The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 79

Missives from friends and loved ones had been sorely missed. The absence of communication from the outside world had been bad for morale

In the evening on December 30, Deakin asked Brigade HQ about the summaries of evidence on men charged with cowardice but the staff told him they had no time to deal with them. As brigade-major, Angus was responsible for disciplinary issues such as these. The brigade bussed 25 miles south to Bidor for three days’ rest, which turned out to be only two. To get from A to B, the troops either marched or rode in a lorry driven by the Royal Australian Service Corps whose drivers were older men who were fearless, dedicated and cheerful.

In March 1942 Ian Stewart, in a broadcast from Bombay after he escaped to India, stressed that motorised transport did not mean that the troops had an easy time.

“It usually meant six hours in the dark to do 20 miles, for the traffic congestion on the roads at night was simply dreadful,” he says.

At Hogmanay, the Argylls celebrated with a slap-up dinner when officers and men drank whisky, quaffed champagne, and ate tinned ham and chocolate. They even improvised a concert in a Chinese school.

On the last day of the year, the battalions received a special mail delivery when letters and news bulletins, dated December 15, arrived from Port Dickson. Communication Missives from friends and loved ones had been sorely missed and the absence of communication from the outside world had been bad for morale.

Not one soldier had seen or read a newspaper since operations began in the second week of December.

Before the New Year, Percival and Heath decided “to hold the Kampar position” for as long as possible so their forces would not fall back behind the Kuala Kubu road junction before January 14.

It was essential to delay the enemy as far as possible from Singapore before the reinforcements arrived. The market town of Kampar was where they would do it.

Their position lay on either side of a steep, wooded hill called Bujang Melaka, covering an area of nine miles by six and stretching south from Dipang between the main road and another thoroughfare.

To the north was an open tin mining area and on the south-west lay a rubber plantation.

The vulnerability of the position was that from Telok Anson in the west, enemy forces could make a sea landing and bring their small boats up the Perak River, which flowed into the Indian Ocean.

Paris put the brigade in reserve with orders to prepare positions at Bidor for the troops defending Kampar to retreat through. The brigade had to keep an eye out also for attacks from the coast, particularly in the Telok Anson area, 15 miles west of the Argylls’ position up the Perak River.

Early on January 2, the Japanese infiltrated the countryside around Telok Anson. 1st Independent Infantry Company and two Argyll armoured cars forced them to withdraw.

‘Bal’ Hendry and the Argylls’ A Company positioned themselves south-east of Telok Anson but by 8.15am they were in danger of being outflanked by the enemy so they withdrew.

That afternoon, yet again the Japanese attacked the brigade with fighter planes and bombers. Enemy fire did not discriminate.

A number of senior officers had already been killed or wounded in battle so that when Paris became Divisional Commander, he had to replace several brigadiers as the original ones were either dead or in hospital. There was a sigh of relief when the day was over. Ceaseless The men could eat at last, since food was only brought to them in darkness, and although there was a full moon that night, aircraft were absent as the Japanese were not night-flyers.

The next morning the bombing began again with a vengeance. It was the worst the soldiers had ever experienced. “This ceaseless air activity and heavy casualties were visibly affecting morale and consequently lowering the battalion’s resistance to enemy ground attack, which was bound to come by the evening.”

At 8pm the attack began. Deakin was amazed that some Japanese had not only managed to cross the river but had also negotiated the neighbouring swamps.

“It seems that no natural obstacle will ever stop a Japanese soldier. A number of them had climbed the trees that bordered the road and made things very unpleasant for the troops.”

On January 3, the Argylls, under heavy bombing, successfully leap-frogged their companies back before the advancing Japanese. Finally, on that night 11th Indian Division withdrew from Kampar. As a reserve, the brigade, including the Argylls, covered the defenders’ retreat until 11pm.

In darkness, the exhausted Argylls, Punjabs, and Hyderabads, headed south for Slim River, where they stopped at the village of Trolak. It had been an exhausting 25 days. Angus was on the move from December 10 until January 3 as his brigade withdrew 176 miles from northern Malaya to the central region.

With no air support, the brigade had been subject to intermittent air attacks. With the Prince of Wales and the Repulse destroyed, the Japanese now controlled the sea around Malaya and were free to infiltrate the country via its estuaries and rivers.

Because of swift enemy action, Brigade HQ had to be set up and struck frequently. Angus may not have earned a high profile during this part of the campaign unlike Captain Bobby Kennard of C Company, who ambushed the enemy on the remote road north of Grik, or the intrepid ‘Bal’ Hendry and Sergeant Bing, or even David Boyle with his un-blooded D Company, who caused considerable damage to the Japanese at Sumpitan on the Grik road.

But Angus’s role as brigade-major was vital, requiring a particular flair that embodied courage, versatility, and sangfroid, as well as meticulous consistency. Lush vegetation Blue hills on the horizon and in the foreground, a wide river, its banks crowded by palm and jungle creeper; on the left, a narrow track encroached on either side by thick, lush vegetation: this is Slim River, an hour’s drive north of Kuala Lumpur and a stone’s throw from Malaysia’s north-south highway.

The small town situated in Perak, Malaysia’s central state, owes its name to an 18th Century Englishman who mistook the local river for the Perak and got hopelessly lost while trying to navigate it.

Surrounded today by palm and rubber estates, the locality attracts visitors to its waterfalls, theme park, and hot springs. With a temperature of 104°C, they are reputedly the fifth-hottest springs in the world. More tomorrow