One More River - Chapter Six

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Chapter 6.
In Brigade HQ, we rarely saw any live Japanese, but our patrols killed a few each day, so we knew that they were keeping our movements under observation; one day we found one of their signal cables lying on the ground and tapped into it, to hear them twittering away in excited tones; however none of us could tell what they were saying, and the nearest interpreter was six hours away. This part of our advance was mostly through fairly open forest, but bamboo jungle had grown up in neglected belts; much of the forest had a high canopy with an eerie beauty of its own. Being unable to communicate directly with our outlying columns, they sent a small patrol across to us each afternoon, with their routine report, and took back the operation orders I had prepared for the Brigadier to approve. One day, these involved our Gurkha battalion having to make a night march to occupy some vital ground about ten miles further on --- no mean task. The Brigadier knew that this would cause trouble, as we all knew the Battalion Commander was a man of strong views; he became a full General about 20 years later. I was ordered to take two of our horses, with a Sikh syce (groom), and to go back with the patrol, to emphasize that the night march was essential. I was told to be back before dark, but to have extracted firm compliance before that. This proved as difficult as we had anticipated and darkness fell as he was still arguing, but I had to remain obdurate.
At last he agreed, so the syce and I galloped off the four miles back to brigade HQ. Just as we were close to it, a fusillade broke out, as one outpost of the defence company lost his nerve and fired into the dark, where his unit already suspected that some Japanese were shadowing them; how right they were. The Japs opened up, as did more of the defence company, too; there followed a few minutes of "fireworks" in every direction, with a hail of bullets hitting the trees on both sides of the track. Fortunately, neither of us nor our horses were hit, as we continued to gallop on to safety. This incident served to remind us all that we really were being watched by Japanese eyes, even if usually in silence. In subsequent years, I have often wondered whether I had the dubious distinction of being the last British officer to ride a horse "in battle" ?
With our 400 mules, the Irish vet was kept very busy, and whenever one of the cantankerous creatures slipped on a narrow mountainside path and fell 100ft or so, our vet would climb down to put the beast out of pain; but, as it was already dead, he thoughtfully, cut out its liver, so that we could all enjoy some fresh meat, in case the weather precluded any air drop, and we were subsisting on our hard ration reserve.
We all enjoyed the liver, except the intelligence officer, who came from South Africa and told us they had had to eat their mules at the Siege of Mafeking (AD 1900) and that no South African would do it again. Always polite, he was a pessimist by nature; we called him "Sunshine", and his sense of humour was exemplified by his remark one very cold night, when the one blanket each of us carried was proving quite inadequate for sleep. "So this is the Tropics" he said, and caused us all to check our maps, to confirm that we had reduced our Northing to 22 degrees.
While our Brigade was outflanking the Japanese detachments trying to hold successive defence positions on the main forest route between Kalemyo and Pauk, the rest of the Division, and all of its engineers (except the one section of doughty Madras Sappers with us) were busy opening it up to be capable of carrying the whole of 4 Corps, including an armoured brigade of Sherman tanks on transporters. Also they brought the heavy earth-moving plant required to build a forward airstrip of sufficient size to be developed into an airhead for landing the RAF Dakotas and the US Air Force Curtis Commando aircraft of their Combat Cargo Task Force.
Our mission remained that of reaching for the River Irrawaddy, as fast as practicable, and for two reasons: to secure the prospective bridging sites, and also to prevent the outflanked Japanese troops getting across the river to reinforce their units there. We succeeded, and were then ready to receive our own vehicles, as they came down the new "highway" with the main body of the division. As our presence in the jungle had been detected, we had lost the initial element of surprise, but the Japs had never realised that we were advancing in such great strength. As well as the advantage of air supply, our firepower was greatly increased by the offensive support from the air, controlled so accurately from the front line by a RAF pilot and his signaller, just like an artillery forward observation officer. Almost always we used the same technique for winkling out the "last man, last round" Japs' bunkers, setting them alight with Napalm, followed by Parafrag (air burst shrapnel) as they stumbled into the open: with this accurate targetting it never failed, and it ensured that those Japanese were not available to withdraw for another fight.
As soon as we had secured our bank of the huge River Irrawwaddy, the preparations for its crossing built up apace. I was sent to examine the tactical aspects of all the likely places for launching boats and rafts. These included a mud bank, bigger than a football field, which was covered in low vegetation grown in the few months since the previous summer's floods.

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