The Edge of the Sword by General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley

Author:General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2007-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

IWAS still climbing when I heard a rifle shot from the valley I had just left—another followed, a few seconds later. It could only have been a short time before the wretched sentry, circling his beat, had become aware of a pile of loose earth on the hillside and had rolled the oil drum away from the bunker entrance to find the bird had flown! I reached the dense underbrush just below the hill-top, and sat down to see what line and form the enemy pursuit would take—if any: following a man in darkness on that hard ground was impossible, I believed.

Apparently, they thought that it was not. Ten minutes later I heard voices shouting from either side of the track that led due west. Torches began to flash. Once I heard the sound of dogs barking, and feared that they might have put some on my trail. A moment later I realized that this was nonsense: I had merely heard the village dogs demanding to know what all the excitement was about. The shouts died away as I went through the brush over the top of the hill, making for the pinewoods through which we had come on the truck from Sinmak. There I should find cover amongst the trees, deserted tracks, and water to quench the thirst that escaping had given me.

My journey to the west had begun!

There were many difficulties in making the journey to the coast. The flooded rice-paddy that I met again and again caused me to make detours in the early stages. There were rivers without fords or stepping stones, which had to be swum; and the effort involved taxed my few reserves of physical strength considerably. After three days I realized why the Chinese medical orderly had peered so curiously into my eyes: it was not the blue pupil which had interested him, but the yellow that had spread over the iris. From the colour of my urine I felt almost certain that I had jaundice; and when I looked at my reflection in a pool of clear water, I saw that I was right. My tonsilitis, too, was troubling me a good deal. I swallowed with difficulty the maize that I took from the fields each day. Throughout each night journey, the hills and valleys seemed determined to hinder me, forever lying across my course, never with it.

It took me two days to return to Sinmak; two days later, I was still only a dozen miles from it. Resting on some pine branches after my night march, I realized that I would have to devise a different system of travel, if I was to hope for success. Originally, I had based my calculations on a fifteen-day journey from the point of escape to the nearest suitable point on the coast. On arrival there, I had to be prepared to take anything up to three days to find a boat, bringing the total estimated time to eighteen days. The journey from there

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