Twenty-One: Coming of Age in World War II. James Holland

decent treatment; a man with a temperature of only 101 was given a dose of sympathy and told to get back in line.

      On they went, one day catching some fish by lobbing hand grenades into a pool, another day getting completely lost. After rendezvousing with several other columns, the officers were called to Brigade HQ and given a briefing on the situation. Afterwards Chris noted, ‘It looks as if we will have some fighting now.’ How right he was. First, though, they still had to reach Blackpool. The closer they got, the harder the march. Climbing a particularly steep hill, one of Chris’s medical mules slipped and somersaulted twenty feet back down into a thicket of bamboo. It took two hours to free it and get it back on its feet again. ‘Yes, very bad country,’ noted Chris.’ Very