Assignment Burma Girl

by Edward S. Aarons

  “I’m just glad you’re all right, Simon,” he said. “And I am happy to help your friends. We’ll be in Nambum Ga before dawn, you’ll see.”

  The river boat was a Noah’s ark of passengers, cargo, bleating lambs and cackling chickens, jeeps, bales of cheap cloth and bicycles—everything and anything the young Dutchman could pick up for transport. His bright blue eyes missed nothing that went on about the stemwheeler. The boat itself was immaculate, the paint fresh and bright, the brass and iron polished and oiled, the ancient engine gleaming and smoothly functioning the true spirit of Dutch seamanship. He offered them all drinks of jenever in his tidy cabin, and promised them a quick landing at Nambum Ga shortly.

  “Trouble is brewing up there,” he said, in his Oxonian English. “A lot of talk has drifted down-river about this

  Major Mong’s terrorist activities. It looks like another push from over the Chinese border, trying to take another bite out of Burma and Laos. You sure you want to get off at Nambum Ga?”

  “How much beyond the town do you go?” Durell asked. “It’s the end of the line for me,” Van der Peet explained. “The Inkagaung is nothing but rocky rapids after the town. It takes me two days to unload and turn around, and then I head back to Mogaung and the Irrawaddy. Maybe you’ll be coming with me, eh?”

  “I hope so,” Durell said. He looked at Eva. “If we’re lucky, our business shouldn’t take too long.”

  “You mean if Major Mong and his bandits haven’t taken the town over already,” Van der Peet said. He laughed, and seemed untroubled by the prospect. “Well, it’s your necks. You want to turn in, or will you stay on the bridge with me until we reach Nambum Ga?”

  “The two women chose to rest in a stateroom. Durell stayed on deck. The steamboat aroused strange and halfforgotten memories of boyhood for him. The smells of the jungle on either bank reminded him of the bayou country, and of old Grandpa Jonathan’s hulk of a steamboat, berthed in the mud at Bayou Peche Rouge. It was a long time ago. Times and men change, and nothing is ever as it used to be, he thought. He had known a girl then who was like Eva, searching for answers in every man she met, and in those times he would not have hesitated to accept her challenge. But now he was not inclined to let Eva work off her complex hatred and attraction for men on himself, in any way. He could understand that Eva’s background had embittered her against all men, and encouraged her to destroy those that her life touched. And yet there was her idealization of her dead brother, Emmett—and her mixed feelings of pity and guilt toward her husband, Paul.

  He stared down at the crowded forward deck of the boat, watching the sleeping people curled up in every corner among the piles of cargo. Indians and Chinese, Burmese and Kachin, a tumbled mass of humanity moving like a tide, stirred by an instinctive striving to go somewhere else where things might be just a little bit better.

  Then Captain Van der Peet stood beside him.

  “It is always like this, mynheer. Soon it will be dawn and they will wake up and try to start their damned charcoal fires on my clean wooden deck, and I’ll have to turn the fire hoses on them.” The ruddy young Dutchman sighed and rubbed his hands together and stared up at the pilot, whose face was dimly visible behind the glass of the bridge. “The channel is deep enough from here to Nambum Ga. We will make it safely. But it is strange company for you and Simon—these two women in this place can be dangerous.”

  “It couldn’t be helped.”

  “Simon has talked much about you, Heer Durell. He greatly admires you.”

  “We were good friends once.”

  “But not now?”

  “He has changed,” Durell said.

  “But if he has a chance, he can be a fine man. If this girl, this Merri Tarrant, would only marry him—he loves her too much.” The Dutchman sighed. “I am a romanticist I give up hope on no man. Simon has been better—and worse. It seems he is depending on you and your business here to make a great decision for him. After this he will go one way or the other, good or bad. If I can help you in your business, whatever it is—”

  “I’m looking for a man, an American, who came up here two weeks ago,” Durell said. “His name is Paul Hartford.”

  “Oh, yes. I have heard of him. The tourist, in search of old memories. I think he must be dead.”

  “Why do you say so?”

  Van der Peet shrugged. “The natives say so. And he has disappeared. I was to have taken him downstream last week, but when I spoke about him to Erena’s father, Pra Ingkok, I received only a shrug and a sad look.”

  “You’ve no idea what really happened to him?”

  “He simply disappeared one night, that is all.”

  “And no one has heard of him since?”

  “There is only silence about your Mr. Hartford. A strange look, and talk of something else. Is it Mr. Hartford that you and Simon look for?”

  “And a ghost, I think,” Durell said, but he did not elaborate.

  Seven

  They reached Nambum Ga at dawn. A thin mist covered the river, blotting out the eastern bank as the boat’s whistle shrieked a warning at the landing that slowly emerged from the pale white fog. At this hour, the air was cool. Durell heard the town before he saw it: the racket of a jeep motor, the raucous cries of hundreds of Burmese jungle cocks, the bleating of goats, the grunts and splash-ings of water buffalo in the shallow levels of the river bank.

  Nambum Ga sprawled like a strange frontier town, pinched into the valley between towering, razor-back jungle ridges and deep green gorges. It had grown like a boom-town since the war, with three main streets and a few brick and concrete-block buildings of two of three stories in the center. But most of the houses were native bashas, built on stilts, with thatched roofs and upturned eaves. Several tin-roofed sheds adorned the river landing where the steamer tied up, and the pier itself groaned under the weight of those who watched the boat come in. In a twinkling, as the sun lifted over the eastern ridges, the river mist vanished and turned the valley into musty gold and green.

  Durell pointed out the presence of a score of helmeted, khaki-uniformed and armed troops on the landing.

  “Those are Ingkok’s men—local gendarmery, you might say,” Van Der Peet nodded. “No match for the Lahpet Hao, of course.” The Dutchman squinted at the hills. “The terrorists are up there, all around us. I can smell them.

  You can bet they’ve got glasses on us right at this minute.” “Have you ever had any trouble with them?”

  “Not until now. But I think this will be the first time.”

  “Why?”

  “Everything looks different. Look over there—the streets are empty. Even the Chinese soup shops are still closed. And that is unusual. It is also unusual for Ingkok’s men to be on the dock. And the faces of the people are not as carefree as usual. They are usually a happy bunch. But look at them now.”

  It was true, as the Dutchman pointed out, that a blanket of tension lay over the town. The people on the pier were solemn and frightened, regarding the vessel with anxious eyes. Piles of household belongings, children, dogs, and tonga carts were beside each group, and Durell recognized the face of the refugee as seen everywhere in the world in times of terror.

  More evidence of military preparations were visible when they tied up. Soldiers pushed the swarming people back at rifle point, and two machine guns gleamed on the roof of one of the nearby modem buildings. A mortar crew in a flat-bed truck went racketing up the dusty street. Flies, bullocks, dogs and chickens scattered impartially from the path of the military vehicles.

  Two armed soldiers boarded the boat first and met Durell and the captain. Simon, Merri and Eva stood in the background.

  “You will all please accompany us,” the first soldier said, in careful English. “Come this way, please.”

  “Where?” Durell asked.

  “All foreigners are ordered confined to the Circuit House until Boh Ingkok can interview them.”

  Durell looked at Van der Peet, but the Dutchman only shr
ugged in agreement. Eva started to protest, then was silent. Durell wondered if a radio transmission from Rangoon, ordering their arrest, had preceded them. But he wasn’t certain. This was an autonomous province that paid little attention to the central government, and was more immediately concerned with border terrorists and the Lahpet Hao, which existed and ruled here as a shadow entity enforcing commands by murder and fiat. There was nothing to be done. He took Eva’s arm and guided her down the gangplank.

  The Circuit House was on the waterfront, a long, two-story bungalow with thatched roof, a veranda around the second floor, and a backyard heaped with debris—tin cans, beer bottles, wine bottles, and heaps of unidentifiable trash. Their military escort firmly and politely escorted them up the silent, dusty street of the town to the House.

  They were given two rooms, one for the women, one for Simon and Durell. Durell’s room faced the street, with the veranda that overlooked the dusty road between the bashas that loomed in shadowy forms under the overspreading flamboyant and Casuariana trees. Monkeys chittered in the foliage, birds flitted quickly out of sight, and geckos waited in patience for the flies and mosquitoes that swarmed everywhere. There was only one huge, broken-down bed in the room, a closet large enough to accommodate a truck, tom mosquito netting at the windows, and rickety screened doors. Apparently Van der Peet was not proscribed in his movements as they were, because the Dutchman did not accompany them.

  Two soldiers took up the guard on the veranda, and others in the hall and the wide, dusty lobby. The smells of curry cooking, of fish and rice and cinnamon, as well as poor sewer drainage, filled the air as the morning brightened. Bicycle bells rang on the street, and Durell watched a thinlegged brown boy wearing a YMHA tee shirt guide a high-wheeled, creaking bullock cart down the lane under the flamboyants, sitting astride the gray beast’s massive neck.

  Simon Locke spoke sharply to one of the guards who nodded and went down to the lobby.

  “I’ve sent for Pra Ingkok,” he explained. “He’s got no right to hold us like common prisoners, Cajun.”

  “He has all the right in the world,” Durell said. “He’s got the men and the machine pistols.”

  “They didn’t take your gun from you, did they?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s a good sign.”

  Locke paced nervously up and down the big, dusty room. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling, and Durell looked up into the gloomy attic where small, gray bats hung from the rough log rafters. He went out on the veranda. The armed guard looked at him sleepily, grinned, and patted his machine pistol and waved him back. Locke rubbed his hands together nervously.

  “Looks like we’re stopped before we start. I don’t understand it. I’ve always been friends with these people.”

  “That’s what Paul Hartford thought,” Durell said quietly. “Take it easy, Simon.”

  “I can’t help it. I’m jumpy. I could use a pipe.”

  “Forget it.”

  “I wish I could, Cajun. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I’ve lost my best ship, alienated Rangoon, and now I’m tied up here. Who’s going to pay for all that?”

  Durell smiled. “Is that what Merri is worrying about?” “Well, she’s only interested in making money, she says. She’s sore at me for letting you talk me into this.” “Don’t you care about getting the people who booby-trapped your house and killed Jackie Houphet?”

  “The local cops can handle that all right.”

  “You don’t really mean that, Si.”

  The white-haired man shook his head. “No, I guess I don’t.” He sighed and threw himself on the bed. “Well, there’s nothing to be done but wait. Maybe Van der Peet can explain things to Ingkok. We’ll know where we stand, soon enough.”

  An hour passed. The heat of day built up quickly, and the room in the Circuit House turned stifling. The two girls in the next room tried to sleep, and Durell did not disturb them The guards were still at their posts. The town looked more alive, with people moving freely in the streets, although now and then a battered military jeep roared by, raising clouds of dust in the road. From the tall, open veranda doors, Durell scanned the dark green hills pinching the river valley, and debated his next move. He felt trapped by the enforced pause. But there was nothing he could do. Everything depended upon the attitude of Pra Ingkok.

  Ingkok arrived without ceremony at ten o’clock. By then the town had settled down again to an unwholesome quiet, except for some activity at the landing where the Dutchman’s stem-wheeler was tied up. Ingkok was a slender, gray-haired man with a broad flat face and tired black eyes. He wore a white headband, a white Western shirt, and a Burmese longyi fastened in masculine style. He dismissed his armed guard with a nod when he entered the room and shut the door.

  “Simon Locke,” he said in grave greeting and turned. “And you, I understand, are Mr. Durell. Captain Van der Peet has told me you are looking for Paul Hartford. You have come here at a difficult and dangerous time. Matters are confused. There was fighting nearby, during the night, about a mile upriver. The Lahpet Hao surrounds the town and have ordered me to surrender, or see all of Nambum Ga burned to the ground.”

  “I appreciate your finding time to speak to us,” Durell said. “Are we under arrest here?”

  The Burmese nodded toward Locke. “Simon and I are old friends,” he said evenly. “We are not uncivilized here. But for your safety and that of the two women, I think it best to confine you here.” Ingkok’s voice was soft and weary, and his eyes seemed to look beyond the big, shadowy, dusty room. “I must say at once that I cannot help you, Mr. Durell, and you must remain here until Captain Van der Peet returns downriver. If it is still possible, you will go with him.”

  “And if it isn’t possible?”

  Ingkok looked at him evenly. “The Lahpet Hao would hugely enjoy the capture of an American intelligence agent.”

  “Who told you that?” Durell asked.

  “Word reached us about you. It does not matter how, but—”

  “It does matter,” Durell said. “I want to know.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Ingkok said gently. “You are a stranger here. I suggest your search for Paul Hartford is unwise, futile, and doomed to disappointment—even if circumstances here were normal. I cannot help you with it. I can only hope to save your lives.”

  Locke said harshly, “Is it as bad as that?”

  “Not since the Japanese were here has it been so bad. The Lahpet Hao can easily outdo the atrocities we remember from the Japanese.”

  “Can’t you fight back?” Durell asked. “Don’t you have enough armed men?”

  The man turned his dark eyes toward him. “We fought once, against the Japanese, and many families still mourn their dead. We paid for resistance in dead children, bloody wounds, in old people who were shot and babes whose heads were smashed against trees. Are we to endure this again?” The Burmese smiled. “You may argue that death is better than slavery. But to people who have only rice and children, slavery might seem like a luxury.” “But you are against the Lahpet Hao?” Durell insisted. “Yes. I say this to you here, but nowhere else. There are spies everywhere. You cannot help us. Major Mong is a terrible man, killing and burning everywhere. There has been no one like him since ancient times, they say. There is a killing-sickness in him that terrifies us. He is here now, in the hills above us, demanding that we join him and obey. He has given us an ultimatum to accept this—until dawn tomorrow.”

  “And then?”

  “Then he will destroy us,” Ingkok said simply.

  There was a silence. Durell could use no arguments against this simple, tormented man. It was a cruelly complicated world, he thought; and he was helpless in it. Yet he felt that Ingkok was a friend.

  “Did Mong come here because of Paul Hartford?” he suggested.

  Ingkok said quickly, “Hartford is dead. You must believe this. It is useless to look for him.”

  “But he was your guest, wasn’t he? He was an old friend.
You knew him when you fought against the Japanese—when he was with Emmett Claye,” Durell ventured.

  The man drew a thin breath and stood up. His eyes charged. “We will not speak of Emmett Claye.”

  “Why not? Didn’t he die here?”

  “He was abandoned, wounded and alone, left to die by his companions when the Japanese surprised them here. But it was a long time ago, and everyone has forgotten it.”

  “You haven’t forgotten,” Durell said. “Nor have others. That is why I am here.”

  “I thought your interest was in Paul Hartford.”

  “Aren’t the two connected?” Durell asked.

  Ingkok stood up in weary silence, and Durell felt the impact of sudden defeat. The Burmese walked to the door, then paused. In the dingy hallway, two of his men lifted their weapons and stared beyond him to Durell and Locke. Then Ingkok turned. His face was haggard and abruptly aged, and he spoke in a thin voice.

  “I knew that some day, somehow, a man like you would come here about this matter. I have dreaded it for many, many years.”

  “Why?” Durell asked. “I’m here as a friend.”

  “I understand this. But it is not easy to explain an act of cowardice, the work of a traitor, is it? Yet this is what you ask of me.”

  “Who did you betray?” Durell asked. “Was it your friend, Paul Hartford, when he came here two weeks ago?”

  “Yes. And another, many years past.”

  “Emmett Claye?”

  “We were like brothers, Emmett and I. There was life and spirit in him, a mockery of danger, a contempt for death. He taught me and my men to fight against the Japanese terror. We did our fighting side by side. And I betrayed him.”

  “How did you betray him?”

  “When he was wounded by the surprise attack,” Ingkok began slowly, he paused and stared down at the dusty street under the flamboyant trees. “The Japanese completely surprised us, yes. Emmett saved Paul Hartford’s life and showed him the way to safety—and then turned to me to save him. You understand, the Japanese wanted Emmett very much; he had raided and ambushed and killed many of them, and they knew who he was. Well, the Japanese ruled here for two days, and they were utterly savage, revenging the defeats Emmett had inflicted on them. They wanted him. He was hiding under my basha, sick, wounded, feverish. I did not turn him over to the Japanese—until the atrocities began.