Fortunately for the world, my generation didn't suffer from spiritual hypochondria—but then, we couldn't afford it. By modern standards, I'm sure we, like the whole population who endured the war, were ripe for counselling, but we were lucky; there were no counsellors. I can regret, though, that there were no modern television “journalists”, transported back in time, to ask Grandarse: “How did you feel when you saw Corporal Little shot dead?” I would have liked to hear the reply.
* The military canteens run by the contractor Wazir Ali were famous throughout India; probably the best-remembered was at Deolali. An egg banjo is a fried egg between two slices of bread.
† mad
* The tops of pillar-boxes were treated with a special paint which reacted in the presence of poison gas.
* go!
* Strictly speaking I should probably have held my fire, since the Jap was between me and comrades who were advancing into the wood, but I have since learned that I was not alone in letting fly at him and breaching what battle school instructors call “fire discipline”. I can only plead the heat of the moment and say that it seemed a good idea at the time.
* It was. I visited him after the war, when he had had to give up his job as a builder because his right arm could not be fully lifted, and he could not mount scaffolding in safety.
Chapter 10
Apart from being a first-class soldier, the new corporal, Peel, was genial and sensible; the other additions were Wattie, who had been with us at the temple wood, and a big humorous Yorkshireman, Morton; all three fitted in smoothly, and there was general satisfaction. Stanley was confirmed, to his quiet disgust, as Bren gunner, with Wedge as his number two—a billet which I had sought because Stanley and I had become muckers as a result of the recent action, but which Sergeant Hutton had refused me. I found out why the day after we returned to Meiktila, when he told me to report to company office.
“What the hell have I done?” was a natural reaction, and he gave me one of his rare, sour grins.
“Weel, w'at ’ev ye done? Nowt? Then don't fret tha bloody sel'. Git yer belt an' titfer, do thasel' oop, and doan't keep Long John waitin'—moove!”
Company office in the field consisted of a camp stool with Long John sitting on it. I strode up and saluted, he gave me a courteous good morning, looked me up and down, and dropped his bombshell: a promotion to lance-corporal, second-in-command of the section.
Well, we needed one, but my first reaction was that the sun had got him; the very thought of being given authority over veterans like Nixon and Grandarse and the Duke—of having to direct them in action, took the breath away. Not that lance-jack is any great eminence; it is an appointment, not a rank, and is the worst dogs-body's job in the Army, as Hitler and I could tell you. But if anything happened to Peel—or even if the section got split up in a duffy, as frequently happened, I would be the man in command, and I didn't fancy it. I said so.
“Why not?”
“Well, sir, I'm the youngest in the section, and haven't much experience—”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen, sir. Twenty next month.” It didn't occur to me that Long John himself, with a major's crown on his shoulder, was probably younger than most of Nine Section.
“If you'd passed wosbie* last year you'd probably be commanding a platoon in France by now—without any experience.” So he knew I'd failed to get into OCTU, and also, no doubt, that I'd been a lance-corporal thrice before, and busted each time. I said that I'd like another shot at a commission, eventually. Which was like bowling him a very slow lob.
“You can't go to wosbie again until this is over.” His gesture indicated Burma in general. “When it is, I'll see that you're sent up, and if you've been leading a section it'll be in your favour.'
After that there was nothing to do but thank him, accept with inner misgivings, draw two stripes from the stores, sew one on each sleeve, and submit to the unbridled hilarity of Nine Section. They lay about, heaving—at least Grandarse did, purple with mirth and inviting anatomical impossibilities on himself; the others were kinder, merely begging to be allowed to lick my boots, clean my equipment, and fetch my connor* from the cookhouse. Having been through this three times before, I wasn't unduly disturbed; it wasn't like being a lance-jack at home, where your principal fear was of being defied and made to look foolish; up the road, life is serious, and such worries don't even exist.
And more important things were happening. My promotion coincided (I learn from the official history) with the Japanese decision to abandon the siege of Meiktila—if only I'd known I could have invited Grandarse to draw the obvious conclusion—but the big news which ran through the rifle pits was that six Japs had come out of the Fort Dufferin defences at Mandalay with their hands up. For all I know, this may have been latrine gossip; I imagine that there must have been earlier cases of Japanese surrender, even if they were just individual ones. But Nine Section took the rumour as a portent, and discussion was heated.
“Ah doot it,” was Nick's verdict. “When Ah see a fookin' Japanni wallah crawlin' oot o' ’is fookin hole wid a white flag, Ah'll believe it then, not until.”
“Aye, mebbe,” said Grandarse, wanting to believe it. “Mind you, Jap's bin gittin' the shit knocked oot on ’im a' ower—’ere and at Mandalay. ’E moost ’ev aboot ’ed it, by this.”
“Bollocks,” said Nick. “Them boogers ’ev ’ed it when they're deid. Look at that lot that committed ’arry-karry in the ’ospital. Jap doesn't pack in, noo an' Ah'm tellin' ye!”
“You, ye fookin' pessimist!” cried Grandarse. “Spreadin' alarm an' despondency! Christ, if gripin' wad ha' woon the war, ye'd ’ev ’ed it ower efter Doonkirk! Ye mek me tired, Nixon!”
“Weel, Ah'm not coontin' on ’im packin' in,” said Forster. “We'll ’ev to chess the boogers a' the way to Tokyo.”
“Ye'll a' be killed afore then,” said Nixon, winking behind Grandarse.
“Booger me, ’e's still at it! Naw, man, think on! Jap's bin chessed a' the way doon from Imphal, ’e's bin beat ’ere, ’e's bin beat at Mandalay—bloody ’ell, ye've seen more deid Japs on the road ’ere than ye've got ’airs on yer arse—”
“Not on your arse, tho'.”
“Nivver mind my arse! W'at Ah'm sayin' is, ’e moost be marchin' on ’is chinstrap by noo! An' look ’ere, Nick—suppose thoo wez a Jap—”
“Ah, so! Me Jap, me sit in bunker, wait for Glandarse, stick bayonet up honnelable jacksy—”
“If thoo wez a Jap,” insisted Grandarse, “an' saw this lot coomin'—Goorkas, an' Pathans, an' Sikhs, an' them bloody great black boogers frae th'East African Division—fookin' Zulus, or summat—aye, an' us, an' a'—wadn't you pack in? Ah'm bloody sure ye wad! Weel, Jap isn't bloody stupid!”
“Course ’e's bloody stupid!” said Forster. “’E commits suicide, doesn't ’e? That's as stupid as ye can git!”
“Aye, but there's a limit!” roared Grandarse. “That's what Ah'm sayin', see? ’E's boond tae pack in soomtime! An' this lot at Mandalay's the start on't, mebbe. Eh?” He looked round in wrathful appeal. “Wadn't ye say?”
The Duke remarked that one swallow didn't make a summer.
“’Oo's talkin' aboot fookin' swallers? Coom on, Tommo, w'at d'you say?”
The corporal, thus addressed, doubted if Jap would crack soon, if at all. From what he had heard officially, while driven out of Mandalay and abandoning his siege of Meiktila, he was preparing a big defence at a place called Pyawbwe.
“W'eer th'ell's that?”
“Next town down the road.”
“An' w'ee's gonna tek that?”
“We are.”
“Aw, fer fook's sake!” Grandarse stared in disbelief. “Is the fookin' Black Cat th' only div sign they knaw? W'at aboot the Cross Keys, or the Dagger div, or them wid the bloody spiders an' crossed spears?* Bloody ’ell, Calcutta's full o' them! Ye can't git a drink in Jimmy's Kitchen for bloody Raff an' Chindits! Git the boogers down ’ere, to Pawbee, or whativver
ye ca' it!”
“Where's Fifth Div?” asked Wedge, voicing his obsession.
“They'll leapfrog us sooner or later,” the corporal was beginning.
“Aye, bloody later!” fumed Grandarse. “Flamin' Arseholes!”
“—and Cross Keys div's at Mandalay,” continued Peel. “I don't know about the others. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We'll be going down the road shortly.”
“In the bloody crap again!” Grandarse apostrophised the heavens. “Sell the farm an' buy us oot! Ah've aboot ’ed it, me! Naw, it's not bloody fair! Ah thowt w'en we took Mike-tilla we'd git a bit o' rest—Ah could do wi' seven days at the Museum, me—an' w'at'll Ah git? Japs! Fookin' Tojos!”
“Mind they doan't git thee,” said Forster acidly.
“That's reet, Grandarse lad. There's a bloody girt big Imperial Guardsman doon t'road, wid a Samurai sword, an' it's got thy number on it. I'm tellin' ye, ye'll a' git killed.”
“Aw, bollix! Pee—Pee-what-d'ye-call-it, Tommo?”
“Pyawbwe.”
It's pronounced Pee-aw-bee, and Peel's information was correct: we were to take it. I imagine that the reason 17th Div got the job was because there wasn't a day to be lost, and we were nearest and best organised for the work. Jap was digging in for a last desperate stand on the Rangoon road: if he could hold us at Pyawbwe for just a few weeks, until the monsoon broke, he might stave off defeat indefinitely, for when the rains came they would turn southern Burma into a huge swamp where no armour or truck could operate, where the airfields would be impossible, and where even infantry could not operate effectively. “You can't fight through the monsoon” was the received wisdom, and if it proved to be true Fourteenth Army would squelch to a halt somewhere on the southern edge of the Dry Belt, and Jap would have months in which to reorganise his defence of southern Burma.
“We'll be oop tae the goolies in watter, gittin' et tae bits by leeches an' joongle sores, while the lal bastard's diggin' ’issel' in a' the way tae Rangoon,” was Nick's verdict. “Rain? It joost pisses doon forivver. It'll be that deep in t'paddy, they'll efta tek the Goorkas oot the line, or the poor lal boogers'll droon.”
“Maybe Jap'll drown, too, Nick. He's just a chota wallah.”*
“Droon? Them? The bastards are fireproof, watterproof, an' too fookin' dumb tae droon. The only way they die is Tojo's way. Ah, weel, we'll a' git killed.”
But if Pyawbwe could be taken in time, and we could get a grip on southern Burma before the monsoon set in in earnest, Jap might be wrapped up by the end of the year, in Burma at least. The best armies he had put into the field anywhere would have been broken and scattered north of Rangoon; the strongest link in the chain surrounding his homeland would have been broken, and the allies would be closing inexorably from all sides—Americans in the Pacific, Australians in New Guinea and Borneo, Chinese in China and Korea, ourselves in Malaya and Siam. That was how it looked then; the war in Europe might be all but won, but South-east Asia looked set for a long-drawn bloody struggle which would end only with an assault on the Japanese mainland—in 1946? 1947? There were those who spoke of 1950, even. No one underestimated Jap: he might be a subhuman creature who tortured and starved prisoners of war to death, raped women captives, and used civilians for bayonet practice, but there was no braver soldier in the whole history of war, and if he fought to a finish…In the meantime, Pyawbwe.
Before we left Meiktila I had my first taste of leading the section—or rather, having the section lead me, for the operation was a highly technical one of which I knew nothing and they knew everything, and then some. This often happens to young men on their first independent commands, and is very educational.
With Jap surrounding Meiktila all our supplies had been dropped from the air, and even when he began to withdraw from our northern front the road route remained hazardous, and the drops continued. Corporal Peel being otherwise engaged, I was ordered by Hutton to take the section out to assist in the collection of supplies being dropped that day, so I fell them in and marched them to the 15cwt truck which would take us out to the dropping zone, a mile or so beyond the perimeter. Usually the prospect of fatigues induced extreme lethargy and a tendency to melt into the background, but to my surprise they were not only all present but eager; even Grandarse, whose normal response to being roused was to turn over and go into a coma, was to the fore, armed with a water chaggle on either shoulder.
“Bloody thoorsty work, air drops,” he explained. “Better git thasel a chaggle, corp—we'll sweat fookin' gallons the day.”
Corp? This was unwonted respect, for stripe or no stripe I remained “Jock”, just as Peel was “Tommo”, and even Hutton, to the older hands at least, was “Tut”. Not a little impressed, I told the section to take a chaggle apiece, and the truck set off looking like a water-skin bazaar.
“Best leave ’em in the trook, eh, corp?” suggested Grandarse, when we reached the drop zone. He raised one of the chaggles, opened a valve in his throat, sank most of the chlorinated contents at a gulp, and observed that he wad be oop a' neet, pishin' ’issel' cross-eyed. “By, Ah joost wish it was yell!* Ayup, let's be at it!”
The others also half-emptied their chaggles, hung them on the truck stanchions, and fell in belching, their radiators filled for the work ahead.
The man in charge was a grizzled Service Corps warrant officer, naked save for his service cap, shorts, sandals, and the wrist brassard denoting his rank. All round him were fatigue parties from the East Yorks, Probyn's, Gurkhas, Baluchis, Deccan Horse, West Yorks, Gunners, Sappers, Sikhs, Jats, and every outfit in the division, and he was going hoarse assigning them to different areas of the drop zone. This was a hard-baked paddy bounded by markers, a dusty expanse shimmering in the heat haze, for it was early April and the temperature was rising with a vengeance. It was going to be a gruelling day, and I congratulated Grandarse on his foresight about the water before reporting to the W.O., announcing the name of our regiment.
He winced, dropped his list, and gave me a hunted look.
“Did you say––?” he asked, as though hoping he hadn't heard aright. I repeated it, and he looked despairingly at the section.
“Oh, bloody hell!” he said, and sighed. “As if life wasn't hard enough!” He muttered something which I didn't quite catch, about the years of the locust. “All right, corporal, hold ’em there; I'll attend to you when I've detailed this lot.” And he turned away like a man with a heavy load, shouting bad-tempered orders to the other squad commanders.
If I'd been sensitive, I'd have said we weren't welcome, and I'd have been right. For when he had dispatched the other parties he returned and addressed the section directly.
“Right!” he said grimly. “I know you lot. I was in Ceylon in ’42, with your—–th battalion. I know all about the Pink Elephant. And I remember you in Umballa, before the war.” He drew breath, while I wondered what he was on about, and continued in a quieter, almost appealing tone. “All I'm asking is, keep your hands off the bloody stuff—you know what I mean. Just bring it in and stack it, bus. Behave yourselves, and I'll get you a few buckshees afterwards, okay? That's a promise—but you'll have to play the game, see? Leave it to me, and I'll see you right.”
It sounded like most offensive innuendo to me, but the section received it with polite interest; Grandarse was even nodding approval. The W.O. gave them a last weary look and led me aside.
“What are you doing with this shower? You sound Scotch. Ah, well, bad luck, son. Tell you what, I'll give you this stretch, near the trucks, where I can keep an eye on them. Right, carry on—here they come!”
There was no time to protest or question; the first of the big Dakotas was droning in, circling the drop zone just above our heads, the Sikh unloaders visible in its open doorway. Behind came the other planes, following the slow circle, banking slightly while the Sikhs thrust out the big bales. It was a spectacular sight, the aircraft glittering in the sunlight, the bales falling in a continuous shower; a few of them, containing machine
parts and other delicate cargo, came waltzing down on little white parachutes, but most of the great canvas bundles fell in what was called “free drop”, hitting the paddy with resounding thumps and clouds of dust, bouncing high and careering across the plain. The fatigue parties ran to them, and in a few minutes the zone was like an antheap as the covers were ripped away and the contents dragged out—crates and boxes and metal containers by the thousand, to be carried towards the parked three-tonners, where they were stacked for loading under the eye of the W.O. and his shouting, sweating assistants.
It was an uplifting sight, too—Fourteenth Army exercising its talent for improvisation on the grand scale, feeding and arming its spearhead deep inside enemy country, demonstrating that this was a siege which the Japanese, for all their superior numbers, could not hope to win; those leisurely wheeling American planes were symbolic, and the sight of them droning unhindered overhead must have been a bitter one to the withdrawing Japanese armies: not a Zero in the sky,* and food and ammunition in massive quantities pouring down to their opponents.
You had to keep an eye on that pouring process, for it continued while we worked, the big bales booming down while we scattered out of the drop line; I saw one misdirected bale come streaking down to hit a jeep on the edge of the zone; it struck fair and square on the bonnet, flattening the vehicle in a tangled wreck and exploding a great cascade of Indian butter for fifty yards around.
“Ye'll be gittin' yer chapattis dry the neet, Johnny!” Nixon shouted to a party of Gurkhas, and the little men beamed and squealed, pigtails flapping on their shaven skulls as they wrestled with bundles as tall as themselves; they worked, as they did everything, with all their might, slashing the covers with their kukris, staggering away laden to the trucks, racing back for more, and bubbling with chatter and laughter, treating it as a great game. The rest of us worked as hard; in that heat it was as exhausting as any labour I've ever done, even stevedoring in Port Said, but it was exhilarating, too; our arms ached with swinging our kukris, and our hands were raw from the canvas, but we enjoyed it.
Quartered Safe Out There: A Harrowing Tale of World War II Page 12