Jungle Adventures

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#1

There’s a chap whose name is legend among other legends. I was first told of him by his contempories, back in ’69. He’s always remained a bit of a hero of mine. Here’s a story extracted from a written account of him:

The Indomitable, Lillico.

Ian Thomson from the Fifeshire coalmines, crouched motionless behind a bamboo curtain, watching, listening, sniffing. Behind him at five-yard intervals, Sergeant Eddie Lillico and two other rear men blended with the jungle, awaiting his findings.

No leaf stirred, although leaves and the stems that bore them was the whole environment. If just one had done so the effect on the men would have been galvanic, for no breeze penetrated from the tree-tops to the jungle floor and no animal would have been so foolish as to advertise its presence, knowing man to be nearby and wanting none of him. A hornbill shrieked indeed, but from a safe distance. Even further away, a family of long-armed gibbons, high in the trees, hooted with wild intensity and volume enough to echo eerily from the mountain behind, which marked the border of Sarawak in Malaysia. Thus do gibbons proclaim their territory and menace intruders; but when man plays the territory game, he does not hoot, he shoots, and since Lillico and his men were purposely intruding into Indonesia, they were very, very quiet.

Their vigilance was occasioned by an old camp that they found the evening before, when a cursory survey, which was all the gathering darkness permitted, had revealed much of interest. There were bamboo lean-tos, which the Army calls ‘bashas’ though the term can be applied to anything from a makeshift tent to a sizeable hut. Significantly, these had no roofs, which natives would have made from palm leaves but which soldiers could more readily improvise with their ponchos; and the camp’s military nature was confirmed by labels on rusted tins stating the equivalent of ’Indonesian Army, rations for the use of’. The time since last occupation, six months or so, was given by the length of new shoots from cut saplings, an inch a fortnight give or take allowances for such factors as species, altitude and recent rainfall, together with other signs which to Lillico, after four years in Malaya and two in Borneo, were as informative as another printed label. But he realized that there was more to be gleaned which might be important, especially as the area had not been visited before by the British. He had accordingly withdrawn, and the full patrol of eight men basha’d up for the night on the slopes of Gunong Rawan, which Thomson translated as Melancholy Mountain.

A commander’s job is to decide priorities, and Lillico reviewed the orders given him by his squadron commander, Major Roger Woodiwiss, in the light of this unexpected discovery. His main task was to watch the River Sekayan, three miles over the border, which was known to be the enemy’s main line of communication.

Thomson carried a 5.56mm Armalite light automatic rifle. It is the lead scout’s unenviable role to be first into danger, to which, happily surviving the first onslaught, he must respond instantly and furiously with a volume of fire that can sometimes nullify the enemy’s advantage of surprise. The rest had 7.62mm self-loading rifles (SLRs), the British Army’s standard infantry weapon with a hefty punch and great accuracy, which fired single shots as fast as the trigger was pulled.
When Thomson reached the outskirts of the camp, he stopped, motioned discreetly with his Armalite, and the others stopped too without bunching. SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) then required a longer wait with even greater alertness, and for ten full minutes Thomson peered round the left side of a massive bamboo clump at the clearing, unchanged since yesterday. The bashas were interspersed between many similar clumps, and tall trees acted as screens against prying eyes from aircraft or mountain-top. To his left was a massive rock and beyond that trickled one of many small streams in a gully; this was ‘Ulu’, headwaters country, as far as you could get anywhere.

Nothing remotely suspicious, and their only tension was the self-imposed one of always expecting the unexpected. Thomson turned his head slowly to query Lillico with his eyes and, receiving a barely perceptible nod, he lifted the bamboo frond behind which he had hidden and stepped out into the open.

“The place er-r-r-r-ruted. Oh God, it’s hard to describe.” The ground at his feet spurted into his face as though propelled by a subterranean force, and where there had been absolute stillness he was engulfed by roaring, rattling, reverberating, tearing, throbbing, jarring noise.

To be cont’d

#2

For some reason this reminds me of village cordon and sweep drills; trail tracking and ambush drills; road block check and clearance drills; bridge check and clearance drills; and verge sweeps.

All is quiet. One after the other nothing is found or happens. Just go through the drills. Without looking as closely as one needs to to keep alive, 'cos it’s just a drill to make sure the officers watching are happy that you’ve gone through the motions.

Then some officer or NCO detonates the training charges pretty much in your face (Occupational Health & Safety hadn’t been heard of then) and some whizz bangs go off and the enemy opens up with small arms.

Amazing how just one experience like that can sharpen you up to look and check more carefully. A few exeperiences like that and you’re getting to be mildly useful troops.

Which is more training than most troops had in Malaya in WWII. And more than some had in the later Malayan conflicts.

Good training saves lives.

And kills the enemy.

#3

Absolutely. The JWS training was based on incidents such as that described, and run by those who had been there.

Lillico prior to the ambush:

http://news.webshots.com/photo/1503309571015838489KtSfbW

#4

Ambush cont’d

‘How I got away with it I’ll never know. There was this guy with a light automatic laid down beside a tree no more than twelve yards to my right front. He must have been even more scared than me.’ Thomson’s response could not have been faster, but the odds too one sided. The Indonesian soldier raised his point of aim and, ‘I was picked up and thrown to my left behind this rock; that was lucky because the guy couldn’t see me, but when I tried to get up my leg wasn’t there and blood was gushing into my face from my left thigh. I thought, Christ I’m hit! You can’t do this to Fifers.’

‘I sat up, and as I sat up another Indo sat up too and he was that close I could see he had a tiger’s head shoulder flash and if I’d had a bayonet I could have stabbed him; and I thought well I’ve got to get this bastard quick because he was fumbling with his rifle. It was an old-fashioned bolt-action Enfield, or maybe a Mauser or a Springfield, but I didn’t have time to see properly. Mine had been knocked out of my hand. His eyes were wide open and so was his mouth. I could see he was shit-scared, could be because I was covered in blood and yelling fit to bust. I don’t know why. He was a very young guy. I found my Armalite, which still had the safety-catch to automatic, and gave him a long burst and he went down.’

#5

Ambush cont’d.

Thomson’s decisive action probably saved his sergeant’s life as well as his own, and opinion in the Regiment conceded that he had been ‘very quick’. He thought, where the hell’s my leg? It seemed to have gone completely because it was no where near the other, and that conclusion was given weight by the altogether terrifying evidence of brilliant arterial blood pulsing from where his leg should have been, in great sprays not inches but feet long. Medically trained, he knew he was watching his life pumping itself away through the huge femoral artery, and that it would be gone in a minute, perhaps two, unless he decided and acted correctly within that time; yet his objectivity remained unimpaired, and just as well because he was stuck in a dilemma with two horns that propelled him in divergent and apparently irreconcilable directions.

Such bleeding could only be held by a tightly-bound tourniquet, so he quickly felt his thigh for a stump around which to apply one; no stump, no hope, no problem. There was. But bullets were still flying and he must not stay where he was; Sergeant Don Large had said, and he was a man one listened to, ‘When you’re hit, move; you won’t feel like it, but if you don’t you’re going to be hit again.’ So, which to do first for Christ’s sake? The bleeding gave him a minute, a bullet a split second. Move!

That decision was made and acted upon in less time than the nearest Indo could resolve whatever problem he in turn may have had, can be attributed to the sort of intense training that accelerates already quick wits to the speed of a computer, rigorously suppressing irrelevant thoughts like fear, or ‘What’s my old Mum going to think of this?’ he started crawling back and to his right behind the clump. As he moved he knew he still had a leg of sorts because its inert mass was wrenched to follow the rest of him and protested, audibly it seemed to him, by grinding pieces of the shattered femur against each other until it trailed behind him.

The clump was thick, its cover good, and he got to work. Take sweat-rag, put a lumpy knot in the middle, press firmly against artery in the groin, tie round to the limb, commando dagger through, twist to tighten and stick through trousers to hold steady. The bleeding stopped as he knew it would, yet is there not a touch of the miraculous in putting theory into practice and finding it works, especially if your life depends on it? Then a shot of morphine; that was the drill, because although the pain had not yet obtruded it soon would, and the drug would also slow his heart and the bleeding.

Eddie ‘Geordie’ Lillico’s eyes were brown with clear whites and a high polish. Because they were also round and usually wide open, not because they popped out on stalks, they were likened in the sergeant’s mess to organ-stops, and through them one shone a palpable and infectious enthusiasm. The enthusiasm was for his profession, and to a degree that excited comment even among his fellow enthusiasts. His shelves at home carried more books on military history than would have done justice to a retired general; it was even said that his lady friend could discourse on Ney’s tactics at Waterloo with well-briefed authority, so that Thomson was evidently misled in thinking that his idea of a pin-up was a Centurion tank coming through a smokescreen.

His eyes had been wide as he watched Thomson slip through the bamboo and the stillness was shattered by two bursts from what he thought was an Armalite. ‘But it wasn’t,’ Thomson reported, ‘it was from a Russian RPD because I seen it’; and Thomson certainly had an eye for weapons.

#6

‘The way it came to me’, says Lillico, ‘was Head-on contact. We had a drill for that known as Shoot-and scoot, one of the most important though not necessarily the easiest to interpret. The aim was clear enough, to prevent casualties when there was no point in fighting to hold ground, and in a surprise encounter like this a patrol was directed to put its pride in its pocket and run away. That, however, was easier said than done because to turn your back would only present it to an unruffled enemy, neither would your friends be helped to disengage. Far better would be if every man who could see a target to react instantly and violently, and only then, while the enemy was adjusting his thoughts, to scoot independently for the emergency rendezvous; but if a man was incapacitated after all, the chilling logic said leave him, at least temporarily, to prevent even more casualties.

Thomson being left of the bamboo clump, Lillico leapt to its right and ran forward to do his share of shooting. He saw no one and could not understand how he was apparently kicked in the arse; it was not a powerful blow, he might even have knocked into one of the thick stems, but he went down nevertheless. Irked at the check, he made to spring up and forward, but movement was only in his mind; his body stayed where it was, immovable.

Did Lillico pass out? Neither he nor Thomson can recall events precisely, gripped as they were in the full shock and trauma of hideous and potentially mortal wounds; Lillico cannot remember loosing consciousness, but it may be observed that a feature of passing out is not remembering and Thomson’s memory of his apparent death-mask is horribly vivid. But either way he was static and vulnerable, and almost certainly owed his life to Thomson, who had killed Lillico’s assailant before the latter could fire again.

Thomson was keen enough to scoot, as was his duty, insofar as he could match his snail’s gait to the ill-suited word, but he was even keener to help Lillico. He did the latter and perfectly illustrated the hazards of laying down the rules for hypothetical contingencies because events proved him right, even though he thought at first that the only melancholy service he could render his commander would be to confirm his death and remove the operative parts of his rifle; but as he drew near to the supposed corpse, the eyes opened, wide of course, and Sergeant Lillico was back in charge.

The shooting phase, envisaged as lasting only a few seconds, was being prolonged by their enforced presence on the battlefield, leaves and even branches falling about them amid the juddering racket. Taking comfort from their mutual presence, Lillico and Thomson continued the fight. Never mind that their legs were useless, their prone positions were ideal (one has to retain a positive outlook.:smiley: ).

No longer surprised they used their expert marksmanship and determined WILL to convince the enemy that it was he who had lost and had best retire. Fierce and hard with the joy of battle, they were a formidable pair of cripples. :smiley:

The clearing lay open before them. Thomson reoriented himself from his new position by noting the tree whence the chap had shot him. He could then scarcely believe his eyes, for there was a chap coming out from behind it, clearly under the impression that he had eliminated his enemy. It was an error of judgement. :smiley:

‘Bugerr-r-r-r-r U!’ The staccato roll of Scottish Rs matched the merciless clatter of the Armalite and the chap fell, dead.
Lillico fired two rounds in quick succession (‘double-tap routine, gave you a slight spread of shot, needed a bit of practice’) and a fleeting movement across the camp ceased.

‘D’you think ….’ Lillico asked between bursts, ‘…you can get back to the RV?’

‘Och aye, I’m fine.’

He’s a hard little chap, thought Lillico; quite good really. Quite good, that is, by SAS standards in which only the best is acceptable and praise rare. As for heroes, they don’t believe in them.

#7

Perhaps I ought to clarify:

This was an eight-man, SAS, ‘Claret’ patrol. Four of the eight were new to the SAS and it was their first intrusion into Kalimantan (Indonesian South Borneo). Lillico had left the new lads at the emergency RV and had patrolled forward with his usual four-man patrol, to recce the camp which they had spotted the day before. They were about a mile or so inside Indonesian territory. The length of the border between British North Borneo and Indonesian Kalimantan was approximately seven hundred miles, and it was the SAS’s job (each Sabre squadron rotating six months tours) to act as ‘eyes and ears’ (along the length of the border) for the infantry, who would be called in to ambush any Indonesian trails, camps etc. once discovered. The strategy behind ‘Claret’ operations, was to take the battle to the enemey and keep them busy protecting their own territory so that their opportunities to threaten the British territories were much reduced. Reduced, yes, but not eliminated.

#8

Lillico was armed with an SLR. Thomson, as lead-scout, had an Armalite (M16).

#9

All suddenly became quiet, so suddenly that the awareness lagged behind the event. Lillico wondered whether the enemy had temporarily surrendered the initiative. Possibly, but even so they would certainly return sometime if only to recover their dead, quite soon if it was just a matter of regrouping, or later if reinforcements were sent for; and if he and Thomson still there when that happened and had not already succumbed to their wounds, they would surely die.

Since Thomson could move and his presence would not affect the inevitable outcome of the situation, he must go. That did not mean he would be the only one to benefit ; not at all. Even if he were to reach the RV a near-mile back by driving himself to supreme effort, he would take so long that the others would certainly have left to do whatever they had thought right. But every yard he covered away from the enemy and nearer to friends must increase the chance of his being found, and that would not only be fine for him but improve Lillico’s chances greatly; from negligible to slim. The decision, however, though reached with the impersonal deductive logic which was Lillico’s stock-in-trade as sergeant, meant sending a way the last friendly face he thought he would ever see, and surprised him by being difficult to take.
‘On your way’, he ordered. It had to be an order.

Alone and more than ever alert as he covered Thomson’s withdrawal, Lillico’s suspicion that the enemy had retired was quickly proved premature. Again, he detected movement across the clearing. This time a man came into the open; two men, and a third. Lillico opened fire; the first dropped and lay still, the second fell into undergrowth, while the third had just enough time to make himself scarce for which purpose the jungle is accommodating. What had they been doing? Not attacking, surely, because their movements were too indecisive; but no immediate danger suggesting itself, the answer could wait because there was other work to do.

#10

First, move from a position known to the enemy, as Thomson had done. Again Lillico was helped by his friend, who had joined in the battle from some yards behind. Never mind that he could see no one; he knew where Lillico was and saturated everywhere else with stinging bullets and blistering invective. It was reassuring, and Lillico tensed to drag the inert mass which was himself into and under the bamboo where he should be almost invisible. When there was something to grip the effort was tolerable, but without a handhold his clawing fingers scraped impotently, sweat extruded under pressure, his breath rasped, and he was weak, weak; but domination by mind over matter improves with the practice and, fortunately, SAS training had anticipated the need.

With one trial surmounted, the next presented itself; more would follow. The end was unpredictable, except should he fail to meet any one of them. So be it, Take them singly. He was aware of his left leg as a lump of rubber, but there was no sensation in it; his right he could feel, but no effort of will, could make it move, and blood, warm and viscous, filled his pants. It did not spurt like Thomson’s but there was a lot, too much, and it felt comforting, which was even more dangerous. Action was needed.

The wound was gruesome and ominous. The bullet had made a small entry hole just in front of the left hip, half-severed the great sciatic nerve so paralysing and desensitizing the left leg, and expanding as it left through the pelvic opening had destroyed a three-inch mass of right buttock muscle and with it all power to that leg. ‘Fortunately’ – Lillico’s constant good fortune may be hard to appreciate, but to him it was real – ‘it missed the artery because there was no question of a tourniquet there.

#11

Just 'cos nobody’s posting don’t mean that nobody’s reading.

Keep going.

As the bishop said to the actress. :smiley:

#12

Roger, that one! :smiley:

Blood welled through the lacerated flesh all the same, ‘but fortunately I always carried two shell dressings so I got them both out. No trouble with entry-hole because it was small but the other seemed to have torn out half my arse; however, I managed eventually to trap the dressing inside my slacks and shove it in the hole.

There was movement yet again, and with a burst of fire Lillico warned whoever it was to keep his distance. The noises came from a dip in the ground where he could not see – muffled grunts denoting exertion combined with frustration, and what could have been a soft but heartfelt groan of pain – and did while trying to keep quiet, and were not finding it at all easy. That would keep them acceptably occupied, and all Lillico needed now was somebody to do the same for him.

Meanwhile he shared the battleground with three Indonesian bodies and thought there might well be more. A victory then, in effect by two men over at least six to judge by the volume of fire and its sources, and that after being ambushed unawares. Of course both the Jock and he ought by rights to have died; and now that the immediate tensions had partly eased, he remembered that they might still do so. He wondered whether ‘D’ Squadron and the Regiment would ever hear about their performance and, if so, whether they would consider it to have been all right.

It remained only to resolve that if he was still there when the Indos returned he must die fighting, for to let himself be captured was almost unthinkable. Lillico did not complain; the war’s very purpose and justification was to preserve civilization from barbarism and his present plight merely highlighted the point. Fortunately, he could rely absolutely on the Regiment, as represented by Major Woodiwiss, not giving them up either, so he took a shot of morphine and settle down to wait. ‘I wasn’t really in pain; the loss of blood left me light headed like being drunk, sort of mystical and at peace with the world, but the Army training in self-preservation kept me going and I didn’t pass out or forget where I was.’ He stayed there for four or five hours, but nobody came; not even the enemy; fortunately.

Thomson turned to carry out his orders. He did not despair by any means. In the SAS you must not need to be part of a group to save you from cracking in times of stress. Motivation, is all, and having been blessed with it you can further strengthen your resolve by schooling yourself in techniques like having the right boots, or psychological self-deception: ‘Don’t keep looking at the mountain which never seems to get any nearer; switch off, think of sex, and you’ll undoubtedly survive to be a credit to the Regiment.’

Hands forward with elbows akimbo, right knee up and out, heave! Hands forward…twelve inches in three seconds, a yard in nine, a hundred yards in fifteen minutes, a mile in….No, forget it. Right knee out, heave; and however far the rendezvous, he was a foot nearer to it.

#13

He did not invoke the distraction or it might be the spur of sex because there was much to occupy his thoughts. :smiley:
His theoretical time to the rendezvous was not worth computing anyway (a lesson for the numerators), because there were too many unknowns. His strength was limited and must be husbanded by regular rests, blind unthinking perseverance, however gallant, only to collapse short of the goal not being the SAS way. Then he must release the tourniquet at intervals to prevent gangrene, risking further loss of blood and, consequently, energy; but although heatstroke, also a killer, could result from not drinking to replace the copious sweating occasioned by hard exercise in the tropics (one should not forget the heat and humidity of the Ulu, it is incredibly indescribable in these conditions, one has to experience it for one’s self.), the mere thought of even water passing his lips was revolting. Thankfully, food would not be important for several days.

Thomson’s progress was also affected by his concern for the enemy, who would certainly find the patrol’s entry route which must therefore be avoided. The result was a curve of increased distance leading through unfamiliar jungle, but using the mountain and its contours as guides he was never lost.

He did not get very far that day. ‘I was knackered (but not panzerknackered)’, and he meant it absolutely, like running out of petrol (Gas, to our American cousins) with the reserve can already gone; and since there was no alternative to stopping or guarantee that he would ever go on again, he scribbled details of the enemy on the back of his map, in case his body should be found, with a detachment which surprised himself. ‘There was this pig-hole under a fallen tree; they dig these holes and lie in bowls of mud so I rolled up in it and covered myself, took a shot of morphine and waited for the night.’ And when that came he took another shot.

Lillico spent a happy day in the cool, dappled shade of the bamboo, mulling over his circumstances to be sure but in a disinterested sort of way and not worrying about a thing. He was thus clearly in a very bad way indeed from shock and blood loss, but the enforced rest gave full play to the body’s marvellous recuperative powers, and a part of him – the sergeant, one suspects – stood disembodied beside him to remind him of his duty, so that at some time during the afternoon he became aware that not only should he move but that now he could.

#14

As previously mentioned, I began this story on account of my admiration for Lillico, but not only that, I rather hoped it would dispel a few myths regarding the mindless ‘thug’ image (in some quarters) of the SAS. I had hoped that it would also serve to illustrate that (as has been mentioned in the thread regarding what makes the better soldiers) what makes the better soldiers is training and commitment (commitment being a strong sense of duty and responsibility). Anyway, judge for yourselves.

#15

With his renewed strength, little though it was, Lillico, developed and elbows-only technique and covered 500 yards towards the border ridge, uphill all the way. The achievement was the greater because he chose a route through thick undergrowth for the cover it afforded. Known as ’belukar’, this was a previously cultivated area that had been abandoned when the soil had become exhausted some five years earlier (a result of slash-and-burn. Once experienced, never forgotten). It impedes progress much as an overgrown English briar thicket would have done, the common factor being thorns in plenty though on very different bushes. But Lillico knew that such places were often haunts of wild pig who also like concealment (in this situation, adversity was his ally), and rooting in the earth for food make tunnels through the scrub of just the right diameter for a soldier marching on his stomach. This one proved a maze of runs with pigs themselves evidently prepared to allow him free passage; fortunately. Because the best way of dealing with an angry 200-pound tusker surprised at close quarters was not clear. But the risk from animals was small compared with that of man, and his worst enemies were the humble leeches, which took full advantage of the easy access afforded by his earthbound body to clamp themselves on in swarms and suck away the blood he could by no means spare.

(More about the ‘humble’ leach later. 32B)

#16

This is not humour. These fellas spent so much time on the move, on minimum rations (2000 calories a day, as opposed to the recommended 3500) that the opportunity to lie-up, would have afforded their overworked biological and psycholgical systems time to recuperate. It would seem, almots, like R & R.

#17

With his renewed strength, little though it was, Lillico, developed an elbows-only technique and covered 500 yards towards the border ridge, uphill all the way. The achievement was the greater because he chose a route through thick undergrowth for the cover it afforded. Known as ’belukar’, this was a previously cultivated area that had been abandoned when the soil had become exhausted some five years earlier (a result of slash-and-burn. Once experienced, never forgotten). It impedes progress much as an overgrown English briar thicket would have done, the common factor being thorns in plenty though on very different bushes. But Lillico knew that such places were often haunts of wild pig who also like concealment (in this situation, adversity was his ally), and rooting in the earth for food make tunnels through the scrub of just the right diameter for a soldier marching on his stomach. This one proved a maze of runs with pigs themselves evidently prepared to allow him free passage; fortunately. Because the best way of dealing with an angry 200-pound tusker surprised at close quarters was not clear. But the risk from animals was small compared with that of man.

Towards evening Lillico’s pig-run led him to a hole like Thomson’s under a huge felled tree and there he stayed, again drained of vitality. A helicopter’s rotor beat the air overhead but seemed to have no message for him, more interested as he was in a myriad, huge shiny bluebottles clustering upon his wound and laying eggs that turned into grubs as he watched, absorbed and fascinated.

When firing first broke out the two rear men of the patrol sprang sideways for cover and then scooted for the rendezvous. In so doing they conformed precisely both to Shoot-and –scoot and another key SOP that forbade shooting without a visible target, but they acted uneasily none the less, keenly feeling their recruit status which demanded such implicit obedience. The four already at the RV had flashed a signal to base, ‘contact – wait – out’, but hard information was still lacking and the new arrivals could supply little; only as leaden minutes throbbed by with no sign of Lillico and Thomson did they understand that the news was hard and so was their problem.

How best to act depended on the enemy’s strength, since the rules allowed a forward probe at this stage if the risk seemed reasonable. But, again, inexperience told because they were all quite sure they had run into a major enemy force. To them there had been just one hell of a noise, but Lillico even though wounded had instinctively broken this down into a number of sources, and with a finely tuned professional ear detected the types of weapon which told him much. There had, in fact, been only rifles and light automatics, indicating one machine-gun and a larger-still mortar. Lillico also knew, as others did not, that the enemy had suffered a high proportion of casualties.

The decision was taken to ask for infantry support from the Company base at Sain, several hours march to the rear through which the patrol had entered, and to return there themselves in order to lead the infantry to the right place and avoid considerable danger of mistaken identity.

#18

Moving around like this must have taken a few hours!!!

#19

Yes, crawling about on a long-stalk is both time consuming and exhausting. Add to that their condition, the terrain and their predicament it must have been several hours. They were ambushed around early-to- mid-morning; Lillico rested for about fives hours or so and then crawled for what he estimated to be about five hundred yards before it began to get dark.

#20

At base in Kuching, Major Woodiwiss tried to project his mind into Lillico’s and Thomson’s so as to do everything possible for them, never giving up; the morale and mystique of the Regiment were born of mutual confidence and the success of future operations would depend on his doing so.

Night did not fall, it rose up to envelop first pig-holes, then undergrowth, and finally climbed the tree-trunks to the canopy. Above that the sky retained some light though it was of little use to creatures on the forest floor where darkness was nearly total except for those eyes nature has specially adapted. Rested, and no longer preoccupied with bluebottle grubs because he could not see them, Lillico reasoned that since the SAS patrol had not come forward they must have gone back for the infantry, who would now not be far away. Similarly, almost exactly so, he had been well placed to know that the enemy patrol had not come forward either, indicating that they too had probably brought up reinforcements which might also be close at hand.

Thomson, on the other hand, full of morphine and short of blood, was not doing a great deal of thinking. Remembering occasionally to release the tourniquet, he spent the night either unconscious or nearly so; but when the sun rose and drove the shadows down to him, and a great chorus of crickets and cicadas and tree-frogs and birds and monkeys and goodness knows what else greeted the event with exuberant vitality, he awoke fully and found to his surprise that he too felt fine, just fine. His contribution to jungle life was crawling and he set off without delay, knowing nothing for certain except that the Regiment would be trying to find him.
(I find it interesting that on the one hand, the SAS advocate not having to be a part of a group in order to maintain morale in adversity. Yet, it is precisely this being a part of a group, and the two-way commitment that enables them to keep going, no matter what. 32B)
The thoughts of the Ghurkas and the enemy would have run along identical lines. Neither knew whether the other was present, but that was highly likely and every move must be planned and acted as though he were. Nor did they know if the two men were alive or dead or where they were; the task was to find them, and if alive the presumption must be that their trigger fingers would be very sensitive.

The Ghurka platoon commander accordingly ordered his men to turn their jungle hats inside out and expose the red bands sewn there for easy recognition; they would not blend so well with the background but better red, in this case, than dead. He also asked the six SAS to walk singly, a hundred yards ahead of his search line in the hope that Lillico and Thomson would see one of them first and identify a friend and fellow countryman. They were glad to do so, although it was a lonely job that risked blundering into an enemy force without immediate support.

Lillico woke from a doze to the cheering and appetizing aroma of brewing Nescaf’e; ‘Well it might have been another sort of instant coffee, but I reckoned it was Nes; you develop your senses in the jungle.’ He did not, however, reach out his hand and call for a mug. He saw six enemy soldiers about thirty yards away. They seemed to be looking for something. What, he wondered? Him! He shrank further under his tree and froze, presenting a profile that could scarcely be lower; only his wide eyes were mobile.

Prominent in his limited field of view, a durian tree overtopped the scrub. From its brown trunk hung big spiky ripening fruit whose succulent flesh his rarely enjoyed by Europeans because of the repellent odour which must first be braved, but it is prized by gibbons, flying foxes and jungle peoples who had driven climbing-nails into this particular tree for easier picking. A soldier now climbed the tree, but not for the fruit. He wanted a better view. Sitting comfortably in a fork, he looked directly into Lillico’s eyes.