Pale Shadow of Science. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ fighting. You either jumped off here or were drawn on. Deserters had no chance of escaping to England or to any neutral country. Their best bet was to hang about in this filthy camp, for years if need be. Some of the N.C.O.s also had deserted, a fiddle was working whereby everyone still managed to draw army pay on which to venture into town once a week, to whore and booze.

      One of our detachment nervously asked if we would not stand ‘a better chance’ if we joined the ranks of the deserters.

      ‘I’d rather die in the bloody jungle than rot here,’ said Monks, with his usual solid sense.

      After two days, we reported to Howrah station, in order to continue our journey to Dibrugarh and 36 Div. The RTO at Howrah mysteriously took two of our number away, for posting elsewhere. No explanations were given. Nine of us were left, with damaged morale.

      The line from Howrah northwards had come under American administration. American troops were on the train, noisy, casual, well-dressed. They had attached a canteen, which they called the caboose. Every fifty miles or so, the train would stop in the middle of nowhere, and anyone who wanted could collect a mug of coffee from the caboose. We were hospitably invited to do the same. The coffee was excellent. But we simply could not understand the Yanks and their boyish excitement at going to war. One of them, however, presented me with a copy of Astounding Science Fiction, which he had finished reading.

      Our excitement increased as we neared Dibrugarh. What a welcome we would get! The railway ran along the south bank of the wide Bramaputra. After many changes of train and mysterious delays, we reached Tinsukia, the railhead. No one was there to meet us. The RTOs had erred.

      We waited on the station, kit drawn up round us. Dusk thickened on the plain. In the distance, clear, aloof, still in sunlight, stood the majestic range of the Himalayas, with Tibet beyond. Their snow-crowned heights slowly turned pink with sunset.

      A three-tonner rolled up. We climbed aboard and went bumping into the dark. The driver was mad and did his best to run down any dogs which crossed the road. He succeeded twice. All round us was miserable secondary growth, slum jungle.

      We arrived at the Dibrugarh camp at three in the morning. A banner over a wooden sentry post announced that we had made contact at last with the British 36th Division. They were about to go into action north-eastwards, towards the River Salween, to strengthen Vinegar Joe Stilwell’s Burma Road to Chungking, the wartime Chinese capital.

      A corporal was woken. He had no knowledge of us. There was nowhere for us. They did not need reinforcements. We would have to sleep in the mess, on the mess tables, and someone would sort out the balls-up in the morning. No, there was no grub. Not at four in the morning, mate. What did we think they were, a bloody hotel?

      The cooks woke us at six. We sat around on our kitbags for some while.

      The camp was run on a piratical basis by a captain and two senior NCOs. They were extremely nasty. We stood in the sun and were dressed down by one NCO. for being there at all. Meanwhile, the captain was hatching a simple plot.

      Our proper allowance of kit was, as I recall, 95 lbs. It included smart tropical dress uniform. The captain announced that, as we were now in an active service zone, our kit must be reduced to 60 lbs. We had ten minutes to get down to regulation weight.

      Our dress uniforms and dress hats went. Books went. I was left with only a World Classics Palgrave’s Golden Treasury and the copy of Astounding Science Fiction. Life in the army was full of abandoned things; we adopted an Urdu word for it, ‘pegdo.’ Our pegdoed kit, books, uniforms, musical instruments, had to be piled up at the door of the quartermaster’s stores.

      We were informed that a truck would come immediately and we would be shipped back to the RTO at Howrah. I took action I could hardly believe myself to be doing; without telling the others, I stepped into the captain’s tent, saluted, and volunteered to go to Chungking.

      ‘Who are you to volunteer? You’re fresh out from England, haven’t even got your knees brown.’

      ‘I passed first class as a 19 and 22 set operator, sir. And can work a line instrument.’

      ‘I didn’t ask you that. I asked you what category you were. Are you A1?’

      ‘No, sir, I’m A2, sir. But that’s only because of my specs. I can see perfectly well with them on. I’ve had commando training, sir.’

      ‘A2s are no use to us. This is a real fighting division. Get out. Dismiss.’

      My old dream of getting to China had triumphed over a sensible concern to stay with my mates. I read every word I could find on Chungking, the muddy, isolated much-bombed capital of Chiang Kai-shek. I longed for its Chinese squalor. Throughout my time in the East, I kept volunteering for China; Hong Kong was the nearest I got.

      Before the three-tonner bumped us out of the compound, we had the mortification of seeing the captain and his thugs descend on our pegdoed treasures and begin to divvy them up.

      Back to Tinsukia. There, hanging about the sidings waiting for a train, Monks and I were accosted by an ancient Indian and a small boy. The old man would sing to us, good British songs, sir, for only one rupee. As it happened, we had only two rupees in small change between us. We gave him half a rupee and he began to sing, accompanied by the small boy on a flute, a garbled version of ‘Tipperary.’

      It’s a long long the Tipperarip,

      It’s a way ago.

      It’s a long long the Tipperarip,

      To the Swedish, ah no.

      Go try to pick a lilly fair

      Well let’s scare …

      Monks and I stood among the maze of lines and roared with laughter. We pressed more money on the old boy, forcing him to sing his song again. His words grew wilder. He was overjoyed by his success, bewildered by his reception. He went on singing until we had given him our last anna and his metre ran out. Long after, three years later in Sumatra, Monks and I could make each other laugh just by singing in a creaking nasal voice, ‘It’s a long long the Tipperarip.’

      We never got back to Calcutta. At Gauhati, on the Bramaputra, we were caught by another RTO, and directed to the 2nd British Division. This entailed getting a train of a different gauge, heading eastwards. This time, there was no escaping our fate. We were heading for Dimapur, Kohima, and the Jap-infested fastnesses of Burma.

      At Dimapur, we de-trained. We were not expected. We checked into a fearsome camp, and one or two of us were immediately collared for fatigues.

      This consisted of climbing into the cargo hold of a Dakota aircraft and sitting among the stores, hanging on grimly as the plane took off, to fly low over the hills of Nagaland and drop supplies to British and Indian troops. When a flying type with a clipboard shouted ‘Now,’ our job was to boot supplies put of the open door of the aircraft as it banked over the target. Such was my first experience of flying.

      The next morning, a lorry arrived at the camp and the nine of us climbed in. We were driven eighty miles along the famous Dimapur Road. The road climbed steadily, twisting and turning to follow the convolutions of the mountainside. Sunlight and shade swung about our heads. Parts of the road were still being built or rebuilt. Over the sheer drop, we could see in the valley below burnt out carcasses of trucks which had been carelessly driven.

      We СКАЧАТЬ