The Long Journey Home

by Cecily Blench

  ‘They are rather amazing,’ said Edwin, watching the creature move. ‘You know, I’d never seen an elephant until a couple of months ago.’

  ‘Never?’ said Sarah, the oldest girl, busily eating a mango they had bought en route. ‘How odd!’

  ‘Well, I didn’t grow up in Burma like you, you see,’ said Edwin. ‘There aren’t any elephants in England.’

  ‘My father was from England,’ said Sarah thoughtfully. ‘He was going to take me and Mummy back there but she died and then he died too. She was Burmese but her family didn’t want to keep me.’

  ‘Now, Sarah, that’s not true,’ said Miss Woodford. ‘But your Burmese grandparents are very old and poor and it would have been difficult for them to look after you.’

  The girl shrugged and made a face at Kate. ‘I don’t mind. I don’t know them and I’m not really Burmese or English. I don’t belong anywhere.’

  *

  The road to Mandalay wound through low hills. They were parched and dry at this season but in a few months the monsoon would come and all would be green. Every now and then they passed a pagoda at the roadside, most of them humble, but occasionally a dramatic edifice would appear over the horizon, its golden spire gleaming in the hot sun.

  The road was fairly quiet, but what little traffic there was was heading north. Besides the occasional car and bus, there were vast numbers of bicycles and rickshaws on the road. At regular intervals they would also pass a party on foot.

  ‘All go to Mandalay!’ said Mr Maung, gesturing at a large family plodding along on the verge, clutching bundles and cases. ‘Everyone go that way!’

  ‘I wonder what they’ll do,’ said Kate quietly to Edwin. ‘They can’t all leave the country.’

  ‘Perhaps Mandalay will hold,’ he replied.

  They arrived in the city at dusk on the second day. The streets swarmed with people and everywhere there were homeless families, refugees from the south. Kate stepped out of the truck into the warm heavy night and breathed in deeply. The air smelled of sewage, spices, and something metallic that was oddly familiar: the smell of war.

  14

  Mandalay, February 1942

  The weeks in Mandalay seemed, later, like the calm before the storm. Battles raged in the south of Burma and refugees came north in a steady stream. Some of them had walked all the way to Mandalay; many others came by train, car, and by steamer along the Irrawaddy. A ring of refugee camps had sprung up around the city.

  The morning after their arrival, Kate and Edwin reported to the government office at the central fort.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting things to be this bad,’ said Edwin, stepping gingerly over a pile of rubbish. ‘It feels like a battlefield already.’

  ‘Too many people, I suppose,’ said Kate. ‘I hope they can find something for us to do.’

  Fort Dufferin was a massive enclosure, at least two miles square, with high stone walls. As they approached, Kate saw that the wide grass verge beside the road had been turned into a camp, with tents and rudimentary wooden shacks huddled on the narrow strip and people cooking on open fires.

  Between the walls and the road was a moat. Once, perhaps, it had been calm and beautiful, carpeted with water lilies; now it lay green and stagnant, with rubbish floating on the surface. Children from the camp played in the water, churning up the filthy sludge with their bare feet. Kate shuddered to think what else that water was being used for and of the infections they might pick up.

  The government headquarters was the usual hive of activity and at first no one seemed to know what to do with them now that their jobs no longer existed.

  ‘You’ve two options,’ barked a brisk moustached man at last. ‘You can sign up as volunteers with the Evac. Department and make yourselves useful, or you can make arrangements to get the hell out of Burma. There are still planes leaving. Your choice.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ said Kate, after a brief pause and Edwin nodded.

  ‘Me too. We want to help.’

  ‘Very well.’ He frowned at the ledger in front of him and drummed on it with a pencil. ‘Miss Girton, I’ll send you to the medical team as they’re short of female staff. You’ll report to Dr Mosby and Dr Singh. Mr Clear, you’ll be best in the main Evac. Office – we’ve just lost a couple of staff there. There’s a lot of work to be done, not least in planning ground routes out of the country. I think that’s everything.’

  *

  Kate found that her new role suited her, although the work was hard and draining. Thousands of people lived in the camps and many of them would not make it out.

  She was given a rusty old car to use for transporting medical supplies to the camps and, occasionally, patients back in the other direction. Accommodation was provided, a small bungalow close to the clinic that had belonged to a British family. Edwin, meanwhile, was staying in a requisitioned hotel, which he said reminded him uncannily of family holidays at Eastbourne. He was just as busy as she was and she saw him only occasionally as she hurried around the city.

  One of the enormous advantages of the bungalow was that it had a bookcase. Browsing through it, she found herself wondering what the owners were like and whether they would ever be able to return to Mandalay. She didn’t feel guilty about helping herself to their books, but she felt a sadness looking at their possessions, thinking of her own dear flat in Rangoon.

  This family, the Faulkners, had had a taste for the classics – there were leather-bound volumes of Shakespeare, Austen, and Dickens, which they must have shipped out from England at huge expense. The books had not been served well by the humidity of Mandalay and were mottled and discoloured.

  Then there were brightly coloured picture books that Kate imagined a loving grandmother selecting in a far-off English town and parcelling up to send to her relatives on the other side of the world.

  They might be in England already, the Faulkners – if they had made it to India they could have taken a ship or even flown. If England survived the war they would settle into a new routine there, although, she supposed, for the rest of their lives they would think occasionally of their lost home in the East.

  *

  Returning late one afternoon to the clinic, after a long day spent inoculating people against cholera, Kate found a young Burmese woman efficiently folding bandages, the sleeves of her white blouse carefully rolled up.

  ‘Hello. I’m Kate.’

  ‘My name is Myia Win.’ The woman smiled. ‘It is nice to meet you.’

  ‘Are you from Mandalay?’ Kate went to the cupboard and examined the contents, looking down at the list in her hand.

  Myia nodded. ‘I have worked for the government here for several years.’

  ‘I thought you might be a teacher,’ said Kate. ‘Your English is very good.’

  ‘I used to be a teacher. But my father worked for the government and when he died I was offered a job.’ Her expression clouded.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate, and hesitated. ‘I lost my father, too,’ she said at last.

  Myia inclined her head. ‘It is very difficult.’

  ‘Do you live here alone?’ said Kate.

  ‘My mother and little brother have just left for India,’ said Myia, closing the box in front of her and placing it on the floor. She reached for a new supply of bandages. ‘They decided Mandalay was not safe.’

  ‘But you’re still here.’

  ‘I wasn’t ready to leave,’ she said, and looked out of the window at the silhouetted shapes of pagodas, which rose in the distance. ‘I know I shall have to eventually. But . . . well, this is my home.’

  ‘I suppose if you have worked for the British you’re not safe,’ said Kate.

  ‘That’s why my mother wanted to leave,’ said Myia. ‘She believes that if the Japanese take over they will punish those known to have associated with the British. My father worked for the Mandalay office all his life and even my grandfather worked for the British around the turn of the century. He was old enough to remember when they arri
ved here and deposed the last king of Burma. Things are much better now,’ she added, as though to reassure Kate that she bore no grudge. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate. ‘Are you?’

  Myia shook her head. ‘I was engaged, but . . . well, he’s gone.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. ‘Sometimes people let us down.’

  Kate watched her for a moment and then turned away to continue sorting the supplies that she would need to deliver tomorrow. There was something strange about Myia, something brittle underneath the friendly exterior. She seemed unusually independent, but at the same time reserved, as though she had spent a long time repressing her feelings.

  It was only much later, driving home by the light of the flames engulfing whole streets, the latest evidence of the Japanese advance, that it occurred to Kate that Myia reminded her of herself.

  15

  Worcestershire, September 1931

  Kate stood outside the bedroom door. On the tray in her hands was her father’s breakfast and she looked down at the scrambled eggs, taking a deep breath. Every day it grew a little harder to see his decline, but she knew he needed her company. She plastered on a smile and knocked gently, hearing his faint voice answer.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ she asked, putting down the tray.

  ‘A little,’ he said. He was sitting back against the pillows and looked exhausted. ‘These dreadful dreams come every night and then I lie awake for hours remembering it all.’

  ‘The war?’

  ‘Yes. Mostly.’

  ‘You’ve never talked about it much,’ said Kate.

  ‘It’s . . . hard,’ said her father. His breathing sounded shallow. ‘It was easier just to lock it all away. I don’t want to remember.’

  ‘But the nightmares keep coming.’

  ‘I hoped they might fade, with time. But the same scenes keep on running through my head.’

  ‘Are they . . . things that really happened?’ asked Kate tentatively.

  He nodded and she saw the sweat glisten on his forehead. ‘The whole damn day. I remember it all, beginning to end.’

  ‘The day you were gassed?’

  He stopped and stared intently at something she couldn’t see. ‘The boy comes back every night. I see him waiting for me.’

  ‘The boy?’

  ‘He was young,’ said her father. ‘Only eighteen or so.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘I never knew his name. He came stumbling into my part of the trench, crying and afraid. He’d heard the bombing and thought we were next. “They’re coming!” he kept sobbing. He didn’t have a gas mask.’

  Kate was silent. She could imagine it vividly and wondered how her father had managed to keep all this inside him for fifteen years.

  ‘I started leading him through the tunnels. I knew there were a couple of masks left by men who’d already been killed. I told him to stick with me and we’d find a mask.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The gas was rolling in. I could see it. “Hurry,” I said, “and cover your mouth and nose.” Useless, really. We ran through the tunnels and I thought he was close behind me. I got to the main dugout and looked back and he wasn’t there. I’d lost him, somewhere, in the darkness.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Kate, laying a hand on his in a bid to stop the trembling. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I went back for him,’ said her father, speaking faster now. ‘Found a torch and started back through the tunnels. I could barely see anything, what with the mask. At last I found him on the ground.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Not quite. The gas had rolled over and he was choking – drowning, you might say. Clawing at his throat. I ripped off my mask and pushed it over his face, but it was too late, he’d breathed in too much. I came to my senses pretty fast and put the mask back on. There was nothing else I could do.’

  He stared dully at Kate, his forehead lined. ‘I lost him in the darkness. He shouldn’t have been alone.’

  ‘You’re not to blame,’ said Kate, and she found herself saying it over and over as her father pressed his face into the counterpane, making her feel, not for the first time, that they had swapped roles and that she was comforting a small, fearful child.

  16

  Mandalay, March 1942

  Kate heard the howls of pain long before she could see where they were coming from. As she looked frantically around between the crude huts that filled an area of scrubland on the outskirts of the city, it was hard to tell who was making the sound.

  A young man appeared from a hut and saw her. ‘Please! You help us? My wife!’

  ‘Of course.’ She heaved her bag of supplies higher onto her shoulder. Following him into the dark hut she saw a young woman lying on the floor. She was heavily pregnant, her knees bent, her dirty longyi hitched up around her waist. She was groaning with pain, the sound sometimes turning into a scream.

  Kate found herself frozen. She had assisted at a birth at the hospital a week before, but she had never had to deliver a child on her own. In that case the woman, already a mother of four, had quickly pushed out the baby and grabbed it from the doctor with a proprietary glare before wrapping it in her shawl.

  This woman was obviously in a great deal of pain, her back arching up off the floor. Her eyes were wild and she was muttering and yelling between the screams. Her husband, in tears, gripped her hand and looked beseechingly at Kate.

  She dropped the bag and knelt between the woman’s knees, gently pushing the longyi up. On the floor under her buttocks was a pool of blood. Kate felt her heart plummet. The howls had now turned to guttural groans. The dark curls of hair under the longyi glistened with blood and sweat, but she could see no sign of the child yet.

  ‘She’s bleeding badly,’ Kate said, looking up at the husband. ‘She needs a doctor.’

  ‘You are doctor, no?’

  ‘No, no. I’m sorry,’ she said, feeling as though she had tricked him. ‘I’m a volunteer. But I will try to fetch a doctor here.’

  ‘You have motor car,’ said the man, gesturing imploringly. ‘Take her to hospital. Please.’

  Kate hesitated. The hospital was so full already. But this woman was in so much pain and was perhaps losing her baby. She needed help.

  ‘All right. Yes.’

  She backed the car up to the hut and somehow they got the woman onto the back seat, every movement causing her to scream. Her longyi was now soaked with blood. Her husband, terrified, got into the back with her and held her head on his lap, stroking her hair and singing gently.

  Kate drove as fast as she dared towards the city, drumming on the steering wheel when the traffic slowed. Her heart was pounding and she felt afraid. The howls in the back had quietened into moans and she glanced back to see the woman shaking, obviously in shock. Her husband was crying enough for both of them.

  She saw the walls of the central fort ahead of them. The Civil Hospital was only a mile or two away and she knew that Dr Singh would be there. She pulled onto the busy road that went around the fort and as she did so the car made a clanking noise, as though something had fallen out of place.

  *

  Edwin sat on a high stool behind his desk, scribbling a memo. He pushed back the hair that fell over his forehead and wondered vaguely if any barbers would be open.

  ‘Blast,’ said Patrick, who sat opposite, reaching for a sheet of blotting paper and dabbing at the map in front of him. ‘This map won’t be much use if I add an unnecessary leg of twelve miles.’

  ‘Which one are you working on?’

  ‘The Hukawng Valley. It’s a very tough route. Pure jungle, all the way to India.’

  ‘Let’s hope most of them find a safer way out.’

  The office door was flung open and Kate appeared. Edwin looked quickly from her white face to the blood that covered her hands and felt his heart constrict. For a second he was back in London, just after the bombing, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do.
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  He went to her, ignoring Patrick’s curious glances, and took her hands, feeling them tremble in his. ‘Kate – what’s happened?’

  ‘I need your help,’ she said rapidly, each breath heaving out. ‘My car’s broken down and there’s a woman dying. Have you got a vehicle here?’

  ‘The deputy commissioner has one,’ said Patrick, eager to help. ‘It’s out in the yard.’

  ‘Of course!’ Edwin looked at him gratefully. ‘Good idea, Patrick.’

  ‘Is he here?’ she asked.

  ‘No, and he doesn’t have a driver any more,’ said Edwin, ‘but I know where he keeps the keys.’

  As he and Kate ran outside, Edwin felt his heart beating fast and knew that she was compelled by the same urgency. ‘Over here,’ he said, pointing to an elderly Rolls Royce.

  Between them they got the car started, sweating as the stiff handle resisted, but at last the engine coughed into life. Kate hurried to open the gate as Edwin backed the old car round, then she jumped in.

  When they reached Kate’s car, all was quiet. The woman on the back seat was unconscious, but her chest was rising and falling gently. Her husband, his eyes swollen, was huddled over her, stroking her face, his tears falling into her thick black hair.

  They transferred the patient to the Rolls Royce and this time Kate sat in the back, holding a folded blanket between the woman’s legs, trying to stop the flow of blood. Edwin drove like a man possessed; she thought once or twice of telling him to slow down, as the rough road was bumping the patient, but she was not sure that he would even hear her. Beside him sat the woman’s husband, leaning around the seat to clutch his wife’s hand.

  The grass that surrounded the hospital was crowded with refugees. With difficulty, Edwin got the car into the courtyard and Kate ran ahead.

  Pushing open the swing doors, she paused. The reception was empty and none of the usual nurses ran about carrying supplies; Dr Singh, of whom she had become very fond, was nowhere to be seen. Several of the cupboards had been left with their doors open, showing empty shelves.