‘I wish your mother had decided to stay in Burma rather than face the long trek,’ she added. I believe she was genuinely sad at the loss of my family.
Going back into the house, we had a long talk with her children about my imminent departure. I was desperately sad about leaving them to such a stern person as our father.
‘Your presence has been appreciated by all of us,’ my stepmother said.
I was gratified, but once again I was beginning to feel guilty about walking away from people I had grown to love.
Chapter 26
Bound for Botany Bay
I said goodbye to my step-family and boarded the train with my father for the short journey to Southampton. We did not have much to say along the route, but I realised he was sad that I was leaving, despite our poor relationship.
It is only a hop, step and a jump from London to Southampton but I felt as if we had been in the train for hours. My father, like all British travellers, had his head buried in the newspaper while I gazed out and took in the scenery of a country in which, I suddenly realised, I had lived about as long as I had lived in India. I vowed I would never return. Hopes flashed through my mind of a brighter future in a sun-drenched country. Then I thought of my step-family left behind in London and a pang went through me.
I was concerned for my stepmother. She was a gentle Burmese woman who had been taken away from her country into a world for which she was not prepared and which she did not like. I never blamed her for the strange family set-up in which we had found ourselves, due to my father’s double life. I never discovered what my father had told her about his first family. Perhaps she thought he had divorced my mother. I could not bear to distress this gentle woman by asking brutal questions; better to let things lie. Nothing was going to change the past.
I thought of my half-brothers and sisters and wondered how they would fare under the authoritarian stewardship of the man beside me in the train. At the same time, I took comfort from knowing my father would have some companionship with his second family.
The train pulled into the city. It was a short distance to the dockside.
My love for ships went back a long way and I was overawed with the tonnage at anchor and dockside in Southampton. There were ships from all around the world. My father pointed to a small vessel and said, ‘There is your home for the next month or so.’
No fancy liner for me! We walked up the gangway and joined a few passengers who were also saying their farewells. We hugged one another and we both cried.
His last remarks were, ‘Colin, if you ever feel you want to return to England, cable me and I shall forward the fare.’
He retired to the first deck of the terminal building and waited until the ship pulled out. The last I saw of him was a solitary figure, dressed in his customary overcoat, felt hat and tartan scarf, waving an arm as we moved off slowly.
I was desperately saddened. I wondered if I could have handled things differently. Perhaps I had interpreted his feelings towards me wrongly. Maybe he did love me deeply. Perhaps his way of showing his love for me was to provide generously and let me have a free hand to move about like an unfettered spirit.
Many years later my half-sister Mary told me what I wanted to hear. It was during one of the many moments when I was being critical and judgmental of our father.
She said, ‘Colin, you should not speak like that about your father.’
She went on to tell me that, after I set sail for Australia, he had spoken a lot about me.
‘He always told the family he was confident you would get along fine in Australia.’
She also said that, following my trek out of Burma and the loss of my family, he had gone to extraordinary lengths to find out more about the refugee trail through the Hukawng Valley. Apparently he had been told of the huge death toll and the conditions endured by those who had survived.
‘He appreciated that you had been to hell and back. He never tired of telling his friends that one member of his family had survived a walk where thousands had died.’
It was in this context that he apparently expressed his belief that I would get along fine in Australia.
‘He constantly referred to the fact that you had asked nothing of him save the £100 for your fare.’
In his later years, he had told the other members of the family that he admired me for speaking out for what I thought was right.
‘He loved you, and he was saddened when you returned the fare from Australia. You should have learnt during those visits to the Buddhist monastery as a young boy that receiving a gift from a person creates a circumstance for that person to gain a merit in life. You should have accepted the money graciously.’
Perhaps I was unkind at times in my criticisms of him. Certainly, he provided for me. But rightly or wrongly, I had come to lay the blame for my family’s death squarely at his door. I will never know the circumstances of my parents’ relationship, but I am sure that my father had had the means to get us safely to India long before we were forced to undertake the trek.
Perhaps he simply did not believe the Japanese would succeed in invading Burma. Or perhaps my mother dug in her heels and insisted that she would not let the children go without her. I will never know. I have learnt to accept that whatever occurred was pre-ordained. I gain comfort in the knowledge that those members of my family will, in the cycle of rebirth, return as better people.
Many years later, while browsing through some magazines in a doctor’s surgery, I picked up a publication called In Britain. There on the front cover was a picture of a man in an overcoat, tartan scarf and hat, inspecting some vintage cars during the annual London to Brighton run. It was a picture of my father, taken a few months earlier.
In 1967 I received a cablegram from Barclay’s in London informing me of my father’s death. They had been appointed trustees of his affairs. My father had not forgotten me.
THE SHIP ROUNDED THE TIP OF PORTUGAL and sailed into the calmer waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Since my childhood days, I had been fascinated by ships and had once even contemplated a life aboard one of these vessels. But a sailor I was not, and the slightest pitching and rolling of the ship started me heaving. I soon linked up with other young people on board, mostly Australians returning home. I found them to be an exuberant and friendly bunch, with a love of socialising and a deep commitment to drinking the ship’s bar dry.
The Mediterranean was fine and the weather was balmy. We pulled into Valetta harbour on the island of Malta. The ship dropped anchor and the passengers were ferried ashore for a visit to this famous island. Malta had sustained the heaviest of the bombing by the Germans during the war. The onslaught had forced the islanders to live underground for most of the duration. They had been awarded the George Cross for their bravery.
Malta was an uninteresting, treeless outcrop of rock. Yet the inhabitants were cheerful. We were bundled into large lifts that carried us to the top of the island and the main city centre.
I was anxious to get my land legs back and joined a group of youngsters in a game of football.
‘Why don’t you come with us to find a drinking hole?’ chorused my new Australian friends.
‘You go, I’ll join you later.’
Half an hour later, sweaty, dirty and hot from the game with the local youth, I went in search of my friends. Sure enough, they were already well intoxicated. The local bartender was also in a jovial mood, not, I guessed, from any liquor he himself had consumed, but from the money he was extracting from my drunken friends. I gathered them up.
‘Come on, you lot. It’s time to get back to the wharf to catch the ferry back to the ship.’
Grumbling, but in good spirits, they allowed me to lead them out of the bar. The next stop was the city of Port Said on the northern end of the Suez Canal. I passed on my knowledge of Muslim customs our party would have to observe in the port city.
‘Be careful, everyone. The locals won’t take kindly to people consuming liquor.’
&
nbsp; ‘What are they? Miserable bastards?’ They were incorrigible. We arrived at night and went ashore to buy some artifacts of old Egypt. It was a pleasant excursion and everywhere we were besieged by hawkers. Pimps too followed us around despite the presence of some wives.
One woman in our party, the English wife of an Australian air force pilot, tried to get me to take up the offer of a particular pimp who seemed happy to pester us all night.
‘Go on, Colin, I dare you.’
‘No, thanks. I was reared in the East and I know all about their game,’ I said. I didn’t really!
Port Said was one of our better stops. Next was the ancient city of Aden, a British protectorate garrisoned by British troops.
The women were thrilled.
‘Ooh! Silk and nylon stockings! Let’s stock up!’
As far as I was concerned, it was a desolate place and the buildings were uniformly constructed from mud bricks. Most of the traders were Indians and I did my part in bargaining with them to get the best price for my friends. Some of the more cunning vendors tried to bribe me with a kick-back.
The journey across the Arabian Sea to our next port of call, Colombo, was along the route the ancient traders had taken and, indeed, the present traders took, back and forth to India. The weather was stifling and most of the passengers slept on deck. The night was full of the sound of the foghorn blowing constantly as we passed the Arab dhows that plied the sea. It was a miracle that we did not run down any of these craft, which had just a few kerosene lamps to identify their location.
Colombo was a fine city. There was something about it that made me feel comfortable. Again, we were ferried ashore.
‘I might leave you for a while,’ I told my companions. ‘I’m thinking of looking up some school friends from Ootacamund.’
‘Where?’
‘Ootacamund. It’s in India, where I went to boarding school.
Their parents own tea plantations here, on the island.’
‘Oh, good, we’ll come too,’ the Australians insisted. I was not about to take this exuberant mob along to meet some of Ceylon’s most distinguished families. Abandoning the idea, since I could not bear to offend these kindly if noisy people, I suggested we visit the renowned Galle Face Hotel for afternoon tea and a swim at the private beach.
I had gathered that most Australians loved the ocean and they took up the suggestion with enthusiasm.
‘Great idea. Let’s go!’
Away we went in a motorcade to this magnificent hotel. The white building was strikingly beautiful and we sat on the verandah and enjoyed the view of the palm trees growing along the curve of a sandy beach.
‘Would anyone like some afternoon tea?’
‘Fair go, mate. Beer, anyone?’
I sat with them for a while but when they changed to spirits, I knew I was in for trouble. Some of the local gentry seemed none too pleased to have to share the verandah with my shipmates. I tried to turn their attention to food, but they would have none of it.
‘We’re having lunch. Liquid lunch.’
I was hungry, so I excused myself and walked down the road leading to the hotel, along which I had spotted some foodstalls on the way in. I enjoyed a feast of Indian curries at the fraction of the cost I would have paid in any restaurant.
I returned to the hotel and asked the taxi drivers to get ready to escort us back to the pier. It was dusk when I finally got my friends to join me. They grumbled about having to leave, but eventually I rounded them up.
Back on board, at dinner that night, they spoke glowingly of the fine time they had spent, on my recommendation, at one of the great hotels of the Orient. The other less adventurous passengers were very impressed with this migrant boy’s knowledge of the Orient.
The next leg was the long haul across the Indian Ocean to Fremantle in Western Australia. With nothing but expanses of water to bore the passengers, entertainment had to be arranged. Deck sports were popular during the day and amateur entertainment at night. Of course there was plentiful alcohol, at very cheap prices, so my friends’ priority was as always to drink the night away.
On this leg of the journey I became acquainted with a blonde Australian woman. I had seen her during the trip and she always seemed to be hanging off the arm of some male or another. Since she was some years older than myself, I never gave her much thought. Besides, the excitement of the journey and my mind focused on a new country had left little room for shipboard frolicking.
One evening when I joined my group for dinner, Madge, the wife of my Australian air force friend, took me aside.
‘Colin, there’s someone who wants to meet you. I’ve invited her to join our table tonight. Her name is Shirley. You’ve probably seen her around.’
Indeed, I had. She was a young blonde-haired lady, a dress designer who had completed a stint in the UK. She was attractive and knew it.
The dining room was quite luxurious and the passengers had to enter by walking down a wide stairway that was mirrored at the head of the stairs. I had noticed that Shirley always made a late entrance. This night was no exception. She walked down the stairs in style and came straight over to sit down beside me.
We went through the usual pleasantries and Ian, Madge’s husband, said, ‘Why don’t we retire to the bar after dinner?’
Everyone nodded. ‘Good idea.’
Madge, who was quite a character, whispered in my ear, ‘You’re set for the rest of the trip!’
I was embarrassed; nonetheless I went along with it. The long leg from the last port was becoming boring. Our group sang a bit, laughed a lot and as usual consumed a lot. I even had a drink or two of gin and lime, which I had first tasted in Calcutta the night the war had ended.
Shirley and I got on famously. She told me of life in Sydney and her parents’ home in Randwick. She was travelling in a four-berth cabin and her fellow travellers came over to join our group. I noticed her speaking to a couple of her friends and thought nothing of it.
She then got up, stretched and announced, ‘I need some fresh air. How about a walk on the deck, Colin?’
She led me up the stairs, along a passageway and down to her cabin.
I looked at the other bunks and said, ‘We may have some visitors while we are here.’
She just looked at me and said, ‘I’ve taken care of that. We’ll be alone for some time.’ I realised what she had been up to in the bar.
We entered the rather cramped cabin and I sat on the lower bunk and began a conversation. She shut the door and peeled off her dress and stood before me unclothed. I was taken aback. She had not worn any underwear beneath the stunning dress. I couldn’t believe it.
Afterwards, we rejoined our friends.
Madge raised her eyebrows and commented archly, ‘Something on deck must have kept you, you were such a long time.’
As the ship sailed towards Australia on that last leg, a strange feeling that I was leaving my Oriental ties to begin a new life came over me. Nothing seemed to take my fancy. Yet the uninhibited Shirley was set upon making this trip memorable for both herself and me. Certainly she did so, providing me with quite an education in the process, but on the last night before we arrived at Fremantle I summoned enough courage to tell her we should make it the final chapter of fun.
‘You’re right, Colin, but it’s been terrific. We must catch up in Sydney. Don’t forget to come and see me.’
Traditionally, the night before arriving at the ship’s destination was a time for frolicking and partying. I had had no idea what to expect from my Australian friends, but I had an inkling that alcohol would flow freely and the pranksters would take over. I had grown to expect boisterous behaviour but it seemed my shipmates knew no limits. The ship was like a fairground. Litter was everywhere, tables and chairs were upturned, people danced and sang and generally carried on like a lot of hooligans.
I must admit, I was privately a little shocked, especially when I had to carry an unconscious Shirley down to her cabin. I could hear my
father’s censorious voice in the back of my mind. Perhaps he had been right!
At breakfast the next morning all the conversation was about the terrific night before. I reminded my table companions of their drunken behaviour.
‘How on earth can you even remember anything about it?’
‘Get away. It was a great night.’
‘But you were so drunk!’
‘Yeah, legless. It was good, though.’
They were sweet-natured people who laughed at themselves as much as at others and took my criticisms in good spirit. Shirley was not the least bit fazed.
‘Who needs legs when you’ve got someone to carry you?’
She gave me her address and a token of the time together on board the Moreton Bay. It was the knickers she had worn on the last night, a skimpy pair of polka-dotted panties.
As we headed into Fremantle, however, my Australian companions were suddenly on their best behaviour. It seemed that they were determined to present sober and alert when they touched home, rather like a child who, arriving home from school covered in dirt, brushes himself down before fronting up to his parents.
Chapter 27
Australia
I awoke early to find the ship inching its way up to the dock in Fremantle. Already, despite the newness of the day, it was hot.
It was January 1951, in the middle of the Australian summer. On the dockside a group of men in singlets and shorts lounged around smoking cigarettes.
‘Who are those fellows?’
‘Oh, they’re wharfies. They’ll be coming aboard soon to unload the vessel.’ I was astounded.
‘But they seem such a bunch of layabouts!’
‘You’re telling me!’
We tied up and the ship’s speakers announced that we would be spending two days in harbour before setting off for Adelaide. I was thrilled. I would be visiting the main cities of my new country before I disembarked in Sydney. I planned to get a good look, knowing I might never get another chance to see them.
My RAAF friend, Ian, was as keen as ever to introduce me to the Australian culture.
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