White Butterflies

by Colin Mcphedran

  MY MOTHER TRAVELLED THE 400 MILES down to Rangoon to accompany us safely home from school. She looked young and beautiful as she stepped out of the oil company car and greeted Robert and me with tears in her eyes. She tossed back her long black hair.

  ‘I’ll never let you children go again,’ she said as she hugged us.

  She added afterwards, ‘Apay [father] couldn’t come to see you off. He has a pressing engagement.’

  Ethel’s boarding school in Rangoon, the Diocesan girls’ school, had also closed down. She did not travel with us by train, because a young man who was sweet on her had offered to drive her home to Maymyo. He was a young cadet officer called Noel whom she had met in Maymyo. His family too were Anglo–Burmese, very nice people. He was Ethel’s first boyfriend and the arrangement to drive her home was made without my father’s knowledge.

  When he found out a day or so later, he was furious. He wrote sternly to my mother in Maymyo.

  ‘Ethel is not to see Noel again. His family is unsuitable.’ I remember Ethel crying her heart out.

  ‘Why would he say that?’ she kept saying.

  We spent the night with our relations in Rangoon and caught the morning train to Maymyo. The train was packed with people fleeing the impending attacks by Japanese planes. This was the first time I had seen refugees and it never occurred to me that I might become one myself. Observing their sense of urgency gave me my first inkling that the situation in Rangoon was truly ominous, but I barely noticed it in my eagerness to get home. My mother was brimming with happiness, and so was I.

  Our reserved compartment was roomy and comfortable. Before the train departed, Mother felt sorry for the poor passengers fighting for a place on the train. She spotted two women with young children on the platform trying to get on board. One, carrying a baby, was barely more than a child herself.

  My mother leant out of the window and said in Burmese, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the country, to get away from the bombs,’ the older one replied.

  ‘Well then, we have plenty of room. We would be delighted if you would join us.’

  They did.

  The baby was crying and restless and the young mother did not seem to know what to do.

  My mother gently said, ‘Perhaps you would like to feed your baby.’

  Straight away, like an obedient child, the young girl pulled out a breast and gave it to the baby, who drank happily and then fell fast asleep.

  After that we all travelled comfortably together. They got out somewhere in Central Burma and we went on to Maymyo.

  We arrived at night and were greeted by a host of my mother’s servants and their friends. They were overjoyed to have us back in town.

  ‘We have all missed you very much!’ our cook said with a broad smile, and added quietly, ‘But not as much as your mother did.’

  The first air raid hit Rangoon at 10 am on 23 December, within days of our departure. Seventy Japanese bombers attacked the airport, the docks and the city. The school building survived the war.

  Chapter 2

  Maymyo

  ‘Since the schools in the Shan States have not closed,’ my mother said, ‘I have enrolled you in your old school, to start when the new term begins.’

  In the meantime, I was back in my beloved Maymyo and our house came alive. Friends flocked back and the holidays were full of adventure.

  The Japanese army was winning every battle against the British and Indian troops, but it meant very little to me. I was just a happy lad who had returned home at long last.

  The British had built government offices and stately homes for themselves in Maymyo. The town was also a fashionable summer retreat for rich Burmese and Indian families. The British had established beautiful botanical gardens and the well-to-do part of the town was set in gentle, rolling green hills.

  Our house was in Circular Road on the edge of the jungle. Occasionally tigers prowled right inside our back garden. They helped themselves to our dogs on more than one occasion, much to Robert’s distress.

  The familiar surroundings and faces I loved and had missed so much were all there. Everything moved along comfortably, despite the gloomy news from the war front. The garden looked beautiful. The Japanese cherry trees lining our driveway were blossoming and soon there was a massed backdrop of pink. Even the animals seemed happy to have us back. The ducks, geese and chickens were all getting fat and the ponies had been well groomed and fed. Robert’s favourites were Molly and her foal, Cross Bun, who had been born on Good Friday. Robert, who was 13, and Ethel, 16, were both keen riders.

  Picnics were the order of the day and we took trips with our friends to Anisakan, Elephants Falls and many other favourite spots. Our cousins on our mother’s side, the Thwins, were staying with us and every room in our house was full.

  The Thwins came from Namtu, a mining town on the Chinese border. Their father was the district commissioner of police and active in the fight against the opium traders. Uncle Thwin was my mother’s only brother and she educated his seven children, one after another. Whoever was of the right age would come and live with us. She taught them to read and write English well enough to gain entry to an excellent English-language school, St Michael’s. She also taught them music, and they became a fine bunch of musicians. Ethel, too, had remarkable musical talent. I remember her as a young girl of 10 or 12 sitting beside my mother at our old German walnut piano, the candle holders swung out to light the music for their duets.

  Another favourite spot was the Goteik Gorge. The bridge across it was reputedly the highest rail bridge in the world and was on the rail link to the Chinese border. Viewed from the caves below, the trains appeared like tiny toys as they slowly crawled overhead.

  In the markets the familiar shopkeepers were delighted to see the family back in town. The old Indian rice-seller was still there, sitting cross-legged and beaming at his customers. He was very fat and never seemed to move from his position among the bags of rice. Buying rice is an art.

  ‘Smell this one, Memsahib, this is very special,’ he would say to my mother in Hindustani, offering her handfuls of the different types of rice he had on display in big, open sacks. She would put the grains to her nose thoughtfully before making her purchase.

  ‘Always smell the rice before buying it. The older the rice, the better the quality,’ she had told me ever since I could remember.

  Home was a short distance away but we always rode in a horse-drawn carriage. Fights would break out frequently among the drivers, to see who could win my mother’s business.

  Yet the appearance of normality around the town was deceptive. People in the streets whispered to one another.

  ‘The authorities know more than they are telling us,’ the vendors in the markets would tell my mother, while I listened in.

  Rangoon was still being bombed; in the pattern adopted by the Japanese, their planes flew in from the East out of the mid-morning sun and razed the dock area. Rumours abounded.

  ‘Hundreds have been killed,’ one man said.

  ‘No, thousands,’ said another.

  ‘The Japanese are using a new type of bomb called the anti-

  personnel bomb,’ Robert told me one day. ‘It’s designed to blast on a low parallel plane in relation to the ground and maim or kill people rather than destroy buildings.’

  At the same time the Japanese land army began its push across the Burmese border with Siam (now Thailand).

  Yet radio broadcasts claiming that Burma was well prepared for hostilities were constantly beamed over the air.

  We did not know it, but the Japanese had a four-pronged invasion plan. One force was to capture Rangoon and proceed west towards India. The second would take the central route to India, via Mandalay. A third would secure the north and the fourth would cut the crucial Burma Road supply route to China.

  Because the battle lines were 400 miles away, our town carried on more or less as usual. More troops were evident, but school, once term began, went
on as normal. Some of the European students and teachers left for India but many remained.

  ‘The Japanese will be turned back,’ they said confidently.

  Army manoeuvres were stepped up and Indian artillery units moved into town. Field guns being towed behind army lorries were a common sight in the streets.

  Then one day my mother called us together.

  ‘We are going to have a shelter built in the back garden in case of air raids,’ she said. ‘I expect we will never have to use it, but it is better to be prepared, just in case.’

  We watched while a huge hole was dug on the boundary of our property and covered with logs on which tons of soil were deposited. The inside was lined with bamboo mats and seats to accommodate about 20 people in reasonable comfort. The two Japanese families in town had slipped away. Mr Fujo, a photographer, had been an intimate friend of our family for years. He was a refined gentleman who loved classical music. Whenever his family came over for a meal he brought his violin, and my mother on the piano and Fujo on the violin entertained us for hours. He was never without a smile, and always took his leave by bowing to everyone present.

  The university in Rangoon had closed when the city was bombed and my eldest brother Donald, who was 18, returned to Maymyo. My mother was overjoyed to see him. He enlisted in the army auxiliary corps and spent his time training to be a soldier. More and more army people visited our home. Some were on leave from the front and others were officers in training at the army school of jungle warfare. Some Chinese officers came around to relax and enjoy a game of tennis or just listen to music. The British Club was as well patronised and as lively as it had been in pre-war times. To see the members trooping in dressed in evening attire, anyone would have thought that the war was in Europe and not right here on our doorstep.

  The convoys of trucks to China continued; the authorities were working feverishly to keep the Burma–China road open. The Japanese had not yet cut this crucial north–south road but people said its closure was imminent. The long convoys of trucks in the hands of the worst drivers in the world, Chinese peasants, were being bombed unmercifully by Japanese planes on the roads to Lower Burma. The Japanese had broken out of the south-eastern front and were pushing ahead to cut the main route to China.

  The news became all bad. The British dominance of the East seemed to be crumbling. Despite Mother’s optimism, it was becoming clear that the Japanese were gaining the upper hand and were intent on driving Britain out of its colonial possessions.

  The bombing of Rangoon had sparked a mass exodus. All manner of transport brought thousands who fled from the city to the relative safety of northern Burma. Some, native labourers of Indian descent, made the journey north on foot. Many changed course and headed west to their homeland, following the route through Lower Assam. Others flooded into our affluent town of Maymyo.

  Overnight, the town filled to bursting point. Thatched buildings sprang up to house the refugees and tent cities sprouted to shelter the large influx of Chinese troops en route to the front lines a few hundred miles south.

  When school holidays came again many boarders returned to their homes in other parts of the country but our family’s social scene continued. There had always been a heavy military presence in the town and many sporting events were still held. The upper crust played polo, the middle class indulged in that so British game of cricket and the locals crowded to the football matches. If the war was at our doorstep, and it was, there was little sign of its intruding upon the normal activities of the town. There was a lot of military movement, but the townsfolk had accepted that the vehicles were part of a build-up of supplies to China via the Burma Road. This was as a result of an undertaking by the Americans to supply Chiang Kai Shek in his war against the Japanese, which had been going on long before Japan invaded Burma.

  Reluctantly, my mother called the servants and us children together.

  ‘We must prepare the house for air raids,’ she said. ‘The air-raid shelter is ready, but the house needs some attention.’

  We all joined in and cut newspapers into strips. It was quite fun. With the aid of a rice-gruel paste, we criss-crossed all the window panes with the strips of paper. We hung up black-out sheets, too.

  Despite the air raids in lower Burma, the radio news bulletins always concluded with an assurance.

  ‘Reinforcements are on their way and the Japanese will be driven back.’

  The talk around the markets, though, was that a lot of towns were being destroyed and casualties were high. Rumours abounded that Mandalay, the second largest city in Burma, was targeted for bombing.

  Maymyo is 3000 or more feet above sea level and at certain points along the trunk road it was possible to see the plain and the Irrawaddy River on which Mandalay sprawled.

  Donald, who was the only one old enough to drive, pulled Robert and me aside one day.

  ‘Why don’t we drive down to a vantage point with a good view of Mandalay, to see the bombing of the city?’

  We thought it was a brilliant idea but we did not dare let our mother get wind of our plan.

  Not being privy to Japanese intelligence, we could hardly know when the attacks would take place. With a few of our friends we drove the few miles on many occasions, but never at the right time to see the bombing. We were disappointed.

  I was a fairly keen cricketer and one day a master at our school, who lived in the town, came to see me.

  ‘Would you like to play a match against a team from the British soldiers in town?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d love to,’ I said.

  It was a delightful winter’s day, cloudless and mild. The match progressed for a while and then it was my turn to take the crease. I remember facing the bowler, an Indian officer and the only native on the British team. He wore a turban and was obviously a Sikh. Every time he bowled and I received, he would jump up in the air, as if to say, ‘Nearly got you!’ He did not manage to get me out and the memory of that match remains, because it was the last time I played a game of cricket in Burma.

  At the end of the over, we heard the sound of air-raid sirens and up in the sky to the east at about 8,000 to 10,000 feet there appeared the grey outline of an aircraft formation. We ran for shelter in the open trenches that had only recently been dug around the school. In a moment I heard the thudding of bombs as they hit the other end of town near the army barracks. The town was defenceless. It was all over in a matter of moments. The game was abandoned. The army cricketers rushed off in their vehicles, no doubt back to barracks. It was my first experience of an air raid and when I reached home my mother, who was almost out of her mind, gave me a huge hug.

  ‘Thank God you’re safe!’

  With the help of our servants she set about taking further measures to protect the house.

  ‘We must stock the underground shelter with tinned food and blankets in case we are forced to stay there for long periods,’ she explained.

  Most of our pet dogs had disappeared during the raid and were now gradually returning home. Robert, who collected strays, was thrilled to see them. During the next few days Mandalay was bombed again and a big part of the wooden city was destroyed. Days went by and certain goods were in short supply. Petrol was becoming hard to procure and it became difficult to keep civilian vehicles on the road.

  The Burma Road had always been regarded as one of the most dangerous highways in the world. The mountain sections were narrow with many hairpin bends. During our trips around the countryside we saw a lot of army vehicles crashed in the ravines. The convoys of army trucks from Rangoon to China were driven by inexperienced Chinese drivers.

  Donald hatched another plan.

  ‘Let’s drive to the crash sites at night and loot the drums of fuel that lots of the trucks were taking to China,’ he said.

  We younger boys were all in favour of another adventure. This time we had a lot of success and spread the petrol among our friends. It was fun, except when we came across a corpse or two, victims of the crash
. Then it was not quite such fun. During one of these night manoeuvres, I sat on a twelve-gallon drum of petrol in the back of the jeep. The petrol was sloshing about through a badly sealed cap. Back home, I spent the night in agony. The petrol had burned the skin on my behind and turned my rump raw. I received no pity from my mother.

  ‘There is nothing you can do about it other than sit in a bath of cold water to cool down,’ she said. ‘Naughty deeds invite sore backsides.’

  Our town was bombed on many days, always at sunrise. News from the front line was not encouraging. Yet Mother always appeared optimistic.

  ‘I have complete faith in the Allies and in God,’ she would say. Word had reached her that our father had evacuated from Rangoon after it fell to the Japanese and had found a safe passage to Calcutta. She was immensely cheered by the news.

  More Chinese troops poured into Burma and passed through Maymyo on their way to the war zone. High-ranking officers from the British, American and Chinese forces constantly came to our home to be entertained. The Japanese were advancing rapidly, yet the radio propagandists poured out assurances. What did surprise me was our town’s lack of defence against the constant air attacks. The bombers seemed to come and go as they pleased. Gradually the flow of military visitors wound down. There was an air of deep concern at home and among our close friends.

  More locals visited us now for prayer meetings in our large drawing room. This was another signal that things were not good.

  Then, one day, Donald made an announcement.

  ‘I have volunteered and have been accepted by the American forces,’ he said.

  When the day arrived for him to catch the train to headquarters, everyone went to the railway station to say goodbye. A large contingent of family, friends and servants came because of their enormous regard for my mother, who was known in this part of Burma as the ‘Angel of Mercy’. This was because she would employ any new arrival who could tell a good ‘sob’ story.

  Donald joined the other recruits on the train and the band played a song I shall always remember; it was We’ll Meet Again. Mother wept as she embraced her oldest son for the last time.