Never So Few

by Chamales, Tom T. ;

  “One dead,” Con said. “I had to shoot him.”

  “Gum La?”

  “I don’t know,” Con said looking at Nautaung.

  “Yes. Gum La,” Nautaung said gravely.

  “Sorry,” Island said, bowing his head.

  “What do you expect?” Con said. “This is no dry-run.” Island lifted his blond head.

  “Good job, Mike,” Con said. “How far away are they?”

  “They shouldn’t be here for a while. Maybe they’ve had it. Bloody fools if they don’t think they’ve had it.’

  “Get on with it,” Con said genially. Then in a new voice: “Tell Lau’rel to keep it going and take the drop if I don’t make it in time.”

  “Right. Good luck,” Mike Island started.

  “Pass the word, Nautaung. It will be a while,” Con ordered. Nautaung passed the word.

  “How many are we?” Con asked.

  “We are ninety with the ten men on the outpost,” Nautaung replied. “One platoon about twentyfive men on either side of the trail and one in reserve, Dua. We should make a fine ambush.”

  They waited.

  The false dawn came and they still had not come.

  “You are sure the men know that they are to let the Scouts through?” Con asked Nautaung.

  “Yes, Dua.”

  “And the reserve platoon knows they are responsible for the Scouts?”

  “Yes, Dua.”

  “And no one is to fire until I fire.”

  “Yes, Dua. It should be a fine ambush.”

  Now it began to grow light and they still had not come. Con could make out the trail some distance down now. It was a clean trail about ten feet wide that was well kept free of overhanging brush. He could see about seventyfive yards down the trail now, to where it turned gently away, and he saw that though it was steep it had a nice even slope. He knew they would get good grazing fire down the hill, and he wondered why he never noticed the slope of this hill before.

  “They should be here soon,” Nautaung said knowingly.

  “I don’t like it now,” Con said. “If they had an azimuth on our fires they may be trying to flank us.”

  “I don’t think so, Dua,” the old man whispered.

  “Why?” asked Con in a lower voice, sensing now that he had been talking too loudly.

  “I feel it,” Nautaung said.

  Con looked away from the trail to the wrinkled face of the old man. “The funny thing is I believe you, old man.” Nautaung smiled his ancient, wise smile.

  It was very quiet and many of the men slept on the line, and the night wind from the north began to change. The sun was coming up and it was getting lighter all the time.

  “It is getting too light to withdraw over the top of the hill,” Con said. “You’d better find us a way around the edge of it, Nautaung.”

  Nautaung had not thought of this. This was the white man’s first war. The old man had been in so many wars he could not count them, but he had not thought of this: “Right away, Dua,” Nautaung said respectfully, dissolving into the forest.

  In a little while he came back: “There is a good way out but we will have to wade the stream. I put four men to watch the stream. I don’t feel it but they might try to come by the stream.”

  “Good,” Con said still looking down the trail, thinking how foolish it was that he had not outposted the stream since the troops pulled out. He should not have missed that. What was he thinking about that he should miss that? That was very bad to miss something as obvious as that.

  Con’s bush hat hung on the back of his head. He fingered the leather strap on his neck. Then he drank some of the scotch from the canteen and Nautaung drank some of the scotch and they sat waiting.

  “They come,” Nautaung said and he signaled down the line.

  There was a positive silence in the early morning and finally down beyond the curve on the trail there was a faint sound of voices. Con Reynolds saw the first one as he came around the corner of the trail cautiously.

  He was big and fat and very yellow and held his rifle in his right hand coming up the right edge of the trail, slowly. About five yards behind him came another one and once they were on the straightway part of the trail they both started up the hill increasing their speed as they came, losing their fear with the wide evenness and quietness of the trail.

  The first one, the fat one, had a flat expression on his face, and the way that he came up the trail reminded Con Reynolds of a training film that he had seen. The other one, coming behind him, was not so fat but tall and tough looking. Behind him now came the main body and Con poked Nautaung when he saw how tightly packed they were and he looked across the trail to where the machine gun was camouflaged and he was glad that he could not see it.

  The first one came closer and closer, larger and larger as the men held tighter and tighter to the core of the earth, tighter and tighter to the squeeze of their trigger fingers now sprung wound, overwound with the daylight and the long, long wait, overwound that they might spring to kill this urge to urinate.

  Then the first one came by large and yellow and fat, by the trench of Con Reynolds and the second came by now smaller than the first.

  Con Reynolds had his carbine pointed to the center of the column as up the trail it came; feeling of the wood of the carbine against his cheek, looked at the long of his hair on his wrist, felt his toes very large in his boots, felt the hollow space from the toes to the shoe, saw the face of his sister loom large, held his breath as he laid his finger to the trigger, saw the face of the man he would kill through the round of the sight of his carbine, saw the snot on the nose of the little boy next door on a dark cold afternoon in the fall, felt the steel of the trigger on his finger, saw the face of Margaret.…

  He fired.

  The machine gun fired.

  The reserve platoon fired at the scouts.

  They were throwing grenades down the hill and the grenades were blowing up shrapnel whistling in the early morning air and the familiar smell of powdersmoke rose from the side of the hill.

  They were moaning on the ground down in front and one of them was screaming like a woman screams. There were three lying right out in the open on the trail and one of them started to move and Con Reynolds saw him and laid him in his sights as he tried to crawl off the trail and just as he was about to squeeze it off he saw him convulse and jump as something thudded into him and then he lay still.

  They were firing furiously into the dispersed column below, firing as rapidly as he had ever seen them fire. Con could not see any movement down there now and he wondered if the men knew what they were firing at.

  For every throbbing vein, for every keen pulsation of that long, long wait, it seemed a shot was fired now, and then suddenly it slowed, slowed way down and there was not a single shot being fired, then suddenly it started all over again but there was no return fire.

  There was the sound of the man that shrieked like a woman and there was a moaning and then down on the opposite side of the trail someone started to scream. Con heard the woods move behind him and he whirled with his carbine set, seeing now the runner from the reserve platoon.

  The runner came in low to the shallow trench and knelt down beside Con saluting sloppily, nervously: “Dua, we have the Scouts. One of them lives. The Subadar wishes to know what we should do with him.”

  “You get back up there. Now. Hold him … I will be right there.” The runner ran back up the hill. “Nautaung, take over. I’m going up and strip that Jap.”

  “Yes, Dua.”

  There were three of the young Scouts standing over the Jap, who was the fat one, and one of the Scouts was pricking him in the stomach with a knife. The Jap was coughing a great deal of blood and he had a wild afraid look in his eyes and his mouth was parched with thirst. He was trying to speak with a thickening tongue and there was a gurgling and rattling in his throat and one great polyp of blood spewed out of his mouth and his face was covered with a cold wet oozing sweat.
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  “Strip him,” Con said.

  The three Scouts began to go over him thoroughly handing Con the papers and wallet and insignia.

  “Do what you want with him. He will be dead soon,” Con said coldly and started back down the hill, into the shallow trench by Nautaung.

  “What do you think, old man? They’ve had it, haven’t they?”

  “Yes, Dua. I think it is over for them.”

  “Nautaung, send a runner to the outposts and have them withdraw. Tell the reserve platoon we are pulling back through them. Have the men prepare to get rid of all their grenades right before we pull out.”

  “Right away, Dua.” The old man slid out of the trench into the brush.

  The old man returned and the men on the line increased their fire and then they started to throw the rest of their grenades down the hill.

  There was very little return fire and the grenade fragments whistled in the air and the men on the line began to pull out rapidly in groups of four and five. Twentyfive minutes after it had started they were gone from the hill and were far up the trail on the way to the drop area with the reserve platoon covering the retreat.

  About one mile from the hill, going east towards China, swiftly the column moved and Con paced himself up toward Nautaung: “Halt the column. Check them.”

  “I have checked, Dua. They are all here. No one is hurt.”

  “Then keep them moving. Send a small patrol ahead with this message for Niven: ‘Have air attack hill we occupied last night. Japs have it. Con.’”

  On the move Nautaung organized the message patrol and they shot ahead of the column. They marched another swift mile and then they halted to rest.

  Con walked up and down the trail. All of the men were laughing and joking. Many of them were in the woods urinating. Con walked the length of the entire column and now at the rear by the reserve platoon he found Nautaung calmly smoking a cigarette. The old man started to get up: “Sit down, old man.”

  “These young ones,” Nautaung said. “It is a joke to them. They forget already that one of them lies back on that hill.”

  “Some joke.”

  “Dua, I would like to march the joke out of them. All the way to the drop area I would like to march the joke out of them.”

  “As you like, old man.”

  And without another break the unjoking swearing young men marched all the way to the drop area. They did not arrive until the middle of the afternoon, immediately dispersing into prepared positions.

  The drop had been taken in a small valley between four hills and Con found Lau’rel out on the field: “The whole drop is in, old man. And I’ve outposted the hills and we are cutting a plane strip for the wounded about one mile from here.”

  “Good work. And the trails?”

  “We are scouting them now. I hear you did rather well.”

  “I think so. It’s hard to tell.”

  “Your headquarters are there,” Lau’rel said pointing to a blue parachute that hung tent-like from a bamboo pole on the edge of the valley clearing.

  “How’s the monkey?”

  “She was looking well the last I saw her.”

  Now Con could see the tiredness in Lau’rel’s face. “Get some sleep. You’ve done a fine job.”

  “Thanks, Con. How many do you think you got?”

  “At least ten. But it’s hard to tell. Those yellows never seem to learn from their mistakes.”

  “No, old boy, they don’t. Not a bloody thing. But you have to admire their guts.”

  “Yes,” Con said thoughtfully, “they have got guts. When I first started to fight them I thought they were just ignorant. But they have a lot of guts.”

  “And pride,” Lau’rel said. “The Oriental has a pride that white men don’t seem to see or even know about. At least a pride a white man can’t comprehend.”

  “Yes,” Con said. “I believe you’re right. They don’t fear death in the same way as we do.”

  “Because they live differently,” Lau’rel pondered. “You die by the standards you live, really. And to them, many of them anyhow, they believe that death is but the beginning of a better life. They really believe that. In the Philippines …”

  La Bung La saluted sharply: “Sorry to bother you, Dua.”

  Con pulled his tired aching shoulders back, straightening up. He looked at La Bung squarely and La Bung looked toward Lau’rel. Behind La Bung Con saw an old man dressed in a purple longi with a white shirt.

  La Bung La took the old man by the collar and shoved him in between Lau’rel and Con. The old man was small and very thin and he had a frightened look in his eyes.

  “This old man,” La Bung La said, “says there are Dacoits in the area. To the south.”

  “Yes,” Con said deliberately, looking at the old man.

  “Tell him, old man,” La Bung ordered.

  “Never mind,” Con cut sharply. “They won’t bother us. We’re too big now.”

  “We will send one company to get them, Dua,” La Bung smiled crookedly.

  Con looked at the neat of Subadar Major La Bung up and down; saw the shine of his clean face and hands, the white sparkle of his teeth, the quiver of his lip:

  “No. La Bung La,” Con looked at him fixedly.

  Lau’rel looked on wonderingly.

  “But, Dua,” La Bung pressed.

  “No, La Bung La,” Con said firmly pushing his bush hat to the back of his head, feeling the good tired of his back, feeling the pack growing heavy with his immobility, aware of a complete and fulfilling weariness from the march of that day and the fight of that morning and his ambush of the road the morning before.

  “No, La Bung La,” Con repeated. “We have a big enough job to do without fighting Dacoits. We are not at war with the Dacoits. Give this old man a few silver rupees and send him away. Tell him to tell the people of his village and other villages that we pay silver rupees for information. Tell them that if the information is not right we will shoot them. Or that if they give any information of us, we will shoot them. You may go, Subadar Major.”

  La flushed and smiled his crooked smile. He saluted and took the old man by the arm and walked cockily away, the perfect picture of a Colonial soldier.

  “Who are the Dacoits?” Lau’rel asked.

  “Bandits,” Con said still looking at the back of La Bung walking across the mountain valley field.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of them. Professional robbers.”

  “Right. They have warred with the Kachins for years. But we have no time to settle personal feuds unless they get in our way.”

  “La Bung didn’t like it, old boy.”

  Con turned to Lau’rel. “La Bung can shove it.”

  “Of course,” the Filipino said agreeably in his neat Oxford accent. “But that old man was certainly high.”

  “Opium?”

  “Yes. Didn’t you smell it?”

  “Yes, I couldn’t place it. I’m tired, Lau’rel. Come by after dinner. We’ll talk then.” Con started for the headquarters.

  Now the sun began to sink and when it got below the level of these hills it would grow dark quickly, Con knew. As he walked towards the headquarters he threw back his head, quickened his pace, feeling the good feel of having extended himself once more.

  He walked into the headquarters. Niven was lying in Con’s hammock smoking a cigar and reading a comic book. Con paused studying him, then he looked around.

  There were packing cases and red, white, blue, and green parachutes laying all over the ground: “Hello, Jim,” Con said;

  “Hi, boss,” Niven said looking up from the comic book nonchalantly. “I inspected the haul. They sent two whole cases of Dewars and you got mail. I got two comic books and they sent three boxes of cigars.”

  “What about the explosives?” Con asked.

  “I don’t know about that. Island handles that, doesn’t he?”

  “I thought you might know.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my using the hammo
ck, boss.”

  “You know better than that,” Con smiled.

  “Where’s the radio?”

  “Across the field.” Niven pointed.

  “Well, get your stuff back over here,” Con said unshouldering his carbine and pack, loosening his cartridge belt.

  Niven sat up in the hammock excitedly: “You mean I can move back in!” he said elatedly.

  “I only moved you out because I was expecting that attack,” Con said taking off his bush hat and setting it on the ground next to his pack. “Now get over there and get your stuff. I have the evening message to get off and you’ll have to set up again.”

  Niven turned in the hammock falling hard to the ground. He got up grinning at Con and started across the field.

  Con wiped his sweating brow: “Billingsly! Billingsly!” he shouted, peering into the brush trying to take an azimuth on the stews that were already cooking in the headquarters kitchen.

  “Vat you vant, Dua. I right here,” a voice answered from Con’s left, out of sight.

  “Bring the monkey. Right away,” Con shouted walking over, stretching himself in the hammock.

  Billingsly came running into the headquarters carrying the monkey and deposited her in Con’s arms, then he looked down at the stretched Dua as the monkey chattered: “I haf a feast,” Billingsly said, “Got niice venison meat.”

  “Good. Bring me some scotch and tell Du Island I wish to see him.”

  Billingsly left and Con held the monkey on his chest and she quieted. Con looked up to the leaves of the tree above him; gold and red and for one passing instant he thought of the maple trees in the fall countryside near Chicago.

  Billingsly brought the scotch. Con gave him the monkey and his number one boy walked away with the screeching Scheherzade. Con drank and Mike Island walked up beside him.

  “Hello, Mike,” Con said lazily.

  The young golden headed Englishman said looking down at Con: “Heard you had quite a show.”

  “I think we did well,” Con stroked his goatee, about to pass the bottle. Then he remembered that besides refusing to carry a rifle Island did not drink, he did not smoke, he did not swear. Yet Con knew him to be one of the most courageous men he had ever known. A conscientious objector. Con wondered how they could jail a man like Island for failing to carry arms. How they could ever refuse him the right to return to his native England. Banished from the Empire he defended now with honor. Con’s mind rotated as he studied Island admiringly: “Mike,” Con continued. “I just wanted to know if they got the explosives in the drop.”