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Arriving at the station I saw mostly servicemen all armed to the teeth, I boarded the train and sat next to another guy going to KL. Looking round the train carriage I noticed lot of little holes in the roof and windows and hoped it would not rain, then the penny dropped...BULLET HOLES... I was not going to get much sleep tonight.
Very soon an NCO. took the names of everyone to make a guard rota. Every hour the guard was changed and you stood in the caboose at the end of the carriage. When going around a bend you could see the locomotive was pushing a very heavy truck with another truck in front loaded with a large caliber gun manned by two men. I was told that a pilot train was running a couple of minutes ahead of us to make sure the line was clear. It was an uneventful night and we reached KL. about 1600hrs that afternoon.
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In my army career in Malaya I had,several times,done courier duty on the night mail from Singapore and was well aware that it was one of the terrorists favourite targets for ambush and was derailed and shot up quite often,this in spite of having a heavy escort of troops,some in armoured wagons front and back. My two companions were not aware of the hazards of the night mail but I soon enlightened them and suggested that we put some pressure on Ron to gain acces to our weapons and get some practice in before leaving.I had never fired a pistol in my life and the two ex Sgts.had only slight knowledge of the Army .38,totally different from the Browning semi automatics we were getting. As usual,Ron was late but as soon as he arrived we tackled him about our pistols but to no avail,�orders�were that under no circumstances were we to have access until on the train. After much heated debate Ron finally agreed that after we had collected our uniforms he would take us to the armoury where we could inspect his Browning and he would give us a brief run down on it,practice firing was definitely out of the question, with this we had to be satisfied. Having collected our uniforms we went straight to the railway station where Ron booked us on the nightmail for the following evening,2nd.class. By this time it was too late for our visit to the armoury so it was put back to the following morning. Being our last night in Singapore I suppose we should have celebrated a bit but we were too busy wondering what we had got ourselves into for more than an evening in the mess and large quantities of beer,which failed to disperse the general air of doom and gloom.
Ron arrived on time for a change with the remainder of our uniforms comprising shoes,hat,badges etc.and off we went for our pistol lesson. In the armoury we received another shock,our pistols were still as they were shipped from Canada,smothered in grease and wrapped in brown paper and that is how they would remain until they were handed to us on the train,�orders�! As I recalled, from the time we left Singapore station and cleared the Johore Bahru station on our way to K.L. would be about one hour which,if we were organised, would be just about enough time to clean the Brownings and get them in some sort of working order. In retrospect and considering the size of the train escort it was extremely unlikely that any terrorist attack would be pressed so closely that pistols would be of any use but our rising sense of despair precluded any sensible reasoning,to have those weapons operational by the time we left Johore Bahru became our one aim in the short time left. For cleaning materials we chose lighter fluid and the ubiquitous �Good Morning Towel� (the Asian answer to milkcrates although it was to be a few years before milkcrates appeared) plus toothbrush and chopsticks,for barrel cleaning;at the last moment one of us had enough sense to buy a tin of sewing machine oil as well. Our preparations worked well and our firearms were in working order shortly after leaving Johore Bahru but in the event the journey was comparatively quiet except for a few shots fired near Tampin which broke two windows but did no other damage.My two companions were rather scathing about my pre train �panic�,I never met them again after we arrived in K.L.but a few days later the nightmail was derailed and a firefight of several hours ensued,I hope they heard the news! We were met by an officer who after checking our names directed us to various vehicles parked in the station forecourt,mine was a Chev troop carrier with a four man escort,Klang was the destination. I took the opportunity to practice my Army acquired Malay but without much success although I did manage to get a stop at a coffee shop,it was early morning and I hadn't had breakfast.
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