Return to Mandalay (40 page)

Two days before he’d gone down with the fever, he’d lost him, Gallop, his faithful and strongest mule who’d been with him all the way, the best leader they possessed.

Lawrence had named him. ‘Hope he bloody doesn’t,’ one of the men had said, getting a laugh.

He hadn’t galloped but he always knew where he was going. The mule needed to be shod, Lawrence knew this and he had some spare shoes ready in Gallop’s pack. But they also needed to cross the river and soon. He didn’t show he was worried: it didn’t do to show you were worried, or they’d all be in a funk. Lack of confidence saps confidence: if you don’t feel brave, just look brave, that was as good. Once they got to the other side they’d be safe – relatively – and there was a paddy dried out to grass where the animals could graze for an hour or two before being rubbed down and picketed for the night. He could see what looked like a mass of yellow flowers in the marshes too. But as they got closer, he saw that his eyes had been playing tricks again. And he saw them disappear, because they weren’t flowers but frogs, noisy as hell, each one the size of a man’s fist. If they could catch some they’d be good for tonight’s meal, he reckoned.

Last time they’d crossed a river, Lawrence had swum across first, blown a whistle, which he’d blown at feeding time in training, and then the mules had crossed one by one in a wavering line, Gallop leading the way, each driver holding on to a mule’s tail. But this was the Irrawaddy, swift, muddy and cold. This time the river was deeper and wider, and Lawrence knew it well. He thought of all the times he’d used its power to transport the timber from upcountry down to Rangoon and he thought of the time he’d been stuck away from camp when the monsoon and the freak floods had hit. They’d never make it across here and they couldn’t risk blowing whistles either, the enemy was too close.

They had a brief confab and decided. They’d use an eightmule ferry, built in situ. Swiftly, they got to work. Lawrence’s raft building experience from the logging came in useful, but this was something they’d also practised in training.

Soon, it was ready, and they began to cross, the ferry going back and forth. But Gallop was slow because of his leg, so he was one of the last and the sniper appeared from nowhere. The bullet came with a crack and with a yelp, he was down. Christ.

Jap. They were bloody effective in the jungle. How many times had they left gaps for the British troops to go through before closing the box? It was their military calling card, you might say, bloody devious too. But rumour had it they were using up their ammo and food. Meantime, British and American pilots were flying double hours to provide supplies for their men. They’d caught Jap off balance, it was said. Used observation patrols to go out and discover his concentration points, to break up attacks before they were launched. They were getting him out into the open and they were winning. But when would it end?

Now, Lawrence felt the tears wet on his face. He’d cried then too, cried for that mule who’d worked so hard on the march, plodding on, never kicking, never complaining. That animal could see a trail where a man could see bugger all. He was intelligent too. Mules could be stubborn but they were bloody strong. Gallop had never liked elephants but apart from that nothing would faze him, he wasn’t one of the skittish ones.

Yes, Lawrence had cried for Gallop. So bloody what? He’d done it in private though, emotion had no part in war. Men died, animals died and more would follow, that was the nature of war and there was nothing more to be said. You got yourself up, you ate, you marched, you went to sleep: you carried on. Some called it the British stiff upper lip, not so popular these days, of course. But without it … Lawrence didn’t think they’d have got through.

Two days later, he got the fever. But the march would be going on without him and he knew he’d be back. Someone would take him.

*

‘Don’t cry, Dad,’ she said. ‘Please don’t cry.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ he said. He couldn’t seem to stop himself returning to the place. Did she realise?

‘Eva will tell you all about it when she comes back,’ she soothed. ‘I’ve made you some nice soup for lunch. If you eat it up, you’ll be strong enough to listen.’

Strong enough to listen
.

It was almost as if she knew.

*

‘Will you tell me about it?’ Rosemary asked him. She had brought him lunch on a tray and was sitting with him while he ate. Lawrence wasn’t hungry, but he was having a few mouthfuls, just to keep her happy.

‘About what, love?’

‘Mandalay.’ She leant to pull his dressing gown closer
round his shoulders. ‘It sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? Bet it wasn’t like that during the war though?’

She was trying. He knew how hard she was trying. And it had certainly been a shock to Lawrence when his men finally reached Mandalay that day in April. ‘It was in ruins when we got back there,’ he said. Though for a moment he’d imagined the city was as it had always been. ‘It was criminal really. We knew it would never recover its former glory.’ It had broken his heart.

‘The road to Mandalay,’ Rosemary said. ‘What happened when you got there?’

Over the past days, weeks, months, they had marched on their own particular road to Mandalay. The war in Europe was long over and yet still their war went on. ‘The Japanese were fanatics,’ he told her. ‘They never knew when they were beaten, would never accept defeat.’ Lawrence and the Gurkhas had passed so many of their dead bodies, the jungle and mangrove swamps were full of them. Men who would not be taken prisoner, who would rather die in the jaws of a marsh crocodile. Men who would not give up. Tough in training and brutal, even to their own.

‘Was the war in Europe still going on?’ Rosemary asked.

‘No, love.’ Lawrence pushed his bowl away. Not that a little thing like that mattered to the Japanese.

He remembered VE day.

‘We were in the jungle when we heard,’ he told her. ‘I’m not sure exactly where, but I bet you I could still find the coordinates on a map.’ It was about 5 a.m. ‘There was a signaller
up a tree with an aerial wire picking up the BBC News no less, being relayed through All India Radio, Delhi.’

Rosemary smiled. ‘Incredible.’

It was. All of a sudden the man let out a whoop.

‘Jesus, soldier!’ Lawrence was about to tear him off a strip but he didn’t have a chance.

‘The bloody war’s over,’ the signalman yelled down to them. ‘We’ve done it. It’s only bloody over.’

And then they were all whooping, even Lawrence, and the men went wild, shooting off their rifles towards the direction of the enemy, at random really. Rifles, Brens, mortars, the air was thick with the sound and smoke of gunfire.

Lawrence let it go on for a minute before he realised. ‘Hold up!’ he yelled. ‘Enough!’ They might have won the war in Europe, but this war was still going and they needed the ammo for more important targets.

Even so. It gave them hope and they marched bloody hard that day. They were winning this war too. The welcome drone of the big Dakotas circling in was becoming more frequent, the sight of those planes glittering in the sun as they banked and unleashed their canvas bundles of rations and ammunition into the drop zone, to hit the ground with a resounding thud, bouncing and careering over the paddy field, a few more delicate items fluttering down with the aid of small white parachutes billowing in the breeze. Confidence was returning. They might be weary and mere shadows of their former selves. But the enemy was on the run.

‘And then you reached Mandalay.’ Rosemary took the tray
from the bed. She sat down again and held his hand. ‘At last. You got back there.’

‘The outskirts of the city were easy to occupy,’ he said. ‘But Mandalay Hill was built up with brick and concrete buildings and honeycombed by tunnels and passages like you wouldn’t believe.’ He took a thin and rasping breath. His lungs seemed so weak these days. ‘The area outside was open with no cover and the town was surrounded by a moat.’ How big was the enemy’s force in the city? They had little idea.

‘So what did you do?’ She was a quiet listener. She didn’t listen like Eva did, wide-eyed and wondering. She listened calmly; she was taking it all in, as if she wanted to absorb his history.

‘I took a few men and climbed up the city walls by ladder at dusk.’

‘Dad!’

‘I was careful. We did a quick recce of the straight grid of the main streets. Then we saw what had happened.’

‘What was it?’

‘The Japanese had left.’ He patted her hand. ‘They’d deserted Mandalay. In secret.’ But much of the fort was already in ruins; the palace was half-destroyed by artillery fire and the old pavilions had been razed to the ground. The railway station was no more than a charred shell, the lines trailed with the mangled remains of coaches and engines. The streets that had once been full of Burmese people going about their business, market traders, bullock carts, saffron-robed
monks begging for food and alms were almost deserted and the shops were empty too. Or bombed.

But despite the devastation, Lawrence had felt something leap inside him. Was it possible? No. She wouldn’t be here. She couldn’t possibly be here, not after so long. She wouldn’t have stayed through it all, she must have set out like so many others for India. She could be a pilgrim, she could be a refugee, she could be dead. Nevertheless, he looked for her everywhere he went.

Some Burmese had remained in the city. And where did their loyalties now lie? It was a complex situation, Lawrence was aware. Some of them had given allegiance when it was demanded, whether to British or Japanese, it hardly mattered; they simply wanted to survive. Others had remained loyal to their British
thakins
whom they had served for perhaps as long as three generations and whom, Lawrence liked to think, had been fair masters. The hill tribes especially and those living in remote villages near the jungle had helped the Chindits and others hide from the Japanese, given them food and even guided them so that they could accomplish their missions of attacking the enemy routes of communication. Some, indeed, had died for it.

Then again he knew what Maya’s father had believed, that Burma had a right to be independent, that the Japanese effort could justifiably claim Burmese support if it were to rid them of the yoke of imperialism. Perhaps Maya now thought the same. Perhaps she had even nursed Lawrence’s enemy at one of the hospitals the Japanese had set up. Perhaps she’d been
forced to. He’d heard that some women had been shot rather than allowed to nurse a British soldier. But he wouldn’t think of that now.

Of course, things hadn’t gone quite the way the new Burmese Independent Army and their supporters had expected. Anybody could see that the Burmese government installed by the Japanese were mere puppets and that the country had exchanged one master for another. Worse, this was a more brutal master, so much so that many Burmese had reverted to their previous loyalties, taking the side of the British once again, helping them finally expel the Japanese from Burmese soil.

Some of those who had stayed had been employed by the Japanese, as stenographers in their civilian offices running trades such as
saki
and ice-cream making. Lawrence talked to a few people. They’d been treated fairly, they said. The pay was low but had been supplemented by luxuries such as soap. The worst thing by far had been the surprise police raids. Always they were looking for hidden documents and for spies. Had that happened to Maya, Lawrence wondered.

He asked after her. But even those who knew her didn’t know where she had gone.

And they couldn’t hang around. Once Mandalay was taken, it was a race to retake Rangoon before the monsoons started up again. They couldn’t give the Japanese the chance to re-group, they needed to keep up the impetus with the full force of aircraft, trucks and infantry, not risk getting stuck in a swamp in the middle of nowhere with the mozzies and
the leeches and no help to hand. So … 300 miles, one road and the Japanese on either side. Afterwards, they called it the mopping up of Southern Burma. They knew they were beaten, but the enemy didn’t recognise the word surrender.

And we made it
.

‘Are you tired, Dad?’ she asked him. ‘How about a little nap?’

‘Good idea, love.’ He could hardly keep his eyes open. He’d get up later. No harm done. Because that was just about the end of it. The war, his war, was over.

*

Lawrence returned to Mandalay as soon as he was able, though the post-war demobbing took longer than he’d expected. He hadn’t weighed much more than seven stone when the war ended, but he was getting stronger with every day. He was released from military service and now he could return to his previous employer. Or could he? What was he looking for? Maya? His future?

Two letters had arrived for him c/o the company. One was from Helen.

She couldn’t wait to see him, she wrote.
When will you be back?
She would count the days, she promised.
Every day I think of you. Every night I relive the last time we were together …
Lawrence threw the letter to one side. She wanted to remember. He longed to forget.
Coward
. He had been through this war and never thought himself that, and yet that was what he was.

How had things changed so little? How come everything – after this war – was exactly the bloody same? He might not
wish to remember, but he had made a commitment to her, and wasn’t he supposed to be a man of honour?

Lawrence paced to the other side of the dusty wooden verandah. Had he put down roots here in Burma or had he not? Did he want to return to Dorset? Or could he see himself permanently living here? He looked out over the hot and dusty ground. He was staying with a family he had befriended when he first returned to Mandalay. They had not known Maya and her father, but they were sympathetic to his cause and he had confided in them in part about her. And as for returning to his previous employer … Things were different now, he learned. The company Lawrence had worked for were finished, at least as far as logging in Burma was concerned. There was talk about re-establishment in the forests of Tanganyika and British Guiana, but it wouldn’t be for him. One thing he knew, his work with timber was over. But was his life here over too?