by JH Fletcher
As the network of paths led them higher into the hills the country grew very steep. Every yard became a battle. Ahead of them the path climbed tortuously between trees whose canopies shut out the sky. To their left the ground fell steeply to the valley floor. Beyond the valley the hills rose again in a succession of forested ridges until in the distance the highest ridge of all formed a purple silhouette against the western sky.
Ruth paused, gasping for breath. Beneath her uniform, stained and grubby now, her body was drenched in sweat. It was only the second day of their march yet already she felt exhausted.
She wiped her forehead with the back of a grimy hand as she tried to keep the sweat out of her eyes. You’ve a long way to go yet, she warned herself. You’ll have to get used to it.
Far below them the pale line of the road ran northwards along the valley floor. She drew Richard’s attention to it. ‘If there are Japs down there won’t they be able to see us if they look up?’
‘Too far away. They’ll never see us from there.’
Late that evening they reached the first village they had seen since leaving Lai-hka. The rest of the party waited while Richard and one of the Karens talked to the headman; when they came back they were smiling.
‘They haven’t seen any Japs yet. He said we can stay overnight. They can let us have food, too.’
They were just finishing their meal — balls of sticky white rice flavoured with some high-smelling fish oil — when some of the Chinese soldiers caught up with them.
‘Could have done without them,’ Richard muttered.
The feeling was clearly mutual. The soldiers greeted them with angry looks that intensified when they discovered that the village had no more food to offer them. They argued vociferously among themselves for a while, casting hot, envious glances at the small group that had beaten them to the food. It looked as though there might be a fight but perhaps the Karens’ weapons deterred them. In the end the angry talk came to nothing and they departed, shoving their way belligerently between the attap-thatched huts and up the steep path until they were out of sight.
‘We must get away from them somehow,’ Richard said. ‘If they get to the next village before we do they’ll take all the food but if we beat them to it there’s likely to be trouble.’
They spent a wretched night, knowing that the meagre food would provide them with little stamina for the next day.
‘Which way are we going?’ Ruth asked.
Richard pointed at the distant ridge of hills. ‘Up there. Then down the other side.’
Ruth’s heart sank. ‘How far is the ridge?’
‘About forty miles.’
So far …
‘And how far have we come?’
‘Maybe ten.’
‘It’ll take us over a week,’ she protested.
‘A lot longer than that if there’s nobody around when we get there.’
‘What will we do if there isn’t?’
‘Keep going.’
‘How long?’
‘I told you. As long as it takes.’ He saw her expression. ‘I don’t intend to spend the rest of the war in a Japanese camp. If we have to walk all the way to Assam, that’s what we’ll do.’
‘But that’s —’
‘Five hundred miles,’ he said. ‘Maybe more.’
It would take them months, fighting their way through forested hills that none of them knew, little if any food, while all the time the Japanese tightened their grip on the country.
‘It’ll be very hard,’ she said doubtfully.
He grinned. ‘No different from a stroll at home. Only further.’
‘And steeper.’
Somehow they made it through the day although Ruth’s legs ached as never before. Hunger had subsided to a sullen ache; it was uncomfortable but she could live with that. Her filthy body troubled her more. She was grimed with sweat and dirt but they had found no streams for washing and she knew she would have to put up with it until they did. The men were as dirty as she was but it didn’t seem to bother them. Richard’s face was rimed with the beginnings of a dark beard.
‘Blackbeard the pirate,’ she told him.
‘No ships to rob up here.’
There were villages, though.
They passed through one around midday, half a dozen huts perched on the side of a ravine.
On the outskirts they paused, checking for possible danger. The place seemed deserted; with the exception of a large flock of crows nothing moved. They waited but nothing happened, the silence broken only by the funereal cawing of the birds.
Richard frowned. ‘There should be someone about.’
‘Unless they’re all out working.’
‘There should still be old people and children. Women. Something isn’t right.’
He spoke urgently to one of the levies. The man slipped away. They watched as he worked his way through the trees towards the nearest hut. He paused in the open doorway and disappeared inside.
Around her the men’s hands tightened on their weapons but a few moments later the scout emerged from the hut and passed on swiftly to the next.
‘No one there,’ Richard muttered.
The man re-appeared and beckoned them forward.
Richard stood. ‘We’ll go in. But keep well spaced out.’
The sunlight fell blindingly upon them as they left the trees and entered the village.
The scout came trotting to meet them and spoke to Richard.
‘He says there’s no one here.’
Even so, they took no chances but eased their way through the village as though an ambush might be lurking around every corner. It was as the man had said. The huts were deserted. No pigs, no chickens, no people, old or young. The sunlight shone through the lattice leaves of the banana trees and puddled the dust with yellow. Broken only by the crying of the crows, the brooding silence set the hairs quivering on the back of Ruth’s neck.
They came to the end hut. Richard pushed open the door with his foot, sten gun ready.
Ruth’s hand flew to her mouth. Sunlight shone through the open doorway upon upturned faces, blank eyes, tangled and contorted limbs. The shadowed interior of the hut was peopled with the dead.
‘Be careful,’ Ruth said. ‘It could have been an epidemic of some kind.’
‘Such as?’
‘Might be anything. Smallpox. Plague.’
‘I think we’ll find it’s a good deal more mundane than that.’
It could only have happened recently. The smell of death was there, certainly, but of corruption there was as yet no hint. There was another smell, however, a thin, acrid odour that jagged the throat.
Richard entered the hut, turned over the nearest body with his foot. It was a woman, neither young nor old, beautiful nor ugly, although none of that mattered now. The front of her dress was dark with crusted blood.
‘What I thought,’ he said. ‘They’ve all been shot. That’s what we can smell, the cordite.’
‘Who would have done it? The Japanese?’
‘There’s been no time for them to get up here. No, I think we can blame it on some of our yellow uniforms.’
‘But why?’
‘Who knows? Maybe the village refused them food. That’s all it would take.’
Ruth eyed the piled corpses. ‘What do we do with them?’
‘Leave them. What else?’
Ruth hated the idea but saw they had no choice.
‘What about the blokes who did it?’
‘They won’t be far away. We’d best be on our guard in case they try the same trick on us.’
He issued his orders. Well spaced out, as ready for trouble as they could be, they moved forward along the trail.
They entered a world where nightmare and reality became one.
They encountered more dead, Chinese soldiers fallen at the side of the trail and abandoned by their comrades. The near-dead were there, too, lying silently with indifferent eyes or crawling like broken insects, going
nowhere. There was nothing they could do for them, either; they passed by and continued along the interminable trail as it climbed ever higher into the rain-forested hills.
There were no more villages. Their supplies were almost non-existent. Several days later they made camp by the banks of a shallow stream. Richard posted sentries.
‘I’m going to have a look round,’ he said, ‘in case there are any more of those damned soldiers about.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Ruth offered.
‘If you like.’
Richard’s sten gun at the ready, they followed the course of the stream downhill until they came to a fall twenty feet high. Below the fall a pool had been created by a wall of massive grey boulders damming its downstream end. They sat and looked at the water. Streaked with strands of green and orange weed, it looked cool and inviting.
Ruth stared longingly at the water. She had never felt so filthy in her life. ‘You think it’s safe?’ she wondered.
‘I don’t think anywhere’s safe,’ Richard said. ‘Those wretched soldiers seem to be all over these hills and I wouldn’t trust any of them as far as I can throw them. The pool itself should be all right, though.’
‘I would give anything for a swim.’
She would have to wear the same clothes afterwards but at least her body would be clean.
‘Why don’t you?’ He checked the forest wall hemming them in. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for you.’
She needed no more urging. She stripped off her uniform and shoes and stepped cautiously into the pool. The water was cold but soft, altogether wonderful. The pool was no more than three feet deep in most places, the bottom littered with rocks over which she stumbled and slipped, but the water itself was like a vision of heaven suddenly become real. She squatted so that it covered her shoulders and rubbed herself as vigorously as she could. Her toes encountered a patch of coarse sand; she fished up a handful and used that, too, scouring her skin free of the filth that had coated it for so long.
Hair streaming, body red and glowing, she stood in the water. Seated on the rocks above her, back against a massive boulder, flank protected by a tree, Richard watched the forest. She waved to him but he did not see her. She turned and swam across the pool until she reached the fall, passed through the curtain of water into the pool that lay beyond. Above her head rose a wall of black rock, cushioned with moss; behind her the cascading water cut her off from the world. She stripped off her underclothes and rubbed them in the water. The feel of the water on her naked skin was wonderful. She knew she should go back but for a moment hesitated, reluctant to return so soon to the detestable reality that life had become.
Their chances of survival were minimal. They had virtually no food, already several of the Karens had boils where broken skin had turned septic. She herself was still in reasonably good shape but without adequate food her strength was bound to run out soon.
Richard seemed all right, too. So far she had not been brave enough to suggest giving him a once-over but knew she should. She was a nurse, after all, and it was only a sensible precaution. Without Richard they would all be lost.
She knew nothing about him at all. The march had taken all her strength and attention; there had been no time or energy for small talk. Now, refreshed by the cleansing water, she wondered about him.
She knew he was a lieutenant and English, no mistaking that accent, but what he was like, what his attitudes and beliefs might be, she had no idea. It shouldn’t matter — get out of this safely and she would almost certainly never see him again — yet somehow it did. It seemed wrong that they should be here together, so far from others of their kind, sharing all the horrors of the long retreat, and know virtually nothing about each other.
She fastened her bra, pulled her wet panties over her legs, dived through the crash and froth of the fall, returned to sunlight and reality. She swam back across the pool, climbed out, went to join Richard on top of the rock.
‘Good?’ he asked.
‘Wonderful. Why don’t you try it?’
He hesitated. ‘You know how to handle a sten gun?’
‘I’d never even seen one until I met you. But if you show me I dare say I’ll manage.’
He gave her the gun, she cradled its oily weight as he moved her hands on it, showing her how it should be held.
‘Anyone comes, challenge them once. If they take no notice, waste no time, shoot them. The gun kicks upwards so if you have to, fire at their feet.’
He took off his boots and uniform. She watched him as he walked into the water. His arms and legs were brown but where his shirt had been his skin was white as milk. He was slightly built, fine-muscled, and she found herself comparing Richard’s body with Dougie’s, the only other male body she had known. Dougie had been stocky whereas Richard was slender; it made him appear vulnerable but Ruth had seen how he had organised things along the trail, how tireless he was, and thought that, slender or not, he would outlast Dougie in any physical contest.
What does it matter? she thought crossly. Who’s comparing them, for heaven’s sake?
She was and knew she was. She wanted Richard, here, at this minute, as much as she had ever wanted Dougie back in Malacca. Why shouldn’t she? she thought. She owed Dougie no particular loyalty, had never even told him she loved him, only that with time she might. On the other hand she had gone with him to the old fort above the town, had allowed him to make love to her there, a man she hardly knew.
She knew Richard even less yet now she wanted him, too. Her mother would have called her shameless. Nice girls, how clearly Ruth could hear her saying it, did not do that sort of thing. Did not even think it.
There had been a time when she might have agreed with her but the world had changed, attitudes had changed with it and they might all be dead in the morning. If she wanted something — a swim, Richard, anything — she wanted it now. Tomorrow might be too late.
She watched him splashing in the pool below her and felt a hot tremor of lust in her belly.
I am shameless, she thought, and did not care. Was, if anything, pleased to discover an aspect of herself she had never known existed. It was the war, of course, the never-ending threat of capture and death. If she had met Richard in peacetime she would probably never have looked at him. Would never have looked at Dougie either, perhaps. But there was a war, a high probability that neither of them would survive it and she wanted to make love to him while she could. It would be an affirmation of life in the midst of death.
All nonsense, of course. It was not going to happen.
She remembered suddenly that she was supposed to be on guard and looked apprehensively around at the jungle, half-expecting it to be crowded with Chinese soldiers, but there was nothing, only the sunlight shifting on the breeze-shaken leaves.
Richard left the pool, water streaming from his white body, and climbed up the rocks to join her.
‘Seen anything?’
She smiled at him. ‘Only you.’
‘I won’t attack you.’
Perhaps I would like you to.
She was startled how close she had come to saying it. Nice girls did not say anything like that, either.
‘Good swim?’ Smiling at him.
‘Very good.’ Even as he spoke his eyes were scanning the encircling jungle wall. The wall she had neglected.
‘You didn’t stay in long.’
‘I don’t trust our Chinese friends.’
He pulled his shirt over his wet body, stepped into his shorts. He took the sten gun from her. She had watched the boy splashing in the pool, sunlight dappling his white body. Had lusted after him. Now he was gone. The soldier re-emerged.
She found she had no desire for the soldier. ‘I’d better get dressed, too.’
He smiled. ‘You looked strange, dressed like that with my gun in your lap.’
‘In my undies?’
A minute earlier such a remark might have been provocative. With luck. Now no trace of desire remained. They walked
back to join the others. Neither spoke.
The land was empty of people. The never-ending forest, the trail winding ever more steeply into the highest hills, the constant rain that turned the path to glue were their only companions. No longer did they suffer from insect bites, from rashes that flowered on sodden skins, from exhaustion so intense that its torture had become more mental than physical; all these things had merged into one all-consuming nightmare through which they drifted like a band of ghosts. Light-headed, beginning to falter, they had passed beyond hunger into a country where the spectre of starvation had become the only reality.
As the ordeal became general, so the individuals making up the party became real. They acquired names. The Karens became Aung Bwe, the man who was always smiling; Ba Chit, who never smiled at all; Saw Tory, the man of dignity; Tun Lin, the clown who belched and farted all the time, although God knew there was little enough in his stomach to cause either.
For Ruth, the greatest problem of all was isolation. The only woman. The only member of the group who had not fought the Japanese in the skirmishes leading to the retreat. The only one with no knowledge of the language that all of them, Richard included, spoke together. She would have picked up a few phrases had it been possible but exhaustion had put beyond her reach anything but the basic routines of survival. Even those were growing more and more difficult to observe. They all suffered, their life had become nothing but suffering, but to Ruth in particular, cut off from the support of the group, the ordeal was becoming unendurable.
Every hour became a series of targets that had to be achieved.
I will reach the bend in the trail before I stop.
I will keep going for a hundred steps before I stop. For fifty steps. For ten.
The targets diminished. Time was running out.
The first fall occurred two days after the pool. In that time she had eaten no more than a few grains of sticky white rice, a handful of grass, a piece of bark prised from a tree. She had been staggering along then, suddenly, was face down on the trail, her lip bleeding where her mouth had struck the ground.
She was up before anyone could come to her. She walked on, making light of it, explaining to Richard how she had tripped.
