Ch10 - Jungles and Juggernauts
January 1943
Three thousand men were assembled there, in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India, the Gateway to Bundelkhand. Together, they made up the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade, and yet not all of them were actually from the part of the British Empire which had lent them its name.
Three thousand men, each the recipient of the best training the British Army had to offer, and of the most religiously obsessive tactical instruction available to them.
From the Hills and Dales of Great Britain itself came the King's Liverpool Regiment, making up half of the 77th themselves. Traditionally, they were a Second-Line Battalion, and at this moment in time they were made up principally of older men from the Merseyside region, up in the Northwest of England.
Alongside them from the heart of the Empire came a force of Englishmen trained in the art of Bush Warfare in Burma itself, the very country for which the 77th were destined. These experts in the art of Jungle Warfare were reassigned as 142 Commando Company. The title of Commando itself was a new one, having been introduced by Prime Minister Churchill a short two years prior for the purpose of conducting raids on their Fascist foe in Mainland Europe. These men had now been involved in the most arduous and rigorous training scheme in recent memory, on par with the fabled 11th Special Air Service Battalion, which had been formed in 1940, shortly before these men had been shipped over to India.
From the mountains of Tibet came the 2nd Gurkha Rifles, a newly raised Battalion for this campaign, each man equipped with the standard gear for jungle warfare, as well as the fearsome Kukri knife. Legend had it that each time the blade was drawn from its sheath, it demanded that blood be spilled. Each man seemed to have the physical capabilities of two, and no life would be given up lightly, for the Gurkhas were a fearsome people, to whom war was not simply a task, but a creed.
In the oh so distant future, it would be said that "If a man says that he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha."
The men were neither physically imposing nor openly aggressive, being softly spoken in public and standing at a height of Five foot Three.
Their build and composure, however, were not a sign of weakness, for it was well known that to do battle against a Gurkha was to look Death himself in the eye.
The final component of this force was possibly the most motivated.
For all the Gurkhas' skill and culture around battle, for all the Englishmen's motivation to finally end this war, in an operation to liberate Burma, it was a given that the Burmese themselves would always be the most motivated. Each man trained like an animal, earning the respect of each and every one of their comrades, much like the Poles and Czechs had in Britain itself, or like the Egyptians had done in North Africa.
One such soldier was in there, hidden amongst the soldiers of 142 Commando. A secret weapon and the ultimate trump card, for everyone knew, regardless of where it was that they were raised, that the Jungle was the realm of the predator.
This soldier was a predator, a Cobra ready to strike, a Leopard ready to pounce.
For in the Jungle, the sniper would reign supreme.
Zoya 'Nightshade' El-Faouly had been introduced to the men as exactly what she was - a Woman fighting a Man's war and doing one hell of a good job at it. It had resulted in a certain amount of blowback for the higher-ups of General Orde Wingate's staff, but Wingate himself, having been in the East African theatre for several years, had heard the rumours of an Egyptian sniper who had set fear in the hearts of the Italians, and had immediately requested her presence when shifted out to India when he received the call from his ex-commander in the East-African conflict, one Archibald Wavell.
In fact, at one point in time, a group of ten commandos had challenged the sniper to a competition of sorts. Wingate, in all his experience and wisdom, had actually elected to escalate the little challenge to a competition.
Needless to say, the Egyptian woman had won by a country mile, not a single shot of her ten leaving the bullseye of the target, and her grouping immaculate as ever. There would never never be arrogance; running away from home only to live on the streets had taught her this. Instead, there was a quiet confidence in her abilities - an aura, Brigadier Fergusson, the Baron Ballantrae had remarked in conversation.
The rest of the period of training had been largely without incident.
The force set up by Wavell and Wingate had been modelled off something they had set up a year or so previous to this; a force much like this one which went by the name of Gideon Force out in Sudan and Ethiopia. The plan itself was sound in theory - march into Burma across the Chindwin River. Two columns, under Alexander, were to go out and cause a distraction drawing the Japanese occupiers south, while the majority of the force swung North across the major North-South Railway line, demolishing bridges and cutting off the already stretched Japanese supply lines.
They would be provided with support by American and Chinese troops, moving from the Northern and Southern flanks respectively, but when the Americans withdrew, the Chinese followed suit, leaving a force originally pegged at 10,000 floundering at a measly 3,000.
The supplies were to be dropped by RAF Douglas C-47 'Dakota' aircraft operating with No.31 Squadron RAF - based in Agartala, Bengal. This was something of a complication when it came to organising dates, times and locations of drops so as to not alert the foe to their position. However, it also meant that the column could move at a blistering pace, men needing to carry little more than their own clothes and ammunition. Pack mules dealt with the majority of food and tents, and so it was.
Wingate had decreed to this group, the Long Range Penetration Group, or the Chindits, as they came to be known, that speed was of the essence. Those too wounded to continue were to be left behind at the nearest village, their machete or Kukri to hand along with what little supplies they were carrying.
It was a harsh, yet blatantly obviously message; don't fail, for failure means death.
It was the Eighth of February when they left, the dry weather of North India being exchanged for the hot, sticky humidity of the Burmese Jungle.
It was five days later when they entered hostile territory, crossing the Chindwin River. Zoya herself was a part of Wingate's own HQ command group, splitting off North from Tamu, and heading towards Myene. There was little to no opposition to be encountered, though, the Japanese still unaware of the assault, and likely set to be caught off guard by the speed of the Chindits.
Wingate's column heard early on in the morning of the 19th that Alexander's men had encountered their first major battle, close to Maingnyaung as they moved at incredible pace towards the Irrawaddy river further East.
Of course, small engagements had begun to take place, skirmishes breaking out as the Japanese attempted to slow down the larger Chindit force in order to allow for reinforcements to make ready, the biggest threat to the advancing 77th being the numerous traps built into the Jungle itself, more so than the rather more tangible Imperial Japanese Army.
The first major engagement took its time to materialise, but when it came, it was quite the showing.
It had been the night of the 24th when they reached the Japanese camp, and Zoya had been sent out as a part of the small task force charged with its destruction.
Number 3, 7 and 8 Columns had split off from the main northern force, breaking off on the 22nd near Tonmakeng, and striking some twenty kilometres south, at Sinlamaung. The jungle had little to no beaten paths, and so it was the role of the men out in front to hack away at the dense, seemingly unending foliage as those behind guarded them, the machete and kukri working side by side to clear a path through the wilderness.
The raid was predicted to be an overwhelming success, the ploy to strike in the dead of night affording the 77th the luxury of cover as they ghosted through trees toward the encampment.
As the men got into position, it quickly became the role of the sniper to strike, these master marksmen like the vipers which haunted those who dared brave the Jungle; invisible and yet lethal.
Zoya had kept to the treeline while the rest of the men had moved into position, affording her sufficient cover and disguise, making her shots nigh on untraceable, and leaving her as little more than a spirit in the trees.
The Japanese had been wise, yes, leaving as little light as possible around their camp at night, but there was always a weakness. The Waning Gibbous moon, while not as full as the Egyptian might have hoped, provided just enough light that shadows were cast, and that was all she needed.
Nightshade indeed.
Her first target became obvious very quickly, the light of the moon catching off the blade of a bayonet. The unfortunate victim-to-be was on patrol, evidently, and so his partner wouldn't be too far away.
No matter, she would simply get two kills instead of one.
Her rifle was still the simple Lee Enfield No.4 - the very same that had served her so well in the sands of North Africa, the very same that had claimed the lives of some hundred and fifty Italians and Germans.
It had been some time since the weapon had spilled blood.
Now was the time.
The first shot removed the unfortunate Imperial Japanese soldier, the sound of the man hitting the floor inaudible over the range of 350 metres from which she had taken this shot, but she knew that the sound had been made. She could almost hear it in her mind, a fleshy thud as a body hit the wooden decking of the jungle path, a bullet through the temple of the man, possibly even an exit wound on the other side.
Three seconds…
Two seconds
One.
The next man was now on the scene , the man clearly lacking experience, or at least never having seen a dead comrade, for the soldier didn't even bother trying to check if the man was still alive.
Then again, a hole in one's head was hardly conducive to a long and healthy life, Zoya mused to herself with an absent-minded snort of derision, chastising herself internally for her little slip.
Another little squeeze of the trigger ended the man's life, the projectile covering the distance in less than half a second.
Zoya was less certain of where exactly she had hit this time, but she knew that the man was wounded at the very least, the glint of a discarded bayonet barely visible in the night.
The assault began, Gurkhas moving in at rapid pace from the North side of the camp, the forest erupting in rattling gunfire from the Thompson 'Tommy' Submachine gun and the reliable old Bren Gun , hundreds of men lurking behind the treeline.
Another two fell to Zoya's rifle in the opening exchange, two more panicked guards on their way to try and slow the progress of the onrushing wave of Gurkhas.
The combined weight of three of Wingate's eight columns fell upon the hapless fort, about a thousand men attacking in the dark of night, their only light being the light of a waning moon and the blinding flash of gunfire. The Japanese stood little chance.
The Gurkhas advanced still, many choosing to forego the range advantage that a rifle afforded, withdrawing their fearsome kukri knives. The Jungle Carbine variation of the Enfield rifle was hardly a bad weapon, the barrel having been shortened to make firing in the thick foliage of the jungle more manageable, the Gurkhas had practically grown up with a kukri in their hands. Zoya's mother, in all her research had explained to her the history of the Greco-Egyptian Kopis, and from her observation of this weapon, she could see the great warriors of old; Alexander and all those who followed him in the Ptolemaic line, instead of the column of Gurkhas assaulting that camp in the jungle.
Each man was a hero, with skill and bravery to match the great champions of the Epics as they bore down upon the enemy, knives flashing in the pale light of the moon. Battle cries echoed in the dead of night, sending a chill down the spines of friend and foe alike with their wild screams of "Jai Mahakali, Ayo Gorkhali."
The cry itself invoked Mahakali, the Mother Goddess, the face of fearsome, untamable rage, who would give them the same spirit of rage and grant them victory, even in the face of immeasurable odds. It invoked death and destruction, so unbridled that it took the Goddess' own husband, Shiva the Lord of Destruction himself, to throw himself at her feet and for her blade to be inches away from ending his life that spared the universe itself.
The kukri would taste blood on this night.
And it did.
Blood flowed in rivers, and the prisoners were abundant.
Then again, there were no prisoners anymore when the sun rose the following day.
Screams of fear and pain plagued the Egyptian sniper's dreams even to this day, for even after two years of brutal fighting on the borders of her homeland against the Italians, the fearsome wrath of the Gurkha warriors was equally majestic and terrifying. The campaign through the forests of Burma had accounted for eighty four of her kills, her admittedly impressive record stretching comfortably beyond two hundred by now, and that number having increased through her raids on German positions behind the lines since arriving in Provence a few days ago.
She awoke in a bustling room, men and women dressed in the normally pristine white of field medics rushing to and fro as they attended to several hundred wounded from what had been a resounding success overall. What these fearless volunteers saw, however, was that even though the governments in their celebration of the achievements of their goals and the progression of their invasion at long last, would not be thinking of the hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded.
Zoya herself wasn't injured, of course, she had avoided nearly all the fighting of the previous week or so in her role as a sniper, removing no less than fifteen Nazi Officers from the fray before falling back behind allied lines alongside her American companions, with the notable addition of a man who seemed to have had a rather nasty accident. A fighter plane crash, she had been reliably informed by Agent McLean.
Zoya, for her part, had been assigned as a guard of all things.
It was rather humorous, she admitted in her internal monologue, the reactions of the men of the American 7th Army passing through as they saw her, a woman in full British battledress and wielding a British Infantryman's rifle in the Lee Enfield No.4.
Naturally, there was always a beautiful moment of realisation when they saw the symbols of the King's Liverpool Regiment and the Crossed Kukri patch of the Gurkhas on her arm, Sergeant's Chevrons standing proud upon her sleeves.
After all, the name Nightshade had come up as something of a legend among the allied troops, the fearsome warrior goddess, the hunter under moonlight.
In fact, it had led to many a discussion with curious men when she was off duty or on the firing range, young Americans pestering her with their questions and fantasies of the jungle. These young, idealistic fools would never understand what it meant to be in constant danger, the trees themselves housing your enemy, comrades falling in equal numbers to the foe and to Malaria and Dysentery. The young fools would never know what it meant to stare death in the eye, for they had never fought in the Jungle*.
There were, however, some good ones too. One particular group, men who seemed as young as their peers, and yet so much more experienced, passed her a new weapon - the Winchester Model 70. It wasn't military issue, used for hunting and sport rather than the field of battle, and yet it felt so much better than the Enfield rifle she held.
The shorter, thinner barrel and narrower build made it something like half a kilogram lighter than the British-made bolt action, scope and all.
She couldn't bear to discard her faithful friend of three years, the Enfield No.4 which had claimed the lives of so many at her behest, but it was always useful to have a secondary weapon to hand.
She cast her thoughts aside though, remembering the job at hand.
Time to find an idiot.
Leo Valdez awoke to the sight of three, admittedly extremely attractive ladies at his bedside. "Excuse me," he began cautiously, "I'm married… not to let your hopes down or anything, you know?"
He was met with two blank looks and a round of pealing laughter as his words left his mouth, the other two looking irritated at their companion for her reaction.
"Agent McLean, it is bad enough that we are assigned to work alongside this fool," began the one in the middle, seemingly the leader, "at least do us the favour of preventing his ego from inflating past its current dimensions, will you not?"
The lady who had laughed, McLean, apologised quietly, the accent sounding American. Oh good, at least one other sane person travelling with me.
"Okay, sorry about that," Valdez began, tone showing honest embarrassment for his misinterpretation of his new acquaintances' identities. "So I take it I'm the mechanic for this little mission?"
"Indeed you are," replied the third person, a lady with tanned skin, and a lilt to her voice that suggested that English wasn't her first language, rather an Italian or…
"You're Spanish?" He asked without thinking, eyes lighting up in excitement. It was rare in the Navy to get a chance to speak the language with which he had grown up for much of his life.
"Yes, Petty Officer Valdez, I am, in fact, Spanish," she deadpanned, pointing at the tattoo along the inside of her right forearm; a Spanish flag, coat of arms and all. Of course, it had to be kept well hidden while on a mission, with the tattoo being a dead giveaway to the keen observer, and it would out her as a spy at the earliest opportunity.
"Right, enough of the needless conversation, there is work to be done," the leader commanded, tone sharp and glaring at those around her, "We're on a tight schedule, and the briefing is in ten."
Leo found out that he was alongside Agents Piper McLean and Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano of the OSS, as well as Sergeant Zoya 'Nightshade' El-Faouly of the British Army, the sniper of whom he had heard so much gossip. It would certainly be interesting to see if the legends were founded in truth, for to a mechanic and pilot such as himself, it was ridiculous to hear of anyone getting 400 kills, as she was rumoured to have done, though of course she immediately corrected him, placing the figure closer to some 250 victims of her Lee Enfield No.4 rifle, between her action in her homeland of Egypt and then in the Burmese Jungle.
"Don't take Nightshade's attitude to you as anything against you - she's had it up to her neck with idiots asking her ridiculous questions since they realised who exactly it was that was guarding this place," Reyna had explained on the way to the briefing room, which the 36th Infantry Division had set up in the town hall of Saint Raphael. They had been busy, Valdez noted, seeing plans and maps discarded over the last two days, having already faced the first German counterattack headed by Richard Von Schwerein at Le Muy, trying to push the allies back into the Mediterranean. However, a combination of British Paratroopers and the FFI had driven them back. Another assault of Saint Raphael itself had been fended off by the US Third, despite some strong fighting. McLean commented that she had played her own part in that, having blown up one of the roads in the hills, and then laid mines on another.
It sounded so impersonal, and yet Valdez understood immediately that the Oklahoma-born spy didn't see it that way, and dropped the matter.
The man in charge of the briefing was a British General, a portly man with a rather impressive handlebar moustache, in the brief summary given to Leo by Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, and the only further information she had garnered from his mannerisms was that he was a sleazy drunk; a lazy one at that.
Very informative.
At this moment in time the newly augmented group of four were being instructed on their objective - a gestapo convoy, carrying agents and prisoners of the infamous Nazi secret police. The true value here, of course, was the information available to them if they managed to capture even one of the elusive agents. It had been a miracle in itself that Allied spies in North Italy had tracked them as the convoy entered the Alps, though all contact had been lost the previous day.
"The most crucial detail here," the man proclaimed in his Upper Class Londoner's drawl, "Is that we can track where they're going. We can see that on their northern trajectory, they are moving from Italy towards Germany, possibly under rapidly changing orders as a result of our fresh assault on this coast of France, which blocks off this detention centre," he explained, pointing at the Nazi camp in Rivesaltes, which was blocked off now by the Allied foothold in Provence, which was expanding by the day, due to the enemy's acceptance of their defeat in the region, the retreat having been sanctioned by Hitler in a move that went against his philosophy of 'No Step Backwards'.
"Our information tells me, therefore, that the convoy is destined for either Innsbruck, or Dachau further North."
This declaration was met with some level of apprehension - they needed to move fast, and the Alps weren't any small area of land to scour, let alone for a small team of four, even if each was skilled in their own right.
"General Bacchus," Valdez began, tone apprehensive at speaking out against an officer as senior as Dyson Bacchus. The man may have been accused of being a subject of Nepotism and accelerated through the ranks as such, the man had overseen resounding success wherever he had gone. In his impressively long military career, he had overseen British action in India as early as 1910 as a Second Lieutenant of Edward VII's army, serving thereafter in the forces of King George and later George VI following the abdication of Edward.
Valdez noticed the grizzled old officer staring expectantly at him, iridescent eyes seeming to glow purple in the light, and the US Navy Pilot gathered himself to avoid further embarrassing himself. "Sir, how are the four of us," gesturing around at the occupants of the tent, "Going to find a convoy of Germans in the Alps?"
The two spies looked skywards in disbelief, the sniper Nightshade muttering a word to the heavens praying for patience, the phrase flying from her mouth in rapid Arabic.
"Petty Officer Valdez, I shall be so bold as to say that it is wise that you keep your mouth shut," Bacchus deadpanned, leaving no room for argument.
And Valdez complied.
The plan itself, as Leo found out on the journey on his brand new Harley Davidson WLA - the American-made bike was easily one of the fastest vehicles in use for militaries across the world, and even modified to carry a Submachine Gun - was that eleven more teams, each of similar size to their own would be closing in on the estimated route of the convoy from a different direction. The first team to find the convoy would tail the Germans until such a time as two teams could join up, and their interception could adequately be executed.
Teams were being sent out in aircraft, typically the C-47 'Skytrain', or 'Dakota' as the British seemed to insist on calling it.
Bikes would be used on terra firma due to the superior speed and manoeuvrability over the German Trucks and Half-Tracks.
Little did this group of four know that an identical team was being deployed at this very moment aboard a C-47 Dakota from Paris towards the French-Italian border, ready to take up the chase the moment they hit the ground, itching for a fight after their humiliating retreat two months prior.
Two Brits, an American, a Canadian and a German, each with experience in their bodies and determination in their minds, and collectively determined to be the ones to fulfil their objectives.
The next twist of fate drew yet closer.
A/N
Apologies once more for the longer gap between updates, time has been difficult to come by as I prepare to leave for university. hopefully it'll come back to my weekly schedule at some point soon.
*It's cruel and horrible and I hate that I've written it, but it's Zoya/Zoe's view AT THIS POINT. It is in no way meant to be offensive, and I apologise profusely if this affects anyone in any way - In my mind, as I wrote this, this was just another situation of a vet literally suffering from PTSD at the beginning of this passage, getting quizzed by newbie kids who have barely shot their weapons in anger, and that's the character's reaction to that scenario.
Interestingly, the name Dyson is actually a butchered derivation of the name Dionysus, according to certain sources.