About the month of June / 1947 our platoon (3inch Mortars) were sent, with others, to the hill station of Rhaniket from our barracks in Lucknow India. Rhaniket is a village in the foothills of the Himalaya about 7,000 feet above sea level. The accommodation was quite reasonable and consisted of a ground and upper storey wooden building with a veranda around the higher floor. What views ! One such view was of the highest mountain between us and the snow capped heights of the Himalaya proper. This feature has twin peaks and is named Bahtkot East and Bahtkot West. The height of this mountain is 9,050 feet. See my position. Here I am a greenhorn youth from the Docklands of Salford. The scenery was awe inspiring, breath taking, magnificent and any other superlatives you can think of. Day in, day out my mucker and I, Fus Dunne stared and stared across the valley to these far away peaks. So much so they became known in the platoon as The Dunne Holmes Peaks.
The obsession in the mountain grew, so much so we approached the Platoon Commander, Capt Armitage, for permission to go and climb this feature between us and the snow caps of the distant landscape. The good news was, he agreed. The bad news was he insisted in coming and anyone else who wished to do so could volunteer. Further bad news was Capt Armitage also insisted come what may we had only 5 days to get there and back and of course we had to carry 5 days supply of food. The Platoon Commander insisted also that we took with us, our rifles and 10 rounds of ammunition. I decided to keep a diary of our Walk In the Sun

PERSONAL DIARY OF THE TRECK TO
THE DUNNE HOLMES PEAK

1st Day Tuesday June 1947
Set off, 06-16 hrs Party consists of :-
Capt Armitage. Sgt's Gallagher & Willis
Cpl Neil. L/Cpl's Everett, Legg and Holmes.
Fus's Baker, Turner, Dunne, Griffiths, Brockley,
Stopforth, Riley and Short.
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1st Stop Not recorded.
2nd Stop. 08-00hrs. Distance covered 6 miles.
Pace will have to be slowed down a bit. The road is good but the load is heavy. Fus Short has a definite disliking for this pace. My own feet are a little sore.
3rd Stop. 08-45hrs Distance covered 7 ½ miles.
We have not yet contacted the path. I hope we have not passed it.
Everyone is a little tired but this is not unnatural with our load.
Morale Report. In general, still OK.
Individual As yet no single person is cheesed off : Fus Short promises Fus Baker a pint in Somerset.
4th Stop 09-25hrs Distance covered 8 ½ miles.
The going has not improved any because of the road beginning to rise. We have stopped fairly soon after the last stop. Reason: We think we have finally contacted the path. WE HOPE.

Morale report OK.
Individual Still no one on their knees.
Stop press Definitely the path, only another 20 miles!
5th Stop. 10-15 hrs Distance covered 9 ½ miles.
Going down the path is quite opposite to the road. We have got to hold ourselves from running.
Morale report. OK
Individual. Everyone is looking forward to arriving in the valley.
6th Stop 10-55hrs Distance covered 10 ½ miles.
Needing a little sustenance We had a few raisins. We have not yet arrived at our first destination.
Morale report. No declension
My first water bottle is nearly empty. Fus Griffiths claims we must reach the top and that we can't have failure. We'll see.
7th Stop 11-50hrs My feet are MILO. I have been carrying Sgt Willis's big pack and believe me he has done well to carry it so far. It's much heavier than mine.
Morale report. Still OK.
8th Stop 12-30hrs Distance covered 12 ½ miles.
Just found that I have got a large blister under my right heel although it is not sore yet. L/Cpl Everett has had bad feet for many miles and he even told me he was thinking of going back tomorrow. I have noticed the difficulty he has found in marching.

To sum up The Days March.

The going has never been easy and considering the very heavy load we are carrying I consider
we have done fairly well to travel approx 12 ½ miles in 6 ½ hourd.
Further Note
Have found out that there are quite a few with blisters and our acting Med orderly, Fus Turner
had quite a busy time treating the march wounds.
Part 2
Notes It has been decided that the people who do not want to go on through
having blisters or other things can stay behind and act as a base whilst the rest carry on tomorrow, Wednesday, in light battle order. Eight people decided to carry on they are :- Sgt Gallagher, Cpl Neild , L/Cpl Holmes, Fus's Turner, Dunne, Griffiths and Baker. In Sgt's Willis favour it will be noted that he wanted to go but one of the two Sgts had to stay behind so they tossed for it and Sgt Willis lost.
Further notes. The distance estimated to the peak from here is about 18 miles or slightly
under. Our intention is set off about 06-00hrs. I suggested a couple of hours night marching if we
are that much away from the peak top at the end of tomorrows march. The idea was cried down
by many of the party but one or two did agree that as it was a full moon it would
help us to cover the distance. There are two persons not going now and personally I think they
should not have decided to go in the first place. The reason is they are in a bad way
with either their shoulders or their feet. The people concerned are Sgt Gallagher and Fus Turner.
Sgt Willis is now going in place of Sgt Gallagher.

2nd Day Wednesday June 1947. Set off 06-35hrs
1st Stop 07-20hrs Distance covered 3 miles.
A definite noticeable difference in our load. Headway pretty good. Having difficulty in keeping to the path we have been forced to march along the river bed. Everyone is sweating a little owing to there being no breeze. Weather is so far in our favour. This is important, as we have left our ground sheets behind.
Morale report OK.
2nd Stop 08-10hrs Distance covered 6 miles.
Still going OK though we are getting many obstacles in the form of rocks and streams. Fus Dunne's feet are not treating him too good. We are only a little tired yet but we are far from disheartened. My vest and shirt are soaking in sweat. Capt Armitage is doubtful about us making the top. For myself I am not ready to judge our possibilities.
Morale report Still good.

3rd Stop. 09-05 Distance covered 9 miles.
Still plodding along the riverbed. Not doing too bad at all. We are obviously in country not often visited by the army because all the inhabitants keep coming out to see us. At present I can hear a bagpipe playing. Here of all places, and what a noise! Here comes another Piper playing something that sounds like Georgia. My feet are doing fine but they are far from being perfect. We have just discovered the real name of the Peak. It is Bahthot West.

General Notes. It is now obviously not possible to reach the top with the time we have or with the food we have. From this spot alone the estimated time needed to get to the top and back here, is 3 days. We are about ¾ of a mile from the nearest part of the hill. This fact is very disappointing but we all agree that to carry on our attempt would be foolish . There are two ways open to us now. These are 1) To carry on for 5 or 6 miles until we come back to a Tea Garden and stay there for the night and 2) to make our way back to the base camp. We chose the latter because we agree there is no point in marching on and having to retrace our steps tomorrow without any appreciable gain other than ground covered. After a couple of hours rest we are going to make our way back to the base camp and if possible get back tonight. This we may not do as we intend to go rather easy on our return journey. This may mean camping about 3 or 4 miles from our base. Anyway time will tell what will happen tonight.

Sadly there are only 2 days of this diary available as the original and typed copies are lost. I still have, somewhere a couple or so photographs taken on our walk. To finish where the diary left off we did reach base camp and had a great day before climbing back up over our hill to rejoin our colleagues in Rhaniket. As a tailpiece I think the funniest memory must be on the first day descending from Rhaniket and Capt Armitage having to constantly pick up a 7 pound tin of peas that kept falling off the top of his big pack where it was very poorly balanced.
I often think Where are they now ? and whether they still enjoy
A WALK IN THE SUN.