The Plantation - Di Morrissey [93]
I had known this man all my life and yet I found that I really knew nothing about him. I had seen Ah Kit playing around the Kampong when we were young but later I knew him only as a servant. Now I learned that he not only had political views very different from my own, but that he was a brave soldier.
‘Ah Kit,’ I said, ‘first you must help us get rid of the Japanese.’
As soon as we could, we got the radio working and let Delhi know that Roger was alive and well. We were ordered to stay in the jungle and continue the reconnaissance work. And so began many months working in the jungle with Bill, Roger and Ah Kit. Sometimes we worked separately other times we worked together.
Ah Kit introduced us to more men from the Orang Asli, people who seemed willing to work with us. These natives were clever at being able to locate Japanese patrols and enjoyed terrorising them by quietly seizing the last man and silently killing him. This meant that the Japanese were terrified to go into the jungle and so, if we kept our heads down, we were pretty safe in our kampong. The Chinese communists brought us intelligence about ammunition dumps and watchtowers and the deployment of the Japanese soldiers and we would radio this information back to HQ.
Since we had this network of Chinese communists, and we thought that we could trust the villagers, we began to move about the jungle and into other areas. This decision led to one or two close calls when we were betrayed by a loose tongue or a villager who wanted a Japanese reward.
Probably the worst of these events occurred one night when I was alone and came across a Japanese encampment comprising of eight soldiers. Before I got close to them, I made a fatal error. Believing that I could get a better view of their camp, I decided to leave my jungle cover and try to cross the small river that lay between me and the Japs.
I was lucky that it was only one guard and not the entire patrol who saw me. I was hit in the shoulder, a sharp burn, the force pitching me forward. I rolled into the shallows of the river and pulled myself beneath the surface, holding my breath, and tried to move downstream with the current. The jungle came down to the water and when I couldn’t hold my breath any longer I raised my head and found I was in the long grasses, roots and weeds fringing the bank. I lay there holding on, beginning to feel weak, knowing I was losing blood.
No more shots were fired. I suppose that the Jap thought I was a native, for I was dressed in a sarong, and as I was in an impenetrable section of the river, he had decided not to follow me.
I considered my options and thought that all I could do was pull myself out of the water and try to get some sort of foothold on the bank and hope that I’d be found, though I had no idea if I’d last until then. There was a tree with low overhanging branches and a thick trunk. I finally reached it and managed to secure myself to a stout branch with my sarong. If I passed out, I would not slide back into the river.
The last thing I recall was the screeching of monkeys.
I’m told I lost a lot of blood and nearly forty-eight hours passed before I was found by Ah Kit and one of the native trackers who’d been searching the river for me. They carried me for several days, back into the jungle and towards one of the safe villages. All the time I drifted in and out of consciousness. I have no idea how they managed to carry me on a very rough stretcher. We were still quite some way from safety when we nearly stumbled into another Japanese patrol. The native, poor soul, realising at once that if they were caught with me they would be executed, fled. But Ah Kit told me to be very quiet and hid me under some leaves and jungle detritus. We remained safe. Ah Kit told me to stay there and he would get help. I completely lost track of time but when I opened my eyes, I found that I was looking at Bill.
I took quite a while getting