The Ambush

We waited on that jungle track all night and the morning found us in clumps of elephant grass, our feet in an ooze of brown bog-water. The metal of the gun in my hand was a dull shine, the butt gleaming where the heat brought out a sweat of oil. I glanced at the riflemen on my sides and thought: I can cover the length of the track up to the turn. I looked through the window I had made through the sedge and wished that they would come, two or three or four, walking without suspicion into the ambush that awaited them on that morning.

I touched my sweated jaw and felt the night's stiffness up my arm to the shoulder. Tired in the damp cocoon of my clothes, I thought in succession of Rini and the comfort of her body, the oppression of the noon forest and the numbing discipline of the ambush. One more hour, I thought, and I would give up this thankless business.

I gazed down the track and the clock of my mind ticked back to Rini. If she emerged out of the thick jungle and walked into this ambush with a wild rose in her black hair, then I would take her hand and lead her to the place where the pheasant dances. We would watch the spider-eater hunt and I would find it hard to breathe for love of her.

I had met her in Haflong when I had gone there to attend a course in jungle warfare. My battalion had just done twelve months south of Lunglei looking for Mizo hostiles, and this course was the only respite I had known for some time. Out of the wilds after nine months, I soaked up the colours and smells of the market place, glad to be out of Mizo Hills for a while. Too much jungle and too few hostiles.

When I first saw Rini she was buying vegetables in the market. I was quite close when I saw her leaning over the bright array of vegetables on a stall counter and her neck between the high collar and the crescent of her hair was so fresh and cool that I stopped where I could watch her.

She was lovely, a Beardsley drawing gone oriental. She wore the usual Mizo black and white check puan running up to four inches above her heels. Her legs, seen through the side slit, were flawless. The soft swell of her breasts and the line of her throat coming out of the high-braided collar made my eyes sting with tears.

I pulled out a ten rupee note and waved it at the old Khaki woman behind the stall. I said, "My dear grandmother, fruit, pineapples." I hoped there were no pineapples on the stall and that the girl spoke English and the old woman didn't.

I began to make a search of the stall. I put a lot of vitality into it, like a damned court jester, and a tall young soldier in the market place was a curiosity, so that a crowd of children gathered and we all had an interesting time with me searching, the old woman exclaiming, the crowd chuckling, and no one with any idea of what I was looking for.

It worked. She smiled and said, "I think you may find pineapples further down."

"So you do speak English. I don't really need pineapples. I would rather look at you. You are very beautiful."

She laughed. "Indian soldiers pay such compliments without meaning them. And you are brash, too."

"I'm an unusual soldier."