ELEPHANT MOON

by John Sweeney

  ‘Partly to get away from the madhouse, I joined up. It is a strange thing to be told that you are fighting for democracy, knowing that your grandfather, who because he is fighting for that very thing in his own country, is in jail. But, also that your father has become so frustrated by the denial of democracy, he ends up in league with its enemies. I tell you Grace, sometimes our family arguments made my head spin. But throughout all of it, I remembered what my grandfather told me about taking tea with Mussolini– that the Axis are far, far worse than the British.

  ‘My time in the British Indian army made me question my grandfather’s wisdom. It is an army of so-called equals. That, I am afraid to say, is a lie. The Indian Other Ranks must salute a British officer, but the British enlisted men do not have to salute an Indian officer. Soldiers are proud men. It is degrading. We are paid half the rate of the British officers, too. But that is less shaming than not being treated equally. In the first two years of the war I fought in North Africa, against the Italians. They ran away, they surrendered, they hardly ever fought. The Japanese are the opposite. But when you spoke to the Italian prisoners, you could understand why. They didn’t believe in Mussolini, they didn’t believe in his war for an Italian Empire in Africa and the British tried to deal with their prisoners correctly. We would make jokes about the Italians, but as prisoners they were respected. Again, the Japanese are the opposite.

  ‘During the battle of Sidi Barani my platoon took control of a very large sand dune. We didn’t know at the time but on the other side were thousands and thousands of Italians. They surrendered to me, a lowly Indian officer. The British gave me a medal, hurrah! But much better, the whole regiment was posted back to India and I was given leave – the British know how to treat the grandson of a Maharajah – and I spent some time at home in Swat. In the very middle of the night, there was a commotion, a visitor.

  ‘I had been fast asleep but my mother woke me up so that I could be presented to the mystery visitor. I threw on my uniform, sleep-walked down the stairs and shook hands with the guest before I realised what I was doing, who he was. Bose, on the run from the British. He’d turned up at our house, having slipped out from house arrest while the Special Branch were snoozing. Had my grandfather been at home, he would have asked him to leave but my father was the man of the house, and Bose was an honoured guest, and we Pathans have a tradition of hospitality.’

  ‘I remember Mr Peach…’

  ‘Oh yes, the tall one, your lover.’

  ‘He’s not my lover.’

  ‘The one who just happens to delay blowing up the biggest bridge in Burma, just for your ladyship’s convenience…’

  Grace interrupted him: ‘He was as drunk as a lord, on that terrible day we evacuated from Rangoon. He told me that the British had lost track of Bose, that they had no idea where he was.’

  ‘Well, he was in our house. I shook his hand and all I said was: “good luck, old man”. Bose laughed like a drain, the idea of a British Indian officer, in uniform, wishing him well. He remembered it, and I think he mistook my courtesy in the middle of the night – the man was a guest, after all – for a sign that I was a devotee, that I would be happy to become his willing emissary. By rights, as an officer in the army, I should have reported Bose’s presence straightaway, but that would have meant them arresting my father and taking him away too. My mother would not have liked that. So I said nothing to anyone and when I returned to my regiment, we were posted to Singapore.

  ‘The British and the Indians fighting together in North Africa against the Italians were magnificent. In Singapore, a disgrace. The difference? I don’t know. The generals, perhaps. Or in Africa we were fighting against the fascists. In Singapore we were fighting for the British Empire. Then came my little disagreement. The officer was planning to abandon the wounded when our position could still be defended. I challenged him and ended up in prison.’

  ‘What was prison like for the grandson of a Maharajah?’ Mischief edged her question.

  ‘The champagne was rather flat.’ He laughed without mirth. ‘I am a soldier. You get used to everything. But this was a bad time to be locked behind bars. During the bombing, the prison wardens ran away. When a bomb falls, you cannot hide, you cannot run. You listen to the whistle as it falls and you pray. Allah looked over me.’

  ‘Are you religious?’

  ‘No. But more than I thought. The other prisoners… screams, weeping, fists pounding against the bars. So helpless. It frays the nerves. The wardens ran away for good. Two days and nights. No food, no water.

  ‘And then the door of my cell swung open. As I said, I was freed by the Japs, an unusual experience for an officer of the King.’

  ‘So you became a Jiff.’

  ‘Yes. We, they, they call it the Indian National Army, the INA. The Japanese became, how shall I put this? Excited when they realised who I was, who my father and grandfather were. They had me march at the very front of the Jiffs, which is when that mechanic must have recognised me. How he escaped and ended up here in Upper Burma, I do not know. The Jiff high command trusted me because of my family name, without me saying a word. And I was sick of the British. I had been fighting their wars for them, and they had locked me up. So I was happy, at first, to turn a blind eye to what the Japanese were getting up to.’

  The Jiff looked Grace in the eyes.

  ‘You must understand, once the Jiff officers and the Japanese realised my family connection, that I’d actually met Bose, shook his hand, wished him “Good luck, old man” I was treated like a lord. Six of us Jiffs were invited to dinner at Raffles with the Kempeitai, their SS. Champagne, oysters, women smiling at us – most Chinese, a few Russian Jewesses - sitting on chairs in the background, but we knew they were, available, while our old colonial masters were shuffling around in the very prison I had been locked up in. One of us Jiffs told the Kempeitai general that we did not want to become a puppet army. Their general said: “We do not want you to be puppets. But if we do, what is the harm in being puppets? Why is puppet bad?”

  ‘They drank whiskey until it came out of their ears, singing victory songs. My friend who spoke Japanese whispered the words the Japs were singing: “my grandfather catching fish in the Ganges…”

  ‘After dinner, we left Raffles and went on to an officers’ club the Japanese had taken over from the British. ‘Then, while we ate and drank, they brought in…’

  Suddenly, he was crying. Shocking for Grace, the sound of this man, utterly calm, sobbing.

  She tried to soothe him with kisses.

  ‘Nothing, there was nothing I could do. Just watch in silence.’

  ‘What? They did what? What happened?’

  ‘The Kempeitai brought in a British officer from some dungeon. We never found out his name. He had taunted them somehow, sworn at them. They had heard him say “Jesus”. So, for them, a big joke,’ he laughed, again joylessly, ‘so childish and so brutal. In the club, surrounded by oil paintings and stuffed heads and golf trophies, while we drank fine wines served by waiters in immaculate turbans and cummerbunds, and the comfort women poured champagne over their breasts and invited us to lick their blouses, they brought in this poor chap and they nailed him to two wooden planks, gave him a crown of barbed wire. Drink, sing, fuck – they were fucking the comfort women – and, over there, just on the wall, a human being, nailed to a cross, in agony, eyes squirming, beseeching us, blood trickling down his face, holes in his hands and feet. What was this? Entertainment?

  ‘They grew bored with him, screaming. They stuffed his mouth with a towel soaked in whisky. He would not shut up. He was a very, very brave man, and even through the gag you could hear him call them names. “Fuck, fuck you,” something like this. A while later, the pain become too much for him, and he started to moan softly. A terrible sound. Finally, a good Japanese, a young officer, daring, stood up, bowed at the Englishman, and shot him dead through the eyes. A mercy. After the shot, silence. This banquet, I will never forget.’

&nbs
p; The red moon vanished behind a wall of cloud.

  ‘The next day, I was called in to the Kempeitai offices. I tell you Grace, I am no coward, but when I walked through that door, I was shaking inside. All smiles for the Indian officer who’d actually met the Netaji. “Here, take this satchel, a special mission for the Netaji. Take it to India. In this satchel are letters to the most important Jiffs in India, all officials or soldiers, all keeping their true sympathies from the British. Take these letters to them, hand-deliver each one, and soon India will fall.”

  ‘Crossing through to the British lines, just one more Indian officer on a motorbike, was pitifully easy. A few checkpoints, nothing. But things had changed. Or maybe I had. The British Army before it had been defeated at Singapore, was arrogant and rigid. In retreat, running for their lives, they showed some grace, some humanity, more than I had ever witnessed in Singapore. Now that I was a traitor to the British, I saw individual acts of bravery from British soldiers, doing their best to save the lives of others, Burmese, Chinese, Indian, too. One corporal told me: “If it was down to me, lad, if it was between keeping the British Empire or me being back home, I’d rather be watching Tranmere.” He said it with a smile, but I knew it to be true. It made me suspect that the old soldiers of the British Army, the one I had my fight with over the fate of the wounded, were dinosaurs, from another time, and that there was a new Britain in the making, something different. Well, maybe I am wrong.

  ‘And then in Mandalay I saw your headmistress walk down the hill and into the flames. Mad, but also extraordinarily brave. To be honest with you, Grace, helping Bishop Strachan’s, leading the children out of Burma, was perfect cover. No one would suspect a Jiff spy escorting a busload of orphans. But about this, I became more and more ashamed – ashamed too, when I saw how the ordinary soldiers, British and African and Indian too, did their best to help the children. Were the men who held up the demolition of the last great bridge in Burma, saluting a bus full of half-castes, our racial masters? Your lover, the tall, silly one, Mr Daddy-long-legs.’

  She shook her head, denying it.

  ‘Is he an oppressor? Or just a man, trying to be decent in the worst of times? I watched how the soldiers at the bridge saluted the children. I remembered what the Japanese had done to that poor wretch of a British officer on his cross…’

  Passing his satchel to her, he said: ‘This needs safekeeping. Guard it with your life. When you get to India, give it to someone in British Intelligence. But, first, tell them this.’ He whispered the secret of where Bose had gone to.

  ‘But Jem, the Netaji’s men, if they find out you have betrayed them…’

  ‘…they will kill me. So. If they do, it’s just one life. But knowing this changes everything,’ he said. ‘It changes the balance of the argument between the British who want to keep India at all costs and those who know that if they give up India, they might just be able to win the war. Tell them I told you, but tell them I was an Indian patriot, that I would like it very much if the British would please leave India as soon as the war is over.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this? Why risk your life?’

  ‘I have already made my decision, Grace. I made it when I rode back to the bus. It should have been easy for me to forget you all, you, the girls, the two boys. I could have slipped in to India – to hide in the chaos of war - but there is something about this bloody singing bus that never quite dies, that keeps on bringing me back. The children, too. And, then, to cap it all, you. I fell in love with you. And you call me a traitor? Yes, Grace, I am a traitor, twice over, once to the British, once to the Netaji and his men. But I will not betray the children. And I will not betray you. I have had enough of betrayal.’

  Gregory listened with intense pleasure. The Jemadar, all holier-than-thou, had been a sodding Jiff. Surrendered at Singapore and the bloody Japs had recruited him, hadn’t they?

  ‘Em, what was this big secret that the Jem knew, about the big important Jiff geezer, about knowing where he is, whoever he is?’

  ‘I couldn’t hear everything. I don’t know…’

  Pleased as punch, was old Eddie-boy. He’d never get strung up for killing a sodding Jiff. There’d be witnesses, too, other Indians who’d seen the Jemadar go over to the Nips back in Singapore.

  ‘So he was a traitor, the Jem.’

  ‘No, that’s not like it was,’ said Emily. ‘He’d gone over to the Japanese, but the way they treated the British prisoner repulsed him.’

  ‘Once a Jiff, always a Jiff.’

  ‘No, that’s not right. That’s why he gave the letters to Grace. If he was a traitor, he wouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Letters?’ Something about the edge to Gregory’s voice frightened her, made her regret what she had just said.

  ‘What letters?’ he repeated.

  ‘Nothing. I don’t know.’

  He struck her hard, brutally. Stung – she’d never been beaten by a man in her entire life – she held her hand to her face, not quite believing that this was happening to her.

  ‘What letters?’ He made to raise his hand again.

  ‘I…I think…’

  He hit her again. She gasped, more in astonishment than pain, and the words tumbled out.

  ‘It was hard to tell. They were whispering, and everything, but I think he gave her something. I think they were letters, letters to people in India who are against the British.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘I… don’t hit me. Please. In the basket, on Mother’s back, there’s a wooden box for precious stuff. She’s got something locked away in it. Every time she opens it, she puts her body in front of it, so we can’t see.’

  ‘Nick ’em.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Look kid, this isn’t a stupid game. This is for real. This is proof that could save me from swinging.’

  ‘What?’ She had a look on her that he didn’t like one bit.

  ‘Nick ’em. And bring them to me. Do it. Do it tomorrow.’

  Stunned by the abrupt change that had come over Gregory, Emily drew her knees up to her chin, at a loss to fathom what was going on behind those angelic eyes.

  ‘You’d better go. Don’t want to get you into trouble.’

  She tried to argue, but he’d had enough of her. That was always the way with women. Too clingy, they needed too much of you.

  He relit his cheroot as the shadows swallowed her up.

  Getting his hands on these letters, proof that the Jem had been a Jiff, would be perfect. Point is, even if he didn’t, he now knew enough to throw sand in their eyes. Sammy-boy, stuck-up elephant ponce that he was, wouldn’t do anything to him once he knew he’d shot a Jiff. But he had to watch it. Grace was the real danger.

  If that poisonous bitch got out, all the way to India and started blabbing and pointing the bloody finger and saying he killed the Indian bastard in cold blood, then it wouldn’t take the Old Bill, thick as they were, too long to connect Sergeant Gregory, suspected of murdering an Indian Jemadar, Jiff or no Jiff, with Edgar Gregory, released on parole to serve in His Majesty’s armed forces. If the Military Police made the connection between the teacher’s story and his previous spot of bother…

  Murder was murder, even if he got nicked at the tender age of fifteen. If he didn’t watch his back, he might even end up swinging for the Indian bastard.

  So there was only one witness left, between him and the prison cell, perhaps even the rope itself.

  Well, here they were, surrounded by jungle, hundreds of miles from bleeding civilisation, surrounded by tigers and snakes and crazy elephants, the Japs breathing down their necks.

  All sorts of terrible things could happen to a teacher and no one would ever know different. But it wasn’t going to be easy. No bloody way. He’d have to play it careful, play it slow. Get to know the oozies better, keep thick with them, become their friend. Make himself useful, like he did with the Black Shirts. And the army. Help out where he could. And then, when he�
��d been accepted…

  Real shame, wasn’t it. The teacher was bloody gorgeous, a real beauty with a body like a pin-up, like Bette bloody Davis. He’d have his pleasure and then a quick slice of the old knife across the throat. He’d dump her in the jungle and no one would ever know. She’d just be one of the thousands who never made it out of Burma, missing, presumed dead. There was no other way round it. The same thing with the Yid’s tart. Had he taken his moment and sorted out the Jewess, then he would never have been in this trouble in the first place. He’d made the mistake of being soft when it came to dealing with a woman. But once bitten, twice shy.

  If the schoolmarm went missing, they would have to give him the benefit of the doubt. There’d be no evidence of anything untoward. No body, see? Just a lot of weeping kids wondering where the hell she’d got to. He’d even volunteer to lead the search-party for her. Lost in the jungle – what a terrible way to die.

  Ooh, Miss Goody Two-Shoes Grace wouldn’t be blabbing to any policeman all right – he’d make damn sure of that.

  After he’d had his pleasure, mind. What was he going to do with her before the end? Well, that was something to think about.

  And he began to whistle, ‘Oranges and Lemons…’

  Chapter Eleven

  They rose at four, long before sunrise. The elephant men worked frantically, carrying children, still half-asleep, directly from their hammocks up into the elephant panniers. They didn’t stop until every child was either walking or being carried on an elephant’s back, and they were on the move in record time.

  At the first light of day came the rain. The word does not describe the stair-rods of wetness crashing through the canopy, splattering drops as big as ha’pennies on the jungle floor, turning the ground into a stinking pancake of mud and goo. What had been relatively good going became, within minutes, a seeping swamp. Would the rain stop the insects? Fat chance. They became more obnoxious, fizzing up your nose or squatting on your ears or creeping along the edge of your eye-lashes, needling you. And the leeches, too. You’d slip underfoot, crash down into the muck, get up and ten minutes later feel something on the back of your leg. And there you’d find a big fat black slug, puffed full of your blood. The best way to get rid of them was to light up a cheroot and burn the leech off, but in the downpour it was nigh impossible to strike a match. So you would have to pull the creature off with your fingers. It would go all squishy and burst, covering your fingers with blood, but somehow its suckers would remain dug into your skin, and you’d have to rip the thing off you, taking with it a lump of skin. And the next time you fell down into the mud, the broken skin and the fresh bleeding would attract a new batch of leeches, and within minutes you’d get the same tingling feeling. Disgusting wasn’t a powerful enough word for it.