“W'at they got ye on these days, Jock?” asked Morton. “Ablutions?”
“Ablutions orficer, that's wot ’e's gonna be,” said Parker. “Right, Jockie boy? Wiv my permish you can ’ave two pips an' a latrine bucket, an' spend the duration diggin' shitahses for the Pioneers. You won't know the difference from Nine Section—semper in excreta.”
In fact, what they had me on at Company H.Q. was filling in wherever a spare lance-corporal was needed, and I was kept fairly active in an irritatingly piecemeal way. Unknown to anybody, the war was into its last month, although there was no sign of this along the Rangoon road. Jap's final effort to break across to the east was at its height; they were coming out of the Pegu Yomas like gang-busters, and there was action all the way from Pegu to Penwegon and beyond. Patrols and ambushes were being stepped up, his attacks were being driven back or fought to a standstill, and apart from the main thrusts the country was crawling, literally, with stragglers, many of them half-dead with disease and starvation. They were wandering in the jungle, drifting down the rivers, lying in the chaungs, too spent to do anything but wait to die or be captured; even the “comfort girls” who marched with the Jap armies were being rounded up. But the remnants of 28th Army who were still on their feet were not giving up; their casualties were mounting into thousands, but they were making Fourteenth Army fight right down to the wire.
So while Nine Section were operating with their new corporal, I found myself going out in strange company, and missing them damnably. I was only out two or three times with different sections, and we accounted for the odd enemy, killed or captured, including the one I mentioned in the foreword who came screaming at us with a home-made spear, one against a dozen and he should have been dead weeks ago by the look of him.
“An' after this, it'll be Malaya,” I heard a sergeant say. “God knaws ’oo many divisions Jap's still got doon theer—joongle a' the way tae Singapore, be Christ!They say we'll be gittin' mules again. Wrap oop an' roll on!”
Malaya, mules, and more Japanese—well, it wouldn't be my indaba,* unless I failed wosbie. Although even if I passed, what were the odds that I wouldn't be back as a second-lieutenant, commanding a platoon in Borneo or Sumatra, nine months hence? On VE Day it had seemed that our war, too, must soon be over, but now if anything it was hotting up, and people were talking of another campaign. With mules. And if anyone had told us that thousands of miles away in the Pacific an aircraft called Enola Gay was preparing to load up, it wouldn't have meant a thing.
Meanwhile, the war still had novelties in store, and as I recall them they seem quite apart from anything that had gone before; it's almost as though they took place in a different world, and I was a different person. That can only be because they happened away from the enclosed regular military life to which I had grown so accustomed; they were, in the proper sense of the word, eccentric, a curious detached interlude of my time in Burma.
It began with a summons to the company basha where I was ordered to hand in my pay-book, that AB 64 Part I which is the documentary proof of your military existence, and which you part with only in unusual circumstances. My new company commander, an abrupt but good-natured veteran, explained.
“There's a selection board meeting in two weeks' time, at Chittagong, so you'll be going up to Meiktila in a week or so. Nervous?” He grinned sympathetically. “I've heard they pass about one in three nowadays, but don't let that worry you—most of ’em probably never saw an angry Jap and haven't any qualifications except School Cert and three years' service in the stores.” Which wasn't true, but was a fair reflection of a 17th Div infantry major's view of the rest of the military scene. “Got your AB 64? It'll have to go to your old company commander so that he can give you your character in writing. Leave it with the clerk.”
That was enough to set the adrenalin pumping. I hadn't seen Long John for weeks, since he was with one of the other companies. It hadn't occurred to me that he would have to pass judgment on my general fitness, recording it forever in my pay-book, where it would be scrutinised by those cold, fish-like examiners. What would he say? Well, he was the one who'd promoted me—and on my first outing my section had looted half an air-drop, and on the second I'd fallen down a well. Was he aware of these things? I could hear the selection board president: “In a word, corporal, you showed your talent for leadership by failing to restrain your men from pillaging, and in the attack on Pyawbwe you hid under-water. H'm…” Common sense told me that Long John would confine himself to general observations…but what would they be? Sins of omission and commission rose up to confront me…dear God, the best he could say was “Average”, or at a pinch “Satisfactory”, and what could be more damning than that?
“By the way,” said the major, “d'you know anything about this anti-tank gun, the Piat?”
I said I did; I'd been trained in its use in England, although I'd never fired it.
“At least you'll know one end from t'other,” he said, “which is more than anyone else does. We've had one in store for a bit, but no one's mentioned it until now. Corporal, give us that file marked Piat. Yes…there's been a request for one from––.” He mentioned an unpronounceable village which I'd never heard of. “About twenty miles up the road, small unit near the river. They also want an instructor. Let's see, you've still got a week in hand…well, why not? Take it up, show ’em how it works, and either bring it back yourself or leave it with them and fetch a receipt. But make it clear that you've to be back here inside a week—here, I'll give you a chit for their O.C.” He squinted at the file and gave a barking laugh. “A captain whose name, to judge from his bloody awful writing, is Grief. Well, he should know…”
Pleased at the prospect of change, and escaping from the orbit of a company sergeant-major who had proved himself a dab hand at finding work for idle lance-corporals to do, I went off to renew acquaintance with the projector, infantry, anti-tank, commonly called the Piat. It was the British counterpart of the American bazooka, and might have been designed by Heath Robinson after a drunken dinner of lobster au gratin. It's not easy to describe, and I may have forgotten some of its finer points, such as its exact measurements, but I'll do my best.
From memory, then, it consisted of about four feet of six-inch steel pipe, one end of which was partly cut out to leave a semi-cylindrical cradle about a foot long, in which you laid the bomb. At the other end of the pipe was a thick butt pad which fitted into your shoulder when you lay on the ground in a firing position, the body of the pipe being supported on a single expanding leg. The bomb, a sinister black object fifteen or so inches overall, had a circular tail fin containing a propellant cartridge, a bulging black body packed with high explosive, and a long spiked nose with a tiny cap which, when removed, revealed a gleaming detonator.
Within the body of the pipe was a gigantic spring which had to be cocked after each shot: you lay on your back and dragged the Piat on top of you, braced your feet against the projecting edges of the butt pad, and heaved like hell at something or other which I've forgotten. After immense creaking the spring clicked into place, and you crawled out from under, gamely ignoring your hernia, laid an uncapped bomb gently in the front cradle, resumed the lying firing position, aligned the barleycorn sight with the gleaming nose of the bomb, pressed the massive metal trigger beneath the pipe, thus releasing the coiled spring which drove a long steel plunger up the tail fin of the bomb, detonating the propellant cartridge, you and the Piat went ploughing backwards with the recoil, and the bomb went soaring away—about a hundred yards, I think, but it may have been farther. The whole contraption weighed about a ton, and the bombs came in cases of three; if you were Goliath you might have carried the Piat and two cases.
Like many British inventions, it looked improbable, unwieldy, and unsafe—and it worked. The principle was that when the bomb hit a tank, the long spiked nose penetrated the armour, and all the concentrated explosive in the bulging body rushed through into the tank's interior, brewing up everyone within. Whe
re a Piat had hit, the only visible exterior damage was a small, neat hole, or so they tell me. I never fired it at a tank.
I drew it from the stores with four cases of bombs—all they had—refreshed my memory by stripping and reassembling it, and hopped a truck next morning. I also took my rifle and fifty rounds, as per regulations, plus my kukri and a couple of grenades; if there was trouble I wanted some real weaponry handy.
The monsoon had eased by now, and it was a pleasant hour's drive to the village where there was a battered jeep waiting, with a Burmese driver. We loaded the Piat aboard and bounced away along a sunlit track past paddy-fields which were calm silver lakes fringed by scrub and jungle, and another hour brought us to a little collection of huts half-hidden by undergrowth on the edge of nowhere, which was the operational base of the officer I always think of as “Captain Grief”—and I call him that now because he may still be about, and I don't want him suing me or trying to kill me or, even worse, seeking me out for a jovial reunion.
Civilian readers may think my description of him, especially his conversation, exaggerated. It is not, and any old soldier will bear me out, for he was a prize specimen of a type in which the British Army has always been rich—I've no doubt he was at Hastings, and will be there, eccentric as ever, when Gabriel sounds the last rally: a genuine, guaranteed, paid-up head-case. Which is not to say that he was clinically mad, just that he behaved as though he was. You have heard of them: when touched with genius they become Chinese Gordon or Lord Cochrane or, in the last war, Wingate, that gifted guerrilla who revived the military beard, carried an alarm clock to remind everyone what time it was, scrubbed himself with a toothbrush, quoted Holy Writ, and was an authority on Donald Duck—or so I have been reliably informed. Splendid men, especially to keep away from.
Captain Grief may have been less gifted, but he had all the Deolali hallmarks. He was driven apparently by some high-octane spirit, full of restless energy and strange cries like: “Bags o' panic!” and “Bash on regardless!” and even “Aha, Ermintrude, at last we meet—over the bridge you go!”, uttered with a glittering eye as he paced up and down, clapping his hands. He was tall, rangy, lantern-jawed, and eager as an unleashed hound. His dress consisted of an old tweed fishing cap, a dilapidated bush shirt, corduroy trousers, and brothel-creeper boots, and my heart sank at the sight of him, for I could read the signs: this was one who would probably want the Piat mounted on a jeep, with me manning it in the passenger seat and himself at the wheel, roaring with laughter at top speed and changing gear with his foot.
To be fair, he did have tranquil moments, in which he sat brooding, sighing frequently and talking to himself. But he was in full cry when we drew up outside his basha.
“Come on, come on, come on!” he shouted, rubbing his hands and beaming. “Let's get weaving! Is this the old iskermoffit?* Let's have a dekko!” Before I could get out he was ferreting in the back for the Piat. “Stone me! Who's been robbing the Titanic's engine room? Got bags of ammo for it, have you, corporal? Bang on, good show! All right, stand at ease, stand easy, come in, have a pew, let's get to it! Tea, Sarn't Jones! Tea and your most welcoming smile for our friend here, Lance-corporal Whatsit—you don't mind if I call you Whatsit? It was my mother's name.” He threw himself into a canvas chair, put his dreadful boots on the rickety table, and beamed at me. “So that thing's a tank-buster, is it? Right, put me in the picture! Take a refreshing sip, and shoot!”
I did, and he hung on every word, interrupting only occasionally with exclamations like “Spot on!” and “Just the old boot!” Then I lay on the floor and cocked it, showed him how the trigger worked, and demonstrated the sight, and he promptly tried for himself, recocking it with one swift jerk and whipping into a firing position in almost the same movement. I impressed on him that the bombs were sensitive, and he cried: “Piece o' cake!”, untwirled the cap, and regarded the gleaming copper nose as though it were a rare gem.
“Bloody marvellous! Look at this, Jones—breathe on it and reach for your harp! Right, corporal, let's recap—this little isker pierces the target and all the good news rushes through, causing alarm and despondency to those on the other side? Great—woomf!” He flourished the bomb spear-fashion, while I made mewing noises and Jones, a stout little Welshman, watched resignedly. “Not to panic, people! Everything's under control! We replace the dinky little cap, so—gad, the skill in these two hands! Take it and press it between the leaves of your diary.” He handed me the bomb. “What's the effective range?”
“I'm not sure, sir. A hundred yards, thereabouts.”
“’Tis not so wide as a church door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve!” said Grief happily. “Now, corporal, eyes down, look in—we can't use it against tanks, ’cos Jap hasn't any—and I wouldn't fancy it against low-flying aircraft, but since he hasn't got any of those left either, we're quids in! How about boats?”
“Boats, sir?”
“The very word I was looking for! Note it down, Jones. Yes, good ancient—boats! Floating vehicles, and I don't mean the Queen Mary. Wooden jobs, sampans, lifeboats, rafts, once-round-the-lighthouse-in-the-ruddy-Skylark things.” He cupped a hand to his ear, expectantly. “Take your time, writing on one side of the paper only.”
The line between affected eccentricity and jungle-happiness is a fine one, but I was sure by now that this was your normal wild man, and not permanently tap. Apart from his three pips he wore no insignia, and I wondered if he was a Sapper, which would account for a lot. The reckless confidence with which he handled H.E. was right in character—I once knew a Sapper who corrected a wobbly table by shoving a land-mine under one leg, and it was weeks before we discovered the thing was armed and ready to blow.
I said it should sink any small craft, but that if it burst in the open rather than a confined space its explosive force would be dissipated. He nodded gravely and said, in a heavy Deep South drawl: “Naow, ain't that a goddam sha-ame…In other words, not much of an anti-personnel job. Be honest, hold nothing back!”
I said it ought to do as much damage as a 36 grenade, perhaps more, and he brightened.
“You wouldn't want to be within fifteen yards, wearing your best battle-dress?”
“Not even wearing denims, sir,” I said, entering into the spirit of the thing, and he regarded me with alarm.
“I doubt if there's a suit of denim this side of Cox's Bazaar,” he said in a hushed voice. “Oh, well, it can't be helped.” He gave a sudden explosive laugh, slapped his hands on the table, and was off again. “Right—Sarn't Jones, this is the form! We'll have a practice shoot, with good old Whatsit here pressing the doodah and shouting ‘Fore!’ Everyone on parade, no exceptions, summon ’em from the four corners—every man in the unit must be thoroughly clued up on this supreme example of the ballistic engineer's art, so that if our young friend should cop his lot, which—” he flashed me a cheerful smile and assumed another American accent “—which we shall do all in our power to ensure is a calamity that does not eventuate—” he became British again “—some other poor bugger will be able to fire the thing.” He gave me a sad stare. “But we shall miss you, corporal. Yes…yes, we shall.”
Jones asked when he wanted the parade, and Grief resumed his seat. “In one hour, neither more nor less! All mustered, Mr Colman, everybody out, bags o' bull, bags o' panic, tallest on the right, shortest on the left, and heigh-ho for the governor's gouty foot!” He waved in dismissal. “Find the good corporal a modest lodging, give him his fill of meat and drink, and put a sentry on his beastly bombs, twenty-four hours a day or longer if need be. Away, avaunt!”
You may have noticed that for all his idiotic persiflage, Captain Grief had mastered the basics of the Piat, handled it like an expert, asked sensible questions, and was wasting no time in having it demonstrated to his men, all of which was reassuring. True, as I gathered up the Piat and Jones collected the bomb-cases, he was lying back in his canvas seat, doing physical jerks with his arms and crooning, to the tune of “Mairsie doats?
??:
Liberty boats and Carley floats
And little rubber dinghies
Paddle your own canoe
Up your flue…
but then, as I saluted before withdrawing, he suddenly sat upright and took me flat aback by saying, in a normal, quiet voice, and with a smile that was both sane and friendly:
“Hold on a minute—don't know what I've been thinking of. Corporal, I haven't even asked your name.”
Relieved, I told him, and handed over the chit from my company commander, explaining that I had to be back at my unit within the week. He nodded and promised to see to it, shook hands, and said he was glad to have me on the strength. Then he glanced at the note, frowned, turned it over, and said:
“That's strange…no, your company commander doesn't seem to have mentioned it…I wonder why? Still, you can tell me.” He looked at me, clear-eyed and rational: “Are you a lurkin' firkin or a peepin' gremlin?”
Just when I'd started believing he was all there. I glanced at Jones, but he was gazing stolidly at the wall.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” I said, and Grief repeated the question, with just a hint of suspicion.
“I'm afraid I don't know, sir.”
“You—don't—know?” He seemed stunned. “Well,” he said severely, “you'll have to find out by tomorrow, you know! Oh, yes! Dammit all, d'you think you can just walk in here off the street, without proper classification or even a note from Miss Tempest the games mistress? We have to know who we're dealing with, for heaven's sake! You find out, jildi,* or there'll be fire and sword along Banana Ridge, I can tell you! Understand? Right, fall out!”
He sat down abruptly, seized a map, gave me a dirty look, peered at the map intently, and gave a violent start:
“‘Here be dragons’, by God! But stay—can it be a minute shred of mosquito dung? Let us read on…”