The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [600]
Nevertheless, as darkness now began to fall on 6 January and he awaited developments, the Brigadier was seriously concerned. Because of the eerie quietness which had prevailed all day he had dared to hope that the Japanese might have been halted by the severe blow they had received in an ambush sprung by the Argylls on the railway the previous day. General Paris, on the other hand, whom he had contacted by telephone, had gloomily postulated a wide flanking movement through the dense jungle which would suddenly develop into an attack in the rear. It had happened before.
The Brigadier had pondered the problems of fighting in the jungle and had noticed that instead of a wary advance on a broad front the Japanese preferred a swift and violent attack down the narrow corridor of the road itself to a considerable depth. For whoever had control of the road, as the Brigadier had already realized, in a situation where maps and wireless were scarce, had control of the only practical means of communication. In dense jungle or in a trackless ocean of identical rubber trees it was hard, or impossible, to calculate your exact position; without an accurate idea of where you were it was out of the question to organize an effective manoeuvre. If you had the road, on the other hand, you had everything.
The Brigadier, therefore, was expecting the Japanese to attack straight down the road: given the position they could, in any case, do little else; only if this assault were stopped could they be expected to leave the road and attempt to encircle its defenders. He had, therefore, disposed his 12th Brigade in depth along the road and railway where they ran together for some distance, with two battalions in the defile: one, the Hyderabads, in a forward position to take the first assault and then fall back; the other, the Punjabis, to deal with the main attack. He was counting on the Japanese being stopped at this point and finding themselves committed to encircling through the jungle. To deal with this eventuality, at the southern end of the defile four companies of the Argylls were positioned on either side of the road to meet flanking attacks at the point where the Japanese would emerge from the jungle into the rubber.
But what made the Brigadier’s long face look even sterner than usual as he awaited developments was the knowledge of the weakened state the brigade was in. Even his own Argylls were reaching the end of their physical resources: what they needed, and the Indian battalions even more so, was just a little time to recover … even a few hours would make a difference. But throughout the campaign the Japanese had, time and again, followed up their attacks more quickly than expected. The Brigadier was hardly surprised in consequence when Captain Sinclair presently informed him that Chinese refugees filtering through the British positions ahead of the advancing Japanese had brought news of a large column of tanks they had seen moving up the trunk road.
‘They say their engineers have been suh … suh … suh … warming like ants at every demolished bridge for miles back, sir,’ stammered Sinclair excitedly. He was surprised and deeply impressed that the Brigadier should remain his imperturbable self at this news of approaching tanks. He knew, and the Brigadier knew, just how much could be hoped for from the anti-tank defences in the defile … In the four days that had elapsed since the decision had been taken to make a stand here, work on the defences had continued whenever the constant Japanese air-raids permitted. Weapons