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I shall be 60 soon I said to myself as I carried on shaving,
watching the hot water strike the cold enamel and creating clouds of steam. Considering
what I like others were once a part of, life and all it can throw at you hasn't been all
that bad.. I look at my reflection in a steamed up mirror at a much younger man dressed in
jungle green and ask in the third person, well what about you? |
An ordinary patrol on exercise. Not to be confused with another kind! |
Lorries taking troops from Kuching to Serian, which became one of our main forward bases, during one tour of Sarawak. Our forward locations on this tour were Plaman Mapu, Pang Amo, Kujang Sein, and the police station at Tebedu. |
So
across this great chasm of time which divides me today from the man in the mirror, it
seems to me that his life was shaped and could not have been fulfilled in the way it was
fulfilled had it not been for a then unrecognised alliance with chance. I could give a
number of instances where chance and its synchronicities have intervened to save my life
and those of my comrades and friends, and how it has also helped in moments of transition
and stress. I am still here, while sadly others I once knew are not, and I don't know why
or how, but I am. So whatever else I have done with my life since then, I must have been
doing something right all those years ago. Whether it was jumping to the left on one
instance because my instinct told me to, while others jumped to the right obeying their
training and in so doing were injured, who can say? |
Embarking on 'operations'. |
Main Base 'park up' and re-fuelling area. |
'Lifting out', and looking forward to some nice showers and the 'smelliest' soap and talcum powder available. |
An aircraft of the type that used to re-supply us and act as a general transport. There was a four engined version of an aircraft of this type we know as the C130-Hercules. |
I believe that this is the pattern in which the life of the young man in jungle green I saw in the mirror had fulfilled in Borneo, and in such a manner that he became 'one of us'. So something out there had lit my fire alright, and it burned oh so brightly not once but a number of times there in Borneo and elsewhere, and there awakened in me a resolve and qualities I never knew I had until those moments. I have never been so alive since. So I am happy to commit to memory the words of someone who spoke with similar feelings on a bad day at Khe Sanh, an American base in Vietnam. "Until you have had to fight for it, you are never going to know how sweet life can be". Although we had seen warning signs some time before regarding the expansionist plans Indonesia had for the 'annexation' of certain parts of Northern Borneo under Soekarno's rule, it is generally reckoned that the 'start' of the proceedings for us was initiated by the Brunei Rebellion of December 1962. At that time, some of us had only just returned from mainly seaborne exercises in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. Upon arrival back in Singapore, we barely had time to draw a breath before the ships which brought us back were turned around immediately, re-fuelled, re-supplied, and transported some of us to Brunei, and various areas of Sarawak and Sabah, together with our supporting equipment and heavy guns. There then began over the next couple of years or so, a large scale deployment of Malaysian, British, Australian, and New Zealand forces of all kinds. There were also naval and air force committments from the western and eastern approaches to Borneo from the same nations.
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The confrontation years in Borneo can quite rightly be said to be one of Britain's small and 'dirty' guerrilla wars. Any engagements that did take place tended to be rather fleeting affairs, where usually the maximum amount of time spent in a 'firefight' was probably no more than a few minutes. Although there were occasions when longer engagements took place between larger, and more evenly matched and equally determined forces. My own part in all this was usually concerned with the 'hit and run' and 'dirty tricks' tactics, classic components of guerrilla warfare and a little less on more involved fighting. My first experience of being under fire though was a very real 'in your face' baptism, up close (about thirty feet) and very personal. It wasn't a few random shots fired roughly in the direction of myself and my comrades, the 'opposition' were making a determined attempt to kill each one of us. When I had time to catch a breath, I found I had wet myself in fear, and Christ knows how, but I had also managed to eat a whole tube of sweets all at once without taking the individual wrappers off or the outer one. I was twenty one then, and my hair started going grey quite quickly after that. By the time I was twenty eight I had a head of hair the colour of an old man's, like it is now. But it can't all have been down to chance, not after 'escaping' that amount of times physically at least. I should recognise the contributions made by others, and I do so willingly and gladly. I especially add my eternal gratitude and deepest respect to the' true' people of the rain forest and the coastal regions of Borneo, the Kadazan, the Iban, the Dayak, the Murut, the Kelabit, and the Penan, and their way of life, all of of whom added much needed survival and spiritual dimensions to the education of an "honorary Orang Asli", a by-product of a previous life from urban Britain. The wildlife played its part too, observing how animals and birds went about their business also provided valuable lessons. But I didn't escape completely, like all those that have gone before, and no doubt all those who will come after, my experiences have left their mark in other ways. I was a soldier once, and my business once was with certain sections of humanity at the sharp end, aftermath, and 'fallout' of military conflict with all that it entails. As I dragged that out of the silence of my thoughts and into a world of sound and vision, the steam on the surface of the mirror dried and the face of the man in jungle green withdrew. The glass was now empty and the quick had left the silver. It was as if I saw a figure resolving into a charged and meaningful day of cloud and thunder and lightning, and then the monsoon rains in Borneo. All I owed that young man now was a decent farewell and a proper thank you, and I found myself doing it the way that some African tribes do it, or the Inuit of the Far North, or the native peoples of Borneo do it, or some Amerindian tribes. They call after the vanishing person, " we see you, we hear you, we know you, we praise you, and we thank you". These calls can and do continue long after 'the traveller' has disappeared into the landscape. Experiences like this tend to colour your thinking for the rest of your life. I hope though, I shan't always be a 'traveller'. All I ever wanted out of life was a quiet and peaceful heart, wherever I was living. It is just that I've never really minded where that is. Considering where I was at that point in my life, together with what I experienced and saw, Malaysia would have been a good choice. But this journey of the mind and of the heart is not yet complete. |
Early morning at sea, prior to dis-embarking. Things got quite busy after the photo was taken. |
"Re-supply at sea", otherwise known as a 'RAS' |
"The hangar deck", other wise known as 'the belly of the beast' |
A picture of one of our Barracks/Garrisons in Singapore, called Dieppe Barracks on the road to Sembawang. When we left I think it was turned into a teaching/university hospital campus. What happened to it after that I don't know. Perhaps readers may be able to tell me. We had a second barracks across the airfield from where the photo was taken. |
Copyright © Keith Scott All Rights Reserve.
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