The Empire Trilogy (170 page)

But if the tank had already passed through the long neck and out into the bottle itself, this meant that the Japanese had not only broken through the Punjabis position but that the first of the Argylls' obstacles where the trunk road left the jungle and entered the rubber had also failed to stop it. What had happened was that the Japanese tanks, which had been successfully stopped by the Punjabis on the trunk road, had found a way round them: for it so happened that the line which the trunk road now followed was not the original one. The original road had snaked through the defile with a number of sharp bends. When the road, in the process of being improved, had been straightened out, the disused loops of the original road had been left and no anti-tank defences had been provided for them. Thus it was that Nakamura's tank had discovered one of the disused loops and used it to circle around the British position, emerging in the rear. The Punjabis' resistance now at last collapsed. Charlie collected those men of his own contingent who were still able to walk and retreated with them into the jungle, hoping that they might be able to make their way back to the Slim River Bridge and the British lines. It was just beginning to grow light as Charlie and his men were swallowed up by the great dark-green wall of jungle. Subsequently nothing more would be seen or heard of them.

Now the tanks of Major Toda and Lieutenant Nakamura with two more medium tanks behind them (the very last of which had just flattened a motor-cycle) and a single lorry-load of infantry which included a dismayed Kikuchi and the reckless Matsushita, had brushed aside one pitiful road-block where the road left the jungle and surged on down the road. This was already a victory for they had broken through the defile and could now operate in the greater freedom of the rubber estate if it suited them. But Nakamura had his eye on an even greater feat of arms … to capture the two bridges before they could be blown up!

In no time the leading tanks had reached the second road-block which the Argylls had set up a hundred yards in front of the bridge at Trolak. This second obstacle, prepared in haste, was scarcely more impressive than the first, but it was covered by the two Argyll armoured cars, together with the Molotov Cocktail party lurking in the ditch with brimming jam jars and petrol-soaked rags. It was now just light enough to make out the forms of the tanks as they appeared out of the darkness and came to a halt, checked by the concrete blocks and chains across the road.

Once they were motionless the officer in command of the armoured cars gave the signal and, one from each side of the road, they opened up with their anti-tank rifles. But their shots merely glanced off the tanks' armour and ricocheted howling into the rubber. Now the cocktail party galloped up, flung their projectiles and hared away again for cover. Flames leaped up here and there and it seemed for a moment that one of the tanks had been set ablaze: but only the petrol which drenched its armour was on fire and presently it died out and the early morning gloom returned. In the meantime the tanks had turned their squat heads, as if in surprise, to look at the pitiful armoured cars which were opposing them. Their guns spoke. Instantly one armoured car was a smoking wreck, the other disabled. Tracer stitched up and down the Argyll's hastily prepared defences. The tanks' main armament and machine-guns continued to fire: to the boom of the guns and grenades and the chatter of small arms was added the frightful cracking of rubber trees in the estate behind.

Kikuchi and his comrades lay as flat as they could on the floor of the lorry as bullets ripped through the canvas awning above them. Even Matsushita was crouching down. But at this moment some instinct told him that the time had come and suddenly, grabbing a light machine-gun from the man beside him, he sprang out into the road. He was just in time to see the turret of the leading tank some yards ahead open up and Nakamura's head appear. While Major Toda's tank continued to blaze away to give him cover the heroic Nakamura carrying his sabre clambered over the road-block. At the other end of the bridge it was now possible to make out the explosive charge which had been set against one of the pillars and even the wires which led back from it. With bullets kicking up the dust all around him Nakamura raced forward sabre in hand and Matsushita, dashing after him, was just in time to see a British soldier leap up to hurl a grenade: Matsushita cut him down with a burst of machine-gun fire. With a mighty slash of his sabre Nakamura severed the wires leading to the demolition charge, then turned and sprinted back towards his tank. It seemed impossible that he should get back alive through that storm of bullets but in a moment he had vaulted on to the nose of the tank and was slithering down like a snake into the safety of its hole. The turret-cover shut after him with a clang.

How long would it be before the tanks had burst through the roadblock in front of the bridge? With its motor roaring Nakamura's tank began to batter this light obstruction aside. In desperation the officer commanding the armoured cars, ignoring the fire from the tanks a mere hundred yards down the road, took the brake off the disabled armoured car and pushed it down the slight incline on to the bridge where he tried unsuccessfully to overturn it. But even this gallant effort could not hope to stop the tanks. With a grinding of metal and concrete Nakamura's tank had at last burst through on to the bridge, followed by that of Major Toda, guns still blazing. It took only a few moments to force aside the wrecked armoured car on the bridge. Once more the open road lay ahead.

On they raced in the direction of Kampong Slim, now in broad daylight. About a mile north of the village Nakamura, riding with head and shoulders out of his turret and surveying the road ahead like an eagle, saw movement. His eyes glittered. In an instant the turret-cover clanged shut again and the tank accelerated into a battalion of Punjabis of the 28th Brigade which had been hurriedly ordered forward by the Brigadier and were marching unsuspectingly up the road. The first company melted away under Nakamura's machine-gun fire; of the second company only a score of men escaped uninjured, while the two rear companies managed to dive into the rubber on each side of the road. At Kampong Slim the trunk road took a sharp turn to the left and ran eastwards through the Cluny Estate. Here Nakamura found further prey, a battalion of Gurkha Rifles moving along the road in column of route without the least suspicion that a Japanese tank might be in the vicinity: they suffered the same fate as the Punjabis, caught in close order by Nakamura's machine-guns and scythed down.

Next comes the turn of two batteries of the 137th Field Regiment dozing peacefully at the roadside in the Cluny Estate: one moment all is quiet and in good order, the next their camp is reduced to a smoking shambles and the tanks are moving on again. Major Toda would like to take the lead for already the greatest prize perhaps of the whole campaign is in reach: the Slim River Bridge itself! And so rapidly has the Toda tank company burst through the entire depth of the British defences that they find this vital bridge is defended by nothing more daunting than one troop of a Light Anti-Aircraft Battery equipped with Bofors guns, together with a party of sappers at work preparing the demolition of the bridge.

Just as one may sometimes see flights of terrified birds fleeing in front of a hurricane, now the Toda tank company is driving a random selection of vehicles in front of it. Men in lorries, in cars and on motor-cycles (even a man on horseback is to be seen galloping away though what he is doing there nobody knows); men pedal away furiously on bicycles and swerve up estate roads out of the path of the rumbling tanks. A party of signallers in a lorry rattles on to the bridge and shouts at the sappers who are putting the finishing touches to the charges laid against the far pillars and at the others who are unreeling the wire back to a safe distance to connect with the plunger: ‘Jap tanks are coming! Jap tanks are coming!' Word is passed to the officer with the anti-aircraft guns. Only two of the Bofors will bear on the road. He prepares to fire over open sights and waits until he sees the first of the sinister vehicles surge into view, followed by another and another and another. At a hundred yards he opens fire on the leading tank but the light shells merely bounce off the tank's armour and depart screaming into the rubber. The tanks in turn open fire on the unprotected guns. In a few moments they are out of action; men lie dead and wounded around them in a cloud of smoke and dust.

Nakamura, cunningly, has refused to acknowledge Major Toda's attempts to take the lead and so the tracks of his tank are the first to thunder on to the long bridge. His eyes are on the explosive charge which is now so near; his eyes are on the sappers scattering into the rubber, two of them running with a reel unwinding between them. The hollow roar of the tracks on the bridge, the bridge itself seems to him to go on for ever. Nakamura, in the course of his earlier endeavour, has been wounded in the right hand and can no longer hold his sabre. Besides, rifle bullets are again zinging on the armour. He takes a machine-gun and directs it at the wire running along and away from the bridge until, yes, the bullets have severed it. The Slim River Bridge has been captured intact!

Major Toda orders one tank to remain guarding the bridge lest the British should return and try to demolish it. Then, Nakamura still in the lead, the other tanks move on a mile down the road in the direction of Tanjong Malim. It is now half past nine and the day is beginning to grow hot. Abruptly, the tanks find themselves in yet another formation of unsuspecting British troops moving up to the front line (which
they
still think is nineteen miles away). Nakamura at last has indulgently given up the lead to Lieutenant Ogawa. The British, although taken by surprise, will this time prove to be not such an easy prey, for this is the fine 155th Field Regiment. One detachment, working feverishly under a fusillade from the tanks, manages to unlimber its 4.5-inch howitzer; this gun opens fire from a mere thirty yards' range at the leading tank, smashing it. The advance of the tanks is halted at last.

A little later, once the British had retired, Kikuchi inspected the wreckage of this tank. He found Lieutenant Ogawa, although dead, still sitting upright and holding his sabre. So ended the engagement at the Slim River.

In spite of the difficulties he had encountered with certain of the inmates of the dying-house which he had visited with Vera, Matthew could now only think of that institution with pleasure, for it had created a definite bond between them. There is something about a large number of dying people, provided you aren't one of them, that can make you feel extraordinarily full of vitality. Matthew and Vera, once they had emerged from that shadowy world, had found themselves positively seething with high spirits. At the door of the dying-house, as soon as each saw the unwrinkled face of the other, they had fumbled for each other's hands and gripped them tightly. Unfortunately, the complaints of the moribund smallholders had taken up so much time that they had been obliged to part again almost immediately, but this time not without making arrangements to meet again. Thus it happened that, in due course, they found themselves standing at the curved entrance to The Great World.

Vera saw Matthew's seductively curved spine while she was still some distance away, and her heart went pit-a-pat (no young men with fists of steel for her!) He was wandering up and down muttering to himself and occasionally lifting his knuckles to nudge his spectacles up on his nose. Once, evidently having forgotten what he was doing there, he began to stride away purposefully, but presently, remembering, came back. By this time, however, Vera had decided that it was best to step forward and announce herself. She took his arm and they strolled into The Great World. A mysterious tropical twilight prevailed in which bats skidded here and there, squeaking and clicking. Matthew was surprised to find The Great World still open despite the war which, after all, was now not very far away. There had been changes, however. For one thing, there were no longer as many lights burning; now there was merely a faint glow here and there against which you saw milling shadows silhouetted in the dusk. But the sensation of tropical mystery, the unfamiliar aromas and sensations, had redoubled in intensity and the crowds at this hour seemed scarcely less abundant. That atmosphere of cigar smoke and sandalwood, incense and perfume, that stirring compound of food and dust and citrus blossom, of sensuality and spices filled Matthew with such excitement that his spirit began flapping violently inside him like a freshly caught fish in a basket.

Matthew was thirsty. Spotting a group of shadowy figures drinking something at a stall he steered Vera towards it. They were drinking from straws stuck in coconuts which had been topped like boiled eggs. How delicious! But Vera diverted him. Coconut milk was not good for men, she explained.

‘How d'you mean?'

Well, the Malays said it had a weakening effect of them, she murmured evasively, and directed him instead to another stall, insisting that he should partake of a strange, meaty, spicy soup of which she would only tell him the Chinese name (it was monkey soup, a powerful aphrodisiac). He tasted it and found it, well, rather strange. What did she say was in it? But again she would only tell him the Chinese name. The elderly, wizened Chinese who brewed it, who looked as if he himself was only on temporary leave from the dying-house, cackled with amusement at this burly warrior sharpening his jade arrows before loosing them at the Coral Palace. He stroked his wispy beard and peered into his vat of bubbling soup, remembering not without melancholy how in days gone by he had enjoyed an occasional bit of ‘
fang-shih
' himself.

Yes, it was not at all bad, Matthew decided when he had tasted it again. In no time he had finished the bowl and asked for a second helping. Delicious! He would have ordered a third helping but Vera thought he had probably had enough and so they strolled on through the smoky, crowded darkness. Here and there tapers glimmered, illuminating a circle of oriental faces and Matthew even noticed a few soldiers. One of the soldiers, however, had his arm in a sling; another had a thick bandage round his head; others were drunken but silent now, and morose. With dull eyes they watched the swirling cosmopolitan bustle around them, as if from the other side of a plate-glass window. No doubt these poor fellows had been invalided back from the fighting in the north. One could hardly expect them to look cheerful.