be able to resup by chopper because this would give away the position of the OP. For this reason, you’ll have to learn to conserve the water you carry inside your body by minimal movement during the day, replenishing your water bottles each night by sneaking down to the nearest stream.’
‘So we should ensure that the OP site is always near a stream,’ Ben said, ‘and not on top of a high ridge or mountain like this.’
‘Unfortunately, no. It’s because they’re aware of the constant need for water that the rebel tribesmen always check the areas around streams for our presence. Therefore, the site for your OP should be chosen for the view it gives of enemy supply routes, irrespective of its proximity to water. You then go out at night and search far and wide for your water, no matter how difficult or dangerous that task may be.’
‘Sounds like a right pain to me,’ Ken said.
‘It is. I should point out here, to make you feel even worse – but to make you even more careful – that even after dark the exertion of foraging for water can produce a dreadful thirst that can make you consume half of what you collect on the way back. In short, these mountains make the jungles of Borneo seem like sheer luxury. And that’s no exaggeration, believe me.’
‘I believe you,’ Les said, still clutching his water bottle. ‘Can I have a drink now?’
‘No. That water has to last until tonight and you’ve only brought one bottle each.’
‘But we’re all dying of thirst,’ Ken complained.
Jimbo pointed to the trees scattered sparsely along the otherwise parched summit of the ridge. ‘That,’ he said, indicating a tree covered in a plum-like fruit, ‘is the jujube. Its fruit is edible and will also quench your thirst…And those,’ he continued, pointing to the bulbous plants hanging from the branches of a tree that looked like a cactus, ‘are euphorbia. If you pierce them with a knife, or slice the top off, you’ll find they contain a drinkable juice that’s a bit like milk.’
‘So when can we drink our water?’ Taff pleaded.
‘When you’ve put up your bashas, cleaned and checked your weapons, put in a good morning’s firing practice and are eating your scran. Meanwhile, you can eat and drink from those trees.’
‘Bashas?’ Ken glanced down the slopes of the ridge at the barren, sunlit plain below, running out for miles to more distant mountains. ‘What are we putting bashas up for? We’re only here for one day.’
‘They’re to let you rest periodically from the sun and keep you from getting sunstroke. So just make triangular shelters with your poncho sheets. Now get to it.’
The men constructed their triangular shelters by standing two upright sticks with Y-shaped tops about six feet apart, running a length of taut cord between them, draping the poncho sheet over the cord, with one short end, about 18 inches long, facing away from the sun and the other running obliquely all the way to the ground, forming a solid wall. Both sides of the poncho sheet were then made secure by the strings stitched into them and tied to wooden pegs hammered into the soil. Dried grass and bracken were then strewn on the ground inside the ‘tent’ and finally the sleeping bag was rolled out to make a crude but effective mattress.
When the bashas had been constructed, the men were allowed to rest from the sun for fifteen minutes. Though it was still not yet nine a.m. local time, the sun’s heat was already intense.
Once rested, the men were called out to dismantle, clean of dust and sand, oil and reassemble the weapons, a task which, with the dust blowing continuously, was far from easy. Jimbo then made them set the machine-guns up on the ridge and aim at specific targets on the lower slopes of the hill: mostly clumps of parched shrubs and trees. The rest of the morning was spent in extensive practice with the support weapons, first using the tripods, then firing both the heavy GPMG and the LMG from the hip with the aid of a sling.
The GPMG, in particular, had a violent backblast that almost punched some of the men off their feet. But in the end they all managed to hold it and hit their targets when standing. The noise of the machine-guns was shocking in the desert silence and reverberated eerily around the encircling mountains.
Two hours later, when weapons practice was over, the men were again made to dismantle, clean, oil and reassemble the weapons, which were then wrapped in cloth to protect them from the dust and sand. By now labouring beneath an almost overhead sun, the men were soaked in sweat, sunburnt and gasping with thirst, and so were given another ten-minute break, which they spent in their bashas, sipping water and drawing greedily on cigarettes. The break over, they were called out again, this time by the fearsome Sergeant Parker, for training with their personal weapons.
Dead-eye’s instruction included not only the firing of the weapons, at which he was faultless, but the art of concealment on exposed ridges, scrambling up and down the slopes on hands and elbows, rifle held horizontally across the face. The posture adopted for this strongly resembled the ‘leopard crawl’ used for the crossing of the dreaded entrails ditch during ‘Sickener One’ at Bradbury Lines, Hereford. It was less smelly here, but infinitely more dangerous than training in Britain, as the men had to crawl over sharp, burning-hot rocks that could not only cut skin and break bones, but also could be hiding snakes, scorpions or poisonous spiders.
More than one man was heard to cry out and jump up in shock as he came across something hideous on the ground where he was crawling. But he was shouted back down by the relentless Jimbo, who was always watching on the sidelines as Dead-eye led them along the ridge on their bellies.
‘Is that what you’d do if you were under fire?’ Jimbo would bawl. ‘See a spider and jump up like an idiot to get shot to pieces? Get your face back in the dirt, man, and don’t get up again until I tell you!’
While some of the men resented having firing practice when most of them had not only done it all before but had even been blooded in real combat, what they were in fact learning was how to deal with an unfamiliar terrain. Dead-eye also taught them how to time their shots for when the constantly swirling dust and sand had blown away long enough for them to get a clear view of the target. Finally, they were learning to fire accurately into the sunlight by estimating the position of the target by its shadow, rather than by trying to look directly at it. By lunchtime, when they had mastered this new skill, they were thoroughly exhausted and, in many cases, bloody and bruised from the sharp, burning rocks. They were suffering no less from the many bites inflicted by the whining mosquitoes.
‘I look like a bleedin’ leper,’ Ben complained as he rubbed more insect repellent over his badly bitten wrists, hands and face, ‘with all these disgusting mosquito bites.’
‘Not as bad as leeches,’ Les informed him smugly as he sat back, ignoring his mosquito bites, to have a smoko. ‘Those little buggers sucked us dry in Borneo. Left us bloodless.’
‘By the time they finish with us,’ Taff said, ‘you could throw us in a swamp filled with leeches and they’d all die of thirst. I’m fucking bloodless, I tell you!’
In the relative cool of his poncho tent, Ken removed his water bottle from his mouth, licked his lips, then lay back with his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
‘If you go to sleep you’ll feel like hell when you wake up,’ Larry solemnly warned him.
‘I’m not sleeping,’ Ken replied. ‘I’m just resting my eyes. They get tired from the sunlight.’
‘Getting hotter and brighter every minute,’
