In the Mouth of the Tiger

‘In the Mouth of the Tiger’ is an epic story of adventure, love, mystery and intrigue set in Malaya, in the colourful and turbulent years before and after World War 2. Nona Orlov, a young Russian refugee abandoned in colonial Penang, falls in love with an Englishman who offers escape from her tawdry hand-to-mouth existence and catapults her into a world of mansions, expensive cars, well-bred horses and luxurious yachts. But Denis Elesmere-Elliott is much more than the urbane, wealthy man-about-town that he appears, and Nona is plunged into a dark world of treachery, violence and sudden death. As the mysteries multiply, Nona realises that, if she is to survive, her courage must match those of the tigers that frequent the jungles around her. The action moves from Malaya to England, and then Singapore, where war breaks out. Evacuated to Australia, both Denis and Nona become part of the mysterious world of covert missions before returning post-war to Malaya, now torn apart by a communist uprising. The climax takes place at an English farmhouse, where two men, united in their love for Nona, play out the final act, fuelled by jealousy, treachery and madness. The story is set within a factual setting. Denis Elesmere-Elliott is based on the real-life MI6 agent Denis Emerson-Elliott, whose secret intelligence work is referred to in Lynette Silver’s book Deadly Secrets. Denis’s wife Nona, the heroine of the story, also existed, and her background and early life were as depicted in the book. In real life, Norma Emerson-Elliott (nee Orlov) died tragically young. There are two intelligence hypotheses at the heart of the story. The first is that, with the secret approval of Stewart Menzies, the Chief of MI6, British intelligence ‘leaked’ critical military intelligence obtained through the highly secret Enigma decrypts to the Russians in 1943, despite direct orders to the contrary from Winston Churchill. That Enigma intelligence (it was called ‘Ultra’ material) was passed to the Russians is now accepted as fact following discoveries made after the war (the Venona project, etc). The illegal transfer of this vital military intelligence to the Russians helped them win the battle of Stalingrad – and thus probably the war. The second hypothesis is much more speculative, but it is also consistent with all the known facts. This hypothesis is that MI6 manoeuvred the Malayan Communist Party into staging its attack on British authority in 1948 (the Malayan Emergency). The reason for this was that the Communists, lauded for their resistance against the Japanese during the war, were poised to win the first elections in a Malaya approaching independence. To stop the possible election of a Communist government in Malaya, MI6 used a ‘plant’ in the Communist Party (none less than Chin Peng himself, the Party’s leader) to take his people into the jungle in a rebellion doomed to fail. The book traces the Elesmere-Elliotts during their stay in wartime Australia, and follows them back to Malaya where Norma needs to come to terms with Denis’s complicated and dangerous role as an (apparent) double agent. Their time in Cameron Highlands when the Emergency broke out in 1948 is as depicted in the book. They did live in Moonlight Bungalow (reputedly the Communist Party HQ in 1948 and later to become famous as the isolated bungalow from which Jim Thompson of Thai silk fame disappeared in 1961). They did move to Starlight Bungalow, ‘shielding’ Moonlight. They were protected during a bitter guerrilla war in which many people lost their lives, and they were ambushed leaving Cameron Highlands, the ambush being called off during the attack for unknown reasons. There is a story within the story. It is of a man (called Malcolm Bryant in the book but based on a real secret intelligence officer) who loved Norma and used his inside knowledge of the dangerous game Denis was playing to try and bring him down. Like Malcolm Bryant, this man was mentally unstable, his paranoia exacerbated by MI6’s continued efforts to protect Denis. The incident in the book in which Bryant has Denis’s bank accounts temporarily frozen because of illegal transfers to the Malayan Communist Party is drawn from a real event. The final scenes in the story, culminating in a shoot-out and the killing of Denis, are pure fiction, but the setting for these events are based on fact. The Emerson-Elliotts did live at Almer Manor, Dorset, in 1949, where they entertained senior intelligence personalities including Ian Fleming and Admiral Sir Reginald Drax, their neighbour (Fleming cheekily ‘borrowed’ Drax’s name for the villain of the James Bond novel Moonraker). Denis Emerson-Elliott shared many of the character traits created by his friend Ian Fleming for the fictional James Bond. Like James bond, Denis’s secret service identification number was 007.

Lynette Silver is a military historian, the author of a number of books on Australian history, including The Battle of Vinegar Hill, Fabulous Furphies, The Heroes o Rimau, Krait the Fishing Boat that went to War, Sandakan- A Conspiray of Silence, The Bidge at Parit Sulong, Blood Brothers and Deadly Secrets- The Singapore raids 1942-45. Derek Emerson Elliott Derek Emerson-Elliott was born in colonial Singapore in 1939, the son of an English adventurer and a young Russian émigré. He has infant memories of escaping the Japanese invasion of the island in 1942, after which he enjoyed an enchanted childhood full of travel and adventure, living in Australia, Malaya during the Communist uprising, England, South Africa and Portugal. Derek was for a period an Aid-de-Camp to the Governor-General, Lord Casey. Derek has worked as a lawyer in the public service, a litigation solicitor in private practice in Canberra, and as a barrister in Canberra and in New South Wales. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Canberra, has published articles on various controversial legal subjects, and is currently a street lawyer fighting for the clients of a community legal centre in Canberra.

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