The Horatio Stubbs Trilogy Page 39

  It was two days before we could confirm that Aradura was clear, and confirmatory reports came in from elsewhere. For the first time, the Japs were in retreat. Sato had had enough; he had given the order to withdraw! His battered forces were in retreat south, towards Imphal and the distant Chindwin!

  We came down the mountain again, taking our prisoners with us.

  The road below us was open and the polyglot Fourteenth Army rolling through. At last we said good-bye to Aradura and stood on the road! Inskipp marched us to a point where a mess and a bath unit had been set up in a broken and deserted hamlet. The mess was a basha without a roof; the benches and tables looked like the height of civilization. There stood our fat cooks in their greasy green vests, cocky as ever, Ron Rusk and George Locke.

  ‘How’re you doing, Stubby, boy? How’s your belly off for spots?’ Rusk had abandoned his old cry, ‘Get in, pigs, it’s all swill!’

  ‘Still burning the bergoo, Ruskie? I didn’t think they’d let you admis this near the firing line!’

  ‘You want to watch what you’re saying to him,’ Locke said, digging his mate in his ribs and nodding at me. ‘Ron killed a Jap single-handed yesterday – coshed him over the bonce with a ladle, didn’t you, Rusky Boy?’

  ‘The little bastard walked into the cookhouse and I coshed him one!’

  This heroic deed of Rusk’s became legendary. It was useless to point out that the Jap in question had probably been on his last legs anyway; Rusk had made a kill, and thereafter it was hopeless complaining about the food or we would be warned that we should get what the Jap got – a cosh over the bonce with a ladle.

  At that meal there were no complaints. We sat at the benches and ate real meat, which someone suggested was our old friend the elephant from Merema Ridge. There was beer with the meat and vegetables, Yankee Beer from Milwaukee, with peaches and condensed milk to follow, and a piyala full of char.

  It was a very quiet meal. No one spoke, no one looked at anyone else, until Charley Cox said, producing the fruit of long consideration, ‘They’re fucking brave bastards, the Japs, all the same.’

  ‘Bravest bastards in the world, after the Fourteenth Army,’ Wally agreed.

  Silence again, until Charley went on. ‘You know all the balls-ups our Higher-Ups made? I mean, like about withdrawing amphibious support and everything? It was lucky the Jap Higher-Ups made balls-ups too, wasn’t it? What I mean to say, if they’d gone straight for Dimapur before we got to Zubza, instead of waiting to mop up Kohima … well, there wouldn’t have been anything to stop ’em, would there?’

  ‘They’d be in Calcutta, eating in Firpo’s by now,’ Dusty Miller said.

  ‘That’s what I mean – their Higher-Ups made a balls-up same as ours.’

  ‘The biggest balls-up was starting the war in the first place,’ old Bamber said. ‘Where’s it get you?’

  ‘To fucking Milestone 61,’ Wally said.

  Silence fell again as we tackled the peaches.

  Afterwards, we gathered in the clearing. Inskipp stood up on his jeep and addressed us, thanking us for incredible bravery under adverse conditions. He read out an order of the day from General Grover, Divisional Commander, congratulating all ranks and stating that the enemy was in full retreat. It was our duty now to get after him and not let a man escape. Then Inskipp went off to have his arm attended to.

  After the meal and speech, baths. The baths were built out of big oil-drums, cut in half lengthways, and were full of wonderful hot water. Easing off our foetid boots, shedding our shitty uniforms, we climbed in.

  What luxury! Our aches and pains were forgotten as we soaked. Things might be bad again, but they could never be as bad as they had been.

  Slumped back in the water, we began to sing sentimental things, There’s A Long Long Trail A-Winding, I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Side by Side, Underneath The Arches.

  We could see lorries rolling by along the road, loaded with troops heading towards Imphal, still beleaguered.

  ‘Get some fucking service in!’ we bellowed. Full of fun, the Mendips were, given half a chance!

  While we were still wallowing – the orderlies could not get us out – a Dodge truck bumped up and stopped beside us.

  ‘Any of you ginks want your backs scrubbed?’ It was McGuffie, turning up with the quarter-master-sergeant and a stack of new jungle-green uniforms.

  I bellowed to him, ‘Jock, you skiving old base-wallah, come over here!’

  ‘You can wash your own mankey fucking back, Stubbs – I know where it’s been!’

  Cries from all sides – ‘Where’ve you been hiding, you sly old sod?’

  Jock shook his head. ‘While you lazy fuckers have been up in the hills screwing Naga women, I’ve been working my fucking arse off at Kohima.’

  ‘You never worked in your life, Jock.’

  ‘Och away with ye, man, I’ve been weaving a new net for the DC’s tennis court! And I’ve brought you all new uniforms.’

  ‘Get dried and I’ll kit you out, lads,’ the QMS said. ‘Form a line as you’re ready.’

  It was while we were trying out blouses and trousers and boots that he told us the news. The Second Front had opened in Europe that morning. A bridgehead had been established on the Normandy beaches and the British and Americans were pouring in.

  ‘They must be using our fucking landing-craft!’ Wally said, and we all fell about laughing. It was 6th June, 1944. We had forgotten date and season.

  It took a time to remember Kohima, so long had we spent on Aradura. When Jock was asked, he said, ‘It’s all clear of Japs now. They pulled out there, same as here – couldn’t stand the smell of the Mendips. The battle lasted seventy days. They’re holding film shows at Assam Barracks now – I saw Margaret Lockwood last night, wobbling her titties at James Mason. You boys want to get around a bit!’

  ‘Margaret Lockwood! Ooorgh!’ There was a general statement of what we could and couldn’t do to Margaret Lockwood. The arts of peace were already struggling to reassert themselves.

  ‘What’s that round your pughri, Jock?’ I asked.

  Jock removed his smart bush hat and polished it with the ginger hairs of his left arm, while gazing admiringly at the bright orange fabric tied round the crown. ‘Margaret Lockwood would go for me in this outfit, don’t ye think? It’s a bit of one of the parachutes as dumps the rations. I was in charge of collecting them yesterday – bloody nigh got killed with them damn great crates falling nichi! You young lads don’t know what danger is until you’ve been up the airstrip.’

  Bamber came along frowning and towelling his hairy crutch. ‘You want to chibber ao and shut your gob, McFuckingGuffie, you do! You don’t know what the word danger means until you been up against the Japs on Aradura. I lost some of me best mates up there, so you shit in it!’

  ‘I know how you feel, Bamber,’ Jock said, sympathetically. ‘You’ll be away to see Margaret Lockwood tonight and then you’ll feel better.’

  ‘No, I won’t. I don’t want to see Margaret Fucking Lockwood.’

  ‘Suit yourself, mate.’

  I looked at them both, thinking I understood how both felt.

  Even this fearful time of battle was precious to me, just because it wasn’t going to last. The jungles, like the cities, came and went.

  Suddenly it struck me – I had an infinite capacity for happiness! I was really a hell of a feller!

  My elevated mood endured for the rest of the day. Wearing our new kit, we marched a mile down the road – the Manipur Road! – to a temporary camp, where we boiled rifles and stens through with hot water and fresh four-b’-two in our pull-throughs.

  There was no chance of getting up to the flicks in Kohima that night – in the morning, we would be moving forward again. But McGuffie drove down in his truck and brought some rum along. We sat on the tailboard chatting, and he told a long tedious story about how he had nearly come to blows with an Irish cook in the DLI.

  I heard Aylmer limping along, still sin
ging his pathetic fragment of song, ‘Could I but see thee stand before me …’

  ‘D’ye want a piyala of rum, mate?’ Jock asked him.

  ‘Where did you get it from?’ Aylmer asked. ‘Did you lift it?’

  ‘My guts has no’ been too gude – fucking krab, in fact. I needed something for them, and this stuff settles them fine. Stubby’s got the same complaint and he’s feeling better already, aren’t you, Stubby?’

  ‘Did you lift it?’

  ‘Bollucks to that for a question! This fucking rum was meant to come up to you bastards up on Aradura, if you must know, but we couldne get it there, so I took charge of it. You wouldn’t want the mules to drink it, would you? I’m offering it to you now.’

  ‘You can keep it, Jock,’ Aylmer said mildly, and marched off.

  Jock laughed. ‘You lot are fucking shell-shocked or puggle or something!’

  ‘We’re just proud, Jock, that’s all.’

  ‘Proud you didn’t bloody get killed?! Och, I wasne killed myself, was I?’

  ‘Away and piss up your kilt, Jock! We won the fucking battle, didn’t we?’

  ‘This fucking Burma campaign has only just started, do you malum that? We’ll probably all be dead in another six months. How many years do you think it’s going to take to chase the Japs out of all these great mankey hills?’

  He swung his hand up and pointed into the darkness, where the hillsides stood.

  I could not say anything to him. Suddenly I was shagged out. He had not been with us and could not understand.

  More gently, he said, ‘How many fucking years is it going to take to chase the fucking Japs out of this bloody place? I’m asking you, man, only asking. You’re the fucking soldier!’

  No good arguing that. ‘Jock, I know I’ve asked you before, but what were you in Civvy Street?’

  ‘Och, man, I was a waiter in the Gleneagles Hotel. I thought I’d told you.’

  It struck me as funny at the time. ‘I’m sorry to laugh, Jock – I’m shagged to the wide. I must go and get my head down.’

  ‘You learn a lot, being a waiter, ye ken. I was serving at table while you was going to school with cake in your hand.’

  ‘Sure, Jock, I know. I wasn’t really laughing, honest! You know my mate Geordie got badly shot up, up on Aradura?’

  He patted my shoulder, and he was not a man who ever touched people. ‘Don’t greet over it! He was a poor wee turd of a man, and you know it – asking to get fucking shot!’

  ‘He’s probably bloody dead by now.’

  ‘So’s a whole lot of other fuckers, including a lot of brave Jocks, but you’ve got to soldier on, haven’t you? I learnt that fucking lesson waiting at table. At least, they nailed old Spunk Bucket, so there’s some justice in the world! Now for Christ’s sake come and sup some stolen rum and talk of something cheery!’

  When I could, I left him. There would be time for Jock later – perhaps a lot later. I was going to get my head down early and give myself a bloody good going over to celebrate survival. My sense of personal freedom was still with me. I had survived. It could never be expressed in words, all of which belonged to systems; but it was going to be expressed in an outburst of hand-fucking, with the pukka thing to follow just as soon as possible.

  You’ve got to soldier on …

  A troop of armoured cars, followed by infantry in carriers, rolled along the road, heading towards Phesama. Fighting was going on there; as Jock said, there was still trouble to come.

  I noticed there were several Mendips standing solitary, like myself, watching by the side of the road; the sight of them became terribly moving. They were smoking, watching the transport, thinking. We had all been together; now we had come apart again. Suddenly, it occurred to me that perhaps they too saw themselves as just pretending to be Mendips!

  But that was all balls, really. Tomorrow, we would be moving into action again at Viswema, where forward elements of 8 Brigade were already engaged – when, again, there would be no room for anything but action and the pressure for survival.

  A heavy drop of rain landed on my cheek. The clouds rose over the valley, mounting high above the dark shoulders of Pulebadze. As I headed towards my charpoy, I reformed the image of the Naga girl whose body had momentarily been close to mine on Merema Ridge. She had orchids in her sleek hair. She raised her skirt suggestively. She smiled and gave me the old come-hither.

  Before I reached my blankets, I was gratified to feel a stirring in my trousers. Probably every man-jack in the Mendips had his hand on his knob that night, giving thanks for survival.

  The early monsoon rain began to fall over our positions. Down the road, the guns were pounding away at Viswema.

  BRIAN ALDISS

  A Rude Awakening

  Epigraph

  My suspicion is that in Heaven the Blessed are of the opinion that the advantages of that locale have been overrated by theologians who were never actually there. Perhaps even in Hell the damned are not always satisfied.

  Jorge Luis Borges, THE DUEL

  ‘The idea of prostitution is a meeting point of so many elements – lechery, bitterness, the futility of human relationships, physical frenzy and the clink of gold – that a glance into its depths makes you dizzy and teaches you so much! It makes you so sad, and fills you with such dreams of love!’

  ‘But one can live a full life,’ suggested Claudin, ‘without frequenting prostitutes.’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ thundered Flaubert. ‘A man has missed something if he has never woken up in an anonymous bed beside a face he’ll never see again, and if he has never left a brothel at dawn feeling like jumping off a bridge into the river out of sheer physical disgust with life.’

  Robert Baldick, DINNER AT MAGNY’S

  ‘Remember you were of the Fourteenth Army and never say die.’

  General Sir William Slim, disbanding the Forgotten Army

  Table of Contents

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Introduction

  A Rude Awakening is the final volume of the Stubbs trilogy. The title I derived from a remark by Gustave Flaubert, who said:

  ‘A man has missed something if he has never woken up in an anonymous bed beside a face he’ll never see again, and if he has never left a brothel at dawn feeling like jumping off a bridge into the river out of sheer physical disgust with life.’

  The Second World War is over; the problems of post-war remain. Nevertheless, the tone here is not as dark as it was in A Soldier Erect, as befits a novel which encompasses the terrible madness of world war.

  The action now moves to Medan, the capital city of the island of Sumatra, where the armed forces were engaged with repatriating to Tokyo the disorganised remainder of the Japanese forces.

  The overall situation was somewhat problematic. On the British side, now that the war was won, India had to be given its independence as promised. This put all operations east of India into question. At the time that the novel opens, British-Indian forces were deployed a) to ship the surviving Japanese back to their rightful homes and b) to release all Dutch and Chinese prisoners from camps and reinstate the Dutch in the lands they had formerly possessed. But politics had changed. Soekarno, first President of Indonesia, had declared Indonesia an independent republic – this included not only Java and the string of islands to the east of Java, but also the mighty island of Sumatra, straddling the equator.

  The British were scarcely eager to reinstate the Dutch into their former colony whilst being so soon to quit their own vast colony, India. Whilst angry native mobs, assisted by fire-power, hardly strengthened the little eagerness that there was.

  So the Anglo-Indian divisions stood by. They had, in fa
ct, no choice but to stand by, because there were no aircraft or ships at that stage to guarantee a peaceful withdrawal.

  These are the clouds beneath which Stubbs and his fellows make the best of things. In regular army fashion, they grumble but hold their fire.

  Holding their semen is a different matter. Within a couple of chapters we witness Stubbs and his Chinese lady, Margey, being amorous and rather playful. Problems naturally predominate, but there is much humour – for instance when Stubbs, riding in an officer’s car, manages to drop his cigar to the floor of the car and set everything there alight. ‘Funny, sexy, and brutal,’ my American publisher described the novel – quite well I think.

  Ultimately, Stubbs has to leave his Chinese love. He also leaves Sumatra. It is a time for mild regret. As perhaps we regret leaving Horatio, whose terrifying initiation into adult society is now complete.

  Brian Aldiss,

  Oxford 2012

  CHAPTER ONE

  The wild life in Medan was something neither night nor DDT could stop.

  Beyond our steamy windows, the darkness held all the breathability of a sailor’s armpit. A winged and nameless shitbag came hurtling in from the murk, full of offence and fury. Its manner was of one intent on shattering – preferably for ever – the world speed record for Tropical Hirsute Insect Nuisance Flying.

  It burst across the room at drunken velocity, maintaining an altitude of approximately two inches above the heads of the assembled drinkers. The drinkers were tanking themselves up for the arrival of a lorry-load of unleashed Dutch girls, and failed to notice this freak of evolution. Still accelerating, the shitbag gained height and ploughed its way through a cloud of assorted mosquitoes, flies, moths, and fluttering uglies which had appropriated our central light as a zone for combined aerial combat and propagation of species.

  I saw it because I was leaning against the far wall of the mess, listening with Jock Ferguson to Johnny Mercer on War.