Pause that Refreshes

British officers near Kohima on India's frontier were politely baffled by the two Americans. Their three-day passes checked perfectly; they were in the front-line area legally enough. But they made the most amazing request. Bored with running railroads back of the line, they insisted that they wanted to spend their holiday killing Japanese.

The British, who knew good men when they saw them, put them at machine guns in General Grant tanks headed for the front. The 13-hour assault on Jap positions that followed turned out to be one of the fiercest battles yet waged in those hills.

After the engagement the Americans climbed from their tanks intact, allowed it was "pretty exciting," and had some kind words for the British.

Said Sergeant Charles L. Harrell, 45, of Yuma, Ariz., formerly yardmaster of the Southern Pacific, who claimed three enemy dead: "The Japs are good fighters without yellow streaks but the British infantry is better. They won't stop even when their officers are killed."

Added taciturn Private Max G. Peterson, former rigger of Marlinton, W.Va.: "The officer commanding my tank got a wound in his head, bandaged it himself and kept going."

Their leave over, the Americans returned to the humdrum routine of highballing supplies up the Assam-Bengal railroad. Presumably they were refreshed.

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