He could have reached out and touched it. In an intensity of awareness he noted green-painted fins; strange hieroglyphics stamped into the banded metal. A blur of heat rose from it ... Then his bladder emptied and he entered a new dimension of terror over which he had absolutely no control. One moment he was weighted to the ground; the next he was on his feet running through the crackling smoke — running like someone possessed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
His mind and body were temporarily dissociated — the one petrified, the other in a paroxysm of movement. Head down, he blundered through the flaming village, going he didn’t know where. Dimly he was conscious of moments of scorching heat; sensed, rather than saw, figures alongside and ahead of him. All the din in the world seemed to be filling his ears, isolating him from everyone and everything. He burst through blinding curtains of smoke into the equally blinding dazzle of the northern end of the clearing. Five or six Karens were converging on to the track which led into the trees and he swerved towards it himself. Their disorder was contagious; an extension of his own private terror — encouraging it, condoning it.
More shells tore into the shattered village and the fiery blast seemed to free a part of his mind from its traumatic seizure. For a horrified instant he knew what he was doing. No! he thought. No! ... But he couldn’t stop himself. The unexploded mortar-shell had triggered-off a chain-reaction which had stunned his will. He ran on, oblivious of his wound and crippling weariness — going anywhere, anywhere to escape. Fifty yards behind the last of the huts the narrow path began, curving through knee-high grass. He reached it and pounded in pursuit of the Karens ahead of him. Thirty yards more and he was into the beginnings of the trees. Leaves showered down as a burst of fire slashed overhead. Nowhere was safe. The vision of the shell kept pace with him; drove him further into the shadows.
Barely twenty seconds had elapsed since he started to run, but time was destroyed. It was dark under the trees and he tripped; sprawled headlong. The shock of impact sobered him briefly. He was aware of shame, of guilt. Then they were overpowered and he was struggling to regain his feet; lurching deeper into the protection of the trees and thickening undergrowth.
He didn’t see that the path was joined by another which came down from the crest. Nor — until the last moment — did he see Nay Dun and the three Karens who were with him. They cannoned into each other at the junction and the subedar’s arms enveloped Gilling as he sought to regain his balance.
‘Thakin!’
Nay Dun staggered back as Gilling wrenched himself away. He was hatless: blood trickled from his right temple. Dazed from the bombardment he stared at Gilling.
His voice, his eyes, his presence — it was as if Gilling had been hit by a cold douche. Gasping, he met the subedar’s gaze; suffered the wordless indictment. Shame and guilt came over him again, this time in great cascade, drenching his fear. He glanced elsewhere, like someone found out, then returned to the subedar’s face, mesmerized by what he saw. ‘You were going to cover me,’ he read. Then: ‘You’re a coward ... A coward.’
He shivered; felt sick. His mind was blustering, protesting, yet he heard himself say: ‘Hurry! ... Get going!’ and the order rang in his head as if someone else had given it. All but Nay Dun started to move. Revolver in hand, Gilling gestured. ‘You too, subedar.’
The firing had lifted. Now there was only the lick and hollow roar of flames.
Nay Dun swayed. ‘We go together, thakin.’
‘No!’
‘Together ... Quickly!’
‘No!’ In him were balanced a longing for life and the demented remains of pride. And pride tipped the scales, tilting his mind towards madness. I’ll show you, it cried. I’ll show you! ... Still panting, he stood before the subedar. In English he shouted: ‘The ridge, man: the ridge!’
Nay Dun shot an urgent glance along the path. ‘Thakin —’ he began, and Gilling saw his appeal as a trap; an attempt to prolong and intensify his disgrace.
‘That’s an order, subedar.’ He levelled the revolver. The war had narrowed down to this. With his finger quivering on the trigger he said: ‘I won’t tell you again,’ and his voice was suddenly ablaze with returning hysteria. ‘I’ll count up to three. If you’re still here when I get to three I’ll kill you.’ He paused fractionally. ‘One ...’
Nay Dun’s eyes dropped warily to the revolver. For a long moment he hesitated. Then, abruptly, he capitulated; brought his heels roughly together. Wheeling heel-and-toe, he snapped at the waiting Karens.
‘Follow me,’ he said.
Seconds later they had vanished into the trees and Gilling was alone in the nightmare of his triumph.
*
He loped back towards the village, stooping despite his crazed indifference, expecting to meet Japanese there and then; wanting to die. Every hut was on fire, spewing smoke and flame. The other end of the clearing was hidden from him. As he neared the first of the huts he raised an arm, shielding his face against the scorch of heat. The smoke thickened and his eyes streamed. But there were no Japanese. He peered vainly about him as he went forward, looking for them, needing to find them before the fanatical ecstasy lost its hold.
He passed through the heart of the inferno, searching for the enemy, offering himself for destruction. But there was no one to be seen. Eagerly he stumbled into the clearer air, hoping to find them coming through the scrub. It was deserted. In a strange voice that was no longer his own he called on them to show themselves. The roar of burning drowned his words and his madness faltered a little as he saw that he had only the dead for company.
A hut caved in. The leaping tongue of flame spat sparks into a whirling spiral of smoke. He staggered away from the hot gust as if something invisible had shouldered into him. The raving impulse which had brought him there was going to waste. Every second made him more vulnerable. It was happening quickly. Already he was unable to proceed through the scrub towards the trees. He’d only to start walking; to start shooting ... But he couldn’t. Couldn’t.
Tears poured from his smarting eyes. More of the madness went out of him. He ran in dismay to where his orderly’s body lay; threw himself beside it. The mortar-shell was there, too, but it held no terrors for him now. There were worse things. He was remembering Rance and the barbarisms near the bridge. A shadow slid over the ground and a vulture swooped in to land on one of the bamboo shrines. There were others in the sky, less bold, but as evil, complementing his enveloping fear. He was growing sane again — able to think and reason and imagine; becoming himself.
Burnt wafers of thatch drifted down. The clearing bounced in and out of focus, water-waved with heat and tears. He reached across for Saw Tun Shwe’s rifle. Dead though he was, his orderly seemed unwilling to let it go. There was a grenade hooked on to his belt and Gilling took that as well. After loosening the pin he placed the grenade against the mortar-shell and tamped it into position, metal touching metal, with handfuls of earth. He did this out of a cunning that was the product of the dwindling remnants of hysteria, insuring himself against being taken alive.
By the time he had finished it was as if all his strength had gone. The vulture planed heavily from its perch, landing with a short, stiff-legged run. It craned a bald pink head, making its choice. The stench from the stale dead wafted across the clearing. Flames crackled; smoke curdled like incense around the base of the high, comfortless altars.
A few more seconds elapsed, but still the scrub remained empty. Gilling lay between the shell and his orderly, trembling on propped elbows. The limp, last-minute nausea of the scaffold was in him. He felt as though he were slipping away from himself; in danger of blacking-out. But the horror of capture crawled clammily over his skin, reviving him. Endless though each second seemed his mind made less and less use of them. He looked from the trees down to the nestling shell and grenade that had the power to release him, then back to the trees again. Fear was gaining on him all the time, restoring the yearning to live. And in savage desperation he gave himse
lf up to loathing of the man who, from the very beginning, had demanded more of him than he’d known he could give — asking it without mercy and an endless contempt.
*
The Japanese waited two minutes after lifting their bombardment before venturing towards the village. They came out of the trees, wary yet confident, walking in line through the scrub. Gilling delayed until the nearest was fifty yards away before shooting him. The crack of the rifle surprised the others and he’d fired twice more before they recovered their wits. Then some of them saw him and lowered their weapons, thrusting the long bayonets forward as they broke into a charge.
Cringing close to the shell he pulled the pin from the grenade. In the rushing seconds that remained to him he tried to tell himself that this, too, would be a sort of victory.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nay Dun was four hundred yards along the road when he and the men with him heard the explosion. Momentarily he checked his stride; half turned his head. The sound rumbled away through the forest and the silence which followed was long and lasting. He could only guess at what had happened, but he knew for sure they hadn’t much time.
‘At the double!’ His voice was like a whiplash. ‘Move, I said! ... Keep together!’
The straggling group responded. They went at a shambling jog-trot through the glittering heat of the morning. There were twelve of them altogether and somehow he kept them going, goading them, nursing them, never sparing himself. Ten minutes later they were labouring up the final twist of road that led to the top of the ridge. The Brengun crew which had covered the demolition was with them and he selected their position before siting the exhausted riflemen. He did it without haste, yet without hesitation, his practised eye rapidly appreciating the lie of the ground; the best lines of fire.
When he was satisfied that nothing more could be done he took out his binoculars and put them on to the village. Smoke rose from it like a funeral pyre, solid and vertical against the bleached sky. For almost a minute he studied it, together with the intervening stretches of road that were visible. And, eventually, he found what he was seeking — the beginnings of a long, double file of marching Japanese.
He turned and clambered on to an anthill where his haggard compatriots could see him. Blood was glued into his black cropped hair and his chest heaved. He looked at them with burning eyes.
‘Brothers,’ he said loudly. ‘The captain thakin is dead. I am in command now.’
He paused, drawing himself up. A muscle in his cheek was twitching but his tone was as harsh and emotionless as ever.
‘We have killed Japanese before, and soon we will kill others. But remember this — it is time we are fighting. Time. What little extra we can win will help our comrades on the plains. That is why we are here — why we must try again.’
He paused once more, straddling his legs, and when he continued it was with a fierce dignity.
‘I was a soldier before some of you were born and have served under many officers. They were soldiers all their lives — like you and me; like Colonel Church and Captain Abbott. But Captain Gilling was not. Everything was strange to him — his uniform, the jungle, you and I. When he came to us at the beginning I thought he would never learn to lead us. But he did — a little more each day. I do not lie to you. You saw it happening yourselves.’
Nay Dun cast a glance over his shoulder. The head of the Japanese column was less than half a mile away.
‘For a year I was at his side, watching him, admiring him, seeing him grow into what he became. Do not ask me what made him so. He was not easy to know. But if he — who was not a soldier — could act as he did, then so can we ...’
*
The village burned in the distance and the long column came on.
Thunder of explosions; the stuttering bark of small-arms. Then, as if by mutual agreement, silence filled the valley. It was so intense by contrast that the faulty thump of Gilling’s heart seemed to boom out like the beat of a loose-skinned drum.
Hardly had he grown used to the silence than his name was called from the other bank.
‘Captain Gilling.’
He stiffened, frozen in disbelief. He heard Nay Dun grunt.
‘Captain Gilling,’ The voice floated across the narrow valley, hoarse with appeal, and fear brushed his nerves. ‘This is Ba Tin, thakin. Naik Ba Tin.’
Ba Tin commanded the advance section ... Oh Christ, Gilling thought, appalled.
‘The Japanese want you, thakin. They want to talk to you.’
There was terror in the voice. A torch was switched on at the bend of the road and the naik was suddenly illuminated. He was all of sixty yards away but he seemed closer, projected clear of the shadowy background by the wavering torch-light, and he stood like an actor awaiting prompting.
‘The Japanese want to talk to you, Captain Gilling ... This is Naik Ba Tin. Rifleman Saw Pah is also with me.’
Gilling stared at him as if mesmerized. Rance was in his mind, and fear moved through him like a looseness of the bowels.
‘Captain Gilling ...’
He shut his eyes. Time was suspended. He covered his face with his hands and listened to the naik hoarsely repeating his name. A cold sweat broke out of him and it began to seem that he wasn’t listening to Ba Tin at all but to the mouthpiece of something indescribably evil.
All he could think was: Why weren’t you killed? Jesus Christ, why weren’t you both killed?
His orderly crouched beside him and on a desperate impulse he leaned over and grabbed his rifle. But in the same moment, with malicious timing, the torch was extinguished. Seconds passed, then the firing started again. For a short while he was almost oblivious of it. Ba Tin’s voice haunted him, louder even than the crash of mortar shells. But soon, unnerved now, he sensed movement along either flank and within half an hour he gave the order to withdraw.
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