Page 138 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
‘Why? Does it remind you of the Sylhet gardens of home?’ Adela asked.
‘Not because of that. It’s something Daddy said. He was born on a tea estate. I never knew that until he told me on my last visit home. All the talk of Kohima and Assam lately got him reminiscing; said his father was a Scots tea planter. Daddy grew up in Shillong, so I don’t know how that fits in, but he seemed quite proud of the connection.’
‘You’ll have to ask him more about it when you next see him,’ said Adela, feeling a sudden pang of homesickness for Belgooree.
Soon after, Adela crawled into the tent she was sharing with Prue and fell into exhausted sleep. In the morning she was woken by screams. Scrambling from the tent with Prue, they saw Betsie cowering in a canvas bath behind the tent flap.
‘Stop them!’ she squealed.
‘Stop who?’ Adela looked around wildly for attackers.
‘Up there!’ She waved a hand.
Adela looked up at the tree above. A crowd of monkeys were chattering loudly. Suddenly one hurled a twig at the naked Betsie. Prue picked it up and flung it back.
‘Don’t!’ Adela cried. ‘You won’t win.’
A shower of sticks rained down on them. Adela grabbed Betsie’s towel and held it over her. ‘Finish off quickly,’ she ordered and ducked at the same time. Prue took refuge in the tent. A minute later Adela was following, with Betsie bundled in the towel. They collapsed, laughing, in a hysterical heap. It was minutes before they could draw breath.
‘Are you boozing in there?’ Tommy shouted through the canvas. ‘What’s going on, girls?’
‘Monkey business,’ Adela snorted, which set them all off again.
They stayed three more days before the driver returned to collect them. On the last night one of the orderlies chucked a grenade in the river, which brought fish to the surface and a smile to the nurses’ faces when they dined on fish that evening.
Early the next morning Flowers and Adela hugged and wished each other good luck, promising to stay in touch. The ENSA troupe bumped their way back in the Jeep, their bodies jarred and bruised by the rutted road. The driver kept the hood down to allow the breeze to cool them, so that by the time they arrived back in Imphal they were all covered in a thick brown dust.
CHAPTER 29
Wavell, India’s new Viceroy and former Commander-in-Chief, was flown into Imphal on a Douglas Dakota transport plane, along with other dignitaries: Lieutenant-General Stopford, of the Indian Army’s 33rd Corps; Air Commodore Vincent; and Bodhchandra Singh, the Maharajah of Manipur, in whose state they had landed.
For once Sam was not piloting the plane. He had been detailed to make a film of the prestigious event for the SEAC film unit. It was to be a much-needed morale booster for the Indian army. There had been plenty of bitter talk, among officers as well as lower ranks, about their forgotten war on the Burma front. Sam, who had spent the past dangerous months flying supplies to beleaguered troops behind the Japanese lines and had witnessed the Herculean efforts of infantry, gunners and engineers to keep Kohima and Imphal from falling into enemy hands, knew more than most how deserving of their medals were the surviving soldiers.
His own fellow airmen had been no less heroic – the men of 194 Squadron whom he had joined near Rawalpindi in ’42. They had become his family – navigator ‘Chubs’ MacRae, his wireless operators and the ground crew of experienced older men who did twenty-hour shifts to keep the planes maintained. The camaraderie of the squadron had earned it the nickname ‘The Friendly Firm’. For weeks on end they had flown in supplies, transported troops, evacuated the wounded under cover of darkness and navigated the treacherous mountainous terrain without proper maps or radar systems. Using the stars and rivers on clear nights and memorising the lie of hills and valleys, Sam had got to know North Burma like the back of his hand.
He had landed on precarious strips of cleared jungle for Wingate’s Chindits, avoided Japanese night fighters to drop ammunition and water by parachute, and coaxed skittish mules on to his aircraft for use in the Burma mountains. The operations had been endless and punishing, but the worst risk to their transport drops so far was not enemy attack or the terrain, but the order to continue flying through the monsoon– and in daytime.
There was nothing as terrifying as flying into giant cauldrons of cumulonimbus clouds and being hurled around while deafening hail clattered like bullets on the metal aircraft. Sam’s jaw continually ached from being clenched. His heart would race, until he found the all-important hole in the cloud into which he could dive, hoping to find their drop zone and not a mountain wall. Chubs, clutching his homemade pinpoint map, stayed as calm as if they were scouting a picnic spot.
‘Anytime now would do nicely, Padre,’ he would encourage. Chubs had nicknamed Sam ‘The Padre’ after they discovered he’d once been a missionary.
Back at their Assam base at Agartala, in the humid officers’ mess they would toast their survival in gin and throw treats to their mascot in the compound, a pet Himalayan black bear. After a few snatched hours of exhausted sleep, their bearer would shake them awake, and the relentless round of flights would begin all over again.
But today Sam had a welcome diversion and respite as documentary maker. He relished being behind the camera observing once more.
He took close-up footage of the Viceroy inspecting troops of the 15th Punjab Regiment, Durham Light Infantry, Royal Berkshires, Royal Welsh Fusiliers and 1st Gurkha Rifles. Wavell presented medals. Sam filmed the men showing captured military hardware: mountain guns with wooden spoked wheels. Three prisoners of war were spoken to through a Japanese-American interpreter. Sam knew the significance of this: to show the world that the Allies treated their captured POWs with humanity– at least with food, shelter and medicines.
Next Wavell visited the hospital. Sam took some shots. The censors at the War Office could decide if the pictures of men shrunken by fever or bandaged beyond recognition were to be shown more widely. To him, these men should not be hidden away from a squeamish public; they deserved to receive just as much recognition as the medal wearers. But he doubted that they would.
As the VIPs took refreshment with the doctors, Sam stepped outside, enjoying the warm sunshine on his back. He never minded the heat in the hills; it was the humid, claustrophobic cities, like Calcutta, that sapped his energy and spirit.
As he finished a cigarette and waited for the Viceroy, a dusty Jeep drove into the compound and was stopped by guards. Sam was surprised to see three women clamber out of the back, their topees tipped back jauntily, laughing and shoving their male colleague playfully at some remark he must have made. They were blatantly flirting with the guards, trying to wheedle their way into getting a closer view of the VIP visit. Sam snorted in amusement. On a whim he raised his camera, which was strung around his neck, and focused it on the group. Through the lens he could just pick out the ENSA badges on their shirts. Nice, shapely figures. The dark-haired one pulled off her filthy hat and shook out her hair. A double for Vivien Leigh.
Sam’s heart thudded in his chest. It couldn’t possibly be. Without hesitating, he started to stride towards the noisy party. As he got close, the young woman looked over. Her eyes widened. Then she smiled and his stomach flipped over. Her face was streaked with dust and sweat, but she was even more beautiful than he’d remembered.
‘Adela.’
‘Sam.’
