Continuation of my Army days , ( Stories & Pictures)

Ref. Army discipline. The moral issue, thou shall not kill.
Army version, Kill if, by not killing you are putting yourself and the people you have been ordered to protect, fail to act on army orders.
I faced this dilemma while I was doing sentry duty patrolling the outer perimeter of our base
camp. The story begins with a description of life
in a jungle base camp.
The position was isolated, located on a valley floor which was flat and open ground on two sides the other sides being dense jungle, with a cleared area of some twenty feet from our camp perimeter fence wire.
The wire was not intended to keep the bandits out but to enable our lads to rapidly pick up their rifles and ammunition and engage the bandits in the jungle. as the camp was so close to the jungle edge it was possible for a bandit gang to remain undetected, and observe all our troop movements, to counter this most of our patrols went out after dark. A state of tension always existed, especially after dark when incidents nearly always happend, such as when a cook put a half full jar of mouldy jam on the rubbish fire and sometime later in the night, it exploded with the sound of a bomb going off. All the camp was on full alert for quite a while. Another scare was when an officer after a night out, came back in a scout car and opened fire with its twin Vickers machine guns which were loaded with incendiary bullets, right over the tops of the sleeping tents, Then admonished the men for not standing to, quick enough.

I was on sentry duty with a pal,following about ten feet away patrolling the perimeter wire,It was dark and just before dawn. The outer part of the wire was lit by powerful lamps but cast a lot of shadows on the patrol path.
As we walked down the narrow path we saw two figures approaching along the same path, they were Asian in appearance, and to follow procedure had to chalange them with Halt who goes there. they did not respond and continued approaching along the path,I repeated the order to Halt but they didn't comply, at this, I slamed a live round into the breech of my rifle, with finger on the trigger ready to fire. As if by Magic the sound of the bolt action on my rifle caused them to freeze on the spot, and explain why they were there, which was to light the cooking stove fire etc ready for the cooks when they came on duty. I think I went (PHEW) that was a close one.