Hiroshima Joe (12 page)

Looking at the man, he knew the soldier was dead. His eyes were open and they seemed to be peering at the ceiling with an intelligent and studied gaze, but the skin around his jaw had sagged and his uninjured leg twitched like the rump of a cow bothered by flies. Lance-corporal Glass was dead, too. To save one he had lost one, and lost the saved as well. A shoddy bargain.

He picked up a civil telephone and dialled the military number. As luck would have it, Bob answered.

‘It’s Jay,’ Sandingham said matter-of-factly. ‘Can you get a message through to the West Brigade HQ at Wong Nai Chung? Enemy strength is through as far as a point half a mile north of the junction of Repulse Bay Road and Island Road. They are not motorised so far as I can tell but they are through in at least platoon strength.’

‘We know,’ replied Bob. ‘They’ve broken through into that area and are attempting to cut off the approach to Repulse Bay: those holding out in Eucliffe have been overrun.’ His voice was distant down the line. ‘Suggest you might have a go get –’

The line went out.

Sandingham wanted so desperately to say that he loved him. They had a code for that on the telephone. He had only to say, ‘I and you’ll…’, mix up the pronouns, get the grammar wrong and they would both know what it meant.

He left the makeshift hospital. It was crowded beyond its meagre capacity with injured Chinese civilians and Indians from the 5/7th Rajput who had suffered heavy casualties above North Point.

He started the Humber, aware of having no memory of having ever switched off the engine. Perhaps someone had done so for him. He was too tired to give a damn.

*   *   *

‘They abandoned West Brigade HQ at ten hundred hours, sir. They were more or less surrounded when you came through. About the same time A Company of the Middlesex went up but came under heavy fire. Don’t know what happened after that, sir.’

The soldier sat quietly after imparting the information. For such a large man he was remarkably serene.

It occurred to Sandingham that the machine-gun that had fired upon him had not been doing so in error. It had had a Japanese crew. He felt his neck prickle at the thought.

‘What’s your name, Sergeant-major?’ he asked after a while. He took another bite out of the wedge of cheese. It was hard but delicious.

‘CSM William Stewart, sir.’

‘Bill or Billy?’

‘Willy, sir. It’s ’cause I put them up them, sir.’ He saw the puzzled look on the captain’s face: Sandingham was too exhausted to understand. ‘The willies, sir. I put them up them.’

Looking at the CSM, Sandingham could see in his eyes a sparkle that even extreme tiredness could not extinguish. He was about to make a suitable retort when the door was flung open and a blunt head attached to the shoulders of another rank appeared around the jamb.

‘All set! Let’s go! Hands off cocks, on with socks!’

The hollering stopped abruptly to be followed by a profuse apology. The soldier looked sheepishly from the officer to the senior NCO.

‘That’s all right, Corporal. We’re just on our way.’

It was with heavy limbs that Sandingham stood up and eased his feet back into his black leather boots, tucking his trousers into the webbing anklets. He could smell himself, the rank animal odour permeating his clothing. His mouth tasted sour and his teeth were sandy to the touch of his tongue. He lifted his hand to try and scrape off the smooth yellow film with his fingernail but saw his fingers ingrained with gun oil and dirt and decided against it. His peaked cap lay on the chair and he looked at it with unseeing eyes. He placed the olive-green steel helmet on his head and adjusted the strap tightly under his chin.

The CSM handed him a Sten gun and six hundred rounds of nine-millimetre ammunition packed ready into magazines. These he put in every pocket available, stuffing the last one into his shirt. The cold metal on his belly forced him to suck his breath in sharply. So equipped, Sandingham left Battalion headquarters.

Things had not been going well, to put it mildly. The Japanese had captured Wong Nai Chung Gap, were in command of Jardine’s Lookout and held virtually all the rest of Hong Kong Island to the east. Stanley Peninsula was holding out under the control of the Middlesex and the Royal Rifles of Canada, but they were under increasing pressure and it was doubtful they would last for more than a few days, despite putting on a considerable defensive hold. East Brigade headquarters was long gone and now West had followed it, having been forced to withdraw. What had happened to the Brigadier no one knew and some wondered quietly amongst themselves if anyone cared. A replacement had not been named, and this left a hole in the command structure at a time when it was vital that there was seen to be cohesion in the upper echelons.

‘Here are final orders. Gather round.’

The senior officer, a lieutenant-colonel, was standing in the centre of a group comprising all ranks. Around them, protecting them from being seen from the hillside, were the empty carcasses of tenement buildings. Sandingham joined in towards the front of the small crowd.

‘Orders from Fortress HQ are as follows. We are to re-take Wong Nai Chung Gap. Intelligence has it that the area is now lightly defended and we should not meet with any fierce resistance. D Company – Captain Pinkerton; Captain Slater-Brown – will go straight up the main road towards the Gap and engage the enemy. C Company – Lieutenant Stanier – is to move up the valley to the left of the filter beds. There are paths there through the trees that should give adequate cover. Captain Ford and B Company are to go up to Wan Chai Gap and progress along Black’s Link, through Middle Gap to the west of Mount Nicholson and come in to Wong Nai Chung Gap from the west and above. This will be a three-prong attack, a kind of pincer movement. Once we have secured Wong Nai Chung Gap we leave a holding force there and push on round to Jardine’s Lookout. Any questions?’

‘Do we have any artillery support, sir?’ asked one of the D Company officers, a captain of about Sandingham’s age. They’d never been introduced, but he had seen him at times in the mess. He was known as a good sort, a position of some standing in their confined social world.

‘We have some field artillery promised. It’s on its way now. Anything else?’

Sandingham wanted to ask what their chances were but that was definitely not the sort of question the lieutenant-colonel had in mind. It was not ‘military’ to try to assess one’s chances of survival.

‘All move out, then. B Company has the advantage on time and needs a head start. Good luck!’

Sandingham walked in a daze, his eyes cast at the feet of CSM Stewart who was ahead of him, carrying a Bren gun by its handle in one hand and under his other arm gripping half a dozen Bren magazines. He was so damned tired, so absolutely beaten out. His brain felt as if it had been newly forged and still remembered the smith’s hammer. He was reacting to the events in the Humber, saw himself hanging from a moving car just as Glass had done. That was to be his fate, too, perhaps: to die dangling like a puppet from something. Someone invisible pulling the strings. At least, he thought with hurried conviction, it would be quick. Like killing a senile dog.

They reached the first of the Bren-gun carriers.

It never ceased to surprise Sandingham that the Bren-gun carrier (Carrier, Universal, Mark I [Ford] armoured, Bren gun, for the carrying of) was the ugliest vehicle he had ever seen or could imagine. It was squat, about twelve feet long and six wide and the sides came up to his chest. In the front, offset to the left, was a turret projecting forward on the side of which was a single headlamp. It had no roof but was armoured: for its size, the four-ton weight was excessive and made up mostly by the armour plating. A raucous eight-cylinder Ford engine drove it, and it was fully tracked. Not only was it particularly unbeautiful, it was also as noisy as the vents of hell. Driven over earth, it howled, bounced and thudded. Driven over a road, it howled, screeched, screamed, rolled and rattled all at once. The steel tracks were guaranteed to chew up tarmac.

Despite their hideous appearance, Sandingham had always enjoyed riding in these when they had been used in exercises. Sitting in one was the army equivalent of going for a spin in a sports car. They were exhilarating and had a good turn of speed. He found it less enjoyable to be standing beside one in these changed circumstances. They were a long way from the training ground at Chobham.

He climbed into the third of the three carriers lined up. The driver was in his seat and CSM Stewart was installing the Bren gun. Next to it were some magazines and a metal ammunition box, the lid of which was off. Sandingham could see that it was only half full.

‘You’re the jockey, are you?’ he asked the driver. He had heard that term used in the tank corps and hoped it would be appreciated now. It was.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the driver. He was a Royal Scot and his voice betrayed it. Glaswegian. ‘And this is your mount, sir.’

Four other soldiers joined them and the CSM settled himself behind the Bren, checking it over and testing the action while he had the opportunity.

Two Albion three-ton tucks arrived. Everyone turned round: here was the first of the artillery. Only it wasn’t. The lorries were transporting two Vickers machine-gun sections and some assorted equipment. They jumped out and the equipment was quickly off-loaded. D Company soldiers clambered into the trucks, after which everyone fell silent.

The waiting was always the worst. Thoughts had time to germinate, fears to escalate and expand. Sandingham wanted to light a cigarette, not for the sake of smoking but to give himself something to do. But the order was already out that no smoking was permitted. They were no longer at stand-to.

Time passed very slowly until, at last, the command to start was given and the engines began to turn over. The increasing din rose to a crescendo, reverberating off the walls and deep balconies of the bomb-scarred buildings around them; thick black diesel fumes clogged the air.

If someone shouts ‘Tally-ho!’ he thought, I’ll break into peals of uncontrollable giggling.

No one did; it was too serious for that. The odds that they would succeed were poor and everyone knew it. This was not a band of courageous warriors surging forward to victory but a group of determined fighters seeking to achieve something in the human scale of ordinary men’s common lives. Quite what they could possibly achieve was beyond them just then.

They trundled through the streets and started to climb the lower section of Stubbs Road. When they reached the point at which it turned right, back upon itself, the Albions stopped and the troops disembarked. From here on they would follow behind the three Bren-gun carriers on foot.

Jesus, thought Sandingham, why don’t we just send the Japs a signal or a runner? ‘British troops advancing up Wong Nai Chung Gap Road; open fire at will.’

Their approach could have been anything but unexpected. With the Bren-gun carriers making their characteristic banshee scrawking and roaring they must have been audible three miles off.

Gradually, at walking pace so as to give front cover for the troops behind, the carriers went up the road. Several hundred yards ahead he could see a number of vehicles in the centre of the tarmac. As they drew nearer, he saw that they were all immovable, burnt-out hulks.

From behind him, over the noise of the engine and the tracks on the metalled road surface, Sandingham could hear one soldier comment to another, ‘Campbell’s A Company. Poor buggers…’

He checked his Sten. It was loaded and he cocked it. His actions caused each of the soldiers behind him to put a bullet up the spout of his own rifle. The CSM had aleady cocked the Bren.

As they neared the site where A Company had been ambushed still no one opened fire on them. The captain leading them and the Battalion intelligence officer, who were riding in the foremost Bren-gun carrier, had nearly reached the first of the ruined trucks.

Across the road lay strewn the bodies of A Company. It was obvious they had met with heavy machine-gun and mortar fire. Some bodies were partially burned and several were cut to shreds by crossfire. The uncharred ones lay in dark stains on the tarmac. It was strange how like spilt oil dried blood could appear.

Sandingham averted his eyes from the corpses around him. They did not smell: he noticed that consciously. The wind was clear and sweet; it seemed unjust that someone should have had to die on such an afternoon in winter.

Suddenly they were in the holocaust.

The leading Bren-gun carrier started to slew round and Sandingham’s driver tried to do the same. Machine-gun rounds were bouncing off the road, off the derelict trucks, off the side of the carrier. He ducked below the armoured sides, twisting his head round to shout to his men to do likewise. It was unnecessary: they were all down low except for a ginger-haired youth who, as Sandingham turned, was hit in the chest. His battle-dress split and his torso opened in a horizontal tear, his lungs puffing outwards like pink sponge, only to disintegrate in the air. Red spots tattooed his hands and face, the force of the bullets lifting and carrying him over the side of the vehicle. It happened so quickly.

Behind them, an A Company truck tore open.

‘Mortars!’ someone screamed and, again, ‘Mortars!’

Their own Bren carrier had by now turned and Sandingham, without knowing why, looked over his shoulder at the leading vehicle. It too was half-turned, side on to him, and he watched as it exploded. Against the flare he saw the two officers die: the good sort and the one who had winked to bolster his courage. They went together, instantaneously and, to his mind, for no logical reason.

Without thinking, he opened fire with his Sten gun. The butt chattered against his shoulder but he didn’t feel the bruising punches. He sprayed the trees uphill from the road, waving the barrel from side to side in a figure-eight pattern: then the magazine ran out.

Yet he did not crouch down again, nor did he insert a new magazine and recommence firing. He just stared at where they had been. The first carrier was burning furiously. Spilled petrol on the road had ignited, melting the tar which also caught fire. A soldier, his clothes alight, ran about demoniacally in front of the flames, his shrieks of pain an uncanny howling above the background rush of burning fuel and the stammer of gunfire. The burst of an automatic brought him down: it was not clear from which direction the bullets had come.