The Mutinous Mule

I was a trained professional killer behind enemy lines.

The lieutenant was not as convinced as the army's basic training unit that I was a well-honed fighting machine.

“You have an important role in this mission,” he said. “You’ll stay behind to guard the mule and supplies.”

I’d coaxed and cajoled the unwilling and cantankerous jackass through dense jungle for the past three days. Its mind was set only on how to shed its load and head off in the opposite direction. It would probably have been easier and quicker to have carried the 500 pounds of ammo and supplies myself.

The lieutenant clamped an arm around my shoulder, his unkempt beard illuminated by a flash of torchlight. Orange specks glowed around him in the blackness as the lads took a final smoke before moving off.

“We don’t want you to ruin the sharp creases in your new khaki shorts,” said one of the lads. A ripple of subdued laughter flowed. Regulation army issue was in the minority among these jungle fighters. That minority being me.

The laughter dried up and the orange specks fell to the ground, extinguished beneath heavy boots. The officer moved off and the jungle swallowed up ten silhouettes; the sound of clinking ammunition belts faded within seconds.

I sat on a fallen tree and the mule brayed. My first contribution to the war effort was as a babysitter to a donkey. I might not put that in the letters home to my mum and dad. I wasn’t sure what was worse, getting shot at on the raid or sitting in the jungle with a cantankerous equine. Not that I blamed it for being unhappy; I didn’t want to be here either.

After two hours with the whining mule and intense boredom, I heard a branch snap. It was too early for the officer and lads. My semi-dormant senses jerked into alertness, I was supposed to be a professional killer. I also knew how to march up and down, salute and polish my boots; I was questioning the usefulness of that now.

A squelch sucked on saturated ground, maybe a boot, maybe a paw. I couldn’t tell. Neither was a pleasant prospect.

My body tensed, the hairs raised on my arms. A tingle shot up my neck and tightened around my head. I pulled my carbine to a shoulder, one knee on the soft soil like they had shown us at the training range. When I was being honed into a mean fighting machine.

A full moon broke through the jungle ceiling; my hands gripped hard around the carbine. I dug an elbow into my ribs, trying to steady the swaying gun as the training sergeant had shown me. He had neglected to tell me what to do when someone is creeping up on you at night in a hostile foreign land and you can't see them.

The sucking glug of a foot extracting from cloying mud came from somewhere close. My eyes swivelled trying to locate the source, it seemed to be all around me. I swatted a mosquito that flitted and buzzed around my eyes.

I lowered flat to the ground with an unsteady hand. My fingers sunk into the jungle matting and mud-soaked water seeped into my stiff new khakis. On the plus side, that would be the end of the lads mocking my starched creases.

Another squelch, closer. Fear was creeping up on me like two fingers crawling up my spine.

A nearby stream flowed over stones and the mule brayed, its teeth bared and glinting under the full moon. It tugged against the rope I'd tethered to a tree. I dug the rifle butt harder into my shoulder, my sticky palm tight around the barrel. My finger wavered and stroked the trigger while the undergrowth swayed and rustled. Something moved beyond the startled mule.

The heavy air offered no relief. I peeled away my bush hat and swiped a film of perspiration from my shaved head. I wished the Lieutenant was with me, he would know what to do.

The jungle calmed, the mule stood erect. Its ears flicked; it snorted, eyes bulging. Crickets clicked and the stream gushed faster over small rocks. This was not the safe rolling green countryside I’d left behind three months ago: pink-washed cottages, lazy brooks, and yellow dandelions swaying in a gentle breeze. Here the hills were steep and matted with dense vegetation. The streams were deep, fast, and filthy. The earthy smell of the ground was strong and the air rank, like stale washing.

A hot breeze gusted, the trees swayed. A shaft of moonlight glinted on a pair of eyes behind the mule. Then they were gone. My stomach twisted into a thousand tiny knots. If I fired, I might hit the mule. The lieutenant wouldn’t be very happy with that. I didn’t want to annoy him. Or carry 500 pounds of supplies back to base.

I pulled at my tunic collar and it stripped away from my neck like a piece of sticky tape. I twisted at the twine looped around my neck like a noose, dog tags stuck against my chest in a film of sweat.

I shrunk further into the warm mud, wanting to meld into brown invisibility. The slime oozed and ran around my stomach, sweat flowed down my forehead and into my eyes. I rubbed them with the back of a grimy hand as an angry black beetle danced along my gun barrel. It dropped down onto the sodden floor, pincers held high in surrender.

A branch cracked like a firework followed by a grunt. I went cold in the clammy heat, pimples rose over my skin. I pointed my wavering carbine towards the sound. Leaves rustled, the swish of a sapling. My heart pounded into the ground like a war drum. I gasped in packets of thick damp oxygen. I wanted to be sick. I swallowed it back.

I wheezed in, long and deep, scared they would hear my rasping breath; I couldn’t get enough suffocating air into my lungs. A hunched shadow moved behind a bush. The mule jerked at the rope.

The mule suddenly screeched and kicked back its hind legs into the bush. Something heavy crashed. I jumped up and ran towards it. Then I went back to pick up my rifle. I skirted wide of the mule as it scraped and kicked at the ground and fought against the rope. I flicked on my torch. A dark shape lay prone at the mule's feet.

* * *

Ten silhouettes moved into the moonlight, soft chatter, matches flared and orange glows lit up. I sat on the tree trunk, my attacker at my feet.

The lieutenant grinned. “I see you’ve been in action, young man.”

The lieutenant sat down next to me. He put an arm over my shoulder and studied the dead boar next to my boots, the fatal hoof print obscured by the shadows.

“It seems I was wrong, you are a trained professional killer after all.”

The mule tugged against its restraint and hee-hawed like a banshee. This was our secret.

An earlier version of this story was first published on medium.com.

This is a fictionalised account of a mix of true stories told to me by my father of his time as an 18-year-old Chindit soldier serving in the Burmese jungle during the latter years of the 2nd World War.