Gilling groped for his binoculars. His nerves were taut again; all his weariness gone.
‘Under the trees. Two, three hundred yards —’
‘I’ve got it.’
The vehicle came shakily into focus. It was parked where the road entered a broken tunnel of palms and was heavily camouflaged with light and shade. Even with the glasses it was difficult to pick out.
‘There are four men, thakin. An officer and three riflemen.’
Gilling blinked sweat away, marvelling at the subedar’s eyesight. There were four men, certainly — three in the jeep and one standing in the road. But they all looked alike to him except that the one beside the jeep was bareheaded. Nothing Church had said had led him to expect anything but an empty road. Uncertainty gripped him. The Japanese were using captured transport and uniforms and he feared a trap; an ambush.
‘Are you sure?’ he wanted to ask. ‘Are you sure?’ But he fought the temptation down, dreading Nay Dun’s silent derision. Instead, against his will, he said firmly: ‘I’m taking one of your sections, subedar. See that we’re covered.’
A strip of maize bordered the road and he led the section at the walk along its other side, using it as a screen. The tousled heads of the palms soon showed above the crops and he walked more cautiously, stooping a little. After a while the maize thinned out and he could see the slight hump of the road through the flickering forest of stems. He motioned the section to wait and went on alone until there was a gap through which he could move without making a noise. He went crab-wise, with great care. He thought he was still about fifty yards short of the jeep, but the dry cough which suddenly froze him to a standstill came from considerably nearer.
Then he heard an exasperated voice exclaim: ‘Bloody hell!’
He stepped out on to the road immediately, relief and curiosity possessing him as the tension broke. He recognized the solemn-faced men in the jeep as Shans from one of the L of C battalions. The other — tall, red-haired, moustached — was dressed in a non-regulation shirt, khaki slacks and suede shoes. He wore a lieutenant’s pips and carried a leather bandolier filled with 12-bore cartridges across one shoulder.
‘Hallo,’ Gilling said. None of them had seen him.
The officer spun round, rigid with shock. Slowly, his features relaxed.
‘Good Christ!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where did you spring from?’
‘I was going to ask you the self-same thing.’
The man shook his head, as if he had just surfaced from a dive, and dragged his hands across his eyes. ‘God, you scared me out of my wits.’ Recovering, he grinned faintly. ‘Should I salute? Sorry to be so stupid, but they only bunged these things on my shoulders this morning. The name’s Baxter, by the way. I’m with Grierson’s, the timber people — or I was until a few hours ago.’
Gilling said: ‘I’m not quite with you. What exactly are you meant to be doing?’
‘I’ve been asking myself that all morning. They put me in charge of these three jokers here and —’
‘ “They”?’
‘The military. Perhaps I’m not explaining myself very well.’ He coughed — a dry, middle-aged smoker’s cough. ‘Griersons work the forests in this area. I’ve been plugging along as district manager as best I could, but a week or so ago I got word to start folding everything up. That’s all done now, after a fashion, and I drove down to Gyobin yesterday and offered my services, if you know what I mean.’ The reaction had made him voluble. ‘A lot of fellows in the same boat as myself have been doing likewise. Anyway, to cut it short, they welcomed me with open arms. This morning they said I was Lieutenant Baxter’ — he flipped his fingers — ‘just like that. I’d hardly signed on the dotted line before they pushed me off here.’
‘To do what?’
‘Keep an eye on the road as far as the bridge.’ He waved an explanatory hand. ‘There’s a bridge a mile or two further on. They said that some of our chaps would be moving up towards Bandaung during the afternoon. I was just beginning to think something had gone wrong and that I was going to find myself stuck here for life.’ He said cheerfully: ‘You probably heard me letting off steam.’
Gilling nodded. ‘I could also have shot the lot of you.’
Unabashed, Baxter said: ‘I suppose you’re right. Just as well you weren’t the Japs. We’ve cruised up and down this stretch for the last few hours and all the time I’ve been asking myself what the hell I’d do if they actually turned up. It’s all very well for the boys in Gyobin to tell me to skedaddle back immediately. We hardly constitute a war-party, the four of us, and I can’t see anyone being scared by my fancy dress.’
Gilling couldn’t help smiling. ‘Well, you can skedaddle now.’
‘Saved by the bell.’ Baxter frowned. ‘You aren’t on your own, are you?’
‘Hardly.’
Gilling turned and signalled Nay Dun to bring the company on. As they formed-up on the road Baxter gave an admiring whistle.
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘That’s more like it.’
‘When were you last at the bridge?’
‘About an hour ago I suppose. Not a mouse stirring — not there, anyway. But we heard a couple of explosions and some machine-gunning a few miles to the south of here at about the same time. Plane, I thought it was, but it’s pretty thick by the bridge and we couldn’t see much. Worried me, I don’t mind telling you.’
The company moved towards them, ‘Karens?’ Baxter asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I’d feel a darned sight happier with a lot like that around me.’ He paused, then swung into the driving seat and switched on. ‘Well, I’ll get on back to my lords and masters — whoever they are. What are you doing? Staying on here indefinitely?’
‘Sort of,’ Gilling said.
‘Rather you than me.’ He went on thoughtfully. ‘They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to have given a new boy like me a job like this. How d’you reckon things are going?’
‘Not too well, I’d say.’
‘Any chance of holding them, d’you think? Hanging on until the rains bog everything down?’
Gilling shrugged. ‘God knows. I’m only a company commander —’
‘You look damned impressive to me.’ Baxter was having trouble getting into gear. ‘I’m such a flaming amateur that I don’t even know how to drive the thing.’ He grinned sheepishly as the gear at last crashed home. ‘Any messages — or is that another example of my ignorance?’
‘Just tell them you made contact with the Frontier Rifles company.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘Right ... Will do. ’Bye.’
He accelerated away between the oncoming Karens, ploughing rim-deep through the dust. Gilling joined the company as it came abreast and marched on with them, reflecting on the unconscious irony of some of Baxter’s remarks. The unexpected meeting had made him uneasy again. Ever since the Zero’s attack he had been eager to reach cover. Yet now, perversely, he had a yearning for the open spaces. The old longing for the proximity of his own kind revived, and several times he turned his head to watch the dwindling plume thrown up by Baxter’s jeep as a castaway might stare after the smoke of a receding ship.
CHAPTER NINE
The road entered the broken light of the forest edges and the tired drag of their feet sounded almost crisp under the roofing of trees. After about twenty minutes the levels ended and the road went into a gentle, serpentine climb which continued for all of half a mile. No sooner had they breasted the long rise than a descent began. The air grew sticky; the undergrowth more lush. The sun leaned shafts of brilliance through the cavernous, submarine gloom and clouds of butterflies drifted past like shoals of gaudy fish. The noise of insects was everywhere, as if a thousand telephones had been left off the hook, and despite their weariness the Karens looked about them as they laboured along, like men come home.
The bridge hid itself until the last moment. Then, as the forward platoon rounded yet ano
ther bend, it suddenly appeared before them. For fifty or sixty yards the road became a ledge, carved into the hillside, sloping down to meet the bridge at a right-angle. On the other side of the stream it turned sharply again and climbed in similar fashion out of the narrow valley.
Gilling remembered the bridge as soon as he saw it. Two years earlier, on the drive to Bandaung, he’d thought how like a trestle-table it looked. From bank to bank it wasn’t more than forty feet long and it consisted of wooden planking laid over a steel frame. There were timber rails along either side and widths of double planking set a wheel-track apart down the centre. The stream had gouged a fairly deep course and the banks were sheer, not only at the crossing but as far along as Gilling could see. The water was low, now — a comparative trickle — and the cracked mud of the exposed bed was strewn with boulders and stunted thorn bushes.
He noticed these things as he jarred down the descent to the bridge. Encouraged by what he saw his eyes roved quickly over the steep slopes beyond. It was a strong position, and once the bridge was blown it would be stronger still. Even with limited fire-power they could do damage here; make anyone sent against them think again. All along he had clung to the hope that an early setback would put an end to the enemy’s interest in the road, and now the hope strengthened. Yet, at the same time, a curious sense of unreality brushed his senses. They had side-stepped the war for a few hours, but from dawn tomorrow the way would be open for it to flood towards them again. And when it came they would meet it here. Here ... It gave him an odd feeling, almost of disbelief, that this was the place where he must deliberately renew contact with fear.
The hollow thud of the planking sounded under the company’s step and Gilling felt the bridge shiver as it took their weight. Directly the last section was across he gave the order to halt and sent for Nay Dun. The subedar strode towards him in apparent contempt for his compatriot’s exhaustion and saluted with his customary violence. He was like a machine and there was something challenging even about his stamina — as if in this, too, he demanded an example.
‘Thakin?’
Gilling glanced up from the demolition plan. ‘I’m blowing the bridge straight away, subedar. Get everyone out of distance until the job’s over. We can think about platoon dispositions afterwards.’
He studied the demolition plan again as Nay Dun urged the men to their feet and marched them away. There were four charges, fused for simultaneous firing. Looking over the railing he could see the protective pyramids of sandbags around the base of each of the trestle-legs. The leads were buried in the top of the near bank and he found them without difficulty, together with the water-proofed tin containing detonators, tape and safety-fuse. His experience of explosives was limited to a three-day course taken shortly after joining the battalion and he was glad Nay Dun wasn’t present to see his nervousness as he made his preparations. He cut two lengths of safety-fuse so as to minimize the chances of a misfire. Each was three feet long and he crimped the ends into the detonators with his teeth before taping them to the exposed leads. By the time he’d finished he could hardly see for sweat and his hands were trembling feverishly.
He glanced hurriedly behind him to check that the road was clear, then struck a match, holding it to the open fuse-ends. As soon as they began to spit he backed away and started up the incline, remembering the training injunction not to run. It suddenly seemed an immense distance to the top. Well before he got there there was a cold chill on the nape of his neck and he almost panicked himself into believing that he’d erred over the fuse’s burning-speed. It needed all his determination not to sprint the last few yards, but he was thankful he controlled the impulse.
Nay Dun was waiting for him at the bend and it struck Gilling that the subedar was watching him and not the bridge.
*
Fully another half-minute elapsed before the detonation and with every second the silence became more ominous. Then, just as he was beginning to accept that something had gone wrong, the small valley was split horizontally by a flash of orange flame. The air shuddered and went grey. Simultaneously, a swelling cauliflower of earth and water obliterated the bridge and soared upwards, flecked with whirling pieces of wood and metal. The roar of the explosion burst against their eardrums and the blast swayed the tree ferns on the hill-side; lifted the road’s powdery surface. The sound chased away along the valley, but where they stood there was a moment’s absolute quiet. Peering through the thinning dust, Gilling could see that the bridge had completely disappeared. Then the debris started coming down and everywhere the evening sky was full of screaming birds.
An enormous satisfaction possessed him. Straightening himself, he faced Nay Dun with a spontaneous gesture of relief. ‘Well — that’s that ... Post a Brengun section forward as a precaution, subedar. Otherwise the men can cool off for a while — the water will soon clear. And get the mules seen to and the cooking started. I’ll leave the details to you. The light won’t last for ever and I want to recce this side of the stream while I’ve still got the chance. I’ll meet platoon commanders here in three-quarters of an hour.’
They parted company and Gilling began his reconnaissance, starting where the road plunged into the blanched flood of the bed. All that was left of the bridge were four stumps rooted astride the stream’s channel and a jagged width of planking which protruded from the far bank like a diving-board. He worked his way a couple of hundred yards in either direction, clambering from point to point on the overgrown slopes, seeking the best lines of fire; the most suitable cover. Below, as he traipsed about, the Karens thrashed naked in the shallow water. Smoke rose thinly from the cooking fires and the mules voiced their content. The war seemed a million miles away and he found himself increasingly released from the demoralizing pessimism of the last thirty-six hours. Extreme fatigue was a drug, blunting his imagination, and when he eventually allocated the platoon commanders their positions and responsibilities he still couldn’t entirely believe that he was setting the stage for death; tempting horror to come to close quarters.
The light was going fast as he went down to the stream and stripped off. The marbled water was like balm. He sat waist deep and let it flow past him; cupped it wonderfully over his head and sweat-inflamed shoulders. It was a week since he had been out of his boots or washed in more than a half-bucket of water. The purplish dusk was noisy with the gargling bleat of frogs and the incessant whirr of cicadas. A troop of monkeys crashed invisibly through the dark trees, but his nerves were off the rack and their hollow screaming caused him no alarm.
Refreshed, his limbs tingled and the coarse print of socks and webbing left his skin. He was in no mood to analyze his state of mind, but he thought: I was all right with the bridge. And when the Zero attacked. And when we were in doubt about the identity of Baxter’s jeep. I was a bit shaky then, perhaps, but I could have been worse. He’s had nothing to find fault with today ...
Tomorrow would put him to the test again. He couldn’t seriously delude himself that it would be otherwise. From dawn onwards the road would be open. It was too inviting to be ignored. Tomorrow the Japanese would come. Yet, for the time being, the inevitability of what was in store was overshadowed by intense physical relief and the accrued satisfaction of the day now ending.
I was all right with the bridge, he repeated mentally. Something went my way for a change. He probably didn’t think I could do it.
He ...
At all costs he mustn’t lapse again and expose himself to Nay Dun’s scorn. He must continue to live the previous night’s humiliation down. Today he’d succeeded. Tomorrow he must succeed again — and the day after, and the day after that. It was going to be like fighting two battles at once.
CHAPTER TEN
The night passed. The moon was released at about eleven, giving shape to the forest. By dawn there was a dank chill in the stagnant air and pearly smears of mist lay over the stream. The fireflies vanished as the shadowless light strengthened and the morning’s insect-chorus began.
The strangled cry of a jungle cock woke Gilling and he looked down at the gap where the bridge had been and the sloping ledge of the road with the glazed eyes of someone piecing a dream together. It was exactly six o’clock. For a few seconds he remained inert, gathering his thoughts. Then a feeling of urgency brought him stiffly to his feet. Yesterday’s vague sense of disbelief had gone right out of him. Everything now was starkly real and significant and there was an uneasiness in his stomach which was akin to nausea. He sought refuge from his nerves by. making a thorough reappraisal of the company’s position — re-siting a section, checking camouflage, ordering some dead ground to be staked with sharpened bamboos. They still had an hour or two’s grace. It was reasonable to suppose that a little time would elapse before the Japanese patrols probed sufficiently far forward to discover that the road-junction was theirs. Even so, it wasn’t the moment to take chances. The mules were brought up from the stream and harboured on the road well to the rear. Once the morning meal was disposed of the cooks were sent back to join them. Gilling widened his reconnaissance and acquainted himself more fully with the approaches to both banks; instructed platoon commanders to do the same. An advance section had the road under observation almost half a mile to the west, and its members were so placed that warning of the enemy’s approach could be hand-signalled back within seconds of their being seen.
By nine o’clock there was nothing more to be done. Only the waiting remained. The sun lifted clear of the trees, varnishing the still leaves, curling the last thin skeins of mist from the valley floor. One platoon faced the crossing and descending ledge of road. Another, spread wide, covered the thickly-wooded slopes to either side, the Brens angled so as to rake the bed of the stream. Nay Dun’s, less the advance observation section, Gilling kept in reserve.
It was a good position. Nothing had changed his mind about its strength. But he could have done with at least one platoon more to extend his perimeter. There was real danger of encirclement if he made the mistake of holding on too long. Once they had disclosed their whereabouts the Japanese would start to work round them. It was inevitable. The certainty grew in him as the morning passed. A setback here wouldn’t make them withdraw to the plain. When they came they would come with intent — and they would very soon realize how slight the opposition was. Yesterday he had duped himself; bolstered his morale with wishful thinking. Whatever happened here would be only the beginning.
A Battle Is Fought to Be Won Page 5