by Brian Mooney
Just before we completed our preparations for departure, their elders appeared inside the fence. They were led by the village headman and the local pundit. They enquired of the Gurkhas who was top man, and then duly approached Joe Lentaigne. They laid at his feet, in token of goodwill and as a humble offering, a small basket containing some locally produced gur (unrefined balls of brown sugar) and some dark brown and incredibly diminutive eggs. With a deep obeisance, Joe accepted them.
The locomotive shrieked imperatively in token of departure. The soldiers shouted and waved their hats. The children replied, eagerly enough it is true, but nevertheless I thought a trifle sadly.
***
And so we ran on into Northern Bihar and crossed the Gandak River between Sonpur and Hajipur, just north of its confluence with the Ganges at Patna. Then we proceeded along that river’s north bank into northern Bengal. We went through Dinajpur and on to Amingaon, where we disembarked. We crossed the Brahmaputra by ferry, got into a train again at Gauhati, and proceeded as far as Silchar, near the Assam-Manipur frontier. This was our destination.
I remember the place clearly and the time exactly. It was eleven o’clock. There was no station and certainly no reception committee. We simply bundled out of the carriages and fell in on the edge of the railway embankment. Then we set off for the mountains that were visible in the distance, up an unsurfaced dirt track.
It was a very different sort of country from what we had been used to, inhabited by a very different sort of people. I realized immediately that we were truly in South-East Asia.
One or two men with markedly Mongolian features regarded us indifferently as we pounded past them, but this might have been due less to hostility than to the natural demeanour of these peasants. Their rudimentary huts, built on stilts and with steeply pitched thatched roofs, were obviously constructed to withstand completely different climatic conditions to those in central India.
Everything was made of bamboo. This exemplified that feeling of strangeness which was inseparable from operations in this theatre. The soil too was in startling contrast to the gritty, red laterite of the Central Provinces. It was grey in colour, and, when crumbled between the fingers, of an extraordinary soapy consistency. I recognized it as a product of that powdery Gangetic silt which I had read about but never actually encountered. Now it was sifting up my nose and down my boots. Assembling the defence platoons into some sort of ragged formation, with one of them going on ahead of Brigade Headquarters as advance guard, and the other bringing up the rear, I trudged in the wake of this huge column through the dust and was soon indistinguishable from it.
The path we were marching on has since turned out to be quite notorious. It was the famous Silchar-Bishenpur track. It was one of the few means of egress and ingress to and from the Manipur basin, although then barely jeepable. It had first come into prominence two years earlier, when it had been used by the Government as a means of marching to India the thousands of refugees who crowded into Manipur from Burma. In this capacity too, little more than a month after we marched down it, it attracted the attention of the Japanese during their onslaught on Manipur in mid-March, 1944 – namely as a means of forcing a passage into the Gangetic plain. Silchar is only 350 miles from Calcutta. They sought to penetrate it, but they never quite achieved this. I think Bishenpur, at the Manipur end of the track, never actually fell.
Much remained, along its 120 mile length, to tell the tale of the 1942 civilian evacuation. I vividly recall its atmosphere of sickness and death. And particularly I recall the great, deserted, desolate, camps. The casualties, who died there and left their unburied bones for the bamboos to grow through, peopled it with their ghosts.
The seven days of our journey along it, however, proved far from unpleasant. The weather was perfect for forced marches, and we were in splendid condition. The trek also proved useful as a rehearsal for real operations. All Brigade Headquarters officers had a chance to shake down and form some sort of unit.
At last we were alone with each other as we forged our way into the hills. The fences of split bamboo, the houses on stilts, fell away. Silchar was an obscure blob, hazed in dust. We were isolated at last from all external preoccupations.
Hour by hour we mounted higher and higher. Away ahead we could see the loftier peaks. The air grew thinner and rarer. Sometimes a large cloud would condense from the damp atmosphere and squat on a summit like a bee on a flower. The track unrolled tirelessly eastward, and we marched equally tirelessly along it. It was marvellously exhilarating to have left behind us the foetid air of the plains and to be climbing at last towards the high sierras where the forest grew.
The transition from open countryside to jungle was made suddenly. For about half-an-hour, while the afternoon drew on towards evening and it was becoming dark, we had been approaching this peculiar obstacle. From far off it looked like a sort of grassy-topped fence. As we came nearer, however, it became clear that what had seemed comparatively insignificant was in fact a vast, ever-continuing wall of giant bamboo. The clumps were growing so close together as to be absolutely impenetrable but for the track.
In face of such a majestic barrier, the chatting soldiers fell quiet.
We entered a kind of gothic cathedral. On every hand vistas opened up through nucleated chapels into arched crypts. Boyhood memories of the Adelphi Arches surfaced, of wandering among ageless foundations deep beneath buried buildings, as between the gnarled roots of forgotten civilisations.
As it grew dark, the Gurkhas cut branches from the bamboos and made torches. Their weird light conjured hellish phantasms out of gloomy corners.
Our staging-post was one of the 1942 civilian evacuee camps. The place was in a shallow depression beside a narrow river. Some big, old rain trees grew there, and the bamboo had been cleared.
The blaze from the soldiers’ camp-fires lit up the boles of the rain trees, and flickered on their lower branches. Occasional snatches of conversation drifted over to me as I made my way towards Brigade Headquarters command post. The men were contented with themselves and their officers. All was well. I squatted down and hoped to pass the evening peacefully listening to Jack Masters reading Pa radise Lost.
All at once I was alerted by the melon shape of Tej Bahadur’s face appearing within the circle of firelight. It wore an expression of dismay. He caught my eye and beckoned me. Careful lest I break Masters’s spell, I got up cautiously and left. There were three or four of them waiting anxiously for me out of earshot.
‘What is it?’
For reply, they simple dragged me by the wrist. When I arrived where they were leading me, I found Ganga Bahadur. With a dramatic gesture, he led me forward.
The place he directed me to was among some short, feathery bamboos. At first sight I could not appreciate what it was he was indicating. The light from the spluttering torches was anything but constant and cast enormous, distorting shadows.
‘Look, sahib! Look!’ Ganga Bahadur kept saying, at last actually stamping his foot.
I looked long and searchingly, and then I saw. It was quite a shock. I saw a skull. It perched, slightly tip-tilted, on the end of a sprout of bamboo. Its sagging jaw hung yawningly open. Somewhere near at hand the dry stems of some plants were clattering together, as if its teeth were chattering. The skull regarded me from a rather rakish angle.
I bent down carefully and examined it. Its accompanying skeleton was still intact. The bones had been kept in position by the tatters of a cotton print dress. They were disposed near the stones of a hearth built to support a small cooking pot, and indeed a rusty tin kettle lay at a short distance.
Here was undoubtedly a victim of the 1942 Burma evacuation, but whether dead from poison or natural causes or murdered by dacoits for ornaments or money, it was impossible to tell. I looked at Ganga Bahadur and shrugged. There was nothing we could do except bury the bones.
‘Detail a fatigue party and bury them immediately.’
‘Very good, sahib.’
&nb
sp; ‘We shall need something to wrap them in. If we’re not careful, they’ll fall apart.’
Everyone remained silent.
‘I know,’ interposed Tej Bahadur.
‘Well, what?’
‘There are some strips of hessian put up round the pie-khana (lavatory). We could wrap them in that!’ ‘Good idea! Go and get it!’
So we buried those pitiful remains in a roll of lavatory burlap without even saying a proper prayer over them. Then I retired to my bed.
From high in the nearby hills came the trumpeting of wild elephants. I lay on my back, gazing up at the stars, and a shudder of awe shot through me. It was a response to all this grandeur – the open sky; wild creatures trumpeting majestically; imponderable death.
So we descended to Bishenpur. It must have been about 24 or 25 January. The Japanese offensive against Manipur was even then impending, and in exactly two months Wingate would be dead, but no shadow of these forthcoming events disturbed the placid serenity of our arrival.
We were met by a Lieutenant Colonel Staff Officer from IV Corps just below the little hummock where stood the Bishenpur Dhak bungalow. I still find it difficult to visualize this modest dwelling as being the focal point around which the vicious battles for Bishenpur hamlet raged. It seemed too folksy to be associated with real warfare.
The same might be said of the Staff Officer. His self-exculpatory remark upon allotting us the ghastly elephant-grass swamp upon which to make our first camp quickly became a classic in the Brigade Headquarters anthology.
‘I know you chaps love to creep away on your own into the jungle!’
Our arrival was, indeed, greeted by no more forceful comment. Lohtak Lake gleamed dully in the distance. A formation of geese flew overhead honking, and hundreds of wild duck arrowed across the opalescent sky in different directions, pursuing a mysterious itinerary which somehow emphasized our isolation.
It was incredibly lonely. That night I was bitten so badly by mosquitoes that it took me two days to open my swollen eyelids. I also made the acquaintance of blood-sucking leeches.
As Brigade Headquarters Orderly Officer, I was occupied principally, during the initial stages of our stay in Manipur, with routine duties. We moved camp several times into a more salubrious locality. Security was drawn tighter and tighter. There was precious little opportunity for observing, as I should like to have done, the very interesting local inhabitants. A foray into Imphal was out of the question. Nevertheless, under the almost zenana-like seclusion, I could not but be aware, from indiscreetly dropped asides and overhead hints from conversations, that great events were unfolding, situations developing, and plans maturing towards fulfilment. What sort of package would ultimately evolve from all this furtive activity had as yet, however, to make itself apparent.
From the official histories it appears that the decision to fly 77 Brigade and 111 Brigade into their respective theatres of operation within Burma had already been taken. We ordinary officers of 111 Brigade Headquarters, however – I refer, at any rate, to myself – were unaware of this. I was under the impression that our Special Force staff were still seeking a route for us into the Indaw and Wuntho areas via ground penetration through the front lines of the Japanese 15th Army. But, as January wore away and passed into February, it became increasingly evident that they were not going to find one.
I had no idea, however, what grand scheme was likely to replace this. Not in my wildest flights of fancy would I ever have hit on what actually happened. Although, in my subordinate position, such considerations were far above me, I could not insulate myself entirely from tiny twinges of anxiety about the ultimate outcome. It was obvious to the least significant among us that things were boiling up to a crisis.
Young Lawrence’s offer, therefore, to accompany him on a trip in a fifteen-hundredweight truck to the frontier town of Tammu came as a welcome diversion. It was to be in the nature of a jaunt, to give us some idea of what a typical teak-jungle was like. But we never got there. We were stopped some ten miles short of the frontier by an unfordable river. It was just as well. The town turned out to be occupied by the Japs. Maybe this accounts for a strange feeling which I experienced of being observed. Young Lawrence agreed that it was spooky. We turned the truck and fled back.
The next day we set out early in the morning. Young Lawrence occupied the seat in the front of the truck with the driver, as befitted the personage who had signed for it, and I leant over the cab at the back. It was without a tarpaulin and it gave me a splendid opportunity to appreciate the scenery, which was magnificent.
We drove north, passing Lohtak Lake and the unlovely bulk of the Maharaja’s palace on the further shore like an ugly, nineteen-thirties hospital block, and crossed the Manipur River at Imphal. This put us into the eastern sector of the plain and on the right track to strike the road for the frontier. We hit it and started to climb. Everything was completely unguarded. The road did not actually enter the hills but ran along the edge of them, about five hundred feet up. It was cut into a rocky escarpment where road improvements were still in progress and there was scant room for vehicles to pass.
We raced along this unsurfaced road at 50 mph, quite oblivious of oncoming traffic. The inevitable was bound to happen. I noticed a little puff of dust approaching from the distance which denoted the presence of another truck. The driver paid it not the least attention. He was too busy coaxing everything he could out of his speedometer.
We rounded a hairpin bend at top speed. The two vehicles skidded to avoid each other amid a squealing of brakes and the smell of burning rubber and screeched to a halt. I raised my head from the floorboards where I had flung myself – or been flung – and gazed incredulously into the truck opposite. There, not fifteen inches away, Dal Bahadur was grinning at me. He was so close I could have touched him.
‘Hey!’ I whispered, awestruck. ‘So it’s you!’
‘Yes, sahib.’
The simple statement was delivered so saucily that in my ears it sounded like a declaration of passion. I must have made some gesture in reply which was over-emphatic. He looked disapproving. I sat back in the truck, feeling, and no doubt looking, ludicrously dejected. At this he softened.
‘I’m coming back, sahib! Sahib! Do you understand! I’m coming back!’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. The Japanese-speaking sahib who I’ve been with, he’s returning to rear headquarters.’ ‘Don’t forget to report to me.’
But there was no immediate aftermath. The next day I awaited Dal Bahadur’s arrival fruitlessly – and the day after that too. There was no sign of him. And then an event occurred which pushed him quite out of my mind. The news broke that Wingate had decided to fly us in. From that moment onwards events moved so swiftly that I had no time to luxuriate in personal emotions.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lift-Off
It was late afternoon when Jack Masters returned to the mess with news of our impending departure. He had been attending a conference at IV Corps Headquarters. All the top echelons of Fourteenth Army were present, so naturally we expected a decision. For several days the only subject of conversation had been about the various routes into Burma which were available. The general opinion was that we did not favour any of them. 16 Brigade under Bernard Fergusson was already marching from Ledo through country that was proving well-nigh impassable, although the terrain was so awful that the Japs had omitted to patrol it.
For us and for 77 Brigade, things would be different – patrol reconnaissance showed that we could no longer expect to slip through the lines of Japanese Fifteenth Army unnoticed. We should have to force a passage. That meant that our role as guerrilla troops in hit-and-run engagements would be impossible, for we should have been discovered and would be tailed.
Masters, his face looking tense and drawn, threw down his hat.
‘Well, what is it?’ said Geoffrey Birt.
‘What’s it to be?’ asked Briggo.
He did not answer directly bu
t said something to John Hedley which I failed to catch. He did not wait for our questions, but flew off to his tent.
When he emerged again, he looked more relaxed.
‘Sorry to be so abrupt. The fact is – I’ve really been presented with a poser. I just had to see whether I’d got the necessary reference files. Well, I have!’
We settled down to hear the revelations. And come they did. ‘Special Force’s organisation,’ began Masters, ‘was called into being at the Quebec conference and designed to be entrusted to the command of
Orde Wingate for the specific purpose of assisting American General Joe Stilwell’s penetration into Burma by Nationalist Chinese from the North Hukuong valley. That purpose is now about to be realized. With this intention in mind, it is proposed initially to concentrate three brigades in the vicinity of Indaw and to attack, capture, and hold it.
‘The actual attack will be carried out by 16 Brigade, which is now marching into Burma from Ledo for that purpose. 77 Brigade will assist the operation by interrupting Indaw-Mogaung communications to prevent reinforcements reaching Indaw from the south.
‘With Indaw in our hands and effectively isolated, a powerful force will be sitting astride the north-south road and rail communications and within reasonable striking distance of the Irrawaddy. It will be able to block all traffic to Mogaung and Myitkyina from the south and prevent every movement of troops, supplies and ammunition to the Japanese forces facing Stilwell and his Chinese armies in their southward offensive.
