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It looked like any other Borneo jungle hill. Tales about ghosts on
it were taken with the usual pinch of salt by the two Sappers helping
to map the area. Yet three successive attempts to climb the hill were
thwarted. First the men were driven off by a swarm of bees, then the
equipment was damaged, and finally one of the Sappers fell and had to
be evacuated.
Men of the Field Troop of 84 Survey Squadron, Royal Engineers, have
come to take such hazards in their stride. Their task of mapping
thousands of square miles of jungle in North Borneo and Sarawak has
led them into little-known regions and many unlikely adventures.
Seven lance-corporal technicians of the troop handle the bulk of the
field work, usually operating alone in the dank, uncharted jungles,
setting out each time with £100 to finance their expeditions,
paying their own porters and guides. It is a responsible and exacting
job but the Sappers, mostly former Army apprentices, are well trained
to deal with the technical side. Their main problem is one of
existence.
They are often treading ground that has never been touched before even
by the local Iban natives. They must take care, when climbing to an
observation point, not to dislodge loose rock; they must watch for
rotting trees that may fall at a touch, and all this in addition to
the routine jungle precautions necessary to maintain health.
They must get to know the people, live with them and eat with them.
Though the Sappers carry a small quantity of tinned food and take
vitamin tablets, they share the natives' staple diet of rice,
augmented by any local fish and game that can be caught.
The biggest enemy is the leech, especially the giant buffalo leech
whose bites have a more telling effect as the Sappers' resistance is
lowered by long spells in the jungle. When a leech bite starts to take
a fortnight to heal it is time for a change of air.
Elephants are not usually a hazard, but there was one occasion in
North Borneo when a survey party was charged by a mother elephant
after her playful offspring had trotted over to make friends. The
party dropped everything and scattered. No one was hurt but the
equipment was ruined and the work held up.
The Sappers' task is part technical, part physical, part research.
They work from a map compiled from aerial photographs showing rivers
and villages. Physical details are added by working from the highest
points in the area, calculating an unknown height from comparisons
with two other heights previously determined. Setting up observation
points involves chopping down 80ft trees to form a pyramid, and
contacting the other points with a flashing light, heliograph or
mirror. Sometimes, when the ground is unusually high, the key points
are covered for long periods by cloud, and the surveyor may have to
wait a month just to complete two hours' work.
But this is only one aspect of the task. The surveyor must also note
the types of terrain, vegetation, swamps, water points, and name every
village, jungle track and stream. This too has its complications as
Malays and Dyaks use different place names. The district officer is
accepted as the authority and the completed maps are sent to him for
checking. But the whole process takes about two years and by this time
a new district officer may have taken over who may have different
ideas about some of the titles.
The young Sappers took a six weeks' Malayan language course before
being sent into the jungle and several have augmented this by picking
up the local dialects. This helps enormously in promoting good
relations with the tribesmen, upon whom the Sappers depend for
information and help. Much can also be learned from the porters. Each
man learns his own job and gets on with it, and regular operations are
performed with military precision under the Sapper lance-corporals'
command.
The Field Troop, commanded by Captain G R Gathercole, is sharing the
Sarawak Government's Land and Survey Department office in Kuching and
co-operating closely with the Department in producing an up-to-date
topographical record of the country.
The co-operation within this modern office block in the country's
capital' is strangely echoed on a more personal, more rewarding level
between lance-corporal and tribesman in the remote corners of this
untamed yet friendly land.
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