Page 136 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
‘Adela, my darling.’ Sophie grinned, her eyes glinting with tears. ‘I can’t believe it! You’re so grown up. Are you well? You look wonderful.’ She hugged her again.
‘I’m fine. So glad to see you. I’ve missed you and Rafi so much. And mother. You saw her recently?’
‘Yes, and she’s as amazing as ever. Running everything without a fuss. Missing you, of course.’
Adela gave a rueful smile. ‘Maybe.’
‘Not maybe. Yes!’ Sophie insisted, swinging her arm around Adela’s damp shoulders.
They hardly had time to gabble out their news before Sophie was due to make the arduous drive back to Dimapur with two wounded sappers.
‘Poor boys. Got burnt in a mess-tent accident. One will need an amputation unless we can save his arm at the main hospital. Besides, the field hospital is packing up and moving down beyond Imphal.’
‘Haven’t things stopped for the monsoon?’ Adela asked.
‘Apparently not. Looks like the orders are to push on into Burma after the Japanese, despite the monsoon.’
‘Sam Jackman’s flying planes,’ Adela blurted out. ‘And making films for the forces. Have you come across him?’
‘No,’ said Sophie with a sympathetic smile, ‘but that doesn’t mean he’s not here. There are thousands of us.’
‘Of course,’ said Adela, feeling foolish and adding hastily, ‘I saw Boz in a newsreel about Kohima. He looked very calm and in charge.’
Sophie gave a broad smile. ‘Good for Major Boz. I’m so glad to hear it. I knew his artillery company was here, but I haven’t come across him either. He could be on leave or moved further to the front.’
They kissed goodbye. ‘You’ll find me at the divisional hospital in Dimapur,’ Sophie said. ‘Please call on your way through, won’t you?’
‘Promise,’ Adela said and smiled, hating to be parted so soon after being reunited.
‘And take good care of yourself!’
Over the next few days Adela badgered for them to be sent on to Imphal. ‘From what I hear, the place is chock-a-block with front-line troops, as well as a major field hospital.’
Tommy tried but failed to get them taken by plane, but a week later, in mid-August, they took the more hazardous road route among a convoy of engineers. After two days’ travel through shattered jungle, along roads on which sappers worked like Trojans in the incessant rain to lay tracks in the liquid mud, they reached the amphitheatre of Imphal, nestled in the hills.
That afternoon The Toodle Pips performed in a makeshift overflow ward of the field hospital for bed-bound officers, a mixture of newly arrived wounded and sick from the front. There appeared to be more men dying from illness– dengue fever, malaria and an outbreak of typhus caused by ticks– than from battle wounds.
After they finished and were leaving, a man from a corner bed called out hoarsely, ‘Miss Robson! Brava, Adela!’
She turned in surprise. He was gaunt and sallow-faced– probably jaundiced– and his hair shorn. Something about the brown eyes was familiar.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ he said, attempting a smile, his eyes betraying disappointment. ‘Jimmy Maitland. Simla, ’37. I was on leave at Craig Dhu, the officers’ hostel.’
‘Jimmy!’ Adela gasped. ‘Of course I remember.’ She hid her shock at the change in him. The young Scots artillery captain who had dated her that Simla summer had been robust and athletic, with thick dark hair and a cheeky dimpled smile. She had corresponded with him for a few months and then lost interest. ‘How wonderful to see you. Not in here, of course, but good all the same. How are you?’
He smiled. ‘All the better for seeing you. You’re as bonny as ever– and sing just as sweetly as I remember.’
‘And you’re as charming as I remember.’ Adela grinned. ‘So you’re one of the heroes of Imphal?’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t do anything more than the other boys.’ His expression tightened. She sensed the subject was too raw to talk about. Instead she asked him about his family. He’d been back home on leave in Scotland when the war broke out.
‘And you, Adela?’ He reached for her hand with his bony one. ‘No ring on your finger yet. Does that mean there’s still hope for a love-struck major?’
‘Major now, are you? Well, you never know.’ Adela laughed.
‘I’m sorry we lost touch,’ said Jimmy. He was too gallant to blame her for stopping writing.
‘I left Simla in ’38 and went to England,’ Adela explained. ‘I should have let you know.’
