Slight improvement,
H.M. Hull I now remember as CSM D Company early days , I was transferred to D Coy along with Roy Pellowe to work under Lt. Carey as the S.E.P's ( surrendered Enemy Personal) i.e. former Terrorists who , as we used to say, 'Had Seen The Light, whom he had formed into a 'Q' type platoon. Namely we would go out 'dressed ' as terrorists to try to make contact with the real things. It was all in Roy and My opinion a very dodgy situation to begin with, however, after two dodgy and slightly hair-raising contacts with local Polices Units we agreed to do away with the Khaki Drill uniforms and go green again.
Then someone raised the idea of doing a water-borne patrol down the river Sunggie Perak ? first idea was we would use such items we could scrounge from the Royal Marines etc ! that fell flat from phase one - no chance was the stern response from said unit. second idea - lets cadge one of the local fishiing boats. By this time Roy and myself were both considering requesting further transfers however, The 'Boss 'got two boats- to cut a long story very short indeed, we embarked, myself and one Lt. plus Cpl plus five S.E.P's with Roy and the other Cpl one Charlie Pickles plus the other 5 S.E.P's in the other craft; heading off into mid-stream which everyone forgot to mention was at this time in FULL SPATE (it being Monsoon Time !!!) Next thing I now is a Tree Trunk is heading straight for us in boat 1 and was on us before we could do a thing Roy and boat 2 veered into our stern and tiller, base over apex went the boat and I can I remember heading for the bank dragging a Cpl who could not swim and was insisting on hanging on to the Bren he was responsible for. Boat 2 grounded on the shore and every one was saving every one else much to the amusement of the SEP's. Then weapon check showed that we were missing one Bren Mag so - the Boss, Roy, Myself and Charlie Pickes are using our toggle ropes as security lines and trying with out feet to feel where we thought it may have fallen - Fat Chance as we thought about it, that river was going like the clappers. End of patrol, a group of very angry natives haraunging Lt Carey.
Three days later I was out on a different patrol with a small section of five SEP's, came in to be advised by RSM 'ALF' Lomas " Don't know who you have upset at HQ George but you are being posted to the, what sounds like a b****y football team, called the Sarawak Rangers, leaving tomorrow at 9am from Tapah to Khota Barhu " .
I was on a Malay Language course following which I was to take over a Platoon of the New Regiment The Sarawak Rangers from Port Swettenham, Malacca and take them back to the Battalion, when we arrived back with the Bn at Tapah we were posted to C Coy so I had no further contact with D. Coy,
At least you can all laugh at this now but at the time it was not very funny - rule no ! made sure from that moment that every Iban could swim - we had hundreds of deep rivers in that area.
Cheers,
George.
PS. The moral of this diatribe is obvious - make sure you use Sailors in future, merely to have paddled around on Platt Fields Park Lake is not good enough!!!
