A Fortunate Life

by Paddy Ashdown

  We also relied on them to supplement our map-reading with local knowledge. The maps we used had been hurriedly made from aerial photographs. Frequently, large tracts of jungle and mountain were represented on them by nothing more than a blank white space containing the unhelpful legend, ‘Area hidden by cloud cover’. These blank spaces we would try to navigate by dead-reckoning, much as one might at sea, estimating the speed of the patrol and its direction and trying to guess the direction of flow of the rivers and the underlying slope of the land, in order to establish our position and, crucially, when and where we would ‘reappear’ on the map. In these circumstances, the tracker’s local knowledge was invaluable, especially when it came to the main rivers, which formed one of our key aids to direction-finding. I began to understand why the Penans made the direction of water flow such an important part of their language.

  One of the consequences of all this was that map-reading, which I had learned on Dartmoor as a precise science, became instead a matter of estimation and guesswork. I know of few things more nerve-wracking than approaching the end of a two-week patrol, with a final rendezvous point on a river somewhere ahead and twenty Marines behind who are perfectly well aware of the fact that you don’t actually know precisely where you are. Inevitably, the night before we were due at the rendezvous my Troop Sergeant would whisper to me, ‘The lads would like to know when we will get there, Boss’. To which my answer, given with as much confidence as I could muster, would be something like, ‘Some time tomorrow afternoon, I think.’ I used to dread the following afternoon ticking by without sign of a river and my Marines’ eyeballs boring into the back of my neck, until, in a dreadful admission of defeat, I had to announce that we would spending another night in the jungle and offer weak and unbelieved reassurances that ‘we will probably get there early tomorrow morning’. On the other hand, few things I have experienced create a greater sense of relief than feeling the ground level out into a river valley just when you thought it should, noting the tell-tale signs of a river nearby appearing just when you hoped they might, and finally bursting out of the jungle onto the banks of a river just where and when you said you would, to see the boats patiently waiting to take you home.

  The structure of our jungle patrols was very precise. At the front were the ‘lead scouts’. Depending on the size of the patrol, there could be one or two of these. They would see the enemy first, usually at very close range and sometimes as little as five yards away. So they needed to be armed with something quicker, lighter and less precise than a rifle. The favourite weapon for our lead scouts in Borneo was the Browning pump-action shotgun loaded with eight cartridges, each charged with Special Grade shot, consisting of three large balls of lead. They were deadly at close range. Behind the lead scout came the body of the patrol, usually with a Bren gunner* near the front and back, so that they could be easily deployed if the patrol made contact with the enemy either to the front or from the rear. The patrol commander normally travelled close to the front Bren gunner, but if the enemy were believed to be nearby he needed to be as far forward as possible, just behind the lead scouts, so as to make a quick assessment of the battle if contact was made. And finally, at the back, were the rear scouts. Their job was to cover up tracks as best they could and to be constantly alert to what was happening behind the patrol in case of an enemy attack from the rear. The patrol was as spread out as the density of the jungle allowed, with each man ideally only having one other person in sight. This was to ensure that, if you were ambushed, the minimum number of people were caught in the ambush ‘killing zone’ and the maximum number were outside it and able to mount a counter-attack. There was no talking, often for days on end, unless it was absolutely necessary, and then everything was done in whispers. Otherwise all communication was by a comprehensive system of hand signals, which had to be learned.

  Essential equipment carried by each member of the patrol included spare ammunition, cooking utensils, a mess-tin or billy, a small solid-fuel stove, rations, identity discs, a filtration bag and sterilising tablets for water (nearly all jungle diseases are water-borne, so clean water was essential), a stock of paludrine anti-malarial tablets, a poncho or groundsheet, a hammock (usually made from the silk panels cut from a parachute), a light sleeping bag (also usually of parachute silk), a machete or heavy hunting knife, ten yards of stout string (usually parachute cord), insect repellent, a dry set of clothes in a waterproof bag, a field dressing for wounds, a small one-shot syringe of morphine and a personal first-aid and survival kit for use in case of separation from the patrol. This last, which was always carried on your body and not in your pack, contained, among other things, antiseptic cream, pain-killers, emergency K rations, a button compass and (if you could get one) a silk map of the area scrounged from the survival packs the RAF issued to their pilots. In addition, each person carried ten panjis strapped to the outside of their pack for ready use.

  We quickly found that our service-issue rations were so heavy and bulky that it was impossible to carry enough, even for a fourteen-day patrol. They were also clumsy and difficult to cook. So most of us adopted the local practice of carrying a small sack of uncooked rice and some fish paste or dried meat for flavouring, supplemented where possible by the lighter and more nutritious items from our service field ration packs (such as chocolate).

  Leeches were ever-present and unwelcome companions in everything we did. They would parade, ranged in little waving bands, on the edges of leaves, hoping to fasten onto you as you passed. If you put your foot in a pool of water, they were there waiting for you. If you crossed a stream they appeared in squadrons from the banks and rocks, arching their way towards you with single-minded intent. It was not unusual to find fifteen or so blood-filled leeches on each leg after a day’s patrolling and my record, after a day spent wading waist deep in jungle streams, was fifty-three dispersed in every corner of my body. It is important not to try to pull leeches out, as they have tiny barbs which keep their heads in your flesh and do not retract unless the leech wants to withdraw. Any attempt to pull them out by force separates the body from the head, which is left embedded in your flesh and very quickly turns septic in jungle conditions. The technique for removing leeches safely is to apply either a lighted cigarette-end or a dab of mosquito repellent to their tails, causing them to withdraw their heads and drop off. The common jungle leech is small, painless and harmless, once you have got used to the unpleasant sight of festoons of little bags of blood hanging all over your body. But not so the tiger leech, which lives in grassland and has jaws strong enough to puncture the hide of a buffalo and a body big enough to carry the best part of half a pint of blood. Mostly, leeches were treated as just part of the everyday routine of patrolling. There was, however, one leech story which had wide circulation and caused much concern amongst my younger Marines. It was said that one of our Commando had got a leech attached deep inside the urethra in the centre of his penis. The leech had swollen and blocked the passage, causing great discomfort and preventing him from peeing. A cigarette end in this area of the body being clearly out of the question, the only alternative was to remove the invader with liberal doses of insect repellent, causing much excruciating pain. At the time we were issued with condoms to put over the muzzles of our rifles in order to keep their barrels dry. But most of my guys preferred to use them on the organ for which they were originally intended, in order to protect their manhood against leech attack.

  Jungle patrol routine was always the same. At the end of the day the patrol stopped to bivouac for the night about an hour-and-a-half before dusk. The first task was to put sentries out some hundred yards from the camp at all four points of the compass. Next the defence of the camp was organised. Each man’s ten panjis were stuck in the ground to create an integrated field of them around the camp perimeter, and individual fire positions were allocated and strengthened as far as possible, without making noise. Interlocking arcs of fire were established for each position, and spare ammunition was stacked clo
se by. (These fire positions would be each man’s allotted place if we were attacked and also at the routine dawn or dusk ‘stand to’.) After this, each individual could start preparing for the night. The first task was to make a sleeping position. This was done by choosing two stout trees within the curtilage of the camp from which your parachute hammock was suspended about three feet above the ground, with a ‘stretcher’ positioned a little way back from the point of attachment in order to hold the hammock open. A line was then strung between the two trees about three feet above the hammock, forming a ridge over which your waterproof poncho or groundsheet was stretched to create a light shelter capable of keeping off the rain. The corners of this were then staked out by guys attached to branches or leading to pegs stuck in the ground. Next, you took your dry clothes out of their waterproof bag and put them on (always a delicious moment), removing the days’ collection of leeches in the process, and hanging out your wet ones (clothes were always wet at the end of the day in the jungle) in the vain hope that they might dry a little overnight. It would now be time to turn to the evening meal, which needed to be cooked and eaten before dark. At dusk there was a ‘stand to’ at which everyone manned their allocated fire positions (dusk and dawn are the favourite times for attack) until it was fully dark. Night sentries were then put out, with lines of string or wire leading back to the camp to enable the relief sentries to find their way out and relieved sentries to find their way back at the end of their stint of duty (usually two hours long) without stumbling into the panji fields. It gets very dark in the jungle at night, and, since no torches were allowed, all movement had to be by feel.

  The camp could then settle down for the night. No noise was allowed at any time.

  The following morning the sentries woke the camp half an hour before dawn, and all ‘stood to’ in their fire positions until it was fully light. You then changed back into your wet clothes (a horrible moment), and carefully put your dry ones back in their waterproof protection. Then you washed and shaved as best you could, breakfasted, packed, tried to cover up traces and moved off, ideally not later than nine o’clock.

  During the day the patrol would usually rest for ten minutes in every hour and have an hour’s break for lunch. Smoking was not allowed (the smell of cigarette smoke carries a long way), except in the evening after the sentries were out.

  The popular perception is that jungle warfare involves a lot of hacking, cutting and slashing of undergrowth. This is completely wrong. Jungle warfare is very close-quarter. In most warfare you fight with your eyes. In jungle warfare you fight with your ears. So moving silently is the essence. Cutting noisily through branches, therefore, is just what you should not do – and by and large it is not necessary. But there are exceptions. We always dreaded being caught in a thicket of rattan creeper (the Malay word is rotan), from which the famous cane furniture is made. In the jungle, rattan grows in thick, impenetrable tangles of creepers whose outer surface is covered with row upon row of extremely sharp, hard spikes. The Australian troops in Malaya christened this plant ‘wait-a-while’ which is a very good name; it is a much-feared menace, which has to be cut through if it cannot be bypassed.

  Most of our patrols were fourteen days or less. But there were also longer patrols of three weeks and more. During these, it would be necessary to take delivery of a fresh supply of food and ammunition. This was done by picking an open patch of grassland or by cutting a hole in the jungle, which allowed us to be resupplied by helicopter or parachute drop.

  I returned from one such long patrol in February, to open a letter from my mother which told me that my brother Robert had been diagnosed with leukaemia. He died on St Patrick’s Day a year later, aged fourteen. It was a terrible blow, not least because I had no one with whom to share the burden of my grief. But it was the effect on my parents I worried about most.

  Soon afterwards I received orders to mount an extended operation in the mangrove swamps of Brunei Bay to try to find the leader of the rebels, Yassin Effendi, who was thought to be hiding there. In my Troop at the time I had two outstanding Marines, Sergeant Gillie Howe and Marine Ted Tandy, both SBS-qualified and later to become close personal friends. Over the next three months they taught me more about soldiering and how to do it than I learned in all my two-and-a-half years’ officer training at ITCRM. Our patrol in the mangrove swamps was to be entirely water-borne, so I tasked these two with adapting some local dugout canoes to take forty-horsepower Johnson outboard engines on the back. These could carry five Marines and were extremely fast but, when we needed to, we could also easily and silently paddle them along the waterways of the mangrove swamp.

  My first step was to set up stationary blocking positions, each manned by five Marines posted in fishing huts guarding the main intersections and exits of the waterways that criss-crossed the mangrove swamp. Then we began meticulously to comb the swamps themselves. We often did not put a foot on dry land for days on end, sleeping at night in our hammocks, slung between the mangrove branches. The mosquitoes were terrible. I remember commenting on their size to one of my Marines, after suffering particularly badly from their carnivorous attacks one night. He told me that two mosquitoes had crawled into his sleeping bag during the night and one had said to the other, ‘Shall we eat him here or shall we drag him outside?’ The other had replied, ‘Best eat him here. If we drag him outside, the big ones will only get him!’

  Despite our best efforts we did not catch Yassin Effendi,* for, as I learned then (and relearned forty years later when we were trying to catch Radovan Karadžić in the mountains of Bosnia), it is very, very difficult to catch a single wanted person moving in inaccessible country amongst a population that is willing to support them.

  But not all our searches were in vain. Indeed, in the early days we had to detain quite a number of prisoners before handing them over to the Sarawak authorities. On one occasion, after returning from a short patrol, I discovered one of our Marines hitting one of these detainees who had been captured a few days earlier. I have a furious temper, and on this occasion, to my shame, lost it completely, knocking the Marine across the room. I could easily have been court-martialled for this if anything had been made of it. But it wasn’t, and from then on everyone understood that mistreating prisoners was out of order. I claim no special morality in this. My act was one of irrational fury not thought-through principle. But when the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam broke six years later, I knew that that act of appalling brutality and horror had just been the last step in an escalation of violence that had been tolerated in William Calley’s unit. I do not think that people leap from innocence to terrible violence in one bound. I think, rather, that anyone can succumb to the evil that steals up on us, little step by little step, and that what Lieutenant Calley did at My Lai could well have appeared to him to be just a small step beyond what had probably been perfectly acceptable common practice in his unit. Evil, it turns out, is not the great Beast of myth and legend. Rather, it imitates the bilharzia worm,† slipping in imperceptibly between your compromises to start its long progress towards possession. If leaders do not have the courage or alertness to stop the relatively small transgressions against accepted values, then they risk initiating a chain of escalation which can end in horrors they would never have imagined or tolerated when it all started.

  When our three-month tour of duty came to an end we sailed back to Singapore in HMS Bulwark. In my absence Jane had had a terrible time, falling ill with a bad dose of dysentery. She came down to the quayside with the other wives to welcome the ship home, but was so emaciated that I did not at first recognise her.

  Despite this, however, it was a wonderful homecoming. But not, alas, a long one; after a brief rest with our families we started retraining and preparing for our next tour in Borneo.

  By now the rebellion had been snuffed out in Brunei, but it had been replaced by a wider insurgency, which was Indonesian-supported and mounted from bases the other side of the border by the Tentera Nasional
Kalimantan Utara (North Borneo National Army), or TNKU for short. The TNKU sprang out of the Parti Rakayat Brunei or PRB (Brunei People’s Party), which was founded in 1956 and dedicated to bringing Brunei to full independence after British rule. The original British plan was to transition Malaya, Singapore and the three British colonies in north Borneo, Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei, into the Malaysian Federation. This was opposed, not only by Indonesia, but also by the Philippines. Although there has never been any evidence that President Sukarno of Indonesia had territorial ambitions over the three north Borneo states, as the British claimed at the time, he probably did want to have governments on the island which would be amenable to the influence of Jakarta. There was some left-wing and communist influence on the TNKU, coming chiefly from the urban Chinese population of the three states, but it was primarily a nationalist movement. It wanted full independence from Britain in the early days, and did not want to be included in Malaysia after the British left. I have to say that, given the levels of corruption I witnessed during Malay rule over Brunei, I privately had some sympathy with the rebels’ wish to avoid Sarawak and Brunei being swallowed up in Malaysia. In the event, the Sultan of Brunei effectively conceded to the rebels by subsequently deciding not to join the Malaysian Federation, and in this he was followed shortly afterwards by Singapore, which also remained outside.

  Whatever my opinions at the time, however, my job as a soldier was to carry out the policy of Her Majesty’s Government, and that was to defeat the TNKU so that Sarawak could become part of Malaysia when British colonial rule came to an end. It was clear by now that the Brunei rebellion of December was only the beginning of a much wider affair: a long war that would extend to the whole of Sarawak.