by Nevil Shute
They talked cereals for an hour or so. “I come out here on sort of personal business, you might say,” said Mr Turner. “Mr Anderson, he’ll be along to see you in March. But as I was coming here, Mr Sumner said to come and have a chat with you, and show you these.”
Mr Chang beamed. “Mr Anderson, he very welcome in Rangoon. My wife, she always ask when Mr Anderson coming. My son Hsu, he ask always also, when Mr Anderson coming. Very nice man, Mr Anderson.”
“Aye,” said Mr Turner, “he’s a proper card. Tells a good story, don’t he?”
“Oh yes. Mr Anderson, he very funny man. My wife laugh and laugh.” He explained. “My wife does not know English, so I translate stories for her. She laugh very much.”
Mr Turner split open one of the little sample packets of Crispy Wheaties on the table, and put two or three flakes in his mouth. “Say, tell me what you think o’ these, Mr Chang. I kind of like them myself, so does my wife. Sort of malty flavour, isn’t it? They’re going very well at home. We’ll have nearly half our whole production on these by next year.”
An hour later they were finished for the time being. “There’s just one other thing,” said Mr Turner. “I got a friend out here somewhere, chap I used to know back in England in the war, in 1943. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he lives in a place called Mandinaung. Mandinaung, Irrawaddy, that’s the address. Is that far from here?”
Mr Chang said: “Mandinaung is large village on the Irrawaddy river. It is about hundred, hundred and ten miles. You go by river, past Yandoon. Take two days now in the steamer, because river running very fast. One day to come back. You want to go and see your friend?”
Mr Turner hesitated. “Is it easy to get there?”
“Very easy. Steamer all the way, twice each week, Monday, Thursday, all the way up to Henzada. Next Thursday is next steamer. You arrive Mandinaung Friday afternoon.” He looked up at Mr Turner. “I book passage for you — leave to me. You go Thursday?”
“Hold on a minute.” He had no objection to Mr Chang earning his commission on the passage, but he did not want to be rushed. “This chap doesn’t know I’m coming, and I don’t know how he’s living. Would it be possible to find out anything about him — what he does, or anything?”
“Sure,” said Mr Chang. “I have good friend who do business in Mandinaung, cheroots, Mandinaung cheroots very good, good as Danubyu. You like cheroots, Burma cheroots?”
“I wish you’d find out something about this chap,” said Mr Turner. “Phillip Morgan, his name is. I’d like to know what he’s doing, how he’s living, you know, before I write to him or go up there.”
“I find out for you,” said Mr Chang. “I ask my friend, he go there every month. Phillip Morgan. I find out for you.”
He insisted that Mr Turner should dine with him the following evening at his home, and would take no refusal. They arranged that he should fetch Mr Turner from the hotel at half past six, and then he went away. Turner sat down and wrote a cable to his wife in Watford to tell her of his safe arrival, and then, most unusually, he sat down and wrote her a long letter. He was not very good at writing, and much of his letter was concerned with a description of the plot of the detective story he had read in the aircraft on the way out, but it pleased her when she got it.
He went out presently and walked along the streets at a very slow pace, keeping well into the shade. He bought a solar topee for twice its value in a Chinese shop, and he bought a guidebook for three times its English price from a very black Chittagonian who kept a stall, and he bought a bunch of bananas in the fruit market for almost its proper price from a young Burmese woman because he smiled at her and was friendly. Then he was tired and his head was beginning to throb so he went back to his hotel and lay down upon his bed to read the guidebook. Presently he went to sleep, and when he woke up it was afternoon. He got up and had a shower and ate some of the bananas, and went down and had a cup of tea in the hotel lounge. He spent the evening sitting in a long chair in the shade, watching the native life of the city as it moved by in the street.
He went and saw the great shrine that dominates the city next day, the Shwe Dagon, and walked around the pagoda in his stockinged feet, mystified at the profusion of strange images.
That evening Mr Chang came in a very decrepit old open motor car to fetch him to dine; they bounced erratically along to the other end of the town with Mr Chang clinging to the wheel in grim concentration and changing the worn gears with more ferocity than skill. He lived in a small suburban house, standing in a garden that was unkempt by Mr Turner’s Watford standards, and suffering from the peculiarity that it had few walls, and those constructed only of Venetian blind material. Outside, the jungle rats that Mr Turner knew as squirrels played in the trees, and sometimes came into the rooms.
In the main living-room there was a long table; one end was laid with a white cloth for the meal; upon the other was a jumble of well-worn Mah Jongg ivories. Mrs Chang came forward to meet them, a little woman with a wide smiling face, dressed in sandals, black satin trousers, and a very beautifully embroidered white silk shirt that reached down almost to the knees. She said something, smiling.
“My wife speaks no English,” said Mr Chang. “She very pleased you come to our house.”
Mr Turner, in the course of a varied business life, had acquired some experience with wives who could speak no English. He had no knowledge of any language but his own, but he had made himself pleasant in the past to French wives, German wives, Dutch wives, Polish wives, Hungarian wives, and many others; a Chinese wife presented him with no problem. He worked upon the theory that all foreign wives were exactly and precisely similar to English wives, and that if you got someone to translate exactly what you would have said in Watford it worked out all right. Certainly, he had always given satisfaction. Within ten minutes Mrs Chang had produced her seven-year-old son and her five-year-old daughter, and Mr Turner was playing ‘Paper wraps stone, scissors cuts paper’ with the little boy.
Dinner came presently, served by a Chinese-Burman girl, a curry which Mrs Chang ate with her fingers, Mr Chang with chopsticks, and Mr Turner with a spoon and fork. Mr Chang produced a bottle of rice spirit flavoured with burnt sugar which he called Black Cat Whisky; in support of that statement he showed the black cat on the label. A glass of this set Mr Turner’s head throbbing and buzzing; he refused another with some difficulty, and told them all about his head wound. Then Mrs Chang told him all about her operation for appendicitis, Mr Chang translating, so that by the end of the meal they might have been nextdoor neighbours in Watford.
The brown girl came and cleared the table, and Mr Chang produced a large paper packet of cheroots. They were very black and Mr Turner took one with some apprehension; unexpectedly it turned out very mild.
“You like my cheroots?” asked Mr Chang.
“Aye,” said Mr Turner with appreciation. “Makes a nice smoke.”
“From Mandinaung, where your friend lives. Mandinaung cheroot.”
“It’s very nice,” said Mr Turner. “Did you find out anything about Phillip Morgan?”
“Oh yes, I find out for you. Mr Morgan very important man in Mandinaung. He just made Subdivisional Officer.”
Mr Turner stared at him in astonishment. “What’s that — Subdivisional Officer? What does that mean?”
Mr Chang said: “Subdivisional Officer, he is Government official. Like Judge and Tax Collector and Registrar. Mr Morgan is Subdivisional Officer for five villages, but he live in Mandinaung.”
Turner said, bewildered: “I thought he was quite poor.”
Mr Chang smiled tolerantly. “Oh no. Mr Morgan never poor. Mr Morgan, he is owner of three motorboats trade up and down the Irrawaddy, carry passengers and goods. Now he sold those boats, and now he is Subdivisional Officer.”
Mr Turner stared at the Chinaman. “Is he a well-known man, then?”
“Oh yes — Mr Morgan very well known in the Irrawaddy; people like him very much. He marry nice girl, Ma N
ay Htohn, daughter to Maung Shway Than. Maung Shway Than is important man in Rangoon. His brother, Nga Myah, is Minister for Education in the Burma Government. All very good people.”
“Well, I’m damned,” said Mr Turner. He sat in silence for a minute, trying to readjust his ideas. “This girl he married,” he said presently, “ — Ma something, you said — is she a native? I mean, a Burmese girl?”
“Oh yes,” said Mr Chang. “Ma Nay Htohn educated at Rangoon High School; she speak very good English. Very nice girl, very clever. She have two children now, one boy, one girl. They very happy.”
Mr Turner said mechanically: “That’s fine,” and sat trying to think out what this meant to him. It was not in the least what he had been led to expect.
Mr Chang went on to add to his information: “Ma Nay Htohn has brother, colonel in the Burma Army, Burma Independence Army in the war. His name, Utt Nee. Utt Nee, he fight against the British in 1942 to make Burma independent. Later he fight against the Japanese also to make Burma independent, but he fight more against Japanese than against the British. He very important man also, colonel in the Burma Army.”
He grinned at Turner. “You want to go up river to Mandinaung to see your friend? I arrange it for you, very easy.”
Mr Turner said slowly: “Yes, I think I do want to go. I’d better write him a letter first. How long does a letter take to get there?”
“One week to get answer. Why not send telegram?”
“Can one send telegrams to Mandinaung?”
“Oh yes. It go to Danubyu, and then boy run with the message. You get answer the same day. I send it for you.”
Mr Turner said: “Got a piece of paper?”
He thought for a moment, and then wrote:
Morgan, Mandinaung, Irrawaddy.
We met in Hospital Penzance 1943 stop I am now in Rangoon week or two on business and would like to see you again stop can we meet either Rangoon or Mandinaung.
Turner, Strand Hotel, Rangoon.
He got an answer the next day at his hotel:
Sorry cannot get down to Rangoon but glad to put you up here for a few days if you can spare the time stop delighted hear from you again. Morgan.
Mr Turner stood looking at this thoughtfully, in front of the mirror in his bedroom. “Made a bloody fool of yourself,” he said to his reflection. “Come all this way for nothing. He don’t want your help.”
He hesitated, half minded to abandon the adventure, and go downstairs, and book a passage back to England on the next aircraft. This young man that he had thought of as a beachcomber was a Government official, and one with very good connections in the country. Out here, where white faces were few, the fact that he was married to a Burmese girl did not seem quite so shattering as it had seemed in England; Mr Turner had already seen a number of girls in the street that he would not have minded being married to himself.
“Might as well go straight back home,” he said disconsolately. “He’s all right.”
He did not go. The fascination of a strange scene was upon him; he had never been to the East before, and though the purpose that had brought him there was obviously void, he might as well see everything there was to see before going home. He had said nothing to anybody, fortunately, of his desire to help Phillip Morgan make his life anew; he had described himself as on a business trip and he could stick to that story. This journey up the river to this Burmese village would be interesting, an out of the way adventure, something to tell Mollie about when he got back to Watford, something to tell buyers from the Provinces when he lunched with them at the Strand Palace Hotel. He decided that he would go, and spent some time in thinking up corroborative lies about his business in Rangoon to tell to Morgan if he showed much interest in his presence in Burma.
He set out for Mandinaung the following morning on the paddle steamer. He travelled in some comfort in a cabin with a good electric fan, and he enjoyed every minute of the journey. The Irrawaddy delta is a smiling, fertile country of tall trees and rich farm land; between the showers of rain Mr Turner sat in a deckchair upon the upper deck of the steamer watching the dug-outs and sampans on the river, the women decorously bathing with two longyis, the domestic life in villages and bamboo houses that they passed, the monkeys playing in the trees. Each minute of the day was an interest and an amusement to him, and though he was still worried that he had come upon a fool’s errand, he was glad that he had come.
The steamer reached a fair-sized town called Yandoon in the evening, and berthed there for the night. Mr Turner went on shore and walked a little through the lines of bamboo and mat houses, wondering at everything he saw. He had thought that women in all Eastern countries lived in purdah and seclusion, but here the girls walked round in pairs chihiking with the young men just as they did at home. He found a well that seemed to be a social centre and sat watching for a long time a very merry scene as girls and women came down for the water and the young men drew it for them. From time to time he saw a monk in bare feet and a heavy robe of a coarse yellow cloth, and wondered. He went back to the ship to dinner, rather thoughtful. There was an atmosphere of business, good humour, and a pleasant life in Yandoon, that was different from his English conception of a native town.
He got to Mandinaung next day in the late afternoon. There was a little rickety bamboo jetty for the steamer to berth against, and on this jetty a white man was standing with a Burmese girl by his side, and few natives behind. As they drew near, he saw that it was Morgan, but a different Morgan from the one that he had known in 1943 in hospital. This was an older man, who had an air of authority about him. He was very tanned. He wore an old bush hat with a khaki shirt and faded shorts of jungle green; he had sandals on his feet. Up on the bank above the jetty an old jeep was parked, presumably his property.
The girl standing with him wore a flat, slightly conical straw sun hat, a white blouse, a green longyi wrapped around her waist and falling to her feet, and sandals. She was a pale, yellowish brown colour; she had a broad face and straight black hair, which she parted in the middle and wore made up in a knot at the back of her head, usually with a flower in it for ornament. When Mr Turner came to study her at closer range he found that she used lipstick and nail varnish like the girls in Watford, and like them made up her cheeks with a faint colour. Later still, he found she did it with the same brands of cosmetic.
A native boy carried his suitcase off the boat behind him, and he went down the gangplank to meet Morgan. “I took you at your word,” he said. “Seemed a shame we shouldn’t meet again, being so close and all.”
“I’m jolly glad you came,” said Morgan. “We don’t see very many people out from England, up the river here. Turner, this is my wife, Ma Nay Htohn.”
Mr Turner raised his hat formally. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs Morgan.”
She smiled, and then laughed a little. “Not Mrs Morgan,” she said, “I am Ma Nay Htohn. We do not change our names in Burma after marriage, as you do in England. I am still Ma Nay Htohn unless we go to live in England ever. Then I suppose I shall have to be Mrs Morgan.” She held out her hand. “I am very glad that you could spare the time to come and see us.”
She spoke English with a lilting accent, but her choice of words was perfect.
Mr Turner was confused. “Ever so sorry,” he said. “I got a bit to learn about the way you do things out here.”
The girl said, laughing: “I will teach you. I hope you will be able to stay for a long time here with us.”
“Just a day or two.” He turned to Morgan. “You’ve not changed a lot.”
The other studied him. “I doubt if I’d have known you again,” he said. “You were all bandaged up, up to the time I left the hospital. How long did you stay on after me?”
“ ’Bout a month,” said Mr Turner. “Bloody fed up with it, I was — just lying there day after day. After you went there was no one but the nigger to talk to.”
Morgan said quietly: “I remember. How did you get on with him?�
��
Mr Turner said: “Well, I got on with him all right. Better ‘n you’d think. We used to play a lot of draughts together, I remember. Checkers, he called it.”
They turned and walked up to the jeep and got into it with the luggage; Morgan drove along a dirt road on the track that overlooked the river, out of the village. They did not drive far. A quarter of a mile from the last bamboo house they turned the corner of a wood and came upon a clearing with a mown lawn, on which stood a flagstaff; from this staff floated a blue ensign with a peacock in the fly. Behind the lawn there was a pleasant wooden house of two storeys, with a veranda and a red-tiled roof of many gables. It stood upon the river bank at a great bend, with a view over the stream, nearly a mile wide.
“This is where we live,” said Morgan.
“Nice place,” said Mr Turner, very much impressed.
Morgan said: “We only got it built last year. You should have seen what we were living in before.”
Nay Htohn rippled into laughter. “We use our old home for a garage,” she said. “Show him, Phillip.”
“All right.” He stopped the jeep before the steps that led up to the veranda of the house and gave the suitcase to a manservant in a long white coat who came out to meet them; then they drove on around the house to a small bashah made of bamboo, palm leaf matting, and palm thatch. It stood looking out over the river in a pleasant place, but it was old now, and beginning to decay. Morgan drove the jeep into what had once been the main room, and they got out.
“This is where we used to live,” he said.
Mr Turner did not know quite what to say. “Sort of country cottage,” he ventured.
“That’s right,” said Morgan. “This was the living-room, and this was the bedroom. The kitchen was that other one.” He pointed to another decrepit bashah close beside. He stared around. “Yes, this is where we lived,” he said. “It wasn’t bad.”
The girl said softly: “We were very happy here.”
Mr Turner looked around him. The place had a bare floor of trampled earth; there was a trench outside dug round to catch the monsoon rain. He glanced into the bedroom; the bed was a platform of thin, springy bamboo slats. There were no doors, no ceiling, no glass in the windows, no amenity of any kind.