9
State of Johore, November 1949
Howard was relishing his new role. The Redmond Rubber Estate was enormous – more than twice as big as Batu Lembah. He had jumped from being the assistant manager on a much smaller plantation, to being the man-in-charge with four assistant managers and a team of juniors and controllers. A meteoric rise within Guthrie’s, and likely to cause resentment in some quarters.
The district was almost entirely given over to rubber, apart from the occasional tin or bauxite mine. Redmond was roughly equidistant from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, so – in theory – he could access both cities in his free time. But Howard was ambitious, hard-working and strangely resistant to the lures of dance halls, cinemas and parties. Instead, he spent what little free time he allowed
