A Soldier Erect Part 19

The foray down to the road was also no fun. We were getting some bully beef hash inside our pullovers when Major Inskipp came over with Lieutenant Boyer and addressed us. Inskipp was Company CO, a smiling old boy with a wide face and a gaze that could go through you like a bullet when necessary. He told us that the new campaign was about to begin and that the Mendips were about to add a new name to their list of battle honours. Tonight we were simply concerned with helping the a.s.sam Battalion to safety. Tomorrow, we should probably be allowed to kill as many j.a.ps as we wanted - there was a good supply in the neighbourhood. The usual sort of stuff. With something touching in the way he finished with 'Good luck, boys!', as if we really were his boys.

We began to move in column file before night came down. Occasional vistas through tree-cover showed darkness rising out of the valleys, while the upper world was serene and in mellow light. It all looked so peaceful, you could hardly credit that the place was swarming with j.a.ps. Over Mount j.a.pvo way, black cloud was piling up. Easter f.u.c.king Sunday!

Scouts came back, we halted, spread out along a gully, squinting down through the bushes. An Indian file moved through us, heading up towards Zubza. Members of both parties gave a whispered 'Thik-hai!'

to each other in pa.s.sing as if it was a code-name. The Indians left behind them the individual smell of Indian troops, sweetly rancid with a touch of wood smoke and damp.

It took us two hours to get into position near the road. By then, night was absolute and the black clouds had closed overhead.

We waited. I was stuck behind a tree trunk with the radio set, and could not even see the road, but it was somewhere just below and ahead. There was a blown bridge nearby, round a curve of the road, although it was too dark to see the curve either. Messages came through saying the a.s.sam Regiment was on its way.

In the a.s.samese night, silence was never complete. Cicadas chirped, night birds called, an occasional wild dog yelped, and countless little things scuttled through the undergrowth. Something moved all the time. There was silence as well, felt like an echo in a sh.e.l.l, rolling down off the hilltops. Totally different from India, where you had but to kick a sacred cow and villages woke all round you. Here, the place was deserted except for the poor b.u.g.g.e.rs who had to fight in it.

There was another noise. Tension all round, rifle b.u.t.ts gripped more firmly. A pa.s.sword called across the road. Men slipping across to our side. The a.s.samese!

Then the firing broke out. We had heard a lot of shooting from Jotsoma an hour earlier - the j.a.ps were going in there, by the sound of it. Now came rifle and automatic fire, punctuated by sh.e.l.l fire, from a greater distance. That would be Kohima getting it again! It sounded like a real pitched battle.

But the a.s.sam Battalion kept coming across the road, Kukis, Karsis, and all the other tribesmen. What was more, they formed up behind us, in proper order.

It began to rain, a dull steady downpour. But the stragglers still arrived. They had walked over the hills from Imphal, and moved without hurry or apparent fatigue.

One of them was saying something in a low excited voice, down on the road. I could hardly hear anything for the drum of rain on my monsoon cape, which was protecting the set. A minute later.

Lieutenant Boyer fired a Verey pistol. As bright light broke over the scene, he gave the order to fire. The chaps lining the ditch by the road opened fire. Dusty Miller opened up on the Bren.

There were yells from the thickets opposite, and some answering fire. The j.a.ps were there all right, and must have been on the heels of the a.s.samese, but they did not venture to cross the road.

Our shooting stopped, the rain petered out. The racket up at Jotsoma and Kohima was still going strong.

Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! We waited for the order to move out, now that the job was done. Word came only when the survivors of the a.s.sam Battalion were clear. We started moving up the track again. Dawn was just filtering in. Our first modest bit of action was over.

By now, Kohima had been six days under siege.

Only when you stood in that landscape, with your boots firm on the ground, could you understand why advances by either side were so slow. Whatever the country looked like from the air, from the ground it was baffling. To the confusion of whatever prehistoric calamity had thrown up this maze of small mountains and valleys, nature had added entangling forest. Every hill, valley, re-entrant, and salient was covered with vegetation which, although from a distance it looked little more than knee-high scrub - so large were the a.s.samese perspectives - on closer acquaintance proved to be a riot of thorn, bamboo, and towering trees. Every minor feature, nothing on a map, proved capable in actuality of swallowing a battalion. Every hillside mopped up men as a sponge mops up beer.

Every now and then, pressure on the sponge caused a trickle of combatants to emerge. Often they were walking wounded, from one of the sites within the Kohima perimeter, from Garrison Hill, the GPT Ridge, or even the disputed area by the District Commissioner's bungalow - then the most famous building in the world. They pa.s.sed through our lines, V Force men, Burmese Regiment, Mahrattas, Gurkhas, Nepalese, Indian Infantry, Royal West Kents, and disappeared again into the consuming jungle, led by Naga warriors. Dimapur was far away, somewhere in the blue distance near Calcutta.

Our attention hinged on Kohima, always Kohima, and what was happening there. The j.a.ps never gave up. Their forces and ours were practically intermingled, and often fought for days on end within a few yards of each other. Behind the DG bungalow, centre of the dispute, the opposing sides lobbed grenades, volley after volley, across the tennis court. The RAF and the Americans were making air-drops of food, water, and ammunition to our beleaguered forces but, inevitably, some of these fell into j.a.p hands. It was hard to see how either side could survive for long.

There were plenty of other factors we did not understand. Why didn't Sato simply by-pa.s.s Kohima - there was nothing there anyone could possibly want, except the command of the Dimapur-Imphal road - and make for Dimapur, the gateway to India and impossible to defend? And why could we not make better progress in relieving Kohima?

The j.a.ps had command of the road at several strategic places. To try to advance down it was to invite ambush and withering fire. It was equally impossible to move along the 'valley, for similar reasons: that broad valley was constantly under observation. Equally, you could not move along the ridges of the hills - they were too broken, too directionless. We were forced into the undergrowth. And the undergrowth provided the j.a.ps with unlimited cover. They had perfected a system of interdependent bunkers which protected each other with cross-fire; if you charged one, you came under attack from two more. 2 Div was well mechanized, but mechanization counted for little here. Many of us were practising guerrilla warfare before we ever heard of the term.

We were joined at Zubza by a detachment of Pathan muleteers, tall men with monstrous black animals in their charge, over a hundred strong. These cantankerous animals set off wild-eyed into the bush, bearing supplies. Our perimeter had to be extended so that we could give them protection, which caused a certain amount of ticking and grumbling. The culinary habits of the Pathans, the aroma and blood-sucking flies of their charges, made them unpopular. Besides, mules were so primitive. They had gone put with the Great War!

Swinton dealt with that sort of att.i.tude when he addressed us one morning, two days after we had gone down to the road to help the a.s.sam Battalion.

'You'll all be glad to know that 2 Div is finally moving into action. We are going to relieve Kohima. The rest of the brigade is already in the vicinity, and 5 Brigade is taking up temporary positions nearby. The First Battalion will be moving into action tonight, at midnight. The cooks are laying on an extra issue of char, and then we go forward.

'Naturally, we aren't too keen for the j.a.ps to know about this. They will have their heads down by then, although we are prepared to disturb their sleep if we have to.' We laughed at his a.s.sumed consideration.

'We shall all be glad of the chance to do something positive. And we need a little exercise. We have been sitting on our a.r.s.es for too long. We shall proceed to Kohima along the Merema Ridge.' He indicated it with a sweep of his arm. 'We shall move along the Ridge, clearing it of enemy as we go, and we shall deliver a hefty punch at Sato from his left, where he will be least able to deal with it, and where it will hurt him most. He may be well dug in, but we shall dig him out - even if only to give him a decent burial!

'On this operation, we have two objectives: to kill as many Nips as we can, and to relieve the Kohima garrison. I know you approve of both objectives.' We cheered to show we did. 'Good. After Kohima, things will be easier. The road will be opened to Imphal and the Chindwin, and life should be simple. This is the decisive point in the war in the Far East -so we all understand, don't we, why the Powers-That-Be had to call in the Mendips for the job!' More cheers.

'Let me just remind you about the question of supplies. They are vital, as you know. We are going to want to eat up on Merema. We may get some air-drops, but cargoes are limited. It goes without saying that the Fourteenth Army is short of planes! We are lucky to have the Pathans and their mules with us, to bring up rations and ammunition. They are absolutely marvellous chaps and we shall depend upon them absolutely. They come from mountainous regions of Pakistan and are a warrior people; they must be given every respect, for our stomachs if not our lives are in their hands.

'Good! This is not a picnic we are embarking on. You are all aware of that. We have a worthy foe, and we shall vanquish him worthily. I will remind you of the words of Shakespeare, which he gives to Henry V to speak before another great battle, the Battle of Agincourt.

' "And gentlemen in England now abed Shall hold themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day!"

'The going before us will not be easy - we never expected it would be easy - but the victory, I promise you, will be something n.o.body will ever forget. We shall never forget it, and it will never be forgotten in the annals of our beloved country.'

As Swinton stood down, we cheered, and looked covertly round at one another. How many men there had tears gleaming in their eyes, as I had in mine - and have now, writing of it, all these years after! Those words from Shakespeare seemed to open up something inside us. If I ever come across them now, I can still weep, entirely without knowing why, for they bring back the emotions we felt in those shabby a.s.samese glades.

'b.l.o.o.d.y good speech,' I said to old Bamber, as we dispersed.

'Old. Willie's got the gift of the gab all right!'

'f.u.c.k off, it was a b.l.o.o.d.y good speech.'

'I didn't say as it wasn't!'

'Well, don't let your enthusiasm run off with you. "As long as you're listening to speeches, you're doing nothing worse", I suppose!'

He looked at me. 'You're young, Stubby, you're a good lad. But life isn't all speeches. It isn't what you says as counts, it's what you do.'

To accompany his talk, Swinton had brought a blackboard, on which his ADC sketched a map of the battle situation. The disputed section of the Dimapur Road formed the outline of the top half of a duck afloat. Kohima was tucked into the duck's head and beak. Above the head lay Naga Village, now in j.a.p hands. Down below its chest and off the drawing lay Imphal and the road to Burma. Zubza lay somewhere at the highpoint of the duck's tail. Stretching in an arc from tail to Naga Village was the Merema Ridge, overlooking the road for much of its length. That was our route!

Its lower crests were above our camp, its slopes clothed in jungle, its crest hidden by false crests.

Everyone looked at it and drew his own conclusions. And at midnight, as ordered, we began moving in single file up the jungle trails, heading for those false crests.

We began to learn the lesson many an army has learnt. Mountainsides eat armies. The true scale of any country can only be appreciated by walking over it. From a distance, the prospect of Merema looked straightforward. Climbing its hillsides seemed to call simply for patience and a little endurance. Yet, once we were under its tree cover, we found how every hillside was broken into dips and depressions and pimples and gulleys. Every miniature plateau offered its miniature ravines and cliffs. And, of course, Merema Ridge was just one comparatively minor feature of the area.

In daylight, thick vegetation cut visibility badly - you could walk into the j.a.ps before you saw them. You might get a glimpse through the thickets of the crest, cloud drifting over it, and think, Thank f.u.c.k, we're there at last! You'd reach it, and it would prove to be just another false crest, and more thicket and another crest looming above you. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.d and everlasting hills! We didn't know what we were at - it wasn't exactly jungle warfare and it wasn't mountain warfare either. If this was a.s.sam, roll on f.u.c.king Burma!

It was a matter of keeping going. We moved ahead for fifty minutes, had a ten minute rest, went on again. It rained hard for two hours. We wore our monsoon capes. You couldn't see where you were going and the trail grew very slippery. We could hear firing and the eternal j.a.p mortars, but nothing too near.

By first light, we were still stuck on the limitless hillside. Looking back through the trees, you could get glimpses of the rest of the world. It was all jungle. You could not believe that there were two brigades near you. A whole invasion force could have lost itself on Merema Ridge alone.

We dug ourselves in soon after dawn. I helped Tertis dig Gor-Blimey's foxhole while Gor-Blimey did his rounds. We ate a breakfast of eggs and soya-link and char. Pickets were set out, everyone else got their heads down. We were having trouble with the b.l.o.o.d.y wireless set, and it was h.e.l.l to get a message back to HQ, though we picked up 5 Brigade loud and clear.

We had patrols, out during the day. There was one brush with the j.a.ps, and two of them were killed.

Aircraft were flying most of the day, Dakotas and RAF planes, dropping supplies to the garrison at Kohima. And sporadic firing. Only at tiffin-time was there a sort of truce. Thank G.o.d the j.a.ps ate lunch at the same time we did.

With dusk, we moved forward again. Forward and upward. The eternal climbing, slipping back, the possibility of losing your footing and falling on to the man behind, or the man in front falling on to you. It was like madness, your leg muscles threatening to seize up, your heart threatening to burst. Although cool came with the dark, the air was suffocating in the jungle, and we were attacked by sodding great mosquitoes that whined and hummed round your face. To begin with, you'd try to smack them out of the way, but it soon became not worth while - easier to let them feed. By morning, our faces were a ma.s.s of blotches.

But before morning we had our own bit of excitement. It was a h.e.l.l of a night everywhere. Kohima was getting a plastering again. The noise came down the valley and you couldn't be sure of its direction: the great hillsides distorted everything. There was also shooting down on the road, and behind us, and above us, and to one flank. It seemed as if everyone was blazing away bar us.

We got word over the radio that a company of j.a.ps was attacking our former position down at Zubza.

There were tanks at Zubza now, which had fired their seventy-five millimetre guns into the j.a.ps at almost pointblank range. The surviving j.a.ps were now climbing towards us, and a reception committee was quickly arranged.

It was a relief travelling downhill for a change.; We moved to the rear, No. 2 Platoon, through our own troops. Our rearguard was already dug in on one of the false crests. There was a spur here, and Charlie c.o.x and Dusty set up our Bren on it, with good vision into the jungle just below.

We waited for two hours before anyone turned up.

The j.a.ps came up the trail, moving fast. Their scouts were bayonetted without a word, and the rest allowed to gather on the ridge before our lads opened fire. From the spur, we could pick the rest off as they tried to rush up and join battle, and we could cover the trail for some way back. Although the poor little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds yelled and blazed away, they didn't have a hope. We killed thirty-one of them, with no more than a flesh wound among our own men.

To celebrate, we had a quick brew-up and then made our way back to our proper positions. Before we got there, messages came through from the Worcesters on our left flank that their advance patrols had encountered a cl.u.s.ter of j.a.p bunkers right on the crest of the Ridge, which was now at last not far above us. Our platoon got our heads down while arrangements were being made for an attack the next day. I slept like a corpse, forehead down on pack.

By all accounts, the next day's attack was deadly. By this time, some 2nd Manchesters were up with us - they were machine-gunners, and useful lads to have along, but on this occasion they could not bring their fire to bear properly to keep the j.a.ps' heads down while the troops went in, since the j.a.ps were dug in slightly above our positions. We had some help from the brigade mortars, or such as had been a.s.sembled at this height.

The lads went in after the mortars had been pumping away for twenty minutes, with the Worcesters supporting on the left flank.

One of our casualties was 'Dolly' Lazenby. Sergeant Lazenby of 'G' Company was a tough old nut who had survived all that the Krauts could throw at Dunkirk; he led his platoon in with a bag of grenades round his neck. He was shot in the leg almost at once, but managed to fling himself right under the slits of one of the j.a.p bunkers. He lobbed a grenade through the slit. A crafty j.a.p grabbed it and flung it back again at once, so that it burst among our men.

Lazenby pulled the pin out of another grenade, counted to four, and then lobbed it in. Even then, all the j.a.ps were not killed - two had to be bayonetted before the bunker was ours. By this time, Lazenby was dead, killed by cross-fire.

The mortars had no effect at all on the j.a.p bunkers. After two charges, our attack was called off and we had to give up the one bunker we had gained. The Mendips had lost three men and the Worcesters, who had come up against the main complex of bunkers, six - with nothing gained. We had not even got on to the heights of the Ridge yet.

We were held up where we were all that day, in rain and shine. Now that the j.a.ps knew our positions, they kept pounding away with their mortars; we had to keep our heads down. Part of the trouble was that we were bunched just below the escarpment, making it difficult for reinforcements to come up from below. During the afternoon, we spread out round the hillside - not without minor skirmishes, for the j.a.ps had a nasty habit of digging foxholes in the jungle. "When you stumbled over them, the bunkers above immediately gave covering fire. Those bunkers, dug well in, with roofs covered by tree-trunks and earth, were almost impregnable and almost did for us.

At nightfall, we had another try at the main j.a.p position. Sappers had come up with pole charges, which gave us a handy new weapon if we could get close enough to use it. These were mines on the end of a long bamboo, designed for poking into bunkers, which were proving successful at Kohima.

Before we went in, we had the benefit of RA support from guns at Jotsoma, a couple of miles over on the other side of the road. Once they were registered, their sh.e.l.ls clumped home above us in heartening fashion. You lay there listening, imagining the j.a.p bunkers crumpling. Radio contact was good across the valley, although the RA could observe what they were doing better than we could. After a softening up period, another attack was launched. Our attack!

This time, No. 2 Platoon was having first bash, under Gor-Blimey. We were all there on our bellies, Geordie, Wally, 'Honey Pears' Ford, Chalkie White, Feather - the lot. Waiting for the word. We all looked really tough and dirty b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

The MMGs were supporting better now, since they had been dug into shallow pits in the rock. Using tracer one-in-five, they directed their fire right into the j.a.p bunkers, making the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds inside keep their scabby skulls down.

The signal came, the machine-gun fire stopped, Charley Meadows yelled at us, and we got on our hind legs and lunged forward, shouting as we went. Geordie was next to me, not showing a sign of his earlier jitters.

All that sh.e.l.ling, mortaring and machine-gunning hadn't put a single bunker out of action, though it had spread the jungle about the place. A few trees had come down - one on our right flank was burning into the night like a torch, and I saw Harding leap over its roots. All the bunkers began spitting out deadly fire.

At least there were sh.e.l.l-holes in which we could fling ourselves for cover. From them, we were able to worm our way forward and get right under the bunkers. This wasn't easy - the bunkers were built with their weapon-slits close to the ground. Inside the bunkers, any number of j.a.ps could produce a deadly volley of grenades, machine-gun, and small arms fire with little danger to themselves. This was what they were now doing.

But we knew the lie of the land and we had the hang of things. This was going to be our f.u.c.king ridge!

We were beginning as we meant to go on. We used every inch of cover, worming our way forward, firing as we went. The pole-charges, too, did their stuff. We covered the sappers as they bunged their grenades home. An explosion, fire and smoke pouring out, screams, and we'd be in there!

One by one, we disinfected the j.a.p bunkers, bayonetted or shot all the surviving j.a.ps inside, and then moved on to the next. The only real hitch was when a bunker we had cleared opened fire on us again.

These were well established defences, and the j.a.ps had had a chance to establish communicating trenches between the bunkers. Once we got the idea, we killed several j.a.ps in trenches. With every bunker that fell, the next was correspondingly easier.

The noise all the time was colossal, though you didn't realize that properly till afterwards. The Worcesters were having a tough time too, somewhere to our left flank. You hardly knew what was going on, yet all sorts of sixth senses saw to it that you worked as one of the team and avoided the flying s.h.i.t.

None of the j.a.ps surrendered, scarcely a one of them fled. They stayed at their posts, where they could do most damage, until the last. It was weird to jump into the bunkers after we had blasted them open and find the enemy tumbled over the floor, his flesh and guts spattered over the walls.

Orders came that we were to hold the positions we had gained. We pitched the dead j.a.ps over the khud, took over their defences, and dug new ones to the rear. We made our own latrines. After first light, our reliefs trooped in and we moved back for food and kip, s.h.a.gged to the b.l.o.o.d.y wide, dead of emotion.

After four hours' sleep, I was roused and went to relieve Wally in the signal trench.

'You've been bleeding, mate,' he said. 'You want to stand further from the razor next time.'

I was so covered with c.r.a.p from head to foot that I didn't know what was happening. And I was still half-asleep. Almost automatically, I took Wally's place at the wireless set, where Gor-Blimey was taking reports and orders. He looked almost as scruffy as I felt.

'Haven't you had any sleep yet, sir?' I asked between messages.

'I'm going off in a minute, Stubbs. Is your ear hurting you?'

'I don't think so, sir.'

'Get it dressed afterwards.'

One of the orderlies brought up pialas of hot char while the R/T messages went on. I just slumped there, doing what I was told. From the situation reports, it sounded as if every b.l.o.o.d.y hillside in a.s.sam was loaded with j.a.ps. The garrison at Kohima had had another bad night; the DIS box had fallen to the j.a.ps, who were now firing into the West Rents' perimeter. But we had wiped out almost a whole company of j.a.ps, and it looked as if the Ridge might be clear for most of the rest of the way to Naga Village.

The regimental aid station to which I went to have my ear dressed was some way below our position. I got there after tiffin. It seemed a blessed refuge of peace. The badly wounded had been sent back from here to Zubza, and thence somehow they would have to make their way to distant Dimapur. Serious cases would then have a further journey: back to the railhead at Gauhati, across the Bramaputra, and the long exhausting journey to the hospitals in Barrackpore and Comilla, if they lived that long. India ! - Unimaginably far in time and s.p.a.ce!

My ear had been nicked by a flying wood splinter. Feeling an absolute malingerer, I had it patched, and then made my way to a rest tent, where a party was being made up for returning to our forward positions.

'Hey, Horry, some Burmese bibi bite your ear, then?' There sat old Di Jones, among half-a-dozen other bods, smiling at me, nodding his head, making little clicking noises under his breath.

'If there was any kyfer on this mountain, you'd smell it out first, Di, wouldn't you ?'

Although he wore boots and puttees, his right trouser-leg had been cut away below the knee and a bandage applied round his calf.

'Just a flesh wound from a bit of grenade,' he said. 'Not enough to get me back to India.'

'You don't want to miss the excitement, do you, Di?'

He lowered his voice and said apologetically, 'This sort of business, this fighting, it's really for youngsters.

I'm a bit too old. I wouldn't mind going home.'

I offered him one of my de Reskes and sat down beside him. We lit up and sat looking at the tired green foliage outside the tent. There was much I wanted to say to him.