by Ian Blake
Davy ordered the clutch to be briefly engaged and the ML slid towards the tree.
‘Slow astern.’
When the ship had lost all way but before it could start drifting, its anchor was let go and the chain rattled noisily in the hawse-pipe. The anchor dropped into the murky water with a loud splash.
‘I want two warps ashore as well.’
The rubber dinghy was launched and the warps secured to the nearest trees. A silence settled on the chaung.
‘Let’s get those cockles in the water,’ said Tiller quietly to his men, and the three Mk II canoes were slipped over the side.
Tiller had taken a trace of the chaung and the surrounding area from Davy’s chart, and he now showed this to Sandy and Dopey before they started off.
‘I reckon it’s not more than about four hours’ paddling,’ he said, indicating the way up the chaung with a pencil. ‘We’ll lie up at dawn around here. I’ll lead and take Mr Coates with me. Sandy, you have Tiny, as you’re number two and take up the rear.’
Tiny Joad, the fourth member of the SBS patrol, was a tough, six-foot-two guardsman with a liking for unarmed combat.
‘Dopey, you follow me in the spare cockle with the stores.’
In turn, they descended the rope ladder and dropped expertly into the cockles’ circular cockpits and then, with brisk strokes of the double paddles, made for the middle of the chaung. When all three were assembled there they formed line astern and began the long trek up the waterway.
The darkness was intense and the black tangle of the mangrove swamps which lined both sides of the murky water seemed to close in on them the further upstream they went.
‘Watch out for crocodiles,’ said Coates in Tiller’s ear. ‘They’re shy creatures, but it’s best to avoid hitting any if you can.’
From the way Coates spoke Tiller felt that he was enjoying himself hugely. The older man certainly had no trouble keeping up with Tiller’s rate of paddling.
‘Are any of them man-eaters?’ Tiller asked over his shoulder, half in jest.
‘Certainly,’ came the terse reply. ‘And the biggest ones around here can grow up to thirty feet long.’
It struck Tiller then that Sandy was right: disease, the monsoon and mother nature, as he so quaintly called it, were far bigger hazards than the Japanese. At Cox’s Bazar all new arrivals were lectured by the chief medical officer. Besides warning of the dire consequences of malaria if Mepacrine was not taken daily, he had listed some of the more common medical problems, explaining their symptoms and their effects. Tiller could only remember some of them, but dengue fever and the ulcers that developed from any sort of open wound stuck in his memory as having particularly unpleasant consequences. And there was also something called the mango fly, the medical officer had added, which liked to lay its eggs under your eyelids.
‘Our main problem won’t be the crocs,’ said Coates, cutting across Tiller’s thoughts. ‘It’ll be getting over that jungle-covered ridge that divides this chaung from Apaukwa.’
They paddled until dawn and then rafted up under a large arch of undergrowth which hung over the syrupy black water. At daylight Tiller and Coates splashed through the mud of the mangrove swamp and on to firmer ground.
‘We can either cut across to the ridge from here,’ said Coates, ‘or go further up the chaung in the cockles.’
They studied the tracing from the chart and calculated the quickest way was overland, as the chaung swung away from the ridge before returning and running alongside it.
‘The first bit will be the easiest,’ said Coates, surveying the land in front of them. ‘It’s drier than I thought it would be.’
They decided to start immediately, and to take Sandy with them. The other two would wait with the cockles. If the trio did not return within twenty-four hours then the other two would make the reconnaissance before returning to the ML.
They skirted some paddy-fields, wet underfoot, and then gained higher ground, where the sun slanted through a mixture of teak and cedar trees. Then the going became more difficult, for the undergrowth was a mass of knotted bamboo canes and elephant grass, and they took it in turns to lead the way.
The heat and humidity, and the exertion of cutting their way through the undergrowth with their kukris – the traditional curved knives carried by the Gurkhas – left the two SBS men drenched in sweat and gasping for breath. The forester, quite unperturbed, moved forward at a steady pace, chopping rhythmically at the undergrowth. Once a wild pig almost ran through Tiller’s legs in fright, but otherwise they saw and heard only the occasional bird and the incessant chattering of monkeys swinging in the trees above. In the jungle, Coates told them, you had to stay dead still to see what was there around you.
Soon the scattering of trees quickly gave way to more open country and they could see the ridge above them. They rested for an hour and brewed some tea on the small Primus Tiller carried.
When Tiller had difficulty in lighting a match Sandy said: ‘With Indian matches eight things can happen. They light: highly unusual. The head breaks off. There is no head. The stick breaks in half. The head ignites and the flame runs straight up the stick and burns your fingers. The head ignites but the flame goes out at once. The head splutters and is consumed without there being any flame. The head flies off, alight, and burns either you or your clothes.’
After all these things had happened, some more than once, Tiller managed to get a match to light properly and they had their tea. But as they started towards the ridge the rain swept down on them, drenching them to the skin, and the jungle closed in on them once more. When the rain stopped the ground steamed like a cauldron.
It was late afternoon by the time they reached the top of the ridge and were able to look down on the bashas of the township that were dotted across the open plain below them. Most of them were huddled near a bamboo bridge which spanned a chaung. In the chaung were a number of sampans tied up alongside a jetty. One was being unloaded with rice by a group of natives watched by several Japanese soldiers. There was also a group of bashas around the sole stone building, which was directly below them.
‘A school?’ Tiller asked.
‘Missionary church, more likely,’ Coates replied. ‘The Japs will have taken it over.’
They counted the military traffic that crossed the bridge and noted the different types of vehicles. The track leading to and from it seemed to have been heavily used. It ran, a winding red scar, towards the Yomas. The church seemed to be a headquarters of some kind, for the drivers of both convoys and individual vehicles always stopped and entered it before proceeding.
‘Looks a worthwhile target,’ said Coates, scribbling in his notebook. ‘The RAF will want to know about it.’
Towards dusk natives began to return from the fields. Several hung on to the back of a full-grown elephant while others were crowded into a bullock cart. They streamed across the bridge and disappeared into the bashas. By now the sampan had been unloaded and replaced by another. The labourers were still at work removing the bags of rice from it when the darkness swallowed them up.
‘Where do we think is the best place to pick up a prisoner?’ Tiller asked the others. They were back behind the highest part of the ridge and were brewing water for their K-rations.
‘What about the Japs watching the rice being unloaded?’ Sandy suggested. ‘It wouldn’t be too much of a problem to snaffle one of them.’
‘Or snatch someone who comes out of that headquarters,’ Tiller said. ‘You might get someone useful.’
‘There’s a storm drain which runs right by it,’ added Coates. ‘It would not be difficult to approach.’
‘You want to come, Dick?’ Tiller asked Coates, using the forester’s Christian name for the first time. Coates allowed the question to hang in the air for a moment, and then shrugged. ‘You’re the boss, Sergeant, but I could be useful.’
They ate their K-rations in silence. Sandy, in an attempt to break the monotony of their taste, heated al
l his together: coffee, powdered milk, fruit bar, compressed dried ham and egg.
‘What’s it taste like?’ Tiller asked.
‘Same as usual,’ Sandy answered gloomily.
They decided that the time to strike would be soon after midnight. This would give them plenty of time to regain the ridge in the darkness while giving them daylight to find their way back to the canoes. They found a comparatively dry spot in which to shelter, but when they could not sleep Coates explained to them how elephants were captured and tamed.
‘It’s done by experts who are licensed by the government to capture elephants within a given area of, say, a thousand square miles,’ he said. ‘An area that size is worked over for about three years and then is left alone for another six. When a wild herd is found a stockade is built and the licensees’ workers – usually Karens, who are the most skilled – drive the herd towards it. It’s done at night, as the elephants are less likely to stampede then. Also, they can’t see the stockade until it is too late. Even so, quite a proportion of a herd usually escapes being trapped. Those that are trapped are removed into training cages as quickly as possible.’
‘How the hell is that done?’ Tiller asked. He couldn’t see how you could move an elephant anywhere it did not want to go.
‘They move them with ropes which they put around their legs and heads,’ Coates replied. ‘It’s quite marvellous to watch and requires tremendous skill and courage. Once the elephant’s in the cage it’s allotted two keepers, who feed it by hand, tend to its wounds and sleep by it. Within days, if the keepers are any good, they are on friendly terms with the animal and it is then allowed out of the cage and tethered to a tree. As it grows tamer so it is allowed more freedom. They’re basically very docile, affectionate creatures. But the licensees only take young elephants, those under seven feet in height. The older ones, say over eight feet, can’t take the shock of capture and often die.’
‘Is it true an elephant never forgets?’ Sandy asked.
‘It’s true,’ said Coates.
* * *
At midnight they slipped down the ridge, along the storm drain, and into the township. The bashas were all in darkness but a light burnt in the stone building. Outside it two Japanese soldiers stood by the door. Their bayonets – extraordinarily long and clumsy by British standards – were fixed to their rifles, which were slung over their shoulders. They acted as if they were a long way behind the front line and did not seem particularly alert.
‘What do you think?’ Tiller whispered to Coates. He had become accustomed to consulting the older man.
Coates shook his head. ‘We’d have to take both and they’d soon be missed.’
Tiller nodded his agreement. They waited for someone to come out of the building but no one did. After half an hour they gave up.
‘There must be garrison troops,’ Tiller said. ‘Let’s scout around.’
They skirted the stone building and soon came upon a small encampment of Japanese army tents which they would not have been able to see from the ridge. They were considering what to do next when the problem was solved for them. A Japanese, dressed only in his underpants, staggered out of the nearest tent and made for the bushes where they were crouching. He had obviously had too much sake, for he was unsteady on his feet. A stream of urine splashed noisily on to the ground and the man grunted with relief. As he turned, hitching up his pants, Sandy’s cosh felled him. He pitched forward without a sound and they dragged him into the bushes and then tied his hands and legs and gagged him. He was a small man, light-boned.
Tiller and Sandy took it in turns to carry him to the bottom of the ridge, where they constructed a crude litter to carry him up to the top. Once they were beyond its crest they put their prisoner on the ground. He had already shown signs of coming round and after a couple of minutes he opened his eyes. At first he started up uncomprehendingly, then terror flooded into his face and he struggled violently to free himself. Coates put a restraining boot on his shoulder and then bent down and spoke to him haltingly in Japanese. Gradually, the man’s terror turned to bewilderment and he stopped struggling. Coates took out a knife and cut the rope binding the man’s legs, allowing him to stagger to his feet.
‘He won’t cause any problem,’ Coates said, snapping the blade of his knife closed. ‘I’ve told him if he does, I’ll put this knife between his ribs.’
As daylight broke behind them they began making their way back to the waiting canoes. It took much of the day, for the Japanese, though he was wearing sandals, found it hard to keep up. At midday they rested for an hour, ate cold rice they had brought with them, and brewed tea. They loosened the prisoner’s gag and gave him a couple of handfuls of rice and half a mug of tea. If he was grateful, he didn’t show it and Tiller had no compunction in putting the gag back in position as soon as he had finished.
‘Do we know who or what he is?’ he asked Coates.
‘A lance-corporal in their Signals Corps,’ the forester replied. ‘Could be very useful to us, but my Japanese isn’t good enough to interrogate him properly.’
They were sitting under a palm tree in a small clearing. Tiller loosened his boots and leant back on his elbows. ‘Five minutes, you two. Then we must get going.’
The heat and the tension of the patrol made his body heavy with exhaustion. His eyelids flickered and closed, and he felt the back of his head rest on the earth. The world seemed suspended in sleep when from a distance he heard Coates say very decisively: ‘Don’t move, Sergeant. Stay quite still,’ and the swish of the forester’s kukri as it passed by his head.
Tiller rolled and was on his feet in an instant, his hands grappling for his carbine. Coates sheathed his kukri calmly and stepped behind him. Something was writhing in the long grass, but Tiller couldn’t see what exactly until the forester picked it up and dangled it in front of him. It was the headless remains of a snake about four feet long.
‘A Russell’s viper,’ Coates informed him. ‘I don’t suppose it was doing anything other than going about its business. But if you’d moved you could have frightened it and it might have struck.’
Tiller stared in fascination at the still-writhing body. ‘Poisonous?’
‘Very,’ said Coates calmly. ‘If it bit you on an outer extremity I dare say I could have saved you. You’d have had no chance, though, if it had struck your head.’
‘Well, thanks,’ Tiller muttered.
Coates found the severed head with its distinctive ‘V’ and picked it up. He carefully inserted the blade of his pocket knife into the snake’s mouth and pressed on the sac of poison, which dribbled from the creature’s forked tongue.
‘Fascinating to think that such a small amount of liquid can kill a healthy man in half a minute,’ he said. He threw the head into the undergrowth. ‘We should really keep the body. Cooked in herbs, it makes a very tasty dish.’
‘Don’t bother,’ said Tiller.
They reached the canoes in the late afternoon and at dusk they began the return journey to the ML with their prisoner jammed into the front cockpit of the spare cockle.
The ML merged so well with its surroundings in the dark that they were almost past it before they saw it. Willing hands helped them aboard and the Japanese was hustled below. The canoes were then hauled on to the deck and stowed, the mooring warps were released and hauled in, the anchor was weighed, and Davy edged the ML carefully into the middle of the chaung.
‘We’re going to have to keep going when it gets light,’ he said to Tiller. ‘I’d prefer to do that than risk passing through the estuary in daylight, as the Jap sea patrols are bound to spot us and they might be able to call on some Bettys to help them.’
‘Bettys?’ Tiller queried.
‘The Japanese Navy’s Mitsubishi light bomber. No one could pronounce the names of some of these Jap machines, so they’ve all been given code-names. Anyway, let’s just hope it’s raining by daylight so there’s low visibility over the river.’
But dawn broke fi
ne and clear – one of those sparkling days that occasionally occurred, so Coates said, before the monsoon set in properly – and around mid-morning, with the ML moving at near maximum speed, the stern lookout shouted: ‘Aircraft approaching, sir.’
Davy swung round, focused his binoculars on the two fast-approaching dots, and pressed the knob which sounded the klaxon for action stations. The aircraft were still too far away to be identified but they were flying wing-tip straight down the river towards the ML.
‘They must be Japs,’ Davy said to Tiller, who had scrambled on to the bridge with his carbine when the klaxon had sounded. ‘No Allied aircraft would fly that low over Jap-held territory.’
The pilots had seen the ML, for they banked in opposite directions. Their outlines now made them easy to identify and the red Japanese roundels on the underside of their wings could be plainly seen.
‘Zeros, sir,’ the lookout in the stern yelled excitedly.
‘Shit,’ said Davy. He had hoped they would come straight at the ML together. By approaching from separate directions they would split his fire-power. Nearly all the Japanese Navy’s experienced pilots had long since been lost in the great Pacific naval battles but their tactics showed that the two now manoeuvring to attack him were not novices.
‘Hoist the battle ensign,’ he shouted, and the white ensign of the Royal Navy was quickly raised on the short mast abaft the bridge. Davy then allotted his armament their targets and said to Tiller: ‘You’re better off below. An M2 isn’t much use against a Zero flying at 400mph.’
‘You’re going to need every bullet in the air that you can manage,’ Tiller retorted.
Davy shrugged. ‘Please yourself. Here’s a spare tin helmet. Not that it’ll do you much good.’
By now the two fighters were about a mile off on either quarter and once abreast of the ML they changed course for it. The whine of their engines filled the air as they dipped their noses towards their target. Davy waited and then shouted into the voice pipe: ‘Full ahead, give her everything she’s got.’
