Assignment Burma Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

Her hair was as black as a raven’s wing, shining, almost iridescent in the jungle light. It was elaborately swirled and coiffed in native fashion. Her bare shoulders were smooth and brown and very young. Her teeth were strong and white, unstained by the betel nut that marred the teeth of most of these people. Her eyes, almond-shaped, in her broad pretty face regarded him with dark, liquid sobriety.

  “Are you well enough to walk through the jungle?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  “I would not want to be responsible for your dying there.”

  “Give me the chance,” he pleaded. “Please.”

  “I cannot let my father kill you again.”

  “Again?”

  “Like the other one, years ago. Before I was bom.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The one you asked about when you came here. The one whose grave you sought. Emmett Claye.”

  It seemed incredible to hear this child talk about Emmett like this, after all the years that had gone by. He could not imagine what possible connection she could have with Em-mitt Claye. And then suddenly it seemed very simple. “Of course,” he said. “You’re from Nambum Ga.”

  “Yes. My father is the headman there, Pra Ingkok. You were his guest.”

  “Is he the one who put me here?”

  “I am ashamed of it.”

  He gripped the bamboo bars. “Look, let’s get this over with. Either let me out or go away. I can’t stand this. Have you the key?”

  “I have it,” she said.

  He watched her as she moved out on the broad limb of the banyan tree and took a key from around her neck. He looked to see if she had a knife or a gun, but she appeared unarmed. The lock seemed to be deliberately obstinate when she tried to open it. Paul drew a deep breath and then another. He felt faint when the key clicked and she swung the gate outward and then moved back. “Be careful,” she said. “You must be weak after all this.”

  “I’m all right.”

  She went down the ladder first and then turned to wait for him. He felt dizzy the moment he crawled out of the cage, felt as if he were going to fall from the tree limb to the ground below. He had to hang on, panting, while sweat poured out of him.

  “Hurry, please,” the girl called.

  “I’m coming, Miss—”

  “Erena Ingkok. My father is your old friend.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “Erena.”

  “Be careful.”

  He reached the bamboo ladder and concentrated on a slow descent. His knees were watery. His legs trembled when he reached the ground and he fell to all fours while the earth performed slow, sickening gyrations under him. The girl gave a little cry and came to him and knelt to put her arms around his shoulders and help him to his feet. Kneeling, she exposed the small, ornate dagger she had strapped to a thong around her thigh. The blade glittered in the sunlight that filtered down into the jungle. He could not take his eyes off it. Cunning came to him, and he pretended to be weaker than he was, forcing his weight upon the girl. She did not protest.

  “We must hurry,” she said.

  “Have you any food? I’m hungry.”

  “Later. You must go three miles along the trail to the top of the ridge where the pagoda of Kusawa, the priest, is situated. The thakin expects you. There will be food there for you.”

  “A Buddhist priest?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  “I cannot. I must go back to the town.”

  “I think you’d better,” he said. “It would be much better if you came with me.”

  Something in his voice made her look at him with sudden alarm, and then, before it was too late, he snatched at the knife on her thigh. It came out of its sheath easily, but as he tried to swing away from her his legs betrayed him and he stumbled and fell to the soft debris that carpeted the jungle floor. The girl cried out and turned as if to run away from him, but he caught her bare ankle and tripped her and she fell flat. Before she could rise, he threw himself on top of her and put the point of her knife at her throat.

  “Now—!”

  She looked up, twisting her head, in terror. “Please—” “Now tell me the truth,” he panted.

  “What truth? I came to help you!”

  “Why?”

  “Because of my father. Because of his shame.”

  “What shame?” he yelled.

  “Please let me up.”

  “Tell me the truth! Are you leading me into a trap? Are they going to kill me?”

  “You must be crazy.” “I’ll kill you first, Erena. I don’t care any more.”

  “I came to help you!” she cried.

  '‘I don’t believe you.”

  The knife pricked her throat, and a sudden bright bead of blood splashed on the ground under her head. She stared at it, wide-eyed, and then he felt her pliant body wrench and writhe with animal strength under him. He could not hold her. She was stronger than he, and his weakness came back after his first attempt to check her. She wriggled out from under him, snatched his wrist and turned it and the knife fell from his trembling fingers. Then she leaped to her feet and stood over him.

  He expected her to kill him.

  He deserved it, he thought.

  He had bungled his one chance to get out of the trap.

  “Get up,” she said.

  “Forgive me.”

  “I cannot. Get up.”

  “Don’t put me back in the cage,” he begged. “Don’t.”

  “You deserve nothing better. But I promised I would help you, and I shall,” Erena said bitterly.

  He slowly got to his feet. His legs trembled. He shook with fever and sweated. He knew he was a scarecrow figure, disgustingly filthy, stinking of sweat and excrement, ragged and half insane.

  Then he knew it was too late, anyway.

  He looked beyond her and saw some men in green uniforms carrying machine pistols trotting down the trail toward the big banyan tree at his back. They came out of the shadowed jungle in swiftness and silence, moving with an easy, loping speed. There were four of them. The lead man saw him with the girl and stopped and threw up his machine pistol. The desire to kill was on his flat, brown face. The second man said something sharply and stopped the imminent stutter of bullets.

  The girl sucked in a deep breath.

  “It is too late,” she whispered. “Be quiet, Paul. For your life. It is the Lahpet Hao.”

  Other men trotted down the path after the first. Among them was a tall, thin leader in a neat, clean uniform. There was a quick chattering in native tongues as they were surrounded. The girl stood in defiance, brave and quiet. One of the men slapped her and she staggered, but did not fall. A second one caught Paul by the arm and pointed up at the cage in the trees and laughed loudly. Then he slapped Paul hard and knocked him down. He started to get up, saw the jungle boot coming at him and tried to throw himself aside; but the boot caught him in the ribs with enough force to knock the breath out of him. He lay where he fell, vomiting with the pain.

  Dimly he heard a sharp command from the neatly-uniformed leader. His vision blurred. He was afraid to sit up, but rough hands grabbed him and hauled him to his feet to face the commander.

  Paul looked at the tall man and felt his sanity slip away.

  “Emmett?” he whispered.

  The man said in accented English, “I am Major Mong, of the Provisional People’s Army of the Lahpet Hao.”

  “Emmett,” Paul said again. “I’m Paul. Paul Hartford—”

  One of the other men slapped him and the blow made the bloody scars in his mouth, from the bamboo splinters, open up and he felt the salt warmth of the blood run down his throat. He coughed and doubled up and someone hit him on the back and another man wrenched his arm behind him and made him stand up straight.

  He wanted to faint.

  He looked at the man who called himself Major Mong and saw an older, more bitter, more savage Emmett Claye. There was the same sandy hair, the
same thin face, but most unmistakably, there were the same tawny, angry, lustful eyes of the man who had been believed dead for twenty years, whose bones had long ago moldered on the leafy floor of the jungle.

  “I am Major Mong,” the man said again.

  Then Paul saw the gun in his hand and stared at the rising black muzzle until he saw down the dark eternity of its barrel as it pointed to him.

  The last thing he saw was the tawny, blazing eyes.

  The last thing he heard was the girl’s scream.

  Then something hit him and knocked him out of the grip of the man who held him and he knew he was staggering, flailing the air like a scarecrow on a string,

  and then the ground came up like a tidal wave and his fingers dug into leaf-mold and while the darkness gathered in him he wondered and wondered, until he let himself slip into the dark and made it all go away from him.

  Six

  They flew north from the Pegu airfield shortly after midnight. Durell had no trouble finding the Mandarin Bar with Eva. Simon was waiting for them, and Merri Tarrant’s little Dauphine covered the drive up through the delta country in good time. Eva was silent and thoughtful, and Durell did not press her with more questions.

  The battered old Dakota waited for them at Pegu airstrip. It was already loaded with an assorted cargo of bright red bicycles with outsize bells on the handlebars, cartons of American cereals, sacks of rice, luggage, several trunks, a cage containing a monkey, another full of bright little birds of astounding hues that hopped silently about behind their bars. The passenger arrangements consisted of six primitive bucket seats in the stripped-down cabin. The partition between the pilot’s compartment and the passenger area had been removed, and through the nose windows Durell could see the native mechanics pulling away in the fuel truck.

  Then Merri announced that she was going on the flight, too.

  “You’re not leaving me behind to catch any more grenades aimed at Simon,” she said. “I’m firm on that.” She looked small, almost childish, beside Simon’s towering gauntness. “Anyway, Simon needs me.”

  “It will be risky, baby,” Simon said. His bushy brows lifted in inquiry to Durell. “You could wait for us here in Pegu.”

  She shook her head adamantly. “And not be around to protect my investment? This ship represents thirty-three per cent of my going-home money, darling. I’m not going to let you crack it up if I can help it.”

  “Nobody’s going to crack up, Merri. Relax.”

  “Well, I’m not going to sit in this dump and bite my fingernails, and that’s flat,” she said, and she climbed aboard.

  Locke looked at Durell and shrugged. Durell hesitated. It could be as dangerous in Pegu as in Rangoon for the girl if the terrorists were out to break up BAT and get Locke. And she might serve to keep Eva Hartford out of his way. It was as much her ship as Locke’s, and she knew the nature of their mission. He could not order her to stay behind, short of using force. And when he saw the way Locke looked at her small, vital figure, he did not look forward to an argument.

  “All right,” he said. “But you’ll have to promise to sit tight and not interfere.”

  “You have my word,” Merri told him.

  They were about to climb aboard when a native mechanic ran across the dim field shouting something. It was a telephone call from Rangoon. For Mr. Durell, the panting man said. Durell walked back to the telephone in Locke’s shed hangar. The call was from Chet Lowbridge. The Embassy man sounded angry.

  “You’re making a fool out of me, Durell!” Lowbridge said petulantly. “I promised Colonel Savarati there wouldn’t be any trouble with you! You’re to come back to Rangoon at once, hear me?”

  “How did you know we were in Pegu?” Durell countered.

  “I’ve got my sources,” Lowbridge snapped. “Get back here, please. I don’t want to have to cable Washington—” “I wish you would,” Durell said. “Have you told Savarati where we are?”

  “No, but I will, unless—”

  Durell slapped the phone on the hook and ran back across the field to where Simon Locke waited beside the Dakota. “Let’s go,” he said. “The gendarmes will be here any minute.”

  The old twin-motored plane flew better than it appeared capable of doing. Locke handled the controls with easy familiarity. Durell saw the two women safely belted in their bucket seats, then joined Locke up forward.

  In the moonlight, he saw they were following the wide, silvery ribbon of the Irrawaddy, heading north. The delta’s flatness quickly gave way to low hills that in turn yielded to jumbled, dark masses on the horizon ahead, twisted ridges and deep gorges and fewer and fewer roads. But the railroad going to Mandalay was all the guide they needed, aside from the river.

  The cabin quickly grew cold, and there was no heating equipment. A rain squall blotted out the land, and Locke flew lower. The engines beat out a steady drone of power. The geometrical patterns of rice paddies and small farms ended in teak forests, sawmills, and small jade mining camps, and these in turn blended with the jungle of bamboo forests that climbed the rising slopes of the northern mountains. The brief rain squall did not bother Locke. He seemed different here in the plane, in an element he understood and loved, and something of the man Durell had once known well seemed to return to Locke as they flew north.

  He kept their air speed throttled far down, explaining, “No use getting there too soon, Cajun. Dawn will be good enough. I’m not happy about putting down on that rice-paddy airstrip at Nambum Ga. And if they’ve rolled out oil barrels to block any ships coming in, I want to be able to see them in time to lift us up.”

  Durell went back to check on Eva and Merri. The two women, it seemed to him, lifted their eyes in similar, questioning expressions, as if their muted conversation was one of conspiracy against him. He smiled thinly.

  “Are you both all right? Eva?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Both girls wore slacks and heavy walking shoes. Eva’s ash-blonde hair looked silvery in the dim light, and Merri’s dark head was quick and alert.

  “How is Simon?”

  “You know him better than I,” Durell said.

  “He’ll get us there. But after that—” She shrugged. “There’s a government Circuit House, a kind of hotel used for officials but occasionally available for tourists and business people, in Nambum Ga. I’ll stay there with Eva while you go about your business.”

  Eva’s large, pale eyes regarded Durell without expression as he shrugged and returned to the copilot’s seat beside Simon.

  Two hours passed. The moon dipped behind the jagged, razor-backed ridges that lifted blackly all around them. Durell closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Usually he had the capability of snatching a few moments’ rest anywhere, at any time. But a sense of uncertainty kept him awake. It was not the first time he had flown into the dark unknown, not aware of what lay ahead. The air in the cabin was cold now, and he shivered slightly. He was on his own since he had cut off Chet Lowbridge and could expect no official help. And although he knew he could stick with singleness of purpose to the job he had undertaken, it was now complicated by questions that had been unanticipated and by people whose motives and aims were as yet unclear.

  Eventually, he dozed and dreamed of other places and other times, of sunlight filtering through the gum trees in the bayous of home. He awoke instantly when Simon Locke lightly touched his shoulder.

  “We’ve got company, Cajun. Above and below.”

  He looked down first, where Locke pointed. A broad, shallow river meandered through the dark valley they followed, and Locke identified it as the Inkagaung River. Tumbled mountains and cliffs pressed close to the stream, and here and there long sand bars snagged with debris shone white in the starlight. On the surface of the river was what looked like a bright jeweled bug crawling upstream.

  “That’s Piet Van der Peet’s boat. There are no roads to Nambum Ga except the air and the river. Piet is in business, like me—a freelance transport company. Young
Dutchman from Amsterdam; has a girl in Nambum Ga, they say. We have an occasional drink together at the Strand, when we’re in Rangoon.”

  The brightly lighted, jeweled bug looked like a Mississippi stern-wheeler to Durell.

  “There used to be more of them here,” Locke said. “And you’re right, Cajun—they’re patterned after the Mississippi ships, plank for plank. Remind you of home?”

  Durell nodded. His first boyhood memories were of a steamboat much like the one they circled over now. In the quiet delta country of Bayou Peche Rouge, under the green cypress trees in the backwater behind the town, Durell had been raised by his grandfather on just such a boat as this, a forgotten hulk that was a relic of the old gentleman’s gambling days on the Mississippi. His first games had been played in the maze of decks, corridors, musty staterooms and cargo holds; and the gaudily lighted boat below, splashing upstream, gave him a quick, nostalgic pang of memories.

  But the next moment, as the steamboat was left far behind, there came a screaming clap of thunder, a giant buffeting of wind, and the plane pitched and slid off violently on one wing as Locke cursed and wrestled with the controls.

  “Si, what on earth was that?” Merri called from behind them.

  Locke jerked a thumb at the window and looked grim. “Our second companion, from above.”

  Durell saw the tailpipe exhaust, the dim flash of a silver silhouette climbing, leveling and turning for another pass at them.

  “A jet?” he asked.

  “A government plane, you can bet. Your friend Lowbridge must have gotten in touch with Savarati after all.”

  “Will he use his guns?”

  Locke shrugged. “No telling about some of these trigger-happy lads.”

  The jet came back, soundless at first, to make a second pass at them. It was closer this time, and the Dakota jerked more wildly than before in the buffeting slipstream. Locke put the nose of the Dakota down toward the river valley. The steamboat was almost out of sight as they dropped lower, its bright lights vanishing behind a fold of the cliffs that line the Inkagaung.

  “What do you want to do, Cajun?”

  “I’m not going back,” Durell said.