Jim grabbed his carbine, wearily got to his feet and roused the other men, his gaze trawling the skies and his surroundings. The operation had been conducted during the glare of the day, and it had hardly been silent. If the enemy was nearby, the entire day’s work would have been in full view for at least five miles in both directions, so he had to assume that the Japanese knew they were there and what they were doing.

He glanced across at his commanding officer who was standing sturdily on the sand, his binoculars sweeping both shorelines, his expression grim. He didn’t envy the man’s task, for even if the Japs didn’t have a strong enough force to attack and prevent the crossing, they could certainly inflict casualties – or tail and harass the column before it reached the designated operations target, which was still many miles away.

Jim climbed wearily into the assault boat after the men in his platoon and sat at the stern with his carbine arching a slow sweep along the jungle ridge behind them as men on horseback attempted to bully the mules across the water. Getting the men and horses across before dusk would be easy, but without the mules to carry their heavy weapons, reserves of ammo, demolition sets, medical stores, tools and radios, they’d be useless if they came under attack.

Jim and the other men had made another successful crossing, but getting two or three mules at a time over the river was making a very small dent in the large number that still milled about on the shore, so he wasn’t surprised when his commanding officer ordered everyone to be still and listen.

The man was thin to the point of gaunt, his khaki shorts billowing above deeply tanned, sinewy legs, his face weathered by his years of commanding troops in India and Africa. But looks were deceptive, for he’d proven to be as strong and resilient as the mules, and had earned great respect from all of them for his leadership qualities and common sense.

‘This isn’t a decision I’ve made lightly,’ he said to the half-circle of commissioned and non-commissioned officers standing before him. ‘All crossings will stop at fifteen hundred hours. Forty column will head back with the excess mules to join forty-nine and ninety-four column in their mopping-up operations.’

Jim glanced across at the officer in charge of 40 column and knew he’d have a tough march to catch up with the others, for they were already two days ahead.

‘Brigade HQ and the rest of thirty column will cross the river and continue on to our rendezvous point. We’ll be short on mules, but we do have the horses, so we’ll just have to make the best of it and carry what we can.’