Chindit Affair

by Brian Mooney

  A couple of young girls, accompanied by a very old crone bent double as in fairy-story books, were plucking the remnants of the unripened tomatoes and gathering them into baskets, while, in the further corner of the plot most distant from us, two fat babies and a pile of bundles were being guarded by a lean dog. The two young women wore huge, pagoda-shaped woven-straw hats on their heads, and the old crone wore a twisted cloth. The babies were naked.

  Considering that we were soldiers and strangers, they looked at us dispassionately. We might have expected hostility. But nothing was said. They simply packed up their bundles and baskets with some despatch and disappeared over the brow of the hill without ceremony. It was positively insulting. Their evasive action, performed in front of my very eyes and thrown, as it were, in my teeth, made me feel like a monster. I was responsible for bringing war to this peaceful environment. I felt like one of the famous scourges of history – Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Attila. I did not bother to follow them, however, nor to explore the path down which they had fled, for I smelled Jap.

  Another path crossed that on which I found myself, bisecting it at right angles and running along the top of the ridge. It was heavily trodden. Plainly it was used very extensively. Whether it had been thus worn by the enemy or was so clearly demarcated by the regular movements of the locals, was a matter for conjecture. I examined its surface carefully to see if I could detect the characteristically split-toed sign of a Japanese footprint, but the earth had been stamped too hard to retain any mark. All the same, my instinct warned me that it was used as a patrol route. It seemed right to assume that it would have been a necessary precaution for the Jap to have patrolled the top of the ridge.

  There was a thick piece of cover growing out of a shallow declivity immediately to my right. I told Jim and Jack to take their mules down there and hide them, but not to unsaddle. Then, dropping off a section to protect them and to rake the open space in front, I installed a second section a couple of hundred yards to the left. Having thus, according to the textbooks, secured my front and flank, I raced with the rest of the platoon along the path that led to the right. It was from this direction, my senses told me, that there emanated that smell of danger which had activated my instincts.

  I was feeling particularly well. What had been wrong with me was only too apparent. Now that I had fulfilled my function as lover, I had merely to fulfil it as soldier. This I felt superlatively able to do. I was so full of fire and fine spirit that it never occurred to me that the role of soldier, so similar to the role of lover, can be distasteful. Of course, I know that such moods vary considerably. At that moment, however, I am sure I would have bayoneted an enemy without compunction, and certainly would not have connived at his escape, as I had done with that Jap officer.

  I raced, therefore, along the path to the right, maintaining no sort of formation and even less discipline – concerned simply to put as much distance as possible between the track junction where the Brigade would pass and any possible position from which the enemy would be able to mortar it. Rounding a corner, I was astonished to stumble into the arms of another villager. I imagined that my radar screen ought to have alerted me in advance to the possibilities of such an encounter, but it didn’t. Our mutual surprise was great and both of us were equally discomfited.

  A situation such as this, keyed up as we all were, and with everything cocked, contains extraordinary hazards for the military. In the present instance it immediately aroused in me the suspicion that the villager was either a spy or a Jap in disguise, and that I ought to shoot him. This inclination – a product of the sheerest nervous instability – I am glad to say I resisted.

  Our meeting was so sudden that at least this villager did not have the opportunity of running back and giving away our position, as usually happens. Instead, he gave away the Japs.

  ‘Are there any Japs? Are they there? Are there any Japs?’ I gabbled in English, quite impervious of the fact that he could not communicate in my language. I emphasized my meaning, however, by making mime-gestures of attack.

  My movements evidently succeeded in impressing the villager with my seriousness. His face paled and he grinned at me with ghastly servility. I was slightly shocked at having made him so frightened. He nodded in reply to my queries and gesticulated wildly behind him. I patted him gratefully on the back and he disappeared into the jungle beside the path like a shadow. I raced on.

  Just at this spot, to the left of the path, there was a little knoll the size of a large tumulus, about fifteen feet high. It was encircled by some magnificent pine trees. It was a splendid place to put a picket, for it looked out on both sides of the mountain on account of the fact that ridge here narrowed somewhat. I remember looking through the boles of some trees to my right and seeing stretched out below me, at several removes, the whole of Indawgyi Lake with its boats, its pagodas, and its islands. I shouted to Thaman Bahadur, ‘Here! Put a section here! Hold this sector!’

  I had only the haziest notion of what I wanted them to do, but they at least covered my front. The path now descended down a steep hill and left us exposed on its forward slopes.

  Suddenly, from away ahead, there rang out a shot. In that serene environment it sounded stark and solitary. It pulled me up short so suddenly that Dal Bahadur asked in alarm, ‘Are you hit, huzoor? Are you wounded?’

  I brushed away a tear which had started to my eye – it must have been an autonomous nervous reaction – and pushed him over-protectively behind me.

  ‘No, of course not. Keep behind me! Watch!’

  As if transfixed, I continued standing there and staring. Under the same sort of compulsion to delay the action as long as possible, my men did likewise. I could hear the wild creatures of the wood reacting to our intrusion. Nature was tensing herself. ‘Get out of the way quickly,’ ran the message. ‘Man has arrived. You are in danger!’

  A covey of crows dropped heavily from the gnarled branches of the pine trees and flew away, cawing. A couple of wood pigeons took off from a nearby kanyin tree like rockets and hurtled overhead, their wing-flaps loud as handclaps.

  Just before we opened up, a panic-stricken jackal came racing down the track towards us. It had the peculiar bounding gait which terrified dogs adopt when they can’t run properly on account of having their tails clamped tight between their legs. This one was so fear-crazy that he ran right through us. It prompted me to wonder what on earth the Japs could be doing, and again my pathological distrust made me suspect some trap.

  ‘Gerrout!’ yelled Tej Bahadur, aiming a well directed kick at his ribs. It caught him on the side, and the pathetic creature let out a piteous howl.

  ‘Look to your front, Tej Bahadur,’ I upbraided him irritably, ‘and attend to your business. Now let ’em have it!’

  Dimly, figures could be seen running and dodging between the trees. I had hardly given Tej Bahadur the order when Thaman Bahadur opened up from behind me with everything he’d got. My own party at the bottom of the hill followed almost simultaneously. Our fire was delivered from the whole of our armament: two Bren guns (Tej Bahadur was firing his from the hip) plus a fine selection of small arms. It had the requisite effect.

  The enemy disengaged promptly. He brought into action his grenade launcher (always the sign of a withdrawal) and under the cover of its bombardment, retired to a cautionary distance, leaving me technically in possession. I had fulfilled my orders. I had not only seized the head of the pass; I had also seized the initiative. It now merely remained to see whether I could keep it.

  The overall situation presented considerable difficulties. It was a problem position. It was the first time in my life that I had been called on to make tactical decisions. It will not require much imagination for you to appreciate the nature of my anxieties, namely:

  I was on top of this thundering mountain – an inexperienced junior officer in command of a lot of endearing but unpredictable young puppies who were quite as capable in their unpremeditated fashion of bringing disaster upon
all of us as they were of precipitating victory. I was separated by over twenty miles from my main body, with no proper means of communication with it, in an entirely unfamiliar environment, without sufficient food to last for more than a week, and with no water. I was confronting a cunning foe, doubtless of vastly superior numbers, and, if not, then at least a foe who was able to summon up reinforcements when he wanted them, and one who was well acquainted with the ground – which I wasn’t.

  I could only hope to survive under these circumstances and to cope with them if the enemy proved more inadequate than I was – which seemed unlikely. So much for my tactical ‘appreciation’. In addition, I had domestic worries; but more about these later.

  The obvious and immediate thing to do was to dig in with maximum expedition. This I did. I am no Prince Rupert, no inspired leader of cavalry charges. I though the best thing would be to remain where I was, in the positions I had ‘occupied’, and ‘consolidate’ them. These are the words from the technical vocabulary which applied to the situation. I felt a good deal happier for having used them. These terms from the pages of the Army Training Memoranda helped to justify what was fast becoming an untenable position.

  Just before dusk, when most of the slit trenches had been completed, I sent out a patrol to prospect for water. It was successful. After half-an-hour of poking about in unlikely places, they found a sort of spring – but much trampled about with muddy footprints – which dribbled into a shallow pool. It was about a quarter of a mile away.

  Without fires, rum or a hot drink, we sat down to eat an unappetising K-ration. I could see that I was not far from having to cope with a mutiny. Dal Bahadur was tired and fractious. So were the rest, including me – but the soldiers did not have the buoyancy of command to sustain them over dull places, as I did. I realized that I would have to make allowances for them. All the same, I dared not risk giving away our positions to the enemy just in order to provide them with hot tea and help them get over a difficult moment. But my restrictions undoubtedly bore heavily.

  Night fell. We stood to. Nothing happened. We stood down. A dark cloud came down and sat on our position, and desultorily and distantly it thundered. Then a light rain descended which succeeded in further dampening our enthusiasm. We were at a low ebb. Also I was convinced that during the hours of darkness we could expect an attack. Thaman Bahadur thought the same. I had only recently promoted him to jemadar (platoon commander) and not unnaturally the other two havildars, Ganga Bahadur and Tulbir Gurung, were jealous. Ganga Bahadur and Tulbir Gurung had already started intriguing among their adherents to undermine Thaman Bahadur’s position, to such an extent that I could visualize our situation degenerating into becoming intolerable. It was under these unpropitious domestic circumstances that I settled down to a blustery night.

  Bleakly I surveyed our future prospects. An attack which had not come at dusk could now be expected at first light. I made sure that every man knew his business – when to roll out the grenades; how to hold his fire until the last minute; and, finally, out of the slit-trenches and in with the bayonet. They had practised it so many times that they were boringly familiar with it; and in whatever other respects I might lack confidence in them, I had complete confidence in this: that they could hold their fire until the ultimate second. My expectations were fulfilled and my precautions rewarded at exactly four o’clock. I remember consulting my watch.

  I had dropped off into an uneasy and dream-haunted slumber. I was awakened by one of Shiv Jung’s sentries. Shiv Jung was now a full corporal and I had given him the charge of the most forward section. My own headquarters I had established on the pine-clad knoll with Thaman Bahadur because it had such a marvellous view. I had established Ganga Bahadur with a section to defend the declivity where the mules were harboured. Tulbir had originally been allocated what was now the most rearward position – the one I have described as being ‘a couple of hundred yards to the left’. In the evening, however, on account of this position seeming less important in view of recent developments, and because I wanted to keep an eye on him, I had withdrawn him and kept him in reserve. He now occupied a place roughly midway between my own position on the knoll and the declivity which contained the mules, commanded by Ganga Bahadur.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I demanded, jumping up and clamping my hands professionally over my carbine as if the boy were attempting to steal it. ‘Are they coming?’

  ‘Yes, sahib, they’re coming. We can hear them.’

  ‘Rouse Thaman Bahadur. Tell him to have the section stand to. Go and repeat the same orders to Tulbir Gurang and Ganga Bahadur. Then return to your section. Report to me in the forward position in ten minutes.’

  ‘Bahut accha, huzoor! Acchi bat!’ [Very good Sir! Right on!]

  He clicked his heels, saluted, swivelled round smartly, and trotted off. I hadn’t experienced such a manifestation of military precision from my soldiers for months. Evidently the prospect of action was having a salutary effect. I moved forward shakily, trying to master the hollow sensation in my stomach and tuning my ears to each sound.

  Shiv Jung’s section was absolutely palpitating with excitement: the atmosphere there was so tense that I feared for a moment that their sense of preparedness might communicate itself to the Jap. It was impossible not to react to it with heightened sensibility. Shiv Jung and I settled down in the forwardest slit trench – the Bren gun already in his shoulder – and listened intently. I was already beginning to respond to my stirring surroundings with similar martial impulses, when I heard a clink.

  It was absolutely unmistakable and so exciting that my skin rippled with prickly horripilation; I was invaded by an unnatural feeling of exultation which was quite foreign to me. I had difficulty in restraining myself from getting up and charging the enemy, regardless of consequence.

  ‘So this is the berserk madness of Nordic Vikings – famous in history!’ I thought sententiously to myself. I never knew I was capable of it. It imparted a feeling of intensity – a tingling with vitality – out of all proportion to the circumstances, and it somehow confirmed my military integrity.

  Now that the adrenalin was pumping itself into my veins in great spurts, I needed no longer have such reservations. All around me the trees dripped despondently; a mist suddenly descended, blanketing everything so effectively that it was impossible to see or hear a thing; and the drops from the branches reverberated as loudly as footsteps. There it was again – dead ahead and perfectly unmistakable: a rustling, unlike anything else we had experienced, followed by this clink.

  ‘They are being absurdly clumsy,’ I whispered to Shiv Jung, complacently. ‘They are giving themselves away. We’ve got ’em! Hark at the clink of that rifle-bolt!’

  He smiled back triumphantly in reply. I was beginning with a certain pleasure to anticipate the blood-letting that must ensue. I turned around, attempting to see in the darkness how the rest of the section was taking it. In the gloom, their eyes were glowing like fog-lamps. I wet my lips. Shiv Jung began methodically arranging his grenades along the parapet. Imperceptibly the darkness began to thin.

  The noises to our front increased in volume and intensity and the clinks became quite undisguised. A whole enemy section was approaching. Shiv Jung released the safety-catch on his Bren gun and I did the same with my carbine.

  ‘I’ll roll the grenades out,’ I whispered, ‘while you concentrate on the shooting.’

  ‘Very good, sahib.’

  Behind me, I could distinguish similar silent preparations going on among the men. Quite suddenly a cloud must have lifted from the mountain, for unexpectedly it was light. The sight that met our eyes beggared description.

  A huge, half-wild elephant was browsing placidly about a hundred yards away. On his rear leg he still wore the shackle and fetter of domestic servitude, to which were attached two or three links of chain. He was one of those working elephants who were released at the time of the Japanese invasion in order to deny them to the enemy. Clumsily, he passed th
rough us. Of Jap, there was no sign.

  ***

  The next morning – actually the same morning – I had to reassess my position. All sorts of unsavoury things had begun to happen. Also, we were obviously in for a long siege. The patrol which I had sent out to fill the platoons chagals and water-bottles at first light – immediately after our false alarm – had returned empty handed with the most unsatisfactory information. They had encountered the Jap. He was calming filling his own pannikins and water-skins as of pre-emptive rights, as if we – his enemy – did not exist. What impudence!

  The only mollifying circumstance to arise from this encounter was that my patrol very sensibly remained in hiding and neglected to strike. This in itself was such a gratifying omission that I could only congratulate them. They looked slightly dazed. They naturally wanted a confrontation with the enemy as little as I did, yet were probably feeling rather guilty about it.

  But in all seriousness, it was best. I didn’t want to call down on my defenceless head any revengeful reprisals – the sort of thing which must have happened if my patrol had insisted on denying the enemy the spring. In the event, my tacit acceptance of the fact that he also had to live – the realisation, namely, that we both needed each other for us to continue to fight – formed the basis of a most constructive compromise. The enemy and I succeeded in working out, wordlessly and entirely by instinct, an extremely acceptable agreement.

  I allowed him to draw his water at dawn unmolested on condition that he extended a similar courtesy to my own party at dusk. Such were the terms of the pact. Neither side, obviously, was prepared for a show-down.

  A second unpleasant factor which I had to consider was the matter of Tulbir Gurung and his obsessive insistence on his – as he quaintly called them – rights. He seemed to have developed an idée fixe on the matter. He was at such pains to air his sense of grievance at not being made up to jemadar that I began to appreciate the danger to myself of becoming an object of odium. The common soldiers were increasingly beginning to interest themselves in the outcome. The situation was developing, in fact, into just such a contest or trial of strength as I must never allow.