above the jungle mist - sample
PROLOGUE
1851
The British Resident Councillor of Penang directed his chat through a linguist. ‘Herr Georg Müller, I believe. How do you do? Are you enjoying our island?’
Guests and officials mingled at the colonial administration’s social soiree on the pristine green at Fort Cornwallis on the foreshore of George Town. A cool evening breeze fluttered off the sea.
‘Councillor Blundell, very gut to meet you.’ Müller tilted his head curtly, brought his heels together, and responded in accented English, ‘There’re vermögen... er... ach, fortunes... to make here, so I like it.’
The resident administrator waved the interpreter away.
‘Only here to create wealth?’ Blundell cocked an eye. ‘What about planting long term roots?’
‘Nein, nein, vhen I have my riches, I vill return to the Vaterland.’ On impulse, the trader said, ‘Unless...’ He stalled, wondering if he’d be overstepping the mark.
‘Unless?’ The Englishman prompted, before lifting his glass of sherry and sipping from it.
The German hesitated. Then he stated, ‘Unless the island becomes Deutscher Bund territory.’
The island’s chief counsel choked and verged on coughing up the contents of his throat. He gulped, stiffened and declared with indignation, ‘Hah! Preposterous! Sir, that won’t ever happen!’
Georg squinted through his monocle, miffed. ‘And vhy not?’
‘That, Herr Müller, is outrageous! First, we, the British, command the waves in Asia and the Malacca Strait. And second, the Germans don’t understand the local dwellers, nor want to. We have a tough time of it naturally, but at least we try...’
‘Regardless, a proud German’s core and loyalty vill ever be with Germania. I see no need to engage with the lout natives beyond that essential for business!’
‘I submit, sir, such prejudice will lead you nowhere.’
1937
The great grandson of Georg Müller gazed into the eyes of a Eurasian girl. ‘I love you, Shu Mei.’
‘And I you, Daniel, with all my heart.’
PART I
CHAPTER 1
Isle of the Betel Nut Palm
Penang was, and is, a balmy tropical cay in the Malacca Strait. In the sweet lilting native tongue of Malay, it was called Pulau Pinang or the Isle of the Betel Nut Palm; in deference to the slim, lanky areca palm that flourished on it. Like its charming name, the island was an alluring vessel of ethnic and cultural diversity - a cauldron where the West met the exotic East.
It rested off the northwest coast of the Malay Peninsula near the salient channel’s northern edge; while Singapore sat at its southern end.
The Melanesians arrived in the region 6,000 years ago, while others came in the ensuing millennia. They comprised Chinese settlers from the 15th century and the Sumatrans, Arabs and Indians; with the British from the 1770s.
Captain Francis Light, its ‘founder,’ brokered the island’s concession from the Sultan in 1786. It was a trade, where the newcomers agreed to respond with modern know-how and armed protection for the State of Kedah. The naval commander renamed it the ‘Prince of Wales Island,’ and established the free port of George Town; after King George III.
The British soon reneged on the agreement. Whereon, the realm sought to regain the isle by arms in 1791. With no true means to remove the defaulters, the native ruler faced little choice. He acceded to a scheme of annual redress - a lease arrangement.
Later, in 1826, the atoll reverted to ‘Penang’ and it, along with Malacca, Dinding and Singapore, became the Straits Settlements. They turned into a Crown Colony in 1867.
British Malaya, or Tanah Melayu British, spanned the dominion and the non-colonised states within the Malayan peninsula.
Soft sandy beaches and lowlands ringed the turtle-shaped island; though its form was closer to the sea animal with its head and legs retracted by three-quarters. Small at 110 square miles, a mountainous, jungle-veiled spine ran north to south smack down its middle, splitting the isle into two halves.
George Town lay at its northeast corner - and its most eastern point - facing Butterworth on the mainland; 3,000 yards across the narrows. If rustling, swaying coconut palms, gentle beaches with lapping waves, and lush rainforest with colourful flowering flora formed the island’s skin, the township was its beating heart. And it showed in the vibrant port. Long before the British set foot on it, the atoll had hosted a kaleidoscope of races and cultures. The exotic medley of ethnicities, customs, and languages and cuisines was a sight to behold.
A visitor confronted different worlds by strolling from one ethnic quarter to another; often as easy as rounding the corner from one road to the next.
The Malays and Tamil Muslims quartered about the Kapitan Keling Mosque, with more Indians around the Chowrasta Market; while the Siamese held Kampung Siam. And the Chinese centred on Chulia, China, and Kimberley; among other streets. Yet, the Japanese took Cintra Street. Diverse sights, colours, sounds and smells ravished the senses in the wards.
The spiritual landscape was just as varied. Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism endured with ease next to Anglicanism and Catholicism; with Judaism rounding off the mix. The old wives’ tales thrived. Quaint inbred superstitions, and the dread - respect, perhaps - of ghosts and the spirit world, existed cheek by jowl with the faiths.
The Chinese were the majority, followed by the Malays, Indians, and the hybrid races. The Peranakan were a blend of Chinese and Malay; and the Kristang, Eurasians from a mix of Portuguese and Malay. More diverse melds lasted too. They lived beside the British, Arabs and the Japanese.
The common tongues were the Chinese dialect of Hokkien, Malay, with English and Tamil. Most locals were multi-lingual.
The missionary schools taught the King’s or Queen’s English; except most laboured to achieve a Brit’s intonation. But they talked and wrote with correct grammar. On the streets, they flew between the monarch’s speech and its colloquial version depending on the people with whom they spoke. And they moved between lingoes without conscious thought.
The island’s prosperity proved rapid. With it came a sharp surge in the secret societies and gangs. Crime. To say nothing of the dens of infamy. And failing public services, notably, the sewage system.
The German influx occurred in the mid-1800s. Eager missionaries arrived, pursued by the merchants and traders. In their wake showed the lawyers, architects, and photographers and artists. The shipping companies such as Norddeutscher Lloyd trailed them. Surnames like Neubronner, Katz, and Gottlieb, with Kaulfuss, Bausum and Wolf, soon surged to eminence. Last, the Jews with clan names such as Zeitlin, Bernstein, and Schwartz came late that century.
Penang grew into a hub. It ensued as the inspiration for the intellectuals from the West and the East. The Eastern & Oriental Hotel, known colloquially as the E&O, became a nest - a haven - of the famed. They included W. Somerset Maugham, Sir Noel Coward and Rudyard Kipling; the German poet Hermann Hesse and novelist Karl May; and Dr Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese philosopher and ‘father’ of modern China.
In time, it gained several delightful sobriquets. The critics lauded it as:
The Pearl of the Orient
and
The Garden of the East
They called the Isle of the Betel Nut Palm home away from home. Or home itself.
Penang Hill
The prominent feature towering over the island’s lowlands was Penang Hill. But its name was a tad misleading. It was, in reality, a mountain range with a cluster of peaks and its highest point at the 2,733-foot Western Hill, near its northern end.
The tag also referred to the housing domain on Flagstaff Hill, or Bukit Bendera. At 2,411 feet high, the hillcrest estate was the exclusive enclave of the isle’s senior British masters, plus the few select Europeans who held sway with the colony. Wealth came to nought, without the political clout.
Summit Road - a narrow drive winding along the ridge - linked the bungalows. They derived the term ‘bungalow’ from ‘bangla,’ a Hindi word meaning a cottage built for European settlers. Many homes stood grand, owning vistas over the land.
The Penang Hill Railway served the ridge’s residents from 1923. The two-section funicular included a 258-foot tunnel, and was the swiftest mode to the peak. It remains the world’s steepest tunnelled track. A single journey took thirty minutes, with a change of carriages midway. They named the stations - bottom, middle and top.
The authorities added a post office in 1894, with a police station in 1929.
Crisper climate was its most cherished feature. Its temperature fluttered between 68 and 81 degrees Fahrenheit, a fresh 20° to 27°C, with nightly ambient below 70 degrees or 21°C. A few points cooler than George Town, day or night, it offered welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the plains.
Apart from the crest of Flagstaff Hill, and a spice plantation over the Bukit Cendara foothill, a dense forest teeming with creatures clad the range. The common species calling it home were the dusky leaf monkey or white spectacled langur, long-tailed macaque, and lesser mouse-deer; with the wild boar and black giant squirrel. The nocturnal were the palm civet, flying lemur, owls and fruit bats.
Still, the habitat housed a host of birds - the Asian emerald dove, white-throated kingfisher, and crested hawk eagle; besides the woodpeckers, flycatchers, and sunbirds and mynas. Tree-frogs and toads, and skinks and geckos thrived; aside from the butterflies and moths.
The writers were savvy and bang on - faultless - in their wisdom. Penang dwelt as a ‘Pearl’ and ‘Garden.’
A hundred and thirty-two years onward from Captain Light’s landing, the isle welcomed a lively and healthy eight pound German boy.
CHAPTER 2
1936
The Millers
Daniel Karl Miller was born in 1918, to Hugh and Brigitte Miller, in the Straits Settlement of Penang.
The Millers were wealthy. Their empire compared modest against magnates like John D. Rockefeller or Henry Ford, but they fared rich just the same. Danny, or Dan, was a scion of the Müllers, a clan with origins from Regensburg, Bavaria, and generations deep in Malaya.
By 1936, the eighteen-year-old chocolate-haired youth - once soft and slight - had matured into a fine, square-jawed boyish man with a solid trapezoid frame. He stood average, akin to a taller Asian, and fancied his hair in the Ivy League style - the ‘short back and sides.’
The assisting midwife at his birth had claimed Daniel - a Horse in the Chinese zodiac - would own the qualities of optimism, righteousness, and kindness; with a slant towards independence, action, and endurance. Those traits were absent as a callow lad, which led the family to feel the nurse misguided. A fool or dummkopf.
The glitch wasn’t his fault. It arose from conditioning. From the beginning, he suffered a stern, autocratic grandmother, and a mother who treated him with apathy, if not antipathy. Likewise, he lived through bullying by his feckless and callous elder brother, who relished it. So the child grew insecure and fearful.
Despite the tears from his juvenile hazel eyes, Danny’s inward fortitude, sixth sense and survival instinct proved his saving grace. Strengths he never knew he owned, back in those dark, grim days.
Daniel’s redeemer was his father. Hugo Johann Müller had changed his name to Hugh John Miller by deed poll the moment he came of legal age. It was much to his parents’ displeasure… and wrath. Ernst and Gerda believed in preserving their German heritage and Lutheran values, and despite their roots in the East, they still saw the old country of Deutschland as their homeland.
Hugh took a dissimilar philosophy. Born on the island, he felt himself a Malayan. Or a Penangite, a tag which rose to prevalence later. Racial ancestry mattered nought. Since Malaya was their true home - where they lived, worked and reaped their riches - their loyalties ought to be with the colony, and by extension, Britain. They were ‘British subjects’, after all.
Daniel shared the same mindset, and Hugh’s love and their common bents and interests enriched their father-son bond.
The clan patriarch, Georg, made his money in commodities export - tin and rubber - and the import of German technology, leaving the spice trade to his Deutscher compatriots. In due course, his heir Ernst took the helm, and held enough sway with the colony’s lords to gain a much-desired plot up on the crest of ‘The Hill.’ He erected a modest cottage on the property for their weekend relief from the discomforting lowland clime. They rode to the ridge on horses.
Ernst, Danny’s grandfather, built their dedicated hilltop bungalow when the funicular’s scheme came to fruition. He had it ready by the time the railway ran in late 1923 and christened it - Berghütte Müller. While Germanic in name, the vast double-storey chalet was English in style, externally at least. It featured granite walls with mortaring finished in white, a French clay tiled roof with generous eaves, and glazed colonial doors and windows. They painted the timber features to match. The old fellow fitted and furnished it inside with Bayerisch opulence. As a whole, it was a grand manor.
When Ernst succumbed to ill health, his wife Gerda seized the reins and drove the family’s business with an iron hand. By then, they enjoyed a firm existence on the isle and on Penang Hill. Her son, Hugh, refused to enter the realm of commerce. Instead, he devoted his labours to serving the community as a public works civil engineer.
The puritanical elder Müllers ran the household like a tight ship. They carried out most things with customary German precision. The boys had weekly haircuts on Tuesdays at 4 pm. The kebuns - gardeners - mowed the lawns at 10 am on a Wednesday fortnightly. And they scheduled meals ahead. Abendbrot or ‘evening bread’ - dinner - was formal at 6.30 pm sharp to the cuckoo clock imported from Breitnau, a hamlet in the High Black Forest.
Bodo Schultz, their chef, served Bavarian cuisine. Schnitzel mit kartoffelsalat; schweinshaxe und knödel; and Nürnberg rostbratwurst with bacon, potatoes and herbs in a pan were routine dishes for dinner. Along with quality wine from the Rhine. In step with the custom in Bavaria, the cook offered Weisswurst and pretzels only at breakfast. And mind you, slouching or elbows on the board were strictly verboten! Absolut verboten!
The rigid rituals softened when Hugh became the titular head of the house. Imbued with the Malayan ways of living, he pursued his days laidback - on rubber time - except where timing was crucial. The local jargon referred to doing things in a relaxed fashion. This calm manner rubbed off on Danny.
Ernst, Gerda and Brigitte doted on Reggie, perhaps because he was the first-born and heir apparent to the clan’s trading empire and fortune. In contrast, Dan suffered the zweites Kind or second child syndrome with the distinct feeling of being ‘left out’ or disfavoured by them. Apart from wrestling with his sense of self - being of a minority in Penang - he had to fight for his spot within the family whilst enduring cruel injustices. Without fail, they blamed him when his sibling started the mischief or fights. While from birth, the younger boy received little love from his mother. Was he unlovable?
Two years older, Reginald Otis Müller was his antithesis. ‘Reini’ to their kin, the brother possessed ash blonde hair, bowled and undercut, and a diamond shaped face with hard eyes of cold-grey, while the form of his mouth and nose resembled Danny’s. Their voices sounded alike.
Where Dan was easygoing and chummy, Reg stood aloof, a ‘lone wolf.’ Where he loved adventure, the outdoors and using his hands, his brother was bookish and a loafer. Vast contrasts lay in their core attributes. The junior boy showed sincere and selfless, while the eldest effused arrogance and testiness with an air of privilege. And... slyness and connivance. Machiavellian.
The lads - as had Hugh - learnt refined English, courtesy of their nanny in the formative years before school. At their forebears’ insistence, however, they used die deutsche Sprache at home. Save for Hugh, who often carried on in the more common tongue. They, predictably, swapped speeches here and there without a thought. Aping his dad, Danny grew to use the native patois of Malay and Hokkien, besides the colloquial Malayan-English. Or Manglish.
They kept motor cars, and a motorcycle garaged at Ayer Itam, the village at the hill’s base. While Hugh drove himself, and Dan rode the trams, the duty syce would wait with a car at the railway’s bottom station on a telephone call from the others. The two-wheeler served as transport for the valet and chef on their errands; and the boys’ occasional joyride.
His father aside, young Danny gained from another rescuer - a Eurasian girl named Cheah Shu Mei. Though neither would view it that way. They fed off each other and gave in equal measure. Their companionship since toddlerhood had strengthened into a lasting friendship that cocooned them same as a warm, snug, and soothing blanket.
Perhaps his mother’s indifference had pushed Daniel away, towards his dad and others...? Others like Mei.