Escape to Pagan

by Brian Devereux

  Hong Kong was unusually quiet after the surrender. Normally all the church bells would be ringing and the sound of Christmas carols would be drifting on the pleasant warm South China Sea breeze. In certain areas of the island, the smashing of alcohol bottles became the next popular pastime; it was the last gesture of defiance, a requiem mourning the lost halcyon days on the island of lotus eaters.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Telegram

  BURMA

  “In 1941 nobody in Burma believed that the Japanese could defeat the British Empire. Then suddenly news came to us that Hong Kong had fallen, the Japanese were attacking Malaya and were now moving towards Burma through Thailand. From that day on, I watched the postman every morning as he made his way down our street. One morning he stopped at our gate. My heart raced. I recognized the envelope as army mail: a telegram. I once worked in the Post Office in Mandalay, where I first met Jack. The note was short and to the point: ‘I regret to inform you that your husband Sergeant John Devereux 2nd Battalion Royal Scots is feared dead or missing during the battle of Hong Kong.’

  “The word ‘missing’ was to give me hope and comfort during the dark, terrible years that were to follow. Thoughts of my first meeting with Jack in Mandalay, where my family had a house, flooded in. Jack used to arrive at the post office in a snub-nosed [Bedford] lorry to collect the small bags of army mail. Every time he came to the counter he always asked to borrow my pencil and would wait until all the other customers had left before returning it. Jack was tall, dark and handsome and always looked so dashing in his Glengarry and tartan trews of the Royal Scots [1st Battalion]. One day after I had finished work I found Jack outside the post office waiting for me. He asked if he could walk me home. I said no. Jack persisted on several more occasions and finally I agreed.

  “After several weeks my mother asked me to invite Jack to our house so she and all my brothers and sisters could have a good look at him. Jack sat rather uncomfortably in the parlour surrounded by my mother, three brothers and four sisters. My youngest sister Lucy offered Jack a trick chocolate [chocolate on the outside with an Indian rubber centre]. We all giggled, watching him try to chew it.

  “Jack had to propose to me five times before I accepted. You see, I did not like his surname ‘Devereux.’ I always wanted to marry a man with a British name; Devereux was not a British name – it was French my mother said, a Norman name. Being half Portuguese, she did not like the French much.”

  The French and Napoleon Bonaparte were about as popular to the Portuguese and the Spanish, as the English and Oliver Cromwell were to the southern Irish.

  “Thank God Jack was a practising Catholic and went to church every Sunday (so he said) or my mother would not have agreed to our wedding. About a year later we married in Taunggyi with all my large family present along with a few of Jack’s army pals including Tam and Willie. The wedding reception was held in a marquee erected in our beautiful garden. We had so many different types of food. A dance floor was laid out; we danced to tangos, waltzes, quick-steps and the Charleston. All my sisters loved dancing.

  “There was so much food that we invited people passing outside to join us, including the tall Pathan night watchman [the Pathan would remember this kindness]. The wedding and house were paid for with rubies, equal to the amount of Burmese rupees. In the evening colourful Chinese lanterns were lit and hung on all the trees. A beautiful full moon gazed down as we drove away to our honeymoon. Not long after, Jack found out that the 1st Battalion was being posted to Palestine. He told me not to worry as he would get a transfer to the 2nd Battalion who were being posted to India; instead the 2nd Battalion were posted to Hong Kong to counter the threat from the Japanese.

  “While he was in Hong Kong he managed to get three weeks leave to come back to Taunggyi, where we had set up our lovely new home. This area is one of the beauty spots of Burma. Our bungalow nestled at the foot of the tall purple crags. Jack fell in love with Taunggyi and intended to buy himself out of the army within a few months. After just two weeks leave he was recalled to Hong Kong; we were both bitterly disappointed. I did not know at the time what those four long years had in store for us.”

  This is another story Mum loved telling me or anyone else who would listen, much to my embarrassment.

  “My God – Brian was such a difficult birth – I did not want him, you know – he was deformed! I was screaming my head off, yelling at the surgeon – ‘get rid of it – I don’t want it!’ You were such a big baby – eight and a half pounds! You looked like a suckling pig. I screamed ‘take it away!’ My mother was shouting: ‘Shut your mouth Kate. You are a disgrace to the family – howling like a lunatic – do you think you are the first woman to give birth? It’s not good to bring a baby into the world with the sound of screaming.’

  “The British surgeon was pulling your head. It’s a wonder your neck did not break. He had to use such force that your head became out of shape. When I first saw you I thought my God I have given birth to a deformed child who would end up in a circus; your head looked like a boodi [butternut-squash, gourd]. The surgeon had to re-shape it with his hands.”

  Mum would smile at me with motherly glee after the telling of this story. I have always put this re-shaping of my head as a possible reason for me suffering terrible migraine headaches every week for the rest of my life. The shape of my head is now normal.

  “My mother and I slept together while you were in a cot at the side of the bed. I used to dislike getting up when you started yelling; sometimes I felt like murdering you. My mother used to get angry and shout ‘you are the most useless and lazy daughter I have – the child will grow up to hate you.’ Later, we used to leave you in the garden by the kitchen window sitting in a tub of water and listening to you cooing, talking to yourself and laughing.

  “The surgeon was the best English surgeon in the Shan States and lived just down the road from our house. I knew his daughter, she became a nursing Sister. She survived the war but her poor parents were killed in Taunggyi. The maternity ward was at the foot of the high crags; all the windows had iron bars to stop cheetahs sneaking into the ward and running off with babies.”

  Mother always believed there were cheetahs in Taunggyi; in actual fact there were no cheetahs left in Burma or India but leopards abounded. Leopards are opportunist and were a danger to children and dogs. These big cats often went to extraordinary lengths to procure canines. Dogs, regardless of size, were taken silently while their owners sat drinking their sundowners on cool verandas in the evening. The remains of their pet would be found wedged high in a tree the following day. Most of the homes in Taunggyi had barred windows to keep out these shadowy and silent predators at night. In Burma, at that time, it was said that there were too many tigers and leopards. Humans were regular victims. Wolves (red dholes), bears and hyenas also took a high toll on domestic livestock. Records from the time show that around six thousand animals were lost every year. Burma also has one of the highest concentrations of venomous snakes in the world, second only to Tanzania. It is estimated in modern Myanmar that the annual death rate from snake bite is currently around 11,000 a year. Pre-war, the number was as high as 18,000 per year, second only to India.

  “Taunggyi remained cool in the hot season. The climate of the Shan States is perfect, comparable to a warm English summer. Our house was built on an acre of land and was surrounded by exotic fruit trees. Bougainvillea, gardenias, hibiscus and wild poppies added colour. We also had geese, ducks and chickens kept just for their eggs. If my mother or brothers wanted to kill a chicken or duck, I would follow them around like a shadow crying and screaming at them until they got fed up with all my noise. Dozens of brightly coloured wild jungle fowl also used to visit the garden. I never saw a single snake whilst living in Taunggyi. It was the little tuc-toos [small house lizards] that terrified me. I could not stand the way they sometimes fell from the ceiling and shed their tails which kept on wiggling.”

  Mum was terrified of these small harmles
s lizards; yet she had no fear of large spiders, some of which were aggressive and possessed extremely painful bites.

  The wild poppies Mum refers to were “Moon-flowers” or “Yunnan poppies” (Taunggyi is part of the opium Golden Triangle). These pale innocent looking flowers appeared in most gardens, whether wanted or not. The Hill Tribes had been using opium for centuries and yet there has never been a serious drug problem, for there are strict rules. A user has to be over thirty (retirement age) and he or she must not take the drug until after 6pm, after their evening meal.

  My grandmother always kept raw opium as a medical treatment. She knew the secret of scoring the poppy heads at exactly the right time for the best quality resin.

  “The thought of leaving my house was unthinkable; the news on the radio was always optimistic. We were told the Japanese would be stopped at the Sittang River. When we heard the battleships Prince of Wales and the Repulse had been sunk, everyone was too shocked to speak. We all believed the Royal Navy was invincible. I was so glad my mother and two of my brothers, Cyril and Victor, and my youngest sister Lucy were staying with me in Taunggyi at the time before we fled. It was so reassuring to have my two strong and capable brothers with us when we first set off. Victor was six foot two, blonde, blue eyed and weighed well over two hundred and twenty pounds. Cyril used to stay with the Shan tribesmen while out hunting. After the war, Cyril married the headman’s daughter, had many children and became a schoolteacher. We had lost all contact with my oldest brother Harry. He was an officer in the Burmese Army, made up of Ghurkhas, Kachins and other hill tribes. The last we heard of, it was retreating towards the Irrawaddy River. My sister Grace was in Rangoon with her family. Grace had married and was now Mrs Lobo [’Mrs Wolf’ in Portuguese] with several sons, Kenny, Cyril, Carl, Oswald and daughters Gloria and Patricia. My other sister Annette married an English Major Wallace in the artillery who became a Colonel after the war. They came to visit us in England with their two children, a girl called Gwen and a son William; they moved to Eritrea and disappeared. We never heard from Annette again despite our attempts to contact her. I hope and pray they are alright.

  “During the occupation, my mother worried about my brothers and sisters, they were scattered all over Burma. Every town had its Kempeitai spies and trying to contact family members would be dangerous.”

  Many of the refugees trapped in Burma criticized those responsible for the empty promises and assurances which delayed their departure from Burma to India. The confidence of those in charge shaded the many non-endemic people living there with a flimsy bamboo umbrella of hope; useless against the ever increasing heat of the rising sun. Evacuating Burma just two weeks earlier would have allowed a great many fleeing refugees to reach safety, saving thousands of lives.

  General Stilwell who commanded the Chinese armies, it is said, disliked the Limeys; especially the officer class. Stilwell detested General Wavell who lectured him on tactics for defeating the Japanese, just after losing Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma. It has been said that president Franklin D. Roosevelt (who was of Dutch and French ancestry) was not a great fan of the British despite helping us win the war. He did not want Britain to regain her empire.

  “Do you think your father Herman Unger was a German spy, Mum?” I once asked. She laughed.

  “My father was such a drunkard, he could not keep a secret and made it known that he did not like the British having an Empire. He also disliked the way the British allowed the Indians to dominate the markets and become the biggest landowners. When drunk he boasted, if Germany went to war, he would join their army. His views were well known in Rangoon and Mandalay. He was not popular with our British friends, but he got on well with everybody else, especially the Japanese.

  “My mother’s first husband was James Talbot, a redheaded Irishman from Galway. He was thirty-five; she had just turned fifteen. He was the inspector of railways in Burma. There was always a railway inspector in the family, for my mother and grandmother never paid train fares as they travelled all over Burma visiting relatives.

  “My face is my ticket, Grandmother used to say indignantly, when asked for her fare by a new ticket collector.

  “Both my fathers were jolly men, both were alcoholics. Herman Unger was very cruel to animals. When he came back from a snipe shooting trip, dozens of birds would be threaded through the eyes with bamboo: some were still alive. I used to scream at him. He used to laugh and put me on his knee and call me his little dark diamond, his alcoholic breath used to make me feel dizzy. I would never eat snipe at dinner but soon developed a taste for whisky. I used to take sips from the decanter.”

  Mother referred to both men as “father.” My eldest daughter Kim is sure James Talbot was my mother’s biological dad.

  “In Taunggyi the problem was which escape route to take? Just across the border was Yunnan Province, China; this was the shortest route of escape. But Yunnan was a lawless country dominated by war lords and bandits. Plus the route into the mountains would require pack horses.

  “My mother and I had a more immediate worry – the copies of my marriage certificate and your birth certificate. Both could still be at the town hall. These documents could be our death warrants. We may have been classed as spies. Anyone in Taunggyi who knew us could denounce us under torture. Mother was also well known in Rangoon and Mandalay, therefore these towns had to be avoided at all costs during our escape. That is why my mother led us into the wilds of Burma.

  “The day before we left Taunggyi my mother quickly rushed into town; she found the Town Hall closed and shuttered; all the civil servants had fled to India. There were files and papers lying everywhere, some had been only half burnt. We prayed they had taken all the important documents with them, as Burma was governed from India. But we could never be sure. This made my mother’s mind up, we had to leave Taunggyi. The bank was shut. We had little money in the house, just over five thousand rupees and some valuable rubies.”

  The question of the whereabouts of the copies of our documents was always a constant concern to my guardians. But I know for a fact that the originals were kept or hidden somewhere by Grandmother, for I still have my original birth certificate, battered, worn and yellow.

  “All the Indian shop owners had left Taunggyi earlier; they wanted to reach India before the monsoon. A Chinese ruby merchant my mother knew advised her to leave Taunggyi and trek into Yunnan Province; he would give her letters of introduction. This was most important concerning personal safety and lodgings etc.

  “The Chinese traders and shopkeepers seemed to have had better intelligence regarding the war situation than the Europeans. They told my mother the Japanese had crossed the Sittang and were heading for the Shan States. We left on the 17th April. The Japanese entered Taunggyi on the 20th April 1942.”

  To add to the collapse of morale, the retreating British troops waiting to cross the Sittang were bombed by the RAF who believed them to be the enemy. The static British vehicles, equipment and men made a perfect target; so much so that the bombers returned after rearming to attack again.

  The bridge was then blown prematurely. This left many men trapped on the wrong bank and at the mercy of the Japanese. Many Ghurkhas who were non-swimmers drowned attempting the crossing. The men left on the wrong side of the Sittang were extremely bitter, feeling they had been sacrificed.

  “The worst news of all to reach us was that the British Army was heading for the Irrawaddy River, towards India. Our hopes that the approaching Chinese Army would defend the Shan States were dashed when we were informed by the Chins and Kachins tribesmen that the Chinese army were not fighting the Japanese but were looting and burning their villages, conducting a scorched earth policy.

  “When my mother returned from the town hall, she said we should go to the market and buy as much food as possible for our escape. On our way there we saw British soldiers standing by a convoy of stationary vehicles, chatting and smoking. Their relaxed attitude gave us confidence. They said they were
waiting for fuel and that the Koylies [The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry] were coming to defend Taunggyi and the dump of stores. They seemed unconcerned.

  “The market was crowded; we bought as much as we could carry. On our homeward journey a single Japanese plane swept in low; we could see the pilot waving at the crowds below, some of the people waved back. Many of the tribespeople had never seen planes before. Then the bombers arrived. I pleaded with my mother to drop all we were carrying and run home. But my mother began to pray aloud, she even began picking up all the food items that I had dropped. We then stood rooted to the spot and watched the planes release their deadly cargo.

  “The bombs looked so small and harmless – like toys, they seemed to hang suspended in the sky. None of us had ever experienced bombing before; we just stood still and watched them fall to earth. The raid was soon over and the causalities were light. Another small plane then circled and dropped leaflets that said: ‘Prepare to meet the victorious warrior Gods of Dai Nippon. We will not harm the people of Burma. We are all Asiatic Buddhists. The British have been defeated; the Chinese soldiers are your enemies. If you act honourable, we will give you kindnesses, but if you have anti-Nipponese thoughts, we will give you swords.’ There were lots of other promises; each promise was followed by a threat. The leaflets did nothing to calm our fears of the Japanese.

  “Reaching home we found that the far end of my beautiful bungalow had been damaged by a bomb, but thankfully nobody was hurt. I was so shocked I could not make up my mind as to what items to take with me.

  “Victor, my brother, told us we had six hours to prepare for evacuation to India. We were to take whatever transport available and make our way to the station [Mother never mentioned which station] where we were to catch a train to Myitkyina Airport, then board a plane to India. It all sounded so easy. We were restricted to taking only fourteen pounds of personal belongings each. It broke my heart to leave all my lovely things behind – my wedding gifts, my lovely clothes and shoes; nevertheless I filled a pram with baby clothes and food for you.