With four months to go before the end of my tour, I received my next posting instructions. To my delight, I was told that, when my tour was completed I was to take some leave and then join the next SBS training course in Poole. But I still had one more operational tour to do in Sarawak.
Jane and I were finding partings increasingly painful at this time, and somehow they were made worse because I was on active service and she was in a strange country. Someone, somewhere has said that war is ninety percent mind-numbing boredom and ten percent terrifying activity. It is a good description. Soldiers, like everyone else, have a habit of filling their empty spaces with daydreams, and I was no exception. My recurring image during the long silent patrols and the even longer sleepless nights, was of her, dressed in a black dress and ready to go out in the evening, bending over our child, with the light of a bedside lamp softly shining on her face from below. We were trying hard, but vainly, to start our family at the time.
We decided that, if we had to be parted so close to the end of my tour it would be better for her to go back to the UK to be with her parents, while I did my final three months in the jungle. She managed to hitch a lift back home with the RAF just before I left.
It was on this tour in Sarawak that the Government’s policy on what we could and could not do in Borneo was secretly changed. Hitherto, regular units had not been allowed to cross the Indonesian border, even in hot pursuit of the enemy, although there had been some special forces operations which had taken place ‘on the other side’. It was now decided that certain units, chiefly the Ghurkhas and the commandos, could, in future, carry the fight to the enemy on their territory. This new policy was code named ‘Operation Initiative’. My Troop was at Padawan, high on a very mountainous part of the Indonesian border at the time. We were suddenly replaced by another Troop from the Commando and flown back to Headquarters, where I was called in by our Commanding Officer and told that I was to lead the first regular troop incursion into Indonesian territory, a ten-day-long ambush mounted on a track, some eight miles into Indonesian territory, which was known to be used by our enemy. This operation, which he said had been cleared at Cabinet level, was to be conducted in the greatest secrecy. I was to take my full Troop, but I was not allowed to tell them what we were doing until the operation had begun. We would be launched through one of the other Troop locations close to the border and were to return through the same location after the operation was over. I was ordered, in the firmest terms, to return immediately if the element of surprise was lost, because there was little or nothing that could be done to help us if we got ourselves into trouble. Our cover story, if discovered was to say we had made a map-reading error (easy enough to do in this largely uncharted jungle) and had strayed over the border inadvertently.
We were flown at last light into the forward position which was to be our jumping off point for the operation. The following morning, I checked everyone’s kit very carefully, and then we formed up in patrol order and left, heading away from the border. As soon as we were well clear of prying eyes, I stopped the patrol, gathered them round me and informed them of our real destination and task. We then swung the patrol round and headed for the border, crossing into Indonesia a little after midday and arriving just short of our ambush position as dusk began to fall. It was too late to man the ambush, so we camped up for the night about two hundred yards from our objective. Then, in the morning, I went forward with my Troop Sergeant to carry out a reconnaissance of our ambush location.
Under normal circumstances, an ambush is a fairly simple military procedure. The first task is to choose a target, or ‘killing’, zone. It is in this zone that you aim to engage the enemy, and it is on this area that the main weight of firepower of the ambush is concentrated. Ideally, the target zone should be centred round some kind of obstacle; a log across a jungle path, or a stream the enemy has to negotiate, or (in the case of a vehicle ambush) a sharp bend in the road. The aim is to use this obstacle to divide the enemy forces, and so diminish their capacity to regroup for a counter-attack. The ambush is then split into two groups: lookouts – posted at both ends of the ambush, some distance from the main body, to provide as much notice of the enemy’s approach as possible – and the main body, whose job is to engage the enemy in the target zone. The commander will normally be positioned next to the most powerful weapon (usually a machine-gun) in the centre of the ambush. It is he, and he alone, who has responsibility for triggering the ambush at the right moment.
Where possible, an ambush should be positioned as far from the target zone as possible within the maximum effective range of the weapons involved – about seventy yards away is usually right where small arms are used. This, too, is to make counter-attack more difficult, as well as helping with concealment and reducing the chance of discovery by casual passers by. But this is where jungle ambushes pose a problem. Lack of visibility means they must be positioned very close, sometimes as little as five yards from the target zone, making it necessary for the ambushers to be exceptionally quiet and laying them open to chance discovery by passers by (and especially their dogs).
I looked in vain for a suitable obstacle around which to base our ambush. Nor could I find any small rise from which we might be able to command the target zone from a little distance. The area we were given was flat, featureless and covered in tall grass and light scrub. I therefore chose a portion of the track which ran straight for a hundred yards or so, giving us the best available field of fire.
I divided my thirty men into three groups of ten, of which two would be active in the ambush at all times while the third was rotated out to the rest area, some hundred and fifty yards to the rear for rest, feeding and relaxation. I then posted the two lookouts on either wing of the ambush and moved the main body into position, after which the ten ‘resting’ men were used to silently remove all twigs and obstacles from a path which ran from the centre of the ambush to our rest area, so that we could move along this as silently as possible. We then ran a length of parachute cord from each lookout position to where I lay, attaching the ends to both of my wrists. We had previously arranged a series of signals which the lookouts were to use. One tug for passers by and a series of tugs for an approaching enemy, etc. I lay in the centre of the ambush alongside the Bren gunner, with whom I had also agreed (and rehearsed) the signals for triggering the ambush. If we received a warning from the lookout that the enemy were approaching I would lay my hand lightly on his left arm signalling that he should come to the ready position. One light tap meant that he should take the first pressure on the trigger and three sharp ones were his signal to fire, unleashing the ambush and triggering the rest to open fire as well. Every day we lifted the ambush just after dusk and replaced it just before dawn the following morning. It was not easy to lie perfectly still for long hours at a time, especially in the grassland, which the sun baked to an oven and which was infested with armies of insects. The track we were ambushing was quite well used by locals, but, unhappily, of the enemy there was neither sight nor sound. We had a very limited supply of water, which we restricted to drinking, rather than using any for washing. So by the fifth day we were all smelling pretty ripe – as I could attest, lying close to the person manning the Bren gun (and no doubt he could attest, lying close to me). On the sixth day, around midday, a party of locals came down the track. Suddenly one of their dogs, which had clearly scented us, raised its hackles up and charged into the area where we were lying, followed by his master, who quickly stumbled on our hiding positions and then turned round and ran for his life. I had to presume that he would quickly report our presence and therefore had no alternative but to order that we lift the ambush immediately and move out and back to our side of the border, as quickly and as silently as we could.
Shortly after this, our tour in Sarawak came to and end, as did my two-and-a-half years in 42 Commando. Before I returned to UK in May 1964, I managed to scrounge a lift on some RAF aircraft and flew down to see my parents and my brothers and
sisters in Australia. We returned to all the old pursuits of fishing, shooting and strong argument. I discovered that, in my absence, my parents had built me up in my siblings’ eyes as an absent paragon of virtue and ability, probably in order to encourage them to higher things. Though perhaps natural, this was most unfair on both my siblings and me. I had to ask my parents to stop, as it did not help in rebuilding my old relations with my beloved brothers and sisters.
We had a wonderful three weeks together – but the parting was, as always, very painful.
As a result of the new Freedom of Information laws, I have been sent my service records, which include the confidential reports written about me by my commanding officers over my service career. In these, the old faults of impetuosity and lack of attention to my appearance crop up now and again. One of my superiors even complained that, having got married young and being impecunious, I did not play much part in the activities of the Officers’ Mess. This was accurate, though marriage and lack of money were not the primary reasons. I always preferred to draw my friends from a wider circle than you can meet in an Officers’ Mess, a club, or, later, the House of Commons.
Such reports could be highly subjective and idiosyncratic. It is said that one commanding officer of an old cavalry regiment, who owned horses, bred horses and raced horses, wrote a one-line report on a subordinate of whom he disapproved which read simply, ‘I would hesitate to breed from this officer.’
My immediate commander during my time in Borneo, in contrast, was a man whose unfailing decency and generosity of spirit were often reflected in his over-flattering view of others, a fact which, to me, often said more about his qualities than the qualities of those on whom he was reporting. His final report on me at the end of this tour was characteristically generous. But the most important bit for my future was the final sentence: ‘Strongly recommended for SBS training.’
And that was exactly where I went next.
* Although simple, Malay is, as far as the grammar and morphosyntax is concerned, comparatively straightforward vis-à-vis English, the sociolinguistics of the language – particularly in address forms and ways of referring to oneself and others – is substantially more complex.
* He died in 2008.
* Sometimes known as ‘sea Dayaks’ to differentiate them from the Bedayuh, or ‘land Dayaks’.
† Extensive and uncontrolled logging has now put these remarkable people at risk, as their livelihood and living space has been progressively destroyed. In 1986 the Penan set up a blockade in the Baram River region of Sarawak in protest against the logging operations, and this drew some world attention to their plight. But they are still inadequately protected and remain seriously endangered as a people.
* The Bren gun was the World War Two .303 light machine-gun we carried at the time.
* Yassin Effendi was subsequently wounded in the leg and captured five months later.
† Bilharzia is a tropical disease caused by a parasitic worm. The parasites enter the skin, sometimes under the nails and then migrate through the body to the blood-vessels of the lungs and liver and thence to the bowel or bladder.
* I am told Stass is now just another dusty roadside town in Sarawak, and all the primary jungle described here has long since vanished as a result of deforestation.
† Ricky was 20 when he died. He is buried in Singapore, and remembered in the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas in Staffordshire.
* Later to become notorious as a right-wing organiser of service officers and industrialists during the period when there was much speculation that Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a ‘proven communist’ and that there was a ‘communist cell’ in No. 10 Downing Street.
* These were heavy, clumsy rifles with a long range that was completely unnecessary in the jungle, and we all tried to beg, borrow or steal the US Armalite if we could get our hands on one. But SLRs did from time to time have their uses, as on this occasion.
* There is an account of this operation in Harold James and Denis Sheil Small, The Undeclared War: The story of the Indonesian confrontation 1962–1966 (London: Leo Cooper, 1967), pp. 115–16.
CHAPTER 6
SBS
THE DATE IS 2 November 1965. My watch, glowing softly in the darkness, tells me that the time is 0050 – ten minutes to launch.
Over the shoulder of the man on my right, I can see the needle on the large red illuminated gauge he is studying so intently. It shows sixty feet. Around me five or six figures, all bathed in a suffused red light,* are going about their tasks with quiet and focused concentration. The air is stale and faintly tainted with the unmistakable smell of diesel that mixes indelibly with our sweat and gets into the very seams of our clothes. The intense stillness is broken only by the soft, almost inaudible hum of machinery as we glide towards our launch position.
‘Stand by to come to periscope depth. Keep fifty feet. Up periscope.’
The words come from the ringmaster of all this perfectly choreographed activity. He is in his mid-thirties, rakishly thin and wears a white polo-necked seaman’s sweater, topped off with a battered Royal Navy cap, set at a jaunty angle. I feel the boat† tip imperceptibly upwards as we angle towards the surface and watch the periscope column slide noiselessly out of a recess in the deck beneath us. As it passes, the Captain deftly flicks down two handles attached to its sides. They look like motor-bike handlebars and contain the controls for the powerful optics on the periscope, which will by now be slipping like a thin probe out of the waves above us, leaving a thread of white wake behind it. When the rising column reaches eye height, the Captain turns it using the handles and looks into the eyepiece. I watch him as he goes through a full circle, scanning the dark horizon above and satisfying himself that there are no ships or fishing vessels in our vicinity.
‘Stand by to surface. Blow main ballast.’
It is time for me to make my way forward to my SBS colleagues who are waiting alongside our canoes in the forward torpedo compartment. By the time I get there, the submarine has broken surface and the forward torpedo hatch is already open, letting in a gust of cold night air and an occasional spray of sea water. We now have four minutes to get our canoes through that hatch and onto the submarine casing, jump into them and be ready for the sea before the submarine must submerge again in order to reduce the risk of detection by radar. At 20 inches across, the hatch is only just wide enough to permit torpedo loading, so it is not easy to get four fully laden two-man canoes, together with their crews, through it in a hurry. But we have been well practised in the drill. Once safely on deck and in my canoe, I have just time to take in our new surroundings before we must be ready for the sea. Around me in the dark are my seven companions, their blackened faces, already streaked with sea foam and sweat, shining in the soft refracted red light coming from the open torpedo hatch. All are now firmly in the cockpits of their canoes, to which they have fastened the rubber-edged canoe ‘skirts’ that will keep out the water once we are launched. There is a blustery north-westerly wind blowing in our faces, and the sea is quite rough, with three- or four-foot waves slapping at the side of the submarine casing. In the distance I can see the low dark loom of the land which is our destination, like a wavy black brushstroke on a dark grey canvas. Behind it is the glow of Plymouth, lying unseen over the hill. Here and there are dotted pinpricks of light from houses and the occasional long searchlight beams of cars travelling along the coast road.
The sudden sigh of escaping air below us as the submarine gently vents its tanks tells me that this is no time to be admiring the view. We check that none of us is inadvertently still attached to the sinking craft (I once caught my signet ring in the submarine’s guard rail at this moment and was very lucky to get away with a badly cut finger rather than being dragged down with it) and brace ourselves for the waves as the submarine sinks beneath us. In a moment it is gone, leaving us bobbing on the surface in darkness and in silence. We initially have to paddle hard to get clear of the backwash of the submarine’s
descent and then regroup to check that all are OK and no harm has been done to our fragile, canvas-covered canoes. We then turn our little crafts’ heads to the shore and our chosen landing point.
Earlier, during daylight, our submarine had run along this piece of the south Cornwall coast from Rame Head, with its prominent fourteenth-century chapel (Drake, in his time, would have used this as a key landmark, too) to Looe Island to give me the opportunity to carry out a periscope reconnaissance of our target area. From this, and a study of the map, I have chosen a little inlet which seemed uninhabited as our landing point for that night. It is now my job to find it. I have already studied the local tide tables, to estimate the tidal flow and speed at the submarine’s drop-off point, and have laid off for this and how much I estimate the wind will push us off course. This has given me a course to steer, which I now set on the luminous P11, ex-Spitfire compass mounted on the skirt in front of me, and we start paddling, four dark and almost invisible shapes slipping quietly towards the land five miles ahead.
Our canoes are heavy and cumbersome, but remarkably seaworthy. Each carries two Marines, the one at the back being responsible for steering, via two foot pedals attached to a rudder at the rear. We are heavily loaded tonight. Each craft carries two Bergen rucksacks containing our kit for the three-day operation, our weapons and four dummy limpet mines.
A Fortunate Life Page 13