by Nevil Shute
She paused, and then she said: “I think our religion is rather less debased than yours in some ways, too.”
He did not feel able to embark on that one. He asked: “Is everybody in Burma a Buddhist?”
She said: “Not everyone. Nine people out of ten are Buddhists, I should think, but the Karens are sometimes Christian, and the uneducated country people still believe in Nats, the spirits of the woods and trees, and build little houses for them. I will show you on our way, tomorrow. But when men get educated and begin to think more deeply, then they come to the Pagoda.”
Utt Nee passed them, going up the steps into the house. The girl said: “I have been telling the Englishman all about our savage religion.”
The young man laughed. “My sister is very religious,” he said to Morgan. “Women think more deeply about these matters than most men. You must not let her offend you.”
The pilot said: “She’s been very kind in telling me about it. I didn’t know a thing about all this before.”
The girl said, a little wistfully: “Don’t they teach anything about our country in your schools?”
Morgan said: “We learn a little, I suppose, but only facts. The names of rivers, and about rice coming from Rangoon, and things like that.”
Utt Nee said: “Rice will be coming here in a few minutes. You will eat with us.”
* * *
Morgan got up from his long chair on the veranda. Three men in longyis had appeared, and squatted down upon their haunches on the path at the foot of the steps. He left Turner in his chair, and went and spoke to them in Burmese. A slow conversation developed, evidently punctuated with jokes and repartee. After ten minutes there was a final sally, and the three got up and went away. Morgan came back to Turner in his chair. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Have a drink?”
Mr Turner hesitated. “Got any beer?”
The other shook his head. “It doesn’t keep out here. Whisky?”
“No thanks — I got to be careful. Got a lemon squash, or anything o’ that?”
“Fresh lime squash, with a bit of ice in it?”
“That’ll do fine.”
Morgan called an order in Burmese back into the house, and came and sat down. “What did them chaps want?” asked Mr Turner.
“Those? Oh, that was the headman from one of the villages and two of his pals, sort of shop stewards. I want some coolies to make up the road out to the rice mill. He came to fix the rate for the job.”
The glasses came, borne by the barefooted Burman servant. Morgan sat, glass in hand, looking out over the river. “I was telling you about that evening before we started for Bassein,” he said. He sat in silence for a minute. “It’s a damn funny thing,” he said at last, “but you can usually tell when there’s something wrong. I couldn’t speak a word of Burmese at that time, but I was pretty sure that some of those chaps were against me. Utt Nee was for me all right, and Ma Nay Htohn. Thet Shay, I think, was very doubtful if it was a good idea to turn me over to this Major Williams; some of the rest of them I’m pretty sure were hostile to the whole thing.”
He paused. “I got an idea into my head that Utt Nee sent his sister with the party, not so much to interpret, as to see that I got there all right, and wasn’t murdered on the way. I’m pretty sure that was behind it, in his mind. I asked him that straight out once, but the old devil wouldn’t tell me . . .”
“Anyway,” he said, “we pushed off before dawn the next day for Bassein.”
* * *
They went in single file along field paths between the squares of paddy, eight men, Morgan and Nay Htohn. The arms the party carried were not very impressive. Thet Shay and one other man carried Japanese rifles, and Thet Shay wore Morgan’s revolver in its holster. One of the other men had an old muzzle loading rifle with a very long barrel, and one had a very modern twelve bore sporting shotgun; the other four were armed only with their dahs. None of them wore brassards or any sort of uniform. Morgan hoped that they knew sufficient of the movements of the Japanese about the countryside to keep out of their way.
They marched all morning until nearly noon. They were then in a teak forest following a barely noticeable track; they halted and lay down, and boiled rice on a little fire of leaves and twigs, extinguishing the fire immediately it was done with. Morgan was very tired although he was marching light with only his blanket to carry; he was unused to marching in the tropics and was drenched with sweat. Utt Nee had given him a conical straw hat to wear and this had been a comfort in the sun, but he was very, very tired. Nay Htohn and the Burmans seemed as fresh as daisies.
They ate their rice, and curled up for a sleep, leaving one man on watch. At about three o’clock they moved off up the path again, and marched till dusk.
They camped for the night in a bamboo jungle, in a small clearing by a little stream. Again they made a little fire and extinguished it immediately their simple meal was cooked; then there was nothing to do but to lie down wrapped up in blankets and wait for sleep. Nay Htohn directed the positions of their sleeping; it did not escape Morgan’s notice that the girl arranged matters so that he slept between Thet Shay and herself.
Lying upon the grass, wondering what bugs would bite him in the night, watching the fine tracery of the bamboos against the starlit sky above him, Morgan heard the girl say: “What will happen when you get back to your Army? Will they send you back to England?”
He replied: “I shouldn’t think so. I’ll probably get leave up in the hills or something, for a week or two. But I’m not back yet.”
“No. How do you live in England? Are you married?”
He said: “Yes, I’m married.”
“Is your wife very beautiful?”
He said: “She’s the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.”
“Have you got children?”
“No.” He did not expand on that point.
“What will you do in England when the war is over? What did you do before you became an airman?”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I joined the RAF straight from school, when I was eighteen. I don’t know what I shall do. I was going to be an architect before, but I’d only just started. I don’t know.”
“Will you do that in England?”
“I don’t know — I suppose I shall. I hadn’t thought about it much.” He turned his head towards her. “What will you do?”
She said: “I might go back and be a shorthand typist in a Rangoon office, as I was before. I don’t know, either.”
“Have you lived in the country for long?”
“My father moved up to Henzada when the Japanese came in, and I went there with him. That is a fairly large place. For the last year or so I have been mostly with my brother in the country districts. One cannot sit still and do nothing.”
“You must find it pretty slow, after Rangoon,” he said.
She laughed. “I miss the pictures dreadfully. Apart from that,” she said, “I rather like the country. Rangoon is quite dead now, and not pleasant if you do not want to go about and dine with Japanese officers.”
Presently their voices died down, and they slept uneasily on the hard ground.
At dawn they got up, cooked another meal, and marched on. That day took them to within five miles of Bassein; they camped for the night in a small spinney without a fire, eating the cold porridge-like remains of rice that they had cooked at lunch. Thet Shay and one other man went out along the path that they were following to find a nearby village, to inquire how the land lay regarding Japanese, to find the man who knew where they could make a contact with Major Williams.
They came back an hour later in a state of agitation. The Burmans and the girl clustered round Thet Shay; he had urgent and important news for them, and it was not good news. So much was obvious to Morgan. They squatted down together in an earnest conference; from time to time the men threw anxious glances in his direction. He waited for enlightenment with all the patience that he could command. Something had happened
to upset their plans; so much was evident. He took the surmise fatalistically; it had been too good to be true, that he would get away from Burma easily.
Presently the girl left the group, and came and squatted down beside him. “It is bad news,” she said quietly. “A Japanese patrol has caught this Major Williams. They surrounded the village and took him while he was asleep. Now he is dead.”
The pilot nodded; he had been prepared for some news of the sort. “That’s a bad one,” he said quietly. “What is Thet Shay going to do now?”
She said: “He has sent out scouts.” Morgan glanced at the group, and noticed that three men had melted away into the darkness. “It is very dangerous here. There are Japanese patrols everywhere in these villages.” She hesitated. “They are on the lookout for parties such as ours, who may be trying to make contact with the Englishman.”
“Do they know anything about us?” the pilot asked.
“I do not think they do. The Englishman said nothing according to the village people, although the Japanese soldiers were very cruel to him. He took fifteen hours to die.”
Morgan bit his lip. No man is immune from fear, though he may be able to control himself. “Nice story,” he said quietly.
She stared at him, and then laughed shortly. “I suppose that is an English joke.”
He grinned at her. “Well, one’s got to make a joke of something.”
She said: “You must stay very quiet. We are going to wait here until the scouts come back, and tell us which way we must go.”
She went back to the group of men; Morgan sat a short distance from them, his back against a tree, watching them and thinking. It seemed to him that they were in a most colossal jam. The Japanese had tortured this Major Williams to make him reveal his connection with the Independence Army; if they caught any members of the Independence Army they would certainly be tortured too, men or women, to make them reveal the extent of the conspiracy. Thet Shay would be tortured without doubt. Nay Htohn would be tortured.
If the party were taken with himself among them, it would be clear evidence that they were members of the Burma Independence Army. That meant torture and death for the lot of them. Nay Htohn, also, would take fifteen hours to die.
* * *
Morgan set down his glass, and called the bearer for another couple of drinks. “Well, that’s the way it was,” he said. “The only one who might have got away with it if the Japs had caught us as a party was me. I could always plead I was an enemy in uniform doing what I could to get home — they couldn’t have much against me for that.”
Mr Turner said: “You was in a spot all right.” He paused. “What did you do?”
The pilot said: “Oh, I skipped off out of the party and lay up in the bushes for a couple of days to let them get away; then I walked into Bassein and gave myself up to the Japs. I mean, it was the only thing to do.”
CHAPTER 6
IT WAS ABOUT three in the morning, when the scouts had been back for an hour, that the pilot decided to act. The news had been altogether bad. Japanese patrols were moving upon all the paths; they had closed round behind them and no direct return along the path that they had come by was now possible. They had decided to get a little sleep, and to send out scouts again at dawn to try to find a safe escape route backwards from the trap.
There was one safe escape route which was obvious to Morgan, and it was obvious to him that several of the men would like to take it. That was, that he should be murdered there and then, and buried under a tree; without him the party could split up into twos and threes and appear as peaceful villagers going about their business in the normal way. That was the safe way out for them, the way in which they could get back unquestioned and so join up with Utt Nee again. From time to time as they squatted round in conclave there was a hot argument between Thet Shay and Nay Htohn on the one side and certain of the men on the other, and in these arguments bitter, hostile glances were thrown at him. It was clear to Morgan that in the party things were moving to a crisis; that their newfound loyalty was being put to an unbearable test.
They lay down presently to sleep, with Morgan placed carefully between the girl and Thet Shay. He waited till he had heard the regular, even breathing of the girl for half an hour to indicate that she was deeply asleep; then he shook the Burman gently by the arm.
He could not talk to him in any language, but Thet Shay was intelligent and caught on to the pilot’s sign language readily. Morgan said “Bassein?” in inquiry, and pointed to each path in turn in the dim light. The Burman understood him, and showed an alley between trees, with wonder and suspicion on his broad face.
The pilot nodded, pointed to himself, then to the path. He held both hands above his head in token of surrender, and said again: “Bassein.” Then he glanced at the sleeping girl and made the sign for silence.
The next part was more difficult. He got very quietly to his feet; the Burman got up with him; they stood together in the dim starlight beneath the trees. Morgan pointed to himself and to the path for Bassein; then he pointed to the rest of the party and to the path in the opposite direction, and made a comprehensive gesture with both hands. Thet Shay nodded. Morgan went on to an elaborate pantomime of sleeping twice, and hiding in the bushes, and surrendering. He could not get that through at first, and repeated it, but he was very doubtful if the Burman understood.
He thought for a moment, and reached for his pencil. He had only the paper on which he had made his list of Burmese words; he wrote on this at right angles to the list:
I have gone into Bassein to surrender to the Japs; don’t try to follow me. I shall try and hide for two days before surrendering so that you can get away. The English will send another officer to replace Major Williams, tell him about me. I will try and see you when the war is over, if I get away with it. Don’t think too badly of us. We may be stupid, but we do our best.
He gave this note to Thet Shay, and indicated that he should show it to Nay Htohn when he had gone. The Burman nodded. Morgan picked up his haversack and turned to him, and held out his hand. Thet Shay took it smiling, and they shook hands, and Morgan turned and walked off softly up the path towards Bassein. He never looked back at the sleeping girl.
* * *
Mr Turner said in wonder: “Must have took a bit of doing, that.”
Morgan laughed. “Never been so frightened in my life. I tell you, I was simply pissed with fright. I was banking everything on getting right into Bassein before surrendering, and not meeting a patrol.” He turned to Mr Turner. “It was the junior officers and NCOs who did most of the torturing,” he said. “If you had to surrender to the Japs, you wanted to try and pick a senior officer, and give yourself up to him. You wanted to keep clear of sergeants out on a patrol . . .”
“My Christ,” said Mr Turner. “I’d want to keep clear of the whole bloody lot, myself.”
* * *
The two days of waiting were a bad time for Morgan. He went up the path about a mile, and then turned into a thicket and made his way into the woods. After a hundred yards or so he came out in a little glade, and he sat down there upon a fallen tree. He had no food with him, and no water.
With his intellect he did not regret those omissions. The tale that he had formulated for the Japanese was that he had been hiding and walking across country by night, guided by the stars, from where he had forced landed the Spitfire to Bassein. His story was that he had been told at the briefing before taking off that this Major Williams was in the neighbourhood of Bassein, and that after his forced landing he had marched by night across country to get in touch with him, hiding in the woods each day. He had finally asked a group of Burmans to lead him to the Major; they had told him that the Englishman was dead, and had then run away. With nothing else to do, he had walked in and had given himself up.
The more he thought about this yarn the more it seemed convincing; he could not see how he could be tripped upon it in interrogation, if he kept his head. It was important, however, that he
should not be in too good a physical condition if his story was to be that he had lived in the jungle for five or six days without much equipment. If he was half starved, crazy with thirst, and mercilessly bitten by all kinds of bugs it would be better for his story. In the next two days in the forest he suffered all three torments. He stuck it out.
At dawn, two days later, he found the path again, and wandered down it in the direction of Bassein. He went carelessly, with a raging thirst and with the high temperature of a fever on him. He was bareheaded, for he had thrown away his conical straw sun hat as not being in the part, and he was dressed in the soiled green blouse and trousers of a jungle suit. He wore no underclothes. He had canvas wellingtons upon his feet, muddy and somewhat torn, and a soiled white scarf around his neck. He carried his haversack still with the remains of his emergency kit in it, and he had a five days, growth of beard on his face. In that condition he walked straight into Bassein; it was not until he was actually walking down the main street of the town that a Japanese officer arrested him, a heavy automatic pistol in his hand.
He was taken to the military headquarters in a villa and given a drink of water, and interrogated; then he was interrogated again at the headquarters of the Kempeitai, who took all his papers from him. He played his part well, as if crushed with disappointment at his failure to escape. They did not bother a great deal about him; the arrest and imprisonment of airmen who had forced landed in the country was a normal routine to the Japanese. The only feature which made his case unusual was that he had wandered for six days about the countryside, and that was satisfactorily explained by the presence of the English major, now liquidated.