by Shaun Clarke
Lieutenant Kearney had no compunction about breaking the silence when he had to pass under a branch on which was resting an enormous, hairy spider. He despatched it– and the branch upon which it was resting– with a sustained burst from his Owen submachine gun. Likewise, when an enormous wild ox charged out of the undergrowth – possibly goaded into doing so by one or a number of guerrillas – it was brought down by a burst from Bulldog’s powerful twelve-gauge shotgun.
Trooper Mark Beacham was the first man to see the next Chinese Chopper. After calling out a warning, he skirted around it– and tripped over another string stretched along both sides of the narrow track. His scream was dreadful to hear as he staggered back from the impact of the wooden spear that slammed into his chest – fired from a bow concealed in the earth, operated by a trigger mechanism set off by the tripcord. He kept screaming as he dropped his M1, staggering as if punch-drunk, and instinctively tried to pull the spear out of his smashed chest and pierced heart. He was dead by the time he fell backwards into a pool of mud.
Marty activated the spiked log of the Chinese Chopper by shredding the supporting cords with bullets, then, just to be sure, he also peppered both sides of the track. When it was clear that the ground was safe, he and the others moved on, leaving a couple of troopers behind to dig a shallow grave for Trooper Beacham, as they had done for Roy Weatherby, though not for the unfortunate CT guerrilla.
Less than an hour later, when they had managed to hack their way through another exhausting stretch of secondary jungle, Marty, Tone and Bulldog, now acting as a team, all out on point, spotted three CT guerrillas about sixty metres away, across a small lake of rust-brown water.
After using a hand signal to tell the rest of the squadron to drop to the ground, Bulldog indicated that Marty and Tone should follow him. Discarding their Bergens and other kit, the three of them slipped into the water, holding their weapons above their heads, until they could grab hold of a floating log. With the log in front of them, they inched through the mudslicked water, resting their weapons near the top of the log, though slightly behind it, so that only the log would be seen if the guerrillas turned around to face the lake. When they neared the far side, all still hidden by the log and about forty metres from the bank, they saw that the guerrillas consisted of two men and one woman. As they were quietly bringing their weapons up into the firing position, resting the barrels on the floating log, they heard the distant rumble of aircraft and saw the guerrillas pointing at the sky.
A couple of Beverly transports were flying overhead with parachutes billowing out beneath them. The parachutists were the other SAS and SF men, dropping towards their DZ north of the swamp, where they would cordon off the CT.
Bulldog nodded at Marty, then aimed along the upraised sights of his twelve-gauge shotgun. Marty did the same with his SLR semi-automatic, as did Tone with his M1 carbine. They opened fire simultaneously, taking out the two men, who convulsed in a dramatic explosion of spitting soil and foliage. The woman, however, jumped to her feet and fled into the ulu’s protecting forest.
‘Damn!’ Bulldog exclaimed. ‘That bitch will go and tell the others. No point in stopping now.’ Pushing the log aside, he waded to the far bank with Marty and Tone behind him. After they had scrambled out of the lake and were standing over the two dead CT, dripping wet, Bulldog waved to the rest of the squadron, still carefully hidden in the ulu, to advance. Like ghosts, but led by Lieutenant Kearney, the men emerged from the trees and waded across the lake.
Even in the middle of the lake, Kearney was using the No. 88 wireless communication set to keep in contact with the SAS and SF men advancing on the guerrillas from the north. When he saw Bulldog and Marty looking at him, waiting for further instructions, he hand-signalled that they and the other troopers should keep going. Pleased, they turned away from the lake, skirting the dead bodies of the two dead CT guerrillas, and continued advancing.
As they neared the centre of the swamp, they had to watch out for an increasing number of booby traps as well as CT guerrillas, who suddenly started appearing in the undergrowth just long enough to fire quick bursts from their M1 rifles and British tommy guns before disappearing again. When this happened, the SAS troopers broke from their lengthy single file and fanned out across the ulu to form a broad cordon of two- and four-man teams, from which the CT could not escape.
Aware that they were now boxed in on all sides, the CT responded by attempting a suicidal last-ditch stand. When the first of them jumped out from behind some foliage just ahead, firing his rifle and wounding one SAS trooper, Lieutenant Kearney sent up a flare, indicating to the SAS and SF forces to the north exactly where the guerrillas were located.
The CT sniper disappeared as quickly as he had materialized, but Tone switched to the grenadelauncher on his M1 carbine and fired a 40mm shell where the sniper had been, blowing the foliage to shreds and setting fire to the bark of a tree.
When the smoke cleared, the sniper’s scorched, shredded body was revealed, broken and sprawled over a fallen tree trunk.
‘Advance!’ Kearney bawled, then he jumped up and ran forward, leaping over the dead guerrilla and racing into the ulu, though safely at the half crouch, with Bulldog, Marty and Tone close behind him. When another guerrilla appeared, taking aim with a rifle, Bulldog fired his shotgun from the hip, three shots in quick succession, and the guerrilla was picked up and punched back into the shrubbery with half of his chin gone, his throat a bloody mess, and the bones of his chest exposed through the tears in his smock.
He had hardly hit the ground when two more guerrillas jumped up to be despatched by a fusillade from Marty’s SLR and Tone’s M1 carbine. Tone then switched again to the grenade-launcher, firing on a trajectory that landed the grenade just beyond the men he had killed. The explosion was catastrophic, filling the air with flying foliage and setting fire to the trees, and Marty realized, even before the smoke had dispersed, that Tone had inadvertently set off another booby trap, probably some kind of landmine.
‘Landmines!’ Marty bawled. ‘Booby traps!’
His warning was, however, too late for Trooper Gordon McPherson, who dived for the cover of a small sapling, shaking it enough to dislodge the fragmentation grenade lodged loosely in its branches. Marty saw it falling, its pin jerked out by a taut wire attached to the sapling’s trunk, and threw himself to the ground just in time to avoid the explosion. When the showering debris had settled down, he looked to the side and saw a severed leg pumping blood. Jumping back to his feet, he saw the rest of Trooper McPherson – a leg here, an arm there– but realizing that nothing could be done, he raced on, attempting to catch up with Bulldog, almost directly ahead with Kearney and Tone close behind him.
By now the forest was filled with smoke and reeking of cordite, reverberating with the sounds of explosions and the screams of wounded or dying men. Dropping to one knee to replace his empty magazine, Marty almost choked in the smoke. Wiping tears from his eyes, he saw an SAS trooper tripping over a hidden rope, releasing a springing shaft with a wooden spear lashed to its tip. Impaled through the stomach, the trooper was punched violently backwards. He stared down in shock at the spear and almost collapsed, but was held up by the springing shaft. Screaming in agony and terror, he died there on his feet, remaining in that position, held upright even in death, as Marty jumped up and advanced again into the smouldering, smoke-obscured ulu.
Bulldog and Tone were advancing together at the half-crouch just ahead of Lieutenant Kearney when another guerrilla popped up from behind a wall of undergrowth to fire a burst from his tommy gun at them. They dropped to the ground and the bullets whistled over them, but a second burst kicked up a line of spitting soil between them, making them hastily roll apart.
The ground caved in under Tone and he disappeared from view, then burst out with a dreadful, anguished screaming.
Shocked, Marty released the pin of a fragmentation grenade and hurled it at the guerrillas. He covered his ears when it exploded, sending foliage and
loose soil spewing skyward, then he wriggled across to where Tone had disappeared and was still screaming dreadfully. Finding a hole in the ground– previously covered in a false surface raised on breakable supports
– he looked down to see his friend writhing on a bed of wooden stakes that had been sharpened and then smeared with excrement to cause maximum damage.
‘Punji pit!’ Marty bawled like a madman, hardly recognizing his own voice. ‘Help! For God’s sake!’
Kearney and Bulldog materialized out of swirling smoke to go down on one knee beside Marty and look into the pit.
‘Dear God!’ Kearney exclaimed in horror.
Tone was still screaming at the bottom of the pit, shuddering helplessly as blood squirted around the wooden stakes that had pierced his back and legs. A couple had gone all the way through, their sharpened tips protruding slightly from his chest and belly.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Bulldog whispered.
‘We’ve got to get him out of there!’ Marty shouted above the din of the continuing battle, feeling hysterical and unreal, having to fight to control himself. ‘We can’t let him – ’
Rob Roy and Pat O’Connor emerged from the swirling smoke and dropped to their knees beside Kearney and Bulldog.
‘Cover us,’ Kearney said. ‘We have to get Trooper Williams out of this pit, so I’m going down into it. Make sure no one gets near us.’
‘Right, boss,’ Bulldog said, then pointed his index finger at Rob Roy and Pat O’Connor. ‘Lay down covering fire with that Bren gun and keep firing until I tell you to stop.’
‘Will do,’ O’Connor said. He unstrapped the Bren gun from his Bergen rucksack, released the swiveldown bipod located under the barrel, mounted the weapon, slotted in the 30-round box magazine, held the pistol grip just behind the trigger and aimed along the raised sights at the enemy positions in the undergrowth. When O’Connor saw the foliage shifting, he opened fire and kept firing, the gun making a sustained roaring sound. Bulldog then did the same with his shotgun, blasting the foliage to shreds, and Rob Roy joined in with his carbine.
‘No,’ Marty said to Lieutenant Kearney as the others were firing their weapons. ‘Please, boss, let me do it. That’s my best friend down there.’
Kearney stared thoughtfully at him for a second, then said, ‘Right. I understand. But be careful down there.’
‘Thanks, boss,’ Marty said.
As Kearney turned away and joined the others, firing his Owen submachine gun at any movement in the undergrowth, Marty put his SLR down, wriggled out of his webbing, then lowered his heavy Bergen rucksack to the ground. Freed of all encumbrances, he lay belly down on the grass, slithered backwards, and very carefully lowered himself into the punji pit, where Tone was still pinioned on the excrementsmeared wooden stakes. Tone had, however, stopped moving to prevent further physical damage. Now he was breathing harshly and sobbing while staring up at Marty with anguished, terrified eyes.
With extreme care, Marty placed his feet between the stakes, steadied himself, then leaned over his sobbing friend. Pain and fear had made Tone almost unrecognizable. Blood was pouring profusely from the many wounds in his back and legs, from his chest and stomach where some of the stakes had gone all the way through him. Seeing those wounds, Marty knew that his friend was doomed, but he still had to rescue him.
‘This is going to hurt badly,’ Marty told him, ‘but you’ll just have to bear it.’
‘Yes, mate. Oh, God!’
A mortar shell
causing loose soil
exploded near the men above, and foliage to rain down over Marty’s head and fall on Tone’s sweat-slicked, frightened face. When it finally settled, Marty checked that the men above were still firing their weapons – obviously unhurt, they were– then he took a deep breath, leaned over Tone and said, ‘Okay, bite your lower lip. This’ll hurt like hell.’
He took hold of Tone’s shoulders and eased him up off the sharpened stakes. When Tone started screaming, Marty stopped being gentle and hauled him upright as fast as he could. Tone screamed even louder, his body quivering like a bowstring. When he was free of the stakes, he fell into Marty’s embrace and clung, sobbing, to him.
‘It’s not over yet,’ Marty said, ‘and you can’t let me down. Scream as much as you want, mate, but do what I tell you.’ He glanced directly above him. Bulldog Bellamy was looking down. The others continued pouring gunfire into the undergrowth where the guerrillas were hiding. ‘Okay, Sarge,’ Marty said to Bulldog. ‘You’ve got to haul him up. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts him or how much he screams, you’ve just got to do it.’ Still holding the sobbing Tone in his arms, he whispered, ‘You scream as much as you want, mate, but help us get you out of here. Okay, let’s do it.’
Marty released his friend and patted him on the cheek. Tone just stood there, swaying, his feet between the punji stakes, his back and legs pouring blood, a dazed look in his eyes.
‘Yes, mate,’ he croaked.
‘Raise your hands as high as you can,’ Marty told him. Tone did as he was told. Bulldog, leaning down into the hole, grabbed Tone’s hands, glanced at Marty, received a confirming nod and started pulling Tone up. Tone screamed like an animal, being torn apart by pain, wriggling dementedly, but Marty pushed as Bulldog pulled and eventually Tone was out of the pit, face down on the ground.
Though no longer screaming, he was sobbing like a child, helplessly, shamelessly, hardly aware of himself. Turning towards him, Lieutenant Kearney gently stroked the back of his head and said, ‘We have to leave you now, Williams. We can’t casevac you yet. We’ll call in a chopper the minute this is over, but in the meantime you’ll just have to endure it. There’s no more we can do.’
‘The pain!’ Tone groaned and continued his pitiful sobbing. ‘Ah, God, the pain!’
‘I’m going to give you some morphine,’ Marty told him, groping in his Bergen rucksack for his medical kit. ‘That’s all we can do for now.’
‘Yes, mate.’ Trying to talk, Tone could only scream again. ‘Oh, Jesus! Please, God!’
The number and depth of the wounds, combined with the excrement left in them from the stakes, had already convinced Marty that his friend could not possibly survive. Nevertheless, he put him temporarily out of his pain by injecting him with morphine, smeared the areas between the wounds with river mud, which would help to keep away the insects, and finally covered him with a waterproof poncho.
‘Right,’ he said, speaking loudly against the roaring of the combined weapons of the other SAS men and the CT guerrillas. ‘Sorry, mate, but we have to go on now. We’ll be back for you soon.’
‘No, Marty,’ Tone begged him, still face down in the grass because he couldn’t possibly lie on his damaged back. ‘The guerrillas might pass through here. Please God, Marty, you know what they might do if they…’
He didn’t have to say more. Marty removed his own Browning High Power handgun from its holster and laid it on the grass beside Tone’s fingers, so he could shoot himself – join the ‘Exit Club’ – if the guerrillas found him still alive.
‘Okay, Tone. Good luck.’
Pat O’Connor stopped firing his Bren gun and turned around to glance first at the sobbing Tone, then at Marty. ‘We just leave him?’ he asked, his dark eyes flashing with outrage.
‘We’ve no choice,’ Kearney told him. ‘Now get up and advance to the north and don’t look back, Trooper.’
‘Yes, boss,’ O’Connor said. He turned away, clearly fighting to control himself, and said, ‘Okay, Rob Roy, you Scottish git. Let’s pick up this fucking Bren gun and go get the rest of those communist bastards. Are you set?’
‘Aye, I’m set,’ Rob Roy replied. ‘Let’s put an end to this shit.’
As O’Connor picked up the Bren gun and slid it under his right arm, holding it like a rifle and firing from the waist, Rob Roy stood up, switched his M1 to the grenade-launcher, inserted a 40mm shell, then fired it at the undergrowth straight ahead. When the shell exploded, tearing the f
oliage to shreds, setting some of it on fire and filling the area with smoke, he and the others hurried on at the half-crouch, leaving Tone to his fate.
Determined not to show his grief, Marty raced on ahead with Bulldog coming up just behind him. Now that his radio operator, Roy Weatherby, was dead, Lieutenant Kearney was bring up the rear and carrying the No. 88 wireless set in its two webbing pouches. When a flare exploded over the ulu to the north, indicating that the other SAS and SF troops had made contact with the enemy, the men knew that they were close to the CT base camp.
As if magically protected by the anger and grief caused by what had happened to his best friend, Marty raced on ahead, taking point, but suicidally crashing through the undergrowth, firing his SLR from the hip, lobbing hand grenades at anything that moved, and running into the blinding smoke like a man both invisible and untouchable. He managed to kill a lot of guerrillas, but nothing touched him.
Eventually, arriving at a narrow track that sloped downhill into a low, sheltered area, he suspected that the CT might be down there, preparing to make their last stand. Even as he was thinking this, a guerrilla stepped out from behind a tree below and took aim with a British tommy gun. Without stopping his advance, Marty opened fire with his SLR, swinging it in an arc, cutting across the guerrilla, throwing him into convulsions, practically lifting him off his feet and slamming him backwards into the undergrowth.
‘Good man,’ Kearney said breathlessly behind him. ‘Now, are the rest of them down there or not?’
‘I think they’re down there,’ Marty replied.
‘Then let’s go and get them.’
They advanced down the hill and through the trees at the bottom as the other SF moved in from the north, boxing in the CT. Filled with cold rage as he advanced on the guerrillas, Marty marched boldly through the smoke, firing at anything moving in front of him, while Bulldog, right beside him, used his twelvegauge shotgun to blast snipers out of the trees, blowing branches and leaves apart, and Kearney alternated between keeping in contact with the SF through the wireless set and firing short, killing bursts from his submachine gun.
