by Hall, Ian
“Sorry, chaps. It was simply the shock.”
The station commander poured a glass of water and passed it over. “Take your time, Brian. We understand.”
Macnamara drank deeply, his heart-rate returning to something like normal. He passed a handkerchief again over his face. The others were sympathetic, looking down awkwardly. They understand, but none of them could really put themselves in the position of a commander who had just learned that his men had been beheaded in cold blood.
But that was the terrible truth of the situation as it had emerged as they had gone through the report. Now, each of them went over in his own mind the import and significance of what they had heard.
****
It seemed that perhaps a hundred or so members of a fanatical group known as the Black Buffalo Independence Fighters had occupied the village of Bekasi a day or two previously, chasing out the residents who were, by and large, a peaceful and law-abiding community. It couldn’t be certain what the guerrillas’ motive had been in doing so, but it seemed a reasonable supposition that they’d been preparing to launch some sort of attack on the airbase.
“No surprise,” had been the general response around the table.
And it was true. The RAF had been well prepared for an attack, having experienced sporadic minor incidents of that sort for some time. These had started as small-scale stealing raids, with even the airfield’s windsocks disappearing on more than one occasion. One airman had woken up with nightmares on hearing the sound of a sharp knife carving away his tent’s flysheet just inches from his nose. It had been difficult to decide where petty pilfering ended and guerilla action began, but when mortar attacks started the base’s defences had been reinforced and extended with a minefield. The RAF Regiment troops were kept continually on their guard, and the constant and increasing threat had made life extremely uncomfortable for the airmen.
Anyway, the report went on, the majority of the original Bekasi residents had scattered at this major incursion to their village, but the old woman had hidden in the scrub nearby and had apparently witnessed a good deal of the subsequent events. When the aircraft came down, the crew and passengers had been met by the guerrillas. Seemingly, they had initially been treated kindly and taken to the village, and it had to be supposed that they’d had no reason to suspect their escorts as being other than friendly locals. Only once well away from the downed Dak had the mob turned on their prisoners and locked them into the village jail. The presumption had to be that it was as this was going on that the initial search party had heard the clamour.
So why had the RAF crew and the Indian soldiers not resisted, had been the reaction around the table, and the conclusion had been that there would probably never be an answer. The old woman’s testimony had shed no light on the detail of their incarceration, so whether they had been forced to lay down their arms or whether they had been lulled into a false sense of security would probably forever remain a mystery.
Throughout the night the woman had heard sounds of argument and heated discussion amongst the mob. But just before dawn a decision had apparently been reached. The crew and passengers had been brought out one by one from their prison, had been stripped and beaten, and then taken down to the river. And there they had been made to kneel down before being beheaded. Some had died instantly, while others had been repeatedly hacked. The bodies had been hastily buried. After committing this shocking crime, and no doubt well aware that the British would return to the crash scene at first light, the guerrillas had presumably decided to postpone whatever remained of their original plan until another day. They had melted away into the forest and were now, as likely as not, many miles away.
After digesting the report the officers paused for a moment to draw breath, each reacting in his own way to the bombshell they’d received.
“Gentlemen, we all share an enormous sense of shock and anger. We need to deal with the aftermath, but almost as importantly we have to straighten out the rumours that are flying around amongst the troops. The last thing we need to do is inflame feelings by issuing a statement that could make things worse, and I want to take great care over deciding exactly what we’ll say.” Group Captain Harrison paused.
Macnamara retorted sharply: “The rumours can hardly be worse than the truth. There’s a very unsettled and uncertain atmosphere within the camp – amongst my people especially – which needs to be cauterised as soon as possible by our telling all we know. The men aren’t in the mood to be fobbed off.”
“Now steady on, Brian.” The station commander was placatory. “That’s not what I was suggesting. I’m well aware that it’s worst for you, what with your squadron having taken the loss. But we need to get this right.”
“I wonder what the chances are of the old woman’s story being a pack of lies,” came in the boss of one of the other squadrons.
“Oh come on.” Macnamara exploded. “We’ve got twenty-five very dead bodies here. They’re so mutilated it’s barely possible to identify the remains. The facts speak for themselves.”
The station commander sensed the need for them all to cool off. “Gentlemen, let’s take a break. We’ll reconvene in ten minutes.”
As the meeting temporarily broke up, he put a hand on Macnamara’s shoulder. “Brian, let’s step out on to the veranda for a moment.”
From the minute it had become known that the Dakota personnel had been seen alive the evening after the crash landing but had disappeared subsequently, Thirty-One’s airmen had suspected that there had been foul play and were fully prepared that they would not see their friends again. They had heard many stories already of the activities of the freedom fighters and had already come to terms with the earlier loss of five of their number in incidents in the city. They recognised that they were the innocent victims in a situation that was way beyond their control. But they were not inclined to take their losses without fighting back, and the word around the camp was already of the need to retaliate.
Macnamara knew that rumour and talk was rife and that, if left unchecked, it would take over. Now, as he and the station commander continued their conversation outside the room, he raised the stakes by mentioning his men’s wish for reprisals.
“Dammit, we’re all well aware of the potential for creating an even worse setting for the continuation of this operation by alienating those elements of the population who are friendly. But we must recognise equally the possibility that the guerrillas could gain strength from the knowledge that they can get away with anything. We know there is very little chance of ever identifying and punishing the perpetrators of this particular crime, but my men are hurting badly. I tend to agree with them that some kind of exemplary action is needed.”
Group Captain Harrison fully understood Macnamara’s emotion, but he knew the matter was out of their hands.
“Any question of immediate retribution has already been vetoed by the overall British commander in the theatre who is, as you well know, an army general. He’s a wise old bird and knows from years of hard-won combat experience that blood lust is the worst possible basis for effective action. Whilst he has agreed the need for something along the lines you suggest, he’s adamant that any operation of that nature should be taken out of the RAF’s hands. The perpetrators will be dealt with in due course. But coolly, calmly, and independently. The army will handle that side of the equation, leaving us, the RAF, to concentrate on our mission and our people’s grief. So, if we may, I’d like us to get back to the immediate problem of informing the men and of keeping the operation on track throughout what will be an extremely emotional time.”
They rejoined the meeting and got down to discussion of the detail. The bodies had been headless, and had borne other signs that they’d been hacked about in the most bestial fashion. They had been naked, and scraps of material around the grave area had indicated the likelihood that they’d been blindfolded. They had been executed in cold blood. Such raw intelligence could add to rather than defuse the men’s growing anger.
But too little information would be worse than telling the whole truth in the first place. And the meeting was well aware that, even though the search parties who had reached the scene of the event had been ordered to keep what they’d seen to themselves, it was inevitable that details would leak out at some stage.
But as they were still finalising their line, the decision was more or less taken out of their hands. Word came that the entire story was sweeping through the camp like wildfire. Beside the disbelief and grief there was outrage. There was unbridled anger. And, as anticipated, a universal demand to strike back.
“Bomb the village. Strafe it,” cried many.
“Set the Thunderbolts on them,” was the general feeling.
Retaliation, retribution and revenge – the words were on everybody’s lips.
The information that the army would be meting out justice in due course went some way towards soothing the situation, but the hierarchy knew that the best way to calm emotions was to hold the funeral as soon as possible. There was a crying need to turn a page to a new chapter. And in some senses, formally burying the bodies would exorcise some of the demons which were afflicting the whole base.
In the meantime Macnamara decided that his squadron would have to be temporarily withdrawn from operations. He had never asked for such a concession before. The importance of their work had always meant that they had continued, regardless, through thick and thin. But now, although evacuation of the internees was surely still a high priority, the CO was aware that the level of distraction amongst his men would bring with it the potential for accidents.
Mental stress – combat stress, shell shock or whatever it might be called – was not in those days a subject which was understood or to which much more than lip service was paid in many quarters, but as an experienced commander Macnamara instinctively knew it would be prudent to take a break. And the command chain in Java readily agreed to his request. The funeral would be held the following day and the squadron would stand down from operations until the day after that. But that was all. Then it would be back to business as usual.
So the time in limbo would be short, albeit troubled enough. Throughout that day and evening there was talk of nothing else. And sleep that night was hard to come by.
Barney and Freddie dreamed fitfully of their fortuitous escapes. Ken’s crewmembers pictured their dear old Keith, with his endlessly cheerful smile. That he’d only been on the flight because he’d offered to help out a mate seemed just too cruel.
In fact the entire camp was restless, irrespective of whether or not they had known the lost men. When anybody did manage to drift off to sleep, it was the sort of sleep that leaves a man doubting whether he has actually been asleep at all. They tossed and turned, each alone with his imagination of the horror of the events in the jungle. Of the terror their comrades must have experienced. Of their dawning realisation of what their fate was to be. Of their humiliation at being stripped naked. Of the agony of the beatings. Of their fear at being blindfolded. Of flashing blades; of blood; of agonised screams; and of pain.
From time to time men found the ordeal of lying sweating in bed just too hard to bear, and got up to pace the ground. They encountered similarly sleepless souls, and small gatherings would form for conversation and a smoke, breaking up from time to time in the gloom and reforming into differently sized and shaped groups – in the way of wheeling flocks of birds on windy days.
Just why, went their conversations, had the men been treated so?
“Surely they couldn’t have been genuinely mistaken for Dutchmen?”
“No, can’t have been. The presence of the Indian soldiers would have been a dead giveaway that they were British.”
“Well it would be to us, but perhaps the guerrillas don’t have that sort of information.”
“Maybe they had merely seen our boys as foreigners, part of a single overseas force aiming to recolonise Java.”
“Maybe they were merely victims of some sort of terrible blood lust. Just caught up by a mob.”
“They were just in the wrong place.”
“Hell, we’re all in the wrong bloody place. Somebody else’s colony – somebody else’s independence movement. Somebody else is at home with our women, with our jobs.”
All night long until the grey fingers of dawn broke on the day of the funeral, the little discussions went on. There were no answers. But conversation and the ability to unload their feelings on others helped the airmen to cry a little for their lost friends. For they, like the victims, were merely innocent children caught up in something which almost nobody understood.
Wing Commander Brian Macnamara had no complete answer, either, and in his own restless billet he sighed and took up his pen for the hundredth time. The families would receive telegrams, he knew: ‘… Deeply regret to inform – killed on active service …’ But he also knew that a handwritten letter was by far the greatest comfort to grieving relatives. He would try to explain how things had been for their boys in this remote corner of the world and how valuable had been their work. But could anybody who had not been in their situation really get a feeling for how it had been? And could his letter erase the hurt? He thought not on either count, and the mountain of screwed-up paper on his floor told of how hard it was to write the words which would, as he wished, bring at least a little comfort.
There was still night remaining when he was finally satisfied with his five letters. But, exhausted as he was, he was not ready for sleep. He settled down to write a sixth, this time to his wife. He felt the need to unburden himself, and two hours later he was still filling pages. It came a very poor second to having a shoulder to cry on, but it was the next best thing. At that moment his home had never seemed further away.
CHAPTER 21
The chaplain looked out from his improvised pulpit at the crowd of airmen filling the primitive station cemetery, and felt a shiver of nervousness. He was deeply uncertain. Not of his own faith or his belief. But of his ability to face this crowd. They expected too much of him and he knew he wouldn’t be able to offer them enough. He felt he’d be unable to satisfy their need for release – their desire for comfort and understanding.
During his years of wartime duty he had officiated at hundreds of funerals and memorial services. Far too many, he knew, and he’d often reflected on the sad and unnecessary loss of life. He was a kindly and compassionate man with a genuine belief in the futility of war. But he was also a realist. He fully acknowledged that he and his fellow human beings were weak. That their veneer of civilisation was thin. That it was all too easy for diplomacy and dialogue to break down and for conflict to ensue.
But he also knew that, even in war, most men craved a god to pray to. And hitherto he’d always found the words for such occasions. The comrades of the fallen men would be there to pay their respects, and sometimes also to look for understanding and to seek guidance. They would generally, he felt, be receptive to his short sermon – in war there never seemed to be sufficient time to do real justice to the departed – and he believed that he was usually able to offer them some comfort.
This time was different, though. Leading the service for these murdered airmen would not be a problem; he sensed that his congregation would be alongside him in the sincerity of the funeral words. But in the terrible circumstances of their deaths he was very much afraid that he was not going to be able to give any solace. He knew he’d be found wanting when the time came for him to stand up and speak his sermon.
Ever since the incident he had worked tirelessly amongst the men to try to bring comfort – to rationalise with them the horrifying events at Bekasi. But he had continually sensed in the airmen the presence of an unusual emotion. It wasn’t exactly a simple lust for retribution. At least he didn’t think so; even though such talk was still abroad it seemed to him to be reflecting more a programmed response than a genuine wish. In fact, according to his perception, it was more true to say that most of the initial need for revenge had evaporated almost as s
oon as it had flared up. And for that, he thought, they could all thank the decision of the headquarters to take out of the RAF’s hands the operation which would be conducted in the aftermath. So it wasn’t that, then.
Anger remained amongst the men, certainly. But even its initial, bitter sting seemed to have been drawn – or at least blunted – by the passage of even such a short period of time as had already elapsed since the event. So that could be eliminated. And nor was it hate, he thought, although he wouldn’t have been surprised, in the circumstances, to have sensed that poisonous emotion. There was a kind of sullen numbness in the air, and that too he could understand. But there was still another underlying sentiment.
As he’d done many times in similar circumstances, he’d offered to pray with the men. Ordinarily, he’d have found ready acceptance of his offer. And not only from regular churchgoers. He was well aware that those brief, quiet moments of Christian prayer following a loss had often been shared by agnostics and atheists, as well as by Jews and those of other faiths. Somehow it had never seemed to matter, and he’d always felt he’d been able to facilitate connection between each man and his own god.
But this time, while individuals and small groups had accepted his offer to pray with them, he was conscious that they had been not nearly as numerous as usual. It seemed to him that the sheer brutality of these events had desensitised the men – had squeezed all vestiges of faith and humanity out of them. He understood their difficulty, and he knew that, this time, religion was going to have a hard job rationalising what had happened.
So what was he going to say about the need for forgiveness? A question he had, thus far, found impossible. Like most of the airmen he had sat awake for many of the previous night’s long hours, and by the time he’d been forced by exhaustion to give up, his notebook had been a mass of scribbles and crossings out.
