Escape to Pagan (6 page)

“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 harmless 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.”