Bernard Fergusson - The Battle for Burma: Wild Green Earth: Wild Green Earth

THE BATTLE FOR BURMA

The Wild Green Earth

The Wild Green Earth

by

Bernard Fergusson

.. Still through chaos

Works on the ancient plan,

And two things have altered not

Since first the world began

The beauty of the wild green earth

And the bravery of man.

T.P. C AMERON W ILSON

Originall published by Collins Clear Type Press in 1946

Reprinted in Great Britain in 2015 by

Pen & Sword Military

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Bernard Fergusson 2015

ISBN 978 1 47382 715 8
eISBN 978 147387 842 6
Mobi ISBN 978 147387 841 9

The right of Bernard Fergusson to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Transport, True Crime, and Fiction, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

England E-mail:

Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

T O T HE M EMORY OF A LL R ANKS OF
N O . 5 COLUMN
AND OF
16TH INFANTRY BRIGADE

who were killed or died, as free men or prisoners, during the Expeditions into Burma of 1943 and 1944.

Truly if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came ou t , they might have had opportunity to have returned. Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises , stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the violence of fire, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens ; and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection ; and others had trials of cruel mockings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

Hebrews xi

MAPS

General Map: Upper Burma

Ledo to the Uyu River

Aberdeen

Aberdeen, White City and Indaw

Environs of Indaw

Remote from pilgrimage, a dusty hollow

Lies in the Libyan plain:

And there my comrades sleep, who will not follow

The pipes and drums again:

Who followed closely in that desperate sally

The pipes that went before;

Who, heedless now of Muster or Reveille,

Sleep sound for evermore.

In days of peace, when days of war were nearing,

My comrades who are dead

Once in a while looked up the dark track, peering

Where Fate and Glory led:

For these, the chosen of their generation,

This was the path it took,

That ended in the sand and desolation

Ten miles beyond Tobruk.

Their passing on that field and on that morning

No second sight foresaw;

We spied no wraith, we had no seers warning

Like him of Inverawe,

Who heard, when yon dark memory was fading,

Ticonderogas name,

Grappled with Fate, and scaled the palisading,

And died at grips with Fame.

Far off in Scotland at the hour of battle,

As these her sons fell dead,

Above the herds of frosty-breathing cattle

The winter sun rose red:

In every cothouse and in every city

In those remembered shires,

The kettle sang its early morning ditty

On newly kindled fires.

To those dear houses with their chimneys reeking

In Angus or in Fife,

No spirit came, its words of omen speaking,

To mother or to wife;

Yet in the homeless desert to the southward

Before the sun was high,

The husbands whom they loved, the sons they mothered

Stood up and went to die.

...

Once there were peaceful dawns in other places

In days when war was not:

Friends sprawling with the firelight on their faces

Around the cooking-pot:

Dawn on the Essex saltings, by whose marges

The teal and widgeon hide,

Where up the brimming swatchways come the barges

Creeping upon the tide;

Dawn on the Border, and the sound of shooting

High up on Penchrist Pen,

The echoes rolling backward and saluting

The firing-point again;

Dawn in the Castle, and the early scurry

Of waking soldiers feet,

And far below the grinding haste and hurry

Of trams in Princes Street;

Dawn on the coast: the wind in bents and grasses

Along the Buddon dunes,

Stumbling among the sandhills as it passes,

Echoing ancient tunes;

Dawn in the ship, the sentry at the hatches

Strange in his new abode,

The mugs for coffee passing aft in batches,

The hammocks being stowed;

Dawn in Judaea, and the threat of pillage

Upon the Holy Land,

The search at sunrise through a mountain village

For a marauding band;

Dawn in Somaliland and dawn in Aden, Dawn on the hills of Crete,

Dawn on the cruisers deck, with soldiers laden,

And on the rescuing fleet.

...

For Time devoured our Day, and Night came creeping

And Peace was lost in War,

And now upon my friends the sands are heaping

(Who sleep for evermore);

And I, who shared their joys but not their dangers,

Their pride but not their pain,

Mindful of them though in the midst of strangers,

March to the field again.

I march at night; the stars come up to guide me

Safe on the jungle track

O for the friends that well might be beside me,

The stout hearts at my back!

O for the piper, striding towards the morning,

Half hidden in the gloom,

Playing my choiceSteamboat, The Gypsys Warning,

The Wee Man at the Loom!

The jackals scream, the landmarks pass, the stages

Are made and drop behind;

The stars that scan all warriors down the ages

Look on me and are kind

The soldier stars that pace the beats of heaven,

To whom all things are known;

Who watch the fields where men of old have striven

And who shall watch our own.

...

The night brails up her darkness like a curtain,

The morning star grows pale,

Till suddenly the hope is sure and certain

That death cannot prevail;

And in my need my comrades send assurance

That breaks on me with day

That from the grave that sealed their long endurance

The stone is rolled away.

The dawn is here: the sound of water flowing

Proclaims my bivouac;

Behind, the marching feet suspend their going