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apparition, it passed by the camp at eye level and we could see quite
clearly right through the cockpit. I don’t think anyone recognized the
aircraft. We had not seen one like this before; a large four-engined air-
craft with no recognizable markings. We had only twin-engined
transport planes at this time.
More importantly, we could see, standing in the open doorway at the
rear of the fuselage, a man wearing a parachute harness.
The whole action thus far had taken place in a sort of slow motion. The
last sight sparked off an electric chain of thought. This must be an In-
donesian aircraft. These must be the long-expected paratroopers. They
were about to parachute down on us. Then in the same moment, the
thought that the aircraft would surely crash into the mountainside in a
few seconds - because the valley, still largely in the mist, got narrower
beyond our camp. Then all at the same moment, the thought that we
were not through on the radio except to No II Platoon up on the bor-
der. And of course I had still got a face covered in shaving soap. Not
exactly the right turn-out to engage an airborne enemy only a few
hundred feet away.
I dare say that similar thoughts, except for being only half-shaved,
went through the minds of everyone else in the company. However,
even though about a hundred trained military minds had made the
same rapid appreciation of all the threats, not much swift or orderly
action took place. Most remained paralysed either by shock or in ex-
pectation that something even more marvellous was about to happen
and they didn’t want to miss a second of it.
Among the few who did anything at all there was little agreement, af-
ter it was all over, about the actual sequence of orders and events. All
agreed, however, that in almost every case, the events preceded the
orders for them.
The pilot of the aircraft had also done a rapid appreciation and had
thrown the aircraft onto its side and was attempting to turn it round on
its wing-tip at just above stalling speed. This was an even more im-
pressive performance than its first entry, and I was gazing at this in
admiration when a good deal of shouting to my left distracted me.
Lieutenant (QGO) Lalitbahadur Gurung Commanding No 9 Platoon
