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"Have Some Guts." When Malaya's new British high commissioner, tough little General Sir Gerald Templer, heard the news, he sped to the barbed-wire village in his armored car, assembled 300 village elders in a school auditorium, and meted out punishment. Tanjong Malim had long been a supply and information depot for the Red guerrillas, he said. "It does not amuse me to punish innocent people," snapped Templer, "but many among you are not innocent. You have information which you are too cowardly to give . . . Have some guts and shoulder the responsibility of citizenship." Templer slapped a 22-hour curfew on the entire village, allowing inhabitants to move about only during the usual midday shopping hours, and cut the rice ration of all but children from 6⅔ to 4 Ibs. per week.
Back in England, Eric Williams learned the news of his friend's death. "He was quite the bravest, the most gifted and the most unassuming man I've ever met." Said Philpot, the third wooden-horseman: "It's appalling, but it's the way you might have expected him to die."