Jock!” bawled Sergeant Hutton, from his station right and rear, so I obediently scrambled down the side of the nullah, dropping the tin of fruit en route and missing my footing, so that I rolled the last fifteen feet and ended up winded in the nullah bottom.
It seemed to run fairly straight, and as long as it did I would be moving parallel with the rest of the platoon, now hidden from sight by the steep nullah side. So I shouldered the fruit tin again and set off along the nullah, with that awkward burden digging into my shoulder. It had been part of the big pack of compo rations which was the section’s food for the day and which had been divided among us at daybreak, to be eaten that night when we dug in. I had suggested opening it when we tiffined on the march, but Grandarse and Forster had said no, it would make a grand pudding at supper. So I’d cursed those Epicureans through the long hot afternoon, wondering if P. C. Wren had ever carried a gallon of fruit in the Foreign Legion, and muttering “Boots, boots, boots, boots”, to myself – not that it had been much of a march; ten or twelve miles, maybe, not enough to be foot-sore. But the tin was getting heavier by the minute as I trudged up the nullah, and I was going to have a hell of a job climbing the bank with it, as I would have to do in a minute, for the nullah was starting to tend left, carrying me away from the section’s line of march.
I stopped for a swig of chlorinated water from the canvas chaggle slung on my right shoulder, and took stock. There wasn’t a breath of air in the nullah – and not a sound, either. I scanned the twenty-foot red banks, looking for a place to scramble up. There wasn’t one; I would have to carry on, hoping to find one soon – either that or retrace my steps to the spot where I’d climbed down, which would leave me a long way behind the section, with night not far off. I couldn’t see the sun, but it had been dipping to the horizon when last seen, and I’d no wish to be traipsing about in the dark, getting shot by one side or the other. I heaved the tin to a less painful position, and started to walk quickly up the nullah – and it was just then that I saw the bunkers.
Usually a bunker is a large hole in the ground, roofed with timber or bamboo and covered with sandbags or hard-packed earth, with firing slits at ground level. These were different: three dark doorways about ten yards apart, cut in the side of the nullah, with manmade caves within. Jap bunkers, without a doubt … empty? Or not?
They were on the right side of the nullah, and on the plain above and beyond, the rest of the section would be moving forward – they might be a quarter of a mile away by now, or still level with where I stood; I couldn’t tell. Ideally, I should have climbed out and alerted them, but the banks were sheer. If I shouted, and brought them down into the nullah, and the bunkers were old and long abandoned, a lot of thanks I’d get – and if there were Japs in the bunkers, and I shouted … quite. Or I could pass quickly by on the other side, leaving them unexamined, and find some spot ahead to climb up and rejoin the lads … No, you can’t do that – but you’re a very keen young soldier if you don’t think about it.
I’ve never felt lonelier. Suddenly it was cold in the nullah, and the sun had sunk so low that there wasn’t a shadow. Five minutes earlier I had been sweating hot; now I was trickling ice. I stood hesitant, looking at those three long black slits in the bank, wondering what to do …
It was then I smelt Jap, rank and nasty. The question was, did it come from Jap in situ, or had he just left his stink behind him? Was he lurking within, wondering who was outside throwing tins of fruit about, or was he long gone to the south’ard? If he was present, was he as scared as I was? No, he couldn’t be.
The lunatic thought crossed my mind that the best way of finding out was to heave one of my two grenades into the nearest doorway and hit the deck, finger on trigger, waiting to see what emerged. And bloody clever I’d look when the section came running to the scene and found me bombing empty bunkers – I was a very young soldier then, you understand, and sensitive; I had no wish to be looked at askance by veterans of Oyster Box and K.P.6 (Three months later I’d have heaved in both grenades and the tin of fruit, and anything else handy; better to be laughed at than dead – and I wouldn’t have been laughed at.)
Anyway, hesitation was pointless. I couldn’t leave the bunkers uninvestigated; I couldn’t tell young Gale, our platoon commander, that I’d been too terrified; I couldn’t leave them unreported. It was that simple; anyway, they looked empty.
I lowered the fruit tin carefully to the ground, pushed the safety catch forward on my rifle, made sure my kukri was loose in its sheath, touched the hilt of the dirk in my small pack for luck, and moved delicately towards the nearest entrance, hugging the nullah side. I waited, listening; not a sound, just that hellish smell. I edged closer, and saw where most of it was coming from.
Just inside the doorway, where an unwary foot would tread on it, was a punji, which is a sharpened stake set in the ground point upwards, that point usually being smeared with something nice and rotten, guaranteed to purify the victim’s bloodstream. Some punjis are elaborate cantilevered affairs set to swing out of a darkened bunker and impale you; I had even heard of a crossbow variety, triggered by touching a taut cord. This was a conventional one, decorated with excrement by the look of it. But how old was it? (The things one does for a living: trying to determine the age of Jap crap, for eighteen rupees a week.)
Old or new, it didn’t suggest anyone in residence. I took a huge breath and slipped inside, dropping to one knee – and there wasn’t a thing to be seen but dim earth walls and a couple of Jap mess-tins, still half full of rice. I crouched there, wet with fear and relief, keeping my trembling finger well away from the trigger. I’d willingly have stayed there permanently, recovering, but it would be dark soon, so, carefully avoiding the punji (modern war is a pretty Stone Age business, when you think about it), I stepped outside again.
The second bunker looked much more promising. The earth on one side of the doorway had fallen in, and the dead fire in its entrance was days old. There seemed to be rubbish piled within, and the whole thing had an ancient, neglected look, so I passed it by and cautiously approached Number 3. Its doorway was so wide that I could see in to the back of the little cavern. I tossed a stone in, listening, and then nipped inside – empty, bare walls, and nothing but a crumpled Kooa7 packet in one corner.
I came out of that bunker feeling pretty heroic, and was retrieving my fruit tin when it occurred to me that I ought to go into the second one, too, just to make a job of it. And I was moving towards it when I heard a faint, distant whistle from over the top of the bank – little Nixon, for certain, wondering where his wandering boy had got to. I ran up the nullah, and found a crack in its side only about twenty yards farther on. I scrambled up, heaving the tin ahead of me, clawing my way over the lip to find Nick standing about ten yards off, and Sergeant Hutton hastening towards me with blood in his eye.
“Where the hell ’ave you been?” he blared. “Wanderin’ aboot like a bloody lost soul, what d’ye think yer on?”
“There were bunkers,” I began, but before I could get out another word Nick had shouted “Doon, Jock!” and whipped up his rifle.
How I managed it I have no idea, but I know my feet left the ground and I hit the deck facing back the way I had come. Whatever Nick had seen was in that direction, and I wanted to get a good look at it – I suppose it was instinct and training combined, for I was scrabbling my rifle forward as I fell and turned together. And I can see him now, and he doesn’t improve with age.
Five yards away, not far from where the bunkers must have been, a Jap was looking towards us. Half his naked torso was visible over the lip of the bank – how the hell he had climbed up there, God knows – and he was in the act of raising a large dark object, about a foot across, holding it above his head. I had a glimpse of a contorted yellow face before Nick’s rifle cracked behind me, three quick shots, and I’d got off one of my own when there was a deafening explosion and I was blinded by an enormous flash as the edge of the nullah dissolved in a cloud of dust and smoke. I rolled away, deafened, and then debris came raining down – earth and stones and bits of Jap – and when I could see again there was a great yawning bite out of the lip of the nullah, and the smoke and dust was clearing above it.
“Git doon!” snapped