He swallowed hard, took deep breaths and tried to remember his training, the drills men said came automatically when action began. He had two conflicting thoughts: one was that he had still never actually shot a man, never seriously hurt a fellow human being — and would he be able to? — the other was the drill of bayonet practice, the instant response to the command to charge in and the ‘in, twist, pull’ of the bayonet.
He wondered if a real body felt anything like those heavy, awkward dummies they had screamed at in training.
Listening, his state of apprehension bordered on terror as the noise of those who approached sounded to him more like trains than terrorists. They passed within yards of where he lay. What was that bloody major playing at? Alan could have wept with the frustration of seconds hanging like sentences. He was sure he heard a stifled sob, a swift, involuntary gasp from Dan. Alan held his breath as if to compensate, then realised that the bandits were making so much noise they would never have heard.
He also dimly realised that the major was waiting until he was sure all the communists were in their sights. Alan reached the pitch where he really did not care what he fired at as long as he shot his gun off.
Then the challenge rang out. ‘Halt or we fire!’
The communists dived and the soldiers fired. The shots exploded, whined and ricocheted along the line.
‘Follow me!’ Sergeant Mackenzie was on his feet, crouching low, running to an ellipse of untrampled undergrowth in the middle of the tracks, an island of cover. As he moved more shots rang out, then answering fire from both sides as in the jungle gloom men saw where bullets were coming from. There was more firing and the swift cry of a man mortally injured.
Alan felt a shiver go over his spine as he was up and running. His sergeant seemed slightly behind but gestured he should take one side of the patch of central cover while he went the other. They emerged firing. Alan saw a hat with a red star in the undergrowth ahead of him and fired as fast as he could as he ran towards it.
When he got there it was just a hat caught in a bush. He grabbed at it and looked around for its owner. Mackenzie called to him, ‘I’m coming on your right, Cresswell.’
‘We got him then.’ The sergeant nodded at the hat. Alan turned to deny it, when he saw the young Chinese terrorist at Mackenzie’s feet, three shots splayed across his chest like a dotted line. ‘Make up for Veasey!’
A burst of automatic fire from farther back was followed by high Chinese voices, gabbling, appealing, the major’s command, and ‘All right! Stand still! Stand still!’
‘Come on!’ Mackenzie went ahead to where the major and one of the Sutherlands had two prisoners at gunpoint. They indicated their surrender with hands as high as they could reach above their heads.
‘Disarm them,’ Sturgess ordered.
Alan went forward, pulling hand grenades from back pockets, knives from belts. He gasped as he pulled a hefty parang out of the belt and across the chest of the second terrorist, and drew back as if stung. ‘This one’s a woman, sir.’
‘Is it!’ The major sounded unimpressed. ‘Lucky you. Right! We want some good long bamboos and Mackenzie will show you how to tie these across their shoulders, hands at each end. They won’t run very far or very fast in the trees then, should they try to escape.’
Alan had moved towards Entap, who was already cutting at a clump of stout bamboos, when he turned back to the sergeant. ‘Make up for Veasey?’ he questioned.
Everyone’s eyes was on Mackenzie as he looked directly at his officer and reported, ‘I’m afraid Veasey bought it, sir.’
‘That who screamed?’
The Sergeant nodded.
‘But I heard that ... ’ Alan began as if in the fact he had found out their lie, ‘He can’t be!’ Alan turned and went quickly back to where he and Danny had been lying almost side by side. He had run forwards, he thought, with Danny following.
Alan did not see him come but the sergeant reached the spot midway between the jungle and that central island of cover at the same moment. He knelt by the body as Alan stretched a hand down to Dan.
‘Sorry, lad, afraid he’s gone!’
Such a rage overtook Alan, he wanted just to shoot off his gun at everything — friend, foe, jungle, sky, everything was his enemy now.
‘Take a hold of yourself, lad,’ Mackenzie said, gripping his arm.
‘Don’t bloody lad me,’ he said between clenched teeth, repeating the words again very slowly, ‘Don’t bloody lad me,’ Then he asked, ‘Are you sure?’ and dropped his knees by his sergeant, though even as he asked he remembered the cry. He remembered knowing the man was dead. He stretched out a hand towards Dan’s shoulder as he lay on his side, facing away from them.
‘He’s dead, soldier.’
‘Not sure ... ’
The Sergeant tried to catch his hand before it reached his friend’s shoulder. ‘He’s dead, Cresswell — half his bloody head is shot away.’
Their two hands lay together on Danny Veasey and the pressure rolled him on to his back. Only his light-red hair was recognisable. Bile exploded from Alan’s mouth. He dropped his rifle and bent double until the retching stopped. Danny had been sick when Entap had produced the head. They needed Danny, he was a kind of weathercock, he knew how they were all feeling, he championed them all!
As he raised himself up, he saw the two prisoners coming towards where he knelt, their hands roped to long bamboos as if in crucifixion. He groped for his rifle.
‘We all feel like that at these times.’ The sergeant was there first and, picking up Alan’s rifle as well as his own, managed to stand between him and the prisoners as he helped him to his feet. ‘All right?’ he asked before passing the gun back to him.
‘Came from your part of the world, I understand,’ John Sturgess said as he came to them. ‘You’ll miss him, we’ll all miss him.’
‘What do we ... ?’ Alan sounded panic-stricken as he thought the major was walking on, for he remembered what he had said about the head and not wanting anything extra to carry.
Sturgess came back almost immediately with Danny’s pack and began to unstrap his waterproof poncho cape.
‘We take him with us,’ Alan asserted.
‘Of course.’ As if seeing in Alan’s concern all the questions of what happened to a body in the heat, he explained ‘There’s a road much nearer the far side of this camp we’re heading for. Don’t worry, we’ll get him out. Do you want to ... ’ he held out the cape questioningly, then added, ‘wrap him tight?’
The sergeant took the cape and Alan nodded. They laid it on the ground; Alan closed his eyes as the sergeant took his shoulders and poor half head while he lifted the feet and placed him on his cape.
‘Wrap him tight,’ his brain was saying, ‘for he sleeps well tonight. Wrap him in swaddling clothes and lay him in the tropics thousands of miles away.’
When the body was neatly swathed, Mackenzie produced two lengths of cord. ‘Twist and tie the ends,’ he ordered and, when Alan looked up questioning the added indignity, he added, ‘We don’t want anything in there with him.’
The time of darkness was nearly upon them and there had to be much swift organisation. The major photographed the dead terrorists. The prisoners were gagged and their lashed feet tied to the trunks of trees. Alan watched critically, determined nothing should be left to chance. He saw how, with her hands lashed to her pole, the girl’s black shirt was pulled tight over her breasts.
Danny had talked a lot about his mother. Alan’s heart gave a sickening thud as he realised he must write to her, tell her how her son had died — well, some of how he died — and how in half an hour or less, all their lives had changed. Dan’s mother wouldn’t know for days; he hoped she would have a nice time until she was told. He wondered what day it was, perhaps the weekend?
He went back to his radio duties, reporting to headquarters. He was informed that other units had been under similar fire in areas surrounding parts of the camp. Things were quietening down now it was dark, but they were to proceed into the camp at first light, ‘taking the normal precautions’.