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Brigadier E.W. Goodman, D.S.O., M.C. Arrival at Kuala Lumpur
As you already know I left Bombay in the BISs Emma, a 30-year old boat, on 23rd August 1941. We anchored out in the harbour while the rest of the convoy collected, the Nevasa, Medina and Egra. Murdoch’s regiment was in the Emma with my HQ and a few odd hospital details. The other three ships carried the 28 Indian Infantry Brigade (Brig Carpendale) and three Gurkha regiments (2/1, 2/2 and 2/9 GR). You may remember him as we met him when staying with the Butts in Peshawar in November 1940 when I got my DSO. We finally sailed on 24th August in, I think, the late afternoon and went non-stop to Port Swettenham. The Medina had great difficulty in keeping station as her stokers were all raw and couldn’t or wouldn’t stoke and the Gurkhas had to lend a hand. I can’t remember that we had any escort until we got off Ceylon when we had an armed Blue Funnel liner and later, in the strait of Sumatra, a cruiser whose name I forget. (It was the Ceres.)
3rd August 1942 We arrived at Swettenham very early on Wednesday 3rd September. The Nevasa tied up alongside while we were out in the stream. It must have been about 10am that I got ashore, being met by Trott, the DAQMG of 9 Division, with a car. I had met him before in 1940 on the Ahmedzai show when he was BM to the Bannu Brigade and again in Quetta with 9 Division. I also met Brigadier Moir, commanding the L of C (Lines of Communication) and FMS (Federated Malay States) Volunteers, of whom I saw a good deal later. The rest of my HQ and the Field Regt disembarked later in the day. Trott drove me up to Kuala Lumpur, about 28 miles via Klang where the Sultan of Selangor has his palace. From Klang to KL the road runs through rubber country nearly all the way except for the last few miles into KL where one passes the Petaling tin mine and then the outskirts of KL itself. It was a great change to India – all very green, a dark and rather unattractive green, no dust and very neat and tidy villages. The road too was very neat and tidy, the long grass on the verges being kept short by gangs of coolies who have a short scythe-like knife on the end of a stick about 3' 6" long which they swing round in a circle on one hand to cut the grass. The rubber – interesting to see at first – became terribly monotonous with trees all planted so that you could see rows of them whichever direction you look. The road was good but very winding and the story is that it was built by a Chinese contractor who was paid by the mile! On arrival in KL I found that lieutenant-colonels and above all lived out and that I was to live in the Majestic Hotel, just opposite the station. The room I had you know all about, it wasn’t very good but perfectly adequate and all that was available as the hotel was very full. I arrived I suppose between 12 and 1 o’clock, Trott leaving me there and telling me that there was nothing particular doing and no need for me to make my number that day. Barstow was away on 10 day’s leave up at Cameron Highlands with a married sister. So after a wash I went and had lunch in the air-conditioned dining room. I met Stevens, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the RIASC, who had been in the Cecil Hotel in Murree – you may remember we met her again in Poona – and later in Quetta (very keen gardeners with a bungalow near the Gunner Mess). He asked me to sit at his table where was also a Colonel Rosenberg, RC of Signals, and a Colonel Percival, RAMC, the latter being away on tour. The food on first acquaintance I thought very good and did so all the time I was there. The weak point about it was that the greater part of it was frozen with very little local stuff. For instance New Zealand butter, imported oranges and apples (both excellent), mostly imported meat and no local fruit at all though there are excellent papayas, pineapples and rambutans to be had and I think mangosteens too. As far as I could gather most people dealt with the Singapore Cold Storage Company, who had branches all over Malaya and dealt in all the frozen stuff. Milk was all tinned and I only had fresh milk on the two occasions I stayed in Singapore. Fish was local and the sort called Ikan Merah [red snapper] quite excellent. The hotel excelled in toast and fish and gave one unlimited butter. So much for food which I should appreciate so much more now than I did then! |
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