Rubies from Burma

by Anne Lovett

  It had to be the awful thing. What did it feel like to stab someone, to push that blade into a living body? Suddenly I pushed myself to my feet and lunged forward with the bayonet like Errol Flynn in a pirate movie. I hobbled around, poked and parried, sliced the air. In my wild play I nicked Duke’s chair by accident, splintering the wood. I gazed at the bright yellow gash and shuddered. I carefully laid the bayonet back in the trunk and settled down in the chair with the photo album and notebook.

  I flipped the pages of the album. There was Jack Austin, standing with a couple of the natives. A scribbled note on the bottom read Austin with Kachins. He was clowning around even, mugging for the camera. I flipped the pages. Most of the pictures didn’t mean anything to me—just soldiers and jungle, barracks, tents, soldiers. There was an airplane. Duke had written beneath it Gypsy Moth.

  One picture stopped me. A Burmese or Chinese girl, about my age or younger, with bangs and lopsided pigtails, stood in front of a bamboo house with an old man, her grandfather maybe, squinting into the camera as though the sun were in her eyes or she was in pain--a smile or a grimace, I couldn’t tell. Li-Wei was written underneath.

  I closed the album, picked up the diary, and turned it over and over in my hands, not sure if I wanted to open it. Maybe it would give me a clue to Duke’s nightmares. Maybe I didn’t want to know what happened over there.

  Chapter Twenty

  The war, some people said, had been a great adventure. Oh sure, you worried about the boys out there fighting, but we were all pulling together, weren’t we, on this great cause, and weren’t we a blessed nation? The news came slowly and filtered and we were spared from the worst of it. That’s why I had no idea what I was going to feel when I read the diary.

  April 29. Washington. The men who are training us learned at a British camp in Canada. I’m learning to come to terms with everything I used to hate. Here honesty, decency, are words that are never used. Words used are tactics, outsmart, take out.

  May 20. Joan gave me this book. She tells me writing breaks the tension. Well, I’m no Shakespeare but I’m going to write what happens. Joan speaks seven languages and they want her to go undercover in France. She’s a smart, funny gal, a blond who knows it all and is not afraid to tell you.

  June 1. We had a hell of a time getting passage to India. It was only when the colonel began making arrangements to charter a boat that somebody found room for us on a troop ship.

  June 27. Soon we land at the Karachi and meet the colonel. I still don’t know exactly where we’re going. Maybe China. Hope Vinegar Joe has a plan.

  July 4. Some celebration. We are cooling our heels as Stilwell is thinking about what to do with us. He doesn’t want us in China.

  September 13. We’re off to Burma and see what chaos we can cause there.

  October 5. The Brits have given us a tea plantation in Nazira, Assam, near the border. Behind us is jungle which will make good training fields for the recruits. Before us the valley rises into the slopes, and the tea plantings go on for miles, up the slopes.

  I flipped through the pages, seeing names: Colonel Eifler. General Stilwell. Major Richmond.

  November 20. We are near the Naga Hills where the Naga head-hunters live. We were in danger of being exposed by some Jap chutists and the Colonel sent the Nagas after them. They came back with a basket of six heads.

  I swallowed hard and flipped a few more pages.

  December [smudged] forward base will be established but I stay here. I have been given a Kachin trainee for an assistant. His name is Saw, but I generally call him Mick, as in Mickey Finn. He’s teaching me some of the language, while I teach him the fundamentals of espionage and sabotage, forgery and lock picking and sentry killing. All this is right up his alley. He, like most of his buddies, is short, rough, and tough, a fierce fighting man, Mongolian looking, quick as a frog’s tongue. His teeth were black as the ace of spades from chewing betel nut. The first thing he tells you is that he hates both the British and the Japanese. The word here is not to trust any native until you get to know them well.

  I kept reading, holding my breath, page after page of training, of the heat and the long periods of boredom and the pure terror of what they had to do. And little by little, I saw him becoming blasé.

  May 23. Monsoons started. We’re in for months of it, but we’re not as bad off as the units down behind the lines to the south. Sent a letter. Got a letter from Talley, from Wilkes back in Washington. She’s beginning to regret he got me into this. I wrote her back I wasn’t in the mud, darlin’. Hell, I had to do something in this war. That’s what I told her.

  June 17. It was a boring day. Rain sheeting down outside, camp a mess of puddles. I was sitting here with this book trying to think up something to write when the colonel came in. His expertise with a pistol is a well known story. He eyed the book pretty hard and asked me how would I like for him to shoot it out of my hand. I took the hint and got rid of it. I stuck it down in a corner of my kit, telling myself I’d throw it in the fire one day.

  July 3. A Major Williams, a Brit who’d been in Algeria, came over with a communiqué from Dorman-Smith. We got into conversation and I realized he’d been in contact with Joan there. Now he was telling me she was dead, cover blown.

  The next page was torn out, and the next few pages were blank. I started to lay the diary aside, but the blank pages were wrinkled, not smooth, and it seemed like there might be something further on. I kept flipping pages.

  And then:

  November 16. Writing this in hospital. I’m writing what put me here so I can forget about it.

  Pat Robbins came in with us late, after we’d already been out for a year or so. A clean-cut farm boy from Kansas. He wasn’t with the original group of boys trained in Washington. He was somebody the Colonel had met by chance in a Chittagong bar, decided he liked his style, and he’d gotten him transferred to our outfit.

  Pat Robbins, once he got off the farm, developed a taste for the grape and grain, as well as adventure. And he had guts, and that’s what the Colonel liked about him. What Pat didn’t like was the jungle. He was from Kansas, you know, and from what he told me there was hardly a tree to be seen. Where he came from there was sun three hundred and sixty-four days a year.

  Here, he was in the damned steam bath of the world. It was almost like those dog days of summer back home where a good rain hangs in and before you know it mold is growing out your wazoo.

  But you have to hand it to him, he tried. I have never known a boy to try so hard. He had guts and when he was drinking got a little crazy, not being used to the stuff.

  Said he was going in with his uncle in the auto supply business after he got back, said he had a pretty girl waiting for him. Well, I told him I had a set-up like that, and we came to be buddies. He had a picture of his girl. She wasn’t a looker like Ava, but she had a nice and friendly face, and somehow I knew she’d make him a good solid wife, one who’d stick by him through thick and thin.

  He had this idealistic streak in him, being a good old church going Kansan. He didn’t know what to make of our Kachins. He couldn’t believe they smoked opium all the time. Money, of course, didn’t mean much in the jungle, and they’d get paid in opium. Pat thought this was un-American, but they didn’t seem to get addicted to the stuff. Not so I could tell anyhow. Hell, it was true about Asians being hard to read.

  By the time Robbins joined us he was behind the rest of us on his jungle training and he was always playing catch-up. He never quite got guerrilla fighting the way the Kachins did it. He knew that when you engaged the enemy, you fought. But from the Kachins we learned to attack quickly, do all the damage you can, then slowly melt away into the jungle.

  Pat thought this was cowardly; thought you ought to stay and fight till the last man was down. This attitude was what got the Brits’ ass whipped too many times before they caught on. Those Chindits of Wingate’s put up a bloody good fight before they got driven back across the Irrawaddy.

 
; Robbins was one of those gung-ho kids. We knew he would be a hell of a good agent if we could only get those ideas of honor and decency out of his head. We told him that the Japanese had a different kind of fighting code. You killed the enemy whenever you had a chance, by whatever means were at your disposal, and you tried to fake them, psych them. The little bastards would run at you screaming insults, like “Eleanor Roosevelt eats powdered eggs.” We would scream, “Hirohito eats shit,” before we blasted them.

  Then the colonel got temporary duty to Washington. Col. Peers took over. He was a cool head, a military strategist. Robbins went to him and volunteered to lead a unit, wanted to get in on the action. Saw and I did not think he was ready, but there was no holding him back.

  He was assigned to a unit to penetrate enemy lines and blow up a railroad bridge down near Myit.

  Well, they had been out about three weeks and we lost radio contact with them. We couldn’t get any information as to whether they had accomplished their mission or not. Then some word came back to us. The Kachins found it out through that damned jungle radar they have that our men had been captured by the Japanese.

  The men at their outpost camp were stretched thin, so another detail was sent out to get them back and to blow up the bridge: myself and Saw Mick and two others.

  We were careful. We were expecting ambush. We also had no way of knowing if the jungle information was true or false. You checked it out best you could and kept going.

  The jungle is always full of sounds. You hear the cries of birds, the endless whine of mosquitoes, the crackle and buzz of other insects, the gurgle of water from a stream. What you don’t want to hear is the crack of sticks as a tiger stalks you or the swish of a python in a tree.

  You might see splintered bones on the path.

  You might see the skeleton of a parachutist hanging from the trees.

  You might see leeches every damn where on your body.

  You will see buzzards for sure.

  We parachuted in to where they had last reported and scouted the area until we found a village. Saw Mick questioned the people until we found out which way they had headed; we plunged through the jungle for pretty much a day and a night. On the second day we spotted signs of troops. A scrape on bark here, boot prints in the ground. We stopped to examine the treads. American boots can be told from Japanese by the tread—ours were a hell of a lot better and they would steal our boots given half a chance—and here, both treads were clear. At this part of the jungle the canopy was so thick there was little or no undergrowth and the prints stood out.

  We followed the treads until we reached a wall of some razor-sharp grass. I felt we were nearing a river, and soon we came to a clearing.

  The jungle was the unnatural heated quiet of midday, except for the far-off calling of a bird. I gave orders to my men to put rifles at the ready. We inched forward. I brushed aside a branch and stopped in my tracks at what I saw.

  There in the clearing was Pat Robbins, tied to a tree. He was dead. Blood had crusted and dried on his uniform in a hundred places. He had been used for bayonet practice. The others were dead too, on the ground. As I stood looking at him I heard the cry of a jackal.

  I stepped forward to cut the poor bastard down and then the crack of a rifle exploded from somewhere. We dove back into the jungle and waited.

  And waited. The light was fading; through the trees we saw the sun blood-red through the thickets, setting across the grasslands of the river savannas beyond. The smell. We waited with the smell of blood and shit and rot in our noses and the screeches of birds and jackals in our ears.

  Finally, when it was nearly dark, a patrol of Japs stalked out into the clearing, rifles at the ready, jabbering and talking. They went over to inspect the body. I waited long enough to figure they were alone.

  We fired and got them all, all but one, who spun and fired in my direction. He hit me in the leg and then he took off running. Saw Mick chased my attacker and brought him down with a shot to the back.

  He grabbed the rifle from the dead Jap and brought it back to me. We took the bayonet off the rifle and fixed it as a splint for my leg.

  We buried the Lieutenant and the others in the jungle. My leg hurt like hell and we hadn’t accomplished the mission. Saw Mick led us to a village where the natives hid me in a storeroom while the others blew the bridge.

  By the time they got back infection had set in. It was painful to walk. We radioed to HQ and made it to the outpost camp where they treated it best they could, despite Saw Mick’s telling me the jungle cure was to rub the ashes of a dead bat or something on it and bury the rest.

  The colonel’s jerry-built Gypsy Moth managed to meet us at the strip and we flew back to base. By the time they got me to this hospital the infection was so bad they had to work like hell to save my leg. And so here I am lying up here not doing a damn bit of good to anybody.

  I dream of back home and my sweet Ava.

  I couldn’t bear to read any further. I felt sick to my stomach and went to get a drink of water. I looked at the clock. It was just about ten.

  I didn’t want to go to bed. I didn’t want to take off my clothes.

  I knew I should just put everything back in the book and close the lid on the trunk and never open it again.

  But I went back to the chair and opened the book.

  The next page was blank.

  Maybe Duke had meant to fill it in later; maybe he hadn’t. The page after that had one sentence:

  I dream of old Sawyer and the folks, and wish I had some of Elzuma’s honest-to-goodness fried chicken. I don’t know if I ever want to see any more rice.

  The next few pages were random thoughts about the war, and then it just fizzled out. There was an entry about the R & R place in India. And then there was nothing else to say. I held the book gingerly, as though it might suddenly burst into flame, slipped it back into the trunk under the other things, and laid the album and the bayonet on top. Then I closed the lid. I didn’t lock it, but I returned the keys to the drawer.

  I was curled up asleep on the living room sofa when the doorbell rang, making my heart thump and my dream of the jungle disappear with a pop, thank God, and then someone was pounding on the front door, big loud bangs. I nearly tripped over my feet as I jumped up, hurried to the door, and jerked it open.

  Damn key won’t fit, said Duke, looking up from his stooped position. Ava was leaning against Jack.

  For a minute I didn’t understand and then I did. Duke, you’re really drunk, I said.

  He just grinned. Not drunk enough, he said, and lurched in. He wove toward the kitchen through the living room, bouncing off Ava’s white sectional sofa.

  Ava patted Jack on the shoulder as if they were bosom buddies and had some secret between them. I’ll be back in a minute, honey. I’m about to pop. After a minute the swishing sound came down the hall, like she hadn’t closed the door to the bathroom.

  Standing in the hallway with this man listening to my sister piss. He didn’t seem to care. Little Mae Lee, he said. How old are you?

  Sixteen, I said, and my heart started to thump.

  I would’ve thought you were eighteen.

  It’s because I’m tall, I said. You look just like you did in the war.

  Grin, snaky grin. So how do you know how I looked in the war?

  Duke had a picture, I said, suddenly demure.

  I’d like to see it, he said.

  I swallowed. This way, I said.

  He followed me into Duke’s office. I opened the trunk, took out the album, and laid it open on the desk. Jack stood beside me and gently rested his hand on my hip as I turned the pages, and oh, God, I felt the heat radiating off his body. He pointed to the pictures.

  The Colonel . . . the Gypsy Moth . . . Saw Mick and some of the Kachin rangers. He shook his head. Pat Robbins clowning around . . .

  I turned my head away.

  He took a sideways look at me. Duke tell you about that?

  I shook my head. I
read something he wrote.

  He flipped the page, not looking at me. I’m surprised he showed it to you.

  He didn’t, I murmured.

  Jack turned the pages, and I was conscious of his breath, my breath, his breath, my breath. He reached to the snapshot of the old Chinese man and the young teenage girl in pigtails, standing outside a village shop. I stopped his hand with my own. Who’s that?

  Gem trader, said Jack, with a funny look. Kid was his granddaughter. About your age.

  What happened to her? I knew something did. I just knew.

  Jack looked down and waited a long time before he answered. Japs took her, for the soldiers, he finally said. I guess you wouldn’t know about that. They called them comfort girls. Mostly Korean, but they took some Burmese too. Some younger than that.

  Oh God.

  Duke tried to save her.

  How?

  Jack shook his head slowly. Don’t know the whole story. He lowered his voice and leaned closer to me, and there was the scent of leather jacket and spice aftershave and the feel of his lips on my neck.

  And then Ava was filling the doorway, flashing fire—all red silk and red lips and rubies.

  What’s going on here?

  We both looked at her at once.

  Her lip was curled. Duke’s had it, Mister Jack. Help me get him to bed.

  Jack winked at me. Don’t go away.

  I could hardly catch my breath, but I followed them out into the hall, where Duke had collapsed against the wall, legs barely holding him up, eyes seeing God knew what.

  I looked away, tears springing to my eyes. Duke had been my hero, and he was still my hero, but oh God, what he had been through. My heart ached for him, and I wished there was some way I could help him.

  Jack was helping him now, and he’d told me he’d be back. I felt as if I’d drunk a glass of that whiskey at the thought he liked me and I liked him. Was it wrong of me to be heartsick over Duke and excited about Jack at the same time?