SAS: Secret War in South East Asia

by Dickens, Peter;

  It remained only to resolve that if he was still there when the Indos returned he must die fighting, for to let himself be captured after Paddy Condon’s murder (Chapter 5) was almost unthinkable. Lillico did not complain; the war’s very purpose and justification was to preserve civilization from barbarism and his present plight merely highlighted the point. Fortunately, he could rely absolutely on the Regiment, as represented by Major Woodiwiss, not giving them up either, so he took a shot of morphine and settled down to wait. ‘I wasn’t really in pain; the loss of blood left me lightheaded like being drunk, sort of mystical and at peace with the world, but the Army training in self-preservation kept me going; and I didn’t pass out or forget where I was.’ He stayed there for four or five hours, but nobody came; not even the enemy; fortunately.

  Orders are for misinterpreting, even sometimes in the SAS. Thomson could not bring himself to believe that Lillico was totally immobile. He had expected to be told to carry out the standard drill of retiring a short distance and covering his withdrawal. He also wanted to, SAS sergeants not being of a different subspecies to troopers but companions in fortune or misfortune as well as lawgivers, not to be left alone to die without good reason. Whether the wish was father to the thought or the noise of gunfire had snatched away Lillico’s words, which were perhaps less distinct than usual, Thomson deemed himself to have been so ordered and was thus able to take part in the last flare-up of the battle. That over, and man’s strident intrusion slowly giving way to nature’s harmony, Thomson awaited his boss’s return, and waited in vain. The exchange of Are assumed a grim significance; ‘Geordie!’ he called, and again, less muted, ‘Geordie!’ The jungle’s immensity enfolded the sound and vouchsafed no answer.

  He himself was in redoubled danger if the worst had happened, so he did not speak again, which would have been foolish. It was also foolish perhaps to stay where he was, but that he did, alert and hoping against his conviction, which increased in certainty as time passed. How long he waited he cannot say; time in such circumstances is only to be measured in relation to the next event, and ‘after that’ could mean a split second during the battle or an hour now. Judging himself at last to be irrevocably alone, Thomson turned to carry out his real orders.

  He did not despair by any means. In the SAS you must not need to be part of a group to save you from cracking in times of stress. Motivation is all, and having been blessed with it you can further strengthen your resolve by schooling yourself in techniques like having the right boots, or psychological self-deception: ‘Don’t keep looking at the mountain which never seems to get any nearer; switch off, think of sex, and you’ll undoubtedly survive to be a credit to the Regiment.’1

  Hands forward with elbows akimbo, right knee up and out, heave! Hands forward … twelve inches in three seconds, a yard in nine, a hundred yards in fifteen minutes, a mile in … No, forget it. Right knee out, heave; and however far the rendezvous, he was a foot nearer to it.

  He did not invoke the distraction or it might be the spur of sex because there was much to occupy his thoughts. His theoretical time to the rendezvous was not worth computing anyway, because there were too many unknowns. His strength was limited and must be husbanded by regular rests, blind unthinking perseverance, however gallant, only to collapse short of the goal not being the SAS way. Then he must release the tourniquet at intervals to prevent gangrene, risking further loss of blood and, consequently, energy; but although heatstroke, also a killer, could result from not drinking to replace the copious sweating occasioned by hard exercise in the tropics, the mere thought of even water passing his lips was revolting. Thankfully, food would not be important for several days.

  As a trained medic, Thomson knew all this and more; for instance, that the broken bone crunching with every movement might kill him by severing more arteries. In civilized surroundings he would have prescribed absolute stillness, but here he might as well forget that. It was the pain that worried him most; the torture, if he could feel it, was only too easy to imagine and would impair his capability drastically, even if he could steel himself to bear it. But fortunately, when he had collected the patrol’s medical pack at headquarters he had spotted twenty syrettes2 of morphine on a table, and with the far-sighted providence of a good soldier – ‘might come in handy’ – had scooped the lot, the normal allowance being two per man. Although not too sure about the long-term effects of exceeding the statutory dose, he reasoned that there was unlikely to be a long term at all unless he kept himself well fixed, and so he felt no pain and his blood-pressure stayed low.

  Thomson’s progress was also affected by concern for the enemy, who would certainly find the patrol’s entry route which must therefore be avoided. The result was a curve of increased distance leading through unfamiliar jungle, but using the mountain and its contours as guides he was never lost.

  He did not get far that day. ‘I was knackered’, and he meant it absolutely, like running out of petrol with the reserve can already gone; and since there was no alternative to stopping or guarantee that he would ever go on again, he scribbled details of the enemy on the back of his map, in case his body should be found, with a detachment which surprised himself. ‘There was this pig-hole under a fallen tree; they dig these holes and lie in bowls of mud so I rolled up in it and covered myself, took a shot of morphine and waited for the night.’ And when that came he took another shot.

  Lillico spent a happy day in the cool, dappled shade of the bamboo, mulling over his circumstances to be sure but in a disinterested sort of way and not worrying about a thing. He was thus clearly in a very bad way indeed from shock and blood-loss, but the enforced rest gave full play to the body’s marvellous recuperative powers, and a part of him – the sergeant, one suspects – stood disembodied beside him to remind him of his duty, so that at some time during the afternoon he became aware that not only should he move but that now he could.

  With his renewed strength, little though it was, he developed an elbows-only technique and covered 500 yards towards the border ridge, uphill all the way. The achievement was the greater because he chose a route through thick undergrowth for the cover it afforded. Known as ‘belukar’, this was a previously cultivated area that had been abandoned when the soil had become exhausted some five years earlier. It impeded progress much as an overgrown English briar thicket would have done, the common factor being thorns in plenty though on very different bushes. But Lillico knew that such places were often the haunts of wild pig who also like concealment, and rooting in the earth for food make tunnels through the scrub of just the right diameter for a soldier marching on his stomach. This one proved a maze of runs with the pigs themselves evidently prepared to allow him free passage; fortunately, because the best way of dealing with an angry 200-pound tusker surprised at close quarters was not clear. But the risks from animals was small compared with that from man, and his worst natural enemies were the humble leeches, which took full advantage of the easy access afforded by his earthbound body to clamp themselves on in swarms and suck away the blood he could by no means spare.

  Towards evening Lillico’s pig-run led him to a hole like Thomson’s under a huge felled tree and there he stayed, again drained of vitality. A helicopter’s rotor beat the air overhead but seemed to have no message for him, more interested as he was in a myriad huge shiny bluebottles clustering upon his wound and laying eggs that turned into grubs as he watched, absorbed and fascinated.

  When firing first broke out the two rear members of the patrol sprang sideways for cover and then scooted for the rendezvous. In so doing they conformed precisely both to Shoot-and-Scoot and another key SOP that forbade shooting without a visible target, but they acted uneasily none the less, keenly feeling their recruit status which demanded such implicit obedience. The four already at the rendezvous had flashed a signal to base, ‘contact – wait – out’, but hard information was still lacking and the new arrivals could supply little; only as leaden minutes throbbed by with no sign of Lillico and T
homson did they understand that the news was hard indeed and so was their problem.

  How best to act depended on the enemy’s strength, since the rules allowed a forward probe at this stage if the risk seemed reasonable. But, again, inexperience told because they were all quite sure they had run into a major force. To them there had been just one hell of a noise, but Lillico even though wounded had instinctively broken this down into a number of sources, and with a finely tuned professional ear detected the types of weapon which told him much. There had, in fact, been only rifles and light automatics, indicating a small patrol; any larger force would certainly have included at least one machine-gun and a larger-still mortar. Lillico also knew, as the others did not, that the enemy had suffered a high proportion of casualties.

  The decision was taken to ask for infantry support from the Company base at Sain, several hours march to the rear through which the patrol had entered, and to return there themselves in order to lead the infantry to the right place and avoid the considerable danger of mistaken identity.

  At base in Kuching, Major Roger Woodiwiss tried to project his mind into Lillico’s and Thomson’s so as to do everything possible for them, never giving up; the morale and mystique of the Regiment were born of mutual confidence and the success of future operations would depend on his doing so. His worry was that he could not do more, as when he had guided a helicopter into enemy territory to lift out the survivors of Condon’s patrol. The little possible was easy, backed as he was by seniors whose predilections were for doing more rather than less, his own Colonel, Mike Wingate-Gray who chanced to be in Borneo, and Brigadier Bill Cheyne commanding the district known as West Brigade. Woodiwiss had only to ask for the infantry to be alerted and the Royal Air Force to begin helicopter searches, both with permission to cross the border which was not lightly given at that time, and they were done upon the instant; after which he suffered for many hours the tortures peculiar to officers whose men are in trouble without them.

  Night did not fall, it rose, to envelop first pig-holes, then undergrowth, and finally climbed the tree-trunks to the canopy. Above that the sky retained some light though it was of little use to creatures on the forest floor where darkness was nearly total, except those whose eyes nature has specially adapted, like mouse deer and scaly anteaters, but man is not among them. Movement was not impossible without a light in the days before image intensifies; on well-worn tracks it was quite easy and, indeed, elsewhere there was nothing to stop one feeling one’s way, but the going was both painfully slow and inevitably noisy sc that when the enemy might be present it was just not done.

  The game was therefore suspended for the long night. The pieces would remain in their respective squares and the only practical effect of the break was on Lillico’s and Thomson’s vital forces; they could either use the quiet hours to regain strength and live, or weaken and die as their wounds warranted. To state the alternatives was to recognize a challenge, and they lived. Lillico even tried to stand by pulling himself up with his arms. Although his legs would still not support him, the effort of self-mastery reinforced his determination.

  Rested, and no longer preoccupied with bluebottle grubs because he could not see them, Lillico reasoned that since the SAS patrol had not come forward they must have gone back for the infantry, who would now not be far away. Similarly, almost exactly so, he had been well placed to know that the enemy patrol had not come forward either, indicating that they too had probably brought up reinforcements which might also be close at hand. Exercising the mind lubricated it and he remembered that the British infantry in question were the 1st Battalion of the 6th Gurkha Rifles, who, although shorter, lighter in complexion and of a different cast of feature to the Javanese, would not be readily distinguishable from them when behind a bush in the jungle shade. Clearly, he must lie very close, fully using the jungle’s concealing properties whereby men have evaded detection at ranges down to two feet, and only reveal himself when absolutely sure.

  Yet another sense of awareness drummed in his head and tried to form itself into a thought. The helicopter! Was he not carrying the search and rescue beacon (Sarbe) with which he could have homed the aircraft to him? Yes, it was still there on his belt. The realization was depressing, but it was not his way to dwell on it; fortunately, there would probably be another opportunity and then he would be ready.

  Thomson, on the other hand, full of morphine and shost of blood, was not doing a great deal of thinking. Remembering occasionally to release the tourniquet, he spent the night either unconscious or nearly so; but when the sun rose and drove the shadows down to him, and a great chorus of crickets and cicadas and tree-frogs and birds and monkeys and goodness knows what else greeted the event with exuberant vitality, he awoke fully and found to his surprise that he too felt fine, just fine. His contribution to jungle life was crawling and he set off without delay, knowing nothing for certain except that the Regiment would be trying to find him.

  The thoughts of the Gurkhas and the enemy would have run on identical lines. Neither knew whether the other was present, but that was highly likely and every move must be planned and acted as though he were. Nor did they know if the two men were alive or dead or where they were; the task was to find them, and if alive the presumption must be that their trigger fingers would be very sensitive.

  The Gurkha platoon commander accordingly ordered his men to turn their jungle hats inside out and expose the red bands sewn there for easy recognition; they would not blend so well with the background but better red, in this case, than dead. He also asked the six SAS to walk singly, a hundred yards ahead of his search line in the hope that Lillico or Thomson would see one of them first and identify a friend and fellow countryman. They were glad to do so, although it was a lonely job that risked blundering into an enemy force without immediate support.

  Lillico awoke from a doze to the cheering and appetizing aroma of brewing Nescafe; ‘Well it might have been another sort of instant coffee, but I reckoned it was Nes; you develop your senses in the jungle.’ He did not, however, stretch out his arm and call for a mug; fortunately because the brewers were enemy soldiers of whom he now saw five or six some thirty yards away. They seemed to be looking for something. What, he wondered? Him! He shrank further under his tree and froze, presenting a profile that could scarcely be lower; only his wide eyes were mobile.

  Prominent in his limited field of view, a durian tree overtopped the scrub. From its brown trunk hung bunches of big spiky ripening fruit whose succulent flesh is rarely enjoyed by Europeans because of the repellent odour which must first be braved, but it is prized by gibbons, flying foxes, and the jungle peoples who had driven climbing-nails into this particular tree for easier picking. A soldier climbed the tree, but not for the fruit. He wanted a better view. Sitting comfortably in a fork, he looked directly into Lillico’s eyes.

  Absolutely still now even to his eyelids, Lillico was afraid. Yet his fear was by no means numbing; he realized at once that although he could see the bloke, the bloke could not necessarily see him in his carefully chosen hole with plenty of foliage around it, dried blood caked with mud camouflaging his body to perfection. His chief concern now was for the unwelcome swarm of bluebottles, which might well intrigue an observant tracker; but for the soldier to see him and not, give the least start of recognition would demand unusual self-control, and Lillico, reassured, allowed himself the further encouraging observation that the men on the ground were going about their search in a manner he would not have tolerated in his own Troop. Too much talking for one thing, and too far apart for another; at least twenty yards when five was the maximum in that thick terrain, if you really wanted to find somebody who did not want to be found.

  The man’s gaze and Lillico’s attention were both diverted by a distant drumming which, approaching, resolved itself into a helicopter. In the citation for Lillico’s Military Medal, Woodiwiss wrote: ‘He showed superb presence of mind and courage in not switching on his Sarbe and thereby probably preve
nting the: loss of the helicopter and its crew’; but Lillico would have none of that. ‘It would have been stupid to switch on and bring it in. It was only a little Whirlwind and all those Indos could have shot it down easy and what good would that have done? The Sarbe was only a beacon. You couldn’t talk through it and explain the: position; but I knew they’d keep looking until they found me, they or Johnny Gurkha.’

  The enemy’s coffee-break was not a long one; the bloke came down from his tree; orders were shouted – shouted! Lillico’s professionalism was again offended; you never shout in the jungle – and the patrol moved off. The searching helicopter stayed within range of his Sarbe but he did not switch it on, calculating; that a hovering aircraft would bring the enemy scurrying back. It may be thought; that the longer the time since they had left him the greater was his courage.

  Two bursts of fire came from not far away and Lillico’s immediate thought was that the Indonesians had found Thomson.

  Thomson crawled and crawled and his bone crunched and crunched so he jabbed yet another syrette of morphine into his other leg and kept on crawling and crawling, feeling no pain and with his mind as clear as a bell. Clear enough certainly to find his way up and over the border ridge, past Melancholy Mountain and into the rendezvous, a satisfying achievement of navigation in view of his, worm’s eye view of recognition features, circuitous evasion route, and other difficulties.

  He made a very cautious approach because the enemy might have found the place and ambushed it, a common jungle tactic; advances of a yard or two in dead silence followed by longer spells with every sense alert disclosed nothing at first, yet that was no proof that the place was deserted as he knew from experience, none better. Pushing on ever more gently, he saw something unnatural and his heart wobbled, only to right itself at the next beat when he recognized his own bergen with Lillico’s beside it.