Lieutenant-Colonel John P Cross OBE

THE GURKHA INDEPENDENT PARACHUTE COMPANY IN THE BORNEO CAMPAIGN – BY LT COL J P CROSS


Once again the contrast between England and what I had left was too sudden for comfort. Although I had only been away a year, I had not fully recovered the privations suffered during my spell with the Temiar when I left for Borneo. Once again people found me difficult to get on with, just as I found it hard to relax, both bodily and mentally.

On the one hand I fully appreciated how lucky I was to be alive after a very narrow escape every month for the past year. On the other hand, I was smarting inwardly at how Fenner had ignored my work and Heelis had treated me. It was cold comfort to recall what the soldiers of 1/7 GR had told me when I went to Ipoh to 'have it out' with Heelis; they were sorry I was not to be with them once more, they wondered why the authorities felt I needed to be given a third consecutive job where I could easily lose my life. It were better for all if I went to command the Para Company as "we would not have let you be bullied by Heelis," as I would have been, "and we would have cut his head off."

So, besides having such bitter-sweet thoughts haunting me as I regained my strength, I was wondering how I would cope by becoming a parachutist nearer 40 than 39 years of age. Even when an uncle suggested my changing my family motto to May all my droppings be soft ones, I could only respond with a wan smile.

I finished my leave and rejoined my battalion. I was made more unhappy to find that Heelis had warned his relief against me and for the two months I had to fill in before starting parachute training, instead of helping the battalion out in Borneo - where I knew every headman in the area of their operations), I was held back in command of the Rear Party - looking after leave men and the families. On the other side of the coin, I was back in an organisation that I had grown to love over the years, I was no longer a unique embarrassment to two armies and three police forces, nor to the financiers of two governments as how to pay me. I knew where I was, I appreciated all aspects of living, I was welcomed back by the soldiers - in short, I was home again.

I learnt that the Indonesians had broadcast that they had killed Captain Cross, a theme echoed by the Sarawak Gazette. The battalion's pandit told me that anyone so announced was guaranteed to live until he was a hundred. My death being published twice meant a 10-year bonus. I said I did not want to live until I was 110 and was allowed a special dispensation to stay alive only till I was 105.

* * *

The Gurkha Independent Parachute Company, to give it its full name, had its genesis in the Brunei Rebellion that started on 8 December 1962. Elements of a British battalion had to be airlanded on an unreconnoitred airstrip which was in enemy hands, something which no self-respecting air force likes to do. To clear such an obstacle is the role of parachute troops and it was the lack of them that showed up the need to have a parachute unit always on hand. Rather than denude the Home Base of such troops, it was decided to raise a small parachute force from theatre resources. This was provided by the Gurkhas and came into being on 1 January 1963.

Our fundamental task was to be able to capture an airhead; our next and immediate task was to operate in small patrols in advance of conventional infantry; and thirdly, we had to be ready to act as an ordinary infantry company. For our first role we had to have 128 Gurkhas, the basic minimum for all our three roles. Simple mathematics therefore meant we worked in five-man groups, unlike the SAS, the Guards Independent Parachute Company and later the Parachute Regiment itself, who worked in four-man groups.

Apart from being individually trained as medical orderlies, infantry pioneers, radio operators and linguists, we needed patrol training. This meant the men honing up their individual and collective infantry skills, supplemented by all the jungle lore I had acquired with the aborigines and the Border Scouts, in turn built on my own personal experience gained after being jilted in 1954.

As the maps in Borneo often showed no contours, we had maps of the Kluang area specially printed with no contours and certain conventional signs missing. We went on frequent jungle exercises and continued with our parachute drops. We even managed to give a demonstration jump to the Gurkha recruits in the training depot in north Malaya during the Brigade annual conference. I jumped first, left my parachute as it was and ran over to where a public address system was ready to give the recruits a running commentary of what was happening and who were jumping. I had made a list of all those in the depot who were related to or fellow villagers of my men taking part in the demonstration. Before I started talking I overheard one battalion commander say "Ah, a real sahib; he leaves his parachute for someone else to roll up." On another occasion I arranged for the Gurkha families to watch an exercise jump near Kluang. Two gores of one man's parachute tore and he approached the ground very fast. Not knowing whose dearest was so rapidly becoming whose nearest, all the Gurkha ladies hid their faces and missed most of the demonstration!

I was engrossed by a problem: our different roles demanded different types of people. One reason, so I believe, why the SAS and Para men do not always hit it off together is that the former are introverts who do not like a crowd while the latter are extroverts who do. My men had to be both. Down in GHQ the chief 'trick-cyclist' had been medical officer during the war when Gurkhas were first trained for parachute duties in India, when there had been a fatality each week. I asked him his views on how to devise tests to help me chose men for such divergent tasks.

His answer intrigued me as much as my question had intrigued him: if all theatre resources were pooled and this problem worked on for a year, he doubted a suitable answer could be found. I had to establish a personality cult, I was told, and dispense with all except pure military testing. How refreshing to be told, in effect, to act naturally for a change and how different from the tasteless comments I had been the butt of in the past two years, always behind my back.

There were still those in the Brigade of Gurkhas whose conventional views found me a difficult person to fathom. I was now recommended to command a 'colonial', preferably Malay, battalion. After 21 years with Gurkhas, knowing them and their language as I did, was I more skilled with Malays having only come across them officially during my time as commandant of the Border Scouts?

* * *

In early September 1965 we were sent to Brunei and were billeted a short way out of the town in the 'Haunted House'. Before I took over, men had been in the jungle from six to twelve weeks but I cut that time down to two or three. We would not be sent on cross-border operations on our first tour, so we spent all four months operating inside Sabah and Sarawak. Easy tasks were gradually increased to harder ones and, although we did not have any contact with the enemy, we always did what was asked of us. We had no sickness so no elaborate air evacuations were needed, nor were aerial fixes ever a requirement for a lost patrol - the Brigade staff later told me that our British peers were ever-demanding in both requirements. The soldiers' line discipline in camp was as good as were their military techniques on operations, to the amazement of their British comrades-in-arms.

Before our second spell on operations we were rebadged with the Parachute Regiment badge and allowed to wear the red beret. This was much more popular than the idea of wearing our own badge, parachute and crossed kukris, as the men now felt we had been accepted by the rest of the British Army as equals.

The company made a number of cross-border operations on our next tour. Being top secret, we all had to have security clearance before being allowed to go on one. I recall opening an envelope addressed to me personally and reading the caveat which stated that on no account was the person named on the reverse ever to be told that he had been positively vetted. I turned the letter over and found my own name staring at me!

It was always a tense moment waiting for the evening situation reports to come in and I was ever relieved to learn that all was well. I had to get sanction for myself to go on such an operation and I remember the first time I went over the border in a way one remembers all one's firsts - the first day in the army, the first parachute jump, the first time one is shot at, the first time one shoots at and kills someone - it may be glorious to die for your country but it is far more glorious to make the other fellow die for his.

It was only a small reconnaissance to see if the Indonesians had been in a certain sector. There were ten of us and, once over the border, we were to split into two groups. We were not allowed more than three thousand yards into Indonesian territory, which was enough to find out what we had to. It was, in the jargon, 'the last piece of blue sky in the jigsaw puzzle'.

The terrain was thick, matted jungle, ranging between two and four thousand feet high, with swift mountain streams and deep rivers, beetling precipices and steep hills. It often rained and was rudimentarily uncomfortable. We were, numerically, vastly inferior to the opposition ahead of us, somewhere in the region of being outnumbered by at least one hundred to one.

Our destination was a track that ran parallel to and south of the border. It was thought that the Indons used it as a base line to mount attacks across the border and our task was to see if it was used sufficiently for a battalion ambush.

Moving down a narrow ridge well into the area, we reached where the jungle was almost bare of foliage, except, at the limit of vision, where four thin saplings were growing on a piece of ground slightly flatter than the rest of the slope. It was then that we stopped for a breather, sheltering in a small rocky outcrop, a feature not uncommon in those high hills. We were ultra-cautious. I moved slowly to the edge of the outcrop, not exposing myself and, slowly raising my head, had a good look around. There was nothing untoward between me and where the ridge dipped again the other side of the four saplings. All was peaceful, nothing was amiss. And yet, although I couldn't put my finger on it, I sensed danger. I went over to the four saplings which had all strangely withered and tugged them one by one out of the ground. They were bivouac poles for the Indon ambush who had wanted to sleep on the flatter ground. At night, when the ambush was lifted, they could have a covering draped between them and, by day, even when they had grown enough roots to regain their normal appearance, they constituted no impediment to the field of fire or vision. When first seen they were recently cut, so looked fresh and natural. But, and this was only realised later, they were in a rectangle and, as I had not seen them exactly face on, they didn't immediately appear as such. Even so, nature's pattern had been disturbed which, under the circumstances, was a lucky break for us as we then knew our area was occupied.

We arrived in our target area a little later than planned but safely. The map was inaccurate so I was not perfectly satisfied that the track we came onto was the one we were meant to look at. As I was probably over the limit of my permitted range over the border, I did not want to explore farther south. In any case I had taken a very heavy fall and bent the barrel of the rifle I was armed with so could only use my weapon as a club. As we were considering our next move a civilian walked into us from the direction of the main Indon force of a few hundred soldiers to the southwest. I managed to talk to him in a garbled brand of Malay and he was obviously very upset by our presence. I did not want him with us and so I sent him on his way. Before we left he told us of a nearby longhouse sometimes used by the Indons. If we were to fulfil our mission and withdraw without too much fuss, we had to act more quickly, decisively and boldly than normal. Without further ado I took my patrol along the northeast axis of the track...which petered out after less than two hours. Obviously not the one used by Indon patrols!

Before we had reached where we had decided to meet the others I realised we were lost. As it was getting late I did not investigate the longhouse as we passed it but continued west, hoping to find the others. The jungle fell away into open country. The track led us up a small hill before disappearing into a blanket of thick, matted fern. We would have been a perfect target had any troops been at the top of the slope in a small clump of trees. At the top of the knoll I turned round and saw that something had been carved at the base of the largest tree, just at the height of a man lying in ambush. It read, quite simply, RPKAD - the Indonesian Para Commandos - and had the previous day's date. What use my rifle as a club then?

I knew we could go no farther forward nor, indeed, back to find the others as, by then, they would have set up an ambush facing our direction. We had to hide for the night which was soon upon us. I made a stab at my position and sent it off before it was too dark. I also sent a message to the other five, telling them to try and find by 8 o'clock next morning.

At dawn we saw that we had chosen the one clump of trees in a vast expanse of long grass, with hundreds of water buffalo grazing. By 10 o'clock they were still the only living creatures in sight as the other Gurkhas had yet appeared. I grew anxious and one of my men suggested I made a monkey call with my hands which the others would hear if they were not very far away. Cuckoo noises were better and my mind flashed back eighteen years to 1948 when I'd learnt that there were no cuckoos in Malaya. Even though I was to be the biggest cuckoo in Kalimantan I saw no other option of meeting up with my others, so I tried it - and twenty minutes later, to our intense relief, the others turned up. They had been half a mile away and, not knowing where we were and thinking that was what I would do, had sat down and waited for the call!

We investigated the longhouse where we found a few old folk inside. They had no idea who we were. We spent a little time with them, eating bananas and warmed-up ground nuts. One old crone amused the Gurkhas by coming up to me and stroking my face.

We left to inspect an area where 1/2 GR had had a battle. Since then the Indons had constructed a large, well-maintained helicopter landing pad which they used to good effect in a follow-up operation against us. Whether they had fixed our position by my radio call or the man we met had returned along another path to tell them is unknown, but come they did, with a fighter escort. By that time we were too far for them to catch us - or we moved faster than they did so we reached the border first. On being debriefed at Brigade HQ, I was told that that was the first recorded occasion that the Hook helicopter had been within ten thousand yards of the border for a very long time.

* * *

In early 1966 the company returned to Malaya for a spell of retraining. I toured all Gurkha units for reinforcements and, although I only needed a modest number, I could have had a thousand, so popular had the unit become with the rank and file. With daily 'para pay' and grade pay for medically trained men, a rifleman with me was earning the pay of a colour sergeant in a battalion. The Gurkhas were paid 22« new pence a day when their British counterparts were getting 35« new pence. The inevitable implication was that Gurkha lives were valued more cheaply than were British. This was not, in fact, true in this case as 'Para pay' was not 'danger money' for being but an 'inducement to volunteer' to be a parachutist. Nevertheless, I found it hardly convincing as an answer.

In June we were once more deployed in Borneo. It was the time of the Indonesian incursion into Sarawak in 1966 which came to be known as the 'Sumbi Saga'. Many rumours had reached the authorities about this Indonesian Lieutenant Sumbi who was believed to be about to undertake a dangerous mission for his country. Apart from any other training he might have had, he had learnt to parachute in Abingdon in England, so it was said, and had been taught his basic jungle tactics at the Jungle Warfare School in Malaya. It was thought that the plot was for Sumbi to lead a band of some fifty guerillas from Kalimantan Utara, as Indonesian Borneo was known, infiltrating through Sarawak to Brunei and then to sabotage the Shell oil installations while Malaysia-Indonesia Peace Talks were being held in Bangkok - trying to patch up the latter's 'Confrontation' of the former - so lulling people into a feeling of false security with their eyes turned towards mainland Asia instead of keeping watch and ward at home.

When the incursion eventually started it came from across the border in the mountainous area of the Fourth Division of Sarawak. It was Sumbi's bad luck that the border crossing was made through a sector one of our patrols was keeping an eye on. A couple of ace operators, Corporal Singabahadur Gurung and Rifleman Dharmalal Rai were patrolling when Dharmé noticed a tiny glint, unnaturally bright, among the leaves on the jungle floor. He examined it and found it was a piece of tinfoil which smelt of coffee. Gurkhas didn't have coffee in their rations and there were no British troops in the area so, he reasoned, it had to be Indons, yet there were no obvious traces of them.

From that auspicious start, Sumbi lost the battle. Some of his men were captured, some died of starvation and some were killed. Sumbi himself was eventually captured. Eventually all the group of would-be saboteurs had been accounted for less four.

At noon on 11 August 1966 Confrontation ended, 'not with a bang but a whimper'. All troops in Malaysia were withdrawn from operations prior to a return to peacetime locations. We, in the Gurkha Para Company, were not in Malaysia but in Brunei where these cease-fire orders did not apply. The Brunei Government wanted to know if the last four men of Sumbi's gang had infiltrated into Brunei or died in the Sarawak jungle. In an area of wild country that could have been anything from 500 to 2,500 square miles the odds against finding four men were infinitely remote. Nevertheless a Gurkha patrol and a company of the Royal Brunei Malay Regiment (RBMR) were sent to the border of Brunei and Sarawak, a ridge of hilly country, to see if anything could be found.

It was by no means sure that the four wanted men were still alive and, if so, they had got anywhere near, let alone reached, Brunei. The patrol had to evacuate a man and, having nothing better to do, I flew in as the relief.

The very next day, walking along a ridge a mile or so from the Brunei-Sarawak border, I was travelling end man and my eye was caught by just one leaf, lying on the ground, amongst the other thousands of millions of leaves, but it had a straight crease across it. Nature does not work in straight lines so only a man could have folded it in half. None of the Security Forces had been in the area for a long time so who else could it be but for one of the four men we were looking for? It had rained the night before and, by then, the four men were superb at covering their tracks so the leaf was the only clue there was. The search in the area was intensified and, a few days later, a patrol of the Royal Brunei Malay Regiment captured them. During the subsequent and exhaustive interrogation carried out, it transpired that one of them was a compulsive finger-twiddler, a doodler one might say who, for much of the time, had a twig or a leaf in his hand. Every time a man disturbs something, the pattern of nature is broken. So that was the end of the 'Sumbi Saga' and the end of the threat to the Brunei oil installations.

The original tracking work was not considered of sufficient merit to warrant any recognition as it was all reckoned to be part of the day's work. But I did especially ask the Director of Operations, by now Major General George Lea, to visit us in our camp so that he could personally congratulate the two men who first spotted suspicious marks. This he did in great style. It's strange to think that such a bold adventure should have been thwarted, initially, by a piece of tinfoil and that just one leaf should have ended it.

Shortly after that Brigadier David House wrote my annual confidential report, one sentence of which read the jungle is his home address. He smiled when he related that his original draft read the jungle is his native habitat but he had changed it as it might have been taken pejoratively. I thanked him, saying that he had given me the title of my next book.

During Confrontation, the ratio of Gurkhas to British troops was about 2:1. Peak strengths of the Security Forces in Borneo were 12,000 Commonwealth troops in-country with a further 10,000 immediately available.

* * *

Back in Kluang we received news that we had been affiliated with the Parachute Regiment. I paid a short visit to England and went to Aldershot where we exchanged presents: a ceremonial kukri to them and a statuette of a parachutist in full battle order to us. This I used as a four-monthly prize for the best soldier in the company during that period. The perks I included were to act as right marker on all ceremonial parades, to be excused all duties and fatigues, and not to have to pay any company subscriptions.

We were also tested to see if we were fit enough to become a permanent fixture in the Order of Battle. A tough exercise was thought up and we jumped from two Hercules aircraft in 'simultaneous twenties' at one minute's interval. This was the first time in the Far East that so many parachutists had ever had such large 'sticks'. From the first man out of the doors of the first 'plane to the last man off the Dropping Zone was about six minutes. Not only did we defeat the enemy in less than an hour and a half, the deadline for this had been fixed at four hours, but the RAF parachute officer in charge, who himself had over thirty years' experience, reported that he had never seen such a high standard of drop. Added to that, not one man of the eighty involved had to be put right when inspected on the ground nor in the air prior to exit. This, apparently, was a brilliant 'first ever'. I was so proud of what the men had done I could hardly believe it. Once the exercise was over I excelled myself by drinking five pints of tea and was sick on the spot!

Our future ensured, we learnt that we were to be visited by the Army Commander, himself a parachutist, on our next training jump. He came. It was my 84th descent and, yes, you can guess it, it was the only time I injured myself. Very near the ground I had to take evasive action and landed on the point of my right shoulder, badly dislocating it. I found I could not get up off the ground. I ran my left hand up my right side and was appalled to find no arm and no shoulder. I looked at my hand to see if there was any blood, presuming I had lost a limb. Terrible thoughts ran through my head. I looked over my shoulder - not an easy manoeuvre - and saw my errant arm with the shoulder joint somewhere at the back of my neck and managed to pull it forward to where the armpit normally is. I fainted three times as I was being X-rayed.

There were at least six of us in the company who had been hurt at one time or another, two when parachuting, the rest otherwise. Remedial treatment in conventional hands was slow, painful, time-consuming and not always successful. The threat of the surgeon's knife with the ensuing pins and cat-gut was never far away. Once things became drastic enough for these measures the end was in sight: down-grading after a medical board the inevitable answer. After a couple of months I got no better with the treatment at the local army hospital and my men told me they feared I would have to be boarded and would have to leave the company prematurely.

When I was told that a local Malay not only had the power of healing but was also willing to try it on me I was interested, albeit sceptical. Over the years I had heard of such men but had tended to disdain them. However, as in everything in life when a decision has to be made, it is the alternative which gives the impetus, I asked if I could meet him. He was brought to my office the next Saturday morning. No man looked less like a healer than the small, gap-toothed, wizened little fellow who beamed his way chirpily in, clutching an old and very dirty trilby hat. Experience won over the years has made me chary of judging by first appearances so I just let matters develop naturally.

The man, Yasin, was the fourth generation of healers. He bade me strip and sit down. He next asked for a glass of water, most of which he threw away. He then placed it on a table, closed his eyes and started muttering incantations over it and occasionally blowing into it.

I strained my ears to catch what he was saying but all I heard was a vague nickety, nickety, blow, blow, blow, hamla, hamla, hamla. Any esoteric meaning was lost on me and on the group of interested spectators. This performance continued for a couple of minutes and I was then ordered to drink the water and place the glass upside down on the table. Obediently I did so.

Yasin then set about prodding, pinching and gently exploring my shoulder. I was rebuked for not having seen him the day of my accident as I would have been cured within a week. "Now," I remember him continuing, "only if the gods so wish and you have a clean heart will I be able to help you get better." Even so it was quite possible he could do nothing for me. Any feeling of elation I might have had at the end of the first session remained stillborn, encased in gloom. His parting shot was that he would come round to the Mess that evening for my first spell of treatment.

Thus began an exercise in therapy as well as dichotomy: Yasin came to my room as often as he remembered and I went to hospital as often as I was ordered. For the former, Yasin's brew had a distinctively rural smell and it, too, had to be prayed over not only at the beginning of the session along with the water, but also at the end when he washed his hands. Each time I rewarded him with a packet of cigarettes or a soft drink; he wanted no money. As for my arm, I had been taken to the threshold of intolerable pain each time and both Yasin and myself would end up sweating. In sharp contradistinction, my conventional treatment was barren of action or drama.

Some four weeks after my secret treatment had begun the senior doctor threatened me with an operation, medical opinion being that it were better I had limited, though unnatural, movement than be 'frozen' for life, as seemed the probable outcome. Yasin was most disturbed. This diagnosis was, he felt, the wrong one. Twice he had been proven right in his diagnosis by a subsequent X-ray after his magical finger tips had found out why some areas were stubbornly not reacting to treatment. Now, in his opinion, eventual recovery was at stake. If Western medicine was to be drastic, Eastern medicine had to act quickly to forestall any irrevocable consequence. "I will transfer your pain to a chicken," he announced, "and, if you have faith and a clean heart, you will get better."

The threat of my being medically down-graded hung more heavily on me than did the fate of any innocent fowl.

Next Saturday evening Yasin asked me to provide, by early the next morning, six S$10 and seven S$1 notes, fifteen 1-cent pieces, a betel nut and lime, a nutmeg, a new handkerchief, a clean plate, a healthy chicken and five rust-free nails. I forbore to ask him if a partridge in a pear tree was also on the menu, if only because I did not know the Malay for either commodity.

When all was ready, the glass with its inch of water, the chicken tied to the leg of a chair, Yasin, the high priest, started. Incantations and blowing were intense, and I felt that only a roll of drums was needed to add just that touch of panache to a scene that otherwise was starkly informal. The muttering rose to a crescendo. The normal ritual was enhanced by Yasin eating the betel nut, lime and nutmeg, placing the handkerchief over the glass and pocketing the money. I noticed that the five rust-proof nails were untouched and wondered just what part they had to play. The chicken was unwound from the chair, prayed over, blown over and had its claw drawn down my injured shoulder three times, waved around my head three times and, likewise thrice, spat on by me - in a manner told me by Yasin.

Its beady eyes held a tinge of reproach and I felt somehow that events were overtaking it too quickly for its natural composure. However, it only remonstrated once and that when it was banished to the Mess lawn.

This marked the climax of the treatment. Yasin lay back in a chair, sweating profusely, obviously spent, and I was left contemplating one chicken looking for worms, one recumbent son of the soil getting over his exertions and five rust-free nails on the plate.

Before Yasin left he told me that he would not see me for another three days. He would take the chicken home and feed it properly, "for," he added with a touch of peasant concern, "it would be wrong not to look after one of god's creatures."

The next three days saw my shoulder as stubbornly immobile as ever: there was no sudden freedom of movement, no welcome release from the irksome restrictions the injury imposed. Maybe my heart was not clean enough for the treatment to be successful and the threat of being down-graded, so having to leave the Para Company, loomed menacingly nearer.

Wednesday evening saw Yasin burst into my room, face aglow. The spell had started working: the chicken had until that morning behaved as any normal self-respecting chicken should behave but suddenly, around midday, it had mysteriously developed a stiff right shoulder which had prevented normal movement and had caused it to go round and round in circles. Two hours later it gave up the struggle that had obviously and unfairly been unequal all along: my pain had been transferred to it and it had been unable to bear it. (That was well under par for the course; the chicken for badly bruised ribs took fifteen days to die, while that for a broken leg eight months - in both cases complete recoveries were made.) Four days later my arm started moving more freely with much less pain and before very long all was as it had been before the accident.

Meanwhile I had been called down to Singapore to be medically boarded. The night before I went I was asked by Yasin not to mention any help I'd been given. I was to let the doctor think official army treatment had worked, which I thought either very broad-minded of him or else remarkably prescient. At the medical interview I was put through a number of contortions. The specialist burst out laughing when he saw the effortless ease of it all: "Excuse my French," he said, "but this is bloody wonderful". He had had no hopes that I would ever be fully fit again.

I still do not know what Yasin does with his mounting total of rust-free nails - nor what the Army Commander really thought of my poor performance.

* * *

With Confrontation over we settled down to peacetime activities. There was a battle-field tour up in Malacca where the Australian Lieutenant Colonel Anderson won his Victoria Cross against the Japanese during the retreat down the peninsula in 1942. We were at the scene of his award-winning action, near a new road, and the Great Man was describing the way he led a bayonet attack against the Japanese. He had led another in the First World War against the Germans in South-West Africa and he was comparing the two. He asked the assembled audience which of the two, a silent and a noisy, bayonet attack they preferred taking part in? An embarrassed silence followed, as none of us had been in such situations. I heard a car approaching along the road and turned to see it go by, flying the Japanese flag as the first Japanese ambassador to be accredited to Kuala Lumpur since 1945 sped past. It added poignancy to the moment. The British man, Lieutenant Colonel Rogers of 2 Loyals, had a tale of incompetence and woe, everything that could go wrong going wrong. His men had had to march around with respirators and great coats, to their obvious detriment. After the war this company commander learnt that, before the orders were changed to having two women and one man, his wife had had to share fire-watching duties on the roof of the Air Ministry building in London with a young Mr Harold Wilson.

Exercises were held in Brunei and in New Zealand. I did not go on the latter as I was on trek in Nepal. Some time after my return I received a letter from GHQ saying that I was to go to Sarawak to help in the case of the late Marine Collins, of 42 Commando. I was needed to go and act as interpreter in Iban. Apparently Collins had lost his life on a trans-border operation but his mother, a plucky Yorkshire lady, had had dreams which convinced her that her son was not dead. He was in Indonesia, wounded and lonely, as a prisoner.

She had written to the President of Indonesia, Sukarno, about her convictions and her intention of using her life savings to visit the area where her son had been lost. It was a brave but forlorn gesture, but one she was set on.

Somehow all this had got to the ears of Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister, and he had directed that the army take this case on as a welfare duty. This meant that Mrs Collins was to fly out, first to Singapore where her son's unit was, going on over to Sarawak to talk to the headman of the village where Marine Collins had been based and from which he had departed on his ill-fated mission. I was to travel with the party and be the interpreter between the headman and Mrs Collins.

Were it to be a just a journey back to Sarawak I would have jumped at it. However, it was not nearly as simple as that. The fact that cross-border operations had been undertaken was still sensitively guarded. He who had drafted Harold Wilson's reply had been vaguely anodyne. Mrs Collins was told that her son had been killed on the border, on steep ground, on a narrow path in a face-to-face contact with the enemy, his body rolling down into the river and not being recovered.

However, the facts of the case were different. Collin's company had crossed the border on a flat piece of territory, there had been no river, no face-to-face contact. I gathered that it was my job to stick to the official line of the letter whatever the headman said. I quailed at that and the thought of what the mission-educated, English-speaking children, listening under the floor of the longhouse, would shout up when they heard that my 'translation' was utterly erroneous.

I also knew that the headman was strongly anti the British Army. Another British unit based in that village had suspected him of collaborating with the Indonesians, telling them about troop movements. The Indonesians had been successful in ambushing the British company there and inflicting casualties. Blaming the headman for this, they lobbed hand grenades into his house one night, a move not best calculated to win friends or to influence people in the required manner.

In any case, as I had not spoken any Iban since my Border Scout days, I did not consider myself up to the job, so rang GHQ to tell the co-ordinating colonel that I declined to go on that mission. I was icily told that it was the Prime Minister's personal order to the army commander that the best Iban speaker in the command had to go and so my name was put forward. Moodily and expressing grave reservations, I said I would obey orders.

I revised my Iban until I went to Singapore where I met up with Miss Jessie de Lotz, the chief Red Cross lady in the command, the RSM of 42 Commando and the lady herself. We four were flown over to Kuching on the morrow and helicoptered out to the border village the following day. I had had some luck in Kuching. I met up with my one-time staff officer of Border Scout days, John Bagley, whose Iban ability was streets ahead of mine and he agreed to go with us and help out with the sensitive part of the conversation.

So we got to the village. All was I had remembered it, was it only three years before? We went to the headman's house where I introduced Mrs Collins to the headman. I told him that she had come to find out what he knew about her son, who she thought was still very much alive. A genuine sadness crept into his eyes and he shook his head as he said that her son was very dead. Mrs Collins saw this, sensed the atmosphere, understood that there was no hope and crumpled into tears. In desperation she sobbed that she now saw no point in continuing with her quest. Jessie tried to comfort her. I was greatly relieved that neither John Bagley nor I had had to deceive her and, tinged by an even greater sadness, went out to talk with my ex-scouts until it was time to return to Kuching.

That evening we were entertained by the senior British diplomat, Don Dunford, whom I had known when in India, in 1/1 GR. I managed to crack some jokes which greatly amused Mrs Collins. As we said our farewells in Singapore she thanked me, not only for helping her out in her sadness but for making her laugh at the end. A great lady.

* * *

I was called down to Singapore for a meeting to meet someone from London. I would be met at a particular place and be escorted to the meeting place. I was to wear plain clothes and on no account was I to be late. I was vastly intrigued with the unknown quantity and peremptory tone of the message so I left Kluang in very good time. Alas, a freak storm and a flash flood delayed me so I was late. I met up with my escort who took me to a second who took me to a third who took me to a building that had no handle on the closed door.

A bell, a look through a Judas window, an invitation to step in and go upstairs. There, sitting with his back to the light so I could not see his face properly, was a large man - a civilian - sitting behind a desk. He introduced me to a man who sat in a chair to the front of the desk. He was from the Ministry of Defence.

I was upbraided for being late. I apologised. "We're behind time. I will be brief," he began abruptly and continued. "All our operatives are either dead or incapacitated. The colonel has come from London to enlist your help as it seems you are the only one who fits the requirement." I kept my eyes on his shadowy face and listened, fascinated.

"To start with it will be for six months. There is an even chance that you would come back alive but you're needed." He paused and I asked him about the job. He was vague, training people somewhere. Did I get promotion? No.

I told him I would have to ask General Patterson before I gave him an answer, after which he would give me more details. The two gave me lunch before I returned. That was the Friday and I managed to meet the General on the Monday. He was intrigued as I was. He showed no surprise about the chance of survival but was sad that there was no promotion and only six definite months. He expressed doubts that I would ever be promoted and thought I was better off with the Para Company during the next few months as it transpired that the change of UK government foreign policy not to have permanent military connections east of Suez after 1971 brought about a reduction in the Brigade of Gurkhas. No parachute role was envisaged in Hong Kong or Brunei and, were paratroops ever needed they would come from the Home Base.

"Even so I can't stop you from going away for six months but you could not come back to the Para Company where I want you." He looked at me quizzically but I did not answer. He went on, "so my advice to you is not to take it."

"General," I grinned happily at the man I had known for over twenty years, "I think that is the best advice you have even given anybody."

I rang the number I had been told with my answer. "I understand your point of view," my London contact replied, "but you have made my task almost impossible." We said our farewells and rang off. Back in Kluang I was asked by my Gurkhas why I had to go to Singapore and Seremban. I could truthfully say that I never, in fact, did find out!

In the spring of 1968 I got a posting order to go to the Jungle Warfare School as chief instructor for one year, with the temporary rank of lieutenant colonel, a footnote adding that I had no hope of becoming substantive. When the men heard of my promotion they rejoiced: when I told them of the caveat of the rank they could not understand how it was that, even when the Gurkha Para Company was an acknowledged success, Higher Authority seemed set on keeping me different from what was seen to be normal treatment.

I learnt that I was lucky to have been given even that; it was only because no British battalion officer of the required calibre was available. Major General Patterson said that "justice had been done" and "they would have to be shamed into making you substantive." He also told me that I was too eccentric to command a battalion in peace. As another very senior officer had put it so kindly, "John, the army is too small an institution to offer a man with your particular talents a career over the rank of major." So what was new? I asked myself, apart from the next job. I was very happy not to join that band of distinguished gentlemen whose luck was greater than their ability.

So the time came to leave. Farewells were sincere. I was given a party and was garlanded twenty-two times, with five and a half pounds of buds, with a tremendous ovation and nice things being said. I was very moved. At times I had felt more like a father or an elder brother to the men than a 'sahib' at the top. Parachuting and small patrols in sensitive territory are great levellers. In a letter home I wrote:

In the beginning I was determined to be as clinical and objective in my approach as I could; but three and a half years of near-war and peace, of fear and fun, of stress and strain, of work and games, all as one and winning little feathers for caps...is bound to leave a mark, to rub off in some way or other. In fact, if there was nothing to rub off then I would, I believe, have failed in my job.

On 2 August 1968 I wrote a Special Order of the Day, written in simple English:

Today I end my time with you. From now on you are mine no more, nor am I in charge of you. For me this is a most sad day. For three and a half years, in near-war and in peace, in the lines, in the field, at work and at play we have all been as one, worked as one, with one mind and with one heart. I doubt if I will serve with as good men as you in the years that are left to me. It is I who led you but it has been your guts, your skill and your hard work that have made us what we are, known by all as good and in whom men can put their trust. They know that we will not let them down nor fail in our due task. By now we have earned a high and good name. Let it stand thus.

At the start of my time here with you I warned you that there were those (not of us), who had doubts, who said we could not do our task and who feared we would fail when we had to take our place in the field to fight. Sure, we had much to learn and it took a long time to win through. But in the end win we did and now we have proved our worth on the ground and in the air, so men doubt us no more.

All you who stay here must make sure that our good name is not lost. I know it is hard to keep up such a high state of work for a long time but try you must. I know you will not fail, but it just needs one weak man in the wrong place at the wrong time to spoil things for the rest of us all and bring our name low. There are a few who find that they can not keep up with the rest. These must go back whence they came, as it is from such men that faith is lost and trust broken. Fate we can not fight: but men we can mould to our will. At all times we must do all we can to make sure our name stands as high as can be, that our work is good and true, that we are fit for all tasks.

We know the past, but none knows what is to come, yet what man has done man can do. I leave you in good and firm hands. Stay true to your oath, stand firm by the salt that is yours while you serve: give of your best at all times and in all places. Fight well, fare well, live well and, in the end, when go you must, go in peace.

* * *

I would only be sixty odd miles down the road so all contact need not be broken. As I had a month before I took over my new job, I was asked by the police, without the Malaysian or British armies knowing about it, to go back to see Kerinching up in Perak. This was because the police still thought I could get information from him that he would give to no one else. So bad was the feeling between their police and their army that I had to keep my presence a secret. If the British Army were to hear that I had gone into the operational area of another government without clearance, sparks would fly.

I was picked up by a police boat at exactly the same place on the Sungei Perak at Grik where it had all started so many years before. It was almost unreal and I felt it acutely as, this time, I was returning, not starting out. Now I knew what to expect, what it was all about. I was still thrilled by the skill of the boatman as he steered his way up the rapids, happy to count over a hundred hornbills and to see the large monitor lizards sunning themselves on the sandy slopes. Next morning I walked half an hour to the dwelling where I was told I would find Kerinching. There he was, with five others. All showed the greatest joy at my unexpected appearance. I knew the names of four of them. "I knew you would came back one day," said an ageing Kerinching. "You are the only one who ever cared for us. You make your mouth look like a chicken's arse, but you have a kind heart." He smiled the old smile and the others nodded their agreement.

Senagit had died a couple of years before, probably of tuberculosis. The rest of my gang were still alive. I was visited by Sutel and Rijed, both looking utterly savage, dressed only in a loin cloth, a proud almost disdainful look in their eyes. Sutel carried shot gun and cartridge belt. We were soon laughing as we talked of old times. They left after it was dark, their way lit by fire brands of split bamboo.

The information I brought back was of the greatest use to the Police. What was also very rewarding was that, despite the hardships, set-backs and jealousies I had encountered (among my own people, not the Temiar), all my recommendations as how best to use the Temiar against the rump of the communist guerillas had been implemented and that area was the most quiescent of all the 'hard' areas.

Some time after that, the Malaysian Government flooded much of the area to make a new hydroelectric scheme, so that problem, in that neck of the woods at least, was solved for ever.

In my neck of the woods, however, there was yet another chapter to be written. Back in Kluang to collect my kit, I could not slip away the day I left Kluang for the Jungle Warfare School as the soldiers were lined in two ranks facing each other, some with garlands and others with petals to give me. I shook hands with them all in turn, getting little squeezes of farewell from the inarticulates who found it hard to talk under such circumstances. I was nearly in tears but, albeit brittle, there was laughter as well. I thanked them for what they had done, in simple and sincere language and, as I climbed into my vehicle, they gave me three cheers.

So ended a wonderfully happy chapter of my life. I felt enriched by their loyalty and love, for, after 24 years with such men, there was a deep empathy between us. I felt very proud as I drove away down to my next job, the farewell garlands heavy on my neck, and I knew that I had just finished the best posting the British Army, wittingly or otherwise, could ever have let me in for. Life would never be quite the same again.