'Exploit the element of surprise to the full!' mimicked Wally. 'What for
all the fancy talk - why not just
murder the bastards?' Bruce grinned lightly in the dark. 'All right,
murder the bastards,' he agreed. 'But do it as quickly as bloody
possible.' He stood up and inclined the luminous dial of his wristwatch
to catch the light. 'It's half past ten now - we'll move down on them.
Come with me, Hendry, and we'll sort them into two groups.' Bruce and
Wally moved back along the line and talked to each man in turn.
'You will go with Lieutenant Hendry.'
'You come with me.' Making sure that the two English-speaking corporals
were with Wally, they took
ten minutes to divide them into two units and to redistribute the
haversacks of grenades.
Then they moved on down the slope, still in Indian file.
'This is where we leave you, Hendry,' whispered Bruce.
'Don't go jumping the gun - wait until you hear my grenades.'
'Yeah, okay - I know all about it.' 'Good luck,' said Bruce.
'Your bum in a barrel, Captain Curry,' rejoined Wally and moved away.
'Come on, Ruffy.' Bruce led his men off the embankment down into the
swamp. Almost immediately the mud and slime was knee-deep and as they
worked their way out to the right it rose to their waists and then to
their armpits, sucking and gurgling sullenly as they stirred it with
their passage, belching little evil-smelling gusts of swamp gas.
The mosquitoes closed round Bruce's face in a cloud so dense that he
breathed them into his mouth and had to blink them out of his eyes.
Sweat dribbled down from under his helmet and clung heavily in his
eyebrows and the matted stems of the papyrus grass dragged at his feet.
Their progress was tortuously slow and for fifteen minutes at a time
Bruce lost sight of the lights of the village through the wall of
papyrus; he steered by the glow of the fires and the occasional column
of sparks.
It was an hour before they had half completed their circuit of
Port Reprieve. Bruce stopped to rest, still waistdeep in swamp ooze and
with his arms aching numb from holding his rifle above his head.
'I could use a smoke now, boss,' grunted Ruffy.
Me too,' answered Bruce, and he wiped his face on the sleeve of his
jacket. The mosquito bites on his forehead and round his eyes burnt like
fire.
What a way to make a living,' he whispered.
'You go on living and you'll be one of the lucky ones,' answered
Ruffy. 'My guess is there'll be some dying before tomorrow.' But the
fear of death was submerged by physical discomfort. Bruce had almost
forgotten that they were going into battle; right now he was more
worried that the leeches which had worked their way through the openings
in his anklets and were busily boring into his lower legs
might find their way up to his crotch. There was a lot to be said in
favour of a zip fly, he decided.
'Let's get out of this,' he whispered. 'Come on, Ruffy.
Tell your boys to keep it quiet.' He worked in closer to the shore and
the level fell to their knees once more. Progress was more noisy now as
