Defending Western Values

Chalky and me were thrown together again one evening in November when we prepared to do battle with the advancing Chinese - or so we thought at the time. The Squadron at the time was situated in a location the name of which I never knew. I doubt that my superiors knew the name of the place, although I’m sure it had a code name of some sort. Maps of the area appeared to be based on surveys made by the Japanese authorities in the nineteen thirties. Quite a lot of the data seemed to be based on wishful thinking - often railways, roads and even villages marked on the map were non-existent, so the 8th Hussars cannot be blamed. I catch myself digressing here.
During the evening in question, the increasing noise from the north of our position indicated that a serious firefight was taking place. Apparently, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had taken offence at something or someone, and had decided to drive some Brits off the top of a hill or hills - it was either the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry or the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, or indeed both, who had so offended the CPLA. In the ensuing unpleasantness British forward elements were temporarily forced off their hill top positions. This is when Chalky and me were called upon.
As a precaution ‘C’ Squadron was ordered to ‘stand-to’. As a further precaution, which even at this distance in time still appears to have been misplaced faith in my abilities, I was told by Jimmy Marshall (our SSM) to find Chalky and take the ‘spare’ Browning .30 and its tripod, which was secreted in the Squadron Office, to a location several hundred yards above our position. Jimmy was convinced that if we were under any threat ‘ it will come from that direction‘. Our task, apparently, was to hold off any attack by the Chinese long enough to be reinforced by unspecified ‘other troops’.
Finding Chalky was easy, loading him up with tripod, ammunition and hand grenades was a little more difficult. In the end we compromised. Not only would I carry the browning myself, I would help carry the box of grenades. So equipped off we went to defend western civilisation as we knew it. Unfortunately we were stopped after a few yards by a Troop Leader carrying a Bren Gun who wanted to know what we were doing with a Browning. Our explanation gave him pause for thought. He paused long enough to say ‘ Would you care to give it to me chaps, I’m sure I have a better use for it ’ - or words to that effect. He very kindly gave me the Bren Gun, and also a box of magazines for said gun and rapidly disappeared.
We resumed our journey carrying, it has to be acknowledged, considerably less weight, although as Chalky rightly commented ‘ officers can be a bit odd sometimes, a machine gun we have been trained to use, know how to use and have used on occasion, has been taken from us and exchanged for a weapon of which we know absolutely nothing ‘. Maybe not absolutely nothing, we were aware that its calibre was .303 !
Reaching our designated position, we spent eight very cold hours up there. There was a heavy frost and occasional snow flurries which blanked out any possible sight of approaching enemies. The noise to our north eventually reached a crescendo and then slowly diminished to a stillness punctuated by an occasional burst of machine gun fire. From time to time Very Flares would light up the sky. At first light, Jimmy Marshall himself appeared to tell us all was well and we could return to the leaguer. To his everlasting credit he came bearing a large thermos flask of army tea - but of course we had no cups. Later in the morning I returned the Bren Gun to the Armoury, as it was checked in I discovered the magazines were empty. On a hunch I checked the grenades - not a fuse between all twenty four of them. To add insult to injury, the Browning MG for which I had traded Johnnie Walker with a group of US Marines several months earlier , was never returned.