SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  The next day proved that Brigadier Cheyne was right in wanting to know more about the Koemba. It started with a palpitation when a canoe paddled by two uniformed soldiers came downstream and headed purposefully straight towards them. They stood to, alert for attack from any direction because the boat might well be a diversion for a force ashore. Walsh’s water-bottle hung over the bank on its string and had to stay there while the boat came so close as to be almost out of sight beneath them, but its crew were concerned only with their objective which was to haul up their fish-trap, empty the wriggling contents, reset it, and paddle away.

  Civilian traffic continued at intervals throughout the day, and so easy was it to hear even a hand-propelled boat that not even one head was needed above the parapet and they relied on ears alone. A military supply launch with three soldiers, five locals and bulk stores came up in the morning, and Large mentally tested his plan against her, successfully. But he was far from expecting the little ship which glided majestically into view during the afternoon, a luxury motor-yacht by the look of her and all of 45 feet long. Sunlight flashed from her polished brightwork, her gleaming white side reflected a whipped-cream bow wave as she sliced through the calm water against the jungle background, and she made a holiday brochure picture of the most romantic and tempting kind.

  Large was tempted. At the stern was the red and white flag, which had gained in significance because only those boats with soldiers on board had flown it so far. Amidships a superstructure built up to a small bridge whose canopy shaded its occupants so that Large could not make them out. On a short mast above the bridge flew another banner, this one having a strange device that strongly suggested to his practised eye the sort which very senior officers display to boost their egos and inspire awe.

  ‘We’ll have this one’, Large whispered to the three men crouching out of view at his feet. Never mind that he lacked permission, the opportunity could not be expected to recur and success would deal a blow to enemy morale at high level where it would do most harm.

  As the yacht drew near, however, doubt intruded; her crew were not in uniform and if the VIP turned out to be a civil administrator the destruction of his flagship would cause hideous embarrassment to many, from the Secretary of Defence right down to Large. Particularly Large. He wished he could identify the shadowy figures on the bridge, and at last, as the yacht swept past with a subdued roar fifteen yards away, one of them stepped out into the sunshine. Large gasped; it was a raven-haired girl with a trim figure in a daring white dress, and the travel brochure was complete. His left hand trailed at his side ready to beckon his warriors into battle, but now he turned the palm towards them and hissed, with knightly chivalry:

  ‘There’s a bloody woman!’

  ‘We’re not shooting them, no way.’

  (Large had been right in his first assessment. The banner on the motor-yacht had belonged to Colonel Moerdani of the Indonesian Parachute Regiment; and that is certain because twelve years later he visited the London Headquarters of the SAS as a general and said so. Walsh and Scholey, by then respected sergeants, met Moerdani and they all got on famously, as old enemies tend to do. Moerdani thanked them for his life and they were glad they had let him pass because he seemed a kindly, bouncy little chap. He told them he had known that the SAS were in the area, but failed to convince them because much could have been done to thwart them such as alerting the launches and patrolling the river-bank; those measures came afterwards.)

  Scarcely twenty minutes later there followed a 40-foot launch with a hard, open-sided canopy beneath which seven relaxed soldiers entirely belied their Colonel’s assertion, a perfect target that offered a good chance of killing all the men and sinking the boat as well; though that would have meant a last-minute change of plan which is usually unwise. It was late in the day too for getting well clear by nightfall. Confident that more good targets would present themselves Large now had no justification for disobeying orders; but his men, keyed-up with itching fingers in the ditch, accepted his decision restlessly.

  In principle, though, the pattern of traffic was established, the time for action had come, and Large sent a message worded:

  ‘Request double-0 licence’, partly because it was short and partly because he was in the mood for pleasantry.

  ‘Not understood’, came the answer in a flash, and indeed all experience shows that shafts of wit in such circumstances will inevitably bury themselves in the thick hide of some uncomprehending numskull; one who in 1965 had presumably never heard of 007 James Bond, if that is credible.

  ‘Cancel.’

  ‘Cancel what?’

  Oh for Christ’s sake! Prolonged signalling was anathema to Large, who feared the enemy might listen and take bearings.

  ‘Start again. Request permission to engage opportunity target.’

  ‘Roger.’

  First thing in the morning the reply came, ‘Approved’. The second thing that came was the canoe with the two soldiers for their breakfast fish. Large was momentarily tempted to take the two men back to base as prisoners, but decided that to sink a launch would hurt the enemy’s morale far more. Just such a target now headed downriver and the patrol tensed and made ready. But – there always seemed to be a but – this launch was only 30 feet long and it seemed a pity and less effective to take a sprat when they could have a whale; besides, no soldiers were visible and with the fast current under her she might, if lucky, escape. Large signed his decision down the bank, hoping his inactivity would prove masterly; but the men in the ditch, aroused and deflated for the third time and starved of a view, did not think so. They muttered; and Walsh, bolder than the others, did so articulately:

  ‘What the bloody hell’s he waiting for, the fucking Ark Royal?’

  But Large just smiled and called them up to have a look at the retiring boat; he did not worry that he had a mutiny on his hands, the men were his body and soul and all four now knew it.

  The next five hours passed slowly just the same; some of the local boats had soldiers in them, but small craft were no longer interesting. Then the sun vanished behind a cloud so black that the river was in twilight darkness. Drenching rain fell so heavily, raising such a spume above the surface that Large could barely see 100 yards, and so noisily that he reckoned the crack of a rifle would either be lost altogether or mistaken for the thunder which crashed savagely in wild abandon. He himself heard the muted sound of a diesel engine only just before the launch herself came mistily into his view after a couple of watery blinks. The scene was set and fitting for the dark deed about to be wrought. This time there were no ‘buts’.

  She was a 40-footer with a canopy, the side-curtains being lowered against the rain so that Large could not see her crew or cargo. Two soldiers were then revealed at the rear end as she passed, the man furthest away facing him so that he could have studied the features had he not been concentrating on whether his plan would suit this particular target.

  ‘I wasn’t interested in looking at a bloke I was possibly going to kill; just a bloke as far as I was concerned, hard luck.’

  He was, however, interested in how many more there might be inside. The launch with its canopy looked very like a four-ton army truck and Large convinced himself that there were plenty of soldiers on board, sitting on side benches with weapons between their knees; but that contingency was allowed for.

  She was turning to starboard when at last Large beckoned his men. They leapt up and forward while he stood up behind them. As the launch steadied on her new course Large fired once to start them off before looking quickly and anxiously up- and down-river for other boats appearing through the mist, which could mean disaster if not detected at once. Three shots followed on the instant and there was no question of missing an 8-foot wide target at 45 yards range.

  A curt, angry expletive brought Large’s attention to Scholey who was struggling with his rifle; that extraneous abortion which they had put out of their minds but which now failed to repeat after the first round. H
e did not honk now but applied himself with reflex dexterity to the stoppage drill. Meanwhile, Walsh and Millikin hammered the enemy’s stern just above the waterline as fast as was consistent with aiming every shot, about one a second, and the timber splintered visibly. To Large’s surprise the two soldiers were still there, so he shot them – to allow any return fire would be absurd and there was no sentimentality in his nature – after which he put ten rounds rapid into the hull before looking up to scan the river again and, turning right around, the land approaches. All was well, and back on target he emptied his magazine just as Walsh and Millikin had expended their allotted twenty rounds after no more than half a minute’s firing.

  Scholey had mastered his weapon and was still thumping away, but Large saw little reason for prolonging the action and much for leaving it behind. More than 60 rounds had hit the boat, which was dead in the water and twisting slowly to starboard; even more significantly, she had taken a list that way, only a slight one but it proved that bullets had pierced the bottom and so far there had been insufficient time for much water to enter. As Scholey watched her, considering whether to deliver a coup de grace, smoke began to billow through the screens and men emerged to jump over the side.

  ‘Stop!’ They did so and all changed magazines, including Scholey who had fired only nine rounds; then Walsh and Millikin turned, ran, and turned again. Large and Scholey followed, but half way up the slope Scholey was alarmed to see Large judder to a halt and dash back whence they had come, if anything faster than before. He followed, frankly terrified because the only possible explanation was that Large had seen an enemy in the trees and now they were going to have to swim which he could not do; so when Large reached the ditch and retrieved his precious water-bag, carefully emptying it and stuffing it inside his shirt with the comment, ‘The bastards aren’t going to get that’, Scholey discharged the most stinging broadside of double-shotted insults that young trooper ever aimed at old sergeant.

  All together again they looked back for the last time. The boat’s list had increased to the point where something fell off unaided, smoke mushroomed black and oily, and even as they turned away a huge match seemed to be struck beneath the canopy and flared brilliantly.

  The patrol veered to their right onto the narrow jungle-covered spur which separated the rubber from the swamp, and headed up it as fast as they could move with the immediate aim of getting clear across the enemy’s cut-off track or tracks before he could patrol them; and because the ground was clear of undergrowth that was very fast indeed.

  High speed was, of course, not only a matter of footwork. Awareness and weapon reaction had to match it as nearly as possible, and those were Large’s specialities. Even among the SAS – who all had to be good and strove endlessly to become better, trying to ensure that perhaps just one deadly encounter would go their way by a hair’s breadth – Large was in the top ten because he made it his hobby as well.

  Concerned only with the enemy, Large suddenly found that the computer in his brain had taken charge and that he was stock-still, looking at something approaching fast on the ground three yards in front through the steel ring of his rifle-sight, and doing so before whatever jungle creature it was had detected him; only just but it was the difference that mattered. Then it reacted.

  ‘Jesus!’

  It swung upwards with a movement so quick that it was hard to follow though the rifle did, and stood motionless but for its flickering tongue five feet from the ground which was rising so that its head was above Large’s. Bronze, unblinking, hypnotic eyes, whose function was to petrify and induce a helpless acceptance of death and nearly did so, stared down into his from a body transformed by alarm from a nondescript mud-coloured snake into perhaps the most terrifying killer in the animal kingdom. There is nothing else like a king cobra, except a common cobra, and Large was in no doubt that he was confronted by a king-size specimen though he had never seen one before.

  Behind the eyes were cheek-like bulges housing venom-sacs of ample capacity to allow the snake to chew its victim and so inject enough neurotoxin to kill a big man like Large in half an hour. The head formed a flat top to the hood, which was yellow and not so well curved as an Indian cobra’s but made up for that by its size; Large estimated a foot wide by fifteen inches high – ‘All right, I may have been a bit shocked but I don’t normally exaggerate.’ A slender four-inch-wide column curved gracefully to the ground where it coiled tightly to form a steadying base, a striking spring, and a reserve length for increasing the effective range; the whole forming a highly efficient psychological and lethal weapon-system with its target acquired, poised and rigid like – a candlestick.

  In the very centre of the hood was a black circle, the foresight of Large’s rifle which he never could have raised had he not been faster than the animal in the first place for the slightest movement now would surely trigger a strike. He very nearly fired instinctively, but first the reasoning part of his surprise-encounter drill demanded to be used; what if the enemy heard the shot? Worse, his three men would certainly hear it and not being able to see the cause – in fact, Scholey could and his rifle too was levelled at what looked like a ‘dirty great yellow dinner-plate’ just above and to the left of Large’s head while his thoughts whirred similarly – would immediately break into head-on contact procedure, leap into the bush, put down saturating fire which really would give the show away, and even retire to a rendezvous in the wrong direction, back near the river.

  Whether all that would be more dangerous than the snake’s strike depended on the latter’s speed, of which he had no experience. Large judged the distance and supposed he might just have a chance of avoiding the strike by jumping sideways. He resolved to spring with his left leg should that be necessary; but an appreciable time, perhaps half a second, having already elapsed without its moving and Large giving it no new cause to do so, the tableau remained frozen for a further prolonged but indeterminable period.

  At last, the snake – whose fearsome panoply was donned solely in consequence of its own initial terror – retracted its hood to the stowed position, shrank visibly in diameter, and coiled itself down neatly behind a log that lay between them.

  Large walked carefully round the end of the log and hissed to Scholey, ‘Snake!’, meaning a significant one or he would not have bothered. Scholey followed him, and passed the word to Millikin who also made the detour but delayed saying anything, perhaps because he had not seen the drama, until Walsh stepped over the log at precisely the wrong spot; whereupon the latter performed that inelegant ballet which comes naturally to people who think they may be treading on poisonous snakes they cannot see and growled, ‘Thanks very much’.

  They found a cut-off track, crossed it warily, and then made for home at a great rate. The acrid smell of burning fuel borne on the southerly wind kept up with them for the first 1,000 yards, indicating hearteningly that the fire had taken hold well. At sundown they reversed their priorities, turned through a right angle, and taking scrupulous care not to leave tracks or make noise with one man on guard behind against an enemy follow-up, found a good thick basha-site. As they pitched camp the enemy reacted at last by firing mortars well to the west of them, and Walsh commented with relief:

  ‘That’s fine, they think we’ve gone that way.’

  But the crafty old sergeant replied: ‘You know why they’re mortaring there? Because that’s what they want you to think; they’ve probably got men searching here.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Nevertheless, he also told them to cook a double-size meal because they were as safe in deep jungle as they could ever hope to be and tomorrow they had far to go at full speed; morale was a factor too, his own included. Millikin sent his signal. Then they rested, satisfied in mind and body.

  The story might have been allowed to end there but it had the bit between its teeth and seemed determined that the last line, as in all good fiction, should be a crunch one. Having lightened their loads by burying all but a day’s rations, they
headed east across their incoming route into country which ‘Old Joe’ Lock had told him offered good going and did. They crossed the Achan to Poeri track without incident and, keeping well clear of where the enemy platoon had been, hit the border ridge south of their entry-point. But the original landing-point was still the closest so they pressed on, maintaining their speed. Millikin now showed signs of distress. He was not yet at his peak after his operation and seemed to be dehydrated from not drinking enough water, an easy omission when time is short and sweat profuse. His load was the heaviest too, but despite his wasting strength he refused to be relieved of the radio, panting ‘you bums couldn’t use it’.

  Late in the afternoon Large felt sure he was near the landing-point, but navigation was imprecise among these low hills with no dominant feature. Being concerned not to make Millikin walk any further than necessary, Large halted off the line of march. He instructed Millikin to signal for a helicopter to home onto their Sarbe and indicate their course and distance to the landing-point. But Flight Lieutenant Danger was keen to do better than that, and arriving within half an hour made to winch them out there and then. The wire proving too short, his crew extended it with parachute strops and two body-belts. Scholey inserted himself into one of these while the bergens were secured to the other. Up they went together, and at 120 feet from the ground when the winch reached the limits of its travel with a slight jar, the belt with the bergens fell off.

  ‘It was pot-luck I’d chosen the right strop’, Scholey said jauntily, later; but he was far from merry at the time, as Large, watching him swinging below the chopper with no hope of getting in and wide-eyed with horror, could see even from the ground.

  That really is the end of the story. The landing-point was just a couple of hundred yards along their original line and soon they were on their way; by chopper to Lundu, Pioneer to Kuching, Land Rover to headquarters, and red carpet into the Brigadier’s office. Large eventually received a Mention in Despatches and gave an oak-leaf to each of the others because he regarded it as shared between them all. It excited little comment in the Regiment because few knew what had been achieved and Large was not the one to tell them in other than the baldest outline, even officially; nor was there much more within the patrol itself and that was unimpassioned: