girl was nearest to a bag when it dropped on the roadside and she sat on it. Nobody tried to wrest it from her.

It was a slow process, but nobody was hurt, many were satisfied, and the District Officer's party were able to do a little better at their go-down, as the crowds were thinner. We could hardly see the impression we had made on the tremendous stacks of rice in the buildings, but we had tried. If we had only had time, say a week, we could have cleared the lot.

It was a hilarious party at Perry's that mght. We were exhausted, hungry, dry; but after a bath and a drink we sat down to a most enjoyable meal. We stayed up late that night, telling yarns, the war forgotten, and no mention was made of our day's work: we knew that we had done our best.

The military asked us to move out of Perry's house on the following day, in order to accommodate newly-arrived officers. It only took us half an hour, as we had not removed the barang from our cars. We entered the doctor's house and prepared beds made of cushions on the floor. Then we left for our day's work. More rice had to be distributed, the mail had to be collected, and Horsley and I had to assist the engineers in a wrecking expedition.

When Horsley and I arrived at the workshop, Wakeham and his men were already there. We witnessed the destruction of the petrol pump, the Dieseline tank and its contents, two lorries in for repairs, a steam-roller which had been brought in for overhaul, a concrete-mixer, and other plant. You can understand how Horsley and I felt when our new workshop was destroyed before our eyes. We looked at each other in blank dismay, and I believe we both thought the same thing. This was something we had fought to build, unromantic perhaps to anyone but an engineer who loved his work and all it meant; we had quarelled with each other, even, to arrive at the standard of perfection we desired. And now, out of the ruins of our work, we looked and saw in each other the sympathy which we had failed to recognise in the early days.

Horsley spoke. "Come on, bo', we don't want to see this, do we?"

We sat in the Club on the afternoon of the 22nd of December, and the engineers were with us after their wrecking trip was over. We felt miserable; our work was finished. Then we learnt that the Japs had cut across the Chenderoh Lake area from the Grik Road to Plus Road. This road runs to Sungei Siput, half-way between Kuala Kangsar and Ipoh. If they succeeded in gaining the main road the troops fighting on the Grik Road would be cut off from the south. Things were looking very black indeed. We were told to stand by for orders to move.

At 7 p.m. the stragglers of the Europeans in Kuala Kangsar formed up in the town for the trek to Ipoh.