The firing dwindled as the night congealed; gradually died away. A bird called, testing the silence, and the sound had an eerie quality. Every time Gilling glanced at the luminous glow of his watch the hands scarcely seemed to have moved. He lay by the boulders with Saw Tun Shwe, thankful for his presence, straining ears and eyes. The darkness tightened its hold, and as it contracted he could sense the proximity of the Japanese as one senses the existence of another person in the same room.
Nay Dun would be nearing the town by now. Another ten minutes and he ought to be clear ...
A Bren coughed briefly. The silence poured in again. A scatter of stars was shivering through and Gilling shivered with them, willing the minutes away. Once, his orderly touched his arm and nodded towards the scrub. He could see nothing. ‘What is it?’ he breathed, but Saw Tun Shwe shrugged slightly and shook his head, as though he had been mistaken. Only the trees which stood against the sky were recognizable. Everything below was fused together; opaque, without dimension. Yet, Gilling knew, the Japanese were somewhere on the move, coming in stealth across the scrub; working in towards the protection of the escarpment’s base. He could feel it happening. It was only a matter of time before they abandoned caution. He lay waiting, tensed for more terrors, and the darkness seemed to shift and lump together, changing shape whenever he blinked.
If it hadn’t been for the wounded he could have quit already; gone while the going was good. He looked at his watch again. Fourteen minutes since the subedar left. The party should have about reached the town ...
A single shot rang out, replied to by a trigger-happy burst from one of the Brens. Then silence — a long elastic silence, drawing out to snapping-point, breeding doubt and misgivings.
Now was the time to disengage. Now ... All his instincts told him so, yet he clung to his intended schedule, honouring the half-hour promised to Nay Dun, bound to it in desperation by the sense of challenge imposed upon him. A minute elapsed: another. Sweat trickled in greasy streams. A bird called again and the gurgling thread of sound brushed his nerves with alarm. His eye-muscle jerked furiously as he peered into the darkness and he began to feel that there was no one on the escarpment except the Japanese and Saw Tun Shwe and himself.
Nineteen minutes ... Stars were pricking through in groups; forest and scrub growing faintly discernible. A firefly drifted overhead like a midget flare. Some leaves rustled inexplicably.
You should have gone, his mind said. You’re leaving it too late ...
There was no question of a gradual thinning-out. The twenty of them stayed together; went together ... He fingered his whistle-cord, racked with indecision, his judgment distorted.
Soon, he answered himself. Soon ...
The silence was so intense that he could hear his orderly’s lips ungum. Something moved on the slope below where he lay; moved and dissolved. The night had played tricks before, over and over, and this was no different. Or was it? He felt Saw Tun Shwe stiffen; noticed him ease his rifle forward. Raw-eyed, he stared but saw nothing; heard only the faulty thunder of his heart. Then, without warning, something moved again and all at once he realized that he was looking at the shadowy form of a crouching man.
He hesitated, his scalp tightening. In quick succession he identified several more figures within thirty yards of the boulders. For what seemed an everlasting moment his brain stalled. He couldn’t grasp their reality. Only when Saw Tun Shwe fired did the feeling of paralysis leave him. For a second or two the crouching shapes froze motionless and the bark of the shot sped away into the distance. Then, overlapping the thud of his orderly’s rifle-bolt slamming home, a shout came from the slope, barbaric, demoniacal, and the figures rose up and began to move, all pretence ended.
‘Banzai!’
Saw Tun Shwe fired again and Gilling fired, too, wildly, emptying his revolver at the oncoming shadows. Some vanished but others came on. One, in the lead, was already thrashing through the bamboo just below the boulders. There was no time for Gilling to reload and he was without a grenade. Wildly, he clutched at the Very pistol stuck in his webbing. The Japanese was close enough for them to hear the fibrous rasp of his breath. As Gilling levelled the short brass barrel he got a frightening glimpse of a lean, star-green face under the soft-peaked cap; bared teeth, a moustache. Then he snatched at the trigger and the man seemed to explode, chest-high, in a shrieking, acetylene-white ball of flame. He plunged backwards, gathering momentum, showering bright, effervescent light in all directions.
Gilling watched his tumbling body in horrified relief. But as his eyes followed the dazzling cocoon’s downward progress he saw many more Japanese exposed by its spluttering glare and, quite suddenly, he was conscious that the whole escarpment was loud with firing and savage cries. Until that moment, obsessed with his own danger, he hadn’t grasped that the infiltration was widespread. Fumbling, he drew his whistle and sounded three shrill blasts.
A grenade detonated against a tree and the night stabbed red. Metal whip-cracked through the undergrowth.
‘Get back,’ he bawled into the darkness. ‘Get back!’
He sounded his whistle again, then turned and made for the top with Saw Tun Shwe, fear snapping at his heels. The very thing he had dreaded was happening — and he had allowed it to happen.
You fool, his mind screamed. You bloody fool.
CHAPTER EIGHT
His leg kept giving way as he blundered into the cutting. The wounded Karen left by Nay Dun was propped against the bank, head oddly angled, hands to chest as if in agony. Gilling had all but forgotten his existence, but when he stooped to lift him he discovered that the man was no longer alive. He tore the red identity-disc from the bandaged throat, grabbed the discarded rifle, and staggered on.
The road levelled out and he made about fifty yards before the disastrous feeling of panic lost some of its impetus. He went prone beside some scrub, Saw Tun Shwe with him. Spectral figures criss-crossed the direct route from the cutting, running upright, bent low. Unless they came close it was impossible to tell which were Karens; which Japanese. The firing was working over the top of the escarpment and spreading to left and right of the road. A couple of riflemen came sprinting through the scrub and Gilling yelled at them to join him. Moments later the four of them were exchanging shots with a group of Japanese who appeared on the road itself. A grenade fell near and a blast of scarlet shattered the darkness.
‘Move!’
They rose to their feet and ran another thirty or forty yards before turning again. It was hopeless to attempt to control the Karens retreating on either side of him. Everywhere the fighting had broken up into fast-moving battles between small parties — chaotic, unco-ordinated. The situation was completely out of hand.
Together they warded off a concerted rush, then pulled still further back. With sinking heart Gilling was beginning to realize that the Japanese weren’t content merely with having secured the escarpment: they wanted the town as well. Bandaung itself was valueless, but if they once got the bit between their teeth Gyobin was also at their mercy. The road was as good as theirs if only they knew it. Except for the remnants of Nay Dun’s platoon there was nothing to stop them if they chose to go on.
And it was his fault. His fault ... The knowledge was at the very centre of his dismay. He must have been blind to have jeopardized everything with so inflexible a bluff.
Stumbling silhouettes came at them, automatics blazing; sheered away. In desperation Gilling parted from the road. They made progress across uneven ground towards some bulbous clumps of trees. There was fighting here, too — scattered stabs of light, cries, the swish of grass and thud of pounding feet. He felt hunted. Everything that moved was suspect; every sound dangerous.
He should have known this would happen. Jesus, he should have known ...
Saw Tun Shwe dropped abruptly on to one knee and fired. Well away to their left the night flash-bulbed twice with the hollow crack of grenades.
‘Keep going,’ he urged.
His
right calf-muscle felt as if it were locked in a cramp, but fear negatived the handicap; drove him on. To his surprise he suddenly found himself on the edge of the golf course; passing the eighth tee. Almost with disbelief he saw the sand box and the wooden indicator — 8: 394 yards. A kind of madness entered his thoughts and he recalled that the hole was a dog-leg; par five. Bullets scythed through the plantation of pines bordering the fairway. Slewing round, he shot from the hip at what he took to be a glint of metal; saw a shape waver and sink into the rough.
‘Run!’
They kept together, equally spent, heavy-footed. There was a ditch across the fairway and they dropped into it; faced the way they had come, breathing hard. There was no one to be seen, but on the other side of the plantation, nearer the road, a few bursts of fire crackled erratically. Gilling led the three Karens along the ditch. It severed the plantation and twisted out into the open again close to some bunkers. They were on another fairway — the fourth, he remembered — and he could just discern a straggling line of men moving towards them from the direction of the tee. The rifle was empty and he lacked another clip. Crouching, he continued along the ditch, reloading his revolver as he went. The approaching line of Japanese loomed larger, coming at a shambling trot, weapons held awkwardly high. There were about twenty of them and dread contracted Gilling’s bowels as one of their number yapped a command. He was in terror of falling into their hands and the almost overpowering temptation was to break cover and run. He could hear the soft pad of their stride; see the sheen of their bayonets. The knowledge of what they could do to him made him cringe against the side of the ditch, but when they were barely a stone’s-throw away — just as his self-control was on the point of breaking — they veered off towards the lake.
Numbed, he watched the night swallow them up, then moved on. The hunted feeling was continuous; utterly self-centred. With it was compounded the despair of personal failure, but this reached out beyond himself and a corner of his mind grew frantic with his responsibility to the division and the need to re-establish some sort of line.
They skirted the bunkers and climbed heavily from the ditch. A path led away from the ‘brown’ and he followed it without hesitation. Bandaung was on their right: a few roofs showed in the pale star-glimmer. If they kept straight on they would avoid all but the outlying bungalows and then regain the road somewhere beyond the town’s northern perimeter. Despite everything his recollection of the area was as accurate as a map — uncannily so — and the past intruded in spasms, overprinting his desperation with delicious, anachronistic touches. Lungs burning, he hobbled at a jogtrot around another sand trap. He had played out of it once and holed from forty yards; the only ‘eagle’ of his life. He remembered the occasion as a drowning man remembers — automatically, in the space of a gun-flash. Next moment he was crouching behind some bushes, riveted to the present by a sudden exchange of rifle fire at alarmingly close quarters. When it ended there was a murky rush of figures across the path ahead of them, then silence.
He signalled to the Karens to follow him. The path meandered through knee-high grass; joined a cart track. Again his choice of direction was immediate. The track provided a short-cut from the course to the Cottage Hospital and he’d used it a score of times with Ailsa Seymour. He didn’t consciously think of her name or appearance; merely that she had been with him — and that beyond the hospital there was a stretch of open woodland across which he could reach the swimming pool. Beyond that again was the P.W.D. bungalow, then, the bank’s rest house, after which there was the gravel path that would bring them close to the tiny Protestant cemetery and, eventually, down a wooded slope to the road.
The fighting had reached the beginnings of the town. Outbreaks of firing winked and chattered from half a dozen points roughly abreast of them. For a hundred yards or so their own progress was uninterrupted and Gilling began to think they might have shaken the Japanese off. But as they entered the hospital grounds through a post and rail fence they were shot at from the steps of the main building.
He swerved violently to the left, making for the colony of huts at the hospital’s rear. If they had been anywhere else he might have completely lost his head and blundered about like a trapped animal. As it was he knew exactly where to go. They crashed through some flower-beds; past a flag pole set in concrete. A width of lawn separated them from the first of the huts and they were under fire every yard of the way. It seemed a miracle that none of them was hit, but soon they were running between the huts, their boots ringing on the cement pathways. The huts had been freshly earth-oiled and the smell filled his nostrils. With heightened awareness he saw the white boards centred on each doorway — RADIOGRAPHY ... X-RAY ... DENTAL DEPARTMENT ... And in a moment’s fleeting aberration he remembered that the one marked radiography had been hers.
It was like being guided by a dream. He cut between the last of the huts and zig-zagged to the other side of the grounds, using the vegetable gardens for cover. Once through the fence they struggled towards the thinly wooded slopes that led to the swimming pool.
‘Thakin!’
Saw Tun Shwe’s warning chilled his skin. Almost before he grasped the reason for it the others had thrown themselves to the ground and opened fire at an oncoming group of Japanese. They seemed to emerge out of nowhere. There were five of them, close already, hunched over spiked rifles. A couple went down before Gilling got in his first shot but the rest continued to advance, horribly silent, menacing, the long points levelled low. Two more fell, one as though he’d smashed full-tilt into a wall. The last of the five began to scream when he found himself alone, like a man gone berserk. He made a few yards then went sprawling, rolling to within a short distance of where Gilling lay. He was still alive. In the way that a boxer gropes for the ropes he tried to get up, but one of the riflemen jumped forward and bayoneted him through the side. It was all over in a matter of seconds, yet time seemed to stand still while he clawed and thrashed to his death.
‘Come on!’
The words choked in Gilling’s throat. Near to panic again he stumbled through the trees, aghast at the savagery; selfish in his terror. Spasmodic burst of firing still came from the town but the intervening silences were lengthening and he wondered desperately what was happening — how many Karens remained in the fight; how far the Japanese would push their attack. Somewhere at the back of his mind he was thinking of Church, knowing that he could never justify his failure to make an orderly withdrawal while they’d had the opportunity. He couldn’t say: ‘I promised Nay Dun half an hour’s start and was determined not to lose face.’ Yet that was the reason — that, and no other. And, because of it, his feelings for the subedar corroded into extremes of bitterness — even as he ran.
They debouched warily from the trees and passed the plaited screens of the swimming pool; saw the framework of the high board. It didn’t look the same place, somehow. There was an unreal quality about everything he recognized and each mental snapshot of things past seemed to touch his mind with fantasy. They vaulted the fence of the P.W.D. bungalow — he clumsily — and hurried, crouching, across the lawn. There were two cane chairs on the verandah and he recalled having shared a bottle of whisky there with a local mining engineer. Down near the bazaar an exploding grenade lifted a spurt of flame, silhouetting a huddle of buildings, killing the memory stone dead.
‘This way,’ he whispered hoarsely.
The bank’s rest house was next, dark under the whitewashed eaves. As they drew level with its familiar, box-like outline, Saw Tun Shwe grabbed his arm. Instinctively, he froze to a halt, heart thumping. Unseen, an automatic hammered briefly. Peering, he saw a handful of Japanese moving on the slope below them. He waited for them to go by, and all the time it was in his mind that, two years before, he had spent a fortnight in this house; slept there with Ailsa Seymour every night of the second week. But even that seemed utterly unreal — as if it had happened to someone else.
He let the Japanese jog out of sight, then waved the Kar
ens forward. Deep within himself he was trying to hold on to something — something to combat the weakness and despair that were destroying him. But here, among the deserted places of another day, he was clutching at ghosts. There was no comfort in anything he saw or remembered. Nothing could put a stop to the craven feeling of being hunted down, of being borne along on a tide of disaster which his own incompetence had brought about.
They left the rest house behind, stooping as if they were treading through a low tunnel. The running fight seemed to have finally petered out. Bandaung lay silent under the stars and the only sounds were the scrape of their boots; the rough wheeze of their breathing. Either the Japanese had liquidated most of the scattered opposition or they had decided not to press beyond the town’s northern limits. For the time being Gilling could only guess at what had happened, but he would soon know. Already they had struck the gravel path which would bring them near the cemetery and it was only a matter of minutes before the road came into view.
The cemetery showed up earlier than he’d expected and the isolation of the forest-lapped graves filled him with a sudden, elemental fear, underlining the desolation of his own loneliness. He left the path and travelled diagonally across the slope through some thorny scrub. Bandaung was a good half-mile behind them now and the jungle was beginning again. A creeper brushed the rim of his hat and he knocked it away, startled. Pain jarred through his leg with every slight unevenness of the ground but he wasn’t conscious of it. His senses were dominated by anxiety to sight the road and he worked cautiously down the tangled gradient, sick with apprehension at what he might find. He could hear nothing to suggest movement along the road and hope flickered. There was a chance, then. Encouraged, he moved nearer, craning for a view. At last he saw it — curling below them, faintly dappled, overhung with trees. It was deserted, but still he wasn’t satisfied. He moved nearer, head cocked, looking left and right. For fully a minute he waited, distrustful of what he saw, listening uneasily. But nothing stirred, nothing pierced the tinny insect-scratch of the surrounding jungle, and eventually he slid down the bank to the road itself.
A Battle Is Fought to Be Won Page 10