Escape to Pagan (16 page)

CHAPTER 9

Wild Dogs in the Moonlight

BURMA

“I was so happy we had a constant supply of water and could keep ourselves clean. I no longer cared it was river water. Later on, this river would produce a few nasty surprises for us. Life in the wilds of Burma was unpredictable even to the wary and watchful. I worried when we were in the water catching freshwater crabs; I always stayed in the shallows while you were happy playing with mud on the bank.

“After quenching our thirst and washing we carried on along the high riverbank; at every opportunity we would drink and wash again in the shade of overhanging trees. Unfortunately the only utensil we had that held water was a big tin-pot with a handle. Early one morning I was sitting down in the shade on the riverbank with you on my lap, when I heard a loud splash on the opposite bank. Although the sun was shining in my eyes, I could just make out that a big darkish animal had jumped into the river and was swimming towards us. My mother was in the Riverine jungle nearby collecting firewood for our morning tea. I became afraid and quickly got up. My mother had also heard the splash and rushed back. We picked up all our possessions and continued as fast as we could walk along the riverbank in case the animal was a tiger. There were no convenient trees to climb for safety. When we looked
back we saw the large dark animal standing on a sandbank digging up turtle's eggs. It was a big wild boar.

“The Far East has some beautiful sunsets, yet all I worried about was the coming darkness. To hear an animal at night moving around and not see what it was, terrified me. Burma is a lush and fertile country with abundant natural and cultivated produce. Famine was unknown in this over flowing rice and fruit bowl of Asia. Almost every domesticated edible plant, whether it be fruit or vegetable, had its wild origins in the rural countryside, especially along river banks. The secret was identifying the similarity in the leaves. Yet we had to be careful. There were also many poisonous plants bearing pods and fruit.

“Burma is a gardener's paradise; a small bamboo shoot could grow four inches overnight or a buried seed germinate in a single day in the right conditions. So rich was the natural bounty of this fertile land that a Burmese man could retire at the age of thirty and as a result, large numbers of young men would become Buddhist monks. When the river widened and the banks became less steep we found clumps of Roberts' greens (another name for water spinach) growing close to the water's edge; slowly boiled with crabmeat, it made a lovely soup.”

The first-time visitor to Burma who had travelled via India would quickly notice that the Burmese belonged to a totally different race of humanity than the Indians. Instead of the aquiline bone structure of dark Indo-Aryans, they were now in a country populated by easygoing, smiling Mongolians, who lounged in the shade wearing cool colourful longyis. It was the shrewder, hardworking Indians who dominated the rice and timber trade and the lucrative government jobs.

“In Burma women conducted their business while smoking thick hand-rolled cigars. Women held an equal position in society and commerce. Any serious confrontations between a man and woman resulted in the woman taking off her slippers with the intention of hitting the man.
Seeing this, the male would quickly retire; to be hit by a female's slipper in public is considered a great insult. A far greater insult was for the female to turn around and lift up her longyi to waist height baring her naked buttocks.

“We continued along the riverbank but often had to go back in the riverine jungle as the path disappeared. When in the river, I was always on the lookout for leeches. The big buffalo leeches were six inches long and as thick as a finger. Unlike the smaller leeches, their bites were very painful. Sometimes when several of these big leeches entered the throats of cattle and became swollen with blood, the animal suffocated. The strange way in which these big leeches swam towards us in the water used to frighten me. With the monsoon, thousands of smaller leeches would also appear. I was told never place my mouth directly into a river or stream or drink from my hands for a species of very small leech could enter the mouth and live and develop in the nasal passages.”

Leeches have no eyes but home in on a victim's exhaled carbon dioxide like blind and legless aliens. A lifeless looking dry belt, after heavy rain, suddenly becomes alive with leeches. Young Japanese soldiers in Tada u loved to torture leeches, scorpions and large spiders in their leisure time; placing them in a fire ants nest after antagonising the ants. Forcing spider to fight spider or scorpion v spider was another favourite. They encouraged us young children and the older boys to catch and bring them more victims. Ironically these leeches were to get their revenge on these young teenage Japanese soldiers who had cheerfully marched up from Thailand pulling their guns. They would soon be taking part in the battles of Imphal and Kohima. On their retreat from India during the monsoon they lay weak and starving on the slippery rain lashed jungle tracks, covered in leeches, begging their passing comrades to shoot them.

“After our thirst was quenched our hunger returned. As the sun was slowly sinking in the west, I could only think of one thing. Where were we going to sleep that night? I was terrified of walking in the dark.
Fortunately, just as the sun was setting in the darkening skyline, we saw the silhouette of a flimsily, dilapidated fisherman's hut made from bamboo and palm leaves. Even from a distance the hut looked unstable. We climbed up into it on a rickety bamboo ladder. The structure could just about take our weight but only if we kept to the back of the hut. Every time we moved the hut lurched to one side and creaked but I was so grateful to be off the ground.

“These huts are used during the fishing season
[monsoon]
when the rivers are in flood and big fish enter the deep water. While the men fished with long poles and nets, the women cleaned and salted the fish drying them on bamboo racks. In the hot Burmese sun, salted fish dries in a matter of hours. We all loved a species of river fish known as ‘butter-fish' because the flesh was white and it carried few bones; butter in Burma is white in colour. This fish made excellent Burmese curry.

“The following morning, we were up early as the hut seemed about to collapse. We continued travelling along the riverbank collecting edible plants and digging for tubers which we kept for our main evening meal. Every now and then your grandmother checked the shallows for tiny fish fry; she was an expert at catching these small fish using the hem of her dress. In a pan coated in oil, these small fry would cook themselves if left in the hot sun. When my mother wanted to light a fire in the evening, she poured some river water on the hard ground and dug a small pit in the earth with the big Burmese dah. Then she would build the sides up with the damp earth she had dug out; this would hide most of the flames at night from anyone passing and increase the heat. We used the deep Indian metal pot that my mother had picked up for all our cooking. My mother was a wonderful cook.

“Evening came but we were not so lucky in finding a place to sleep and had to spend the night on a ledge created by the collapse of the riverbank – but at least we were hidden from view. Mother cut some cactus fronds and placed them in front of our sleeping place for protection. After cooking our meal we settled down on the hard ground wrapped in blankets. With our backs to the riverbank we listened to the jackals calling and watched the last of the sun's rays slowly sinking behind the trees. Soon it was totally dark. We could hear loud splashes in the river; Mother said it was probably large catfish.

“That night I didn't sleep a wink, in the far distant hills we could hear wild elephants trumpeting. We spoke in whispers. I spent most of the night looking up at the starry constellations. You were wrapped in my woollen shawl. We always waited for the sun to warm us before getting up. After walking several miles we came across another fisherman's hut which was strongly built and stable. We could move around in it without fear of it collapsing and decided to stay for a few days to rest. We were so tired having gone without a good night's sleep since we left Taunggyi.

“Here the river was very shallow and full of small fish; my mother began catching them immediately. She used to kneel very still in the shallows with her back to the sun and a few grains of cooked rice in the hem of her dress. The little fish were attracted by the food and sheltered in her shadow. Slowly she would lift the hem of her dress and catch them.

“In the cool of the morning and late afternoon we foraged for food along the river bank. My mother recognised the leaves of a tuber called per-sin-zar-ou; we knew them as sweet water potatoes. The shrivelled leaves indicated that the fat sweet tubers were hidden underground. The only river turtle's nests we came across were out of reach to us in the middle of the river on a sandbank. They had already been found and dug up by monitor lizards or wild pigs. I was terrified of big monitor lizards, which hissed aggressively if you approached them.

“The next morning we were woken up by the sound of dogs fighting. Looking through the gaps in the fisherman's hut, we saw a large pack of dogs drinking from the river. They looked feral. As hungry as we were we waited for the dogs to move on before leaving the hut to forage. That afternoon my mother lit a fire and cooked a meal of small fish and gram
[chickpeas].
We were about to eat when the pack of dogs suddenly reappeared and watched us – they would not go away despite us swearing at them in Burmese. Instead the dogs became bolder and growled when we threw sticks at them. We had no choice but to take our food up the ladder and into the hut where you were fast asleep. Some of the dogs tried to follow unsuccessfully. The dogs left just before darkness fell. My Mother said dogs did not like to be in the jungle at
night because of leopards. From then on we were always watchful in case the dogs returned; although we could hear them barking in the distance, they did not come back to the hut again. We had not seen the last of this pack of feral dogs.