One For Every Sleeper by Jeffery English

Author:Jeffery English [Jeffery English]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780719817502
Publisher: Robert Hale
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

10 Through the Jungle

That night’s march, although not our last, was quite unlike those going before or after, and was an episode on its own.

The Australians went first, coming up the hill through our camp to join the main road along which we had arrived, and they left whilst it was still just light at 6 o’clock, we being scheduled to follow two hours later at 8. To add to our manifold joys, as we were rounding up the troops to get them in column, the heavens repeated their previous evening’s performance, turning on every nozzle and dropping it down by the bathful.

It was by now pitch dark, for the moon was not due to rise until midnight, and even the starlight was blotted out by the heavy rolling clouds: our only illumination was the fitful glare of a bonfire which we had built by the track, but even this was now being shrouded in thick smoke as the rain pelted down on it.

One of the Nip guards had an electric torch, and this, with the fire, enabled us to form up: the roll call miraculously agreed, and we set out on what was to prove to be the most nightmarish march which it is possible to conceive.

Once we were round the first corner, the light from the bonfire was lost, and so apart from the lucky few nearest the leading Nip, no one could possibly see anything, absolutely and literally.

The first corner proved to be the junction where we had turned off from the main road that morning down the little track to our camp. We now turned left on that main road, past the Nip guard hut where we had gone in for directions, and then on. This was evidently the road up through the jungle.

The road itself was merely beaten earth where lorries and marching men had nosed their way through what was fairly light jungle, un-made, un-metalled, and in no way planned. Smaller trees and secondary vegetation had been cleared, but large trees had been left and the track simply wound round them. Every few score yards there were twists, turns, and right-angle bends; and as no attempt had been made at levelling the track, it rose and fell with the frequency, but not the smoothness, of a switchback at a fun fair.

Superimposed on these minor undulations was a longer trend. We were gradually climbing, but the track was running crossways over a series of ridges and dips about a quarter of a mile from crest to crest, and we came to stretches with gradients of one in six, one in five, or worse, with a side-slant for good measure, and sharp detours around larger unfelled trees for even better measure.

Such was its shape – not easy to follow in pitch darkness, and incomparably more tortuous than any woodland track or cliff terrace I’ve ever scrambled about on in England: but far more exhausting than its layout was its surface. Once the protective carpet of ferns,

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