by Brian Mooney
I made a determined if not very prolonged effort to assert my independence.
‘What happens if I disagree?’
‘I don’t see how you can do, in face of the evidence.’
‘No – but I want to know.’
‘It would simply mean I should have to convene another court-martial.’ ‘You don’t intend to let him go,’ I said, half-accusingly and half as a factual statement.
‘No.’
‘If he were acquitted, he would simply go and tell the Jap, I suppose.’ ‘That is so,’ Masters conceded, bleakly.
‘Of, course, it’s unthinkable,’ I supplemented, pursuing my train of logic with remarkable slowness. ‘But what’s the alternative? Is the penalty
death?’
Briggo was about to put in a word, then choked on it, and Masters nodded.
All during this interchange the prisoner, who had turned a mud-grey in colour at the inception of the proceedings, began to look towards me with a renewal of hope. His complexion perceptibly brightened as his prospects improved. I glanced at him furtively. Our eyes met. I was unable to prevent a charge of understanding from passing between us. He was not young – about forty – and quite unlovely to look at. His head was closely shaven and demonstrated the markedly Proto-Malayan, brachycephalic cranium with its strikingly bulging protuberances at the rear quarters, which is so characteristic of South-East Asia man from Bengal to Southern China. I examined it curiously from my place at the right of the court.
Meanwhile, the prisoner’s eyes never left off observing us. They flicked back and forth persistently during my exchange with Masters.
‘I suppose it’s no use my making an attempt to save him,’ I muttered rather miserably, and Jack Masters replied, quite mildly, ‘Not in the least.’
There ensued an uneasy silence which I am sure was designed to give me time to pull myself together. I was embarrassingly aware that I had exhausted everybody’s patience – perhaps including the prisoner’s. Geoffrey Birt summed up the general feeling by putting in: ‘You’re only giving him false hope.’
I saw that they were determined to condemn him. All the same, they still couldn’t do it without my concurrence.
‘Well,’ repeated Masters, having allowed this interval to elapse during which I might be supposed to make up my mind. ‘Innocent or guilty?’
The problem instantly resolved itself into its basic components and, with horrible clarity, presented itself to me as a choice between two alternatives. It was not what was going to happen to the prisoner if I pronounced him guilty that mattered – it was what was going to happen to me if I didn’t!
Without a shadow of hesitation I pronounced him guilty, and thereby salvaged my position.
The rest of the proceedings were gabbled through so quickly that I had the impression that their despatch was deliberate. Masters dealt out the death penalty – ‘to be taken into the jungle and shot summarily’ – and we embarked on a discussion of how to do it.
Major Henning had a man among his Cameronians, he said, who was a proven expert – ‘the man who does our executions’. He would send for him immediately in the hope that he would get us out of our difficulty. Grateful to be let thus easily off the hook – for none of us felt like doing the job ourselves – we sent a message to summon this cold-blooded-killer, as I conceived him. To my astonishment it turned out to Sergeant Barker.
Meanwhile, in his own vernacular and with desperate fluency, the prisoner started to speak. He began stumblingly and as if he had only then realized the horror of his plight. During the course of the trial he had been conspicuously silent. He had merely indicated his affirmation or denial by a nod or a grunt. Now fear, and the approaching shadow of death, seemed to have lent wings to his eloquence.
Words poured out of his mouth in breathtaking profusion; they sped like arrows from between his lips – words bitter and broken – words tragic and tangled – words tender and sad. Nobody translated for him. It wasn’t necessary. Indeed Macpherson, with the rest of us, appeared struck dumb with amazement and rendered speechless by the frenzied torrent. We understood him perfectly.
He wasn’t pleading. He was pouring out to us in a torment of despair his whole life. We saw the dawn, in his speech, breaking over the flat plains of central Burma and glorifying, in the process, the tips of the spires on the gilded pagodas. We experienced the sun at noon and partook sympathetically of the torpor of midday when the silence in the parched paddy-fields was like a palpable presence. We passed with him from village to village, where the wind whispered tantalisingly among the dry leaves in the hot areca plantations. And we arrived with him towards evening at his destination in some hamlet. We revelled with him in the breeze, in the rice planting, and in the monsoon rains.
In his desperate outpouring of emotion – in his despairing plight – he cared as little for life’s so-called beauties as he did for its horrors. He equated seed-time with the pangs of birth which had brought him into this world, and harvest with the pains of death which would take him out of it, and he denounced both. He had become transfigured.
Finally, as the passion spent itself, his elation subsided and his enthusiasm waned.
We, his judges and executioners, sat before him stony-faced. It must at last have dawned on him, as he glanced from one to another of us, that his eloquence was wasted. Suddenly there took place in him one of those remarkable transformations. It was like an access of grace.
The anguish and the agony slipped away from him and he stepped out of them. His features relaxed. From being tortured and tormented they became calm and placid. He regarded us narrowly, but with a strange look that was almost tender.
‘Take him away!’ said Masters. ‘Baines, you are to accompany Sergeant Barker and see that the sentence is executed.’
The court then adjourned and its members hurried away, leaving Sergeant Barker, the prisoner, and I to resolve our difficulties as best we might.
‘Whatever possessed you to take on such an awful job?’ I arraigned Sergeant Barker without allowing a single word to pass between us in greeting.
‘Well, sir,’ he said ‘begging your pardon an’ all that, but what possessed you to become a member of a court-martial?’
‘I was detailed to do it.’ ‘And so was I!’
‘What are you going to do? How are you going to do it?’
‘I generally takes them into the jungle and drills ’em full of holes with me automatic weapon from the back.’
‘How many of these sorts of things have you done? You sound as if you’ve done dozens! Was Major Henning speaking the truth?’
‘There have been several,’ he conceded. ‘Prisoners of war and the like – spies – which we couldn’t fly out.’
‘But I can’t imagine the Cameronians going round the country bumping off all and sundry!’
He looked at me rather flat-faced and fish-eyed and forbore to mention what was in his mind, but I knew. His view was clearly that I was attached to the Brigade Headquarters where such things are hardly conceivable, but that in actual warfare it was different.
He merely remarked, ‘You know, sir, you’re not going to like it.’
The Burman looked from one to another of us questioningly, his features resuming once more their former complexion of clay-grey. I was assailed by an astonishing emotion of curiosity. It was as if I were a child who had been promised an unique spectacle, only to be denied it at the last minute.
‘No – but,’ I stuttered, ‘the Brigadier told me to be there.’
Sergeant Barker waved aside my protest. He indicated to the Burman to proceed. A bird had started out of a bush during our colloquy and flown off terrified. Together the three of us started into the jungle after it.
‘I always let ’em think they’ve got a chance of escape,’ he whispered to me confidentially. ‘After a time,’ he added, nodding in the direction of the Burman who was now twenty yards ahead, his pace quickening every second, ‘he’ll start running. Now sir,
you stop here and do as I say.’
‘All right,’ I said unwillingly. ‘When will you be back? How far are you going? What happens if you miss?’
It was such an unlikely possibility that he didn’t even bother to answer. He gave me a contemptuous look, then turned and fixed his gaze on his quarry. Step by step the two of them passed out of sight. All at once there was a long burst of light automatic fire, followed by another.
After a short interval Sergeant Barker came back.
‘You fired twice! Is he dead?’
‘The first time I missed,’ he confessed with an insane giggle. I knew it was hysterical and did not attribute it to cruelty. The hands he put to his mouth to light a cigarette also noticeably trembled. Sergeant Barker was not as callous as he pretended to be.
‘Yes,’ he said, striving to control the twitching of his lower lip. ‘He’s dead.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A New Objective
All protests notwithstanding, Stilwell had his way. We were ordered to descend towards the plain and put in a frontal attack.
The primary objective, chosen from a scrutiny of the maps and not from a study of the ground, was selected by Stilwell’s staff at his headquarters in Ledo, over one hundred miles away. It was Point 2171. This was a conspicuous hill feature dominating the road and railway to and from Mogaung. It was within easy marching distance of the flat country and once in our possession would constitute a powerful threat to these Japanese lines of communication.
From such a tactical point of view, of course, our orders were perfectly intelligible. By an extension of the same logic, however, it was obvious they would place us uncomfortably within range of the enemy’s big guns.
In the event, they had placed us within range of his little guns also, for it so happened that he had the place extremely well covered. We suffered as many casualties – if not quite as much harassing mental anguish – from his quick-firing easily manipulated 75’s as we did from his medium artillery or heavy mortars. Given the mental and physical state of the troops as I have described them, it was universally conceded that our orders were tantamount to condemning the lot of us to death. This final, additional burden, coming to the top of many other crippling disabilities, was going to be the last straw for us.
I had been playing with a similar suicide concept, of course, ever since I first discovered those bits about long-range penetration at the Camouflage School. The idea of a suicide mission had at the time completely dominated my imagination. Now I experienced my first really vivid attack of premonitory terror. It is a daunting thing to descend deliberately towards self-immolation. Yet, as a consequence of having to do so, I was at last able to identify myself fully with the concept of disregard for danger. Was it not on this account that I had joined the Chindits in the first place?
But, determined as I was to reassure myself that the situation was desperate (I didn’t want to be involved in any false emphasis), I subjected Doc Whyte to such a rigorous cross-examination that he must have regretted ever having mentioned it – for he it was who first disseminated the information, and it was to him I went to confirm my interpretation.
He corroborated it with such a grave face that I was persuaded to take his judgement seriously.
‘Does it mean the end?’
He made no attempt to conceal his anxiety. ‘That’s exactly how I’d describe it.’
‘But some of us are bound to survive,’ I exclaimed ‘surely!’
‘It means the end,’ he repeated, ‘of the Brigade as an integrated fighting formation or unit. But yes, some of us are bound to survive, of course, although in what shape it might be better not to enquire too closely.’
‘You mean – we shall be marked in some way – scarred – so that people will be able to recognize us as survivors of terrible events?’
‘I imagine so – although how deeply, it will be impossible to say until
later.’
‘You’re going on,’ I persisted, ‘as if we were being ordered to kill ourselves!’
‘Make no mistake about it – that’s exactly what we’ve been ordered to
do.’
I found it perversely exciting to have received this unambiguously pessimistic prognosis from an expert. With grim foreboding in the forefront of our minds, therefore, and full of determined pugnacity, almost as if we didn’t care, we pushed on down towards where we knew the enemy would be waiting for us.
The approach march to the objective took three or four days. They were feverish days, filled with frantic bravado and heroic gaiety.
The nights before we actually made contact were occupied in frenzied attempts to review our situation objectively, and to contemplate it without bitterness. In these attempts, I think, we achieved a qualified success. The commanding officers of the various columns had got into the habit, at the end of each day, of congregating at Jack Masters’s command post. The rum bottle circulated freely. It generated a temporary and spurious companionship which, despite its Fata Morgana quality, was undeniably comforting. Each of us was aware, however, that we would have to face our own fate individually; accept personal responsibility for all our wrong decisions; and ultimately be prepared to die alone – no matter how many of us got slaughtered. Every man has to die personally, individually, and singly. Death, regardless of how great the love, cannot be approached in pairs, hand-in-hand. So it was lonely, during those stoically pessimistic evenings too.
The Chinese artillery were sporadically pounding Mogaung from Kamaing. Then, like a clearly articulated diapason, the Japanese guns would open up in reply. Every so often a roving patrol of Chinese troops or a column from 77 Brigade foraging for food would clash with the enemy down in the valley below us, and there would follow a spirited exchange. Sometimes such encounters lasted for several hours and involved the launching of grenades and the chatter of machine guns.
The thudding of the distant explosions, always disquieting, but under our present circumstances doubly disturbing, sounded to us in the security of our night-harbour in the hills deceptively disembodied, like dreaded vibrations vaguely apprehended from under water. All the same, they added a dimension of reality to our philosophic discourses, and imparted an edge to our discussions. It is incredible how a couple of bottles of rum can universalize one’s speculation, and increase the sense of historical perspective almost to infinity.
I visualized the participants and combatants of this war rolling by in quasi-Spenglerian terms with unparalleled pomp and splendour – decked out in all the panoply of the centuries, nation giving place to nation, the palm and crown of victory falling indifferently now to one undeserving tribe, now to another.
It didn’t seem to matter any more who held the sceptre. What was significant were the endless tides – the great sweep which carried the whole thing forward. Viewed in such a context, the disappearance of 111 Brigade from the scroll of history, its erasure from the roll of honour, was a trifling event of such minimal importance that it became possible to regard one’s personal snuffing-out from a comparably lofty viewpoint also. I did so, and experienced the immediate lightening of anxiety which always follows from having established oneself successfully within a reasonably tenable philosophic position.
Suddenly I gave tongue. In my feverish eagerness to articulate this insight and share it with my fellows, the words came tumbling out of my mouth with indecent precipitation.
Of course, it now occurs to me that I must have been horribly drunk. I should scarcely have had the hardihood to pour out a philosophy of history in front of a bunch of colonels unless I had been inflamed with alcohol, much less on the eve of battle. However friends of mine who witnessed the scene have since testified to me that I spoke as if prophetically inspired.
My diatribe was followed by an interval of stunned silence. You know right enough when you have made an impression. The effect was so unnerving that I had no option but to get to my feet unsteadily, make my apologies, and stumble out.
T
he following day saw the last of such whimsical incidents. It happened during one of our hourly ten-minute halts. I can see the place in my imagination just as clearly as if it were physically present. A little stream ran purling along its bed beside the mountain path by which we were descending, adorned with ferns and all sorts of lichens and mosses. My Gurkhas had fallen out and had pulled out their ubiquitous packets of cigarettes. They were now larking about at a respectful distance, keeping a wary eye on me in case I might betray a feeling of annoyance with them by one of my guarded gestures of disapproval (for we had worked all this sort of thing out splendidly and by now had got it reduced to a drill), yet unable to suppress their roars of laughter. Dal Bahadur went over to join them.
What I am about to tell you may sound senseless. It may sound unreasonable to suppose that the Gurkhas were actually laughing at what I am going to recount. I wish to assure you, therefore, that however unlikely it may appear to those unfamiliar with the regimental Gurkha outlook, this incident was absolutely typical and true to life.
Dal Bahadur returned, also squinting with sneezing giggles.
‘What on earth’s the matter? Let me into it – please do!’
‘Tej Bahadur’s – Tej Bahadur’s’ and he collapsed into hoots of mirth, thereby incapable of articulating a single sentence.
‘Well,’ I asked again, after he had momentarily recovered, ‘what is it?’
‘Tej Bahadur says – Tej Bahadur says – he says, in a few days he’s going
to be killed.’
Unable to contain himself any longer, Dal Bahadur positively rocked with laughter and even rolled on the ground in his merriment.
I, on the contrary, was extremely put out. I failed to appreciate what on earth the Gurkhas could find so funny in this.
I dashed off to where Tej Bahadur, sitting modestly on a rock and looking magnificently embarrassed, was closely surrounded by his teasing companions.
The reason, of course, why I acted so precipitately must be plain for all to see. Once a premonition of this sort takes possession, morale, followed by personal confidence, very soon takes wing. I was terrified, therefore, lest a superstitious awe or fear of death should emasculate the troops, thus inhibiting their physical courage.
