by Nevil Shute
“He says these parts were taken off when the British went away, and that the District Engineer told the Japanese the British had taken them away to India with them. He says that was not true; the District Engineer took them away and hid them himself.”
“Where’s the District Engineer?”
She asked the man in Burmese. “He is dead. He was working in the repair shops at Insein and was killed in an air-raid.”
“Too bad.” The pilot thought for a minute. “Does he know what the parts were, or where they are now?”
She asked, and then said: “He does not know anything more. He is only the man who cleans the carriages.”
“Are there any drivers left in Henzada?”
She asked again. “He says that all the drivers were sent down to Rangoon to work on the main line.”
Morgan said again: “Too bad.” There was nothing to be done about it, and they turned and went back to the house. His legs were considerably swollen again by the time they got there, and he was glad to put them up in a long chair on the veranda. Nay Htohn said: “It is a very good chair, that. It is the Japanese Commandant’s chair.”
He grinned. “Well, that’s an honour.”
She brought him a cheroot, and then she settled down upon the floor beside him with some needlework. He glanced at it, and saw that she was working on the faded, threadbare trousers of his jungle suit, now washed and pressed. She was repairing a small tear with delicate, fine stitches, using thread of the same material frayed from a seam.
He thanked her, and she turned over the blouse. It had been carefully washed, and the wings and ribbons stood out almost smartly on the faded cloth. “Tell me,” she said, “what do these things mean?”
He told her about the wings and how you got them, and about flying. “And these,” she said. “These are medals, are they not?”
He showed her the 1940 Star, and told her what it meant. And then she put her finger on the other one. “And this?”
“That’s the Distinguished Flying Cross,” he said. “That doesn’t mean a thing. They send them round with the rations.”
She looked up at him uncertainly. “Does everybody get it?”
He was suddenly aware of the great pleasure that he was withholding from her. “Not everybody,” he said awkwardly. “You get it if you’re lucky.”
She was puzzled. “How, lucky?”
“Lucky enough to get away with it,” he said. “Lucky enough to come back home again.”
She said slowly: “Is it given for something very brave?”
He shifted uneasily. “Not quite like that. You get it for doing something rather difficult.”
“And dangerous?”
“And dangerous. But you don’t think much of it when you’ve got it. So many people do much more, and don’t get anything.”
“Tell me,” she said, “what was it that you did?”
He told her, and she listened to him wide-eyed, kneeling by him, the sewing on her knee. In the end she said: “Who gave it to you? Is there a ceremony?”
“You get it from the King,” he said. “You go to Buck House for it.”
She breathed: “You mean, from the King Emperor? Did you see him?”
“See him? He pinned it on, and he couldn’t get the pin in. He said: ‘Sorry to be so damn clumsy!’ ”
She stared at him. “The King Emperor said that to you?”
“Yes. I thought it was decent of him.”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, I said: ‘That’s okay, sir,’ or something.”
She was silent for a minute. Then she said: “Would you mind if I tell my father?”
“If you want to.” He hesitated. “Don’t spread it round the whole place, though. I mean, it doesn’t mean a thing, really, you know. Honestly, it doesn’t.”
She stared at him, smiling a little. “I believe it does,” she said. “I believe it means a great deal.”
He changed the subject. “I’d like to put on those clothes when you’ve finished them,” he said. “It’s better to be in uniform.”
The girl said: “I will not be very long.”
He sat thinking, watching her deft grace as she knelt beside him, sewing. “About that District Engineer,” he said. “Did he live here? I mean, before he went to Insein and got killed?”
Nay Htohn said: “I suppose he did.”
“Do you think his wife would be here still? I mean, the parts that he took away are probably in Henzada, if we could find them.”
She said: “I will find out.”
That evening found them talking to an elderly Burman woman in the middle of a blackened heap of ashes that had once been a house. The woman was garrulous and distressed; Nay Htohn was sharp with her, and several times cut short her long meanderings. “The box was buried somewhere here,” she said to Morgan. “Underneath the house. That is, between these posts.”
They marked the place, and left the woman and walked back to the house; presently they returned with two coolies carrying a shovel and a pick. In half an hour they had found the wooden box buried a foot down; it was decayed and eaten by ants, but the six feedwater clack valves in it were all wrapped up in sacking, and were in good condition.
They returned to the house in high spirits, the coolies following behind them with the box. They set it down in the veranda; Nay Htohn went and fetched her father. “This is very good,” he said. “But now we have to find a man who knows about the railway, and can drive the engines. I do not think that will be very easy.”
Morgan said: “Well I can put these valves in — that’s easy enough. I should think you just screw them in and put a bit of paint or something on the threads, and away you go.”
Shway Than said: “Do you understand railway engines?”
The pilot said: “No. But if you can’t find anyone who does, I’ll bloody soon learn. After all, it’s only a sort of kettle with a piston and a cylinder attached. It ought not to be difficult to get the hang of it.”
The old Burman said: “Not difficult for you, perhaps. It would be very difficult for me.”
Morgan thought for a moment. “One thing,” he said. “It’s going to be filthy dirty on those engines, and I’ve only got the one uniform. Is it possible to get an overall, or anything like that?”
Shway Than laughed. “He will keep you busy,” he said to his daughter. “You will have to get up early every morning now to wash his clothes.” She coloured a little.
Morgan turned to her, “Did you wash this uniform yourself?” he asked.
Her father said: “She would not let any of the servants touch it.”
The pilot said: “That was very kind of you. It was so dirty.”
The girl laughed awkwardly. “I will see what I can find for an overall.”
All the next day the pilot worked in the engine shed. He picked one of the three locomotives that seemed to be in the best condition, and fitted the two clack valves without difficulty. Then he spent some time in tracing out the lead of the various pipes and pumps, and thinking deeply; he did not want to ruin everything by making some stupid mistake and burning out the boiler. The news got around that he was working on the engines, and a few Burmans arrived to watch the progress of the work. One lad in the Independence Army turned up; Nay Htohn talked to him for a little, and then brought him to Morgan. “He says he knows all about these engines,” she said.
The pilot looked him over; the boy did not seem to be much more than fifteen years old. “Did he work on them?”
She said: “No. He was only a little boy then. But he was interested in the engines and he used to play in here and watch the driver and the mechanics. He says he could drive one.”
“I’m not interested in that just at present,” said the pilot. “Ask him if he knows how the water gets into the boiler in the first place.”
He professed to do so, and Morgan tracing out the run of the pipes to the mechanical feed pump, discovered what appeared to be a hand pump; the boy�
��s suggestion seemed a likely one. He turned to the girl. “What’s his name?”
She replied: “Moung Bah Too.”
Morgan elevated a thumb. “Okay, Moung Bah Too, we’ll try it your way.” Nay Htohn translated that, and the lad grinned. “Now, what about getting us a few tons of water?”
This proved to be a major difficulty. The watertower had been thrown down and shattered by a bomb; there was no running water in the place at all. They left the engine shed and went together to the headquarters of the Independence Army, and saw the officer who had interrogated Morgan on the first day. After some negotiation by Nay Htohn the officer detailed Bah Too to round up thirty coolies with a bullock cart, to bale water from the river into casks and carry it to the locomotive. It took the remainder of the day to get the tanks half filled.
They went back wearily to the house at dusk. Utt Nee was there, having arrived from up country an hour before. He had grown in stature and in poise from the young man that the pilot remembered six months before; he now seemed more self-confident and more mature. He was very glad to see Morgan.
Later in the evening, as they sat together in the veranda after the evening meal, he was quite candid. “It was a great help to me, when you surrendered to the Japanese,” he said. “I had quite made up my mind that we should turn and cooperate with the British again as the best way to work towards our freedom, and that was the policy of our leaders, too. But in a loose army such as ours, you understand, it is not always easy to persuade people to do what you think right, even if you are in command. When we took you, there were many of my people who thought the British were all treacherous and selfish, who would have liked to give you to the Japanese, or perhaps to do something else with you. It had a great effect upon my people when you surrendered yourself, to save the party from trouble. I tell you, the British suddenly became quite popular. I had no difficulty after that in getting my own way, and now we have been fighting side by side with British troops for the last five months, and we have gained the victory.” He grinned. “We are quite friendly with the British now, so friendly that they will probably hang us all as traitors.”
The pilot said: “If they do that, you can take it out on me.”
Utt Nee laughed. “I am not very much afraid. I am twenty-five years old, and nobody has hung me yet.”
He said that there were reports that British naval vessels were operating in the delta down below Yandoon, and that there had been one or two engagements with Japanese in landing craft escaping down the rivers to the sea. He had no information as to when the British troops were to be expected in that district; he thought the Fourteenth Army were too busy for the moment in maintaining their line down the middle of the country, and so keeping the broken Japanese Army trapped, to start mopping up operations for a time. “You are very far ahead of your own forces,” Utt Nee said. “When they get here in the end and find you here, and learn that you came up here in a sampan, they will be very cross.”
“They’ll be bloody cross anyway,” the pilot said. “I’ve probably been posted as a deserter by this time. But what the hell.”
Utt Nee said: “They will hang both of us, then, side by side.” He translated this sally to one or two of his friends sitting in the house; it went as a very good joke.
Next day, while the coolie gang laboured to carry water to complete the filling of the tanks, Morgan with Moung Bah Too to help him oiled and lubricated the engine in every hole that seemed designed to take it. There was no shortage of lubricants although Bah Too asserted that the Japanese soldiers had eaten some of the engine grease as butter, and liked it; there was plenty of coal and wood. Utt Nee came in with several other officers about midday; they were impressed with the progress of the work, and set another gang to improvise a more efficient water supply. Later that afternoon they discovered a small motor pump belonging to the fire brigade, and thereafter they had little trouble with the water.
Next day, early in the morning, they manhandled the small locomotive to the extension smokestack and clamped it down on to the funnel, and lit the fire in the fire-box. They had some trouble in getting it to burn, knowing none of the tricks of firing a stone cold engine, but by the middle of the morning steam pressure was mounting on the gauge and Morgan, with sweat running off him in a steady stream, was anxiously experimenting with the feed pump controls in the cab.
Finally he turned to Nay Htohn, always at his side. “She should go now,” he said. He pulled the valve control over to reverse, and unwound the handbrake. Then he showed her the regulator. “Pull that over just a little bit, and see what happens,” he said.
She hung back, laughing. “You do it.”
He said: “You do it. Go on.”
Below them, on the ground, the Burmans rocked with laughter at the dispute. The girl put her hand up and moved the regulator handle an inch gingerly; nothing happened. Urged by Morgan, she moved it a little more. With a sigh and a clank the locomotive stirred and moved backwards, giving a great puff. Nay Htohn dropped her hand from the regulator in a panic; Morgan closed it, and the engine rolled out of the shed and came to rest a yard or two outside. There was a cheer from the crowd.
He pulled the whistle twice, the signal that he had arranged with Utt Nee, and the crowd cheered again, and Utt Nee and his officers arrived, and they all had a ride on the engine up and down the track. They found three trucks in good condition and greased the axle boxes; with these trucks they did a little shunting practice, forming up a train. By the evening the locomotive seemed to have settled down and to be running reasonably well; they put it back in the shed and banked the fire. Bah Too was detailed to look after it, and they went back to the house, very satisfied with the day’s work.
They held a conference that evening, sitting on chairs around a table in the living-room, in the light of a couple of hurricane lamps. Moung Shway Than was in the chair; Utt Nee was there with two of his officers, Morgan, and Nay Htohn. The old man said: “Now that we have this railway running, we can go down to Taunsaw, if the track is good enough. Does anybody know for certain if the bridge is broken?”
One of the officers said in Burmese: “It is down and lying in the river. I was there six weeks ago, and saw it.” Nay Htohn translated in a low tone to Morgan, squatting by his chair.
They went on to discuss what they could do by going as far as Taunsaw. Corrugated iron was lying in a dump there, and there were bamboo and palm groves which would provide housing materials. It was by no means certain that the country along the line was free from Japanese, however; they decided to run what amounted to an armoured train next day.
They left next morning about an hour after dawn, the little engine pushing one truck in front and pulling two behind. These trucks were filled with armed soldiers of the Independence Army, about two hundred of them. They took with them a supply of water and fuel, breakdown gear, and food. Utt Nee would not allow Nay Htohn to go with them, fearing action with the straggling Japanese and he rode with Morgan and Bah Too upon the footplate of the engine.
They went slowly, at about fifteen miles an hour. The track was rough but adequate; in places it sagged ominously down beneath the train, to spring up again when they had passed. They were not greatly troubled about this; they had with them several plate-layers accustomed to track maintenance who had remained in Henzada; as soon as it was known that there were no enemy about these men would get on with their job and make the track sound where it needed attention.
They went cautiously, stopping every few miles to inquire about the Japanese. There was one band about three hundred strong in the vicinity; they heard of this lot on all sides, but always somewhere else and never very close at hand. They went on cautiously, and reached Taunsaw about midday. Before them lay the bridge, a fine steel girder structure broken and collapsed into the river.
They set to work there to re-water the engine, and to load the corrugated iron. It was evening by the time all this was done; they decided not to risk a night journey back to Hen
zada, and so they formed a lager round the train, put pickets out, and cooked a meal before nightfall, extinguishing the fire at once.
Morgan sat smoking with Utt Nee in the evening light, sitting upon the sill of one of the trucks, looking out over the river and the wrecked bridge. He felt in some way responsible for that bridge, and sorry about it. It had been a fine structure, that had cost somebody a lot of money. The railway that it carried across the river had not functioned since 1942 when the Japanese had driven us from Burma, but in 1945 we had made the bridge a target for the RAF, and they had smashed it up, and it now lay broken in the river. As one of the RAF, and seeing things from a different angle from his usual view out of the cockpit, Morgan was sorry about the bridge. It seemed, now, a wanton bit of senseless damage, rather like the nine or ten bridges on the line from Toungoo to Pegu that we had thought it necessary to destroy to put that railway out of action. One would have been sufficient, or perhaps one at each end.
Voicing his thoughts, he said: “There’s the hell of a lot of patching up needs doing in this country.”
The Burman by his side said: “Are you thinking of the bridge?”
The pilot nodded. “Got to be rebuilt. I don’t see why we had to go and knock it down.”
Utt Nee said: “It is a great pity. This railway was useful in this part of the country. It will be difficult for people in Bassein to trade with Henzada until we get that bridge again.”
“How long do you suppose it will take to rebuild it?”
“How long? I do not know. If some of you British soldiers stay and help us get things right, it should not be many years before this country is running again, like it was before. But if you all go home and leave us to the pukka sahibs it will take a very long time.”
The pilot said: “We’ve not got very many engineers out here.”
“Engineers are necessary,” the Burman said. “But we need people who can tell the engineers what to do.” He glanced at Morgan. “People like you,” he said, and laughed.
The pilot was astonished. “I couldn’t tell an engineer what to do.”