We have been undergoing intensive training for six months. Individually, we are ready. But we will be called upon to work in groups, in small teams of a dozen men each in charge of a guerrilla sector. The life of the maquis, the dangerous missions that await us, require that this group be made up of men who know each other, who get along and where there is mutual trust. This is why the teams formed must undergo a final group training under conditions as close to reality as possible.
Each group receives its complete combat equipment.
So we touch our jungle clothing in coloring adapted to the environment. All our material is also suitable for camouflage, whether it is soap, toothpaste tubes... or toilet paper. We receive our medicine kits, our individual weapons, our weapons and collective equipment:shotgun, mortar, machine gun, explosives and all sabotage accessories, mosquito nets, tent canvas, fishing kits, ammunition... In fact of food, we only receive a minimum:salt, sugar, tea, flour, dehydrated fruits or vegetables. All meat and fresh vegetables will have to be acquired by trapping and gathering in the forest.
One fine day, a “mongoose” van drops us off at a bend in a path in the deep forests of southern Belgaum, the other groups a few tens of kilometers away. We must consider them as hostile people, absolutely avoid being seen and seek, on the contrary, to discover their quartering, to study them and to prepare the attack.
We we therefore have a working framework, supplemented by the fact that we must also avoid being seen by the few villages in the sector or by the loggers who work in the logging.
We must also live like we will have to do it, build our camp, establish hiding places, hidden or trapped access and retreat routes, live, that is to say feed ourselves and stay in good health, make a complete topographical survey of the region with our only compass as we will do when we are parachuted, search for drop sites, study roads and rivers to prepare ambushes and sabotages.
During the four months that we spend deep in the jungle, in the middle of the monsoon season, with rain every day, we will change sides several times. It's the same routine every time. You have to explore first to find the perfect place. Once the site has been chosen, the equipment must be carried on beams or suspended from poles, an operation which is always tiring and painful because, in order not to create a path, it is necessary to take paths in the rocks or in the course of the rivers.
Once the equipment has been brought in, you have to build the hut, group hut or individual hut, that is to say, you have to cut bamboo or logs, assemble them, go to harvesting armfuls of grass, assembling them in bundles, thatching the roof or installing bamboo gutters.
You have to build a bamboo floor and beds, prepare the hearth, the shelter radio, caches of weapons or explosives which must be protected from humidity. You must install a pantry that is also protected from humidity and attacks by fungi, rodents or civet cats, termites and ants...
You have to look for the place where we will wash and install a device to prevent the soapy water from revealing our position downstream. We must prepare the access roads in such a way that no curious person can reach our camp; for this we use watercourses, rocky passages where traces are not imprinted. We must cut well-camouflaged secret tracks for a possible rapid retreat, dig holes in which, in the event of an attack or a hasty departure, we will place, well protected in airtight containers, explosives or ammunition.
It is necessary to establish several kilometers from the camp, caches well camouflaged and well protected from humidity, termites, in which we place spare parts, radio, weapons, ammunition, medicines , clothes...
If we have to evacuate our camp in a hurry, we can abandon everything, we will go and restock in our hiding place. However, we always keep handy, whether we're going to wash up or chopping wood or cooking, an emergency knapsack that contains some submachine gun magazines for Sten, some sabotage utensils , atebrin, MB tablets, some high-calorie relief foods, a. compass, crystals from the radio, the code... With that, and our dagger that never leaves us, we can stay hidden for several days, if necessary, before reaching the resupply hiding place.
Every day we walk, we hunt, we take turns cooking. In groups of two or three, we go on reconnaissance to try to locate the opposing camps. For this, we systematically study all the paths to detect traces of footsteps, all the streams to discover traces of soap. We listen carefully to identify sounds of abatis or detonations.
We make long raids to "attack" a village, fifty kilometers in eight hours in the jungle. The group leader has established a training and maintenance program that keeps us going all day. At night, in turn, everyone takes the watch, at some distance from the camp, where listening is best. We now know our destination and have started studying the local language, geography, history.
And then, one fine day, a van comes to pick us up and drop us off at the station. After three days by train, we find ourselves at the field of Jessore, in Bengal. We are given new equipment, maps... and we climb into the big "Liberator" which awaits us... In eight hours, we will jump, in the middle of the night... for good, on the rear of the enemy.