The Chequer Board (22 page)

“Where’s Taunsaw?”

“Forty miles from here, down the railway to Bassein. There is a wide chaung there, with a bridge which was blown up by the R.A.F. in January.”

“What is the matter with the railway?” the pilot asked.

“I do not know. It has not run for three years, since the British went away.”

The pilot asked, “Is the track still all right? I mean, surely to God there must be just one truck left that will roll. If there are corrugated iron sheets at this place Taunsaw,
couldn’t we get a gang of coolies and let them push a truck down there or something, and get a load?”

She glanced at him curiously. “There may be Japanese down the line.”

He grinned at her. “There may
not—
or there may be the Burma Independence Army to look after them. Let’s have a look at the railway.”

There were trucks standing on the weedy, grass-grown rails of the metre-gauge line, mostly riddled with cannon fire by the R.A.F., mostly still capable of use. In the engine shed there were three tank locomotives, rusty and forlorn, sad-looking little engines. Each showed two gaping holes on the sides of the boiler, with a loose pipe leading to it where the feed-water clacks once had been. It was obvious that parts were missing, but the pilot did not know what the parts were, or what their function was. Steam locomotives were a sealed book to him then.

“Someone’s had a nibble at them, there,” he said.

A Burman in a longyi and a vest had followed them into the shed, and said something. Nay Htohn asked a question, and commenced a little conversation with the man while Morgan waited. Presently she turned to him and said:

“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 verandah. 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 on 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—” 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 standing 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 feed-water 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 behind them, with the box. They set it down in the verandah. 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 the 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 round 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?”

He replied, “Maung Bah Too.”

Morgan elevated a thumb. “Okay, Maung 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 water tower 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 verandah 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 co-operate 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 Maung 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 getting water.

Next day, early in the morning, they manhandled the small locomotive to the extension smoke stack and clamped it down onto 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.”