When Dead-eye had gone Terry exhaled with an audible sigh. ‘Blimey!’ he almost gasped. ‘That Sergeant Parker scares the hell out of me. He’s so bloody expressionless.’
‘A born killer,’ Alf said gravely.
‘Heart of stone,’ Pete added.
‘He eats new boys like you for breakfast,’ Alf warned. ‘I’d be careful if I was you.’
‘Aw, come on, lads!’ Terry protested, not sure if they were serious or not. ‘I mean…’
‘Never look him directly in the eye,’ Pete said firmly.
‘Never speak to him unless spoken to,’ Alf chipped in.
‘If you see him take a deep breath,’ Pete continued, ‘hold onto your balls.’
‘He’ll bite them off otherwise,’ Alf said, ‘then spit them out in your face.’
‘Leave off, you two!’
‘It’s the truth,’ Pete said.
‘Cross our hearts,’ Alf added. ‘Old Parker, he’d cut your throat as soon as look at you, so it’s best to avoid him.’
‘How can I avoid him?’ Terry asked. ‘He’s our patrol leader, for God’s sake! I mean, he’s going to be there every minute, breathing right in my face.’
‘And he does so hate new troopers,’ Pete said. ‘You can take that as read.’
‘You poor bastard,’ Alf said.
Terry was starting to look seriously worried when Alf, able to control himself no longer, rolled over on his bed to smother his laughter in his pillow.
‘Night-night,’ Pete said chirpily, then he switched out the lights.
At dawn the next morning, after a hurried breakfast, they were driven in a Bedford RL 4×4 three-ton lorry to the airfield, where they transferred to a stripped-out Wessex Mark 1 helicopter piloted by Lieutenant Ralph Ellis of the Army Air Corps. Some of them knew Ellis from Malaya five years before, when he had flown them into the Telok Anson swamp in his Sikorsky S-55 Whirlwind.
‘You men haven’t aged a day,’ Ellis greeted them. ‘You always looked like a bunch of geriatrics.’
‘Listen who’s talking,’ Pete countered. ‘Nice little bald spot you’ve developed in five years. Soon you’ll be nothing but ears and head while we remain beautiful.’
‘The girls still love the pilots,’ Ellis replied. ‘They don’t view us as hooligans in uniform. They think we have class.’
‘And what’s this?’ Alf asked, poking Ellis in the stomach with his forefinger. ‘A nice bit of flab here.’
‘It’s the easy life the bastard lives,’ Pete informed his mate. ‘He’ll soon look like a cute little blancmange with a billiard ball on top.’
‘Very funny, I’m sure,’ Ellis replied. ‘Just get your fat arses in the chopper, thanks.’
‘Yes, mother!’ Alf and Pete replied as one, grinning wickedly as they clambered into the Wessex, followed by the others. Once inside, the men strapped themselves in, cramped together among the mass of equipment. The engines roared into life and the props started spinning. The helicopter shuddered as if about to fall apart, rose vertically until it was well above the treetops, then headed west, flying over a breathtaking panorama of densely forested hills and mountain peaks, winding rivers, waterfalls, swamps, aerial bridges and shadowy, winding paths through the ulu.
‘That jungle looks impenetrable from here,’ Terry observed, glancing down through the window in disbelief.
‘In many places it is,’ Alf replied, ‘but we’ll manage somehow.’
Twenty minutes later the Wessex landed in a jungle clearing and the men disembarked, to be greeted by another member of A Squadron, Sergeant Alan Hunt. Dropped on his own a week ago, he was living in the clearing, close to a stone-filled, gurgling river, his basha a poncho pegged diagonally from the lowest branch of a tree to the ground with his kit piled neatly up inside. Hunt was wearing jungle-green trousers and a loose shirt that seemed far too big for him. A Browning High Power handgun was holstered on his hip.
‘Hi, boss,’ Sanderson said, shaking the sergeant’s hand. ‘Boy, have you lost a lot of weight already!’
The sergeant grinned and shrugged. ‘Three stone fell off me just living here for two weeks. You’ll all look the same soon enough.’ He indicated the clearing with a wave of his right hand and all of them, glancing around at the oblique beams of sunlight streaking the gloom, realized just how hot and humid it was. ‘Ditch your gear and fix up your bashas. This is home for the next week or so. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. When you’re ready, gather around my lean-to and I’ll tell you what’s happening.’
When the helicopter had taken off again and its slipstream had died down, the men followed Hunt’s example by constructing triangular shelters with their waterproof ponchos, first hammering two Y-shaped sticks into the ground about six feet apart, running a length of rope between them and tying the rope tight, then draping the poncho over the rope and pegging the ends down to form a triangular tent. A groundsheet was rolled out inside the tent and covered with dry grass to make a mattress. A sleeping bag was then rolled out on the grass to make a soft bed. All of the lean-tos were well hidden by clumps of bamboo and screened from above by the soaring trees.
When their kit had been placed carefully around the inner edges of the tent, the men lit their hexamine stoves outside and brewed up. They drank their tea gathered around Hunt, hearing what he had been up to since arriving there a fortnight earlier.
‘As most of you know,’ he began, ‘when waging our hearts-and-minds campaign in Malaya, we transplanted the aboriginals from their original kampongs into new, fortified villages, well out of reach of the CTs. Given the nature of the locals, as well as the terrain, there’s no possibility of doing that here. In any case, most of the tribesmen are well disposed towards the British and we have to capitalize on that by relying on non-violent persuasion and using them where they live, rather than attempting to move them on. To this end I’ve already made contact with the elders of the nearby kampong, which is about five minutes from here.’
He pointed at the dense jungle to his left.
‘My first step towards penetration was to build this hide within walking distance of the kampong. From here, I kept the village under observation long enough to ensure that neither guerrillas nor Indonesian regulars were already established there. Once I was sure that they weren’t, I walked in, all smiles, and made contact through a combination of basic Malay and sign language. Gradually, they came to accept me and I started helping them with modest medical aid and by bartering some of my possessions for some of theirs. Now that I’ve been accepted, I can introduce you as friends and hopefully you’ll win their trust the same way, gradually becoming part of the village and sharing their lifestyle. Once that’s been accomplished, we’ll persuade them that our other friends should be invited in, too. If they agree, we can then call in the regular Army and Gurkhas – all one big happy family. We then use the village as a Forward Operating Base, moving out on regular patrols into the ulu, hopefully with the help of the villagers.’
‘What
