‘The sodding bastard!’ Torrance went out on to the platform. Leaving the others to hold the Japanese off, he hurled himself down the tracks after Campbell, sprinting across the sleepers between the gleaming rails. The iron trellises of the bridge were less than two hundred yards away. Twenty yards wide, the river below was in full spate.
He had almost reached the bridge. He could see Campbell on the far bank, talking to someone in a tin hat, someone who appeared to be pulling a cork out of a bottle. Was it a bottle? At that distance, Torrance could not quite make it out in the gloom. No, it was a box… a box with a plunger sticking out of the top.
‘Don’t blow the bridge!’ Still running, Torrance waved his hands above his head and yelled at the top of his lungs. ‘Wait for me!’
A dazzling flash like sheet lightning blinded him. A deafening roar hammered his ears and great clouds of smoke erupted from under the bridge. The central span plunged into the river below, sending up huge curtains of water on either side. A wall of hot air slammed into Torrance, knocking him on his backside.
He sat there, dazed, gaping up at the vast cloud of smoke and dust which now enveloped the bridge like a genie released from its bottle, then twisted away with his arms folded over his head as bits of debris rained down all around him. Every time he thought there were no more pieces left to fall, and was about to remove his arms and look up, another would crash to the ground close enough to make him flinch. He knew what would happen, he had seen it too many times in Laurel and Hardy films: convinced there were no more bricks left to fall on his head, Ollie would look up, and in that moment a final brick would hit him right on the nose.
When thirty seconds passed without any more debris thumping down, Torrance moved his arms just enough to peep out from under them, still not entirely convinced that God did not share Hal Roach’s sadistic sense of humour. No bricks landed on his nose. The cloud of smoke and dust dispersed to reveal the bridge, or at least what was left of it. Picking himself up, he staggered across to where the iron rails now projected into space, their ends charred and twisted.
‘Oh, bollocks!’
Seven
Torrance gazed across the river. There was no sign of the sapper who had blown the bridge, just Campbell lingering beneath the trees. Was it Torrance’s imagination, or did the corporal smirk when he saw Torrance standing over the wrecked bridge?
‘Soupy, you bastard! I’m gonna rip your bloody pancreas out!’
Campbell touched two fingers to his balmoral in a mocking salute, then stepped back into the jungle crowding the far bank and disappeared, leaving only a couple of swaying fronds to show he had ever been there at all.
Kerr, Grant, MacLeod and Rossi joined Torrance at the end of the embankment. The five of them gazed mournfully down to where the turbid waters surged over the tangle of girders in the twilight.
‘Where’s Campbell?’ asked Kerr. ‘Did he make it across?’
‘Yeah, he made it,’ said Torrance. ‘Who d’you think told the sappers to blow the bridge before we could cross?’
‘Now what do—?’ began MacLeod.
Rifles cracked from the railway station, and bullets soughed in their direction.
‘Run.’ Torrance was already scrambling down the side of the embankment. ‘Run like the clappers!’
Torrance picked his way cautiously down the steep, grassy slope, then slid down on his backside when he realised he would move faster that way. The others followed his lead. At the foot of the embankment, a path ran along the riverbank, and Torrance sprinted along it: there was nowhere else to go. The others followed him through the twilight, boots clumping on the gravelly track. Bullets continued to fly over their heads until they had run under a tree on the riverbank. By the time the Japanese had scrambled to the foot of the embankment and had a clear shot at them, Torrance and his companions were a furlong away. The river curved to the north, then snaked around to the south, and the bullets stopped coming when they were hidden from their pursuers’ sight. Torrance kept running: he could not imagine the Japanese would give up that easily. He and his companions had to get around the next bend in the river before the Japanese got around this one; and then stay one bend ahead at all times.
There was no moon over Malaya that night, but thanks to a clear sky the stars provided just enough light to stop them from veering off the track and stumbling into the river. Sooner or later, Torrance reasoned, there had to be another bridge. Or better yet a boat, which would preclude the possibility of any further pursuit by the Japanese.
They pounded on. Torrance’s lungs burned, he could taste blood in his spit, and his straining muscles protested, but he ignored them all. His webbing chafed him where it rubbed against his sweat-soaked khaki-drills, clammy now the heat of the day had surrendered to the cool of the night. How long they ran, how much ground they covered, he could not say; he was only aware of the stomach-churning fear that drove him on. The rubber trees came to an end and they moved on with the river on one side and thick jungle on the other.
Sobbing for breath, Torrance paused, bent over with his hands on his knees as he gasped the cool night air into his lungs, giving the others a chance to catch up.
‘This is your bloody fault,’ he panted at Rossi.
‘Mine! How d’you work that out?’
‘Soupy fixed this deliberately so we’d be stranded on the wrong side of the river. Now he doesn’t have to worry about being court-martialled for shooting that old Chinese feller.’
‘I can see why he’d want to leave you and Lefty stranded on the wrong side of the river,’ said Kerr. ‘But what did Titch, Jimmy and me ever do to harm him?’
‘You think he gives a toss about you?’ said Torrance. ‘You think he gives a toss about anyone but himself? He’d sell the whole bloody battalion down the river to save his neck.’
‘As if you widna do the same if you were in Soupy’s shoes!’ said Rossi.
‘I wouldn’t be in Soupy’s shoes because I don’t go round bumping off harmless old Chinese men!’ Torrance snapped back. ‘The bloody sod! When I catch up with him, I’m gonna rip his bleedin’ heart out!’
‘You can get in the queue behind me,’ said Grant.
‘Let’s no’ count our chickens before they’re hatched,’ said Rossi. ‘Nobody’s gaunae rip anyone’s heart out if we don’t find a way back to our mob. Does anybody know where we go frae here?’
‘Hang on a mo’, I’ll take a dekko.’ Torrance rummaged through the map case.
‘Where did you get those things?’ demanded Kerr.
‘Found ’em.’
‘What, just lying there?’
‘The bloke I took ’em off didn’t have any further use for them.’
‘You’d better let me have them.’
‘What for?’ asked Torrance. ‘You can’t read maps. Come to think of it, I’d be surprised to learn you can read at all.’
‘He can read.’ Rossi came to Kerr’s defence. ‘I remember seein’ him readin’ the Wizard once. His lips was movin’, but he was definitely readin’ it.’
Kerr scowled. ‘I can read maps. Give ’em here.’
Torrance handed over the field glasses and the map case. The lance corporal looped the former around his neck and fixed the latter to his belt. ‘I’m in charge now.’
Torrance glanced at Rossi. ‘He’s in charge?’
‘I’m the one wi’ the stripe,’ Kerr said smugly.
Rossi shrugged and grimaced.
‘We’re trained for this,’ said Kerr. He sounded as though he was trying to reassure himself as much as any of the four men with him. ‘There’s five of us, so we act as if we’re on a tiger patrol. We’ve all been on tiger patrols.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ said Torrance. ‘The only tiger patrol you were ever on was on manoeuvres last July, and as I recollect you made such a bollocks of it, you ended up getting stranded on a mud-bank in the middle of a river and had to be rescued by a party of Malay schoolgirls.’
‘What’s a t
iger patrol?’ asked MacLeod.
‘Five-man patrol to aggressively make contact with the enemy,’ said Torrance, ‘which, incidentally, is the one thing we want to avoid doing, if we’re gonna get out of this alive. But don’t you worry. Just stick by me and do as I tell you, and you’ll be all right.’
Kerr took a map from the case and tried to study it by the light of a torch. ‘This print’s too wee to read. Show us where we are, Slugger.’
Torrance pointed to a spot on the map. ‘There.’
‘Where?’
‘Right there. Where it says “Shit Creek”.’
* * *
‘Azure Dragon calling White Tiger, are you receiving? Come in, White Tiger.’ Hunched over the wireless in the back of the Humber, Ogata continued broadcasting to the aether. Mitsumoto glanced at his watch: more than an hour had passed since White Tiger’s latest report was due.
Something had gone wrong, that much was obvious. Of course, there were any number of reasons why White Tiger had not called in. It did not necessarily mean he had failed in his mission. But if he had failed, then so too had Mitsumoto, and if that was the case then Baron Uchida would expect him to atone for his failure with seppuku just Captain Fujita had.
‘This is Azure Dragon,’ said Ogata. ‘Identify yourself…if you don’t know who “Azure Dragon” is, then it’s probably none of your business…one moment, please.’ Ogata twisted in his seat to address Mitsumoto. ‘There is a Major Kozuki on the radio, captain-sama.’
‘I don’t know any Major Kozuki.’
‘He says he has White Tiger.’
‘Chikusho!’
Mitsumoto climbed in the back of the truck, put on the headphones and picked up the microphone. ‘This is Azure Dragon.’
‘This is Major Kozuki of the Forty-Second Infantry Regiment. I have someone calling himself White Tiger and asking to speak to Azure Dragon. What unit are you?’
‘U-Kikan. Let me speak to White Tiger.’
There was a pause, and Ziegler’s voice came over the airwaves. ‘This is White Tiger speaking,’ he said in English, the only language he and Mitsumoto spoke in common.
‘White Tiger, this is Azure Dragon.’ Mitsumoto mopped sweat from the back of his neck with a wadded handkerchief and reflected that at that time of year there would almost certainly be several feet of snow on the ground where he had grown up on the Oga Peninsula. ‘Have you located the aeroplane?’
‘Yes, captain-sama.’
‘You have the survey?’
‘A squad of Britisher Tommies got there before me. One of them took it.’
‘Were they sent by Colonel Hammond?’
‘No, captain-sama. I believe their discovery was purely happenstance.’
‘Nevertheless, the survey is now in the hands of the British.’
‘But not yet necessarily beyond our grasp. These Tommies were making for the railway bridge across the Slim River, but it was blown up before they could cross. If we move swiftly, I believe we can still track them down and retrieve the survey before they can rejoin their own unit.’
‘Let me speak to Major Kozuki again.’
There was another pause before the major’s voice came back. ‘Kozuki here.’
‘I confirm White Tiger is one of our agents. Please let me know which coordinates we can collect him from…?’
‘Two-seven-seven, seven-nine-zero.’
Mitsumoto made a note of that, then took a map from his map case. The British had not only charted nearly all of Malaya but had also published the maps. The Japanese had purchased them and reprinted them with translations of the writing in Japanese kanji overprinted on them in red. They had proved extremely useful in the invasion.
Mitsumoto’s fingertip traced the coordinates Kozuki had given him. They led him to the Slim River station, just a few miles from where he and his men now waited on a rubber plantation. ‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ he told Kozuki. ‘Signing off.’
A few minutes later, the Humber pulled up outside the Slim River railway station. Mitsumoto and Ishikawa had scarcely got out of the cab and slammed the doors before a major of the Japanese infantry emerged from the station building with Ziegler, flanked by two guards.
Mitsumoto exchanged bows with the major, who bowed even lower a second time when Mitsumoto flashed his credentials.
‘This is your agent?’ Major Kozuki gestured to Ziegler.
‘That is my agent,’ confirmed Mitsumoto. ‘Thank you. I will praise your cooperative behaviour in my final report to Baron Uchida.’
Kozuki bowed again. ‘Thank you, captain-sama!’
Mitsumoto turned to Ziegler, who clicked the heels of his boots together and threw his arm up in a Nazi salute. Mitsumoto responded by slapping him across the face, hard enough to cause a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. Ziegler nevertheless continued to stand rigidly to attention.
‘Incompetent buffoon! If I had blundered as you have, I would commit seppuku!’ Mitsumoto handed the German a Japanese field cap and a U-Kikan armband. ‘Which way did these half-a-dozen British soldiers go?’
Ziegler put on the cap and pointed past the railway station. ‘They ran down to the river and along the bank, captain-sama. Major Kozuki’s men pursued them a couple of kilometres downstream, but had no orders to chase them any further, so they let them go.’
‘Chikusho!’ Mitsumoto produced a map and spread it on the Humber’s bonnet. He studied it by the light of a torch for a few seconds. ‘The other British troops who fled from here crossed the river at the railway bridge?’
‘Yes, captain-sama,’ said Kozuki.
‘It was blown up in the faces of the men with the survey,’ said Ziegler.
‘Then the survivors of the British Eleventh Division will be retreating along the railway line to Tanjong Malim.’ Mitsumoto tapped the map. ‘There is a footbridge here; no doubt our friends with the survey will cross the Slim River there, if they have not already done so. But the Slim is a tributary of the Bernam River; so even if they do cross the footbridge, they will still be on the wrong side of the Bernam. You are right, sergeant – there is still a good chance of catching them.’ He turned to Kozuki. ‘Major-san, I require a platoon of your infantrymen.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then you will have to explain your failure to co-operate with the Kenpeitai to Baron Uchida.’
Blanching, Kozuki turned to one of his subordinates. ‘Tell Ryuzoji he and his men are under Captain Mitsumoto’s command until further notice.’
Eight
‘Is it me, or are we gaun round in circles?’ muttered Rossi.
‘No use talking to me, mate.’ Torrance nodded to where Kerr studied a map with his brows knitted in an expression of furious concentration, the tip of his tongue protruding between his teeth. ‘He’s the one in command.’
After an uncomfortable night spent sleeping on their groundsheets, they had been marching through the jungle since dawn, Kerr leading the way, hacking at the foliage with his parang. Now they found their path barred by a broad expanse of swamp. Choked with reeds where huge, iridescent dragonflies darted to and fro in search of prey, the morass stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. Half a mile away, a dark-green band of jungle betrayed the presence of firmer ground.
‘We’re gaunae die out here, are we no’?’ said MacLeod.
‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head over that,’ said Torrance. ‘Lefty, Titch and me have done months of bush training. We can survive in the jungle for weeks. Ain’t that right, Lefty?’
Rossi grimaced. ‘In theory.’
‘Has Corporal Kerr no’ been on the same training?’ asked MacLeod.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Torrance. ‘But what you have to remember is that Primsie labours under a disadvantage when it comes to surviving in the jungle – he’s a bleedin’ idiot.’ Torrance called across to Kerr: ‘Oi! Hawkeye! You know you’ve got that map upside down, don’t you?’
The lance corporal s
cowled. ‘Aye, I’m no’ a complete chump…’
‘No, just nine-tenths of one,’ muttered Torrance.
‘…I’m lining up the map with the terrain, see? We’re headed south, so the bottom of the map needs to be at the top.’
‘Oh, we’re headed south, are we? Could’ve fooled me.’
‘And what would you know about it?’
‘I know that at noon the shadows should point north, and it’s practically noon now.’
‘Aye, well, that shows how little you know, doesn’t it? ’Cause what you’re forgettin’ is that we’re in the Tropics. You canna go by the shadows in the Tropics.’
‘Well… you can in winter,’ MacLeod piped up. ‘Actually, you can in summer, too. You’ve just got to remember that in summer, the shadows will be pointing south at noon. But it’s winter-time now, so the shadows will point north.’
‘Dinna talk daft!’ said Kerr. ‘There’s no summer or winter in the Tropics. You’ve just got the monsoons.’
‘That’s the climate you’re talking about, Primsie!’ said Rossi. ‘You canna have the earth’s axis tilting one way for people in the temperate zone, and tilting a completely different way at the same time for people in the Tropics.’
Judging from Kerr’s expression of complete befuddlement, this was double Dutch to him.
‘Oh, for cryin’ out loud!’ said Torrance. ‘Look, never mind the earth’s bleedin’ axis. Just take our word for it, that’s south.’ He pointed across the swamp.
Frowning with suspicion, Kerr glanced at Grant, Rossi and MacLeod for confirmation, as if he feared Torrance might be trying to trick him. All three of them nodded.
‘All right,’ said Kerr. ‘Have it your way. But dinna blame me if we get lost!’
‘Do you even know where you’re going?’ asked Torrance.
‘You know the drill, Slugger. If we get separated from the rest of our mob, we’re to regroup at the next settlement a day’s march to the south. It’s easy enough in theory. The only problem is, there isn’t another settlement a day’s march south of the Slim River.’
The Name of Valour Page 8