Soldier H: The Headhunters of Borneo

by Shaun Clarke

  ‘We keep going,’ Alf said. ‘We don’t have a choice. We can’t go back and we can’t detour, because no matter which way we go, we’re going to have to fight our way out. So we might as well keep advancing.’

  ‘I second that,’ Terry said, also glancing about him, wondering just how fast their pursuers would close in.

  ‘I agree,’ Dead-eye said. ‘We don’t have a choice. If they’re going to cordon off the whole swamp, we might as well keep going and be prepared for a fire-fight. At least the swamp from here on is relatively clear of dense undergrowth, so our hands will be free.’ He held up his SLR to show them what he meant. ‘Be prepared,’ he said. ‘Release the safety-catch. OK, let’s go.’

  They marched without incident for about half an hour, then stopped when they heard movement ahead. Quickly taking up positions, each man behind a different tree, they waited until the foliage just ahead parted and the first man in an enemy patrol emerged, waist-deep in water, holding a Lee-Enfield .303 bolt-action rifle across his chest at an angle.

  Relatively safe hidden in this lengthy stretch of belukar, Dead-eye did not want the sound of shots to give away their position. Working on the assumption that the lone soldier was a scout, out on point and well away from the main patrol, he gave a hand signal, indicating that no one should fire, then carefully slung his SLR by its strap over his left shoulder. With his right hand he withdrew his commando dagger from its sheath and pressed himself against the trunk of the tree, waiting for the soldier to pass him. He did so a few seconds later, his left shoulder actually brushing the branches around Dead-eye’s face.

  The Indonesian looked about eighteen and had large brown eyes and delicate features slightly marred by tension. Dead-eye saw the beads of sweat gleaming on his brown skin. Without taking a step – since the soldier would have heard the moving water – Dead-eye leaned forward, slapped his hand around his mouth, silencing him, then jerked his head back and swiftly drew the blade across his taut throat, slashing through to the windpipe. Blood shot out in a long, thin arc, squirting through Dead-eye’s fingers, as the soldier released a strangled, gargling sound, convulsing and dropping his rifle. The weapon splashed into the water being kicked up by his convulsions. When the man was still, Dead-eye lowered him gently into the swamp, where his blood poured out, turning the water red.

  Dead-eye cleaned his bloody left hand on some leaves, cleaned and sheathed the knife the same way, then removed his SLR from his shoulder and waved the others forward. Knowing that the rest of the enemy patrol would not be far ahead, they moved with particular care, stopping every few minutes to watch and listen. Their patience was rewarded when they heard the sound of movement directly ahead.

  Spreading well out and melting back into the trees on either side of what they assumed would be the enemy’s path, they were rewarded when the six-man patrol emerged from the foliage, wading carefully through the water, and passed by without noticing their presence.

  The SAS men waited for five minutes to ensure that the patrol was well out of earshot, then started to move on. But they were stopped by a hand signal from Pete.

  When Dead-eye looked enquiringly at Pete, the latter walked up to the sergeant and whispered, ‘Once those six Indos find the body of their dead scout, they’ll turn back to get us. I think we should give them a little surprise.’ When Dead-eye again stared at his number two, saying nothing, Pete grinned and removed a Claymore anti-tank land-mine from his bergen. ‘I’ve been keeping this for a rainy day,’ he whispered. ‘Obviously I can’t bury it in the ground, but I can put it up there as a booby-trap.’ He pointed to the lower branches of the trees.

  ‘Do it,’ Dead-eye said.

  Pete waded through the water, pushed the foliage aside, then clambered up to the lower branches of the nearest tree, checking carefully that there were no snakes sleeping up above. Sitting on the thickest branch, which was just above the surface of the plant-covered water, he tied one of the Claymores to its underside with the cord from his bergen, then attached a lengthy piece of trip-wire to it. Clambering down again, he let the trip-wire run out through his fingers as he waded across the route taken by the enemy patrol, which he treated as an imaginary ‘path’ about ten feet wide. He stopped at a tree well to the other side of the ‘path’. After tying the wire to the tangled roots of the tree, he tugged it until it was tight enough to trip the mine if moved by the passage of a human body or leg. As the wire was just under the surface of the water it would not be seen by its potential victims.

  ‘Job done,’ he whispered, proudly surveying his handiwork.

  ‘How many have you got?’ Dead-eye asked him.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Let’s set the other three up the same way at intervals of about a mile. We’ve about three miles of swamp still to cover before reaching the ulu proper, so the mines might hold them back long enough to let us get through.’

  ‘That still leaves the problem of the Indos ahead of us,’ Alf pointed out.

  ‘Solving half a problem is better than nothing,’ Dead-eye informed him. ‘We can deal with the ones in front of us a lot easier than we can with the lot coming up on our backsides. So it’s one mine each mile, Pete.’

  ‘I’m your man, Sarge.’

  They advanced through the swamp at the usual laborious pace, dragging their feet through the mud, pushing the drifting debris aside, swatting the flies and mosquitoes, and being constantly on the alert for sea snakes or the spiders that often dropped off branches when they were brushed. The leeches they could not avoid or combat in any way; they simply had to let them cling there, sucking their blood, until they next stopped to let Pete set another booby-trap with his Claymores. While Pete was doing this, the men burned the countless leeches off themselves with the lit end of a cigarette. However, once Pete had done the same and they were on the move again, more leeches came off the wet leaves to attach themselves to their already ravaged skin. Within half a mile each man would be covered yet again in a mass of slimy leeches, all sucking his blood.

  The first Claymore exploded well behind them when they were nearing the end of the swamp. Even from this distance the noise was shocking, a mighty clap of thunder, and when they glanced back they saw a cloud of black smoke boiling up from the area. They even heard men screaming from this distance, but those sounds were much fainter.

  Dead-eye grinned at Pete and stuck his thumb in the air. Then they moved off again.

  The second Claymore exploded behind them about an hour later. Again, when they glanced backwards, they saw a cloud of black smoke billowing up from the swamp and heard the faint sounds of men screaming. It took little imagination to visualize the devastation caused to the patrols by the explosion, as well as by the dreadful shredding effect of the mine’s 350 sharp-edged, red-hot, flying metal slugs.

  More concerned for themselves than they were for the enemy, the SAS men moved on, gradually reaching higher ground, where the water only came up to their knees.

  Knowing by this that they were almost at the end of the swamp, they stopped for a rest – and to look and listen for the sounds of the enemy. They were lucky to have done so, for they heard the sounds of movement directly ahead, which encouraged them, as usual, to melt into the trees at both sides of the imaginary path, two men to each side, with each man hiding behind his own chosen tree.

  Again, a lone soldier emerged from the foliage ahead – a scout out on point – and again Dead-eye slashed his throat with his commando dagger, then lowered his convulsing body into the blood-reddened water.

  Knowing that the full patrol would not be far behind, he decided to keep the men where they were and deal with the patrol when it appeared. While they were waiting, the third Claymore exploded behind them, creating another billowing cloud of black smoke and producing more distant screams.

  Those booby-traps would ensure that if the Indonesians took any of the SAS troopers alive they would show them no mercy. This merely convinced Dead-eye even more that they should attempt to fight
their way out of the swamp, giving no quarter.

  Within a few minutes the first members of the patrol emerged from a clear path running through the belukar straight ahead. It consisted of ten men.

  Dead-eye raised his hand, preparing to give the signal to fire, but did not lower it until the rest of the patrol had emerged from the undergrowth. Meanwhile, Pete Welsh had taken an ‘80’ white-phosphorus incendiary grenade from his webbed belt and was preparing to pull the pin. Alf and Terry were squinting through the sights of their SLRs, but they did not fire when Dead-eye dropped his hand.

  Instead, they let Pete throw the grenade. It arced through the air, seeming to travel very slowly – certainly slow enough for one of the enemy to look up, see it coming and shout a warning. That warning came too late. The grenade bounced off a tree right behind the patrol and exploded with a mighty roar, filling the air with silvery-white streams of phosphorus and swirling black smoke, tearing the foliage to shreds, and bowling over two or three of the men. Even as the latter were splashing into the boiling water, Alf and Terry were opening fire with their SLRs, pouring it into the enemy in short, savage bursts that tore them to pieces. Dead-eye and Pete then opened fire as well, firing single shots at selected targets – notably those men who had broken away from the main group and were rushing to take cover behind the trees.

  The combined roar of the four SLRs reverberated through the trees, shockingly loud, but could not drown the screams of the men dying and splashing into the swamp. The greenish-brown water was boiling furiously, being kicked up by the hail of bullets, but in less than half a minute it had settled down again, the SAS guns had ceased firing, and ten dead Indonesians were floating and gradually sinking in spreading pools of blood.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Dead-eye said.

  Advancing, they were forced to wade through the blood-reddened water, pushing the drifting, lacerated corpses aside until they had passed through and could enter the same clear path that the enemy had emerged from. They had just done so when an Indonesian helicopter, obviously drawn by the sounds of the fire-fight, flew overhead, hovered above the floating or sinking bodies, then moved on until it was hovering right over Dead-eye and the others.

  They froze immediately, glancing up at the helicopter, preparing to fire at it with their SLRs if the actions of the pilot indicated that he had seen them. Obviously knowing that they could not be far away, he flew to and fro over the general area, coming down as low as he dared – so low, in fact, that the slipstream of the rotors was creating a minor hurricane around the hiding men, tearing leaves and branches off the trees. Eventually, however, the pilot gave up and flew off, letting them move on again.

  They were just reaching the end of the swamp when the fourth and last Claymore went off behind them, creating the by now customary din and producing more screaming. Elated that the booby-traps had done their job by delaying the advance of the troops behind them, the four men grinned at one another, then waded on. Gradually they came up out of the scum-covered water until it was splashing only around their ankles.

  It was just before dusk when they crossed the fire-lane track and Dead-eye decided they should lie up. Slowing down, they turned right, off their route, and moved, continually covering their tracks, into a thick patch of jungle.

  Working on the assumption that they were still being followed, Dead-eye left Alf behind as the sentry between their old route and this new hide. It would be a lonely duty for Alf, but someone had to do it. Once in the hide, with bashas laid out under the trees, Dead-eye gave his report to Terry for transmission to the Haunted House.

  As Terry was transmitting, Dead-eye and Pete were diverted by the sounds of distant mortar explosions from an area much further east, which suggested that the Indonesians had gone off in search of them elsewhere.

  ‘Don’t believe it for a second,’ Dead-eye said. ‘That’s what the Indos want us to think, but it’s just an old trick of theirs. The CTs did the same thing in Malaya: sent some of their men off a good distance to set off some explosions, making you think that’s where they were. Then, while you were relaxing, maybe even stopping to rest, thinking the enemy was far away, the main body of men would catch up with you and wipe you off the map. I’d say those mortar explosions are serving the same purpose for the Indos. They want to make us believe they’re miles away, but they’re right there behind us. That’s why Alf is sitting out there on his lonesome: to make sure they don’t take us by surprise. We move on at first light.’

  They had been out on patrol for little more than a week, but had carried enough rations for two. Therefore, because so much had happened in this single day, and as they were now within a day’s march of the border, Dead-eye allowed them to eat as much as they wanted. When they had done so and were settling down, satiated, he ordered them to bury the rations they did not need. This, he explained, would lighten their load on the last leg of the hike. The men did as they were told, then gratefully stretched out on their bashas under the trees.

  They slept soundly that night.

  16

  Rising at first light the following morning, they had a cold breakfast with the last of the rations they had kept, then carefully cleaned up, removing all traces of the hide, and marched back to collect the frozen Alf, who had survived his lonely vigil without incident.

  Immensely relieved to be out of the swamp, but still convinced that the Indonesians would not give up the chase until they reached the border, they marched on. The hike took them into the relative ease of primary jungle, though also into a series of high ridges and forested hills, criss-crossed with sparkling streams and deep, dangerous gorges, only some of which had aerial walkways spanning them.

  Foiled by a bridgeless gorge not shown on the map, they had to make a detour and found themselves at a location different from the one through which they had entered enemy territory. Here the low hills, with no clear contour lines or outstanding features, made navigation especially difficult. Also, though all of them except Alf had had a decent night’s sleep, they were suddenly attacked by the psychological effects of their arduous and brutal flight through the swamp. Alf was edgy and snapped at the others; Pete was slightly disorientated and slow to respond to orders; and Terry, in particular, was showing signs of distress, manifested in his refusal to let anyone else carry the radio, even though he was clearly exhausted.

  ‘I’m the only one who can use it quickly in an emergency,’ he said, speaking nonsense. ‘And besides, I feel fine.’

  The only one not affected appeared to be Dead-eye, though he saw what was happening to the others. Familiar with this syndrome from Malaya, particularly from his experiences in the dreadful Telok Anson swamp, he called more rest periods than normal and gently coaxed the men into eating the high-calorie rations in their escape belts. The chocolate, in particular, would give them back some of the strength they had lost not only through sheer exhaustion, but also by being drained of so much blood by the countless leeches that had fed off them for days.

  Just after noon, when the ulu was like a steam bath, they saw an enemy soldier in the branches high up a tree, looking directly at them, then signalling frantically with both hands, clearly telling his friends he had seen them. Dead-eye picked off the soldier with a single shot from his SLR, making him spin backwards off the tree and plunge screaming to the ground, smashing through, and snapping off, many branches as he fell. Nevertheless, within minutes, a helicopter was rising from the jungle nearby, from where the soldier had been signalling to. It headed straight towards the SAS men.

  ‘They know where we are,’ Dead-eye said. ‘That means they’ll come after us again. Let’s skedaddle as fast as we can.’

  Given a positive incentive to keep moving, the men did so, now more alert than they had been in the morning. The helicopter roared overhead, descending vertically, creating a storm, and then hovered directly above them, dangerously close to the trees.

  A gunner was kneeling at the side door, taking aim with his Chinese 7.62
mm gas-operated machine-gun.

  The roar of the gun added to the deafening noise of the helicopter, then the vegetation around the running men went crazy, with palm leaves, thorny branches and splinters of bark exploding from the trees and cascading out in all directions.

  ‘Shit!’ Alf exclaimed angrily, his cheek slashed by a thorny branch, the wound dripping blood. He dropped to one knee beside a screen of bamboo, took aim with his SLR and fired a sustained burst at the helicopter. The gunner fired back, aiming at Alf, who threw himself to one side as a line of bullets ran at him and blew the bamboo screen apart. The flying bamboo cut him even more, making him curse as he rolled away. When he clambered back to his feet, he was bleeding from more cuts to his face, as well as from both hands.

  ‘You look like a pin-cushion,’ Pete said, tugging Alf forward. ‘Come on! Let’s get going.’

  The machine-gun was blowing the clearing all to hell as the men melted into the trees beyond it. The pilot, seeing where they had gone, advanced to locate them.

  ‘Fuck this for a lark,’ Pete said. He stopped, tugged an ‘80’ grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, then swung his arm and hurled the grenade as hard as he could, on a very high arc. It exploded like a thunderclap in front of the chopper, filling the air with streaming silvery-white phosphorus and billowing smoke. Though it did not damage the helicopter, it either shocked or temporarily blinded the pilot, making him briefly lose control.

  The chopper tilted violently sideways, its nose inching through the cloud of phosphorus and smoke, its rotors, which had been spinning close to the trees, now actually hitting them. First they chopped off branches, then they buckled badly, and finally one of them broke off completely and fell to the ground. Crippled, the helicopter leaned sideways and plunged to earth, smashing down through the branches, bringing whole trees down with it, and then exploding into a fierce ball of yellow-and-blue fire that engulfed the surrounding trees and foliage, creating an even bigger blaze.