The NCO studied the two men, drew in his breath sharply and said, ‘Saheb, can’t be but they look like us.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought. Tell you what, let’s go and talk to them. It’s a gamble and we’ve been told not to go over the border but if we’re careful, it can’t matter. Ustad, you and two others follow me. The rest cover us and only fire if we seem in danger of being fired on.’
The three men stepped over the border which they recognised by one of the intermittent boundary stones, moved to within fifty yards of the two men and Jason said, ‘Ustad, we must not frighten them. They still can’t see us. Tell you what, sing a song, loudly, so they’ll hear it. Sing the one we sang as we left our depots in India when we went on draft to the war’ and he softly sang the chorus:
‘The leaves of the trees are green at the top,
We’re on our way, on our way to the war.’
‘Yes, I know it’ and as loudly as possible he sang it.
The effect was one of unbelievable shock to the two men. They stared, open-mouthed, in the direction of the song, turned to one another with grins almost from ear to ear and joined in. The song came to the end of the verse and Jason, moving forward, called to them in Nepali. ‘Oho, Old Men, we have come to talk to you. Stay where you are. I am a British saheb and we are a Gurkha patrol so no harm can come to you.’
They moved up to the two men who, as they neared, stared dumbfounded, as though hardly able to believe it was not a dream. Both of them had wrinkled faces, with induced, furtive expressions, cross-hatched and fine wrinkles in the corners of their eye sockets, gnarled hands and threadbare clothes. They were older than their years and had the furtive air of one worried lest he be accused of trespassing.
The elder said, jerkingly, as if not sure he was really awake, ‘Saheb, have you come to fetch us?’
‘We have come to look for you,’ Jason said with a pang of pity – pity, which is more promiscuous than lust. ‘We can take you back to Malaya then send you back to Nepal if you so wish. What battalion were you with?’
‘2/2 GR. We were together. Our company commander was Captain Williams.’
‘It is he, now our Commanding saheb, who sent us to try and find you.’
The two men, still recovering from the shock, merely shook their heads in wonder at what Fate had decreed so suddenly and unexpectedly.
Jason said, ‘When did you last eat?’
‘Yesterday. We are hungry but nothing has come into our trap.’
‘Come back with us. We are quite close. We’ll cook you a meal and give you a drink of rum and you can tell us all about it.’
They were unsure if that was wise.
‘If you can’t trust a British saheb, who can you?’ asked the NCO rhetorically. ‘Come, we promise you there is no trap. Why should there be?’
They moved back to their night stop and cooked a meal for the two men. While it was cooking a brew of tea was prepared and the smile of delight on both faces was a wonder to see. ‘Tea, like this?’ one of them said and, on his fingers, started counting the years. ‘Ten years,’ and a tear of joy rolled down his cheek.
After their meal and a swig of rum, Jason asked them their story. Yes, they had tried to escape from the Japanese and, as there was no hope of returning, had settled in a Malay village on the Thai side of the border, married and raised a family. The elder looking said, ‘We each have a wife and family. The girls’ parents only allowed that if we …’ and he became embarrassed as he was ashamed to say ‘circumcised’ according to Malay rites.
‘Would you like to return to Nepal?’
‘Oh Saheb.’ It was obvious they were on the horns of a dilemma. Jason made a quick decision. He took out his note book and wrote the battalion’s address and phone number and gave it to them. ‘Let’s not decide now. If ever you want to go, send us a letter or if you get the chance to phone here is the number. Best to cross over into Kelantan as it is the same country rather than try from Thailand. In any case we’ll be here for a few more days.’
The man took the note, put it in his pocket and sat still.
‘You probably don’t have a job, do you, otherwise how do you earn your living?’
And then a long story came out: in essence they were now helping make a camp so that if any guerrillas from Malaya wanted to come and hide in it it would be ready for them. It was being dug with defence posts in a sizable area and would indeed be strong.
‘How far is it from here?’
‘A long day’s walk not carrying a big pack.’
It was then Jason’s turn to sit still and ponder.
‘How many villages and military posts are there between here and your camp?’
Of course there were both but not many of either. The two men knew the area like the proverbial backs of their hands. It was hilly country and there were ways to get there without meeting anybody.
The two soldiers with Jason listened. Where is this leading? The Saheb is always one to take a chance.
‘Will you take us there in a way nobody will see us and help us back?’ Jason asked.
‘How can you help us if we do? If we are found out we will be drastically punished.’
‘I only have very little Malay currency on me and no Thai baht. Finance is difficult. Help? As I said before, if you want to go back to Nepal I will help you all I can.’
‘We’ll take you and bring you back. We can talk about the future after we are back here.’
Back in the patrol base Gurkha Lieutenant Pahalsing Gurung took the OC’s batman, Rifleman Kulbahadur Limbu, to one side and said, ‘The OC saheb has, in my view, most rashly decided to go in uniform, armed, and only to take some hard tack, biscuits, bars of issue chocolate and tea to drink from his compo rations; with three men, two unarmed. It is a great risk.’
Kulbahadur Limbu was a tall, paler than normal lad, broad-shouldered, upright and strong who almost glided rather than walked. He was the battalion’s expert tracker.
‘What if you don’t come back, Saheb?’ someone asked Jason who answered with a smile ‘I’ve had no bad dreams recently. I’ll be back alright. I have my lucky krait with me.’
Pahalsing continued quietly talking to Kulbahadur. ‘Keta, we know the saheb will not stop at anything once he has made his mind up. However, he always has our interests at heart’ and he looked at the batman with gimlet-like eyes. ‘He is your personal responsibility and if he does not come back, in your next incarnation you will be a dung beetle,’ to which there was no answer save a nod of the head.
***
Around the same time considerable activity continued elsewhere in Malaya. The Royal Australian Air Force had bombed Chin Peng’s camp and only just missed killing the entire Politburo. The decision to move north into Thailand was not taken until late 1952 but detailed reconnaissances for a new camp had already been made. To the east of the eventual camp site elements of the Kuomintang Army, known to the Communists as ‘bandits’, the same name originally given to the guerrillas in Malaya. – hence the name of ‘Communist Terrorists’– would periodically visit. The Kuomintang soldiers were no military threat as such, only an armed nuisance: they had strayed south from the ‘Golden Triangle’, the opium-growing area where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet. They wore ‘puffy’ brown peaked hats, some of which still had the wreathed badge of the Chinese National Army in them.[1]
After a drink of tea and an early meal Jason’s group set off at dawn with the greys of the sky turning to rose. They had a brew at midday. As they rested they were momentarily startled by the staccato drilling of two woodpeckers on a tree trunk for insects and a monkey high in the trees above them beating on the branches with sticks. By travelling light and walking fast, it was late afternoon when they came across an area that had been cleared of some trees and certainly been worked on but it was in such a non-tactical site Jason could not believe that it was a possible military base. He queried it with the elder of the two wartime men who looked blank.
‘Saheb, there are two camp sites. This is only the first one. The other is much too far to reach in the time we have.’
‘Have you seen Chinese soldiers working here?’ Jason demanded, feeling frustrated that his journey might well have been in vain.
‘Yes, a group did come and look around.’
‘And what happened then?’ – if anything. Yet there must have been a reason for the work done here.
‘Other people came, some Thais and a few Chinese, with saws and axes to work on the foundations of the camp.’
Then Jason saw that even if initially the area might have been chosen as a military base it was now a logging area so there was nothing for them to do but to go back. In a way it was a disappointment but, being rational, it saved a lot of bother by it not being occupied by any military force. They moved to an empty hut they had seen on their way in to spend the night.
‘Let’s doss down here. We’re all tired enough’ Jason said. There was not a lot of choice, anyway.
Kulbahadur grinned. ‘We’ve been in more dangerous places before so why not?’
