by Shaun Clarke
‘You did pretty good,’ Dead-eye told him. ‘You’ve just earned your winged dagger.’
Young Terry was too numb to respond.
‘You’ll recover,’ Dead-eye said.
7
Terry recovered. Six weeks later he was kneeling with the other members of a five-man group that included another new man, Trooper Kenneth Burgess, Welsh Guards, in the dense foliage at the side of a jungle track known to be used as an Indonesian military supply route. This was at the tail end of a four-week period in which many small groups of SAS men, having finally received formal approval to do more than ‘watch and count’ or act as scouts for the Gurkhas, had broadened the scope of the ‘Claret’ raids to include attacks on enemy approach routes and MSRs, either by road or water, ambushing tracks and rivers, and setting booby-traps where it was known that the Indonesian or CCO raiders would pass. The range of penetration across the border had therefore been greatly increased and the pre-emptive actions undertaken by the unaccompanied SAS groups had increased in both frequency and ferocity.
Basing most of their attack methods on Major Callaghan’s ‘shoot-and-scoot’ SOP, the groups had made the essence of their ambushes speed of movement and reaction: hitting the enemy from close range with a brief, savage fusillade of small-arms fire, including hand-grenades, then vanishing speedily, leaving the counter-attackers to find nothing but apparently empty jungle. These tactics were highly successful, causing a lot of damage, and soon the SAS were getting tales back from the Dyaks and other aboriginals about how the Indonesians and CCO were whispering fearful stories about their ‘invisible’ attackers.
For this reason the SAS troopers started calling themselves the ‘Tiptoe Boys’.
At other times, however, the attacks would be lengthier, more sophisticated affairs with electronically detonated Claymore mines catching an enemy’s front and rear, while the SAS troopers’ automatic fire raked the centre.
Which is what Terry’s group were planning this very minute, as their last and largest attack before heading back to the RV. So, while Terry, Dead-eye and Alf knelt in the firing position in the shadow of the trees by the side of the road, spaced well apart to give a broad arc of fire, their demolition expert, Pete Welsh, quickly and expertly laid his four Claymores approximately equidistant along the centre of a 100-yard stretch of road, placed so as to catch the front and rear of the Indonesian column, as well as the middle.
Invented by the Germans during World War Two, the Claymore anti-tank mine consists of a round, flattish dish with a concave plate of steel on its face. It is filled with explosive. When detonated, the plate is blown off and can go through the side or front of a Panther tank at a distance of 80 yards. After the war the Americans modified the Claymore to fire metal spikes, or ‘slugs’, instead of the plate. When this modified Claymore is exploded, its 350 razor-sharp slugs will fly out over a sixty-degree arc to a range of 100 yards, shredding anyone unfortunate enough to be within its range. It is a terrible weapon.
Pete was wiring his Claymores for detonation by remote control. This enabled him to bury them in the ground, face up, resting on their spiked base, with earth and leaves thrown over them to disguise their presence.
As he watched Pete lay the Claymores and, at the same time, kept his ear cocked for the sound of advancing Indonesians, Terry thought with pride of the many attacks he had made with this small group since his baptism of fire with the Gurkhas near the River Koemba. Though not exactly frightened by that attack, he had been shocked by the results of it, dwelling for days on the carnage it had caused. Nevertheless, as Dead-eye had promised him, he had recovered soon enough and gone on to his other fire-fights with more confidence and a necessary pragmatism. Distancing himself from the bloody results of what he was engaged in, he had learned to treat it as a job, in a professional manner, and eventually, after three or four more attacks with this five-man team, had even started taking pride in a job well done.
Luckily, their personal attacks had so far been uniformly successful, which had helped Terry build up his confidence. However, as they had learnt over the past six weeks through radio communications, other patrols had not been so lucky. Inevitably, some had been ambushed en route to ambush the Indonesians or CCO. In those attacks, all the SAS men had died. The sergeant leading another group had contracted the jungle disease leptospirosis, which meant that the whole group had to turn back, carrying him all the way while he suffered from a 105-degree temperature and other, more agonizing symptoms. Even more bizarrely, an Australian SAS trooper was gored by an elephant and had to be left in the jungle, on the Indonesian side of the border, while the rest of his group made a two-day trek back across the border to obtain help from a Gurkha camp. Unfortunately, the wounded Aussie had died by the time he was found by a casualty-evacuation helicopter pilot determined not to let the man be found by the enemy, dead or alive. As for the others who had died, all identifying items had been removed from their bodies, after which there was a quick burial in an unmarked grave. It was a brutal business.
As Pete started scattering leaves and twigs over the buried Claymores, Terry glanced in both directions, seeing Dead-eye and Alf on one side of him and the newcomer, Ken Burgess, on the other, all of them braced on one knee, the other foot braced on the ground, their Armalites already aimed in different directions at the jungle track. With their faces striped with ‘cam’ cream and their weapons and clothes also camouflaged, they merged almost perfectly with the tall foliage in which they were hidden.
Dead-eye looked as impassive as ever, Alf looked reasonably intent, and the newcomer, Ken, was the only one showing any tension. So far, Ken had shown his mettle and made no mistakes, but undoubtedly the jungle had taken its toll on him, making him more nervous than he might otherwise have been and causing the others to keep their eyes on him. Some men, no matter how good they were as soldiers, were destroyed by the jungle. Terry had likewise suffered when first exposed to it, but now he was used to it.
After hiding the last of his Claymores, Pete checked the whole area, making doubly sure that it looked absolutely normal, then backed towards the other men, brushing dust, leaves and twigs over his own tracks as he went. When he had finished, the track looked like it had not been trodden on since the dawn of time.
No one spoke. Dead-eye merely acknowledged the thoroughness of Pete’s work by silently giving him the thumbs up. Nodding and grinning, Pete knelt in the flattened grass beside the plunger he would use for the detonation of the mines. As SAS troops on patrol were not allowed to leave their weapons at any time – even when sleeping – Pete’s Armalite had been slung over his shoulder all the time he was laying the mines. It was still there when he checked the plunger, then rested one hand on it and glanced along the jungle track, to where it disappeared between the trees.
They had neither seen nor heard the Indonesian foot patrol, which was known to be carrying supplies to a full battalion camped north of the River Koemba, but had learnt about it from another SAS patrol, who had caught a glimpse of it from a distant plateau and tracked its direction and speed of movement for over an hour. From those calculations, communicated to this patrol by radio, Dead-eye had been able to calculate the Indonesians’ estimated time of arrival at this location. Allowing approximately two hours extra for rest stops and, possibly, an early breakfast, he reckoned that they were due to arrive any time within a two-hour period starting thirty minutes from then.
The wait was tortuous because the men could neither speak to one another nor move from their firing positions. In the absolute silence of the windless ulu, the sound of even the slightest movement could carry a long way. Therefore the men had to be ready to fire and to remain in that position, frozen like statues, but with their muscles under strain and rapidly becoming painful, until the action could begin. Luckily, they heard the sounds of distant, advancing movement forty minutes later.
With their weapons already cocked, the SAS troopers did not have to make even that sound. They merely presse
d the triggers down slightly and took more careful aim.
The few minutes it took for the Indonesian patrol to appear seemed longer than the previous forty minutes, but eventually the first troops rounded the bend in the path, emerging slowly from the trees and tendrils of early-morning mist, wearing jungle-green fatigues, soft peaked caps and jungle boots. All of them were slim and had delicate, handsome features. As the rest advanced around the bend, about forty in all, it became clear that they were carrying a variety of weapons, mostly of World War Two vintage, such as Lee-Enfield .303-inch bolt-action rifles and the Soviet PPSh-41 7.62mm sub-machine-gun. They also had hand-grenades clipped to their belts and bandoliers criss-crossing their chests in a manner viewed by the SAS men as suicidal.
The SAS group hidden in the trees did not stop breathing, but each man concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly as he applied a little more pressure to the trigger of his Armalite.
The first of the Indonesian troops reached the first buried Claymore.
Pete placed his free hand beside the other on the detonating plunger, and bunched up his shoulders.
The lead soldier stepped on the buried mine, walked over it and kept walking, kicking up the loose leaves, followed by the others, spread foolishly across the track in twos and threes, treading on one mine, then another, now passing the hidden SAS men, until the last man had stepped on the first mine, buried at a forty-five degree angle from where Pete was leaning forward to press on the plunger.
Pete pressed the plunger all the way down.
The explosions were like thunderclaps, four mighty roars in one, blowing the soil up and outwards in great fan shapes that spewed smoke and fire. The Indonesians were blown apart, picked up and slammed back down, or slashed to ribbons by the hundreds of razor-sharp slugs that flew with the speed of bullets in all directions.
That the SAS men should open fire with their Armalites simultaneously was almost an act of mercy, since many of the Indonesians not instantly killed were staggering about in the swirling smoke, or writhing on the dust-choked ground, with their skin either scorched and blistered or slashed to the bone and, in many cases, stripped right off the rib cage or limbs, exposing bloody intestines and naked bone.
The hail of SAS bullets stitched through these unfortunates, silencing their demented screams, then moved left and right in a broad arc that took in those who had escaped the blasts of the Claymores and were now retreating into the jungle, firing on the move. Still confused by the explosions, some of them raced straight towards the hidden SAS men, only to be bowled over by another sustained fusillade from the Armalites. Dust billowed up around their falling bodies and blended in with the swirling smoke.
Even before the smoke had cleared, the Indonesians now hidden at the far side of the devastated track – the soil upturned and blackened, filled with dead men, dismembered limbs, pieces of uniform and broken weapons – were opening fire with their small arms, aiming blindly across the road, through the smoke, and hoping to hit the enemy by accident.
‘Bug out!’ Dead-eye roared.
Since they were carrying no machine-guns or support weapons, the men were able to jump up and beat a retreat immediately. But as they were doing so, the jungle behind them exploded, showering them with foliage and almost bowling them over.
In fact, Terry was bowled over and found himself rolling on the ground until stopped by a tree trunk. Shaking his head to clear it, he glanced to the side, back towards the obliterated path, and saw an enemy soldier rising spectrally from one of the holes caused by a Claymore, his uniform in tatters, pus dripping from blinded eyes, his chest slashed from the left shoulder to just below the right hip, with the skin hanging down like a towel dipped in blood, revealing the rich fruit of his intestines. Obviously sightless, in terrible pain and terrified, he advanced a few feet, waving his scorched hands as if in search of something to cling to, then was cut down by a blast from an Armalite held close to Terry’s ear.
Startled, Terry looked up just as Dead-eye grabbed his shoulder, hauled him roughly to his feet, and bawled, ‘Run!’ Terry ran, holding his own Armalite at the ready, following Dead-eye away from the smoke of the mortar shell, deeper into the jungle. They all kept running for some time, away from the sound of gunfire, weaving between liana-covered tree trunks, changing direction many times, and only stopped when they were sure that the Indonesians would not know where they were. Mortar shells continued to explode well behind them, close to where they had hidden to set up the ambush.
They glanced at one another, then Alf whispered: ‘Where’s Ken?’
They all looked in different directions, but Ken was nowhere in sight. They waited for a whole minute, but neither saw him nor heard him.
‘Damn!’ Dead-eye whispered. ‘I’d better go back and find him. If he’s dead, I have to strip him of identification. If he’s alive …’ Dead-eye shrugged.
Alf glanced at his watch. ‘Leave it, boss,’ he said.
‘No,’ Dead-eye replied. ‘Wait here. Give me ten minutes. If I don’t return, move out.’
‘Let’s all go,’ Pete said. ‘If he’s wounded, we’ll have to try to get him out. If he’s dead, we can give you protection while you strip him and bury him.’
‘Right,’ Dead-eye said.
Without another word, he led them back to where they had come from, hoping that the new man, if still mobile, would have had the sense to follow their tracks. These they had not bothered to cover, knowing that the Indonesians, devastated by the attack, would have followed them only a short distance into the ulu. In the event, when they got back to where the enemy mortar shell had exploded (by which time the Indonesians had stopped firing), they found only a small pool of blood and a trail of broken foliage that obviously led directly to where the ambush had taken place. The ground beneath the broken foliage showed the marks of boot heels, indicating that the unfortunate trooper had been wounded by the exploding mortar shell, then captured and dragged away by the Indonesians.
Realizing they were possibly surrounded by Indonesian troops, Dead-eye communicated with sign language, indicating that Ken had been captured and that nothing more could be done for him. Clearly upset, he nevertheless turned back, indicating with another hand signal that they should follow him.
Only when they were well away from the Indonesians did they stop for a rest.
‘They’ll give Ken a hard time,’ Pete said.
‘Let’s hope he was badly wounded,’ Dead-eye replied, ‘and won’t last too long. He’ll suffer less that way.’
Realizing what they were talking about, Terry shivered involuntarily and made a point of checking his Armalite.
‘Time’s up,’ Dead-eye said crisply.
Badly shaken by Ken’s fate, they began the long trek back to the RV, speaking little, staying well spaced apart, and never relaxing for a moment. They did not aim directly for the border, which the Indonesians would have expected, but instead headed south to where the Rivers Sentimo and Koemba met. Dead-eye was out on point, the experienced Alf was Tail-end Charlie, and Terry was behind Pete, his job not only to scout the jungle on both sides, but also to protect the vitally important radio operator or, failing that, the actual radio, which was even more important.
In fact, without the A41 many of the men in the small patrols might have gone mad in the jungle. It was the radio that kept them in touch with one another and removed much of the burden of what might otherwise have been an intolerable burden of isolation. Also, through the radio they could pass on to one another details of enemy troop movements which, for some tactical reason or other, they could not interfere with. It formed a common bond that few wanted to lose.
Four hours later, with the sun high in the sky, they found themselves in the jungle swamps near the confluence of the two rivers. Just before making another hellish slog through waist-deep water, with all the horrors it contained, they contacted other patrols on the A41 and learnt from one of them that according to some Dyaks, the captured SAS trooper had been al
ive when taken, though suffering from minor wounds to one arm. He had been seen in the enemy camp to which the supply patrol had been heading, lying on the ground with his hands behind his back and tied to his ankles, doubtless awaiting questioning. More news was to be relayed as it came in.
Now even more shaken, Dead-eye’s patrol kept on the move, wading through the greenish-brown water while assailed by swarms of flies and mosquitoes. By last light they were in a state of familiar exhaustion, but managed to keep going for another couple of hours until they had reached a dry islet. There they had a meal of dry biscuits, tinned sardines and water, though smoking was not permitted and the hexamine stoves could not be lit for a warming brew-up.
The islet was large enough for them all to sleep on, which was an unexpected luxury that allowed them to awaken relatively refreshed. They moved on for another hour, again wading waist- and sometimes chest-deep through the water, then stopped to have a cold breakfast and try contacting the other groups with the A41. When they did so, they learnt that another Dyak had reported seeing an SAS trooper, obviously Ken Burgess, still bound as before, being dragged roughly across the clearing of the enemy camp and into one of the thatched huts raised on stilts. The tribesman said that he had then heard the soldier screaming for a long time, before being dragged back out again and thrown, still bound, off the veranda of the raised hut. It would have been a long drop.
‘Poor bastard!’ Alf whispered when Terry, in charge of the radio, had recounted this information to all of them.
‘Let’s get moving,’ Dead-eye snapped.
By noon that day they were out of the swamp and hacking their way through more belukar while their booted feet slipped in deepening mud. Now knowing that they were well away from any Indonesians or CCO terrorists, they were able to talk more freely and used the opportunity to express their bitterness over Ken’s ordeal.
