Another problem was body lice. Despite frequent swims in the clean river the little mites persisted in hanging on. We scoured around for a sharp instrument to shave ourselves but there was nothing that could do the job.
‘They’re driving me mad,’ Robert said. ‘It’s time for drastic measures. Let’s put some sticks in the fire to heat up and then wind our hair around them. Then we can pull the burnt bits off.’
Mother was alarmed. ‘You be careful you don’t burn your heads!’ She needn’t have worried. We did not dare get too close to our scalps.
‘Look at you boys,’ she teased afterwards with a rare chuckle. ‘You look like a pair of golliwogs.’ Even Ethel managed a smile.
We lingered in Shimbuyang for a few more days after our friends’ departure. As the youngest and closest to our mother, I watched her covertly. She was tired and her eyes showed she was not well.
Since our friends the Indians had departed, there seemed nothing left for her. The constant chatter and the sight of her children enjoying their company had held her together and kept her smiling. Now she was beginning to lose her spirit. Physically, she appeared relatively normal under the circumstances. She had lost weight, as we all had, but she had not contracted any of the tropical diseases that had taken the lives of so many in the early stages of the trek. To see her spirit draining away alarmed me and tore at my heart. I soon realised that Robert and Ethel were also desperately worried about her, but there was nothing we could do to make her better or to persuade her to stay. She was determined to see us safely into India.
There wasn’t much to talk about as we contemplated climbing the mountains that loomed ahead. It seemed our family had made a pact not to mention the past.
I was not game to broach the subject for fear of being scolded. An 11-year-old chatterbox, I now found myself dreaming of days gone by. Though Robert and I were willing to take a dip in the cool clean river and even try our hand at fishing, anything more physical had no appeal. There was no running about chasing a ball or playing games the village children had taught us back home. We sat and dozed. There seemed to be nothing alive during the daylight hours, save the four of us. The black wall of mountains consumed all our thoughts. I yearned for action, but waited for somebody else to make the decision to move on.
I was torn apart thinking of better times. My thoughts centred on my mother. I was so proud of her and of the contribution she had made in bringing the Europeans, Indians and the Burmese closer together in our home town. She had accomplished this by inviting people home for prayer meetings, tennis afternoons, evenings around the piano and children’s parties. She was acutely aware of the deeply embedded colonial prejudices, but she always managed to break down barriers by treating everybody equally. She set the example.
‘You should never feel ill at ease in another person’s company, no matter what their background or their culture,’ she used to tell us. ‘Subordination is self-inflicted and one only has oneself to blame for feeling inferior.’
I thought of the winter nights when my brother and I would sit up with guns waiting for the wild animals that sneaked into our garden and killed our pets. The cold nights were followed by the loveliest time of the year, spring, when our garden took on a beautiful shade of pink from the Japanese cherry trees in full bloom. I wondered again how our relatives were faring.
‘I wish they could be here to give us some support,’ I said to myself. I did not dare say it out loud.
I also thought of the servants in whose care my mother had left our home on the day we boarded the truck to be evacuated. Mingled with my thoughts was the prospect of climbing the mountain range that loomed in the west.
Robert was the first to snap out of it.
‘If we are going to go, we must leave tomorrow. We still have a long way to go, perhaps another 150 miles. I’ve tried to calculate the distance by taking into consideration the undulations, and twists and turns of the mountain ranges as well as what our Indian friends told us. We must get going if we’re going to beat the monsoon. At least we have recovered some of our strength.’
If he was right, we faced a long journey. It was depressing. We made some preparations and plotted a strategy but Mother made no contribution. Robert added to our woes by reminding us that there would be many flooded rivers to cross because of the monsoon rains combined with the thawing of snow on the Himalayas.
The drone of planes continued to the north.
‘How I wish one might land in those uncropped paddy fields on the outskirts of the village and ferry us to safety,’ I said. It was a forlorn hope. All it did was push me further into a trough of gloom.
School history and geography classes kept flashing across my mind, stories of early explorers and the terrain they had encountered. British and colonial history was taught early in Burmese schools and I had always found it fascinating. Robert, too, had often talked about the early history of the colonies. He was a mine of information. I remembered the Spanish adventurers in South America, their long and dangerous walks into the tropical jungles. Dr Livingstone came to mind, as did the early settlers in Australia – people like Lassiter and Hume. I wondered how they had coped, what they had thought about and what they had hoped to achieve. I compared my experience to theirs and wondered if I would one day look back on mine as an adventure.
I remembered the first day out of Mogaung when my mind had been filled with excitement. I had imagined the trek as just a few weeks’ stroll on the road. Not in my wildest dreams had I thought of the hardship that lay ahead and the devastating effect it would have on the person I loved above all others, my mother.
We all fell in with Robert’s plan to leave and spent one more night in Shimbuyang, which had become almost like our home. The nightmare prospect of the climb and the other obstacles shattered the last vestige of the spirit of adventure with which I had begun the trek.
Reluctantly we gathered our belongings.
‘We should get everything ready so that the only thing we have to do tomorrow morning is roll up our blankets,’ Robert said.
We had four blankets which we used as ground sheets.
‘Some of the more desirable rations would add too much to the weight of the load, when we’re trying to climb,’ Mother said.
‘We’ll have to leave most of it and take what will last as long as possible.’ She selected the food and chose wisely.
‘I’m taking my rifle,’ Robert insisted.
Mother, who detested all firearms, tried to persuade him to leave it behind. ‘Ta [son], the opportunity to shoot at the enemy is not very likely now. Surely that is the only reason for keeping it.’
‘Well, I think we still need protection. Anyway, it might come in handy to shoot for food,’ he said, and strung it over his shoulder, rather like the Japanese foot soldiers in their marches into battle. It was an extra burden, but Robert never deviated once his mind was made up.
‘We must aim to cover 10 to 15 miles a day,’ he added.
We set off early, just before the sun rose from the plains in the east. The mountain range was still covered in the early morning tropical mist. The occasional break in the mist gave us a view of the dark wooded mountain ahead. We crossed the river that had been our favourite watering place in Shimbuyang. The clear water was waist deep and the flow gentle.
‘Look at the water marks,’ Robert said. ‘This crossing becomes at least 50 times deeper during the monsoon.’
We followed the path along a slight incline that quickly gave way to a steeper climb. The smell of decaying vegetation and other tropical plants hit me. When the sun was overhead we decided to rest and were treated to a grand view of the village of Shimbuyang below us. Away in the distance stretched the plains of the Hukawng Valley behind us.
‘Look, there’s an aircraft circling the village!’
‘It’s not a cargo plane, it must be a Japanese reconnaissance plane checking out the area,’ Robert said. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well we moved off.’
&nbs
p; A short distance away, we came upon a smoking fireplace. It was one of the first we had spotted from our camp in the village a couple of days before.
Robert fell in beside me.
‘I’ve just seen an Indian woman lying in the bushes. I’m sure it’s one of the women from Shimbuyang who was so unwell. They must have left her to die. I think she’s hardly alive, but we’d better not tell Ama.’
I agreed. We had to keep our mother moving. It had been quite some time since any of us had viewed a dead body or a person near to death. The thought of seeing more had not entered my head during the restful days at the village. We pushed on and managed to keep Mother’s attention focused on the climb. She was struggling to keep going.
The difference between walking on flat ground and the trail we now faced awakened me to the rigours that lay ahead.
Just as the sun began to fall behind the trees, we came upon another camping site.
‘It looks as if we’re making the same ground as our friends did,’ Robert said.
‘Maybe we’ll be able to use their fireplaces,’ I suggested.
It did not cross my mind that beside every fire there would almost always be a body or two of those who had been unable to carry on.
Mother kept falling back.
‘Ama, come on,’ urged Ethel quietly, holding Mother’s arm.
‘Just put one foot in front of another. Every step helps.’
We reached the top of the first range and when we rested for a moment I could hear the sound of running water in the valley below. We decided to press on and camp the night near the water, which seemed but a short distance away. We were wrong. Sounds carry a long way when locked in the steep walls of mountains. Some hours later we came upon the river and spotted a campsite of lean-to shelters. The familiar smell of human decay hit us. There in one of the shelters was the body of another of our Indian friends from Shimbuyang. I had seen thousands of dead bodies before, but it was far worse when they were people we had known, however fleetingly.
We rested some distance away and had a meal of canned bully beef and boiled rice.
‘I’m going to look for a deep part of the river and fire a shot or two into the water,’ Robert said. ‘I should be able to stun some fish. It will make a change from bully beef.’
Soon we heard a crack from the rifle and in a matter of moments he returned with a few fish in his billy can. It would have been con-venient to rest for the night at this point, but there was a smell of decaying bodies. We did not actually see them this time. They must have lain further upstream.
The mountain track, unlike the broad tracks of the plains, was perilous owing to the narrowness of the clearway.
‘We’d better keep moving,’ Robert said. ‘If we’re caught on a hillside when darkness falls, we’ll have to stop and try to sleep leaning up against the bank of the high side. It won’t be very comfortable. Besides, if anyone comes upon us at night they could quite possibly walk all over us.’
We moved on up the next climb and found a level spot, settling down to sleep in the open. There was a blackness about the night. I could still hear the running stream down in the valley, but the night was strangely silent. Tropical nights can be noisy when animals, insects and night birds come to life. Tonight was different.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I whispered to Robert. ‘Everything’s so silent. What could it be?’
‘I don’t know, but perhaps we should keep the fire stoked for a few hours.’
‘Good idea. I’ll do it, you get some sleep.’
I kept it up for a while, but then exhaustion overcame me and I fell asleep.
Suddenly all hell broke loose.
I awoke to see the fire extinguished. The rain roared down, sheets of water beating against the leaves of the trees around us. I had never experienced such a downpour. Water gushed down the track.
‘There’s nothing we can do but huddle under our blankets and wait for daylight,’ Robert said. ‘There’s no way we can claw our way up the mountainside when we can’t see even a few feet ahead.’
If there was one redeeming feature, it was that the rain was not cold.
Chapter 8
Monsoon
A dull greyness signalled the day. Our food and clothing were awash, adding weight to the already heavy packs. Worse still, the track now resembled a muddy stream.
The monsoon had begun, and everyone in the tropics knew that travelling during the rainy season was foolhardy. Centuries ago, even the Wise One had advised against it. Buddhism has deemed the rainy season a time for rest and meditation. If we had been at home we would not have travelled anywhere for at least three months.
For us, there was no rest. The rain poured down relentlessly and all we could do was keep moving. Robert had, early in the trek, acquired an army issue oilskin raincoat. It was light and came in handy as a wrapper for our rice and matches.
My mind flashed back to Maymyo when we had looked forward to the day when the black skies would open and release the monsoonal rain. Every year the rains brought Thingyan, a Buddhist water festival in all Buddhist countries when everybody, irrespective of status, was doused in water whenever they ventured out. The Burmese referred to it as a time for cooling off and cleansing. After the heat it had always been a pleasant relief to get soaking wet and frolic in the flooded drains that ran along the streets.
Now, I could not have wished the rains further away. It was unimaginable that they could be so destructive. Trees were falling around us as the gushing water swept away tons of soil. The narrow track turned into a rushing stream. The sound of rain falling on the canopy of trees was deafening and we had to shout to be heard, although there was not much to say, except to warn those behind of slippages.
Not long into the day’s walk we arrived at one such slip and were confronted with the problem of getting around it. It was impossible to climb the sheer face of the mountain on one side and the alternative would mean sliding hundreds of feet down the bank and scaling back up the other side of the path.
‘We’d better see out the night here,’ Robert said.
We spent it in an upright position, leaning against the wall of the mountain in the fear that the small area we occupied might be washed away and us along with it. For the first time, I began to feel the cold. The sound of trees crashing into the ravine below kept me awake all night.
At early light, the rain eased momentarily and we could see what damage had been done during the hours of darkness. Some trees had fallen from the ground above and their branches had jammed in the space created by the slip. Robert tested the flimsy bridge created by nature.
‘It’s all right, but I’ll come back for Ama.’
We crossed over gingerly and proceeded up the track. The rains started to pelt down again. At each step we sank up to our knees in mud. We reached the summit and began the dangerous journey down toward the roaring stream below. If climbing a mountain on a boggy and slippery path was difficult, the way down was utterly treacherous. A false step could send us crashing far below or, worse, could see us smashed against the trees during a fall. The stream in the valley was rocky, and though the waters were rushing along we managed to negotiate a crossing. We camped at a relatively flat spot on the far bank. Another night passed without anything warm to eat. We ate some of our precious sweetened condensed milk and a tin of bully beef.
Not only had the rains dampened our bodies and our packs, but also our spirits.
‘This is terrible,’ I said to Robert. ‘I suppose we just have to set our minds on getting over the mountains into India.’
He turned on me.
‘Do you have any idea just how wide the Patkoi Range is? We could be in this jungle for weeks!’
I wished I had not broached the subject. It gave him the opportunity to expound at length on the other dangers and obstacles ahead.
‘The rivers in these parts rise tens of feet in a flash and we could easily be caught half-way across the water. We could be delayed for weeks wh
ile the river levels drop and don’t forget the wild animals and snakes.’
‘All right then, would you rather go back to the Japanese army?’ ‘Well, it might be better than meeting the Naga headhunters.’ Mother said, ‘The things of nature we cannot control, the wild animals we can with patience and our fellow humans are never as bad as historians make them out to be.’
I thought of my father who, perhaps unkindly, I blamed for our predicament.
It saddened me to see my mother and sister struggle to keep moving. I wondered why, as a wealthy person, he had not made the effort to have us evacuated long before the Japanese overran the country. I was growing bitter and made up my mind not to talk of the trek when I met him again. I further soured my brother when I suggested he had his count of rivers wrong.
‘From what we’ve already crossed, I think there could be another hundred or so to come.’
He snapped back, ‘What we have crossed so far are only chaungs [creeks]. Wait till we come across some myits [rivers].’
The rain pelted down and the huge trees with their broad leaves afforded little protection. In fact, the leaves ducted the water in larger volumes. Instant waterfalls formed and poured down from the high ground. The track became a watercourse and, without rocks or stones, turned into a bog. We came to yet another water crossing. The current was swift but we made it across then camped, exhausted. We found some blackened pieces of wood from a previous campsite and set about starting a fire. It was not easy, but we managed. We boiled some rice and added tips of an edible plant that grew wild.
‘We’ve got to keep moving,’ Robert kept saying. ‘With luck we might come across a deserted Naga village for shelter.’
We rested on a fairly level section of the trail. It gave us an opportunity to scrape away the leeches that clung to our bodies. I noticed my skin wrinkling from the continuous drenching. My sore shoulder too began to cause trouble. The wet, heavy drill shirt kept chafing the wound, so I threw it away. As we got up we came upon an Indian man propped against a tree. He seemed to be asleep, but on closer inspection we realised he was dead. The heavy rain had washed him clean and there was no sign of decay. He looked peaceful.
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