Signpost in the jungle.

Towards the end of World War II, David Young, an officer in the Royal Engineers, had been seconded to a division of the Indian army in Burma. His unit had just crossed the Irrawaddy River and reached Katha, 300 miles north of Mandalay, when trouble struck.

The threat came not from the hazards of fighting in thick jungle, or from enemy snipers and shells, or malaria or dysentery. It came in the form of a new officer joining the unit, who rubbed everyone up the wrong way.

`His name was Mac and he always took the opposite view to everyone else,' says Young. `I longed to see him posted somewhere else. Either that or that by some miracle he could change his whole attitude.'

Some weeks after this unwelcome arrival, Young went on leave to India. Through the British acquaintances he was staying with, he met an army doctor whom he told about his problems with Mac. The doctor was sympathetic about his desire for a change in Mac's approach to life. `But,' he added, `an experience of change is like the measles. You can't give it to anyone else unless you have got it yourself.'

As a result Young, who had always seen himself as a Christian, took `an honest look' at his life. `I decided to give God the chance to tell me what he wanted me to do.' In the process, he realized that he had been saying things behind Mac's back, which he was not prepared to say to his face. He felt that he should apologize, and `ask him if in future we can work together'.

It took a full three weeks after returning to his unit in Burma for Young to get around to carrying out this thought. `The idea of an apology cut at my pride,' he explains. `But when I made it I got an unexpected reaction.'

Instead of the explosion that he expected, Mac was silent for a long time. Then he said, `I don't know that I can work with anyone. I am a very difficult person.' He began to talk about things from his past, including his parents breaking up when he was a teenager, that had made him feel that the whole world was against him and had made him close his heart to other people.

`He didn't become a saint,' admits Young, `but we did begin to work together. The whole unit noticed the difference.

`Since that initial start, God has always given me a signpost as to what to do in life. Sometimes I've been too self-centred or driving too fast to notice the signpost, but if I'm humble enough to go back when I have lost my way, I can always pick it up again.'

When he came out of the army in 1946, he went to Cambridge to study mechanical engineering and then industrial management. Later he decided to give his full time to work with Moral Re-Armament `with an emphasis on industry'. He spent some years in India, where he helped to build MRA's training and conference centre in Panchgani and to initiate its programme of industrial seminars. More recently he has become involved in building bridges with Korea.

`Every signpost God has shown me brought a new adventure,' he says. `I recommend it.'