The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,164

sleep.

Andrew was shaken awake by Corporal Mackenzie. ‘Sir! Sorry to wake you, sir, but Captain Grant is asking for you.’

The sky was a pre-dawn grey through the bamboo fronds. Andrew stirred, stiff and aching, unable to believe he had slept untroubled for so long.

He found Grant near the mess tent, clutching a tin mug of tea. John handed it to him. ‘Have a slurp.’

‘Thanks.’ Andrew took it and drank the tepid tea thirstily.

John said in a low voice, ‘You’ll hear about this officially soon, but there was a raid on the main dressing station last night.’

‘The one near the perimeter?’ Andrew gasped. It was where they’d taken the casualties from the ammo dump explosion.

‘Enemy broke through and temporarily captured the hospital.’ Andrew saw the harrowed look on John’s face as he ploughed on. ‘They bayonetted the patients and shot the medical staff.’

‘God in heaven!’ Andrew cried.

John’s face was taut with suppressed anger as he nodded. ‘A handful managed to escape – the less injured ones. I don’t know if your young risaldar friend was among the lucky few.’

Andrew covered his face with his hands. ‘I should have stayed awake. I should have been there!’

‘You couldn’t have stopped it,’ said John. ‘They were overrun. But you can help now with the burials. Take a few men and report to Major Swinson. Some of our boys were among the injured taken there yesterday too.’

The grim task of identifying the butchered patients and burying them in hastily dug graves away from the trenches went on all morning under renewed enemy shelling. Three young Borderers were among the dead – men whose families John would have to write to, relaying the news they would have been dreading. And they retrieved the mutilated body of Mohammed Ali Khan.

Andrew had hardly known the young risaldar but had made an instant connection with him over their shared family history with the Rifles. If it hadn’t been for their chance meeting, Andrew would have lived on in ignorance about his father’s quiet bravery. Mohammed Ali Khan had given him a precious gift and he determined he would write in person to his grandfather, Tor Khan, and tell him of the risaldar’s courage.

The killing of defenceless doctors and patients had a huge effect on the morale of the troops. Fuelled by outrage and a desire for revenge, they redoubled their efforts to defend the ‘box’ and inflict as many casualties on the enemy as they could.

Day after day, they withstood a relentless barrage from heavy guns, machine guns and mortar fire, while planes strafed them from above. Close to the perimeter they fought with rifles and hand grenades as a fusillade of bullets whistled overhead. The jungle clearing and surrounding hillsides were burnt and scarred by battle, looking as if fire and locusts had swept through the land. At times, in the ferocity of attacks on their posts, the Borderers fought in hand-to-hand combat, repelling the enemy with bayonets and pistols. They took many casualties.

At night, soldiers from the rebel Indian National Army, fighting alongside the Japanese, crept down to the perimeter and taunted the Indians inside the ‘box’ to turn on their British oppressors and desert. None of them did.

Then, a week after they had first regrouped at Admin Box, on the night of the fourteenth, the Japanese army made an all-out attack. In the confusion of darkness and dense smoke, they broke through the defence of guns, barbed wire and soldiers and by morning had succeeded in taking command of a hill on the perimeter.

But the next day, the Allied troops, supported by tanks of the 25th Dragoons, retook the hill with heavy loss of life.

Andrew and John took it in turns to take command of the unit. Their existence was one of fierce fighting, hastily eaten meals and snatched sleep in the bottom of a trench, hardly aware of the rats that scuttled around them. They had brief conversations.

‘If it wasn’t for the tanks,’ said John, ‘we’d have been overrun days ago.’

‘And the air drops,’ said Andrew. ‘Those pilots and air crew deserve bloody medals for what they do.’

‘Aye,’ John agreed. ‘The High Command had a stroke of genius on that one.’

Andrew rubbed his tired eyes and scratched his bearded chin. He looked at his friend in admiration. ‘And I don’t know how you manage to keep shaving in these conditions. You look ready for dinner in the mess.’

John laughed and took another bite of dry biscuit. ‘I’m dreaming of the day we’re dining in the