savimosh01 (your #8632),
...The British built an alternative airfield at Silchar in 1944...
Accept this without hesitation (after my time, I left in November, 1943).
...to take him [Dave Cummin] to their village where curious tribes-people have a good look over him, but no one speaks English. For the first and last time, Cummin draws his hand gun, firing into the air in order to inspire the Nagas to escort him to a road...
Not necessary. The Naga villagers were favourable to the British (and he should have known that). In any case, in his side pack he would have leaflets (
Chugalug has produced a copy of a leaflet we all carried on 'ops'- see "Pilot's Brevet" p.150 #2994). These told the recipients who we were and what to do with us. (and more on this in ibid p.137 #2726 ).
...[Cummin] floats over never-ending glistening green jungle when he hears the plane's engine sputter to life again...
Topley cannot have had a fuel pump failure (as he would think he had - when he called "Pump"). But the engine would not then have "sputtered into life" without the wobble-pump working, he was now the only one to do it, he needs three hands, he hasn't got them. He could have kept flying "like a one-armed paper-hanger", but a normal, powered landing would be out of the question. But he got it down at Silchar (what was wrong with Khumbirgram, I wonder). There would have been one possibility. Fly it into a position from which he could do a "dead-stick" landing without power and let the engine die. Glide landings were discouraged, because of the way a VV would "mush" into the ground at round-out, but if you put on another 15-20mph over the fence, it would wheel-in well enough (stopping at the far end might be problematic !)
Danny.