The Footnote That Started a Novel: Writing the Argylls Back into the Malayan Campaign A guest post by D. Sinclair, author of  The Last Swaddie I first heard about the 2nd Argylls in Malaya from a footnote. A single line in a history book said the battalion was considered the best jungle fighting unit in Malaya. There was no explanation and no detail, just a fact buried at the bottom of a page. I couldn’t leave it alone. Why was the finest jungle battalion in a campaign remembered for catastrophe so little known? That question became years of reading war diaries, regimental histories and archive material, and eventually a novel. A battalion that trained for the war everyone said wouldn’t come The popular story of Malaya in 1941-42 is one of unreadiness. The Japanese invaded in December 1941, and within seventy days Malaya and Singapore had fallen. About 130,000 men became prisoners, in what is often called the greatest defeat in British military history. The 2nd Battalion, Ar...