Saltwater: The Battle for Ramree Island

What is it?

Trouble.

Are you sure?

I can't hear anything.

Bloody hell! Get off the path!

Argh!

- Look out! It's a Japanese patrol!

We could've 'ad 'em, Sarge.

There was only two of 'em.

And the other three hundred

back at the barracks, Harris,

who'd come looking for them

when they didn't turn up from patrol.

You have got to think before you act.

- With all due respect, Sarge, what are we doing?

I mean I know it's hush hush, top secret and all that,

but don't you think we deserve to know what we're doing?

Dropped off into some island without even

having the pleasure of taking on any Japs.

- That's on a need to know basis, Harris.

If any of us are captured, it's gonna be best

that we don't know anything.

The Japanese have a knack for making people talk.

- Did you say three hundred Japanese on the island, sir?

Give or take, yeah.

What about him?

What's he doing here?

- If you're referring to Lance Daffadar Singh, Harris,

he's on temporary transfer from the 77th Indian Brigade.

- Weren't there any English lads available?

- It was decided, Harris, given the climate

we're all enduring at the moment,

a man from the Indian Brigade might just survive

a four day trek without succumbing

to some tropical disease of the digestive function.

- Er, now that you mention it, sir...

Mention what?

The digestive function, sir.

- Well, you can have five minutes, go on.

Get well away from the path.

And put that camera away, you lose that

this whole trip's for nothing.

- Sir? May I also request five minutes?

Fine.

- Yeah and I need a piss an' all.

Fine.

Thanks, Sarge.

- This is going to be bloody tight.

What is it, Sarge?

Japanese fighter.

Been here more than a year by the looks of it.

- Do you think it's one of them kamikaze pilots?

- If he was, he missed his bleeding target, didn't he?

Unless he was aiming for a bleeding hole in the ground!

Save your film, Pike.

We're not here to take holiday snaps.

Yes sir.

- Sir, may I be so bold as to make a suggestion?

You may.

Look, the light is dimming.

When the sun falls behind the tree line,

I predict it will become very dark, very quickly.

I suggest we set up camp as soon as possible.

I second that, Sarge.

My feet are bleedin' killing me.

Well alright.

I guess we're far enough off the beaten track

here to take a rest.

You carrying the rations, Singh?

Yes sir.

- Permission to light a fire, Sarge?

- Weather not warm enough for you, Harris?

It's not that, Sarge.

I just don't fancy having cold baked beans for tea again.

Alright.

Keep it under control.

Oi!

What are you doing with my pack?

- I believe you're carrying the matches.

To light the fire?

I'll light the fire.

And don't touch my pack again.

What's the problem, Harris?

- Well, you can't trust 'em, Sarge, can you?

It's not like he's one of us, is it?

- D'you know, Harris, the men of the 77th Indian Brigade,

they're all volunteer fighters.

Looking at the state of you

I can only assume you were drafted.

I volunteered.

When, 1944?

Can't have been out here long,

you'd have been used to the heat by now.

I've done my bit.

I volunteered for this mission, didn't I?

Whatever the hell we're doing here.

Watch your mouth, Private!

And keep it down.

We're still in enemy territory in case you'd forgotten.

Yes, Sarge.

Sorry Sarge.

- Well, is somebody gonna cook these beans?

I'm bloody starving.

Yes sir!

- 'Ere, what kind of gum you got?

- American, " Fruity Mint," or something.

I traded it for a pack of fags with this Yank

when I first came out.

I'm saving it for a special occasion.

Can I have a bit?

- Fuck off! I've only got one stick left.

And I'm keeping it for when

we're on that boat out of this shit-hole.

- See her? That's my fiancee, Olive.

Nice, ain't she?

- Not now, Pike. My stomach's giving me gyp.

I took these myself.

My uncle's got a little photography studio down town centre.

He's showing me how to run the business.

Wonderful.

And when all of this is over,

I'm gonna be a professional photographer.

You know, weddings, babies, that sort of thing.

And me and Olive, yeah, we're gonna get married.

Bleedin' hell, Pike.

Do you realize, you've just reduced your chances

of getting out of here alive by about eighty percent

by telling me that?

Have you not seen the picture about the last lot?

What, the Great War?

- Yeah. The war to end all wars, they said.

Did you fight in it?

I'm not that bloody old, am I?

I just saw a lot of pictures about it.

And Pike, let me tell you something.

The lad that waves around a photograph

of his beloved fiancee back home,

he never makes it to the end.

- Aren't you lads gonna get some sleep?

Long trek tomorrow to get where we're going.

- Yeah, I thought there might be.

This didn't look like a very big island,

but it's taking us bloody ages to cross it.

- With the greatest of respect to you, Mr Harris.

I don't believe we are crossing the island.

What?

- Unless I am mistaken, I believe

we are going around the edge.

What makes you say that?

- Earlier on in the day, when the wind

was blowing in the right direction,

I could detect the sound of the ocean,

even after walking for all these many hours.

- Why the bleedin' hell are we going around the edge?

- The centre of Ramree Island is impassable, sir.

We will definitely fail our mission

if we try to cross it directly.

How do you know that?

Does he know where we are?

How come he gets to know where we are and I don't?

I'm more senior than him.

- Technically, sir, Lance Daffadar

is a higher rank than Private.