AMBUSH AHEAD:
AUTHENTIC RING TO
TALE OF THE EMERGENCY
(NEW NATION,
23 OCTOBER 1971)
by Tan Teok Chow
A LOG ACROSS THE ROAD, by Sheila Ross.
Collins, 702 pages, £2.25.
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A couple of months ago I had the occasion to go through Tom Lilley's "The Projects Section", a novel based on the Emergency in Malaya.
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It was one of the best I have read in this field, giving by far the most vivid account of Special Branch operations. Though the Emergency lasted longer than both world wars there has been a dearth of good publications on the subject, both fictional and factual accounts.
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And what with Communist terrorist activities stepping up over the past few weeks, Sheila Ross's first novel should come as a refreshing change from the usual mundane news reports.
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The story in A Log Across the Road concerns 10 men in an armoured truck nosing its way along a Malayan jungle road. They see a log across the road which for them could mean only one thing--an ambush.
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So begins a narrative that flashes back 10 years, stretching from war-time Britain through Nazi-occupied Holland and Italy to Malaya during the Emergency.
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It is a sprawling book, about 700 pages long, consisting of over 100 brief expository accounts of the lives and adventures--narrated by the protagonists themselves--of characters as diverse as Stanley Oshewski, Polish ex-fighter pilot turned medical officer; James Weatherby, RAF squadron leader who ended up in the District Officer's chair; Vincent Lee, a Chinese Special Branch man; Sally Gunn, who became involved because she loved two men.
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COMPLEX
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In chronicling the story of these people and the complex pattern of their lives and destinies, the author produces far too many shifts of focus, too many switches of narrators. This tends to be disconcerting.
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However the threads of these mysteriously linked lives are ably and finally drawn together in an explosive climax.
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Though the novel would not suffer from some cutting, there are easily enough thrills to compensate for the occasional moment when the story drags.
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The ultimate setting--the imaginary district of Kuala Jerang in the fictitious state of Perangor--has the smell of experience about it, the feeling of authenticity. This isn't surprising as the author is well acquainted with the terrain, climate and people.
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Born in Malaya, she was here during the occupation, ultimately escaping to England where she joined the women's forces. She returned to Malaya after the war with her husband in time to see a new nation getting under way and a full-scale Communist insurgency crumbling in its path.
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