Escape to Pagan

by Brian Devereux

  “My brothers Cyril and Victor went off to find transport as we had none. I was still in shock; events had changed so quickly from a happy and normal life to this nightmare. The thought of leaving all our pets and animals behind broke my heart. Sadly all our pets were killed and eaten by the retreating Chinese army.

  “Cyril and Victor returned with an old truck that had red Chinese characters written on the side but it needed more petrol. All communications in the town had broken down and groups of Chinese troops had been seen nearby. Looting of the Indian shops had begun by the local Shans who were now armed. Both my brothers were keen hunters and were determined to bring at least two weapons each; a sporting rifle and a shotgun. They intended to bury them before boarding the plane to India. They buried the rest of their rifles and ammunition in the garden. Cyril was able to retrieve these weapons with the help of the local Shans one night, during the Japanese occupation.

  “My mother instructed our servants to look after my home and pets until our return; she also paid them their wages and gave them all the remaining foodstuffs including the meat (venison and other game) in the meat-safe and cool store that were filled with ice blocks delivered daily.

  “It broke my heart to watch our dogs being restrained from following the lorry; they seemed to know we would not return. We then drove through the town to the sounds and smells of the alcohol stocks being smashed. To stop the Japanese going wild, we were told.”

  As a man who looks forward to a drink every day, I have sometimes pondered: Would it not make the Japanese even wilder to find all the alcohol had been deliberately destroyed; perhaps not.

  “We joined the convoy assembling at the edge of town. Here we were given more fuel taken from the nearby army dump. Everyone seemed so calm, confidant and well organized. We waited for any latecomers.

  None arrived. Everyone had a good supply of Johnnie Walker. People were walking around with glasses of whisky in their hands, smoking and chatting; in fact it looked more like a group of people about to set out for an afternoon picnic. As we were the last to arrive we were placed at the back of the convoy. We would reach the station the following afternoon. Finally the whole convoy slowly pulled away. The old Chinese lorry sounded as if it was on its last legs. The roads to and from Taunggyi had been cut along the sides of mountains and were very dangerous. Drops of several hundred feet awaited any vehicle that ventured too near the edge; then there were the dozens of hairpin bends to be negotiated. As dusk approached, the whole convoy pulled in under the cover of trees. Cyril and Victor heard peafowl in the jungle and taking their guns went to hunt them. They did not find the peafowl but returned later with small colourful jungle foul which my mother plucked and cooked. Makeshift beds were being prepared and when darkness fell many fires were lit between the vehicles for the evening meal. People began walking around and discussing the following day’s journey and deciding where to set up home once they had reached India. Nobody could sleep that night. None of us believed the Japanese would be in Burma for long and were already making plans for our return to our homes. My mother said we should go to Goa; we had Portuguese relatives there who lived by the sea. I knew my mother was worried about her other children. I was always concerned that she would suddenly change her mind at the last minute and stay in Burma, the country of her birth that she knew intimately.

  “The early dawn found everyone preparing for the final leg of our journey to the station. Our journey began badly as one of the cars ahead of us would not start. As time was now the vital factor, it was pushed over the precipice and went tumbling into the jungle below causing the monkeys and parrots to scatter noisily. The passengers and loads were transferred to other vehicles and we moved on. It was now imperative that we catch the train and reach Myitkyina airport before the Japanese. I sat in the front of the lorry with my mother as Victor was driving.

  “The road we were travelling on was ideal for ambush. The fear was heightened when the convoy passed several dead bodies by the side of the road. The convoy had travelled a few miles further on when another vehicle in the middle broke down blocking the way. Again the people and their baggage were redistributed and the vehicle was pushed over the precipice. We were slowly moving out of the cool of the hills; the weather was becoming hotter and the roads dustier. Soon all the vehicles in front of us were throwing up clouds of dust making it difficult for Victor to see the road ahead and as it was too hot to close the windows, he let the convoy pull away, while keeping it in sight. This was to prove a disaster.

  “Suddenly the tyre on the front wheel of our lorry burst and we came to a halt. The convoy continued, leaving us totally alone on the jungle fringed road; the last vehicle disappeared around a bend. We were now in a desperate situation as time was vital. After much searching, my brothers found a spare wheel and some tools but alas, no jack. The train was leaving at one o’clock; it was now ten-thirty and we still had twenty miles to go. Our situation seemed hopeless. Mother calmly began walking ahead to find room at the side of the road to light a fire and make tea; my brother Victor went with her. Cyril went into the jungle to cut a strong branch to act as a fulcrum to change the wheel.

  “When Cyril returned he called out to Victor and both my brothers got to work on the lorry. They had barely finished when three armed men in tattered uniforms silently appeared out of the jungle: Chinese soldiers. There was something about their manner that made us feel uneasy; although their rifles were not pointing at us, the weapons were in a ready to use position. The Chinese soldiers looked desperate and were extremely thin. One of them was barefoot and looked about twelve years old. While one watched us the others inspected the lorry and they soon found some of the bread we had brought. The soldiers ate ravenously. Cyril and Victor both spoke a little Chinese and explained our situation; they even offered to give the Chinese soldiers a lift. This had little effect on the soldiers. One soldier asked us if we had any arms and ammunition.

  “Both my brothers replied ‘no’. Cyril and Victor had hidden their guns under the wooden box seat we had been sitting on in the front cab covered with our blankets. With that, one of the Chinese soldiers climbed back onto the lorry and began going through our possessions. This made my two brothers angry and it took my sister Lucy and I to restrain Victor. If it was not for their rifles Victor would have flattened both of them, for he was a big and powerful man but with two women hanging onto his arms there was little he could do. The Chinese soldiers then asked for our money and valuables; this time their rifles were pointing directly at us. We were now in despair and knew we would miss our train and the flight to India; we could also be shot.

  “It was then that a large party of tattooed Shan tribesmen approached from out of the jungle. All were heavily armed. The Chinese soldiers became afraid and lowered their rifles. There was no love lost between the two races. These wild looking tribesmen seemed to know Cyril. He spoke their language fluently. They demanded the Chinese soldiers’ rifles, which were found to be empty; they then took their watches and rings. The Chinese soldiers were then tied up in the cruel way of the Shans and led away. Cyril thanked the headman of the tribe and gave him one of his guns. He said the tribesmen would take the Chinese soldiers out of sight, make them kneel and club them to death which was their traditional and silent method of killing without wasting bullets. My brothers then buried their remaining guns at the jungles edge, at the request of my mother; it was no longer safe to carry them. On two occasions during the war, Cyril joined the hill tribes ambushing Japanese patrols. At the site of the ambush they hid sharpened bamboo stakes covered in poison in the undergrowth to impale the enemy when they took cover.

  “We slowly resumed our journey to the station; Cyril thought we might just make it if the roads were not blocked. I could not help thinking of those poor starving Chinese soldiers that would soon be killed.

  “Victor began driving the lorry very fast and on several occasions I screamed when it looked as if we were going to fall hundreds of feet into the j
ungle-clad valley below. All the time I was praying that Jack was alive and we would reach the station in time.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The Perfumed Harbour

  PALESTINE & HONG KONG

  After his marriage to Kate Talbot, Sergeant Jack Devereux’s Regiment, the 1st Battalion Royal Scots, was posted from Mandalay, Burma, to Palestine, where they became a machine gun battalion. To the new recruits just out from Edinburgh, Palestine sounded exotic after the cold and windy confines of Maryhill, Edinburgh Castle and the other frigid, frost bound barracks. Images of romantic desert oasis, sunshine and a scattering of orange trees dripping with fruit came to mind (oranges were as rare in Glasgow as golden oracles). There would be plenty of cheap booze and bints. The new recruits had heard of the pleasures of Cairo with its bars and bordellos. Palestine proved a great disappointment.

  There were no whispered invitations to visit their very cheap, very young, very clean and very pretty sister. This damsel or dam would be reclining somewhere in the Arab Quarter, smelling of jasmine and admiring her henna painted hands with sleepy dark almond eyes; eyes that dreamily gazed out between long mascara laden lashes (mascara: an Arabic invention). She waited for the bead curtains to burst open and the grinning inebriated freckled face of a Jock to appear; alas, she would wait in vain. The Arab quarter was out of bounds and a three-mile hike over sand dunes from the Scots barracks.

  Palestine soon lost its appeal to the optimistic young soldiers. After studying one groaning, syphilitic camel and marvelling at the novel sight of fruiting orange and lemon trees, many Scots began to yearn for the distant cold windswept hills of Caledonia. Apart from camels and exotic fruit, there was little else of interest except religious relics, melancholy buildings with crumbling masonry and faded artwork of angels. Statues of obscure saints with age worn faces stared down at the passing Scots from bullet pock-marked recesses of empty Christian churches. The Holy Land had been fought over many times during its violent history.

  Their brand new heavy hob-nailed ammunition boots (of Boer War design and weight) were not suitable for hot climates or ideal for a stealthy approach and proved too cumbersome on long patrols. Before the coming battle in the New Territories Mainland China, the waiting Japanese could hear the Royal Scots taking up their positions on the Gin Drinkers’ Line from over a mile away due to their inappropriate footwear.

  The Scots in Palestine blinked in the fierce heat of midday and skulked in the airless shadows, or lay panting in the filtered shade of dry dust coated olive groves and date palms during breaks from patrolling. The regular shrill calls for prayer from a lone white-robed figure high above caused many a Scot to curse and think of home. Even the sheep with their grotesquely deformed fat-tails did not make the Scots feel at home. Both the Jews and Arabs were unfriendly. Even the skirl of the pipes brought hostility; perhaps it reminded the inhabitants of the strutting Turk’s past brutal occupation. Only the local flies welcomed them with sanctimonious fervour.

  In Palestine the Jews and the Arabs were at war and the British were caught in-between. The Royal Scots were often attacked by the Jewish freedom fighters. The Scots were surprised that Jewish women also fought in the ranks of the insurgents. The Jews wanted their own State to escape the persecution in Europe. This was a recipe for bloodshed. It still is.

  According to Tam and Willie, two of dad’s friends who often visited us in Uxbridge, the Jews were well organised and planned their raids with military precision. The Jewish fighters specialized in ambush. The only effective way for the Royal Scots to retaliate was with machine guns firing tracers (one every five rounds) while the infantry with fixed bayonets tried to quickly outflank them. The effect of the tracers arcing towards the Jewish fighters and the thought of being impaled on the end of an angry Jock’s bayonet, tended to unnerve the attackers. Who could blame them? The Jews quickly melted into the desert night taking their wounded, but sometimes were forced to leave their dead behind.

  “In Palestine Jack was soon to be promoted to RSM and hoped to get a transfer to the 2nd Battalion Royal Scots, who were being posted to India. India was next door to Burma and there was much military movement between the two countries. Jack hoped this would allow him to visit Taunggyi more often before he bought himself out of the army. No-one expected a war in the Far East. During his time in Palestine, Jack was sometimes a dispatch rider and he sent me a picture of himself on his motorcycle.”

  I have a picture of dad on a motorbike in Palestine or India; it was placed on a grand piano in a Country House Hotel I once owned. That hotel was built to look like a castle complete with its own chapel, archway and tower, in 1863. This photograph was often discussed by many ex-servicemen who often stayed. I always took the picture for granted until a number of sharp eyed old veterans pointed out to me several reasons they believed it was a “staged” or “posed” photograph for the benefit of my mother.

  “Jack finally got his transfer to the 2nd Battalion along with several other men and NCOs. The news that the 2nd Battalion was being posted to Hong Kong and not to India greatly disappointed both of us. Jack just wanted to get back to Burma and settle down in Taunggyi.”

  To the other soldiers, Hong Kong was by far the most desirable posting a serviceman could get. The tales that are included in this chapter of what servicemen (including officers) got up to in Hong Kong are based on dad’s conversations with his old fellow NCO’s and comrades and other ex-servicemen I met in later life who were posted to Hong Kong. My hotel seemed to attract ex-military men both British and German and a few Nipponese. The Germans and Americans cannot resist any building that looks like a castle, even a replica castle.

  After the war, Dad and his mates would laugh during their drinking sessions at the mention of certain soldiers’ names who were the worst felons at a certain pastime: stealing sexual pleasures without paying. Tam and Willie shared with dad the responsibility of stamping out these unlawful crimes. The lucky offenders, if caught, ended up in the glass house; the unlucky ended up in the VD clinic. The favourite modus operandi of these felons will be explained later in this chapter.

  On the voyage east, from Palestine to Hong Kong, the new recruits saw flying fishes for the first time and porpoises that glided and chased in the ship’s wake. As soon as they reached the tropics, strange colourful birds rested for short periods on the ship’s rigging and eyed the red-faced men below. Even the sea changed colour to a light azure blue. The young soldiers had heard that the beautiful young Chinese ladies were very friendly. And as if to confirm this, on entering Hong Kong Harbour, their ship was greeted by a flotilla of floating French letters which in sheer number dominated the less interesting flotsam. Docking, the men were delighted to see attractive local Chinese women lining the harbour rails. These exotic beauties wore their traditional style cheug sarm, tight hip clinging silk dresses, with suggestive slits that reached high on the thighs. These ladies smiled invitingly at the red-faced gawking men from Scotland. To the soldiers aboard ship, it seemed that they had arrived at a serviceman’s Shangri-La.

  The flies in Hong Kong seemed to be fewer in number, and more particular in their habits. The smell of Hong Kong was a delicate mixture of various odours, both good and bad intermingled, the pleasant aromas overpowering the bad. The air contained a heady combination of spices, a hint of opium and scented joss sticks. Fragrant jasmine and bougainvillea grew in profusion on the white walls of the opulent European pavilions. These were the exotic aromas of the orient.

  Hidden in the warrens of the Chinese quarter of Wanchai, sinister vendors peddled short dreams of contentment. Cheap bars lined the waterfront; market stalls sold all the tasty Chinese dishes. You could buy a small cup of fresh cobra blood that cured all ills. The Scots stared shocked as they witnessed old Chinese women painfully tottering by on tiny deformed bound feet.

  To the Orientals, the Scots were also a rather exotic race. The number of Scots with flame-hair and even redder skin (always a giggling matter to oriental women) and t
heir strange pale blue eyes amazed the local observers. The only red faces the Chinese were familiar with were on macaque monkeys. The locals found the Lothian accents most difficult to understand and on occasion, intimidating. The sound of pipes and drums caused many a Chinese to place fingers in ears. All the while, the Japanese civilians made mental notes of the numbers of troops and the Regiments arriving.

  Across the border in mainland China, within marching distance, veteran Japanese troops continued to train and manoeuvre for the coming attack. They had no intention of using the main roads or the bridges that were guarded by the British, but would manhandle their artillery over the rough terrain. Their light canvas and rubber split-toed boots were ideal for a silent approach at night. The Japanese commanders must have pondered over their meals of prawns, miso and sake, as to why the British seemed totally unconcerned at their close proximity. The answer was simple: arrogance. The Japanese were thought of as coolies.

  To the surprise of the British and Commonwealth soldiers in Hong Kong, it was the Japanese bars that sold the cheapest alcohol and the pretty girls working there were certainly the best listeners. The combination of a pretty face and alcohol (worldwide) overwhelms and disengages a man’s tongue from his brain. Everything the girls heard of military importance would be passed on to their paymasters.