For my grandmother
Marys Doris Norman,
1914–2016,
who was there
Contents
PART I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
PART II
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
PART III
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
PART I
Burma, 1941–1942
1
Bagan, October 1941
Kate could hear her own breathing, fast and loud in the darkness. She tried to focus on the other sounds: the drip of water somewhere along the passage and a stone falling nearby. She could no longer hear the low roar of the Irrawaddy River; she had come too far into the tunnels.
‘Hello?’
Her voice echoed. She touched the stone wall beside her and felt the deep carvings beneath her fingers.
I am not afraid, thought Kate. Any minute now the monks will realise they’ve left me behind.
She recalled wandering around the farm at night when she was a girl, following the dim illumination of the sky and the distant light of the stars. Here the darkness was a different shade. The tunnel had wound so far into the hillside that no light could enter and now she stood in absolute blackness, unable even to see her hand in front of her face.
I lost him in the darkness. The phrase suddenly emerged in her mind. It sounded familiar, a hushed, painful cry. I lost him in the darkness. Like a mantra she repeated it over and over, feeling her heart beginning to pound once again.
I never used to be scared of the dark, she thought. This is absurd. But the fear was primitive, ancestral, as though the ghosts of her past had been waiting here for her all her life.
I lost him in the darkness, came a whisper in the tunnel, and she knew that they were there.
*
Kate had been cycling along a rough track, a few miles from the ancient city of Bagan, when two young boys munching on slices of green mango waylaid her. They had shaved heads and wore the ragged yellow robes of novice monks.
‘Good morning, lady. You want see temple?’
She laughed. ‘I’ve seen quite a lot of temples in the last few days. I’m not sure I need to see another one.’
The younger of the boys, swallowing his piece of mango, said, ‘No, no, this temple very special. Nice . . .’ and here he paused to confer in Burmese with his brother, ‘nice cat cones.’
‘Cat cones?’ said Kate.
‘Very nice cat cones,’ confirmed his brother. ‘Very big, very old.’ They looked at her expectantly.
‘Ah – do you mean catacombs? Are there any?’
‘Yes, lady,’ said the younger boy, now examining her borrowed bicycle with the air of a professional dealer. He squeezed the tyres, nodded sagely at the frame, and rang the bell.
‘All right,’ said Kate, ‘how much for the tour?’
‘For you, lady,’ said the older boy, sucking his teeth, ‘five annas.’
‘Two,’ said Kate.
‘Four.’
‘Three.’
‘Done,’ he said. ‘Your name?’
‘Kate. And yours?’
‘Nyan. This my brother, Shwe.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, shaking hands solemnly with each of them, then leaned the bicycle against a fence.
‘This way, Miss Kate.’
Nyan walked beside her, looking with interest at her clothes and the knapsack she carried. ‘Why you come Bagan?’
‘I work for the government,’ said Kate. ‘In the education department in Rangoon.’
‘You are teacher?’
‘No, but I visit schools and write reports about them. This week I’ve been visiting some of the schools near Bagan. What school do you attend?’
‘Ananda monastery school,’ said Nyan, pointing vaguely to the east.
‘Do you like it there?’
He nodded enthusiastically. ‘Is good school. Teachers very nice.’ Kate decided not to point out that he and his brother were obviously playing truant.
They went through an archway and joined a path that led steeply downhill between grassy rocks. Kate saw that they were descending slowly into a gorge and thought they must be near the river; sure enough, a moment later she saw the Irrawaddy glinting through the trees at the bottom of the hill.
‘Where’s this temple?’ she asked, pushing damp hair off her forehead.
‘Here,’ said Nyan, pointing at the slope beneath their feet.
Squinting against the sun, Kate moved closer to the rocks and pulled off a creeper. Beneath it she saw intricate carvings and words in curling Burmese script. In the quiet of the afternoon a bell rang out down in the gorge, somehow muffled. She felt the hair stand up on her arms even in the heat.
‘This way,’ called Nyan, beckoning. Kate followed the boys, clambering down steep stairs, and saw the stone walls of a temple emerging from the hillside. Panting slightly, she reached the bottom and found herself on a sunny paved terrace above the river. Pink and yellow orchids bloomed nearby and, on the riverbank, fig trees trailed their leaves in the limpid river. She wiped her sweating palms and waved ineffectually at the insects that buzzed around her face, noticing that her shirt and shorts were damp with humidity.
The boys were sitting on a step, grinning, and at the back of the terrace she saw the entrance to the temple set into the rock. A little old woman squatted in the wide arch, making a garland of white flowers. She looked up with a red, betel-stained smile as Kate approached and held out a candle, her other hand holding up one thin finger.
Holding out three coins, Kate took the candles, giving one to each of the boys and keeping one for herself. The old woman picked up a flaring taper and lit the candles with an unsteady hand.
Kate and the two boys stepped inside the temple doorway and instantly she felt the temperature fall. The only light came from the door and from a couple of guttering candles that stood either side of a statue of the Buddha, smiling beati
fically in his niche. His neck was draped with flower garlands and the floor nearby was crunchy with dried petals. Two great pillars held up the terraces above. The whole place smelled strongly of incense, enough to make her light-headed.
‘Welcome,’ said a soft voice and an elderly monk appeared. The boys spoke to him in Burmese and he bowed low before picking up one of the lit candles. She wondered how long it had been since his last visitor and had the fleeting impression that he had been waiting for her for a long time.
The monk bowed again to Kate, his face craggy in the candlelight, and slipped through a roughly carved narrow doorway. Kate followed cautiously, watching her feet as she passed through into the tunnel, where a single thick candle, almost burned down, was stuck to the floor with wax. Looking up, she saw the monk disappearing around a corner into the darkness and felt a chill.
The tunnels of Kyaukgu Umin, the boys whispered to her, were the oldest in Burma. ‘Millions of years old,’ said Shwe confidently. Hundreds, certainly, thought Kate. The walls – and here they gestured upwards, Nyan raising his candle – were carved with scenes from the life of the Buddha.
Ahead of them, the old monk paused and stood patiently, the candlelight flickering on his face. He spoke softly to the boys, his free hand tracing lovingly over the carvings on the wall.
‘He say this one birth of Buddha,’ said Nyan, and Kate saw what might be rays of light emanating from a round object that was perhaps once a baby, although centuries of eager hands had worn the carvings almost smooth.
The monk continued down the corridor, the boys following in a small pool of light. The tunnels seemed to go back for miles into the hillside. The main passages were wide and obviously well-used, their floors polished by the bare feet that must have ranged over them for centuries. Somewhere out there the war was raging, but the ghosts of Kyaukgu Umin knew nothing of the world outside. How extraordinary to think that this scene had not changed: a monk in a worn saffron robe pacing through the timeless tunnels.
Ahead, the monk and Nyan were examining another carving, talking quietly, and then they moved around a corner and were out of sight, Shwe trailing behind them. As Kate held up her candle to see the wall, a draught made it gutter and go out, and suddenly she was alone.
*
I lost him in the darkness. I lost him. I lost him.
‘Miss Kate?’
From somewhere ahead she heard a voice and this time she was sure it was real.
‘Shwe, is that you?’
‘Here, Miss Kate.’
She sensed him coming back along the tunnel, although she could see nothing, and at last she heard his breathing, felt his small sticky hand take hers.
‘Where’s your candle, Shwe?’
‘Wind blow down.’
‘Mine too.’
For a moment they stood silently and then she felt him tug her hand, leading her carefully forward, his bare feet silent on the stone floor.
‘All right, Shwe,’ she said, swallowing. ‘If we keep moving we’ll probably see the light from Nyan’s candle.’
‘Yes, Miss Kate,’ he whispered, sounding subdued. Running their hands along the walls, they inched around the corner. Hoping at any moment to see a friendly glow, Kate kept her eyes open, peering into the blackness.
‘They too far,’ said Shwe beside her.
‘Then we just have to keep going,’ said Kate firmly, though her legs were like jelly.
They shuffled along, feeling the gnarled rocks under their hands. A dreadful thought struck her. ‘Shwe,’ she said, ‘does this passage split into two anywhere? We don’t want to go down the wrong path.’
‘No, Miss Kate,’ said Shwe, although he sounded uncertain. ‘Stop, lady. Stop for moment.’
She felt him touching the wall carefully, laying a cheek against the stone, running his fingers over whatever carvings were to be found there. Then he knelt and touched the floor, feeling the texture of the ground beneath him.
‘Do you know where we are?’
‘Yes, lady. I think. Come.’ He took her hand again and tugged her along, still moving gingerly in the darkness but with more purpose.
Suddenly there was rock in front of them and Kate realised they were at a junction. Without hesitating, Shwe pulled them along the right-hand tunnel, then took another turning and another.
‘Are you sure . . .’ Kate began, but she didn’t finish, because ahead of them was light, flickering around a corner. It proved to be the last inch or so of a candle, burning in an alcove. Two more bends of the passage brought them to an opening where a different, whiter light was spilling into the tunnel.
‘Daylight!’ exclaimed Kate and felt relief flooding through her. They emerged into the entrance chamber of the temple, on the opposite side from where they had entered the tunnels. Nyan and the monk were standing by the Buddha, the old man muttering prayers.
Kate strode past them and out through the front door, down the steps, past the old woman, until she was standing at the front of the terrace, looking at the river and taking huge gulps of clean air. The bell chimed again behind her, the sound ringing out across the valley.
2
Rangoon, October 1941
Kate closed the front door of her flat and made her way along Pagoda Road, clutching a stack of folders. She was heading for the Secretariat Building on Dalhousie Street and was already too warm in the hot breath of the morning. She stopped to buy sliced pineapple for breakfast and waved to the woman who sold flowers outside the Sule Pagoda.
The steamer down the Irrawaddy to Rangoon had taken two days and Kate spent the hot midday hours sitting in a patch of shade, watching the arid landscape of Lower Burma slide slowly by. People sat all around her on the deck, playing with their children and eating grilled corn and fresh fruit.
Her field trip was over and she was due back at the government office where she had worked for two years. The war had barely touched Burma during that time, but now it was creeping closer. Japan had invaded Indochina a few weeks earlier and there were rumours of troop movements all across Asia, of submarines in the Bay of Bengal.
The Secretariat, when she reached it, looked as complacent as ever, with neatly kept formal gardens and well-scrubbed brickwork. Servants trotted about cleaning and repairing, taking messages, while men in suits passed to and fro, cogs in the well-oiled machine of Empire.
The ground floor was thronging with staff and she stopped to speak to a few people as she passed through. The noise decreased as she made her way into the depths of the building, which sprawled over acres of ground. Several flights of stairs and a long corridor took her to the education department, where a pale young man hovered outside her office door.
‘Hello,’ he said, visibly relaxing as he saw her.
‘You must be Edwin,’ she said. ‘I heard they’d found someone to fill the vacancy.’
‘That’s right. Miss Girton, I presume?’
He was a few years older than Kate, perhaps in his mid-thirties, tall and slender with straw-coloured hair and a melancholy expression. She noticed he was sweating heavily in his light cotton suit, like all new arrivals.
‘Call me Kate. They told me downstairs that you’re staying at the Strand and that you’ve come from England via Bombay. Word gets around fast here. Come on in.’ She elbowed the door open and he followed, looking around at the small, messy office.
‘What do you think of the Strand?’ said Kate, thumping her pile of papers onto the nearest desk. ‘It’s a dreadful old heap, isn’t it?’
‘I hadn’t really thought about it,’ said Edwin. ‘Someone in India told me it was the only hotel in Rangoon so I made a reservation. Silly, really, now I think about it.’
Kate shrugged. ‘It’s one of the few hotels suitable for people who travel on Cook’s tours and like everything to remind them of home.’
‘Do you live nearby?’ asked Edwin.
‘I’ve got a flat not far from here. Belonged to the dear and departed parents of a chap who works
downstairs so he’s letting it to me for now.’ She gestured to a seat. ‘When did you arrive?’
‘Oh – Friday, I think,’ said Edwin, frowning. ‘I got to the Strand in the afternoon and slept for most of the weekend. It was a long journey from Bombay.’
He looked with interest at the photographs on the wall, little boys and girls sitting in neat rows, sometimes with a teacher or a monk in the centre. ‘Did you take these?’
‘Most of them,’ said Kate. ‘Visiting schools is my favourite part of the job, but I don’t get a chance to do it often these days. I’ve just been up to Bagan – it was a rare chance to visit a few schools and fit in some sightseeing too. We’ve been understaffed for so long that I end up buried in a mountain of paperwork.’
‘Well, I’m here to work,’ said Edwin earnestly. ‘Talk me through everything you’re doing and I’ll get stuck in.’
Kate showed him a list of projects that needed to be completed soon and meetings that were planned with other members of the department. On seeing the little scrap of torn paper and her messy handwriting, he winced and quietly wrote it out neatly on a clean sheet.
‘You’re going to be useful,’ she said, glancing up as he pinned the sheet of paper to the wall opposite. ‘Organisation isn’t my strong point, as I expect you can see.’
‘I like tidiness,’ he said, smoothing the paper. ‘I’d be very happy to organise all of this, if you’ll let me.’ He gestured around at the desk.
‘Be my guest.’
Kate hadn’t known what to expect of Edwin, but she liked him immediately. He reminded her vaguely of a boy she had known in the village at home: clever, bespectacled, shy around women, uneasy with the boisterous banter of the other boys. He had gone away to university and flourished by all accounts. Douglas, that was it. She wondered if he had been caught up in the war.
Frowning at the page before her, she pushed her thick dark hair behind her ears and was aware of Edwin watching her for a moment before he turned away. She shifted in her seat, feeling her cotton dress sticking to her legs, and went to switch on the ceiling fan.
At one o’clock, after she had introduced Edwin to the people in the neighbouring offices, a delivery boy brought two packed lunches and they stopped to eat. Edwin sniffed the parcel of curry and rice cautiously.
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