It came closer this swing, nearly pushing him off balance. Using the extra seconds, he got his arm through the harness, grasping the rope from the other side and pulling it through. For a frantic moment or two he slithered and was drawn down the bank as he held on, then his foot found a root which stopped him sufficiently to secure a knot on the harness.
He climbed the bank until he could see the men opposite. Dan lifted his fist in salute. He motioned to them that he would sever the parachute above the harness, then they should pull the crate across. ‘Take up the slack,’ he bellowed.
He hauled himself up the tree to cut the parachute cords, leaving them as long as he could. Once free of the bonds holding it to the tree, the crate fell and, no longer being pulled by two forces, floated with less agitation. When the other three begun to pull it across, Alan took a tight grip on the trailing cords and was towed back safely after it.
Dan thumped him on his back as he reached the shore. Then all three seemed automatically to glance at their officer, waiting for his comment. The major walked to the far side of the now safely beached crate and released the parachute harness from it.
Sergeant Mackenzie cleared his throat rather like a parent reminding a child of its manners, but, as Sturgess busied himself with rolling and tidying the cords, he took on the leader’s role — as he was trained to do if anything untoward happened to his immediate commander.
‘Well done, Cresswell! Reckon if there’d been someone shooting at you as well, that would have been worth a medal.’
Alan gave a humph of laughter as the comment relaxed the tension of the situation, and, as Dan promised to strip him when they got back to the others and ‘go over him for leeches’, he quipped, ‘What more could a man ask?’
If vigilance had been the order of the day before the airdrop, afterwards the tension of the exercise was screwed several notches tighter.
Before they moved off on the fifteenth day, the major beckoned them round for a briefing.
‘I worked this area for most of the war with the help of old Entap here, “the best pucking scout in Perak!”’ He paused after the imitation of the Dyak’s response to any remark made to him, and Entap self-consciously put his blowpipe to his mouth and made the spitting noise that preceded the expulsion of the poisoned darts.
‘And unless,’ the major went on, ‘our calculations are seriously out we’re within a day’s march of the camp we think the commies use as area headquarters. All kinds of activities point this way — a major link in their jungle postal system, raids to extort and terrorise, printing of leaflets, training, indoctrination, we believe it all goes on at this base.’
‘Anyway, Entap and I are the reason this unit’s come in from the longest cross-jungle route — not, Veasey, because I had a personal down on anyone. I thought we’d get that clear now.’
Alan glanced down at Dan, who shuffled a jungle boot in the undergrowth and scowled like a guilty schoolboy.
‘The other units on this op won’t have started so soon or have travelled so far, but we serve to complete the encirclement. If the CTs make for the deepest jungle we’ll probably be heavily involved in picking them off. I hope we will anyway, though we’re running a little behind time.
‘We had a decent result at the kampong; this next could be the best result of the whole campaign so far.’
They murmured their support and even Alan was impressed in spite of his alienation as Sturgess went on.
‘Entap has found elephant tracks just off to the left. I propose to use these provided they don’t veer off our course too much. It’ll give us the chance to move more quickly and to keep a better lookout for their tripwires.’
It was the practice of both sides to guard their positions with elaborate systems of alarms or booby traps — a tin set to rattle against a pole, a bundle of tins in a tree, a flare or an antipersonnel mine.
They moved cautiously though much quicker all that day, following the paths the elephants had trampled, marvelling at the branches torn from trees and saplings uprooted as the animals had grazed their way through the jungle.
Sturgess read his compass and consulted Entap at regular intervals, and early in the same afternoon the Dyak came back to the line of soldiers with the speed and silence that astonished Alan and gestured them all down.
He was pulling his tube of poison darts from his belt as he went forwards alone. They listened intently, rifles at the ready. Alan thought he heard a noise like a tree keeling over, as they often did on the soft jungle floor, except that the next moment Entap reappeared grinning, holding something down by his side.
Sturgess, who was nearest, swore softly.
‘Pucking guard,’ Entap reported, lifting his left hand to reveal he carried the guard’s head.
Behind him Alan heard Danny bring back his breakfast. Several men swore and blasphemed under their breath; Alan swallowed hard several times. He had heard that this was something these Dyaks did instead of carrying the whole man back for identification purposes. In camp he had seen them sitting around their tent, continually honing their parangs to razor-edged sharpness.
‘You know?’ Entap asked, holding his trophy higher for Sturgess to examine. ‘You take picture!’
‘Yes,’ the major said patiently, ‘then you can get rid of it. I said I would use my camera so you do not need to do this.’
A look of hurt and stubbornness came over the tribesman’s face and after the photograph had been taken Alan suspected he took the scalp before finally disposing of the head at the major’s insistence — at gunpoint.
‘We don’t want anything extra to carry,’ he told the tracker. ‘Now on we go. But good work, good work!’ He patted Entap on the back and his grin came back immediately.
About an hour after this Sturgess halted the line and called them in again. ‘We’ve made good time so we’ll bivouac early, keep a low profile in case they miss their man — we don’t want to trigger anything too soon.’
There was a heightening of morale, for now their officer was working as a fully committed soldier. Alan too admitted his superiority as an officer in action. Every soldier had heard of officers and sergeants who deliberately made their presence known in the jungle — to make sure they never did encounter any terrorists. He watched Sturgess as he went from man to man with a word for each one; in action he was of a different calibre.
‘Have a listen in,’ Sturgess asked as he reached Alan, ‘just make sure there’s nothing we should know about.’
The signaller had barely swung his radio and pack from his shoulder when from some distance came a single reverberating echo. It was hardly more than the sound of an eardrum popping as an aircraft climbed, but they all froze, listening intently. The single shot was followed by the unmistakeable stutter of an automatic weapon.
‘Christ! Someone’s blown it!’ Sturgess spat out the words.
‘Not all that walking for nothing!’ Dan stood and shook his head.
Alan dived for his radio, put on headphones and throat microphone, switched on and listened to the operation frequency. Silence. Then he switched to their headquarters at Ipoh. His hand was just reaching for the knob to retune back to the operation call station when the smooth, upper-class and unmistakeable voice of the commander in chief came on the air.
‘Sunray here! Attention! Sunray here! All units Operation Tight squeeze! Go in now! I repeat. Go in now! All units ... ’
Alan looked up at the major, slipped the headphones off and handed them to him. Sturgess listened, nodded, handed them back. ‘Acknowledge,’ he said turning back to the men. ‘We’re going in now!’ he told them. ‘I estimate we’re about a quarter of a mile from the camp — a bloody long way in jungle, but if these tracks go our way a bit farther and the CTs want a quick way out, we may pick some of ‘em up.’
He gestured to Alan to let him have the throat microphone as well and, pressing it to his larynx, reported in no more than a whisper.
‘Unit One to Sunray. We’re on a natural escape route so won’t go in hell for leather, we may pick up more if we let ‘em funnel in rather than scatter them around the jungle.’ He listened out, then passed the instruments back to Alan.
‘The other thing is it’ll be dark in about an hour,’ he told the group. ‘We’ll move off right way, then lie in ambush along these tracks for the night. Signaller, see what else you can pick up as we go.’
Alan reassembled his kit, loaded up, locked his radio on to the operation frequency and, wearing his headphones and throat microphone over from the set on his back, followed the major and the sergeant. They had barely gone two hundred yards when they were again given urgent signals from Entap to disperse.
Alan slid the headphones aside a little so he could hear what was happening around him. It was not difficult. Whoever was coming, he thought, was not Dyak or Iban and sounded in a blind panic. The jungle trapped the sounds, sending them rolling along the track like the echoes in a tunnel. Soon, he thought he could actually hear laboured breathing, the regular suck and pump of air, then he realised it was his own heart thumping.
He swallowed hard, took deep breaths and tried to remember his training, the drills men said came automatically when action began. He had two conflicting thoughts: one was that he had still never actually shot a man, never seriously hurt a fellow human being — and would he be able to? — the other was the drill of bayonet practice, the instant response to the command to charge in and the ‘in, twist, pull’ of the bayonet.
He wondered if a real body felt anything like those heavy, awkward dummies they had screamed at in training.
Listening, his state of apprehension bordered on terror as the noise of those who approached sounded to him more like trains than terrorists. They passed within yards of where he lay. What was that bloody major playing at? Alan could have wept with the frustration of seconds hanging like sentences. He was sure he heard a stifled sob, a swift, involuntary gasp from Dan. Alan held his breath as if to compensate, then realised that the bandits were making so much noise they would never have heard.
He also dimly realised that the major was waiting until he was sure all the communists were in their sights. Alan reached the pitch where he really did not care what he fired at as long as he shot his gun off.
Then the challenge rang out. ‘Halt or we fire!’
The communists dived and the soldiers fired. The shots exploded, whined and ricocheted along the line.
‘Follow me!’ Sergeant Mackenzie was on his feet, crouching low, running to an ellipse of untrampled undergrowth in the middle of the tracks, an island of cover. As he moved more shots rang out, then answering fire from both sides as in the jungle gloom men saw where bullets were coming from. There was more firing and the swift cry of a man mortally injured.
Alan felt a shiver go over his spine as he was up and running. His sergeant seemed slightly behind but gestured he should take one side of the patch of central cover while he went the other. They emerged firing. Alan saw a hat with a red star in the undergrowth ahead of him and fired as fast as he could as he ran towards it.
When he got there it was just a hat caught in a bush. He grabbed at it and looked around for its owner. Mackenzie called to him, ‘I’m coming on your right, Cresswell.’
‘We got him then.’ The sergeant nodded at the hat. Alan turned to deny it, when he saw the young Chinese terrorist at Mackenzie’s feet, three shots splayed across his chest like a dotted line. ‘Make up for Veasey!’
A burst of automatic fire from farther back was followed by high Chinese voices, gabbling, appealing, the major’s command, and ‘All right! Stand still! Stand still!’
‘Come on!’ Mackenzie went ahead to where the major and one of the Sutherlands had two prisoners at gunpoint. They indicated their surrender with hands as high as they could reach above their heads.
‘Disarm them,’ Sturgess ordered.
Alan went forward, pulling hand grenades from back pockets, knives from belts. He gasped as he pulled a hefty parang out of the belt and across the chest of the second terrorist, and drew back as if stung. ‘This one’s a woman, sir.’
‘Is it!’ The major sounded unimpressed. ‘Lucky you. Right! We want some good long bamboos and Mackenzie will show you how to tie these across their shoulders, hands at each end. They won’t run very far or very fast in the trees then, should they try to escape.’
Alan had moved towards Entap, who was already cutting at a clump of stout bamboos, when he turned back to the sergeant. ‘Make up for Veasey?’ he questioned.
Everyone’s eyes was on Mackenzie as he looked directly at his officer and reported, ‘I’m afraid Veasey bought it, sir.’
‘That who screamed?’
The Sergeant nodded.
‘But I heard that ... ’ Alan began as if in the fact he had found out their lie, ‘He can’t be!’ Alan turned and went quickly back to where he and Danny had been lying almost side by side. He had run forwards, he thought, with Danny following.
Alan did not see him come but the sergeant reached the spot midway between the jungle and that central island of cover at the same moment. He knelt by the body as Alan stretched a hand down to Dan.
‘Sorry, lad, afraid he’s gone!’
Such a rage overtook Alan, he wanted just to shoot off his gun at everything — friend, foe, jungle, sky, everything was his enemy now.
‘Take a hold of yourself, lad,’ Mackenzie said, gripping his arm.
‘Don’t bloody lad me,’ he said between clenched teeth, repeating the words again very slowly, ‘Don’t bloody lad me,’ Then he asked, ‘Are you sure?’ and dropped his knees by his sergeant, though even as he asked he remembered the cry. He remembered
knowing
the man was dead. He stretched out a hand towards Dan’s shoulder as he lay on his side, facing away from them.
‘He’s dead, soldier.’
‘Not sure ... ’
The Sergeant tried to catch his hand before it reached his friend’s shoulder. ‘He’s dead, Cresswell — half his bloody head is shot away.’
Their two hands lay together on Danny Veasey and the pressure rolled him on to his back. Only his light-red hair was recognisable. Bile exploded from Alan’s mouth. He dropped his rifle and bent double until the retching stopped. Danny had been sick when Entap had produced the head. They needed Danny, he was a kind of weathercock, he knew how they were all feeling, he championed them all!
As he raised himself up, he saw the two prisoners coming towards where he knelt, their hands roped to long bamboos as if in crucifixion. He groped for his rifle.
‘We all feel like that at these times.’ The sergeant was there first and, picking up Alan’s rifle as well as his own, managed to stand between him and the prisoners as he helped him to his feet. ‘All right?’ he asked before passing the gun back to him.
‘Came from your part of the world, I understand,’ John Sturgess said as he came to them. ‘You’ll miss him, we’ll all miss him.’
‘What do we ... ?’ Alan sounded panic-stricken as he thought the major was walking on, for he remembered what he had said about the head and not wanting anything extra to carry.