carry the plate, Sister Maria right marker, Salvation Army, by the left – charge!” when a solitary Spitfire came roaring out of nowhere and Victory-rolled above us. We didn’t get it; on the rare occasions when we had air support the Victory roll came after the fight, not before. While we were wondering, an officer – he must have been a new arrival, and a right clown – ran out in front of the company and shouted, with enthusiasm: “Men! The war in Europe is over!”
There was a long silence, while we digested this, and looked through the heat haze to the village where Jap might be waiting, and I’m not sure that the officer wasn’t waving his hat and shouting hip, hooray. The silence continued, and then someone laughed, and it ran down the extended line in a great torrent of mirth, punctuated by cries of “Git the boogers oot ’ere!” and “Ev ye told Tojo, like?” and “Hey, son, is it awreet if we a’ gan yam?”5 Well, he must have been new, and yet to get his priorities right, but it was an interesting pointer.
But if we resented, and took perverse pleasure in moaning (as only Cumbrians can) about our relative unimportance, there was a hidden satisfaction in it, too. Set a man apart and he will start to feel special. We did; we knew we were different, and that there were no soldiers quite like us anywhere. Partly it sprang from the nature of our war. How can I put it? We were freer, and our own masters in a way which is commonly denied to infantry; we were a long way from the world of battle-dress serge and tin hats and the huge mechanised war juggernauts and the waves of bombers and artillery. When Slim stood under the trees at Meiktila and told us: “Rangoon is where the big boats sail from”, the idea that we might one day get on one of those boats and sail halfway round the world to home might seem unreal, but it was a reminder that we were unique (and I don’t give a dam who knows it). We were Fourteenth Army, the final echo of Kipling’s world, the very last British soldiers in the old imperial tradition. I don’t say we were happy to be in Burma, because we weren’t, but we knew that Slim was right when he said: “Some day, you’ll be proud to say, ‘I was there’.”
Mind you, as Grandarse remarked, we’d have to get out of the bloody place first.
“Aye-aye, Jock lad, w’at fettle?”
“Not bad, sergeant, thank you.”
“Champion! They tell us yer a good cross-coontry rooner?”
“Oh … well, I’ve done a bit …”
“Girraway! Ah seen ye winnin’ at Ranchi – travellin’ like a bloody trail ’oond w’en the whistles gan on. ’Ere, ’ev a fag.”
“Ta very much, sarn’t. M-mm, Senior Service …”
“Sarn’t’s mess issue, lad. Tek anoother fer after. Aye, ye can roon … woon a few prizes in Blighty, did ye?”
“Well, now and then … seven and six in savings certificates, that sort of thing …”
“Ah’ll bet yer the fastest man in’t battalion, ower a mile or two. Aye, in the brigade, likely – mebbe the division –”
“Oh, I dunno about that. There must be some good runners –”
“Give ower, Jock! A fit yoong feller like you? Honnist, noo – wadn’t ye back yersel agin anybuddy in 17th Indian? Well aye, ye wad! Ootroon the bloody lot on them, eh?”
“Well, I’d be ready to have a go …”
“Good for you, son. An’ yer a furst-class shot an’ a’, aren’t ye? Good … yer joost the man tae be sniper-scout for the section.”
“Eh? Sniper-scout? What’s that?”
“Weel, ye knaw w’at a scout does. W’en the section cooms till a village, the scout ga’s in foorst, t’see if Jap’s theer.”
“To … er, draw their fire?”
“Use yer loaf, man, Jap’s nut that bloody stupid! Usually, ’e let’s the scout ga through, or waits till ’e’s reet inside the position an’ then lays ’im oot, quiet-like. So the scout ’es tae keep ’is wits aboot ’im, sista, an’ as soon as ’e spots Jap, ’e fires a warnin’ shot … an’ boogers off. So ’e’d better be a good rooner, ’edn’t ’e?”
“Does it matter? I mean, if he’s surrounded by bleeding Japs, he might as well be on crutches –”
“Doan’t talk daft! If ’e’s nippy on ’is feet ’e can git oot, easy! Didn’t ye play Roogby at that posh school o’ yours?”
“Yes, but the opposition wasn’t armed. Oh, well. Here – you said sniper-scout. Where does the sniping come in?”
“Aye, weel, that’s w’en we’re pullin’ oot of a position, nut ga’in’ in. Sniper-scout stays be’ind, ’idden in a tree or booshes or summat, an’ waits till Jap cooms up …”
“And then snipes one of them?”
“Aye, but nut joost anybuddy. ’E waits for a good target – an officer, or mebbe one o’ the top brass, if ’e’s loocky –”
“Bloody lucky, yes.”
“… an’ then ’e nails ’im –”
“– and boogers … I beg your pardon … buggers off.”
“That’s reet, son! ’E gits oot an’ ga’s like the clappers –”
“Being a good long-distance runner. I see. Flawless logic. Well, it must be a great life, as long as it lasts –”
“Well, it’s a job for a slippy yoong feller, nut owd fat boogers like Grandarse, or ’alf-fit sods like Nick an’ Forster. Ah’m glad ye volunteered, Jock. ’Ere, ’ev anoother fag.”
“Thanks, sarn’t, but I wouldn’t want to spoil my wind. By the way, does a sniper-scout get extra pay? You know, danger money?”
“Extra peh! Danger mooney! Ye’ve been pickin’ oop sivven an’ six at ivvery cross-coontry in Blighty, an’ ye’re wantin’ mair? Ye greedy lal git! It’s reet enoof w’at they say aboot you Scotchies, ye’re a’ways on the scroonge …”
The battle of Meiktila was a hard and bloody one, the enemy garrison having to be killed almost to a man. Even at Meiktila the prisoners taken were wounded … never out here have hundreds of thousands surrendered … as the Germans have done in the European campaign.
Regimental history
Slim was the finest general the Second World War produced.
LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN, Supreme Commander, South-east Asia
Slim was the chap … he made do with the scrapings of the barrel.
EARL ATTLEE
The incident of the three bunkers and my tin of fruit/carrots is engraved on my memory because it was my baptism of fire and, incidentally, the closest I came to participating in our capture of Meiktila. I say “our” inasmuch as the battalion was in the thick of the fighting for this vital strongpoint, which was vicious even by the standards of the Burma war, and won two decorations and a battle honour, but of this Nine Section saw nothing, and suffered no more than tired feet and ennui from marching around in the sun. They did not make philosophy about this, knowing that these things average out. That may seem obvious, but I had yet to learn it, and I’m not sure that I ever did altogether: it always seemed