The Rose of Singapore (47 page)

His bellowing commands brought many of the airmen from their stupor. Grimly hanging on to their rifles, they began dropping over the sides and tailboard of the lorry, some to leap and some to fall into cover. The RAF Regiment corporal Bren-gunner was now returning fire in long bursts.

“Quick, man! Quick!” Flying Officer Morgan shouted as he heaved a terrified youth over the side. The youth was Tulip whose left hand had been hit by a bullet, and he had sat there staring in horrified amazement at the mangled bloody stubs where his fingers had been shot away leaving only a blood-splattered thumb. In shock, and hurt by the fall from the lorry, he was sobbing and crawling along the edge of the road when a hand shot out from the roadside undergrowth, grabbed him by the ass of his pants and pulled him down into cover. At that same moment a hail of bullets riddled the road where he had been.

Peter Saunders, thinking clearly now, was about to jump from the lorry but found that his foot had become wedged in the damaged and twisted metal seat on which he had been sitting.

“I can't move my foot, Rick,” he gasped in dismay.

“You've got to, Pete,” agonized his friend.

“Christ, Rick! It won't come out.”

“Shuddup and heave. Come on! Heave!”

“It's out, Rick! It's out!” Peter screamed.

“Come on, then. Let's go.”

Both airmen were about to jump off the back of the lorry when Peter turned and saw Flying Officer Morgan manning the Bren, sending short bursts of fire up into the jungle overlooking them; the corporal RAF Regiment Bren-gunner lay dead at the officer's feet. In between short bursts, Peter actually heard Morgan give a grunt of satisfaction, and he watched as a man's body pitched from behind a bush high up on the hillside to crash head first down onto the road. “One,” Peter clearly heard the officer say. A moment later, he heard, “Two,” and Peter saw another man rise from behind cover. This one rolled down the slope accompanied by his rifle, which he held onto until he hit the road.

Rick screamed, “For fuck sake, Pete, let's go!”

“OK. I'm coming,” Peter answered, and he was about to leave the lorry when a grenade exploded within the lorry's cab, the blast from it shattering the rear window and sending Flying Officer Morgan staggering backwards. Peter heard him grunt, and watched dismayed as the officer sank slowly down onto the floorboards of the lorry, a jagged piece of glass and chunks of shrapnel from the grenade embedded into his chest. Flying Officer Morgan feebly but tenaciously sought to regain his feet, and almost managed to do so, by picking up a rifle from the floorboard of the lorry and attempting to use it as a crutch. Weakly, and as if mechanically, he managed to draw the bolt of the rifle back and slide a round into the breech. But the rifle dropped from his hands with a clatter, and Flying Officer Morgan sank down across the body of the Bren-gunner, and died.

“You bastards,” shouted Peter, now almost in tears of anger and frustration. “I'm not going now, Rick.”

“You're what?”

“I want to get one of them bastards.”

“Don't be a bloody fool.”

“You go.”

“I'm going.”

Scrambling across the dead and wounded, Rick stooped down at the side of the dead officer and withdrew the heavy revolver from its holster. “I'll take this,” he said. “It may come in handy. Come on, Pete!” With those words Rick sprang over the side, his rifle in one hand, the revolver in the other.

Half-crazed with anger, Peter Saunders looked around him and noticed the violin and bag of golf clubs stacked neatly in a front corner of the lorry. Young Pilot Officer Graham, thinking they would be safer travelling in the same lorry as himself, had transferred them from the other Bedford during the rest period at the police post. The young pilot officer, himself one of the first to die, had fallen dead from the cab and now lay on the road in a pool of blood. Peter gaped at the dead man, his anger intensifying and all fear momentarily forgotten. Noticing the sun glinting on metal in the undergrowth above him, Peter suspected that a terrorist lay in hiding there behind his weapon. “I'll get you, you bastard,” he muttered. Lusting to kill, he wrenched a blood-splattered Sten gun from the hands of badly wounded Corporal Hicks, aimed the quick-firing automatic weapon from his hip and squeezed the trigger. The gun vibrated violently in his hands but he held on, the muzzle aimed at that glinting spot. Suddenly, as if in surrender, a man rose from his hiding place amid the greenery, his hands held high above his head—his surrender to death. And as he stood there dying with still more bullets thudding into him, Peter Saunders snarled, “Die, you bastard, die,” and he managed a grim smile of satisfaction as he watched clothing and flesh being ripped in shreds from the man's body. Raising the muzzle of the Sten gun ever so slightly, Peter watched as the man's face splattered and the head disintegrated. The body, finally keeling over, tumbled from among low bushes and slithered down the cleared embankment to land in a messy heap at the side of the road below. Seeing more movement in bushes above and farther back the road, Peter fired at the spot until there was silence from the Sten gun, its last round spent. Peter tossed the weapon aside. For the first time in his life he had killed a man.

Grabbing his rifle, he winced as a bullet thudded with a heavy thump into the Irishman, Paddy Jones. But Paddy Jones did not feel a thing. He was already dead, killed in the first bursts of gunfire.

Corporal Hicks, moaning horribly, lay stretched across a seat, with blood pumping from his stomach and forming a widening pool on the floor of the lorry. A determined gleam shone in the eyes of Peter Saunders as he hissed, “You're one poor bastard that's not going to die, not in this lorry.”

Attempting to drag the corporal by the arms, Peter gasped, for the man was so big and heavy and he felt so weak and inadequate for the job. He somehow managed to haul the corporal as far as the tailboard; but the man was not helping himself any, just groaning and feebly waving his arms in the air. There was only one way of getting the corporal off the lorry. Placing a foot against the man's behind, determinedly Peter Saunders shoved with all his strength, so that the heavy body slowly slid over the tailboard and dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Peter watched as the corporal, rolling over once, fell off the edge of the road and disappeared into the sanctuary of the jungle.

Now, it seemed to Peter that every gun on the hillside was aimed directly at him with bullets coming from all directions, splattering woodwork, thudding into bodies, and ricocheting off steel. So far, he had remained unscathed. Groaning loudly, he gritted his teeth and stood undecided, not knowing what to do. Several badly wounded RAF personnel still remained in the back of the lorry and he didn't want to leave them to their fate. But now his anger left him and was replaced by fear, he felt terrifyingly alone. Feeling as if he must at any moment empty his bowels into his pants, he was stopped from doing so by a sudden searing red-hot pain as a bullet ripped through his scalp and slid across his skull. Wincing, he cried out, “Christ, I'm hit.” He had to get off the lorry and down into the relative safety of the jungle. It was now or never. Carrying his rifle, he jumped in one mighty leap from the tailboard, not even touching the road but seemingly to fly over it, to drop over the edge and to land on his feet with a jarring thud among low bushes growing upon a soft, wet, moss-covered slope.

As he was regaining his balance an explosion behind him rent the air, followed immediately by a loud ‘whoooshhhh', and then another explosion. Fearfully he looked towards the road and gasped in horror at the spectacle he witnessed. The RAF lorry's petrol tank had exploded engulfing the vehicle in a great ball of fire, the screams coming from within the flames were terrible.

“Poor bastards.” Peter said, talking to himself.

Fearful and sickened by all he had seen, he plunged downward, panicking in his headlong flight through the undergrowth. He fell, dropping into a mass of creepers and nettles. Freeing himself, he tried to calm down, telling himself that he must not panic. But it was no use. Unable to control himself, he again crashed his way downward, fighting against all that tried to trip him, tear at him and hold him back. Nauseated and sweating with fear, he slashed a path with his rifle, not caring about the cuts and bruises received in his headlong flight, or about the noise he created, and expecting at any moment to feel bullets ripping into his body. On colliding with the trunk of a spindly tree, he grabbed a hold on it for support, feeling as if he was about to faint. Dropping his rifle, he leaned heavily against the slender trunk, holding onto it whilst trying to pull himself together.

On the lower side of the road the scattered security forces were regrouping, taking up positions and returning a massive barrage of gunfire against the terrorists hidden in the jungle-clad hillside a hundred feet or more above them. And now the armoured car, the leader of the convoy, having reversed back around the bend in the road, began firing back at the enemy, its heavy turret gun thumping and its twin machine guns chattering.

Replaying the awful events in his mind, Peter wasn't sure whether he was about to shit his pants, vomit or both. He vomited, spewing the contents of his stomach down over the tree and onto the jungle floor. Now he felt better and in more control of himself. Wiping his wet face with the sleeve of his jacket, he was surprised to see the sleeve covered in blood. Previously, the only pain he had felt was the moment the bullet ripped through his scalp and he had forgotten the wound. Now, though, knowing that it bled, it hurt. Removing his beret, he examined it and stared in disbelief at the two bullet holes in the blue cloth, one in the front, the other in the rear.

“You bastards. I'll get more of you before this day is over,” he shouted. He felt his mouth dry and twitching and his whole body shaking in both fear and anger. Leaving the sanctuary of the tree, he took up his rifle and cradled it almost lovingly in his arms. “You're going to do your stuff today,” he was saying, wiping muck from it with the cuff of his jacket. He decided to work his way upward, back to the edge of the road and once there take up a firing position.

The constant din of firing guns was now even more intense, most probably caused by the convoy's armament answering back, Peter thought. Yet, as there was such a continuous din of gunfire coming from the direction of the road, it seemed to him that the terrorists were still shooting up the stalled vehicles. Perhaps he could pick off a terrorist or two with his rifle, he thought. Through wet jungle, he began to make his way slowly upward towards the edge of the road.

Ammunition in a burning army lorry exploded near him, the blast knocking him to his knees. Dazed and unable to regain his feet, he began to crawl upward. He came upon several dead bodies, military personnel and civilians, some almost hidden in the thick undergrowth, others, with body parts missing, hanging in the bushes. Close to a burned out and still smoking car, two bodies lay, charred almost beyond recognition as once being human. At least two of the recognizable dead wore RAF uniforms. He came upon a turned-over jeep, its dead driver, a British soldier, crushed beneath it.

That's strange, Peter thought. Here there are only dead but a number of the airmen travelling with him had managed to get clear of the lorry and down into the jungle unscathed. But he was alone, and he wondered why. Some living members of his squadron must be nearby. He thought of Rick. He had seen him jump from the lorry. He must be close by. I must find him, he told himself. Regaining his feet but stumbling now, and finding no one alive at the edge of the road immediately in front of him, he turned to the right towards where the convoy was stalled, and from where there was still the noise of exploding grenades. Cautiously pushing dense foliage aside, he eased himself between creepers as thick as his arm. Thus, he worked his way slowly through the undergrowth, trying his best to keep parallel with the road. Suddenly he tripped and stumbled over a British soldier lying still and obviously dead. Regaining his feet, Peter kept going.

He found Jock Campbell, that sure-of-himself, dependable Scotsman, lying on his back with his eyes closed as if in slumber, and half hidden by the broad leaves of wild bananas. A grim, frozen smile played upon the face, yet the spirit had gone from the body. To Peter, it looked as if a hand grenade had exploded against the man's chest, killing him instantly. Much of the interior of the body lay exposed in one bloody mess of busted rib bones, heart and lungs. The stomach had been torn apart causing the entrails to fall from it in a nightmarish mess near the body, everything interwoven by ragged pieces of the man's KD uniform.

Sickened and dismayed, Peter stared incredulously at the mess at his feet. Shutting his eyes he turned away from the awful spectacle. When he looked again he gasped in amazement. An army of half-inch long brown and white ants had already found the body and were swarming over it in their thousands, eating their way into warm intestines and clotting blood, and already carrying away minute pieces of the body to their nest.

“My God!” Peter whispered. “My God!” With his booted foot he scuffed at fallen leaves covering the soil, and finding the soil soft and pliable he dropped to his knees, and using his hands and the rifle butt he began burying the body. “You poor devil,” he was saying, sobbing in anger and despair. “You poor devil.” Now, working in a state of frenzy, sweating profusely he scraped and tore at the loose soil, throwing it over the bloody remains of the body, to slowly cover it, inch by inch.

“No ants are going to get you, Jock. Not whilst I'm here. I'll get the bastards.”

Slowly but thoroughly he covered the entrails lying on the ground, and then the bloody mass protruding from the man's gaping chest wound. He then began covering the remainder of the body with whatever came to hand—soil, stones, twigs full of leaves, grass which he tore up by its roots, leaves snapped off the banana clump and then more soil. Finally, on completing the job, he stood and surveyed the heap at his feet, and with bowed head sadly said, “So, Jock, I did my best. Now go with God. Rest in peace.”