Headhunters of Borneo. Shaun Clarke

do to prevent it, Sanderson looked back no more.

      He moved at the crouch deeper into the jungle, weaving broadly between the trees, stopping every few minutes to concentrate on the silence and allow any enemy troops in the vicinity to give themselves away by their movement. As he had anticipated, the group pursuing him had broken up to fan out, hoping to find him sooner that way.

      One of them materialized straight ahead, his presence made known only by the slight shifting of foliage. Not wishing to give his presence away by firing his SLR, and also in need of rations for what he knew would be a long hike, Sanderson very carefully lowered his SLR to the jungle floor, unsheathed his Fairburn-Sykes commando knife, and inched forward to the shifting, whispering foliage. Rising up silently behind where the foliage was moving, he saw the shoulders and back of the head of the enemy soldier in jungle-green fatigues.

      Sanderson stepped forward without hesitation, letting the bushes part noisily, to cover the soldier’s mouth with one hand, jerk his head back and slash across his throat with the knife, slitting the jugular. As the man went into a spasm and his throat gushed warm blood, Sanderson kept his mouth covered and held him even tighter, ensuring that his convulsions did not make too much noise. The dying soldier struggled very briefly, choking on his own blood, and eventually went limp in Sanderson’s arms.

      Lowering the dead man gently, almost tenderly to the ground, though this was solely to keep the noise down, Sanderson removed the webbed belt containing his victim’s survival rations and placed the belt around his own body. Then, after going back to pick up his SLR, he headed carefully into the jungle once more.

      Four days later, after an epic journey through jungle and swamp, across rivers, through uncharted valleys and over densely wooded hills, using nearly invisible tracks and dangerously swaying aerial walkways, braving snakes, scorpions, wild pigs, charging boar and headhunters, Sanderson – slashed by thorns and palm leaves, bitten by mosquitoes, drained of blood by leeches, a stone lighter and almost starving, his uniform in tatters and his feet badly blistered – stumbled out of the jungle in the early-morning mist of Kuching, Sarawak, and staggered up to the guarded main gates of SAS HQ.

      ‘I have something to report,’ he croaked to the astounded trooper on duty. Then he collapsed.

       1

      The briefing took place in the new SAS headquarters, a large house lent to them by the Sultan of Brunei and known as the ‘Haunted House’ because during the days of the Japanese occupation, when it had been used as an interrogation centre, a young British woman had been tortured to death there and was now said to haunt the place. Even so, it was a great improvement on the makeshift headquarters the SAS Squadrons had been using previously, containing as it did a communications centre (COMMCEN), sleeping quarters, showers, recreation room, and other rooms such as the lecture hall where the briefing was given.

      Leading the session was the Squadron Commander, Major Patrick ‘Paddy’ Callaghan, who felt completely at home in Borneo after having served his stint in Malaya during the Emergency. Also, though many SAS officers felt ill at ease when first confronting their notoriously critical troopers – it was the SAS NCOs, after all, who picked the officers during Initial Selection and thereafter judged them sternly – Callaghan felt comfortable because of his lengthy experience with the SAS since its inception in World War Two.

      In fact, Callaghan had been one of the very first officers to work with the regiment’s founder, Captain David Stirling, alongside the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa. After a few years back with his original regiment, 3 Commando, he had been one of the first chosen to take part in the regiment’s re-formation during the Emergency in Malaya. From there he had returned to Bradbury Lines, then still located at Merebrook Camp, Malvern, where he had worked with his former Malayan Squadron Commander, Major Pryce-Jones, on the structuring of the rigorous new Selection and Training programme for the regiment, based mostly on ideas devised and thoroughly tested in Malaya. Promoted to the rank of Major in 1962, shortly after the SAS had transferred to Bradbury Lines, Hereford, Callaghan had been pleased to be offered the leadership of D Squadron just before its assignment to the Borneo campaign in 1964.

      It is possible, therefore, that he felt even more at peace with the world because some of his former troopers, including the so-called ‘troublemakers’ Pete Welsh and Alf Laughton, both since promoted to corporal, and Corporal (now Sergeant) Richard Parker, were here with him, impatiently waiting for the briefing while wiping sweat from their faces and swatting away swarms of flies and mosquitoes.

      ‘Piggin’ fucking flies and mosquitoes,’ Alf Laughton said. ‘They only send me to countries filled with the bastards. It’s their way of tormenting me and driving me loopy.’

      ‘You buzz like a fly and whine like a mosquito,’ his good mate, Pete Welsh, replied sardonically. ‘That’s why they send you to places like this. They think they’re sending you home.’

      ‘Fuck you an’ all,’ Alf grunted.

      ‘All right,’ Callaghan said firmly, picking up a pointer, tapping it noisily on his lectern, then pulling the cloth covering off the blackboard behind him to reveal a large map of Borneo. ‘Pay attention now. This,’ he continued when the men had settled down, ‘is what we’re protecting.’ He tapped the word ‘Sarawak’ with his pointer, then ‘Kuching’ and ‘Brunei’ and finally ran the pointer along the red-dotted line marking the border. ‘Regarding the required background…’

      He was interrupted by the customary moans and groans, since this was always the least popular part of an initial briefing, when the men had to listen, rather than taking part in the SAS custom of the ‘Chinese parliament’, or free exchange of ideas between officers and men.

      ‘I know you all find this boring,’ Callaghan said, grinning, ‘but it’s necessary, so kindly be quiet.’ When they had settled down again, he continued: ‘Brunei is one of three British dependencies in Borneo; the others are the colonies of North Borneo, now known as Sabah, and Sarawak. These territories, though extensive, represent only a quarter of the island. The rest belongs to Indonesia, whose head of state, President Sukarno…’

      ‘The Mad Doctor!’ Alf bellowed, winning a few laughs. With flaming red hair and a face pitted by acne, the corporal looked like a wild man. He had served twice in Malaya. The first time was in 1953 with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry – when he had spent most of his time having a good time in Penang, rather than fighting. The second was in 1958, when, as a recently badged SAS trooper, he had been forced to stop fooling around and, instead, faced the horrors of the Telok Anson swamp alongside Sergeant Parker, Corporal Pete Welsh and a good many other, now dead, friends. Once considered a troublemaker and almost thrown out of the SAS, Alf had been saved by his exemplary behaviour in that dreadful swamp and went on to become a ruthlessly efficient member of the Directing Staff at 22 SAS Training Wing, Hereford. Now considered an ‘old Malayan hand’, he was indisputably a good man to have in Borneo.

      ‘Yes,’ Callaghan agreed, acknowledging the nickname bestowed by British troops on Indonesia’s ambitious leader. ‘The Mad Doctor…Anyway, on 8 December 1962 an internal rebellion in Brunei was organized and led by a young sheikh named Azahart, who wanted to unite the three dependencies. This he did by launching simultaneous guerrilla attacks against police stations, government buildings and other strategically important targets. Obliged to put this revolt down, the British quickly sent in troops stationed in Singapore, including the Queen’s Own Highlanders, the Royal Marine Commandos and the Gurkhas. Eight days later the rebellion was over and most of the rebels had fled into the jungle.’

      ‘Where they remain to this day,’ Pete Welsh said.

      ‘More or less,’ answered Callaghan.

      Another old Malayan hand, Londoner Pete Welsh was an explosives expert who had been trained at No 101 Special Training School Singapore during World War Two, transferred as a sapper to 3rd Corps, with whom he had fought the Japanese during the occupation, then finally became an SAS trooper with D Squadron, returning to Malaya to