Sacred Mountain Read Online Free Page A

reach the place Prem had chosen to camp and he glanced around approvingly, the men having already lit several small cooking fires. Now that dusk had fallen their smoke wouldn’t be seen so they were busy boiling water drawn from the small stream. The flow was weak but it was moving, as their training had instructed them to leave all stagnant water alone. He smiled grimly to himself. Whoever had written that would’ve been shocked if they’d seen where they’d drunk from during the last few weeks.
He checked the mules, finding them hobbled and chewing unenthusiastically on some tough looking bamboo that had just been cut. Walking through the camp he tried to give a few words of encouragement to the men, before arriving at his own fire where he gratefully dropped his pack on the ground. He untied his groundsheet from where it hung and unfolded it, collapsing down onto it and leaning against the trunk of a large teak tree. Reaching across to the pack he unstrapped a side pocket and pulled out a tattered map, dropping it by his side as he unlaced and removed his boots. As his feet slipped out he groaned with relief, peeling off worn and bloody socks and exposing his feet to the air. They were white and shrivelled, the result of weeks of being wet, with painful blisters on each heel.
A quick inspection revealed only two leech bites, thin trails of blood still running from them. The leeches crawled into his boots through the lace holes, latching on and gorging on his blood until they were too fat to escape. Philip always knew when one had popped, a warm sticky sensation on the sole of his foot as the blood oozed out of its ruptured body.
Picking up the map he laid it across his drawn up knees and carefully worked out their position, taking into account the bearing they’d been on and the length of time they’d marched. It was six days since they’d initially tried to re-cross the Irrawaddy River, a night of total confusion that had seen them cut off from the rest of the column. The crossing had started fine. The burrifs had found some local fishermen who’d been willing, in exchange for silver rupees, for them to use their boats. They’d only been big enough for twelve or so men to cross at a time so after three hours they’d still been at it when a Japanese patrol had turned up.
All hell had broken loose and as a result Philip had found his platoon, who’d been operating as the vanguard, stuck on the wrong side of the river. He’d been the only officer left but at least he knew the orders from High Command. The mission was over and they were to return to India but they were now marooned with the enemy searching for them. He’d head south, hoping the Japanese would least expect them to move away from the rest of the column.
The Japanese had ordered all local craft to be moored on the west bank to prevent their use. If they hadn’t stumbled on a battered old dug-out canoe hidden in some elephant grass next day they might still be walking. As it was, under the cover of a dark, moonless night, they’d managed to cross over, four men at a time, with the mules swimming behind. They’d almost lost some men when a mule had panicked and hooked its hoof over the canoe’s side, struggling to get out of the water. It had taken the sharp blade of a kukri to dispatch the animal and prevent three nervous Gurkhas from joining it on the riverbed.
At least, Philip thought, they were still largely together. If half of the platoon had already crossed when the attack had come on the initial crossing it would’ve been a disaster. The Gurkhas had a bond that gave them an almost telepathic understanding of each other, working seamlessly as a team that only men who’d grown up from boyhood together could have. If they’d been ripped apart and this intuition destroyed Philip dreaded to think what their chances of survival would have been. They were grim enough as it was.
He put his finger on their position and sighed. They’d made