The Chequer Board

by Nevil Shute

  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.”

  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 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. Maung Shway Than was in the chair; Utt Nee was there with two of his officers, and 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, squatting by Morgan’s chair, translated in a low tone.

  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. But 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 come with them, fearing action with the straggling Japanese, and he rode with Morgan and Bah Too on 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 platelayers accustomed to track maintenance who had remained in Henzada; as soon as it was known that there were no en
emy about, these men would get on with their job and make the track sound where it needed attention.

  They moved along cautiously, stopping every few miles to enquire about the Japanese. Everywhere they were told that there was a band about three hundred strong in the vicinity. Over and over they heard this, but always the band was somewhere else, never very close at hand. So they went on cautiously, and reached Taunsaw at 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 Henzada. So they formed a lager around 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 on 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 the bridge had been made a target for the R.A.F., and they had smashed it up, and it now lay broken in the river. As one of the R.A.F., 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, “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.”

  Utt Nee said, “You got this railway going.”

  “Oh well—that’s different,” the pilot said. “That’s just been a bit of bloody good fun.”

  The Burman laughed with him. “All work that interests you is bloody good fun,” he said. “And yet, the railway is now running, and it was broken before you had your fun with it.” He turned to the Englishman. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “Are you going back to England, to live there forever as an architect?”

  “I’ve got a sort of job to go to there,” the pilot said.

  “There will be many jobs here for you,” said the Burman, “if you like mending railways and things that are broken.”

  Morgan sat in silence for a few minutes, staring out over the river in the gathering dusk. He had seen sufficient since he got out of jail to make him realise that this was not a casual approach. He had been living for the last week with responsible people; old Maung Shway Than was a man of influence in Rangoon in times of peace; Utt Nee held a high position in the Independence Army. This was an offer of a job, or something very like it; a job with people he could work with in a country that he was already much attached to.

  He said at last, “You wouldn’t want an Englishman in any important job here. It’s Burma for the Burmans now.”

  Utt Nee said, “That is true, up to a point. But there are too few of us educated yet to run this country by ourselves, with no help from the British at all. There will always be important jobs for Englishmen in Burma who are not too proud to work on level terms with us and share our life, who would not think it an indignity to work under a Burman if he is the better man. I do not think you need worry about that.”

  There was another long silence. Morgan said at last, “There’s another difficulty. If I were to stay here, I should ask Nay Htohn to marry me. I expect you’d rather I went back to England.”

  Utt Nee shrugged his shoulders. “I do not want to see my sister with a broken heart. You must know she is very much in love with you.”

  “You wouldn’t mind about a mixed marriage?” Morgan asked.

  “Why should I mind if that makes her happy? I should be very glad for her. I know several Englishmen who married Burmese girls and made them very good husbands. This is not India, you know. Our girls marry whom they like. Just as in your country.”

  “What about your father? Would he mind?”

  “I think he would be very pleased.”

  “Do you know I’m married already? That I’ve got a wife, back home in England?”

  The Burman said, “I know a little about that. Nay Htohn said that she was not faithful to you.”

  “That’s about right.” The pilot told him briefly what had happened, and answered a few questions. “So I’m a bit shop soiled, you might say.”

  “I do not think my sister thinks of you like that. So why should you think it of yourself?” He turned to Morgan. “Think it over,” he said quietly. “I know a few Englishmen that I would like to see stay in our country, and I know many that we must get rid of at all costs. You have all the vigour of your people, and you are not too proud to learn our ways. If you marry Nay Htohn she will make you a good wife, and both my father and myself would like to have you with us.”

  That night Morgan slept on the floor of one of the trucks, covered by his blanket, his head on a gunny sack. Around him lay the Burmese soldiers that were not on guard. He could talk to them a little about very simple things, and understand them if they spoke to him slowly upon simple matters. He had become accustomed to their brown skins and their way of life. They did not seem strangers to him any more, did not seem to be incalculable creatures to be treated with distrust. He found them understandable, thinking along the same lines as he did and laughing at the same brand of joke. They treated him with genuine liking and respect, the man who could fly aeroplanes and make the railway go.

  He lay, before sleep came to him, watching the stars beyond a cauliflower-like banyan tree against the deep blue sky. England to him was represented by school life, war hardships, blitz and death, and a sordid and unprofitable marriage. Burma to him meant fun and games with railways and broken bridges and smashed boats, with people who already liked him and respected him for his achievements; it meant love from a clever girl who, in her own country, was of his own social class, or better. There was no doubt in his own mind which he would do. He snuggled closer in his blanket on the hard plank floor, shifted the gunny sack beneath his head, and drifted off to sleep, thinking of Nay Htohn.

  They steamed into Henzada about midday, having dropped off the platelaying gang halfway down the track, and loaded up with bamboos and palm thatch. They had been careful to announce their arrival by whistling at intervals for the last five miles, and a considerable crowd was there to meet them. Nay Htohn came forward to greet Morgan as he got down from the footplate of the little engine, grimy in his old jungle suit. Maung Shway Than was with her.

  The old man said, “Did you meet any Japanese?”

  “Not one,” the pilot said. “The line is clear right down to Taunsaw; if it wasn’t for the bridge, we could have gone all the way to Bassein.”

  He turned to the girl. “It was a joy ride.”

  She smiled. “I was
imagining … all sorts of things.”

  He smiled with her. “I was imagining things, too. I was thinking that we had most of the Army with us on the train, and that perhaps the Japanese would have come back here while we were away.”

  She laughed. “We are still quite all right. They say that one of their motor landing craft went down the river last night full of Japanese soldiers, and that your British gunboats sank it, south of Danubyu. I do not know if that is true.”

  He said, “Are the British as close as that?”

  “So they say.”

  He went back to the house with her, and washed, and had a meal, and slept a little on the charpoy; in the cool of the evening he got up and found that while he had been sleeping she had washed and pressed his jungle suit again. He went out to the verandah; she was there, sitting in the evening light and sewing something, with a flower in her hair. He thanked her for washing his clothes, and then said, “Has anything been heard of the British gunboats?”

  She shook her head. “Only that they are down by Danubyu. They may be here any time.”

  He nodded. “I shall have to go on board and report when they come.”

  She said, “Will you have to go away with them?”

  “I think I shall,” he said. “I think if I don’t I shall be posted as a deserter.”

  Her lip trembled, and she said, “It will be very sad for us when you go.”

  He said, “It’s better that I should go. I’ve got this matter of the divorce from my wife to attend to, and I’ll have to go to England for that.” He glanced down at her, squatting down upon the mat beside his knee. “But I could come back.”

  She glanced up at him quickly. “When you are at home with your own people, you will not want to come back to Henzada.”

  “I don’t know about Henzada,” he said. “I should always want to come back to you.”

  She said softly, “I could make you very happy.”

  He dropped his hand on to her shoulder, and caressed her neck; she turned quickly, and laid her head against his knee. Then she looked up at him and said, “This is very bad. People can see us from the road.” But she did not move away.