Outwardly he looked like one of them. He behaved like them, crouching on his haunches on the bench to eat his meals, shoving food into his mouth with his chopsticks, his hand reaching out for another piece of meat even before he had swallowed what was in his mouth. But he was not one of them, he told himself. He was a poet’s son. A doctor’s son. Yet the more he got to know them, the more he felt an affinity with them.
Ignorance and fear in a new land had made them even more communal. Each coolie suppressed what made him different from others. The nail that stood out must be hammered down; otherwise it would scratch others. “Be like them,” Ah Fook had advised him, “don’t show off your learning.” But he was a descendant of scholars. He had learning and yearnings different from theirs. He had to leave this dunghole! But in the meantime, he would have to fit into the White Crane community as best as he could.
Already his boyhood days were fading fast in his memory, glowing like a distant star. He felt at home and yet not at home in the new land. He inhabited a borderland with the same gods of his ancestors, followed the same communal laws of his clan and lived in huts like those back home in Sum Hor. And yet, this was Bandong Valley, the land of brown-skinned people.
All around were the mountain ranges and brooding hills, the silent jungles of green shadows hiding strange beasts and spirits which pressed upon the borders of his consciousness, a constant reminder that he was no longer in Sum Hor even though the miners talked and lived as though they were still in China. Except Lee Peng Yam and the younger ones. They were willing to confront this new land head-on. But the older coolies kept harking back to their home village. No wonder Lee Peng Yam had exploded at the elders’ meeting. Young though he was, and new to the land, Tuck Heng found himself agreeing with the obnoxious man that they were indeed in a new dunghole with names like Bandong and Perak. Names which sounded strange to his ears. Names which meant nothing to him. Not like Sum Hor—a name that stirred his heart and made him think of mother, father and home. A name that brought tears to his eyes and a dull ache in his chest. He longed for the familiar landscape of flat plains and placid streams. He yearned for the songs of the village girls washing their clothes at the well. O Sum Hor, Sum Hor.
“Young dog, dreaming again?” Big Rat called out to him. “Lee Peng Yam is calling a meeting. If you want to live, you’d better come along!”
The shed was packed when he got there with Big Rat. The young men thumped each other’s backs. The excitement of an impending hunt gripped them. They smelt blood, and like hounds, they were raring to go. Faces were flushed as mugs of samsu were passed round, the cheap Chinese rice wine going to their heads. Some broke into a raucous song about Hakka maids and Hakka men.
“Where’s the village?” he asked.
“Upstream, close to the hills,” Big Rat replied.
“Where the land is more fertile. They grow more vegetables than us,” a coolie told him.
“It’s the Hakka sows! They can make anything grow. Even in the poorest soil,” another miner joined in. “My old Ma used to say those Hakka sows were good for rearing pigs and growing vegetables. Strong as oxen. They can work in the field right up to the day they give birth.”
“That’s why, brother, you can pound them, squeeze them, ride them! As hard as you like!”
“We like our women soft,” Big Rat snorted.
“Chieh! If you’re offered one of those Hakka Ah Soh, don’t tell me you’re going to say no, not delicate enough for me!”
Big Rat scowled at his tormentor. His mates roared.
“Who can afford to be choosy? Who among us can afford Sum Koo’s girls every day?”
“Who’s Sum Koo?”
“You don’t know Sum Koo?” a young coolie hooted.
“He doesn’t know Sum Koo! This one is green!”
“Big Rat, are you his godfather?”
“Are you guarding his manhood?”
“Money is guarding young Tuck’s manhood!”
“Opium’s a cheaper mistress!”
“That’s so, Big Rat?”
“You’re such an earnest fool! Who except me, your big brother, will tell you about such things and make a man of you?” Then in a more serious tone, Big Rat added, “There are three thousand of us in this dunghole. Only twenty or so have wives and families. The rest of us make do with the occasional runaway Malay slave and Sum Koo’s girls.”
“Silence!”
Lee Peng Yam’s voice rose as he listed all the wrongs the White Cranes had suffered at the hands of the Black Flags.
“Remember, my brothers! 1867! The year of the terrible riots in Penang! 1869! The year the dogs dammed our water course! 1872! When the wives of the White Crane heroes in the Batang mines drowned themselves! Because the Hakka dogs had defiled them! And what about those in Larut? Do you need any more reminders?”
“No!”
The men broke into angry yells.
“Our idiot boy wears the green hat of a cuckold! His shame is our shame!”
“We’ll show the Black Flags what the White Cranes can do!”
Where Tai-kor Wong had counselled caution and patience, Lee Peng Yam was urging them to action. Heroes with courage in their hearts must uphold the honour of the White Cranes! They could not wait any longer. The longer they waited, the more cowardly they would appear to the world. He had a plan which required the services of thirty young dogs hungering for a bitch.
“We’re here! Here!”
Pandemonium broke loose. It was several minutes before order was restored. Lee Peng Yam was grinning when he announced that he had to keep the number small because he had other plans for the heroes, which he was not at liberty to discuss with them just yet.
“But if you heroes want a fight to restore your good name, then fight we will!” He raised his clenched fist.
“Brothers in blood!”
The men cheered. They chanted and sang the White Crane song.
Then Big Tree reeled off the names of those chosen for the mission.
“Tuck Heng!”
Even Big Rat gave a start. Tuck Heng was sure that Big Tree had made a mistake. He was a newcomer, a nobody and only fifteen years old. There were many older than he who would give anything to be chosen.
“No mistake! I’ve chosen you because I don’t want any soft-handed lily-livered son of a mother in the White Cranes. If you can’t subdue a woman, what good are you?” Lee Peng Yam laughed his mirthless laugh, his unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
Tuck Heng hid his contempt. The others slapped him heartily on the back.
“Lucky dog!”