Uncles, Aunts and Elephants

by Ruskin Bond

  ‘How will we go? There’s no room for us on those ships.’

  ‘There certainly isn’t. But we’ll find a way, lad, don’t worry.’

  I didn’t worry. I had complete confidence in my father’s ability to find a way out of difficulties. He used to say, ‘Every problem has a solution hidden away somewhere, and if only you look hard enough you will find it.’

  There were British soldiers in the streets but they did not make it feel much safer. They were just waiting for troop ships to come and take them away. No one, it seemed, was interested in defending Java, only in getting out as fast as possible.

  Although the Dutch were unpopular with the Javanese people, there was no ill feeling against individual Europeans. I could walk safely through the streets. Occasionally small boys in the crowded Chinese quarter would point at me and shout, ‘Orang Balandi!’ (Dutchman!) but they did so in good humour, and I didn’t know the language well enough to stop and explain that the English weren’t Dutch. For them, all white people were the same, and understandably so.

  My father’s office was in the commercial area, along the canal banks. Our two-storeyed house, about a mile away, was an old building with a roof of red tiles and a broad balcony which had stone dragons at either end. There were flowers in the garden almost all the year round. If there was anything in Batavia more regular than the bombing, it was the rain, which came pattering down on the roof and on the banana fronds almost every afternoon. In the hot and steamy atmosphere of Java, the rain was always welcome.

  There were no anti-aircraft guns in Batavia — at least we never heard any — and the Jap bombers came over at will, dropping their bombs by daylight. Sometimes bombs fell in the town. One day the building next to my father’s office received a direct hit and tumbled into the river. A number of office workers were killed.

  The schools closed, and Sono and I had nothing to do all day except sit in the house, playing darts or carrom, wrestling on the carpets, or playing the gramophone. We had records by Gracie Fields, Harry Lauder, George Formby and Arthur Askey, all popular British artists of the early 1940s. One song by Arthur Askey made fun of Adolph Hitler, with the words, Adolph, we’re gonna hang up your washing on the Siegfried Line, if the Siegfried Line’s still there! It made us feel quite cheerful to know that back in Britain people were confident of winning the war!

  One day Sono said, ‘The bombs are falling on Batavia, not in the countryside. Why don’t we get cycles and ride out of town?’

  I fell in with the idea at once. After the morning all-clear had sounded, we mounted our cycles and rode out of town. Mine was a hired cycle, but Sono’s was his own. He’d had it since the age of five, and it was constantly in need of repair. ‘The soul has gone out of it,’ he used to say.

  Our fathers were at work; Sono’s mother had gone out to do her shopping (during air raids she took shelter under the most convenient shop counter) and wouldn’t be back for at least an hour. We expected to be back before lunch.

  We were soon out of town, on a road that passed through rice fields, pineapple orchards and cinchona plantations. On our right lay dark green hills; on our left, groves of coconut palms and, beyond them, the sea. Men and women were working in the rice fields, knee-deep in mud, their broad-brimmed hats protecting them from the fierce sun. Here and there a buffalo wallowed in a pool of brown water, while a naked boy lay stretched out on the animal’s broad back.

  We took a bumpy track through the palms. They grew right down to the edge of the sea. Leaving our cycles on the shingle, we ran down a smooth, sandy beach and into the shallow water.

  ‘Don’t go too far in,’ warned Sono. ‘There may be sharks about.’

  Wading in amongst the rocks, we searched for interesting shells, then sat down on a large rock and looked out to sea, where a sailing ship moved placidly on the crisp, blue waters. It was difficult to imagine that half the world was at war, and that Batavia, two or three miles away, was right in the middle of it.

  On our way home we decided to take a shortcut through the rice fields, but soon found that our tyres got bogged down in the soft mud. This delayed our return; and to make things worse, we got the roads mixed up and reached an area of the town that seemed unfamiliar. We had barely entered the outskirts when the siren sounded, followed soon after by the drone of approaching aircraft.

  ‘Should we get off our cycles and take shelter somewhere?’ I called out.

  ‘No, let’ s race home!’ shouted Sono. ‘The bombs won’t fall here.’

  But he was wrong. The planes flew in very low. Looking up for a moment, I saw the sun blotted out by the sinister shape of a Jap fighter-bomber. We pedalled furiously; but we had barely covered fifty yards when there was a terrific explosion on our right, behind some houses. The shock sent us spinning across the road. We were flung from our cycles. And the cycles, still propelled by the blast, crashed into a wall.

  I felt a stinging sensation in my hands and legs, as though scores of little insects had bitten me. Tiny droplets of blood appeared here and there on my flesh. Sono was on all fours, crawling beside me, and I saw that he too had the same small scratches on his hands and forehead, made by tiny shards of flying glass.

  We were quickly on our feet, and then we began running in the general direction of our homes. The twisted cycles lay forgotten on the road.

  ‘Get off the street, you two!’ shouted someone from a window; but we weren’t going to stop running until we got home. And we ran faster than we’d ever run in our lives.

  My father and Sono’s parents were themselves running about the street, calling for us, when we came rushing around the corner and tumbled into their arms.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘How did you get those cuts?’

  All superfluous questions but before we could recover our breath and start explaining, we were bundled into our respective homes. My father washed my cuts and scratches, dabbed at my face and legs with iodine — ignoring my yelps — and then stuck plaster all over my face.

  Sono and I had had a fright, and we did not venture far from the house again.

  That night my father said, ‘I think we’ll be able to leave in a day or two.’

  ‘Has another ship come in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how are we going? By plane?’

  ‘Wait and see, lad. It isn’t settled yet. But we won’t be able to take much with us — just enough to fill a couple of travelling bags.’

  ‘What about the stamp collection?’ I asked.

  My father’s stamp collection was quite valuable and filled several volumes.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to leave most of it behind,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Mr Hartono will keep it for me, and when the war is over — if it’s over — we’ll come back for it.’

  ‘But we can take one or two albums with us, can’t we?’

  ‘I’ll take one. There’ll be room for one. Then if we’re short of money in Bombay, we can sell the stamps.’

  ‘Bombay? That’s in India. I thought we were going back to England.’

  ‘First we must go to India.’

  The following morning I found Sono in the garden, patched up like me, and with one foot in a bandage. But he was as cheerful as ever and gave me his usual wide grin.

  ‘We’re leaving tomorrow,’ I said.

  The grin left his face.

  ‘I will be sad when you go,’ Sonu said. ‘But I will be glad too, because then you will be able to escape from the Japs.’

  ‘After the war, I’ll come back.’

  ‘Yes, you must come back. And then, when we are big, we will go round the world together. I want to see England and America and Africa and India and Japan. I want to go everywhere.’

  ‘We can’t go everywhere.’

  ‘Yes, we can. No one can stop us!’

  We had to be up very early the next morning. Our bags had been packed late at night. We were taking a few clothes, som
e of my father’s business papers, a pair of binoculars, one stamp album and several bars of chocolate. I was pleased about the stamp album and the chocolates, but I had to give up several of my treasures — favourite books, the gramophone and records, an old Samurai sword, a train set and a dartboard. The only consolation was that Sono, and not a stranger, would have them.

  In the first faint light of dawn a truck drew up in front of the house. It was driven by a Dutch businessman, Mr Hookens, who worked with my father. Sono was already at the gate, waiting to say goodbye.

  ‘I have a present for you,’ he said.

  He took me by the hand and pressed a smooth, hard object into my palm. I grasped it and then held it up against the light. It was a beautiful little seahorse, carved out of pale blue jade.

  ‘It will bring you luck,’ said Sono.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I will keep it forever.’

  And I slipped the little seahorse into my pocket.

  ‘In you get, lad,’ said my father, and I got up on the front seat between him and Mr Hookens.

  As the truck started up, I turned to wave to Sono. He was sitting on his garden wall, grinning at me. He called out: ‘We will go everywhere, and no one can stop us!’

  He was still waving when the truck took us round the bend at the end of the road.

  We drove through the still, quiet streets of Batavia, occasionally passing burnt-out trucks and shattered buildings. Then we left the sleeping city far behind and were climbing into the forested hills. It had rained during the night, and when the sun came up over the green hills, it twinkled and glittered on the broad, wet leaves. The light in the forest changed from dark green to greenish gold, broken here and there by the flaming red or orange of a trumpet-shaped blossom. It was impossible to know the names of all those fantastic plants! The road had been cut through a dense tropical forest, and on either side the trees jostled each other, hungry for the sun; but they were chained together by the liana creepers and vines that fed upon the struggling trees.

  Occasionally a jelarang, a large Javan squirrel, frightened by the passing of the truck, leapt through the trees before disappearing into the depths of the forest. We saw many birds: peacocks, junglefowl, and once, standing majestically at the side of the road, a crowned pigeon, its great size and splendid crest making it a striking object even at a distance. Mr Hookens slowed down so that we could look at the bird. It bowed its head so that its crest swept the ground; then it emitted a low, hollow boom rather than the call of a turkey.

  When we came to a small clearing, we stopped for breakfast. Butterflies, black, green and gold, flitted across the clearing. The silence of the forest was broken only by the drone of airplanes. Japanese Zeros heading for Batavia on another raid. I thought about Sono, and wondered what he would be doing at home: probably trying out the gramophone!

  We ate boiled eggs and drank tea from a thermos, then got back into the truck and resumed our journey.

  I must have dozed off soon after, because the next thing I remember is that we were going quite fast down a steep, winding road, and in the distance I could see a calm blue lagoon.

  ‘We’ve reached the sea again,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said my father. ‘But we’re now nearly a hundred miles from Batavia, in another part of the island. You’re looking out over the Sunda Straits.’

  Then he pointed towards a shimmering white object resting on the waters of the lagoon.

  ‘There’s our plane,’ he said.

  ‘A seaplane!’ I exclaimed. ‘I never guessed. Where will it take us?’

  ‘To Bombay, I hope. There aren’t many other places left to go to!’

  It was a very old seaplane, and no one, not even the captain — the pilot was called the captain — could promise that it would take off. Mr Hookens wasn’t coming with us; he said the plane would be back for him the next day. Besides my father and me, there were four other passengers, and all but one were Dutch. The odd man out was a Londoner, a motor mechanic who’d been left behind in Java when his unit was evacuated. (He told us later that he’d fallen asleep at a bar in the Chinese quarter, waking up some hours after his regiment had moved off!) He looked rather scruffy. He’d lost the top button of his shirt, but instead of leaving his collar open as we did, he’d kept it together with a large safety pin, which thrust itself out from behind a bright pink tie.

  ‘It’s a relief to find you here, guvnor,’ he said, shaking my father by the hand. ‘Knew you for a Yorkshireman the minute I set eyes on you. It’s the songfried that does it, if you know what I mean.’ (He meant sangfroid, French for a ‘cool look’.) ‘And here I was, with all these flippin’ forriners, and me not knowing a word of what they’ve been yattering about. Do you think this old tub will get us back to Blighty?’

  ‘It does look a bit shaky,’ said my father. ‘One of the first flying boats, from the looks of it. If it gets us to Bombay, that’s far enough.’

  ‘Anywhere out of Java’s good enough for me,’ said our new companion. ‘The name’s Muggeridge.’

  ‘Pleased to know you, Mr Muggeridge,’ said my father. ‘I’m Bond. This is my son.’

  Mr Muggeridge rumpled my hair and favoured me with a large wink.

  The captain of the seaplane was beckoning to us to join him in a small skiff which was about to take us across a short stretch of water to the seaplane.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Mr Muggeridge. ‘Say your prayers and keep your fingers crossed.’

  The seaplane was a long time getting airborne. It had to make several runs before it finally took off. Then, lurching drunkenly, it rose into the clear blue sky.

  ‘For a moment I thought we were going to end up in the briny,’ said Mr Muggeridge, untying his seat belt. ‘And talkin’ of fish, I’d give a week’s wages for a plate of fish an’ chips and a pint of beer.’

  ‘I’ll buy you a beer in Bombay,’ said my father.

  ‘Have an egg,’ I offered, remembering we still had some boiled eggs in one of the travelling bags.

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ said Mr Muggeridge, accepting an egg with alacrity. ‘A real egg, too! I’ve been livin’ on egg powder these last six months. That’s what they give you in the army. And it ain’t hens’ eggs they make it from, let me tell you. It’s either gulls’ or turtles’ eggs!’

  ‘No,’ said my father with a straight face. ‘Snakes’ eggs.’

  Mr Muggeridge turned a delicate shade of green; but he soon recovered his poise, and for about an hour kept talking about almost everything under the sun, including Churchill, Hitler, Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi, and Betty Grable. (The last-named was famous for her beautiful legs.) He would have gone on talking all the way to Bombay had he been given a chance, but suddenly a shudder passed through the old plane, and it began lurching again.

  ‘I think an engine is giving trouble,’ said my father.

  When I looked through the small glassed-in window, it seemed as though the sea was rushing up to meet us.

  The co-pilot entered the passenger cabin and said something in Dutch. The passengers looked dismayed, and immediately began fastening their seat belts.

  ‘Well, what did the blighter say?’ asked Mr Muggeridge.

  ‘I think he’s going to have to ditch the plane,’ said my father, who knew enough Dutch to get the gist of anything that was said.

  ‘Down in the drink!’ exclaimed Mr Muggeridge.

  ‘Gawd ‘elp us! And how far are we from Bombay, guv?’

  ‘A few hundred miles,’ said my father.

  ‘Can you swim, mate?’ asked Mr Muggeridge looking at me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But not all the way to Bombay. How far can you swim?’

  ‘The length of a bathtub,’ he answered.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said my father. ‘Just make sure your life jacket’s properly tied.’

  We looked to our life jackets; my father checked mine twice, making sure that it was properly fastened.

  The pilot had now cut both engines, and
was bringing the plane down in a circling movement. But he couldn’t control the speed, and it was tilting heavily to one side. Instead of landing smoothly on its belly, it came down on a wing tip, and this caused the plane to swivel violently around in the choppy sea. There was a terrific jolt when the plane hit the water, and if it hadn’t been for the seat belts we’d have been flung from our seats. Even so, Mr Muggeridge struck his head against the seat in front, and he was now holding a bleeding nose and using some shocking language.

  As soon as the plane came to a standstill, my father undid my seat belt. There was no time to lose. Water was already filling the cabin, and all the passengers — except one, who was dead in his seat with a broken neck — were scrambling for the exit hatch. The co-pilot pulled a lever and the door fell away to reveal high waves slapping against the sides of the stricken plane.

  Holding me by the hand, my father was leading me towards the exit.

  ‘Quick, lad,’ he said. ‘We won’t stay afloat for long.’

  ‘Give us a hand!’ shouted Mr Muggeridge, still struggling with his life jacket. ‘First this bloody bleedin’ nose, and now something’s gone and stuck.’

  My father helped him fix the life jacket, then pushed him out of the door ahead of us.

  As we swam away from the seaplane (Mr Muggeridge splashing fiercely alongside us), we were aware of the other passengers in the water. One of them shouted to us in Dutch to follow him.

  We swam after him towards the dinghy, which had been released the moment we hit the water. That yellow dinghy, bobbing about on the waves, was as welcome as land.

  All who had left the plane managed to climb into the dinghy. We were seven altogether — a tight fit. We had hardly settled down in the well of the dinghy when Mr Muggeridge, still holding his nose, exclaimed, ‘There she goes!’ And as we looked on helplessly, the seaplane sank swiftly and silently beneath the waves.

  The dinghy had shipped a lot of water, and soon everyone was busy bailing it out with mugs (there were a couple in the dinghy), hats, and bare hands. There was a light swell, and every now and then water would roll in again and half fill the dinghy. But within half an hour we had most of the water out, and then it was possible to take turns, two men doing the bailing while the others rested. No one expected me to do this work, but I gave a hand anyway, using my father’s sola topee for the purpose.