A Marine called Hardie
Malaya 1950 /51

By
John Lloyd, Maj RM

We are in deep jungle, 3000 feet up in the North Perak hills of Malaya, climbing a steep stream bed. The jungle about us is particularly thick, for such is the nature of stream beds in rain forest that vegetation crowds to its banks with the same enthusiasm as the forest animals seek its waters. The faint track we are following sometimes follows the stream itself, and sometimes meanders away to join for a brief restful moment a convenient contour line before turning back to the ankle twisting, thigh-stretching boulders of the watercourse.  Mostly it follows animal tracks but it has been used by men, quite often and quite recently.  On either side of the trail the jungle  irritates rather than threatens. There are ‘wait-a-minute’ thorn bushes hanging out across the track with angler hooks from which we can only gain release if we walk backwards, unhook, then forward once again.  There are small birds, ‘what-now’ birds, that have precisely the same whistling cadence of a patrol commander catching the attention of his scouts so that, from time to time, the scouts stop to look questioningly at the commander who then makes a flapping movement with his free hand - “..another bloody bird”.  And there is the constant chafing soreness of weapons, ammunition, water and rations on pale damp skin that rarely sees the sun.  So steep is the stream in places that where the trees thin out we can catch glimpses of the world outside and far, far below us in the plain we can just make out the small market town we left before daybreak this morning.  And there, ever so far away to the West, in a hazy blue horizon, lies the Indian Ocean.

Two days before, we had made chance contact with a small party of  Communist Terrorists, or bandits, as we preferred to call them.  Both sides, equally surprised, paused before setting about the deadly business of resolving the problem of who should live and who should die, At the end of the exchange we discovered that we had before us the remains of the local company commander and political commissar, a much wanted villain.   Within twenty four hours his second-in-command had come out of the jungle and surrendered to the police, but our satisfaction was tempered by the sombre knowledge that though he might lead us to the camp, his comrades would even now be preparing an ambush in anticipation of our arrival. From our cantonment on the edge of the small town we had studied the green cliffs and slopes that towered away above us.  Beside me stood the surrendered terrorist, our guide, could we trust him?

"How far?" - "One day Tuan, maybe two."

"Berapa orang - how many men?" - "Thirty."

 "Will they remain there?" - "Maybe, maybe they do not know where I am, if they do they will wait for you, then - phht!"

The sound was ominous. There was no worse situation than making in pursuit of the enemy knowing that somewhere they were waiting for you - but where? Ignorance creates fear and stirs in the belly. We will start before daylight tomorrow and climb up into the forest with the sun.

Right now there are two Marines in front of me, they are the scouts. They are the most alert, the most intelligent, and the most courageous in the Troop, for on their senses lies the safety of the patrol. The leading scout I seldom see for his 'oppo' or comrade moves 5 yards behind him and 5 yards ahead of me.  The Bren machine gunner is usually immediately behind me though on this occasion we are separated by the guide, the surrendered bandit. All communication on the move is made by hand signals and if we have to talk it is in the lightest of whispers. Sometimes we go like this for days and the strain of silence and constant alert becomes a strain.

Chan Huen, the guide is very, very nervous. He gestures, sign language  ... we must slow down, we are going too fast.  Suddenly the scouts stop. I raise my hand and the patrol immediately stops behind me. There is no bunching up, and each man immediately turns his eyes to the undergrowth about him. They are well trained and give me confidence. The second scout is looking intently at his mate. He turns to me and signals, thumbs down, at the track. They have seen signs on the small track we are following. Chan takes hold of my elbow to whisper something, but it is too late.  The jungle erupts and we are caught in a cacophony of sound. As I hit the ground I see the lead scout come rolling back down the path, one side of him is a mass of blood. Jesus Christ!

To be caught in a jungle ambush is a truly frightening experience for within those dark and silent halls, the sudden and shattering noise of gunfire provides as sharp a jolt as anyone could wish for. It comes from no particular direction in a blanket of sound thrown as it were over the heads of the victims and scattering the twigs and branches about them in bewildering confusion.  In truth such is the effect that even the sturdiest Marine discovers but one desire, which is to find a particularly large hole in the ground. This of course is never forthcoming, for what is the purpose of an ambush if your victims can escape from it?
 

Dysentry case being  ferried across Sungei Perak

On that occasion we were lucky for our enemy had but one purpose, to delay us rather than destroy us, and then to melt away into the jungle having delivered a short sharp shock. We built a stretcher of branches and poncho groundsheets and carried the wounded scout out of the hills. After hospital treatment he recovered and was sent home.  As for us, we got to the terrorist camp the next day to find it deserted.  But we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we had driven the 'orang jehat', the bad men, deeper into the jungle and further from their food supplies.

 It was said that a good patrol leader was never lost, that he just did not know where he was.  There is a subtle difference here, for if you don't know where you are in hill forest you move downhill following the streams as they get larger and larger, knowing that some form of habitation will eventually be reached. Alternately you move in a straight line using a compass, until you hit a road or river.  On one occasion we had set off across a hill range of some three and a half thousand feet hoping to cross the tracks of an enemy unit working in the area. Unable to find a clearing for an air drop of rations and equipment I decided to stretch the rations we carried for a further day and carry on until we could find clearer country. But as the day wore on I began to feel more and more uncertain of our position.  The flow of valleys and ridges simply did not match up with the map and I had to accept the depressing conclusion that we were lost, or rather that I did not know where I was. Two days in either direction, east or west, lay a road, and I decided to abandon the original objective and make for one of these by compass march.

Patrol routes usually followed animal tracks or ridge lines and we often moved some distance from the line of the march to avoid cliffs, swamps and other obstacles. To march on a compass line through jungle was very tedious indeed and avoided if humanly possible. Every obstacle had to be climbed over, crawled through, climbed up or swum across, and the best speed we could hope to achieve was about a half mile over the map in the hour.  But now we had no choice and compass march it had to be, so off we set in the new direction. Even then I felt that all was not right. Though we could only see at the most some twenty yards ahead, it seemed that we were somehow not travelling as straight as I had intended. It was about an hour after we had started that a series of clicks from behind caused me to turn round. The patrol had stopped and I could see the patrol Sergeant, ‘Podge’ Overbury moving up from the rear of the patrol.

"I thought you said we were going to march west," he said in a low voice.

I agreed.

Well, you've been going north for the last half hour. In fact by my compass you've been going all over the shop."

 I pulled the soaked patrol map from the map pocket of my trousers for the tenth time in almost as many minutes and puzzled over it. A thought suddenly struck me. Taking the sergeant's compass, I compared. He was right, the compasses pointed in totally different directions! We had been doing a Pooh and Piglet around the same piece of jungle for most of the day. No wonder we were lost!  Taking the good compass I set off again, and we climbed higher and higher until the mist among the forest trees showed that we were in cloud. Then, at the side of a small stream we came across an old 'basha' or hut and some old bits of weaponry. It looked like an armoury, though it had not been used for a long time and I felt instinctively that it was 'cold'.  We pushed on, the levelling ground and thinning trees showing us that we were moving on to a ridge. Suddenly all was light and open, and we stopped in astonishment.

 "There they were." said Sergeant Overbury, describing it afterwards. "Rows of huts down each side of the camp pathway. Kitchens here, storehouse there... like Bickleigh camp it was .. only a bloody sight more comfortable and f... me, down at the far end there was a f....  parade ground. Not actually whitewashed, it wasn't, but I tell you, if I'd seen the adjutant on his gee gee standing there I couldn't have been more surprised!"  He had got it just about right. And to cap it all the evening sun set the whole lot into stark contrasts of colour and long shadows that produced an effect like a – well - like a dream, or a Nash painting.

Every patrol was preceded by two 'scouts' who took turns in taking the lead. These were, I repeat, chosen not only for their courage and alertness but also their ability to spot the smallest signs on the tracks and in the dense undergrowth about them that spelled danger. Through long experience their senses became finely tuned and many a patrol was saved by the speed and reactions of its scouts.  Patrol commanders such as myself were often guilty of over reliance on one pair of scouts, and I don't think I ever fully appreciated the enormous strains that we placed upon these brave men.  One of the Troop scouts was a Marine called Hardie. Tireless, and with a superb sense of the absurd, which probably kept him saner than most, Marine Hardie commanded great respect for his steadiness and sense of humour.  Hour-after-hour, and day-after-day he would be there sometimes out of sight, sometimes in front of me, his sweat stained back a familiar sight plodding along a discreet distance from his mate, neither of them so far ahead that they could not hear my faint whistled signals or finger clicks.  I like to think there was a rapport between us, for it seemed that as the weeks and months passed, communication between us while on the move became less and less necessary and our thoughts often seemed to meld.

Patrol crossing a river

We entered the camp, and the immediate neighbourhood was searched. All was dead and cold with no sign of recent presence. Apart from the sentries the whole patrol relaxed in the semi civilised aura of an encampment of sleeping huts, bath places and other etceteras built by a cunning and resourceful enemy on a remote mountain ridge over 3,000 feet up in the Malay hill forest.  My own instincts, by now well honed, told me that there was no threat nearby and Hardie must have sensed the casual mood.  Taking post at the far end of the jungle parade ground, with a stick under his arm and standing strictly to attention, he began to drill an imaginary squad of terrorist recruits. Even though I knew that we were breaking the rules of patrolling, I had no heart to discourage him for the performance provided such a contrast of mood and such a paradox of situation that to stop it would have meant missing something valuable. In short the risk was worth it.

"Now then you load of lazy layabout Chinks, get yourselves smartened up there. Bandit 3rd class Hoo Flung Dung will be right marker. Right Mar-rke-er!

Left Light Left Light .... pick up your flip flops you idle Chinaman. You're shuffling like a one legged matelot!

2nd Company North Perak Bandit Company ...... Fall In!

Come on ... Come o-n. You're as dozy as that bunch of Marines at Lenggong. . Wipe that rice off your face Mi Tin Po or I'll wipe it off for you... and then p'raps I wont .....

Li-ite dless! I said Lite, not Reft you clabby shower ..." - and so it went on.

As the familiar haranguing tones of a Royal Marines drill instructor, albeit muted, sounded through the deserted huts we were seized by an almost nostalgic feeling of home and Regiment, and watched in silent amazement until the absurdity of the whole situation suddenly hit us.  Captured by the humour and wit of Hardie's monologue, which was delivered in his barking Geordie accent we lapsed into hysterically stifled laughter, rewarding the performance with muffled applause. Then, as the forest lapsed into its evening gloom and the cicadas and gibbons gave forth their evening hymn, the night sentries were doubled up and the Marines settled down to sleep on the bamboo beds that had formerly supported their enemies.  The next morning we set fire to the camp and moved off with renewed vigour. By nightfall we had reached the road in the west.

'Y' Troop, 40 Commando, some 50 men strong, usually less because of sickness, patrolled an area of several thousand square miles of jungle, rubber plantation and scattered small holdings between the jungle edge and the rivers that flowed through the area. The main river that dominated our thoughts, plans and movements was the Sungei (River) Perak. This wide, fast-flowing, muddy turbulence started somewhere in Siam, to meet the sea on the west coast of Malaya in the Dinding mangrove swamps. Collecting a further ration of mud here the river debouched into the Bay of Bengal, impeded only by a small jewel of an island called Pangkor, now a popular tourist spot. The numerous tributaries of the Perak poured or trickled into its wide valley from forest covered mountains thousands of feet high on either side.  These smaller rivers would pose few problems for us for they could usually be waded, though the process always caused anxiety as it meant leaving the friendly cover of the jungle and emerging into the open and the sudden transition was not unlike walking naked into a vicar's tea party. A fleeting moment of heightened awareness; not only could we see, but we could be seen!

Here I make a short digression. The jungle hat issued to the troops in Malaya was a strangely unmilitary affair which the Marines called, with their usual descriptive poesy, 'hat - floppy, indistinguishable'. Its very limp flexibility allowed it to be battered, ironed, starched or shrunk into any shape that suited the subconscious yearnings of the wearer.  And so we found in 'Y' Troop a range of exotic symbolisms that stretched from the dashing Errol Flynn one-side-up-one-down, through Wyatt Earp both-sides-up, to my own favoured Joe Soap style, an old Australian army hat which hung like a ribless umbrella about my head, supported by the tops of my ears and using the tip of my nose as an early warning sign that there was a face somewhere beneath.  The advantage of this style was that when it rained, which was frequent and torrential, I suffered no loss of dignity since the fashions of the rest of the patrol sank inevitably and swiftly to my own humble level.  But whatever the vicissitudes of the weather or the jungle, hats seemed to retain the individuality of the wearer so that even at a distance he could be recognised. One day my hat saved my life.

We were searching a remote area of tobacco smallholdings on the banks of the Sungei Perak when we came across two men talking to some rubber tappers. As soon as they saw the patrol they froze for a brief moment and then took to their heels in different directions. The patrol split and Marine Hardie and myself set off in hot pursuit as one of them ran down to the river bank and, hurling himself into the reeds disappeared beneath the muddy water.  Hardie jumped in after him, wading along close to the bank whilst I raked the reed beds where he had disappeared with carbine fire. Shouting back to the patrol to move further down river, I jumped in with Hardie and together we worked our way downstream, wading in the muddy banks, sometimes up to our necks in the water.  Suddenly I felt my feet go, pulled away by the fierce current. The gun around my neck was pulling my head down to join my hips which were heavily burdened with ammunition, water bottles and the usual impedimenta of jungle patrolling. I was well and truly out of my depth,  and spending more time beneath the water than above it; indeed my predicament was what might be called 'terminal' when, coming up for one of my increasingly brief gulps of air, I saw a reed leaning out across the water. As the current bore me swiftly past I grasped it, and to my relief it did not break but, stretched to breaking point, held me fast against the flow.  Gently, ever so gently, I pulled on the reed until I could feel the first faint stirrings of mud beneath my questing foot. The second foot followed and I was soon able to stand upright in the flowing water. With great relief I raised my head to look up to the bank of thick undergrowth above and found myself staring into the muzzle of a Bren gun! The machine gunner, Marine Cook, had been observing my progress from the bank and thinking that I was the villain we were seeking, had been trying to pick a suitable pause in my desperate struggles in which to shoot me. At the last moment he recognised my hat which had remained on my head, and so had decided to let me live. Reaching down the bank he offered his arm and hauled me, dripping and exhausted, to safety.

If a river was too deep to wade, the patrols swam across using bamboo poles lashed together, on which to perch the packs and weapons. The Ibans, our trackers from North Borneo, were much more experienced and strapping their equipment and clothes to their weapons, and wading straight into the river, would walk along the bottom, holding their loads above their heads and above the surface of the water.  If the width of the river demanded it, they bobbed up from time to time for a breath of air, and this at the same time helped them to retain their balance. It looked simple, but few of us managed to master the art.  I tried it once when we were working without trackers. Being the tallest in the patrol, I took the machine gun and set off beneath the waters, bounding along like some great amphibious kangaroo. But not for long! Two graceful hops and I found the weight of the gun pulling me down in an inexorable attempt to persuade my head to exchange places with my feet.  For what seemed eternity I struggled through a series of undignified postures, managing at infrequent intervals to break the surface with my head to take short gulps of air.  Soon I found himself debating whether to drop the gun and save myself or sink into gallant oblivion, but the terrors of the murky depths were scarcely worse than the wrath of my Commanding Officer should I lose the gun, and so I struggled on with increasing desperation.

Suddenly I felt my feet touch bottom. With a last effort I sprang up and found to my surprise that I was near the far bank, standing waist deep in the water. It took me some time to regain my breath, though no longer than the rest of the patrol who had been greatly entertained by my performance, and were rendered speechless with unseemly mirth.  Little did they appreciate the grave situation I had been in! But unfeeling and irreverent as they were, I had to listen to a blow-by-blow account of my struggles as they appeared from above the surface of the water. In revenge I set them to cleaning the gun, which I observed to my satisfaction was choked with thick, black mud, whilst I reclothed my equally dirty body and repaired my bruised vanity.

The Ibans were at home in the jungle. Life on patrol, studying the signs of movement on earth, twig or leaf, was second nature to them, and to spend days away on patrol meant no more to them than moving from one B & B to another. Back at base camp they lived in the lines and were totally accepted as members of the troop.  Some of the Marines developed a remarkable understanding of their language and culture, and the friendships that were struck were genuine and lasting. Being fisher folk, they were particularly useful when we came to the larger rivers, such as the Sungei Perak itself, where the crossing was a long and ponderous operation.

Searching for a suitable grove of bamboos the Ibans would speedily hack down large poles which they used to build a sizeable raft. This was poled across the river, backwards and forwards, taking equipment and weapons. The naked patrol accompanied their own bundles by swimming alongside the raft and hanging on to it if they started to tire. The current was always fast, often with floating trunks swirling down, and the operation was attended with some risk. Woe to the Marine who swam too far from the raft! On one occasion a sudden shout alerted us to crisis. The river we were crossing was a good 300 yards wide. It was running fast, and looked thickly brown with dark swirls and ripples that boded ill for the unwary. Down the river, approaching a bend that took it out of sight, I could see the head of a Marine bobbing in the turbulent flow.  The unfortunate man had left the raft as it approached the far bank, deciding to make the rest of the passage on his own. And there he was, fast disappearing, obviously in difficulties, and very much on his own.

It seemed that there was nothing we could do but watch helplessly. Then I saw one of the Ibans grab a raft and start poling like a demon down the river after the failing man who had already disappeared a number of times beneath the dark surface. It was a stirring and dramatic sight, the small bobbing head of the drowning man and the naked, heavily tattooed figure of the Borneo tracker wielding his pole with furious energy, his long black hair streaming out behind him.  As the Iban got close to the drowning Marine he stopped poling, knelt down and leaning far out in front of his raft held the pole out. Now I knew the meaning of the phrase 'with bated breath' for I truly believe that all the watchers had stopped breathing as we watched the watery gap between the two closing figures. Then the two came together, and the rescue was made.

 Today the jungles are receding, the rivers throb to the sound of tourist craft, the small atap roofed villages and towns are concreted, and the narrow winding roads along which the armoured convoys used to speed are now wide tourist bearing routes. Oh ye travellers who speed along those highways! - spare a thought for the Marines and soldiers who once sweated their way across those green horizon'd hills. Wherever you may be there is a military cemetery not far away. If you have time, visit and pay thoughtful homage to those who once marched so gaily  from their homeland barracks to the thud of the parting drum and the stirring farewell of the Regimental March, and who now lie in such distant fields.
 

John Lloyd