Chindit Affair

by Brian Mooney

  ‘Ganga Bahadur, forgive me!’

  But he would have none of it. He brushed me away. He wore that particular expression of craven pleading mingled with craftiness which had made me so dubious of his honesty in the first place. I stopped making excuses and waited patiently for him to speak.

  To my astonishment he said nothing. He remained standing in front of me, wringing his hands and wearing that plaintive expression. Then he too merged into the background of the blazing moonlight and disappeared.

  The next who appeared was carrying his pack. He had his Bren gun slung across the top of it and was slightly bowed, exactly as I had seen him as he toiled up the slope towards that fateful clearing near Point 2171 on that dreadful day. It was Tej Bahadur. His face was moon-shaped and pimply as ever but, instead of its perpetually pleased expression, it now looked pain-worn and perplexed.

  ‘What’s happened to me’ he asked, catching sight of me for the first time and perhaps mistaking me for a fellow wanderer in the House of Shades.

  ‘Am I dead?’

  ‘Oh, Tej Bahadur!’ I said, by now quite broken in spirit. ‘Sahib!’ he interjected, as if taken by surprise.

  There was a short silence. Then he took up the theme adopted by all the others.

  ‘Oh – why didn’t you let me go back down the chaung when I asked you? I always obeyed your orders. It was a small thing to ask when it came to my moment of decision. Why didn’t you? You didn’t believe me!’

  Then he too faded away.

  I woke up with a start.

  Practically no time at all seemed to have elapsed since Thaman Bahadur had knelt beside me but, now that I needed someone, they all seemed lapped in sleep. Only the moonlight burnt down outside, bathing the neglected plot of ground which had once been a garden in its incandescent fierceness.

  But I was mistaken. Someone was stirring in the side-room opposite the great central chamber which lacked a floor, and I waved my arm weakly, trying to attract his attention. He was wearing a Burmese lungyias were all my men, but in addition he had over his naked torso a little, short, loose linen jacket with ample sleeves such as I had seen a number of Burmese civilians wear. In spite of this, I was in no doubt whatsoever that he was one of mine.

  He came obediently to my command, treading on air and walking quietly across the breached open space of the central living-room as if it was the most unnatural thing to do in the world. He looked like Christ walking on the water.

  I surrendered to the phantom immediately and averted my head without saying a word, for of course I recognized him. It was the Burman with the shaven head whom we had court-martialled and whom Sergeant Barker had taken out into the jungle to shoot. He gazed at me silently, with that same reproachful expression he had worn when he gazed at me, one of his judges, at his trial. Again the same spark of sympathy shot between us. I couldn’t clearly see his chest because the shadow of the loose jacket concealed it, but, as he turned round to leave me, I saw his back. Where the shoulder blades and spine should have been was simply one huge, gaping cavity. Sergeant Barker had known his business.

  The final stage in this long sequence of spirits demanding retribution was the Jap Officer whom I had waved away from me during my attack on that village when I was trying to avoid sticking him with my bayonet, and he still wore his hachimaki. He made a gesture towards me which I can only describe as one of absolution.

  ***

  On the following day my fever broke. Evidently it had only needed one person to intercede for me. But it was strange that the solitary individual capable of doing so should have belonged to the other side.

  A few days afterwards we marched to Mogaung railway station. We crossed the bombed steel-girder railway bridge gingerly on foot. Against its central pier several decomposing corpses were bobbing in the swirling water. We then boarded a train for Myitkyina.

  The city had been captured by the Chinese some few days previously and fighting was still going on in the outskirts, but the airstrip was in our hands, although the Japanese were shelling it. The ground was so waterlogged that every time a projectile landed it sent up a column of spray like the shelling of a ship.We stood around for hours making bets on the near misses, but many aircraft were hit.

  Eventually an aircraft arrived for us and we scrambled aboard. Thunderstorms were hitting the hills beneath us and lightning licked from cloud to cloud, but the trip was otherwise uneventful. When we arrived at Tinsukia in Assam we were driven to camp. From Tinsukia they sent us by train to Dehra Dun. I was put into a hospital which occupied the old Imperial Forestry Institute designed by Lutyens.

  One evening, wandering through those impressive corridors and galleries, I encountered Sergeant Barker. He also was clad in pyjamas and dressing gown and looked dreadfully haggard.

  They were playing Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto over the tannoy relay system and had arrived at the slow movement. Although Sergeant Barker’s and my relationship had always been conducted on a formal footing, we must have reacted mutually to the emotional atmosphere generated by the music. I was emboldened to ask him a personal question.

  ‘Do you never feel any sort of guilt for all the executions you’ve done?’

  We were leaning together over the first floor gallery under the dome. He turned to me a face slowly being torn apart by tension.

  ‘I do, sir,’ he said intensely. ‘Yes I do. I dream about them. They haunt me.’

  He shuffled away in his slippers. It was as if all the hounds of hell were after him – and indeed they were. I heard that not many weeks later he tried to hang himself. Soon after that he slit his throat and died.

  It was during this period that my G II at GHQ, Major Freeman, called for a report on me. It was duly compiled. According to Military Regulations an officer has to know what is said about him, so I was called in to hear this document read to me. Colonel Rome, Special Force’s Second-in-Command, was the officer who was to conduct the ceremony, so I found myself one afternoon in his almost luxurious office.

  He invited me to sit down and began to read.

  ‘Owing to the exigencies of the campaign, Captain Baines was not able to do much camouflage. In action, however, he did well. Signed, J. Masters, Commander.’

  There was a long pause. Colonel Rome and I regarded each other quizzically.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes. How much more did you expect?’

  I was not prepared to make a fool of myself by revealing that I had expected a definitive biography. The silence continued for so long that it became quite uncomfortable.

  Finally Colonel Rome broke it.

  ‘Aren’t you satisfied? Did you expect something better?’

  I found myself incapable of articulating a word.

  ‘I want to know what you think about it. If you’re dissatisfied, don’t be afraid to say so. That is the purpose of this interview. Say something. I want to know.’

  After a good deal of hesitation, I finally managed to say something. ‘But – it’s so inadequate.’ ‘This is a good report!’

  ‘Surely it’s what anyone would be expected to do? To do well is merely to do one’s duty.’

  Colonel Rome paused for a moment and then looked me full in the eye. ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said.

  So this, I reflected sourly, as I made my way back to my quarters, was what my pain and anguish had amounted to. Captain Baines had done well! He might have saved himself the trouble.

  ***

  Almost two months to the day after Dal Bahadur had been wounded, he returned.

  It was some time towards the end of August. I had already decided that I could not postpone my departure on his account any longer. I had been under pressure to take the leave due to me and return to my staff duties with another formation. I had packed my luggage, reserved my train compartment, and was off on furlough.

  Bhim Bahadur came rushing into my presence and announced, ‘Dal Bahadur’s back!’

  I ran breathlessly to the defence
platoon lines. I found him looking more beautiful than ever. It was a great joy to me to find that he had lost none of his allure.

  So we went to Kashmir.

  I was due to join Twelfth Army Headquarters in Rangoon – in fact, the notorious Force 136 – for forward planning with regard to the future campaign in Malaya. Movement Control in Calcutta was having some sort of difficulty regarding transhipments. Rangoon had only just fallen, but I never anticipated such a disaster as the end of the war. I was advised to go by train to Chittagong, where a lift by plane could be begged fairly easily.

  We were booked on the Midnight Mail from Sealdah station to Dacca. When we arrived at Sealdah, the luggage coolies were in a flurry of excitement. We had difficulty in securing one to carry our bags. They were clustered round a radio in a pan-wallah’s kiosk listening to a transmission of, apparently, epic importance.

  Eventually one of them detached himself and came across. ‘The war’s over, sahib,’ he announced. ‘Were you going to the front? Then you can return to your hotel.’

  When Dal Bahadur and I landed at Mingladoon aerodrome near Rangoon, the aircraft bearing the Japanese envoys who were to sue for surrender had just arrived. We realised that we too would have to surrender to the inevitable; bow to circumstances; and say goodbye. Soon afterwards we were put on a troopship bound from Rangoon to Calcutta for demobilisation.

  The final stage can be described in a few lines. We boarded a train to Lucknow, where I needed to transact some private business. Then I was to go on to Bombay to board the troop-ship Reina del Pacifico for Liverpool. Dal Bahadur was going on to 9th Gurkha depot at Dehra Dun.

  At every wayside halt and station the regimented bands were out in full strength in their most gorgeous uniforms, playing the heroes from the front home to depot and barrack.

  We arrived at Lucknow about noon. The Local Area Headquarters had put on an especially magnificent display. There were regimental bands of all descriptions and colours keeping up an uninterrupted public musical entertainment all day. As the fifteen-car express pulled in, they struck up Lilliburlero. The train was crammed with returning soldiers who kept up an uninterrupted hullabaloo. It was terrifically exciting – euphoric almost.

  Dal Bahadur and I left the first-class compartment we had been occupying and raced up the platform to find him another place. Gradually the crowd thinned out and I was left on my own on the platform facing the train. The engine let out a scream of steam. The pistons began to push at the huge connecting rods and the driving wheels turned. The train gathered pace.

  I saluted him.

  All the accompanying soldiers cheered wildly. The bands, I remember, were playing The Flowers of the Forest.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Postscript – Farewell to Dal Bahadur

  My final meeting with Dal Bahadur was profoundly sad. It occurred in December 1951, as I was contemplating leaving India for ever.

  Although I had continued to get news about him through the good offices of a friend, I had preferred to keep my enquiries a secret and remain in the background. I thought that he should have the opportunity to get shot of me and develop without interference along lines of his own.

  I had not seen him since we said goodbye on Lucknow station in December 1944, but, of course, I knew his address. It was: Village Lamma Gaon Busti, Post Office Phulbazaar, District Darjeeling, North Bengal.

  And I went there.

  I had been to Darjeeling several times before, but on this occasion the landscape looked particularly magnificent. As the little puff-puff came to the top of the hill at Kurseong, where the Hindu monastery is, it was evening. The setting sun was shining full on Kanchenjunga, ruddy as an apricot, and the mountain stood up before me tall and powerful, obscuring half the panorama with its bulk. Then the train ran slowly down the incline and came to rest.

  On the following morning I started out on my investigations. Finding the actual whereabouts on the ground of Dal Bahadur’s address turned out to be comparatively easy. When I enquired at the General Post Office where the Sub-Post Office of Phulbazaar was, an obliging counter clerk accompanied me outside onto the street and showed me. It was right down in the bottom of the valley, six thousand feet below.

  ‘And Lamma Gaon Busti?’ I enquired hopefully. ‘Where is that?’

  My informant pointed to practically dead opposite. It was, as the crow flew, only about five miles distant across the intervening valley. To get there, however, I would have to descend six thousand feet to the valley floor, cross the river by rope bridge, and then climb back up another ten thousand feet.

  As I did not have much time at my disposal, I started out right away.

  Phulbazaar proved comparatively easy of access. The walk there, through fruiting orange and tangerine groves and sometimes between terraces of tea-garden cultivation, was entirely delightful. A heady scent of citrus fruit was in the air and the turpentine tang from the pine plantations and the forests of cryptomeria was almost overwhelming. As I descended deeper into the valley, it got hotter.

  I arrived just before mid-day at the little cluster of wooden houses, with their balconies from which flowered a riot of geraniums. I stopped at a teahouse to refresh myself, and then went along to the village store which served as Post Office, in order to pursue my enquiries.

  This time I actually mentioned Dal Bahadur by name. As I knew not only his caste designation, namely Chettri, but also his patronymic, namely son of Tensing Bahadur, I was reasonably certain of getting fairly near my target. I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.

  My questions as to Dal Bahadur’s whereabouts and the best way of getting to Lamma Gaon Busti were greeted with a curious sense of expectancy. I was told readily enough what to do and which was the easiest path to follow, yet I was left with the strange feeling that they knew all about me. Quite soon the entire community seemed to have foregathered and to be regarding me with what was plainly considerable respect.

  As I was unaware of having done anything to deserve such V.I.P. treatment, I began to feel very uncomfortable.

  I was asked if I would like to rest. A chair was produced and I was practically forced to take a seat. Then there appeared before me the village elder. This gentleman, being endowed with the communal authority, came to the point at once.

  ‘Are you,’ he asked politely, ‘Dal Bahadur’s sahib?’

  ‘Well … er … yes,’ I assented. ‘As a matter of fact I am.’

  ‘Are you,’ continued the old man relentlessly, ‘the officer who gave him the beautiful inscribed cigarette case?’

  ‘Er … yes!’ And fancy him knowing that!

  ‘Are you,’ he continued with mounting enthusiasm, ‘the same officer who gave him the priceless gold amulet inscribed with the sacred letter “Om” and containing a miniature copy of the Lord Krishna’s song called Bhagavad Gita [powerful magic]?’ ‘Yes!’

  ‘Then, sir,’ chanted the old man, by this time positively lyrical – and the whole community standing behind him seemed to concur – ‘you are truly welcome!’

  They all bowed down before me in an elaborate prostration.

  Absolutely horrified, I sprang to my feet. It was too late. I was already launched into a full civic reception. A garland of French marigolds was produced, and from somewhere behind my left elbow somebody thrust into my hand another glass of sweet tea.

  ‘You saved his life!’ said the old man, coming up and whispering into my ear affectionately. ‘He told us himself. You saved his life!’

  Such was the welcome. I believe I might have stayed in that place the rest of my life. I think I would have been happy there.

  Somehow, however, I managed to struggle away. I crossed the river torrent by the rickety string bridge which was strung across it, and the whole village waved me goodbye.

  The ensuing climb up the hillside in the heat of the day cost me an enormous effort. The sun blazed down unremittingly and, being out of condition, I poured with sweat. I was relieved, however, by my every
so often encountering a Gurkha villager who greeted me with the most dazzling smile as well as a profound obeisance, indicating that my reputation and the news of my presence had in some mysterious way gone before.

  At about nine thousand feet, with the sun striking behind Tiger Hill above the cantonment of Darjeeling to the west, and the mist on top of my mountain getting lower and lower, I began to have doubts as to whether I should make it before night. A bitter cold had descended.

  Suddenly, above me, I spied a little procession. Made up of youths and maidens, it was like something which you would not be surprised to have found in Ancient Greece.

  It was him all right. I would recognise that figure anywhere.

  We met in the middle of an open hillside that was quite bare of cultivation. It had started to rain. And in the rain, on that bare hillside, we embraced.

  He had become subtly older and wiser. In fact he had grown up and become a man. Yet I knew that he was the same.

  He didn’t say anything. He simply took me by the arm and led me forward. Indeed, as it transpired afterwards, he had prepared a stunning reception. He had despatched messengers to bring elegant dancing-boys to entertain me from far and near.

  We sat under a thatched awning outside a sort of hut. His own house had been destroyed in the recent Darjeeling earthquake and there was nowhere else to receive me. It turned out to be the local shop and to belong to him. I was glad to learn that he had always been a rich man and owned such important property.

  When we sat down, I was able, for the first time, to steal a close but covert glance at him.

  He had aged considerably. That is to say, although still young and handsome, he was no longer a boy. A dashing, Kshatriya-style moustache sprouted from his upper lip in silken splendour, and he looked like the young Buddha of the Gandharan sculptures.