India in action: a collection of pictures by Anthony Gross

LD3163. Command Post. Then news came through that the Japs had broken their way into the hills and had cut the road out of the Chin Hills. W e looked up all the maps for another way out, but still we were in good company. Here the Colonel. 27 years old, his second in command 24, several other young officers had. with their battalion, defended 650 miles of frontier. They had held the hills since we evacuated Burma. The ordinary administration of the Chin Hills had continued as in peacetime. A mint was still functioning, the post offices. and 250 miles of telephone. I settled down to draw the various tribesmen and members of the battalion. [LD3 158]. W e engaged two little levies as cooks. They said they were 15 years old. but I doubt if they were as much as that, and as they could only make curry. we had it for tea and breakfast as well. The boys prepared us "Zu , " and we settled down to wait for the Japs to go back to their plains. At last a track was proclaimed clear of the enemy; a platoon of Chins was going up to relieve the troops, who had been fighting the enemy; the two cooks decided to follow us on the condition we treated them as our sons; our muleteers were anxious to get back. A picturesque caravan we made on our way home. [LD3159J. One or other of the Chin boys stalked along in front with his bow and baked clay pellets. He was a crack shot, once killing a pigeon at 50 yards first shot. I used to watch him as he crept through the woods, his every movement as lithe as a leopard. W e followed behind with the Chin Jamadar (officer). Then came the platoon of Hakas and dragging out behind came our mules. Every now and again we were cheered by the laughter of the other little Chin as he teased the muleteers at the back. Once, on a night march we came upon a black panther which, eyeing us for a moment, sprang silently into the thicket below. Some snakes we beat to death. For days we marched along, high up above the valleys 6,000 feet below us, treading softly on a carpet of pine needles, stopping a t times to gather wild raspberries, to drink at a mountain stream. Occasionally we had mountain goat, barking deer, or a jungle fowl to add to our rations. Till on a great day, after marching a total of 450 miles, we reached a village in fete. The new road they were building had reached it and as tiny jeeps came cautiously round the corner, the villagers gathered in crowds along the street showering them with flowers. Sho Non and Va n Ling were wild with excitement when they knew we would finish our journey by jeep. I think the two boys rode in every truck in the convoy on the first day back. They had never seen a car before. So we arrived back in civilisation.