Torrance: Betrayal in Burma

By Jonathan Lunn

A loyal British soldier makes a final stand for a crumbling empire in the explosive final novel of this WWII military thriller trilogy.

Burma, 1942. In the face of a relentless Japanese advance, the British Army is in headlong retreat. Given command of a squad of defaulters, Corporal Charlie Torrance is tasked with escorting a notorious political prisoner to captivity in India. But a Japanese intelligence agent has joined forces with Burmese independence fighters intent on rescuing their comrade.

As if this circumstance wasn’t challenging enough, it’s starting to look as though there could be a traitor in Torrance’s squad. As the British Empire crumbles, Torrance will be forced to question everything he’s fighting for when he makes a bloody last stand in the sultry Burmese jungle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788639231

Jonathan Lunn

Born in London a very long time ago, Jonathan Lunn claims to have literary antecedents, being descended from the man who introduced Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the Reichenbach Falls. To relax he goes for long strolls in the British countryside, an activity which over the years has resulted in him getting lost (multiple times), breaking a rib, failing to overcome his fear of heights atop dizzying precipices, fleeing herds of stampeding cattle, providing a feast for blood-sucking parasites, being shot at by hooligans with air-rifles, and finding himself trapped by rising floodwaters. He lives in Bristol where he writes full time.

Book preview

To Ed

Map of Burma

One

Vultures shuffled restlessly on the boughs of the banyan tree, waiting for Corporal Torrance to finish checking the pulse of the man nailed to the trunk below and bugger off so they could feed.

Private Rossi voiced the question uppermost in the vultures’ minds. ‘Is he deid?’ he asked, pressing the back of one hand to his mouth as if choking back bile. With his short stature, crinkly black hair, dark eyes, thick black brows and dimpled chin, Rossi had inherited his swarthy complexion from his Italian parents, but his accent came from the streets of Glasgow.

‘I wouldn’t put his name down for any jitterbugging competitions, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ Torrance had not clung on to his sanity after five months on the front line without developing a degree of gallows’ humour. Like Rossi, he was dressed in battle-stained khaki drills.

‘Barbaric, that’s what it is.’ Rossi indicated the dead man’s mutilated corpse. ‘Who would do a thing like that?’

‘The Japs, that’s who.’

‘The Japanese are no’ this far north. No’ yet.’

‘Not that we know of. But you know how it was in Malaya. Just when you think you’re safely behind the lines, they infiltrate through the jungle. Next thing you know, the bastards have outflanked you.’

‘Aye, true that. But ye remember that feller inna Dental Corps with the dodgy eye? He was sayin’ sumptin’ similar happened to a bloke in his mob.’

Torrance helped himself to the dead man’s pay book and one of his identity tags. ‘What, they nailed him to a tree and cut his goolies off?’

‘Aye. Only it wisnae Japanese, it was fifth columnists. Burmese civilians willing to fight for independence and naïve enough to think they’ll get it frae the Japanese. Word is they’re out in force, spying for the Japanese, sabotaging bridges and railways, grabbing any stragglers they can lay their hands on and doing that to them.’ He indicated the dead man’s crotch.

‘Stragglers,’ echoed Torrance.

‘Aye. Ye know, fellers that’ve become separated frae their units.’

‘I know what a straggler is, Lefty. Fellers like us, you mean.’

‘Aye… oh!’

‘Shall we keep moving?’

‘Aye, good idea, Slugger.’

As the two of them hurried on through the trees, the vultures flapped down to feast, squawking and squabbling over the most succulent titbits.

Torrance and Rossi had not been walking for ten minutes when they emerged from the trees to find themselves standing on a tarmac road running along the bank of a river so wide, it could only be the Irrawaddy. The far bank was little more than a vague suggestion through the thin mist hanging over the khaki waters. Growing up in London, Torrance had always believed the Thames was the greatest river in the world, so it had been something of a shock to realise it was a tiny stream compared to the Irrawaddy.

A vast ruby disc, the sun rose over the Pegu Mountains, turning the caramel-coloured spires of a majestic temple rosy in the golden light of dawn. The rank stench of the river competed with the heady perfume of the flame-bright orange blossoms on the padauk trees. A third scent completed the aroma: the acrid reek of the black smoke staining the sky. The breeze had carried it all the way from the oil refineries burning at Yenangyaung, nearly fifty miles to the south. It was a stench that did not seem to have been out of Torrance’s nostrils since he had marched across the causeway into Singapore a couple of months earlier.

Between the road and the river, a section of ‘Glosters’ – eight men from the Gloucestershire Regiment – squatted beneath a clump of palmyra palms, brewing tea in a ‘Benghazi cooker’: a four-gallon petrol can cut in half, the bottom half filled with sand, petrol poured over it and set on fire, the upper half perched atop it upside down, askew to let the air reach the fire. Their faces burned brick-red by the searing sun, they wore the same khaki shirts and baggy ‘Bombay bloomers’ as Torrance and Rossi.

‘Wotcher, lads,’ Torrance greeted them, shrugging off his pack and rolling his shoulders to work the stiffness out of them.

‘Awroight,’ several of them murmured in Gloucestershire accents, more intent on watching their tea brew than in paying any attention to a couple of men from another unit, as long as they were not Japanese. Only their corporal looked at them long enough to register that Torrance and Rossi both wore Balmoral bonnets – the cap badge of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders pinned over their left ears – rather than the sola topis he and his men wore.

‘I didn’t know there were any Jocks in Burma,’ said the Gloster corporal.

‘We may be the only two,’ said Torrance. ‘We got separated from our mob when Singapore fell.’

Now all eight of the Glosters were staring at them. ‘You were in Singapore?’ asked their corporal.

Torrance nodded.

‘How did you wind up here?’

‘It’s a long story,’ said Torrance.

‘And no’ a very interesting one,’ Rossi growled as if to forestall any long-winded explanations.

‘You haven’t lost any of your men, have you?’ asked Torrance.

The other corporal cast an eye over his section, taking a quick head count. ‘No. Why?’

‘We found a bloke from your mob nailed to a tree back there.’

‘Nailed to a tree?’

‘With his balls cut off.’ Torrance proffered the pay book and ID tag he had taken from the dead man.

The other corporal checked the pay book. ‘George Stinchcombe. Wasn’t he in Sergeant Beese’s platoon?’ he asked, and a couple of his men nodded. ‘Poor bastard. Bloody hell. Nothing but bloody savages in this country!’

A sweating Burmese peasant in a conical bamboo hat led a pair of humped, cream-coloured bullocks up the road, drawing a two-wheeled cart piled high with hay. Torrance unslung his Thompson sub-machine gun and pulled back the cocking handle.

‘Something wrong?’ Rossi unslung his Lee–Enfield, working the bolt to put a round up the spout.

‘Are you hot, Lefty?’ asked Torrance.

‘Hot? No. Mind ye, it’s early yet…’

Torrance levelled the Thompson. ‘Move away from the cart,’ he told the sweating peasant.

With a wail of terror, the peasant threw himself to the ground beneath the palms. Once he was out of the way, Torrance could see the barrel of the Nambu light machine gun sticking out of the hay. He fired first, emptying half a magazine into the hay where he guessed the machine-gunner was hidden.

‘Japs!’ he shouted, because he knew the machine-gunner would not be the only one. Even as the Glosters unslung rifles and tommy guns, dozens of Japanese soldiers emerged from the trees, the light of the rising sun glittering on the sixteen-inch blades of the bayonets fixed to their Arisaka rifles. They charged up the road with a cry of ‘Tenno heika banzai!’

Torrance let them have what was left in his Thompson’s magazine before grabbing his pack with his left hand and dashing into the trees. ‘Get the hell out of it, Lefty!’

He ran awkwardly, trying to shrug on his pack while holding his Thompson in his right hand. A Japanese soldier appeared in front of him, his face unshaven, eyes wide in a grimace of fear as he lunged with his bayonet at Torrance’s midriff. The cockney stepped aside, at the same time parrying the thrust with the barrel of his Thompson, the two actions combining just enough to avert the blade an inch too far to do any damage. He kicked the Japanese in the crotch and had the satisfaction of seeing him double up in agony.

Then another came through the trees, and this one had sense enough to stop several yards off and level his Arisaka. Torrance froze, torn between either hurling himself at the Japanese, or replacing the Thompson’s empty magazine, knowing full well he did not have time to do either. A rifle cracked, but it was Rossi’s Lee–Enfield, not the Arisaka. The Japanese dropped to his knees with blood spreading around a bullet hole in his shirt.

‘Thanks, Lefty!’

The two of them ran on, bursting out of the trees into a meadow. The temple Torrance had spotted earlier loomed at the far end: sheer brick sides, tiers above with spires at the four corners, then another storey above that with ornate doorways set in the two sides Torrance could see, and more tiers roofing that, leading up to a stupa, topped with a circular spire. Two winged lions, carved in stone, guarded the main entrance.

Torrance and Rossi dashed across the meadow, their hobnailed ammo boots clattering on the steps leading up to the entrance. Rossi skidded to a halt just short of the threshold and threw out an arm to block Torrance’s path.

‘What is it?’ asked Torrance, thinking perhaps his friend had spotted a Japanese soldier lurking in the shadows of the temple.

‘We’re supposed to take our boots off before we enter Buddhist places of worship.’

‘Oh for Pete’s sake!’ Torrance slammed a palm against one of Rossi’s shoulder blades, making him stagger across the threshold, before following him inside. ‘There’s no one to see but the Japs. Anyway, all this going barefoot in temples just sounds like a good way to spread verrucas to me.’

They paused just inside the doorway, gazing back across the meadow towards the trees. Torrance could not see any Japanese soldiers, but there was no mistaking the sound of small-arms fire. A couple of small explosions: the Japanese were using their mortars.

Breathing hard, Torrance took advantage of the pause to shrug on his pack, getting its straps snug against his shoulders. He removed the empty magazine from his Thompson, pocketing it and replacing it with a fresh one from the utility pouches on his webbing.

Rossi worked the bolt action of his rifle. ‘Is it no’ blasphemous, using a temple for cover in a battle?’

‘What do you care? You’re an atheist, aren’tcha?’

‘I widnae want to offend any Buddhists.’

‘We’ve come here looking for peace, haven’t we?’ Torrance nodded through the doorway behind them to where a massive golden Buddha sat cross-legged in the inner temple with a serene expression on his face. ‘I reckon he’d approve.’

The rattle of small-arms fire was dying down. There was still no sign of any Japanese soldiers approaching the temple. On the other hand, Torrance had a feeling that heading back to the road would not be a good idea. Wondering if any of the Glosters had gotten away alive, he retreated deeper into the shadows. The echoing passageways were high and narrow, and little light penetrated the depths of the temple. The place stank of bat droppings and the flagstones felt slippery underfoot. ‘Bet you’re glad we kept our boots on,’ he murmured to Rossi.

They almost missed the opening in the masonry to their left where a narrow staircase led up: only the faint light showing at the top drew Torrance’s eye to it. He tapped Rossi on the shoulder to make sure he had his attention, then pointed up the stairs. Rossi nodded and the two of them ascended, guns at the ready.

The staircase opened into a chamber decorated with murals and a door in one wall. They stepped out and found themselves on one of the upper tiers of the temple. The Plains of Bagan stretched out before them, flat and wide until it reached the distant hills. Immediately below them, they could see into the meadows between the trees. Goats grazed the sparse yellow grass that remained in the brown and cracked soil this late in the dry season. The meadows probably stretched on as far as the plains did, but beyond half a mile all Torrance could see was the trees, and hundreds of temples rising from amongst them, much like the one they now stood on, some ancient and crumbling, others looking as whole and fresh as if construction had only ended the day before.

‘Jings!’ said Rossi. ‘We’re no’ in Kansas any more.’

Torrance made sure they were not framed against the sky if anyone on the road happened to glance towards the temple.

The growl, squeak and clatter of caterpillar tracks came from the road. The trees prevented Torrance from seeing them, but he had seen both Stuart and Chi-Ha tanks in his time and could tell them apart just from the sound of their engines. The tanks coming up the road today were not Stuarts.

Moving around the outside of the upper level of the temple, he took out a road map of central Burma. ‘That’s east… so Maymyo must be that way.’ He pointed to the left of the sunrise, his outstretched arm parallel to the river.

‘We cannae follow the river any more, that’s clear,’ said Rossi.

Torrance nodded. ‘Maybe if we head a couple of miles inland and then head north-east, we can still reach Maymyo. The going doesn’t look too rough.’

They left the temple via the eastern exit and jogged across the meadow on the other side. A couple of lorries came down the dirt track at the far side and skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust. The driver was a Gurkha. ‘Well, get in if you’re getting in,’ the white officer sitting next to him told them impatiently.

Torrance and Rossi were helped over the tailgate by Gurkhas in double-terai slouch hats, kukris sheathed at their hips. The one sitting closest to the back of the cab banged a fist on it, and a moment later the driver restarted the engine.

Torrance produced the tobacco tin he kept his cigarettes in and shared them around. Most of the Gurkhas had the slack-jawed, glassy stare of men recently pulled out of combat, and several wore bloodstained bandages.

A couple of hours later, Rossi nudged Torrance and pointed through the trees on the riverbank to where they could see a bridge stretching across the river, fifteen brick piles supporting the bridge’s sixteen steel-truss spans. ‘Yon must be the Ava Bridge.’

‘Given it’s the only bridge across the Irrawaddy, I’d say that’s a reasonable deduction,’ agreed Torrance.

‘Th’ only bridge across the Irrawaddy? Gerraway!’

‘What d’yer mean?’

‘The Irrawaddy’s a thousand miles long! Are ye gaunae tell me there’s only one bridge across it in all its length?’

‘It’s because it’s so wide. This was the only place they could build one.’

Rossi shook his head in disgust. ‘How long has this country been a British colony? More than a hundred years? Ye’d think we might have built a few more bridges across the Irrawaddy by now.’

‘It’s nearly a mile wide, mate. And look at that bridge: that’s a miracle of modern engineering, that is. You can’t tell me the Burmans could’ve built anything like that. That’s the British Empire done that.’

‘So we get the rubber plantations, the oil wells, the teak forests, the ruby mines and the amber, and what do we give them in return? One lousy bridge!’

The lorry pulled up behind a column of Stuart tanks. A fort from an earlier era of warfare stood on the riverbank, its casemates concealed behind an inclined glacis. Beyond the fort, a redcap conducted traffic, motioning the tanks across the bridge, making sure there was never more than one tank on each span at a time.

‘If we’re headed for Maymyo, we’d better get off here,’ Torrance told Rossi. The Glaswegian nodded, and the two of them took their leave of the Gurkhas, vaulting over the tailgate and thanking the officer and his driver before heading up the road on foot.

Rossi caught Torrance by the sleeve. ‘Ye know, by the time we get to Maymyo, Major Calvert and his lot are just gaunae be packing up their kit, ready to pull out?’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘So we could prob’ly save ourselves a lot of trouble if we headed for India first.’ Rossi indicated the bridge. ‘Catch up with Major Calvert later. For all we know, we could get to Maymyo and find out he’s pulled out already.’

Torrance pursed his lips. There was logic in Rossi’s suggestion. As yet there had been no formal announcement that the British Army was pulling out of Burma, but most of the white civilians had been given their marching orders weeks ago, and it could only be a matter of days before the army followed. Perhaps the decision had already been taken and had yet to reach Torrance and Rossi. If they did go to Maymyo, Calvert would only put them to work loading boxes into lorries. Torrance did not much fancy that.

On the other hand, the army did not run on logic. It ran on hierarchy, tradition, paperwork and good old army tea, but more than anything else, it ran on orders. And Torrance’s and Rossi’s orders were to report to Major Calvert at the Bush Warfare School in Maymyo. If they started trying to put their own interpretation on those orders, they were liable to wind up being court-martialled for going absent without leave, perhaps even desertion.

‘Orders is orders, Lefty,’ said Torrance. ‘Besides, it’s gotta be 300 miles to India, and we don’t have travel warrants. You want to walk it?’

‘When ye put it like that…’

The two of them turned right, following the road to Maymyo. Before they had marched half a mile, they heard the roar of a motor engine and turned to see a Morris Quad tractor coming up the road behind them. They flagged it down.

The driver leaned out of the window. ‘D’ye fellers need a lift?’ he asked in an Irish accent.

‘Are you going to Maymyo?’

The driver nodded. ‘Hop in, then.’

Torrance and Rossi got inside. The driver leaned over the back of his seat to shake them both by the hand. ‘Noel McCann,’ he introduced himself.

‘Charlie Torrance,’ said Torrance.

‘Gino Rossi,’ said Rossi.

‘Shouldn’t you be towing a twenty-five pounder?’ asked Torrance.

‘I’m on me way to fetch one now.’ McCann put the Quad in gear. ‘Me mob’s got orders to pull out, but we’ve got more guns than tractors now, so it’s a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. You?’

‘We’re on our way to report to the Bush Warfare School.’

‘Is there a Bush Warfare School in Maymyo?’

‘Apparently.’

‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if ye get there and find they’ve pulled out already. If you ask me, the orders will come through any day now for the whole army to pull out.’

‘I hope not! We don’t wanna get left behind.’

‘Well, I’ll tell ye what, lads. I’ll drive yez up to the door of the Bush Warfare School, if we can find it, and if there’s no one there when we get there, yez can stay with me till I’ve dropped another twenty-five pounder off at Monywa.’

‘Noel, you’re a gentleman and a scholar.’

As they drove up the road to Maymyo, the countryside turned from the sun-flayed scrubby vegetation of the Irrawaddy Plain to the cooler pines of the Shan Hills, and within an hour they had reached Maymyo.

A typical hill station, before the civilian evacuation Maymyo had been the sort of place where army officers and colonial officials kept their wives and children, and came to visit them and play golf and polo at the weekend. Nearly all the red-brick houses were designed to look English, and one might have thought oneself in the Home Counties in August if it had not been for the traveller’s palms growing on the front lawns, and the occasional pagoda. The streets were largely deserted: the civilians had been evacuated weeks ago. McCann got directions to the Bush Warfare School from the guard on the gate at the Alexander Barracks. It turned out to be tucked away on the outskirts of town. Torrance was relieved to see a sentry at the gate. ‘Looks like there’s someone still at home,’ he remarked to McCann. ‘Thanks for the lift, Noel.’

‘Ye’re welcome, lads. Yez fellers mind how ye go now.’

Once they had climbed down from the Quad, McCann waved to them out of the window before making a three-point turn and heading back towards the Alexander Barracks.

‘We’ve been ordered to report to Major Calvert,’ Torrance told the sentry at the gate.

Another soldier was detailed to lead them to the CO’s office in one of the huts overlooking the parade ground. In the outer office, a tall, brawny sergeant major stood up, talking to someone on a telephone, while a bespectacled corporal tapped away at a typewriter with two fingers.

‘We’re here to see Major Calvert?’ Torrance asked the orderly corporal.

‘The major’s got someone in with him now. Want a cuppa char while you wait?’

‘Maybe a chance to smarten yourselves up a bit while you’re about it,’ growled the sergeant major, returning the telephone’s receiver to its cradle. His own khaki shirt and Bombay bloomers were spotless, and Torrance could have shaved himself using his reflection in the sergeant major’s boots.

‘We had a bit of a hard time getting here,’ he explained. He exchanged glances with Rossi, and the two of them laughed.

The sergeant major did not smile. Torrance had a theory that when a man was up for promotion to warrant officer, once he had provided documentary evidence that his father had never married his mother, he was made to sit in a room while Max Miller and Tommy Trinder regaled him with their finest material. If the applicant stood there without once cracking a smile, the promotion to sergeant major was confirmed.

The door to the CO’s office opened and a stocky brigadier wearing an old-fashioned Wolseley-pattern pith helmet emerged. He turned back to face the officer who followed him out: a tall, broad-shouldered major with a moustache beneath a nose that looked as if it had been broken and reset more than once. Torrance was relieved to see the major’s uniform was every bit as grimy and threadbare as his own.

‘Thank you, Calvert,’ said the brigadier. ‘It’s been very illuminating talking to you. I look forward to working with you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the major.

‘I’ll be in touch.’ The brigadier glanced at Torrance and Rossi, then turned away as if unimpressed with what he saw, and strode out.

Major Calvert looked at them both. ‘I didn’t know there were any Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in Burma?’

‘We may be the only two, sir,’ said Torrance. ‘Most of the rest of our mob was stranded in Singapore when the Japanese marched in. We only got out by the skin of our teeth and pitched up in Rangoon a few hours ahead of the Japs.’

‘What can I do for you?’

Torrance produced their letter of introduction and proffered it to the major. ‘From Colonel Hamilton, sir. Hopefully it will explain everything.’

Calvert laughed. ‘Hamilton, eh? What’s that old rascal up to these days?’

Perhaps Torrance had spent too much time with the colonel over the past two months, but his habits of discretion had rubbed off on him, so he refrained from telling Calvert the colonel was now in the Centre for Operational Intelligence and Signals. It was a detail Hamilton himself would probably have described as ‘not something the major needs to know’.

‘He’s very well, sir.’

‘Splendid, splendid,’ Calvert said vaguely, tearing open the envelope. ‘Well, come on in, then. You’ll have to forgive the state of my uniform. I’d just come back from being out on operations in the field when I found Brigadier Wingate waiting for me. I didn’t want to keep him waiting while I showered and changed.’

Torrance and Rossi stood to attention before Calvert’s desk, thumbs aligned with the seams of their Bombay bloomers. ‘We’re not exactly fit for Horse Guards ourselves, sir,’ said the corporal.

‘We’re pretty informal here.’ Calvert sat down behind his desk to peruse the letter. ‘You can stand easy.’

Torrance exchanged glances with Rossi: this was all very promising. A considerate officer would often tell men to stand at ease when they stood before him. Though more comfortable than standing to attention, even ‘at ease’ had a strictly defined meaning in army parlance: legs akimbo, hands clasped behind the back, head up, chest out and all that bull. ‘Standing easy’ was another thing entirely: it pretty much meant standing however a man pleased, within reason.

Calvert looked up from the letter. ‘I’m afraid Colonel Hamilton is labouring under something of a misapprehension, gentlemen.’

‘He is?’ asked Torrance.

The major nodded. ‘We don’t teach bush warfare here.’

‘I see.’ Torrance did not see at all. ‘And that big sign out in front that says Bush Warfare School…?’

‘A blind to confuse enemy spies.’

‘I can see how that would be very effective.’

‘What we actually teach here is guerrilla warfare. Do either of you know anything about guerrilla warfare?’

‘Not really, sir,’ admitted Torrance.

‘Though Colonel Hamilton says you once spent three weeks behind enemy lines in Malaya.’

‘Yes, sir. Mind you, we were guests of the Emperor Hirohito for the third week.’

‘Until you escaped.’

‘We didn’t much care for his idea of hospitality.’

Calvert chuckled. ‘Quite. But not many would have had the gumption to do anything about it. Hamilton also says you penetrated behind enemy lines on a mission for him. He doesn’t go into details and I won’t ask, but he says he was perfectly satisfied with your performance on that occasion.’

‘That’s very kind of him, sir.’

Calvert struck a match, set fire to the letter and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. ‘With that kind of testimonial, I should hang my head in shame if I can’t find something useful for a couple of chaps like you to do. For the moment it’s all rather moot, however, as all training is suspended. You are now addressing the commanding officer of the Bush Warfare Battalion. I’ve been ordered to use the staff here – all twenty-two of us – as the nucleus of a front-line battalion made of whatever troops I can lay my hands on.’

‘Including us, I suppose?’

‘A couple of battle-hardened, able-bodied chaps like you? I’d be mad not to.’ Calvert held out a hand. ‘Pay books.’

They took out their pay books and handed them over. Calvert continued to talk to them while he leafed through the records of the training courses they had been on. ‘Rossi, you don’t seem to have much to say for yourself.’

‘Corporal Torrance speaks enough for the both of us, sir.’

‘Says here you completed the army scouting course in 1935. How long have you been in the army?’

‘Seven years, sir.’

‘And still only a private?’

‘Our old CO kept asking him if he was willing to be a lancejack, sir,’ said Torrance. ‘Lefty always turned it down.’

‘What’s your opinion? Would Rossi make a good NCO?’

‘He could if he wanted to, sir. He’s a good man to have around when the shrapnel starts flying, I know that much.’

‘And what about you, Corporal? Colonel Hamilton’s glowing testimonial aside, if I could look into your service file, what would I see?’

‘A wad of crime sheets as thick as a telephone directory, sir. Six months in the detention barracks at Lucknow for striking an officer a few years back – that’s why they call me Slugger – and more minor charges than I care to remember. Mostly insubordination.’

‘Well, at least you’re honest about it.’ Calvert grinned ruefully. ‘If not downright proud of it. And yet still your CO gave you two stripes… what about Rossi? What’s his record like?’

‘Model soldier, sir. His politics are a bit iffy, but apart from that he’s a right perishing goody two-shoes. Never been in trouble once since he joined the army. Except when it was me that landed him in it.’

‘Seven years’ undetected crime.’ Rossi grinned. ‘I’m just better at no’ gettin’ caught than Slugger is.’

‘You know, I think you two, if not the answer to a maiden’s prayers, are certainly the answer to mine.’ Calvert handed back their pay books before making out a chit and handing it to Torrance.

The corporal pocketed his pay book and glanced at the chit. ‘Two new sets of khaki drills and a lance corporal’s stripes.’

‘I’d rather not, sir,’ said Rossi.

‘I dare say,’ agreed Calvert. ‘The mistake your last CO made was giving you the option. You’ll note I’m not making that mistake.’ Rising to his feet, he crossed to the door and opened it. ‘Sar’nt Major? Take these two to the quartermaster’s store and see to it they’re provided with new uniforms. Then bring them back here.’ Calvert turned back to Torrance and Rossi. ‘That Bush Warfare Battalion? Most of the ranks are to be made up from whatever we can find at the