The Name of Valour

by The Name of Valour (retail) (epub)

  ‘Right! Follow me, men. Those reeds should give us some cover. On my word… go!’

  They tumbled down the side of the embankment to the marshes below, wading through banks of rushes that towered high above their heads. Occasionally bullets whipped through the reeds, and even more occasionally someone cried out in shock as a bullet tore through his flesh, but it was obvious the Japanese were firing blind.

  Only when the Australians emerged from the swamp at the foot of the ridge did the bullets coming down through the trees start to tell again. Kerr shrieked and collapsed. Torrance and Rossi grabbed by him the braces of his webbing and dragged him into cover behind a fallen, rotting tree trunk.

  Kerr clutched at where blood spurted from a wound in his thigh. ‘Aw, Jeez! I’m goin’ to bleed to death!’

  ‘Looks like an artery’s cut.’ Taking out his flick knife, Torrance cut through Kerr’s webbing straps, using one of them to fashion a tourniquet. It stopped the blood from spurting, at least. ‘We’ve got to get him to the MO.’

  Rossi gazed back across thirty yards of open ground between the log they lay behind and the cover of the reeds, every inch of it swept by machine-gun fire. ‘And how are we gaunae do that?’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Torrance. ‘Not till someone does something about that machine gun up there.’

  Crouching behind the same trunk a little further along, Florrie Ford took a grenade from a pocket and pulled the pin. As he rose on his knees from behind the log to lob it, however, the machine gun sang out again. Ford shuddered as bullets tore through his torso, and sprawled on his back, the grenade rolling from his lifeless fingers. Torrance, Rossi, MacLeod and Kerr pressed themselves into the ground, arms folded over the backs of their heads. As the grenade exploded, Torrance felt a breath of hot, jagged air scrape across the backs of his hands, but nothing worse. He glanced across at Ford. The Australian’s head was missing.

  Rossi nudged him and nodded to where two figures in Brodie helmets crept up through the trees perhaps fifty yards to their right. Torrance recognised one of them as Colonel Anderson, creeping stealthily from tree to tree with his Webley in his fist.

  ‘Let’s give him some covering fire.’ Torrance levelled his Thompson over the trunk and fired a couple of bursts towards the machine-gun nest above, before ducking down again. The Japanese responded with a prolonged burst that ripped the moss off the top of the rotting log. But now Venables was advancing on their left with Quinn, Payne and Hubbard. Taking turns to give one another covering fire, they dashed to new positions twenty yards closer to the machine gun, taking cover behind standing trees.

  Anderson and his companion were less than forty yards from the machine-gun nest, crawling on their stomachs Apache fashion. A head wearing a Japanese field cap bobbed up behind another fallen tree. Anderson’s companion levelled his rifle.

  ‘Mine, Donnelly!’ Torrance heard Anderson shout, like a player at tennis doubles racing to return a volley. The Webley barked in his fist, and the Japanese fell back out of sight. Holstering the revolver, Anderson pulled a pin from a grenade, counted off the seconds, and lobbed it into the machine-gun nest. There was an explosion amongst the trees and a truncated shriek of agony. Venables and his men charged the last few yards, blazing away with Thompsons and rifles.

  After a few seconds’ silence, a call came from the crest of the ridge. ‘All clear!’

  The Australians pinned further down the slope cheered.

  Torrance nudged Rossi and indicated Kerr. ‘Let’s get him to the doc.’

  They carried Kerr back through the marshes to the road. Sheridan sat in the back of a lorry, bathing an injured man’s forehead with a damp cloth. Further back, a medical orderly sat next to Grant, feeding him from a tin of bully beef. Grant did not even acknowledge the orderly, staring unseeing at the canvas opposite, his jaw working mechanically as each spoonful was put in his mouth. When some drool ran down his chin, the orderly mopped it away with a rag.

  Leaving Rossi and MacLeod to support Kerr propped against the back of the lorry, Torrance clambered over the tailgate before turning to grasp the lance corporal under the armpits and lift him up. ‘Another one for you, doc.’

  ‘Aw, Jeez!’ yelled Kerr. ‘Mind my leg!’

  ‘Oh, stop moaning, you big baby!’ Torrance lowered him to the floor. ‘Maybe give him a shot of morphine, eh, doc?’

  ‘There’s none left,’ she replied.

  Torrance glanced at Grant. ‘How are you feeling, Titch?’

  Grant did not even glance in his direction. ‘He’s not said a word since he regained consciousness yesterday,’ said Sheridan.

  Torrance felt sick. ‘Did I do that?’

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. He wasn’t exactly compos mentis when you beaned him, don’t forget. He’s retreated into a catatonic state – a symptom of his nervous breakdown, I guess.’

  Torrance looked down at the other wounded men in the back of the lorry. Their complexions had taken on an ashy pallor and their eyes were sunk deep in their skulls. Torrance decided against asking Sheridan if any of them would live; he had a feeling he would not like the answer.

  ‘It’s gonna be all right,’ he announced to the occupants of the lorry in general. ‘We’ve broken through the Jap lines. If everything goes according to Colonel Anderson’s plan, we’ll reach Parit Sulong in the small hours of tomorrow morning. Our lads are waiting for us there – once we get there they’ll whip these boys straight off to the casualty clearing station at Yong Peng.’

  He vaulted back over the tailgate and walked to the head of the convoy with Rossi and MacLeod. ‘D’you believe a word of that bollocks you just told Sheridan?’ asked Rossi.

  ‘Nah, but you gotta say something to keep their spirits up, haven’t you?’

  MacLeod took a long pull at his water bottle.

  ‘Go easy on the ayer, Jimmy,’ said Torrance. ‘We’ve gotta make it last till we reach Parit Sulong – maybe longer, if our lads haven’t brought up any water – and the CSM says a swallow at dusk is worth a bottle at noon. You’ll only sweat it out if you drink it now.’

  MacLeod nodded, replacing the cap of his bottle, and wiped his lips on the back of his hand.

  Torrance’s assessment that they had broken through the Japanese lines turned out to be over-optimistic: shortly after noon the column came across its first roadblock proper, made from tree trunks felled across the road, guarded by machine guns and mortars. The swampy ground on either side made a flanking attack impossible, obliging the Australians to make a frontal assault. A twenty-five-pounder was dragged up and blew a chunk out of the tree trunk, and some Australian gunners armed only with axes charged in to clear away the rest, hacking at logs and Japanese skulls with equal enthusiasm. When the roadblock was cleared and the Japanese either killed or chased into the swamps, the column resumed its advance, pausing at the roadblock only long enough for the Australians to gather the identity tags from the bodies of their fallen comrades.

  The column resumed its agonisingly slow crawl along the road. Night fell, and they trudged on through the darkness. Overhead, the drone of aero-engines still sounded, though with the convoy travelling under blackout conditions they could not have been able to see much.

  Someone swore in the darkness up ahead. ‘What’s wrong?’ demanded an officer.

  ‘It’s the causeway, sir.’

  ‘Have we reached it?’

  ‘That’s just it, sir. It ain’t there.’

  Colonel Anderson came forward to see what the problem was. The causeway was still there, what remained of it, but bomb craters had blown sections out of it, into which the water from the adjoining padi fields had flooded.

  ‘There’s no way we can get the vehicles across in the dark now,’ said a subaltern.

  ‘We can’t very well wait until morning,’ said Anderson. ‘We’ll be sitting ducks for the Jap air force if we try to cross in daylight. Perhaps if we positioned men with torches at each crater…’

  ‘I don�
�t think we have enough torches, sir,’ a subaltern said, practical if not very helpful. ‘Couldn’t we turn the headlights on? Just until we get to the far end of the causeway, I mean.’

  ‘Those Jap planes are still circling overhead by the sound of it. If they see our headlights, I fear the temptation might prove too much for them.’

  Standing nearby, Venables took a drag on a cigarette, the orange glow lighting up the palm of a hand cupped against the night.

  ‘Fags!’ exclaimed Torrance.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Anderson.

  ‘You don’t need torches, sir. You need fags. Station two men along the causeway every few yards, all of them puffing fags. As each vehicle approaches, they take a drag. The drivers will have no problem seeing the glow at a few yards, especially if the lads cup their hands behind them.’

  ‘That’s got to be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,’ said Venables.

  ‘Not so hasty, corporal,’ said Anderson. ‘It’s a little unorthodox, I’ll grant you, but… you know, that might actually work? In the absence of any better suggestions, it’s got to be worth a try.’

  Orders were hissed in the darkness, and the infantry filed forward, their NCOs making sure they all had cigarettes and matches. Where the causeway had been cratered, they took up position knee deep in the water. When the two long lines of cigarette tips glowed in the darkness, Anderson gave the order for the first armoured car to advance. It rolled forward, splashing through the first flooded crater, and laboured up the other side on to an intact part of the road. A Bren carrier followed, then a Quad tractor towing a twenty-five-pounder. Frequently the lorries that followed lacked the traction to drag themselves up the far sides of the craters, and the infantrymen stationed along the road would crowd around the tailgate, putting their backs to it until at last the back wheels cleared the rim and it motored on. Occasionally a wounded man would groan as the lorry he was in jolted through a crater. Progress was agonisingly slow, but at least progress was being made. And no vehicles missed the road altogether to become bogged down in the padi fields on either side.

  Torrance, Rossi and MacLeod hitched a ride on one of the Bren carriers bringing up the rear. Dawn was not far off by the time they jumped down again at the east end of the causeway. Anderson was already there at the head of the column forming up on the road. ‘We’ve done it!’ he said. ‘No more than a mile to Parit Sulong! We’ve made it, boys!’

  Torrance heard the engine of a lorry coming in the opposite direction. He unslung his Thompson and Rossi readied the Bren. ‘Stand down, lads,’ said Anderson. ‘It’s one of ours.’

  The lorry braked at the head of the column, swinging round to slew the vehicle across the road, blocking any further advance.

  Anderson strode across to address the driver, who leaned out of the cab and spoke first. ‘Nippos, sir.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the village up the road.’

  ‘Parit Sulong, you mean?’

  ‘If that’s what the village up the road is called, yeah.’

  ‘Are you sure they weren’t British? The Norfolks are supposed to be waiting for us there.’

  ‘Yeah, well, if those were Poms, they’ve got bloody itchy trigger fingers is all I can say.’

  Anderson sent a couple of motorcycle dispatch riders down the road to check that whoever had opened fire on the lorry had not been British troops who had mistaken it for a Japanese vehicle. Both returned in a few minutes.

  ‘He’s right, sir,’ reported one. ‘If the Poms were in Parit Sulong yesterday, they’ve buggered off since then. It’s chock-a-block with Nippos there now. Bloody thousands of the bastards… and they’re waiting for us.’

  Eighteen

  Breathing hard, Torrance leaned back against the wall beside the open door and checked the magazine of his Thompson. It was empty. He ejected it and took a fresh one from a utility pouch, clipping it into place and pulling the cocking handle back to work a fresh round into the chamber. He glanced at Rossi and MacLeod. ‘Ready?’

  Crouching by the window, MacLeod handed a fresh magazine to Rossi, who slapped it into the Bren. ‘Ready.’

  Torrance slid down the wall into a crouching position, and peered cautiously around the door jamb. The theory was that if a sniper was watching the door, he would expect a head to appear at head height. If a head appeared at waist height, he had to waste precious fractions of a second lowering his aim.

  But this sniper was wise to that trick. Even though Torrance only looked for a second, it was enough time for a bullet to splinter the jamb inches from his nose. He ducked back hurriedly.

  ‘Did you see?’

  Rossi nodded. ‘Three doors frae the left. The house wi’ the blue shutters.’

  Torrance had seen it. ‘Ground-floor window. Then give me covering fire.’

  Rossi fired a burst, and the glass in the ground-floor window disintegrated into a cascade of shards. Then he switched his aim to the first-floor window the sniper was using. Torrance broke cover, dashing across the street and rolling on the pavement until he pitched up against the foot of the wall of the house opposite.

  Rossi continued to fire occasional bursts at the sniper’s window. Torrance crawled on his stomach along the pavement until he was immediately in front of the house with the blue jalousies. He drew a Mills bomb from a pocket, his palm sweaty where it gripped the segmented casing. Drawing the pin, he counted to three – forcing himself to take his time – and lobbed it through the window. Then he threw himself flat on the pavement. The blast was deafening. A few shards of glass rained down on him, and as he rose to his feet, the air flooding out of the open window was hot, and thick with dust and acrid smoke.

  Torrance already had the butt of the Thompson at his shoulder. He swept it from side to side, firing into the smoke, making sure no part of the room escaped his attentions. When he had expended another magazine, he replaced it, then kicked the door open, moving quickly to one side again in case someone had a gun lined up on the door from the other side. When no shots came out, he ducked through, moving aside so as not to be silhouetted by the daylight behind him.

  The ground-floor room was a charnel house, with blood splashed on the walls. He could not tell how many Japanese had been in there: he counted five left legs. His grenade had probably done for them before he opened up with the tommy gun, which meant he had wasted an entire magazine for nothing, but better safe than sorry.

  A floorboard creaked overhead. He levelled the Thompson’s muzzle at the ceiling, his fingertip resting lightly on the trigger. Another floorboard creaked, closer to the stairs now. Torrance fired a long burst. Part of the roof must have been missing, for when his bullets punched through the boards, shafts of sunlight lanced down into the room below, given substance by the haze of smoke and dust. There was a scream, and a loud thud. One of the floorboards cracked. A few drops of blood dripped through one of the bullet holes, becoming lost in the carnage below. Then several floorboards gave way at once, and a Japanese soldier fell through to crash to the floor. His body already mottled with splashes of blood, he raised his head to look up at Torrance with a pleading expression in his eyes. Torrance thought of Major Julius and the other men whose bodies had been mutilated on the road outside Bakri, and finished the Japanese off with a short burst that disintegrated his head.

  He edged carefully up the stairs, in case there were any more enemy soldiers up there. Finding the house cleared, he returned to the front door and waved across to Rossi and MacLeod. They dashed across in a low, crouching run, Rossi carrying the Bren, MacLeod following with a pannier full of spare magazines.

  The three of them made their way to the other side of the house and peered out. Half a dozen Australians burst from a wooden building on the opposite side of the street, making a dash for the one at the far end. Someone was giving them covering fire from an upper-storey window with another Bren. It did not help: Torrance saw muzzle flashes coming from loopholes cut in the walls of the house at the far end
of the street as a couple of ‘woodpeckers’ chattered. The six Australians stumbled and fell. One of them tried to crawl back to the house he had emerged from. A seventh Australian dashed out, grabbed his comrade by the webbing straps, and started dragging him back towards cover. A ‘woodpecker’ blazed again, and the good Samaritan toppled to sprawl over the body of his wounded comrade.

  Torrance studied the house at the end of the cul de sac. The Japanese had selected a good strong point: it dominated the whole street, and since it was set back a little from the rows of houses on either side, it had a good field of fire all around, with no possibility of being outflanked.

  ‘Any suggestions?’ asked Rossi.

  ‘We could try disguising ourselves as nuns,’ MacLeod said facetiously.

  ‘Yon’s a stupid idea,’ said Rossi. ‘I mean, where are we gaunae get nuns’ costumes around here?’

  ‘I’m just the ideas man. It’s up to you to work out the details.’

  The three of them made their way back through the houses they had already cleared, back to the west end of Parit Sulong, furthest from the bridge. They could hear shooting coming from both the direction of the bridge and also from where the road led back to the causeway.

  ‘Hear that?’ asked MacLeod.

  Torrance nodded. ‘The Japs must’ve followed us here from Bakri.’

  ‘So now there’s no gaun forward and no gaun back,’ said Rossi.

  The road itself was crowded with the convoy’s vehicles, parked three abreast so as to cram as many of them as possible into the remaining space. The three Argylls had to move quickly to avoid a Bren carrier being backed into the side street where they stood. A major standing on the roof of a Quad tractor directed a lorry driver to back his vehicle into the space vacated by the Bren carrier. It was like one of those sliding-piece puzzles where you had only one blank square, and could only slide one adjoining piece into it at a time. Fiddle around with it for long enough, and you might be able to rearrange the pieces into a pattern which assembled the picture painted on them; or just disarrange them into an even worse jumble.