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The Twenty-third Indian Division, commanded by General Roberts (whom I had seen many times) had ordered the battalion to advance, which it had done. There were quite a few chaps there whom I did not know but one that I did, Private Kemsley. I was not given permission to catch up with my battalion because the Japanese were in the vicinity. At night the Japanese would creep as near as possible to our positions. They would then shout, ‘Hello, Johnny. Here is a pineapple for you.’ A grenade would explode near our positions, pineapple being the slang word used for a grenade. But no harm was done.

Two days went by and then Private Kemsley came up to me and said that there was a colonel joining us who had been promoted to brigadier and was taking command of Forty-ninth Brigade, and that I should be his driver/batman. I thought this over and decided to take it. I then went and introduced myself to Brigadier Rodham. H was a tall man and also quite broad, and we took to each other right away. I was told he was formerly in command of a Ghurkha battalion. The Forty-ninth Brigade was made up of three battalions. Punjabs and Ghurkhas plus Brigade HQ.

We did not stay at those positions for long. We moved on until we reached the top of the hill and once again it was more like the top of a mountain. We could see the road and noticed shells which were exploding very near. I could see smoke from the guns and pointed this out to the brigadier. He turned to the officer who was in command of our guns and asked him to train his guns on the position of the smoke I had pointed out. Our mountain guns, which were set quite a way back, started firing and from our view point it looked as if they were on target. Whether they were or not we will never know, but the shelling stopped. I thought it was very nice (and sensible) of the brigadier to take notice of what I said.

Our next move was to capture a hill which was important to the whole division. It took three days to reach the hill through dense jungle and was extremely hard going. All of the officers who were with us continually asked the Brigadier, ‘Can’t we have a rest?’ He would say, ‘Lewis, you did not do this in the Seaforth Highlanders.’ I never knew what to reply so I kept quiet. Two of the brigadier’s brigades moved to either side of the hill which again was more like a mountain. After much climbing and effort, we finally reached the top.

During this time the monsoons had started. Everybody and everything seemed to be wet and the ground underneath was turning to mud. All we had was our groundsheets and we made camp on top of the mountain which must have been quite a few thousand feet high. The Japanese were now sending over shells which were exploding all round us. So far nobody had been hurt, but the Japanese must have got the range right as the explosions were getting too close for comfort. The brigadier then said, ‘The Japanese have the range for this side of the hill so we will move to the other side.’ This we did and the shelling no longer harmed us. We dug in once again. Our only cover from the constant rain was out groundsheets, and we also had very little rations left. One of the officers said that our supplies would be dropped by air.
As the Dakota planes came over I saw the crew push the parcels out of the open doors and I watched as the parachute on each parcel opened. Unfortunately, most of them missed us and went over to the Japanese. I hoped they enjoyed our American rations, which was what we were now being supplied with. However, we did have enough.

Still the rain continued and our clothes were soaked. John and I had a great idea. At night we would take off all our clothes and wrap ourselves in the parachute from the food parcels to keep warm. The worst part was getting back into our wet clothes in the morning, but we got used to it. When the sun came out, it was soon so hot that our clothes quickly dried while we wore them. But by the afternoon we would be wet again.

Brigadier Rodham was a great commander. If he had not moved us to the other side of the mountain I do not think we would have survived. We held that position for a week until the Japanese had moved away. The Punjabs suffered many casualties: they gave the Japanese no rest, attacking them again and again. The hill was then called Punjab Hill. Brigadier Rodham told me we had orders to move on so we took what little we had with us and mules (our only means of transport) carried all our other equipment. After a few days of hacking our way through the jungle again, we took up our new positions. Brigadier Rodham then said that he and I were going to see his battalion commanders. They were quite near us so it did not take long. Upon reaching one battalion he told me his meeting with the commander of the battalion would not be long. When the commander ordered tea for him, the brigadier thanked him and said, ‘And one for Lewis.’ That was the kind of man he was.

To read part 11 go to: A7357296

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