Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Next time we get town leave we take the springs and we’re down to the native quarter in Malacca to see the smithy that’s gunna make the knives. He’s an evil-looking character, the colour of old tabacca leaf with a dirty turban and a big curled-up-at-the-ends moustache, his face is pretty scarred and he’s only got one eye, there’s this big scar runs from above his eyebrow across the left eye socket and right down so you can see it, a white line through his dark beard. Sergeant Rigby and him embrace and they chat on in some lingo that ain’t Malay, Hindi or something like that. It seems they’re old mates, and they suit each other, a more evil-lookin’ pair o’ bastards would be bloody hard to find.

  ‘Then after a while each of us has to stand in front of Ali Baba with the turban. First off we have to pay him the two quid. “How do we know we can trust him?” I ask, once again being the mouth for the troops.

  ‘“With your flamin’ life, Corporal,” Rigby says. “He’s been in the army himself, he’s an Afghani and comes from generations of blade-makers.” I can’t help wondering to myself what Rigby’s cut is, he’s not the sort of bloke who would do things out of the kindness of his heart, or, I’d vouch, someone who’d step back if there was a dishonest quid to be made.

  ‘Well, Ali Baba picks each bloke up, grabs him by the side of the arms and lifts him, sort of weighing him. Then he writes something in a dirty notebook and measures each bloke’s knife-fighting arm with a tape measure and writes that down as well. He’s got several short pieces of copper pipe, about four inches long, each one a different diameter. He makes us close our hand around them and when he thinks one of them fits our grip, he marks it in the spiral notepad. Last thing, he takes a spring and with white chalk carefully measures a bit of the spring and writes on it in this squiggly writing.

  ‘“He’s making your knife to order, the right fighting weight and grip for your size. If a knife’s too heavy you can’t get the most from it, too light and it don’t cut right. It has to be properly balanced for your size and strength, grip must be perfect,” Rigby explains.

  ‘Couple of weeks later the knives are ready and, I have to admit, I pick mine up and take it out of its leather combat sheath and it’s beautiful. Lethal and beautiful and, what’s more, it feels like it belongs in me hand. We compare our knives and it’s true, no two are exactly the same and everyone feels the same way I do.

  ‘Next four months Sergeant Rigby, who is now known as “Blades” for the obvious reason and because everyone in the army has a nickname, trains us in how to use a fighting knife in combat. I’m a reasonable good shot and I can use a bayonet as good as the next man, but I have to admit the knife gives you a lot of confidence. It’s a very personal weapon, not like a rifle or a bayonet. After a while you get to think of it as an extension of yourself, your hand don’t end at the tips of yer fingers no more, it extends to the tip o’ the blade.

  ‘In September we move to Kluang and then in October to Jemaluang on the east coast. All of it is jungle training and with it, Sergeant Rigby’s knife fighting. We’ve become a bit of a joke with the other platoons, but our lieutenant, who’s also joined in the training, gets special permission from the colonel for us to carry our knives in combat as part of our personal kit.

  ‘In December the Japs enter the war by bombing Pearl Harbor, but even before this they’re already on their way to invade Malaya. We’re pretty excited and then dead disappointed because we’re not sent north to stem the invasion. We reckon it’s unfair keeping us down south while the Poms and the Indians get all the glory.

  ‘Well, it don’t turn out that way. Like I told you, the Japs are no pushover and there’s no stoppin’ them. The Brits and the Indians are retreating and eventually try to hold the rapidly advancing enemy at Kuala Lumpur, but can’t.

  After this we get our chance.

  ‘General Bennett sends us into new positions west of a place called Bakri, which is near the Muar River that is being defended by a battery from our 2/15th Field Artillery regiment and the Indian troops, who’ve taken a fair old battering. As I said, the Brits have withdrawn from Kuala Lumpur and are in no shape to carry on, so the Japs have got a free run to Muar River where the Indians waiting there are no match. Our 2/29th and an anti-tank mob are sent to shore them up. Meanwhile we’re ordered to Parit Sulong a little further east.

  ‘So much for being cocky. The Poms are retreating and the Indians collapse, so now the 2/29th and the anti-tank go into battle. Soon they’re taking a terrible hiding and we’re told to go to their aid. So we leave a platoon to defend the bridge at Parit Sulong and move over to the west of Bakri to join in the fighting.

  ‘We discover that we can’t get to the 2/29th because the road is blocked by the Japs. We send the armoured cars in but the Japs drive them back. Then two platoons, ours is one of them, and a mortar detachment, have a go. This is what Blades has trained us for, I guess, and we’re in among them. I’ve never seen a Jap before and now they’re fuckin’ everywhere you look, but they must have seen Blades coming at them with a knife because they’re soon routed, though we corner them and I reckon it wasn’t a day to take prisoners. We’re on to the next group of Japs and to our surprise they up and scarper, abandoning their positions and leaving behind a number of their wounded. When the smoke clears we have one bloke who’s got a minor neck wound.

  ‘We say to ourselves, that weren’t too bad, fuckers may be able to fight but then so can we. We’ve forced them back and are feeling quite pleased with ourselves. Most of our platoon have blooded their knives and we’re like a bunch of schoolboys who’ve won a footie game.

  ‘In the meantime the 2/29th, the mob from Victoria, are in the thick of it, but they’ve also had their moments. The Japs send their tanks in against them and they fell trees and drop them between the ranks so the tanks are stuck. There’s eight tanks and they’re sitting ducks and the blokes in the 2/29th finish them off with anti-tank guns, rifles and grenades. The Japs try to infiltrate their positions that night but they’re driven off with automatic fire. During the early part of the night there’s a fair bit of shelling that’s directed at our positions. Still an’ all, as far as the 2/19th are concerned it ain’t been a bad day’s fighting.

  ‘Next day we’ve not long ate our rations when the Japs attack us, we reckon there’s about three hundred of them but we outmanoeuvre them and we get stuck in. They’re badly bunched up and easy pickings and in the wash-up we kill a hundred and forty of them and ten of our blokes are killed. It’s here we learn a new Jap trick, many of the wounded Japs play dead and when you walk past them, the corpses come alive with a grenade in their hand. So it’s a matter of putting a bullet into every Jap lying down dead or alive. I fire at one “corpse” and he must have had the pin out of his grenade already because his head is blown off his shoulders by his own grenade.

  ‘Then we learn that our rear is cut off and that the transport group in charge of the ammo and food has been attacked by four hundred Japs who have set up roadblocks both sides of their position along the Parit Sulong road. The Jap artillery start pounding the Brigade HQ and score a direct hit. Just about all the senior officers there are killed. We’re close at the time and a truck containing about thirty wounded men from the 2/29th has taken a shell and there’s bits of body everywhere.’ Tommy pulls a face. ‘Just beside the road I come across one bloke, or what’s left of him, there’s a naked waist with two legs twisted and black dangling from it, a few feet further there’s his head and neck with half a chest and one arm. It’s total fuckin’ carnage everywhere you look.

  ‘The Japs are between us and the 2/29th again but we manage to infiltrate their positions and drive them off. At long last we’re within reach of the 2/29th, who’ve by all reports taken a lot worse than us. The Japs attack again and we hold them off with rifles and Vickers and Lewis guns and pound them with mortars. It’s every man we can spare and even the padre is hard at it. He’s a real decent cove, Wardale-G
reenwood, he’s pumping two-inch mortars at the enemy, goin’ at it hell for leather. Can’t fault him, his technique is perfect and he don’t stop for a breather neither. The attack keeps up until nightfall and it’s only then that the 2/29th reach us.’ Tommy reaches for a cigarette and lights it, taking a long draw and then exhales. ‘Mate, poor bastards have had the shit well and truly kicked out of them. Out of around a thousand men there’s only two hundred reach us. Their C.O. is shot dead while riding on the back of a motorbike when he’s returning from a reconnaissance the day before.’

  ‘What was his name?’ I know I shouldn’t interrupt, but I can’t help myself.

  ‘Mate, I wouldn’t remember. No, hang on, Robbo, no Robbie, Colonel Robbie, probably stands for Robertson, he wasn’t our C.O. so I can’t be sure.

  ‘Then the new C.O. of the 2/29th is killed and as the Indian’s Brigadier Duncan has concussion, our bloke, Lieutenant Colonel Anderson, is now in charge of what’s left of both battalions and also the 2/15th Field Regiment and what’s left of the Indian Brigade.

  ‘Anyway it’s us and the rest of the 2/29th copping constant artillery shelling during the night. We plan to withdraw in the morning and get back over the bridge at Parit Sulong, where we started from just fourteen miles away. There’s this long causeway we’re gunna need to cross that’s eight miles across with no protection and swamp on either side. The good thing is that the Japs can’t attack us on the causeway because they can’t come at us through the swamp on either side. They can hit us from the air, of course, but the plan is to cross at night. It’s getting to the causeway that’s going to be the problem. Once we get to the bridge at Parit Sulong we’ll be okay, because the Norfolks, who replace our blokes, are holding that.

  ‘Come first light and the Japs go ape-shit. Mortars and shells rain down on us. Thank Christ, we’re in this rubber plantation and a lot of the shells and mortars hit the trees and explode before reaching the ground. Pretty soon it looks like a tornado has hit the plantation, there’s practically no leaves left on the trees, trunks are split open and branches lie everywhere. The white rubber latex bleeding from the trunks and branches makes everywhere you move sticky. The Japs come at us and we’re fighting desperately to hold them back. Down the road a bit, our transport units have been attacked and are fighting a ferocious battle.

  ‘B Company, that’s us, leave at 0700 hours as an advance guard but we hit a roadblock and are pinned down. A Company comes in to help and, I do not tell a lie, they’re singing “Waltzing Matilda” as they attack a small group of Japs, killing twelve of the bastards. But we’re still pinned down by machine-gun fire and in no mood to join the singing. Our C.O., Lieutenant Colonel Anderson, joins us and leads an assault on the Japs, he’s no slouch with a grenade and he takes out two enemy machine-gun posts and shoots a Jap coming for him in the head. Anderson is a South African who’s in the AIF and who fought in the first world war. He sets great store by grenades and, as I just said, he could throw a Mills grenade good as any of us.

  ‘It’s a big setback and when we reach the transport unit it’s too late, there’s only dead men there. When we do a body count, though, we see that some must have escaped because it’s not everyone accounted for. The only consolation is that the food and ammo is still there, the Japs haven’t had time to take it.’

  Tommy looks up at me, ‘I’m learning that this isn’t a nice tidy war, the enemy is everywhere, in the trees, strafing us, pounding us with mortars, mounting sudden attacks so you don’t know where the next assault is gunna come from.

  ‘General Nishimura and the Imperial Guards Division advancing have blitzed us with their armour and nailed us from the air. Everywhere we look there’s Japs comin’ at us and, although we ain’t doing that badly, we also ain’t winning the contest.

  ‘We’re clearing one roadblock with axes when, from out of nowhere we’re attacked by a platoon of Japs at close quarters. It’s axes, bayonets and knives, man on man.

  ‘We’re under constant attack all day and hit several more roadblocks, Japs have felled trees or used brokendown trucks to block the road. They keep coming at us and we keep driving them off, but we’re losing men all the time and Brigadier Duncan is killed. I tell you what, I did more ducking than shooting, every time I looked up there was a Japanese plane coming down out of the clouds to get me personally. By nightfall when we finally get to the causeway, I’ve had enough. If I could have, I would have resigned on the spot, handed back me rifle and gone home.

  ‘We cross the causeway after dark, our trucks in single file, us also in single file on either side, and that fills all the space. If we’d tried to cross during the day the Jap planes would have destroyed us. But for the moment we’re safe. It’s been three days since I’ve had more than half an hour’s sleep at a time and there’s been precious little of them halfhour kips as well. We have a brief rest on the causeway and something to eat. I have to say the morale is still pretty high in the 2/19th and the blokes in the 2/29th, who’ve taken such a pounding, are still resolved to fight on.

  ‘I think about how I could’ve easy been there with them. The 2/29th is a battalion from Victoria. Lots of them recruited from around Yackandandah, Wangaratta, Wodonga and, of course, Yankalillee. Luck of the draw, I suppose. Later we hear how in one attack the Jap artillery go in among them. When the big guns get into a unit, it’s fucking carnage. They’ve been blown to bits. There’s intestines hanging like strings of sausages from the branches of trees and bodies sliced in half, it’s like a mad butcher has been among them. I could’ve easily been one of them bits hanging up on the branches.

  ‘Amazing what a rest and a bit of tucker does, we’re feeling not too bad. We march on into the night and halt about a mile from the rubber plantations which are about four miles from the bridge at Parit Sulong where we’ll join up with the Norfolks.

  ‘As there’s fairly good cover in the rubber, our aim is to occupy it before dawn. Anderson gets the bad news, the Norfolks have withdrawn, they haven’t received any supplies for two days and they’ve been cut off. They’ve abandoned the bridge and the Japs now hold both. We’re back up shit creek.

  ‘It’s the twenty-first of January, my birthday and I’d been hoping to celebrate it by having a good night’s sleep when we got to Parit Sulong. It would’ve been the best birthday present anyone could have given me, no risk.

  ‘Instead, we meet the fiercest resistance yet. We get to within about six hundred yards of Parit Sulong village. We mount attack after attack but there’s a solid rain of lead coming back at us. The Japs have turned some of the more solid houses in the village into machine-gun nests and they’re hitting us from everywhere. They own the high ground on the bridge beyond and their main force is safe from attack on the other side and there’s no chance to get at them with bayonet and grenades and they’re too well entrenched for mortar or our artillery to do much good. We, on the other hand, are sitting ducks. We have to somehow break through, the Japs are behind us and in front of us and they’re hitting us from the air, strafing the bejesus out of us. There are men dying everywhere and the condition of the wounded is pitiable. We’ve already lost most of our platoon and I know this is the day I’m gunna die. I can’t stand the idea of dying on me birthday, it’s too bloody neat, born and died on the same day, there’s never been a Maloney got things done that neat before!’

  I laugh at this, Tommy can be a funny bugger when he gets going.

  ‘By now the Japs are having a go at us from the rear as well, we’re the meat in the Japanese sandwich and it’s only a matter of time. We can’t fight them from both ends of the column and our flanks are exposed. Every man is put to fighting, the truck drivers, those not too badly wounded, we reduce the gun crews where we can and use the gunners to fight on our flanks.

  ‘The wounded and dead are piling up. Anderson decides to move two ambulances containing the hopelessly wounded out so they can get treatment, or at the very
least morphine to put them out of their misery as our own supplies are long used up. He sends a deputation with a flag of truce and the two ambulances up to the bridge and asks the Japs for safe passage for his wounded. “No way!” say the Japs, “You’ve got to surrender first.”

  ‘But Anderson won’t. “Okay,” say the Japs, “then piss off and let’s get on with the stoush, but leave the ambulances where they are. Try to move them back, we’ll machine-gun them.”

  ‘So we go back to fighting, leaving the two ambulances containing the worst-wounded men, with the poor bastards inside them dying without help. The Japs send in tanks in the afternoon. They should’ve learned by now, tanks is the one thing we can still do well. The enemy bring their tanks up at night but we stop the leading tank in its tracks with hand grenades and anti-tank guns. The others are blocked and can’t get past. The fighting goes all night and once it passes midnight, I give a sigh of relief, I ain’t gunna die on me birthday.

  ‘During the night a Lieutenant Austin, who’s with the two ambulances and is gravely wounded in the neck, him and a wounded driver release the handbrakes and under cover of darkness roll the ambulances backwards from the bridge. When they get to the bottom of the slope, they start the engines, which can’t be heard in the din of the battle and drive them back to our lines.

  ‘I reckon the Japs have got to be really pissed off. As long as them ambulances are there, we’re not going to be firing at their men on the bridge in case we hit our own. I reckon they should have given Austin and the driver a couple of VCs.’

  I laugh to myself, the old Tommy is fond of handing out VCs but I reckon the top brass wouldn’t be quite so generous.

  ‘Mate, they’re slaughtering us and we know it’s only a matter of time. Anderson sends a message to Bennett, asking if an aircraft could be used to bomb the approaches to the bridge at dawn and, at the same time, drop food and morphine as we’re just about out of rations and the wounded are suffering something terrible and need the morphia real bad.