The Empire Trilogy (168 page)

‘D'you know Rilke's poem about the panther?' asked Charlie suddenly, smiling.

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
So müd geworden … dass er nichts mehr hält …

‘Roughly translated it means: “His gaze from looking through the bars has grown so tired he can't take in anything more.”

Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
Und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

“It seems to him as if there are a thousand bars and behind the thousand bars, no world.” That's what I feel about all these bloody rubber trees.'

Sinclair thought of this again as, now in darkness, he strode on through the dripping ranks of trees, trying to shake off the premonition that if the Japanese attacked tonight it would be the end of the line for the Punjabis, no matter how strong the position they occupied in the defile.

As the night advanced the rain stopped and the moon began to appear, fitfully at first and then more frequently, between the clouds. From the jungle a dreadful odour of rotting vegetation crept out over the waiting Punjabis and hung there in the humid atmosphere. Now, more brilliant than ever, the moon hung like a great white lamp over the two black walls of jungle, shining so brightly that if you moved out of the covering foliage you could see your shadow clearly printed on the surface of the road. Behind them, a little way along the road, the Argylls guarding the exits from the defile into the rubber listened, skin crawling, to the steady churning of the jungle.

Charlie looked at the luminous green face of his wrist watch: it was midnight. From close at hand there came the metallic sound of some insect he had never been able to identify … it resembled the winding-up of a clockwork toy. He was dreamily contemplating this sound and at the same time vowing to keep his eyes open when, like a paralysing blow from the darkness, there came at last the sound for which he had been listening for so long, the first thud of guns from the Hyderabads' position up the road. The shelling continued. For a while nothing else happened. One, two, three hours passed. He began to nod off again. Suddenly, he woke. The noise of gunfire had ceased. The Japanese were beginning their attack.

Not far away from where Charlie waited with the Punjabis, a small, bespectacled figure in battledress sat in the back of a lorry gripping his knees tensely, his rifle locked between them. This was none other than Private Kikuchi and as he sat there in complete darkness he was doing his best to concentrate his thoughts on the heroic example of his uncle, Bugler Kikuchi, who had sounded his bugle with his dying breath. Private Kikuchi knew that in a few minutes, at a sign from his commander, Lieutenant Matsushita, he would have to hurl himself forward with his bayonet at the ready ‘like a blind man unafraid of snakes', as Matsushita put it. Would he be able to follow Uncle Kikuchi's immaculate example? Huddled beside him in the lorry as it crept forward without lights he sensed, but could not see, his comrades of the Ando Regiment. Perhaps they too, were wondering what the hours before dawn would bring? Would they even live to see the daylight again? Perhaps they were hoping, if possible, to die gloriously fighting for the Emperor. Certainly, Lieutenant Matsushita would be. He was an officer with strangely burning eyes who had already served in the Imperial Army, mopping up bandits in Manchuria.

Kikuchi was astonished and awed by Lieutenant Matsushita. Every time he met those burning eyes it was as if he received an electric shock. The intensity of feeling in Matsushita, his utter devotion to the Emperor and to his country, had come as a revelation even to Kikuchi who, one might have thought, had little to learn about Japanese National Spirit with such an uncle. Yet there was something that Kikuchi found rather frightening about him at the same time … Sometimes it almost seemed as if he wanted to get not only himself but everyone else killed, too. He would dash forward sometimes with bullets falling about him like a spring shower while he might easily have advanced in relative security by some other route.

To make matters worse (or better, depending how you looked at it) he had taken a particular liking to Kikuchi, either because of his glorious uncle or because he sensed Kikuchi's fascination with him. On one occasion he had taken Kikuchi aside and shown him some of the medals he had been awarded and which he carried everywhere with him in a little waterproof pouch, even on the most desperate sorties into the jungle. He had allowed Kikuchi to gaze at his Order of the Rising Sun, Fourth Class, at his Decoration of Manchuria, Fourth and Fifth Classes, at his Campaign Medal of the Chinese Incident, at his Campaign Medal of the Manchurian Incident and at several others, including an Order of the Golden Kite, Fifth Class. ‘One day, Kikuchi, you too will have medals like these,' he had said, his eyes fastened on Kikuchi's and gripping them tightly as in two glowing chopsticks so that he could not turn away. ‘Or you will be dead,' he added in a somewhat chilling manner, as an afterthought.

It was not that Kikuchi minded exactly dying for his Emperor if he had to; after all, like his comrades he had left some hair and fingernail clippings behind in Japan for funerary purposes in case the rest of his body did not return. He was not a Kikuchi for nothing! And yet, once or twice, observing Matsushita and his bosom companion, Lieutenant Nakamura, with whom he had graduated from the Military Academy, the thought had crossed Kikuchi's mind (indeed, it had had to be frogmarched across his mind under heavy guard and swiftly, like a deserter who must not be allowed to contaminate his fellows) that all things in human affairs, even battlefield glory, can be taken a tiny bit too far. Could it be that the High Command thought so, too? Well, no, that was unlikely. Yet despite their heroism neither Matsushita nor Nakamura had as yet risen very far in the Army. They were both still young, of course, but perhaps something else lay behind their lack of promotion … Kikuchi had heard a vague rumour that they might have been involved in an attempt to revive the November Affair at the Military Academy with a new revolt of ultra-patriotic cadets … or perhaps it was that they had led an assault on brother officers they suspected of aping European manners, something of the sort … Never mind, whatever the truth of the matter it was an honour, Kikuchi assured himself, gripping his knees more tightly than ever to take his mind off his churning stomach (perhaps he should have swallowed a couple of Jintan pills?), to serve under such fearless and patriotic officers. Both of them, as it happened, were nearby at this very moment: Matsushita was only a matter of inches away in the swaying darkness: Kikuchi could not see him but he pictured him sitting in his habitual pose, palms of both hands resting on the tasselled hilt of his sabre, his expression merciless.

As for Nakamura, he was leading the medium tanks and so, you might have thought, could not possibly be anywhere near this lorry full of infantry. Nevertheless, Nakamura was only a few yards in front. What had happened was that Matsushita, reckless as ever, had insisted that a platoon of picked infantry, under his personal leadership, should come next to Nakamura's leading tank in the assault column now moving down the road towards the British positions. He had wasted no time in picking Kikuchi to ride with him in his first lorry sandwiched between the two leading tanks; more troops of the Ando Detachment came in a position of somewhat greater security further down the armoured column. Kikuchi, naturally, was deeply conscious of the honour that had been done him. All the same, the leading vehicles in the column would certainly bear the brunt of the enemy fire. This would be bad enough for the tanks with their armour; what would it be like for a vulnerable lorry-load of infantry? Still, one must act heroically and hope for the best.

The tanks and lorries continued to creep forward head to tail, without lights. It was very quiet, as if all the men in the lorry, were holding their breath; Kikuchi listened to the steady rattling of the tank tracks on the road's surface but even this sound seemed barely audible, soaked up instantly by the dark mass of jungle on each side. How much longer would this go on for? He was weary and wanted to sleep. He was also hungry. How they had been driven! It seemed to him that this campaign, though it had lasted only three weeks, had been going on for ever. He sometimes found it hard to believe that he had ever known another kind of life … on and on they had trudged, seldom eating anything but dry bread and salt, not even pausing to consume the munificent food supplies left by the British as they retreated.

And what terrible endurance the High Command demanded of them! In Kikuchi's mind one ordeal had begun to blur and blend into another and only now and then did some particular occasion stand out clearly in his mind: he remembered advancing through the jungle towards the bridge at Kuala Kangsar with nothing to eat but what fruit they could find (yes, he had remembered not to eat beautifully shaped or coloured fruit), and an occasional stew of snake-meat (and yes, he had dutifully eaten the snake's raw liver according to instructions whenever the opportunity presented itself), prepared from the dismal creatures that squeezed in and out of the undergrowth beneath their feet. He remembered a fierce attack by Scotsmen north of the Perak River; for a while they had been halted there unable to communicate with their headquarters. But then a light aeroplane had appeared over the jungle and had dropped them a communication tube. It was a message from Mr Staff Officer Okada. Matsushita had told Kikuchi what it contained … ‘Esteemed detachment, deep gratitude for several days' heroic fighting.' How pleased Matsushita had been for this praise from Mr Staff Officer Okada. He had been even more pleased when he had read on, for the message had ordered a raid on the southern bank of the Perak River. The bridge must be captured before it was demolished by the retreating British. How Matsushita's eyes had glistened at this desperate proposal!

Matsushita had grown thin as they made their way through the jungle, though none was more adept at killing snakes and swallowing their livers than he, gulping them one after another like oysters and leaving their disembowelled remains to be sucked and gnawed by his men as best they could for cooking-fires must not be lit lest the smoke give away their position. As he grew thinner, Matsushita's eyes grew larger and burned more fiercely than ever. Now he would be part of the glorious capture of the Perak River Bridge! And he had whipped his men forward to reach it and snip those glistening wires before the British engineers had time to press down the plunger. It would be done! For the Emperor!

Matsushita had asked for volunteers for this rash assignment. The men had all volunteered, of course. Even if any of them had not felt like doing so it would never have done to let Lieutenant Matsushita get it into his head that you were a coward … ‘Well then, I must pick the men for this patrol myself,' he had said, his eyes piercing each man in turn. And he had done so, while the troops waited in silence to hear their fate. Presently Kikuchi heard his name spoken.

At about midnight on 22 December while they had been camped some distance from the Perak River Bridge in a jungle of wild rubber, a tremendous boom had reverberated from the south. So astonishing was this noise that for several moments afterwards all the night-sounds of the jungle ceased, a dreadful silence prevailed: even small insects hesitated before eating each other and snakes paused as they squirmed in and out of their slimy homes. Kikuchi and his comrades had gazed at each other in consternation: this noise could only have come from one source. The British had demolished the bridge which they had been hoping to capture intact. White with shock at this lost opportunity Matsushita nevertheless had insisted on examining his maps to see whether the map reference of the bridge tallied with the direction from which the sound had appeared to come. It did. Matsushita uttered a groan and bowed his head to the earth. Later, he took Kikuchi aside and said in a low voice: ‘Thoughts of self-condemnation overwhelm my heart, Kikuchi. Our lives will have to compensate for our error.' Kikuchi had nodded soothingly, though it had occurred to him that there seemed to be no particular reason why troops who had merely obeyed orders should have to take a share in the Lieutenant's error.

In front of them now Nakamura's tank had come to rest, bringing the column behind it to a halt. A whispered consultation was taking place: it was thought that they must now be very near the first position defended by the British. Matsushita had slipped off the tail of the lorry like a panther, invisible in the darkness. Kikuchi stood up carefully and managed to get a glimpse back down the road. Behind them stretched a column of some two dozen twenty-ton tanks, the moonlight glinting on their turrets; infantry lorries were interspersed with the more distant tanks. He knew that a detachment of lighter ‘whippet' tanks came behind the medium tanks but he could not see them for a bend in the road.

Kikuchi sank back, a little reassured by this impressive sight. Each of the medium tanks, he knew, carried a four-pounder anti-tank gun and two heavy .303 machine-guns. But, in addition, a mortar had been fitted to each tank; although it was fixed so that it could only cover one side of the road, the tanks had been arranged so that the mortars alternated, now on one side, now on the other. There would certainly be a heavy enough fire from the tanks. Perhaps he might have a chance, after all. But even if he survived this battle there would still be another battle afterwards and another after that. How many weeks or months would this nightmarish life continue? He no longer had any idea whereabouts on the Malayan peninsula they were, or even what date it might be. The New Year had begun, that was all he knew for certain.

And what a New Year it had been; Matsushita had insisted on leading the unit on a wide detour through dense jungle and swamp to the west of the road to strike behind the position fortified by the British at Kampar. And so, while in Tokyo hundreds of miles away his family and friends had been exchanging greetings and celebrating with dishes of
soba
, Kikuchi and his comrades had been plunging through terrifying swamps, often sinking up to the chest in stinking slime which threatened to swallow them up and covered them with leeches fattening visibly on their tender flesh. Instead of listening to the temple bells on New Year's Eve as they rang out their message: ‘All is vanity and unreality in this world!' and having a good time, Kikuchi had had to drag himself after Matsushita, his flesh lacerated by thorny vines, hair standing on end as poisonous snakes reared to right and left. And with nothing to chew but dry, uncooked rice and an occasional piece of snake dropped by Matsushita when he had gulped its liver in accordance with the pamphlet ‘Read This Alone and the War Can Be Won'. As a matter of fact, it had been in the course of this particular ordeal that Kikuchi had first begun to wonder whether Matsushita was altogether sane. For, although he had always had a tendency to ramble on about Kikuchi's uncle, the legendary Bugler, he had now taken to making from time to time a slighting remark about him, hinting that in a contest of bravery and devotion to duty he, Matsushita, would by no means have come off second best to Uncle Kikuchi … and even going so far as to suggest that, although to blow a bugle with one's dying breath was all very fine in its way, if you were dying anyway you might just as well blow a bugle with it as do anything else. And, as if this were not sufficiently dismaying, there was worse. For Matsushita, as he plunged relentlessly on through swamp and jungle, hacking vigorously with his tasselled sabre, eyes burning, would occasionally pause and chant half aloud, half to himself, a weird song in a language which Kikuchi had never heard before. Often Matsushita would press on so swiftly that he would leave his men behind and they would find him waiting impatiently for them when at last they caught up. One day Kikuchi, hastening after his commander who as usual had got far ahead of the rest of the squad, had come upon him unexpectedly in a sort of clearing. Matsushita had thrown off his uniform for some reason and was standing there stark naked except for the bulging leeches which covered him from head to foot. Moreover, he was surrounded by a little circle of poisonous snakes which had reared up around him as if to listen as he sang to them, conducting himself with his sabre. Kikuchi tried to make out the strange words …