The colonel did not have to give us a speech. We knew what we had to do, and we did it fast. Luckily we had the six mules, so things that could be loaded on the mules were loaded and everything else was destroyed.
Less than two hours after receiving the bad news we had begun our return journey to Mong Hsat. We reached the temple on the morning of the third day. We made a meal and rested until noon, and then we pushed on towards the Salween River, which we crossed without any trouble. It was now a day and a half’s journey to Mong Hsat. There we met up with those we had left behind. They looked at us in amazement, for none of us had shaved since we had left them. Some of us had a really good growth of beard. Ginger Hancock was more noticeable than any of us, for his beard was of almost deep red.
Motor transport had been arranged for us to move out as soon as we were ready. The small town was in utter confusion, and refugees, most of them Chinese, were pouring in from all directions. The fear of what might happen to them showed in their faces. As we walked along the dusty main road towards where our lorries waited, they tugged at our clothes and begged us to help them in some way. There were old men and women and young women, some with four or more young children, all trying to carry what belongings they had managed to grab in the rush to get away from their hated old enemy. Some had hand carts, some bullock carts, and some bicycles with their belongings strapped on the back, but most were walking.
Our transport consisted of five three-ton trucks, civilian Fords that had been commandeered by an army major who was stationed in the district. We piled our gear into them and set off northwards. At first we made very little progress because the road was jammed with refugees. We must have gone barely ten miles when the noise of aircraft was heard. The refugees scattered in all directions. Our convoy pulled off the road and into the cover of the trees. We had our guns ready as the aircraft swept down the road strafing at anything. They turned and came down again. We opened up with everything we had. Some of the refugees had not even made it to the trees and were falling like ninepins, screaming and shouting, both in fear and in pain.
Small children sat screaming by their injured or dead mothers. Others were walking around crying and looking for someone to comfort them, but there was no one.
We had little time to consider as the planes swept down again, one after the other, blazing away with all that they had while we hammered back at them. Finally the planes flew off. We had a roll call. We did not have one casualty, and yet there were dead and wounded all around us, young and old shattered to pieces. Some were hardly recognisable as human beings, as they had caught the full fury of the attack. We could do nothing but sympathise.
The colonel got the trucks on the move once more. The road remained a little clear for a time until the shock had worn off, then once again became choked. However, we had made some headway and made it to Kentaung just as darkness was approaching. Here again was panic and confusion. We did not stay long, just long enough to pick up some of the base gear and the men that we had left there. Then we were on our way back to our main base at Taunggyi.
The moon had set and the sky was a little darker, although the stars in the clear sky were doing their best to give some light.
We rumbled into the sleepy town at about two o’clock in the morning. Here there was no panic at all. There were even lights on in some of the buildings and huts. It seemed just the same as when we had left it. How long ago was it? It seemed ages.
A hot meal was waiting, and it was not long before we were hitting the sack, as we had had a really rough time in the last few days. It was very nice to get a hot bath and shave off our beards, and also clean our guns and equipment and be ready for any action that would be required of us.
We were really taking things easy. We had been back in Taunggyi for two whole days and had made good use of the rest. It was Thursday and market day in the town. We were doing our usual tasks and the time was about ten o’clock in the morning when we heard the dull drone of aircraft engines at a very high altitude which caused everyone to look up. ‘Air Raid, Air Raid!’ someone somewhere shouted out loud enough for us all to hear. We made for our slit trenches well away from where we had stored our demolition and explosives. The drone of the engines came nearer and nearer until they were right overhead. Looking up we could make out a formation of eight bombers.
Suddenly there was the scream of falling bombs. They fell right across the small town. There had been no warning signal and no anti–aircraft fire. From where we were we could hear the screams and wailing of people who had been injured in the crowded market place. We watched as the planes turned, keeping in formation and still keeping their altitude. Once again there was a scream of falling bombs onto the small town. The planes then turned and went off towards the east.
We clambered out of the trenches, stood there for a while and saw a pall of black smoke and dust rising from the direction of the town. Then the siren sounded the all clear, as if to mock what had taken place.
Together we all raced down the hill towards the town. Halfway down we came upon a Gurkha soldier lying by the side of the road. Being able to speak Urdu, I asked him, ‘Kia bart hai?’
‘Idder, idder’, he answered, pointing to his thigh.
Sergeant McAteer had followed us down the hill. ‘Stay here with him’, he said, ‘there must be a stack of other injured like him,’ then ran back up the hill.
In what seemed no time the sergeant came back with a lorry he had commandeered. It had been delivering foodstuff. We had dressed the Gurkha’s wound with field dressings, and carefully lifted him on to the lorry.
As we turned onto the main road Scanes, who was driving, suddenly stopped the vehicle and jumped out of the cab. Two of us followed him to where a man was sitting beside a small Ford saloon car on the grass verge. He looked as if he was asleep. Scanes tapped him on the shoulder, and as he did so the man fell sideways. He was dead. In the centre of his forehead was a small jagged hole, but what was remarkable was that the windscreen of the car had also got a hole in it, right opposite the driver’s seat. From the hole, cracks were going in all directions like long spider’s legs. The man must have subconsciously got out from the car before he died.
We left him and went looking for those who needed help. We had not gone far before we had almost twenty very bad cases on board. Some way into the town we stopped in front of a large woman dressed in the usual black garb of the Shan women. In her arms was a young girl of about ten years old. The woman was sobbing and swaying from side to side. The child was lying still and looked very pale. Down the front of the woman’s black robe was a stream of blood running into a pool at her feet. Quickly Jock Johnson and I went to her and took the child and laid her on the ground. We saw that the artery in the child’s wrist had been severed by a fragment from a bomb. The artery was still flowing blood. Jock squeezed the girl’s arm and stopped the bleeding while I made a tourniquet with a strip of the woman’s black cloth and twisted it tight by using the handle of my knife. We handed the child up to Morgan who cradled her with utmost affection and gentleness, and tears could be seen in his eyes.
Jock shouted to Scanes to get to the nearest hospital as soon as we could, which was the military hospital. Scanes drove straight up to the door and steps of the veranda. There we were met by a nurse who, without looking at any wounded, said, ‘Take them away from here! We only accept military casualties.’
‘But Sister,’ we pleaded, ‘we have a young girl here who has lost quite a great deal of blood. She is a very urgent case.’
‘I’m very sorry for that,’ she answered, ‘but I have my orders.’ She then waved her arms for us to go.
We dropped off the Gurkha, who was the only military casualty we had. Then Scanes turned the lorry around, went down the drive and turned to the right and up the road to the civil hospital which was about another quarter of a mile.
Here there was utter chaos. People of all races and religions had made their way here. Some had died in the attempt and just lay on the grass at the side of the driveway. Others had made it to the steps of the wooden veranda and died there. The veranda leading to the main ward was littered with wounded men, women and children. Blood from at least two hundred was oozing onto the wooden veranda and seeping through onto the earth beneath.
The lorry pulled up in front of the main doorway, and for a brief moment we, who had seen much blood and wounded in different spheres, stopped and looked down on that pitiful scene.
Someone shouted, ‘Come on lads, let’s get cracking!’ We jumped from the lorry and some began helping those we had brought from the truck, while some of the others and I went inside to offer our help. In the meantime another truckload of casualties had been brought in by some more of our chaps. With them was Sergeant McAteer who began to organise us into sections under the guidance of the matron, who was a half-caste woman.
We, that is our section consisting of Morgan, Bland, Hancock, Edwards and myself, began cleaning and dressing the worst cases who were on the veranda, trying to stop the loss of blood. We also took part in being stretcher-bearers and getting those that could not walk off the veranda into the wards.
Casualties seemed to arrive as quickly as we got rid of them, but we seemed to be coping and making room. There were not enough beds, so we had to make do with laying them in between beds on the floor.
The colonel came along with the other officers and some of the civil officials who, to us, did not seem to be too put out at the misery and the suffering that was happening in front of their eyes. The colonel showed more compassion by saying, ‘Carry on lads, you are doing a grand job.’ Then they drove off and left us to it.
It was rather funny, I thought. How many times throughout my army career, which was nearly seven years, had I worked among squaddies and heard them moan because they had not had a bite to eat, or a drink of tea, or even time to have a smoke? Yet here were about thirty hardcore blokes, who had not had a bite to eat or a drink of tea since eight o’clock in the morning, and it was now coming up to about three in the afternoon and not one had moaned.
It was well after six in the evening before things began to quieten down. Some of the men had been asked to get the dead to the mortuary, as there was the fear that prowling jackals would feed upon the corpses if they were left out on the streets.
As they brought in the dead, Morgan and I stood at the side and counted them. Among those from the hospital was the young girl. She had not recovered from the loss of blood. The trucks searched the roads and the back streets of the town, which was now almost deserted. How many more dead lay in the jungle to be eaten by either jackals and hyenas or vultures which were surely waiting their chance to pick the bones of the unfortunate victims of the indiscriminate bombing by the Japanese?
Sergeant McAteer came and asked for volunteers to do night orderly duty. I think everyone wanted to do it. So he picked out four to return at ten o’clock. Morgan, Bland, Ginger and I were to stay until those four came on at ten. We carried on doing minor dressings and helping to clean the place up a little. We had paired off. Ginger was with me on the women’s wards.
We were asked by the matron to bring a Chinese woman to the theatre for a foot amputation. Bland and Morgan were standing outside the operating room when Ginger and I came out after taking the woman in and putting her on the table. I turned to the others and said, ‘I have never seen an operation performed, have any of you?’
‘No!’ they replied almost together.
‘Well, now’s our chance,’ I said. We quietly walked into the room and stood behind a waist-high screen that was there for students to watch. I leaned over to whisper in Morgan’s ear. ‘They say that the first time you see anything like this you may pass out.’ He glanced sideways at me and gave me a sickly grin, then nodded his head.
From where we stood we could see the surgeon cutting the flesh from around the shin bone about halfway from the knee. The matron standing on his right handed him a bright shiny stainless-steel saw. As he took it he blocked my view, and then all that I could hear was the teeth of the saw as it dug into the bone.
In that instant the room began to spin like a top. I felt my knees go weak, and then everything went blank. I came to outside the room, with Morgan, Ginger and Bland pouring water on my face and slapping me. Morgan with his usual red face and beaming wide grin asked, ‘What happened, Fred?’
‘It was that saw,’ I said, shaking my head to clear the dizziness, ‘it must have grated on my teeth.’ We all laughed! ‘I’m going back in there,’ I continued, ‘it’s not going to beat me!’ They tried to persuade me not to go, but I went in.
Just as I entered, the matron dropped the half limb into an enamelled bucket and, turning to me, said, ‘Take that outside, will you please.’ I picked up the bucket and went out to where Bland and Morgan were having a smoke.
‘Where do I put this?’ I asked. They both looked down into the bucket, and the colour drained from their faces. Both fell to the floor together. Ginger came outside, and seeing what had happened burst out laughing. He took the bucket from me and I returned inside to watch as they stitched the skin around the stump and then dressed it. Ginger and I then took the woman back to the ward. While she was still unconscious we placed a pillow under the bandaged stump.
The four for the night shift came on and we told the matron that we would return sometime after breakfast the next day, if we were allowed.
News was coming to us that the Japanese were making a real push up the country, so the colonel gathered us together to tell us that whatever job we were doing at the hospital or anywhere else, we were to drop it and return to our real function, that of fighting men and not hospital orderlies or anything else. We said that we understood.
We four went to the hospital that morning but stayed only a short while as we were picked for night duty.
Morgan and I went down there early to find out what the matron wished us to do. Ginger and Bland came a little later. Darkness was falling when the matron wished us goodnight. Morgan and I did the first of the rounds, going to every ward. Morgan carried a hurricane lamp, as there were no lights.
We had made the operating theatre our headquarters or meeting place, to sit and talk. When we returned, Ginger and Bland called us out onto the veranda. There were, they said, a couple of fires that had started just outside the town. We looked and could see the pink glow in the sky. As we watched, two more started, one at each point of the compass. Then to our ears came the sound of planes, and we knew what the fires had been lit for.
We all split up and went to the darkened wards. The patients had heard the approach of the aircraft and had begun to get panicky. Fumbling my way around the beds I tried to keep them quiet with some words of comfort which most of them could not understand anyway. It was the women who took the most consoling and trying to tell them that they were safe. The bombs were now falling, it seemed, all around the hospital, and creating a terrific noise as they exploded. The raid lasted about ten minutes, although it seemed longer.
The matron came to see if there was any damage done after the aircraft had gone. Being a very strict and stern woman, she soon had the women quiet and back to normal. She was a large-built woman with jet-black hair and black wide eyes. Her hair was done up in a bun at the back of her head. It was hard to judge her age but we reckoned that she was about thirty or perhaps a little older. She was quite good looking in some sort of way, although not too attractive because of her large size. After a while she left us, and we sat in the operating room and drank tea, two of us going off at intervals to see that all was well.
At about half past eight the next morning the matron came. Before we left to return to our billets, she asked, ‘Would you lads like to come to my house for dinner tonight?’
‘Yes please!’ we all answered together.
‘Right, then I’ll see you at about eight. Oh, you do know where I live, don’t you?’ she asked smiling. She pointed her finger directly opposite the hospital. ‘It’s over there. I’m sure you will find it.’
We returned to our bamboo hut and settled down to sleep after we had eaten. We slept through till tea time which was about five in the evening. All of us took a shower after eating, and then began to get spruced up for our dinner date. It was about seven thirty that we set off towards the hospital. We did not hurry for we did not want to be there too early, as no doubt the matron would have quite a lot to do before she could leave the hospital. It was a good twenty minutes’ walk. We arrived at the house, which was illuminated with candles and small oil lamps, and the matron met us at the door. She had arrived just before us. To our complete surprise, some of our mates were already there. They were as surprised as us, but, like us, they had said nothing to anyone else. Others were arriving after us, and this caused a little bit of chatter among us, calling each other ‘crafty so and so’s.’
Eventually the room was quite full of us men. The matron was the only woman, except for the Shan servant woman who had prepared the meal. We were invited to sit at the table. This was set for ten, but there were more than ten in that room.
Suddenly there was a loud banging at the door, and Captain Brown pushed his way inside, followed by Sergeant McAteer. ‘Come on! All of you outside!’ they shouted, ‘come on, duty calls.’ We all trooped out wondering what had happened.
As we piled into a truck they had brought to collect us we could see the red glow of fires in the sky. As we moved off, another fire blazed up on the outskirts of the town. The sergeant who was driving turned in the direction of where the new blaze had started.
Driving the vehicle at top speed the sergeant swung the truck first right then left as he negotiated the bends in the road, then turned the truck up the first road that ran at right angles to the fire. As we turned a bend in the road another fire was just showing above the trees. The sergeant made directly for this fire. It was a bamboo bungalow that was on fire. Some of the people there were trying to put it out. We jumped from the truck, and Captain Brown ordered us to split up into fours and scout around for any suspicious characters who may be responsible. The only arms that we had with us were our knives. Morgan, Ginger Hancock, Jock Johnson and I were now right on the outskirts of the town and soon in among the shops and wooden buildings.
We all stood still as we heard the drone of planes coming nearer. In no time at all we seemed to be right in the middle of falling bombs exploding all around. I dived into a deep ditch to take cover from the burst of explosives and flying shrapnel. Crawling along the bottom of the ditch, I waited until the planes had gone. Then, crawling out, I searched for my companions. I stood still and in silence, waiting for them to shout. I was about to cup my hands together to call to them when a man appeared as if from nowhere. He darted in and out between the wooden buildings into a lane on the other side of the houses. Now and then he stopped as if he were listening. I followed as quietly as I could, hiding behind the houses whenever he stopped. He was not going fast, and I could hear the pit-a-pat of his feet on the hard ground. Suddenly he vanished, and instead of a pit-a-pat of running feet I could hear the crunch of more than one pair of army boots. Coming towards me were two men of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, or KOYLI. They wore arm bands of the Regimental Police.
‘Hallo Corporal!’ they called out, ‘what are you doing here?’
I answered them with a question. ‘Have you seen a Burmese passing you two?’
‘No Corp, we haven’t. Are you chasing one?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘and he isn’t very far away, either.’
They were armed with Lee-Enfield rifles. ‘Come on then’, they said eagerly, ‘we’ll have a look around.’
As we turned to go back to where I had last seen the man there was some movement in the shrubs at the side of the lane. The three of us dived through the hedge, and there squatting down was the man I had been following.
The two MPs began questioning him in Burmese after bringing him back onto the road. One of the MPs told me that he said he had gone there to relieve himself so, leaving one MP to guard him, the other MP and I went back to where he had been. Squatting and striking a number of matches to give us light we searched to find any excreta, but could find nothing. Going back to the man the MPs questioned him further, asking where he had come from. The man pointed towards some buildings on the right hand side of the road. The MP who was doing the questioning told us that the man had said he lived with his uncle on that side of the road. So we escorted him back to show us where his uncle lived. The man pointed to a wooden house high up on stilts. ‘Alright,’ I said, ‘go on up!’ I pushed him up the stairs which led to the doorway. There was a chink of light coming through a crack in the door. I rattled on the door and waited with the man by my side and the two MPs behind him. I could hear some whispering going on inside, and the door slowly opened just a little, enough for an old man to poke his head out. He held an oil lamp high above his head. He was a Chinese. Here I put my Chinese to the test, greeting him with ‘Nee how’. At the same time I pulled our suspect forward into the light of the lamp so that the old man could get a good look at his face. ‘Nee jour dow shur nager wren?’ (‘Do you know this man?’) I demanded.
‘Wor boo jour dow shur nager wren,’ (‘I do not know that man’) was his answer.
I turned to the two MPs and said, ‘That’s good enough for me.’ After thanking the old man we pushed our suspect down the steps.
‘We’ll take him back to our CO and let him deal with him,’ I said to the two MPs, and they agreed. As we escorted the man along the road a large car pulled up. An officer poked his head out of the window and asked if we needed any help. ‘Yes sir!’ I answered. ‘We think we have got one of the firebugs here sir, and we are going to take him back to my CO.’
‘Get in the back, all of you and we will drive you there,’ he ordered. There was another officer in the front passenger seat. He asked, ‘Who is your CO, Corporal?’
‘Colonel Brocklehurst, sir,’ I answered. ‘Do you know him, sir?’
‘Yes, we both know him very well,’ he replied, turning his head towards me. The driver introduced himself as Captain Thompson and his passenger as Captain King. On the drive I explained why we were bringing the man in.
Both officers agreed without any hesitation that the suspect was a possible arsonist who had set fires to guide the Japanese bombers. We were driven into the main police station. There we all got out of the car. Our CO was outside, talking to a rather large fellow in uniform. We marched the suspect over to them. They asked, ‘What have you got here, Corporal?’ Once again I related what had transpired, adding that we three thought it worthwhile to bring the man back for questioning.
‘You did quite right, lads,’ said the colonel. ‘We’ll soon find out if he is a firebug or not.’ The large man stepped forward, and then I saw that he was the Chief of Police. Immediately he began to ask the suspect rapid questions in Burmese. The suspect was getting nervous and began to look around him for a way of escape.
The police chief stopped his questioning, then turned to the colonel and said, ‘He is one, alright.’
The colonel turned towards the two KOYLI and said, ‘Take him away and shoot him.’
The two men stepped forward to grab him, but he made a sudden dash past them. I chased after him and got near enough to grab the long flowing black hair on his head. He stopped and I ran into him. He turned around and got his hands around my throat. Without a second thought my hand went to my knife and drew it and plunged it into his side, below the ribs, while I still held his hair with my other hand, pulling his head back away from me. Suddenly he went limp, and the whole weight of him fell against me, forcing me to take a step backwards. It was then that two red-turbaned policemen came and held him as he slipped slowly to the ground. They dragged him back into the station building.
The whole episode had not taken more than a few minutes. I walked back to the group of officers and men. The colonel said, ‘Well, let’s hope that it is the end of a night’s work. I think we can stand down now.’
‘Can I give anyone a lift?’ Captain Thompson asked.
‘Could you drop me near the civil hospital, sir?’ I asked.
‘Jump in, Corporal,’ he replied, ‘We’ll soon have you there.’
The car halted right at the entrance to the matron’s quarters. I wished the officers goodnight, and then knocked on the door loudly, for there was the noise of a piano playing and some singing going on. The door opened, and as I stepped into the room I had to shield my eyes from the bright lights. Suddenly a deadly hush fell on the room. Everyone was staring at me, especially my clothes. I looked down and saw that my trousers and parts of my tunic were saturated in blood.
‘Blimey! Fred! What have you done?’ they all seemed to ask in one voice. The matron and her servant came forward and began to sponge me down in an attempt to remove some of the crimson stains while I related what had taken place.
‘So, you reckon you caught one of those bastards then, Fred?’ Scanes asked.
‘I think so,’ I replied, ‘or why should he try to run away.’ I sat down and ate the food that had been saved for me. It seemed that I was the last to return.
The next day, all those available were detailed to help with the evacuation of the military hospital. Most of the equipment had already gone. It was mostly bedding and the iron bedsteads. Lorries had been commandeered. Morgan, Bland, Ginger Hancock and I had this job. Morgan, Bland and I were having a rest while we waited for some of the lorries to return from the railway station, when up strode the colonel. ‘Come here, lads,’ he beckoned us towards him. We stood in front of him in a half circle. ‘Have you three got any strong beliefs about religion?’ He eyed each one of us.
We stood silent for a moment, taken aback by the question. Then one after another we answered, ‘No, sir!’ At the same time a grin had come to all our faces, wondering what the next question was going to be.
‘Well lads,’ he paused before going on, ‘I am going to ask you,’ and he emphasised the word ‘ask’, ‘not order you, and you can refuse if you wish, to do a very unpleasant job for me, a most unpleasant job.’ He paused as if he wanted his words to sink in. ‘I shall not hold it against any one of you if you say you don’t want to do it. Is that clear to all of you?’
‘Yes sir, we understand,’ we answered.
He turned and asked us to follow him. He led us to his car and told us to get in, and then drove us down the road to the civil hospital. He turned into the drive and stopped the car at the rear of the wards. Here we all got out. We followed the colonel towards the small brick-built mortuary. Just before we got to the double doors he halted, turned and faced us. ‘What I want you to do, and you can still refuse if you wish to, is to get all the corpses out of there, get them onto a lorry, then take them out of town to a place for burning.’
None of us had had any reason to go to the morgue since the first day of the bombing. We knew then that there were about eighty bodies stacked inside, but since then many more had been taken in. The mortuary was a small brick building, about twelve feet long and eight feet wide, with six-foot high walls. It had a steep sloping roof and no windows, the only ventilation being through the double doors. Drawn up in front of the entrance was a three-ton civilian lorry with its tailboard down. The colonel moved forward to the doors. We three followed him. He turned the handles of the double doors and pulled them open. For a moment we all stood still, as the stench from the rotting bodies hit us full in the face and made us step back a few steps. Slowly we went inside, trying to hold our breath against the deathly smell that enveloped us. The sight was appalling. The bodies had been chucked in an untidy heap, so there was hardly any room to move. Rigor mortis had also made them into horridly contortioned shapes, with legs and arms twisted in different positions.
The colonel was the first to break the silence. ‘Will you lads do it for me?’ With hardly any hesitation from any of us we all said that we would.
Morgan boarded the lorry, while Bland and I, with handkerchiefs around our noses and mouths, went inside and began to carry the corpses out to Morgan, who dragged them into some form of order on the lorry. Now and again one of us had to clamber onto the lorry to help Morgan pile them on top of each other.
We had counted thirty when the colonel said that was enough for one load. The driver of the lorry had all this time stood well away. He was an Indian, of what caste or religion we had no idea, but when the colonel tried to call him to drive the lorry he shook his head and flatly refused even to come near. ‘One of us will drive it, sir!’ Bland said.
‘No, lads,’ the colonel replied, ‘I want you three on the back, just in case there is any trouble as we go through the town.’
‘Shall I try to talk to him, sir?’ I volunteered. ‘I do speak a little of their lingo, sir.’
‘Alright Corporal, do your best,’ the colonel said.
I walked to where the driver stood. ‘Kia-toom-ou-gay?’ I pleaded.
‘Nay-sahib,’ the driver answered, shaking his head and looking down at the ground, moving from one foot to the other like a frightened schoolboy.
Spreading my hands in front of me to emphasise my words, I said in a more pleading voice, ‘Esco-hath-mutt-lee-gow. (‘You don’t have to touch them’) Toom-driver-bust!’ I went on, ‘Hum-keerin gay!’ (‘We will do it, you only drive’).
For a moment he stood and thought, then with a nervous grin he said, ‘Teekhai-sahib.’ Patting him gently on the back we walked back to the others.
‘Well done, Corporal!’ The colonel shouted, clapping his hands. ‘Now, follow me!’
During the daylight hours many of the inhabitants returned to the town and some of the shops were open, so the colonel made a detour trying to avoid the built-up areas as much as possible, but here and there quite a number of people were still coming along the roads. At first they just stood and stared, then as we got near to them and they realised what our cargo consisted of they turned their backs on us and the women covered their heads and faces.
The colonel led us in his car to the western side of the town and about two miles out until we came to a large refuse dumping pit. Here we stopped, and no sooner had we done so than our driver ran for his life and hid behind some trees about a hundred yards away.
We three were only too glad to climb down and get clear for a while from the horrible stink that was coming from the dead bodies.
From the colonel’s car came a nurse, the police chief who had questioned the fire-raiser, the colonel and another man dressed in a white suit. The four came towards where we had stood. ‘I want you to put the bodies down into that pit,’ the colonel said more as a request than an order.
‘Are you going to burn them, sir?’ Morgan asked.
‘That is our intention,’ the colonel answered. ‘We shall soak them in petrol and set fire to them,’ he added hesitantly.
We had finished putting all the bodies into the pit. The colonel came and gave us each a cigarette, but the stench from my hands after handling the corpses made me want to vomit. I glanced at the other two and they had both turned a shade of green.
We returned to the pit with another load, using the same route. These were even more ghastly for they were from the first bombing raid and had been dead longer. It was nearing noon when we began unloading. The sun was beating down, making us sweat, and the smell of our sweat seemed to mingle with the stench from the corpses, which were harder to handle and carry because of the different postures to which rigor mortis had stiffened them. My sweat-soaked clothes also seemed to be absorbing the stench that arose as we disturbed the now blackening and rotting corpses. The flies had also been at work on them, clustering around the dried blood of the wide open wounds.
Morgan went to the matron as we began our third load. He came back with three gauze face-masks saturated with some chemical. These were of great help and an improvement on our handkerchiefs, but still not good enough to stop the smell from getting up our noses.
We had got about twenty onto the lorry when Bland came running out of the building shouting, ‘Fred! Fred! There’s one alive in there!’ He pointed towards the mortuary. Morgan and I jumped from the lorry and dashed inside the mortuary.
‘Where?’ I called to Bland who stood outside.
‘There!’ he pointed to a body, ‘can’t you see him breathing?’
Morgan and I went closer. There was movement under the blood-stained shirt. We both went and lifted the shirt, and then we could see that a large gaping wound in the man’s chest was a mass of moving yellow maggots. The sight made all three of us vomit into our face masks. I staggered to the door pulling at my own mask. Morgan was beside me leaning on the side of the lorry with his head cradled in his arms. Bland was not so bad. He rushed off and returned with the matron, who brought us a large jug of sweet tea.
The three gruesome loads had emptied the small mortuary. When the last body was dumped into the pit we were more than relieved that the horrible task was finished. The colonel came to thank us, and gave us the rest of his cigarettes.
On our return to the billet some of the men greeted us with, ‘Hello! You three are in some trouble. Sergeant Friend wants to know where you have been.’ Then without giving us a chance to explain, they went on to say, ‘We came back from the station and had to do your dirty work.’
‘Wait a minute! Wait a minute.’ I said, putting up my hands to stop any more outbursts. ‘Listen to our story before you say anything about dirty work.’
I went on to tell them the whole sordid story. They listened intently to what I had to say, with Bland and Morgan speaking now and then and adding to the story.
When we had finished they were all apologies. Bob Sharp said, ‘Hey! That will shoot Friend up the jacksy, won’t it, when he comes to tear you off a strip?’
Ginger suggested that we all keep quiet and let Friend rant at us before we told him. Everyone was in favour of this and started to have a good laugh even beforehand.
It was after tea when Sergeant Friend came. ‘I want to see you,’ he said. He pointed at me and glared, his face going red with temper. He then pointed at Bland and Morgan and shouted, ‘And you and you.’
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ I said in as calm and quiet voice as I could, and looking a bit surprised.
‘I want to know,’ he blurted out, ‘where you three have been all bloody morning. In fact, where have you been all bloody day?’ He stood staring at each one of us in turn, his legs astride and his hands on hips. Behind us I could hear Ginger stifling the sniggers. What the rest were doing I could only guess. ‘Well!’ he demanded, ‘what have you got to say?’
I began, ‘Well Sergeant, it was like this.’ I went on to tell him what had happened.
I had got about half way through when he stopped me, saying, ‘Hold it! I’ve heard some tales in my time but that takes the cake. You must think that I am stupid, even to listen to you. You!’ he pointed at me, ‘you ought to know better. You’ll all be in front of the colonel tomorrow and you can tell him the same story.’ He turned to go.
‘Sergeant!’ I shouted after him. He turned and stood, glaring at me. ‘The colonel knows. He was there with us.’
For a moment he was speechless, and then slowly he walked back towards me until he was very close. ‘Do you want insubordination added to your charge?’ he asked, pushing his face close to mine.
I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘Alright Sergeant, please yourself.’
Needless to say we heard no more about the charges.