The Battle for Burma by Bernard Fergusson

Author:Bernard Fergusson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2016-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

IX

BIVOUAC

I CANNOT HOPE to convey the utter boredom of a long march. When in 1942 we were training in the Central Provinces of India, Orde Wingate, in one of his many talks, said: “The first five days of a long march are the worst.” A legend grew up that he had in fact said, “The first five months,” and this figure was often wanly quoted.

For those marching near the head of the column, where the dust or the mud (as the case might be) was moderate, the process was barely tolerable; for those farther down the column it was sheer hell; for the muleteers, who not only bore the same burdens as the rest of us, but had to cope with their animals as well, it must have been the equivalent of seven or more very special hells. Duncan Menzies, my Column Adjutant in 1943, and I each led and looked after a mule for twenty-four hours on the Manipur Road to see what it was like; and we were both heartily glad when that short period was over.

For the ordinary soldier, life had few interests to relieve the monotony of marching. A Column Commander had plenty to occupy his mind; and he, like some other privileged folk, could at least vary his position in the long snake; but an ordinary soldier saw the same thing in front of him day after day in absolute slavery. For some, it was the back view of the same man; for some, the back view of the same mule: the same ears, the same load, the same rump, the same tail hanging down, the same flick of the same fetlocks every second of every hour of every day of every week of every month, interrupted only by halts and battles.

For two long years we used to amuse ourselves discussing the Victory March through London after the war, and deciding which of us—and which mules—should represent the Force. In the end, the question didn’t arise, as the authorities ruled that the Force shouldn’t be represented at all. I fancy that we hadn’t marched far enough to qualify.

I imagine that most people evolved something of what psychologists call escape mechanism. I certainly did. I have described elsewhere how one used to daydream, or to recite, in the free and unenslaved recesses of the mind, long wads of poetry, Psalms and Paraphrases. But to offset the pleasure of these, little unwanted sentences, or snatches of tunes, used to come into one’s mind and drill away like the torture of dripping water, until one managed to summon up a long narrative dream to exorcise them and drive them out. I remember one which derived from a story by Ian Hay of somebody rowing in a bumping race at Cambridge: it described how, at the end of the race, the hero slumped over his oar, oblivious “of everything save the blessed fact that he need row no more.” Those words were always with me, and I knew just exactly how he felt.

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