Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II

by Croke, Vicki Constantine

  That luck didn’t hold.

  ON MONDAY, MARCH 2, 1942, at the height of the hot season, they reached the border village of Tamu. It was a madhouse. The large outpost, with perhaps a hundred homes, a courthouse, and a telegraph office, had been a sleepy place. Now, it was “a congested bottle-neck, filled with thousands of refugees, mostly Indians, all wondering how they would negotiate the next fifty miles, along a rough bridle-track, and over mountains five thousand feet high,” Williams wrote.

  It was hell in the making, a place of chaos, filth, and fear. Very little had been organized. There were no sanitary facilities. And as bad as things were, everyone knew worse was to come, for after Tamu, there was nothing but mountainous wilderness.

  Hardly a refuge for humans, this was no place for elephants. Restraining the animals had been problematic for Williams during the whole trip, and now he felt he was in charge of a ticking time bomb. No matter what, Williams decided, he would send the eighteen tuskers back to Mawlaik. The more even-tempered females would stay with them for the rest of the crowded journey.

  Just outside the heaviest traffic of the village, Williams brought the elephants to a halt. While the women and children went to see what was happening in town, Williams and the uzis began to unload the elephants. Packs would have to be reorganized and redistributed as the number of elephants was reduced. In fact, some items would have to be jettisoned altogether.

  It was unbearably hot and dusty, and everyone felt exhausted. The riders were handing down the parcels one by one to camp workers on the ground: tents, luggage, cookware, the wireless. Williams walked among the animals, making an inventory of gear and trying to gather things into some semblance of order. For some reason, one small scene caught Williams’s eye. Ten yards away, atop a big tusker, one of the uzis was handing off a particularly colorful “air-travel suitcase,” the kind covered in labels from the Taj Mahal, the Sphinx, and the Eiffel Tower. An experienced camp worker reached up to take it. Seemingly with no provocation, the elephant tilted his great skull and crushed the man into the ground, dumping the uzi off his head in the process.

  The crowd erupted around the horrible scene. Williams and all the riders ran in to help subdue the tusker. But it was too late; the force of the animal’s head was enough to pulverize and compress the man’s body. Those who have observed such attacks say the victim is rendered unrecognizable—not just as an individual, but as a human being. This was the sight Williams and the other men took in. They quickly put a cloth over the flattened body and moved him away.

  But it was not quick enough to hide the incident from the crowds. It caused near panic among the refugees. One teenage British evacuee recording the event in her diary said that in the aftermath, parties of English travelers found that low-wage coolies were not eager to work for them. Simply carrying suitcases for the British now seemed impossibly risky.

  When Susan arrived with the rest of the group, she could see how devastated Jim was. And yet, the focus had to be on pragmatism. Williams convened his party and explained that the allowable luggage per person would now be greatly reduced—just sixty pounds per head. Everyone who had managed to carry some treasured articles beyond their necessities had to give them up. It was a piece of silver here, a fancy green Morocco leather dressing case there. It wasn’t just luxuries that went. Even tents and camp beds were relinquished. “After this,” Susan wrote, “we felt more like the bunch of evacuees which, in fact, we were.”

  The Williamses had no valuables to give up, but there was a more wrenching departure for them. Joseph, their cook, had left a wife and children behind, and Aung Net still had some family in Burma. War had a way of slamming borders shut for years. If they continued on to India, they might not be able to return. Faced with this very real prospect, Williams had, in agony, decided they would be safest at home. To take them any farther would just be selfish, he believed. “The time has come,” Jim said to Susan, “to tell them they must return.”

  Jim walked over to them. Susan watched. “It was a hard moment for all three,” she wrote. There would never be any way to reward either man for the service and companionship each had brought to Jim for decades. Gathering as much money as he could from his own pockets and those of everyone he knew, he scraped together a year’s wages for each. Aung Net had rarely been out of Jim’s sight for the last twenty-two years; from first thing in the morning till late at night, they were together. And now they were parting under the worst circumstances possible, with no prospect of keeping in touch. All Williams could do was warn this simple and trusting person, who had meant more to him than nearly anyone else in all of Burma, to tell no one about the money he carried. By the time they all said their last good-byes none of them could even speak.

  Williams watched Aung Net as he trailed after Joseph into the forest “without a backward look.” He would never see or hear of him again.

  TWO DAYS LATER, THE Williams-Bostock party set out, Williams scouting ahead, women and children next, elephants behind. They were heading into the high country of Manipur, where they would be hiking for more than a week. The rocky, narrow path pointed upward, and day after day, they trudged forward single file with thousands of others. Indian travelers passed by with all their worldly goods crammed into boxes atop their heads.

  Conditions worsened. Cholera became an increasing problem. Dead bodies, bloated and covered in maggots, were left lying in the track. Sometimes masses of butterflies hovered above them. With no time for burials, Williams would try to heave the corpses over the steep embankments before the children caught up. Still, the “tell-tale stench” of decay would rise up, swamping the path, and the mothers would hurry their children past.

  It was getting colder as they ascended to higher elevations. At night they scratched out a little area to sleep in with a thin blanket.

  Some of the tea companies in India had dispatched men to build shelters along the route, but most had not been finished, and few were without piles of excrement from the throngs of earlier travelers. The rations were meager, and the hiking became more and more difficult. Everyone lost weight. Their one diversion might have been the wireless, but when they could get a clear signal, the news they heard was terrible.

  On March 8, 1942, Rangoon fell to the Japanese. Looters prowled the fancy neighborhoods of the capital, racehorses roamed the streets, and fires—many set by Westerners as they left in an effort to leave nothing of value to the Japanese—burned out of control. It was not only a crushing psychological defeat; there also were dire consequences to losing the only real port in Burma. Now, Allied supplies would have to come overland from India. Given the terrain and the lack of roads and infrastructure, this would be an enormous problem.

  War correspondents who had descended on the country painted a bleak picture. Without Rangoon, all of Burma was overwhelmed, and India was threatened. Thousands of refugees poured out of the city, heading northwest for India. Their numbers grew as they were joined by people from all corners of the country all headed in the same direction, clogging the few poor roads available.

  With Burma behind them, the Williamses and their fellow refugees were dealing with mountains. At five thousand feet, the water situation worsened. The elephants were often denied a decent drink for more than a day, something Williams thought unconscionable. Little Treve was walking on his own now. It had become an exhausting trek for the skinny four-year-old. No matter the age, everyone was hungry and tired.

  The group trudged on. Every turn in the road simply led to another turn. Finally, cornering a bend, they saw a vista open up: miles of flat plains below. They were leaving the mountains. Before them was a single road stretching out for miles and choked with other travelers kicking up plumes of red dust as they scuffed along.

  All told, about six hundred thousand desperate refugees headed for India, most heading west, but some taking the inhospitable northern route through the Hukawng Valley. It was the largest migration of people in history up to that point. Only about fifty th
ousand were British; most were Indian. Eighty thousand may have died in the effort.

  As excited as he was about emerging from the mountains, Williams saw that the very end of the trek was going to be tricky. Several ravines lay ahead, all of them bridged by spindly structures that could not hold the weight of an elephant. At each crossing, the uzis would have to steer the animals around the span—down steep banks and then up the opposite one. The uzis were warned that even if a bridge appeared substantial, they were not to attempt it. Ultimately, one did. The bridge gave out under the elephant’s feet, and though she was able to cling to the bank, her rider was pitched forward. The noise and surprise sent the female charging backward in a panic. Williams saw the elephant—no rider, no pack—racing toward him. He tried to stop her by brandishing a walking stick fitted with a spearhead. It did not sway her. He had to leap out of her way as she barreled past him. She turned around then and headed in the same direction as traffic, blowing by him again. Amazingly, he saw her clear the ravine in a motion that science has said is nearly impossible—she appeared to jump it. All was well, though. The elephant, not wanting to be separated from her mates, got back in line with them.

  The upside was that, at least momentarily, she had swept the path of the crowds of people. Susan and Jim tried to joke about it with Treve, but, the little boy, who had hiked a hundred miles, “just hung his head—utterly weary, and too done in to be diverted.”

  By the time they reached their destination, the town of Palel, over the border of Burma, in the Indian state of Manipur, the group was spent. Susan, despite her pregnancy, looked gaunt. She had lost about fifteen pounds. The elephants, too, were in poor condition, but now could be set free to bathe and eat. The animals and uzis remained in Palel while Williams and Bostock accompanied the women on British Army trucks the next 160 miles to the railway at Dimapur. Williams was grateful that the uzis would have a rest. The men “had sacrificed everything to save British women and children and to get them over the filthiest tracks that evacuees had ever passed.”

  ONCE THE FAMILIES WERE on their way, it didn’t matter that the road was bumpy or that the lorries had no decent suspension; everyone was grateful to be sitting. They stopped for two nights in a large refugee camp in Imphal. Set up by the tea plantations, massive airplane hangar–like sheds made of bamboo housed hundreds of evacuees. Each family got its own eight-foot-square platform and the chance to take a bath and have a proper meal. Short messages could be cabled home.

  For Susan and Jim, however, the relief of the moment was ruined by terrible news. They were forced to endure another separation. This time officials told them that no “Burmans” would be allowed to cross into India. Jim pulled every string he had, and an exception was made for Treve’s nanny. But no amount of pleading would make a difference for poor San Pyu, who would be allowed no farther. Jim promised San Pyu that after the women were safely on their way, he would come back for him. Susan observed, “He looked forlorn and lost, standing there next morning, as with heavy hearts we waved good-bye.”

  From Imphal, it was a 130-mile army truck trip to Dimapur. They arrived at 7:30 p.m. with the rain and were fed the kind of staples they had not seen in some time—tea, toast, and jam. At eleven thirty that night, at the warning of the whistle blasts, they boarded the train. A derailing at the first launch delayed them a day, but then the women were finally safely aboard a moving train. Susan looked out the window at Jim standing in the heat on the platform, waving good-bye. He was dressed in his usual field gear—crisply pressed after their recent laundering opportunity—but the man inside the clothes looked worn out. It pained her. He caught the change in her expression. “Don’t worry!” Jim cried out to her over the sound of the train. He shouted that he was happy she and Treve were safe now. “We’ll meet up again sometime soon!” he promised. The steady rhythmic whoosh of the engine drowned everything out, the train lurched forward, and they waved frantically until they could no longer see each other.

  CHAPTER 22

  NO. 1 WAR ELEPHANT

  AFTER MEETING UP WITH JIM’S TWO BROTHERS IN CALCUTTA, Susan and Treve settled in Shillong, the pleasant and mild capital of Assam, where Nick, the eldest of three Williams men, owned a bungalow called “East Knoll.” Nick did not live there, but the house would be shared with another woman, Mrs. Robertson, and her two small sons. The city, with its posh British club, movie theaters, and Western restaurants, provided a surprisingly comfortable life. Their house had a nice landscaped yard and a commanding view of the snowy Kanchenjunga mountain, which is part of the Himalayas. The household even included a cook and a butler.

  Knowing that his pregnant wife was being looked after and that his son was safe, Jim could focus on helping refugees. All the way back to Burma, he made good use of his elephants, this time transporting supplies and building a camp for the refugees who continued to flee west. He and Bostock even spent a few weeks running the camp before moving on. Once back on Burmese soil, they helped with road building. But so complete was the Japanese drive that in April even people squeezed up against the far western border, like Williams, were forced to evacuate. The British Army soldiers had been ordered to retreat, and the final rearguard troops were expected to go through within weeks, just before the monsoon rains broke.

  Orders or no orders, Williams searched for San Pyu and Aung Net, but could not find any trace of either one. He had sent them back into Burma thinking it was the safest place for them, but by war’s end perhaps a million Burmese would be dead—killed by soldiers, worked to death, or simply starved by the chaos of war.

  He had another search to conduct, too, this time for Bandoola. He found the tusker safe for the time being with Po Toke, just outside Tamu. It was good to get his hands on the bull, to speak to him, and give him whatever sorry excuse for a treat he could come up with—probably a bit of his own lunch. Po Toke seemed bewildered, beaten even. He felt betrayed. He was sixty years old, and as the British fled and Bombine collapsed, he realized that he would never see the pension promised him.

  What could Williams say? He understood. He turned back to the elephant. Bandoola himself was magnificent. Now in his peak years, the tusker was unequaled by any elephant, wild or working. Standing there, even with war roaring right up to him, the bull was serene.

  Williams felt sure that the elephants would be vital to the Japanese and the British. It galled him to think of the animals falling into enemy hands. So he had planned to march at least two hundred out with him. But with the roads still packed with refugees, it would be impossible. He could only trust that the riders and their elephants could hold out till the British returned. The Japanese, said to be supreme jungle guerillas, were no match for the uzis, Williams figured. His men could vanish into the forests with their elephants and never be found.

  Williams wanted Po Toke to do just that. And he had come prepared to help, having gathered all the cash he could. Handing the money over to Po Toke, he told him to “hide if you can.” He vowed to return. Po Toke, though skeptical of Williams’s promise, took the offering.

  The master mahout ordered the tusker to sit. “Hmit!” Bandoola slowly lowered himself to the ground and the old man scrambled atop him. Williams said his good-byes and watched the elephant amble into the forest, headed in the direction of Po Toke’s village in the Kabaw Valley, just east of the Chin Hills. Williams counted on Po Toke’s knowledge of secret trails and impenetrable parts of the forest to stay safe and unseen. He was thankful that the jungle could swallow up even an elephant.

  Williams hiked back to Tamu. The only good news was that by this point General William Slim had taken over operational command of the British forces in Burma. The man was smart, unpretentious, and a soldier’s soldier. He would become one of the most respected and beloved officers of the war. The demoralized troops needed someone they could believe in, and Slim more than fit the bill.

  The organization of the defense of Burma, initially under the Far East Command in India, would never be strai
ghtforward. Slim had a lot to do, but when he took control of the Burma Corps in March 1942, he had few resources. The Japanese were committing more to the area than he could. The ratio of Japanese to Allied planes had always been lopsided, but now the gap widened to perhaps 900 Japanese aircraft against 140 Allied. The Royal Air Force was withdrawn at the end of March. British and Chinese troops continued to retreat from each stand. Mandalay was bombed, killing more than two thousand people.

  The surge of refugees, which Williams was now joining, was desperate. Some people had managed to ride in cars or trucks for part of the journey, but after Tamu, real roads ended. The track toward India through the mountains was not fit for most vehicles, with the exception of Jeeps, though even those had a tough time making it. Anyone who had driven to Tamu now had to get out and walk.

  Williams headed to India on foot, with just a simple kit on his back and a friend’s black Labrador retriever, Cobber, by his side. Walking among a human torrent of thousands, he saw misery and sickness everywhere: families torn apart, having to make terrible decisions, perhaps leaving one dying child behind in order to save another. Relatives were separated and frantic to be reunited. Newspapers in India were full of agonizing personal ads taken out by those who had become separated from their families on the trek. Everywhere there was starvation and illness. Extreme heat, lack of food, arduous walking, and exposure to disease picked off even the youngest and most robust. One group of Bombay Burmah families had set off for India from the other side of Burma, in Siam. Out of the twenty children who had begun the journey, only one survived. Those who had traveled the longest learned several survival tricks, among them, obtaining salt by scraping and eating the dried sweat on their own skin, and when thirsty, stealing water from the radiators of abandoned cars.