by Jean Chapman
Worst of all, he knew he was becoming bitter, for it seemed to him that whatever he did Major Sturgess was never going to approve. He had done his best to make radio contact when asked, risked his neck getting his aerial up trees, did his share of other work, but while the odd approving pat on the shoulder or nod of confidence could go to the other eight in the unit, he was never given more than a swift hissed order or a peremptory gesture of command. He had not realised how important these small acknowledgements were until they were denied him.
Perhaps, he reasoned, it was the surest evidence he had of Liz’s love, this change in the other man’s attitude to him, this split in Sturgess’s character. The soldier he admired and had worked so well with in the old nurse’s exploding home was a giant compared with this man who plainly could hardly bear to look at him.
He pressed his arm to the oilskin-wrapped photograph; the action stuck the package to his chest.
So Sturgess was jealous. Babyface had probably not been far wrong when he had warned him to watch his back. It seemed at once over the top and yet petty to think in such terms, but if it was petty of him to think it, it was even more petty of an officer to indulge in such discriminations.
Dan had noticed for he had given a decisive V-sign to the officer after he turned his back on the two of them. Alan thought it was pretty unprofessional of Sturgess to allow his men to see any sign of prejudice to any soldier.
On the thirteenth night they were told that there would be an airdrop the next day, so as soon as the dropping zone was cleared and ready they could rest up for an hour or two.
The following morning all ten began clearing a circle of jungle flat enough to allow the broad fluorescent orange strips to be laid in the prearranged Z-shape. Then they retreated into the surrounding jungle and waited, rested and listened.
By the time the Dakota was heard it was near midday. Waiting until the unmistakeable drone of its engine came nearer, Alan radioed to ascertain that it was their dropping aircraft.
There was a crackly affirmation with the added information that they had located the marker and would circle once and drop on the second run.
Alan acknowledged. Then all waited expectantly for the supplies to be parachuted down, aware that the activity could also give away their presence to the enemy.
The Dakota circled once, then came in tighter and as the aircraft came down within a few hundred feet of the clearing they could see the men in harnesses standing in the open doorway. The plane tipped to one side to make it easier for the men to push the large wooden crates out with their feet. Almost immediately the aircraft was up and riding out of their sight over the jungle, the noise retreating into the distance as they watched four parachutes open and the crates tumbling rapidly down, towards the dropping zone, they hoped.
They watched carefully. ‘Bugger!’ Major Sturgess exclaimed as one went completely out of sight, well short. Two others landed spot on and the third hooked itself in a perimeter tree, hanging for a few moments until branches creaked, groaned and cracked under the weight, seeming to the watchers to lower the crate down from one layer to the next and to the ground.
‘Full marks,’ Sergeant Mackenzie approved.
‘Three out of four,’ Alan said.
‘Reckon we could have a fire tonight then, sir? Plenty of dry wood.’ Dan tapped the first crate with his toe. ‘Make a hot meal.’
‘The drop’s bad enough, we don’t want to alert the whole of Perak to our presence.’ Sturgess said shortly, then added, ‘Sorry, chaps, nothing hot until this one’s finished — it’s too important.’
‘Sergeant, you, Veasey and the Sutherlands open these three, distribute the loads between the packs, while I take one man and find that stray crate.’ As he took his compass from his pocket, he signalled to Alan to go with him, while Entap, their Dyak tracker, and the Smiths were detailed to keep lookout.
Danny caught Alan’s eye as he left, grinned but put his hands behind his back as if shielding it. Alan nodded grimly. His recent speculations had taken any humour from the situation.
The two of them had not gone far, making sure they marked their way back on various trees, when they could hear a different sound.
‘Can you swim, Cresswell?’
‘No, sir,’ he lied.
‘Let’s hope the crate’s not in the water then.’
Alan thought, judging by the sound, that if it was it would have been washed away. Then he caught sight of a drape of parachute over a tree to their right. The major obviously had not seen it, so Alan bounded forward and touched the officer’s arm. Sturgess drew away as if burned. Alan stood still for a moment, looking the man straight in the eye, then pointed out the chute.
Without a word the major turned in that direction. Alan, following, seethed. It had to be Liz, the older man was sweet on Liz and resented a mere guardsman being preferred to a high-ranking officer.
Sturgess came suddenly to a halt and turned to see the contempt on his inferior’s face.
Before him Alan saw a rushing, raging torrent and in front of it his officer, whose face was suffused with fury.
‘What is it with you, Cresswell?’ he hissed. ‘What makes you think you’re so bloody superior?’
‘No, sir. I don’t, sir,’ he answered, gritting his teeth against what he wanted to say, that he certainly had the advantage in the matter of Elizabeth Hammond for their love was mutual, consummated, a meeting of two made in heaven for each other.
Faced with the fury of the other man, the man who had for the moment forgotten his role as superior example-setting officer, he remembered an old soldier saying that the only weapon a private had against victimisation by a higher rank was silence and the capacity to keep taking the abuse.
‘You worthless conscripts, you’re more bloody trouble than you’re worth! What’d you say if I told you I’ve had complaints from the Hammond family about you?’
‘I’d say produce your evidence,’ Alan said carefully, the educated mind refusing to be quelled though his voice shook as he added, ‘and if you couldn’t I’d say you were a bloody liar.’
‘Why do you think I took you away from Rinsey?’
Alan toyed with a choice of words ranging from ‘jealousy’ to ‘spite’. He was not a man who naturally resorted to violence but it occurred to him that it would have been remarkably simple to tip the snarling major into the raging waters of the jungle river just behind him. In and gone he’d be. He doubted there was even a monkey to witness such a dark act in the green damp gloom of leaf and moss, huge overhanging ferns above their heads and the slippery bank — and he could see where the huge crate was being twirled in the muddy brown water like a matchstick in a plughole.
‘It was a question of standing cock having no conscience, wasn’t it, Cresswell? The girl was there and so were you — and such as you never miss a sniff, do you?’
This, Alan judged, was definitely the time for silence. He was so appalled at his officer’s crudeness that all wish to retaliate vanished. He wanted to laugh now, not kill, astonished and dismayed at the man’s brand of vicious fishwife spite.
He heard a movement behind him and swung round, rifle at the ready, as Sergeant Mackenzie and Dan came along the track they had made.
Sturgess swore. ‘Thought I told you to supervise the unpacking of the other crates!’
‘All under control, sir,’ the sergeant answered, his glance going from his officer to Cresswell. ‘Brought a rope up in case you need one.’ He paused to look over the Major’s shoulder. ‘And looks like we do.’
Alan nodded gratefully at Dan, wondering if he had after all shared some real anxiety with the sergeant which had made Mackenzie come after them.
‘Don’t like the look of that,’ the sergeant added as the crate, hit by an extra surge of water, bounced about in the river like a canoe shooting the rapids.
‘Right! let’s get at it!’ the major announced. Gesturing to Danny, who was carrying the rope slung around his shoulders, he added, �
�think it’s your turn for the dip, Cresswell. Get the rope round yourself.’
Alan wondered if this was why he had lied about being able to swim — to test the major.
‘We could really do with another rope,’ the sergeant said, ‘one for Cresswell to keep round himself, the other to tie on the crate.’
‘Come on, man! It’ll be dark before we’ve finished. He’ll manage.’
The sergeant took up the rope and helped secure it around the guardsman.
Alan thought briefly of alligators and leeches as he waded into the water, but by the time he had gone three steps he felt the water was far too rough for alligators to survive. In another two steps it whipped his legs from under him and he was going downstream at some rate until the rope the others held braced around a tree stopped him.
He soon realised that the only way he was ever going to reach the far bank and the crate was to allow himself to be taken by the current to a bend. Below where they were, he could see the far bank looped towards him, though the water hit and streamed past it at great force.
Trying to signal, he held up the rope with one hand, going completely under as he did so. He tried again to indicate he wanted some slack. The rope suddenly gave, and he hurtled downriver, choking as he spun uncontrollably in the water. In a flash of vision as he surfaced he saw the bank rushing towards him and managed to get his feet forward in the water just before he hit the bank. He thanked God there were no rocks, then he saw there were — either side of where he had landed.
Laboriously he climbed clear of the water, stood gasping, trembling, taking a moment to recover and wave back to the other side. He could see that Danny and the sergeant still held their end of the rope, while the major stood in a critical attitude, hands on hips. His voice came faintly over the crash of the water, ‘Get on with it, man! Get hold of it!’
Alan turned away and swore under the roar of the water, ‘You frigging bastard! I’ll get your crate back, but not the way you want me to and be bashed to death by it.’
As he undid the rope he could hear Sturgess shouting again, but he ignored him. He’d make his own plans.
Without looking across again, he made his way, slipping and hanging from nearby lliang creepers, towards the tree ensnaring the crate’s parachute. With infinite care he lowered himself down by the branches towards the great box bouncing about on the swirling waters.
He was out of sight of the men from the other bank, and he was scared. ‘Father,’ he heard himself saying, ‘make me an ark of gopher wood.’ He was unsure whether he addressed his God or his late father, until he recollected the ease with which Edgar Cresswell approached a new task, a new piece of timber, then he slipped. He was down, able to touch, or, more accurately, fend off, the crate as it first swirled out into the stream, then was slammed back towards the bank.
If it trapped him he could be knocked senseless or have an arm or leg shattered in an instant. “... Careful! No room for errors,” he heard his father advise as he took the force of the crate on one boot sole.
‘Right, you bastard,’ he told it, ‘next time in you’re mine ... Oh, Christ!’ he cried as next time it drove towards him at head height. He crouched and put his hands over his head, but the current pulled it back before it hit. It was like being in the path of a killing pendulum.
His heart thumping, he waited for the next swing, calculating that what he had to do was reach the top of the crate, where its straining harness allowed for a rope to be passed though.
The next time he was surprised by the swinging power and force of the box as it came towards him. The time after that, he managed to push his hand though the harness but was not quick enough to loop the rope through. Instead he felt his hand caught. He pulled back and thought his whole arm might be jerked from its socket; he felt the rough wood of the crate grate at his hand, the sharp angular edges tearing his skin, but then he was free.
He realised that he would quickly become exhausted battling with these forces. Grimly he set himself to succeed the next time.
‘Right! Come on, you — you thing on the side of the bloody high and mighty officers! Come on!’
He waited, but aggression wasn’t his best motivator, and as it swung in again and again he muttered, ‘This time for Liz.’
It came closer this swing, nearly pushing him off balance. Using the extra seconds, he got his arm through the harness, grasping the rope from the other side and pulling it through. For a frantic moment or two he slithered and was drawn down the bank as he held on, then his foot found a root which stopped him sufficiently to secure a knot on the harness.
He climbed the bank until he could see the men opposite. Dan lifted his fist in salute. He motioned to them that he would sever the parachute above the harness, then they should pull the crate across. ‘Take up the slack,’ he bellowed.
He hauled himself up the tree to cut the parachute cords, leaving them as long as he could. Once free of the bonds holding it to the tree, the crate fell and, no longer being pulled by two forces, floated with less agitation. When the other three begun to pull it across, Alan took a tight grip on the trailing cords and was towed back safely after it.
Dan thumped him on his back as he reached the shore. Then all three seemed automatically to glance at their officer, waiting for his comment. The major walked to the far side of the now safely beached crate and released the parachute harness from it.
Sergeant Mackenzie cleared his throat rather like a parent reminding a child of its manners, but, as Sturgess busied himself with rolling and tidying the cords, he took on the leader’s role — as he was trained to do if anything untoward happened to his immediate commander.
‘Well done, Cresswell! Reckon if there’d been someone shooting at you as well, that would have been worth a medal.’
Alan gave a humph of laughter as the comment relaxed the tension of the situation, and, as Dan promised to strip him when they got back to the others and ‘go over him for leeches’, he quipped, ‘What more could a man ask?’
Chapter Fifteen
If vigilance had been the order of the day before the airdrop, afterwards the tension of the exercise was screwed several notches tighter.
Before they moved off on the fifteenth day, the major beckoned them round for a briefing.
‘I worked this area for most of the war with the help of old Entap here, “the best pucking scout in Perak!”’ He paused after the imitation of the Dyak’s response to any remark made to him, and Entap self-consciously put his blowpipe to his mouth and made the spitting noise that preceded the expulsion of the poisoned darts.
‘And unless,’ the major went on, ‘our calculations are seriously out we’re within a day’s march of the camp we think the commies use as area headquarters. All kinds of activities point this way — a major link in their jungle postal system, raids to extort and terrorise, printing of leaflets, training, indoctrination, we believe it all goes on at this base.’
‘Anyway, Entap and I are the reason this unit’s come in from the longest cross-jungle route — not, Veasey, because I had a personal down on anyone. I thought we’d get that clear now.’
Alan glanced down at Dan, who shuffled a jungle boot in the undergrowth and scowled like a guilty schoolboy.
‘The other units on this op won’t have started so soon or have travelled so far, but we serve to complete the encirclement. If the CTs make for the deepest jungle we’ll probably be heavily involved in picking them off. I hope we will anyway, though we’re running a little behind time.
‘We had a decent result at the kampong; this next could be the best result of the whole campaign so far.’
They murmured their support and even Alan was impressed in spite of his alienation as Sturgess went on.
‘Entap has found elephant tracks just off to the left. I propose to use these provided they don’t veer off our course too much. It’ll give us the chance to move more quickly and to keep a better lookout for their tripwires.’
It was the pr
actice of both sides to guard their positions with elaborate systems of alarms or booby traps — a tin set to rattle against a pole, a bundle of tins in a tree, a flare or an antipersonnel mine.
They moved cautiously though much quicker all that day, following the paths the elephants had trampled, marvelling at the branches torn from trees and saplings uprooted as the animals had grazed their way through the jungle.
Sturgess read his compass and consulted Entap at regular intervals, and early in the same afternoon the Dyak came back to the line of soldiers with the speed and silence that astonished Alan and gestured them all down.
He was pulling his tube of poison darts from his belt as he went forwards alone. They listened intently, rifles at the ready. Alan thought he heard a noise like a tree keeling over, as they often did on the soft jungle floor, except that the next moment Entap reappeared grinning, holding something down by his side.
Sturgess, who was nearest, swore softly.
‘Pucking guard,’ Entap reported, lifting his left hand to reveal he carried the guard’s head.
Behind him Alan heard Danny bring back his breakfast. Several men swore and blasphemed under their breath; Alan swallowed hard several times. He had heard that this was something these Dyaks did instead of carrying the whole man back for identification purposes. In camp he had seen them sitting around their tent, continually honing their parangs to razor-edged sharpness.
‘You know?’ Entap asked, holding his trophy higher for Sturgess to examine. ‘You take picture!’
‘Yes,’ the major said patiently, ‘then you can get rid of it. I said I would use my camera so you do not need to do this.’
A look of hurt and stubbornness came over the tribesman’s face and after the photograph had been taken Alan suspected he took the scalp before finally disposing of the head at the major’s insistence — at gunpoint.
‘We don’t want anything extra to carry,’ he told the tracker. ‘Now on we go. But good work, good work!’ He patted Entap on the back and his grin came back immediately.