Dark Moon over Burma

By Maurice P Gaynor

Allison Reyleigh, seventeen, leaves the convent in England to return to her father who is at the Government House in Rangoon. It is 1941, and she escapes the start of WW2 in Europe only to find the Japanese on the outskirts of Burmah.

Her father puts her on a boat bound for Calcutta in India while he retreats with the British forces to Mandalay. The boat is bombed and turns back to Rangoon, where Allison is stranded. She is saved by the old Amah and her granddaughter, Lete, as they hide out in the deserted city and send word to her father who comes to find her.

Helped by a young clerk from her fathers office, Mathew Ranger, they escape before the advancing army, pursued by the relentless Japanese Captain Moto, and flee into the forest and mountains as they make their way to the border and safety of India. They are accompanied by an American flyer, Bud Wesley, who is with the American volunteers, flying over the Hump for General Stillwell as they help the Chinese repel the Japanese, and the beautiful Chinese interpreter Mei Ling, also the Chin fighter Amusan, who is known as the Tiger of the Hills.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546286066

Maurice P Gaynor

Maurice Gaynor, born in India just before WW2, came to England in 1955 and settled in London, where he worked on British Rail while he pursued his hobbies as a writer and photographer with moderate success. A play for TV, at a time when television was in its infancy in black and white, about a London detective won a prize of a 100 but was never produced, so he went into building and decorating as more lucrative. He continued writing at night and wrote books for children, and thrillers; also books of poetry.

Book preview

Chapter One

THE GOVERNOR’S

DAUGHTER

January 10. 1942. Rangoon.

The early morning sunlight filtered through the lattice of bougainvillea that surrounded the window. A gentle breeze billowed the fine mesh of the curtains that were draped around the bed. Allison opened her eyes, for a moment disorientated by the unfamiliar surroundings as she wondered where she was. Then the events of the past few weeks came flooding back to her as she recalled the hurried departure from the Convent and the dark gray atmosphere of war torn England that she had left behind.

The long voyage by boat around the Cape that had seemed endless, sweltering in the heat of the Indian Ocean as the small passenger liner chugged its way across the endless water, hugging the coast to avoid the threat of German raiders, stopping at the ports along the way until it reached Rangoon.

When the ship had docked, she was a bit surprised to find that a young man called Mathew Ranger, a junior clerk of her father’s staff, had been assigned to meet her and to help her with her luggage. Fortunately for him, this consisted of two small meagre looking leather cases, which held all her possessions and a canvas hold-all with brass buckles which was by far the heaviest as it was packed with unnecessary books. It was all she could take with her because of the restrictions imposed due to the war effort, but which she had no great difficulty in filling.

Allison had tried to hide her disappointment that her father was not there to greet her, even though she was glad to be home again and hear the familiar sound of the Burmese people as they laughed and greeted one another on the dockside. It was as though she had suddenly remembered that in this part of the world no one can speak under a shout as if across a busy street, for fear of not being heard, and as if the bonds had been broken her voice was also raised a pitch or two above normal.

‘Where’s my father?’ she had asked sharply of the junior clerk as he picked up her cases and led the way off the ship. ‘I would have thought he would be here to meet me. I sent him a wire some days ago. He must have known I was coming.’

‘Oh, he did, and he asked me to convey his regret that he was unable to come himself. You can rest assured, Missy, he would most certainly have been here, except that there was a meeting with the Chief of Staff, and he couldn’t get away in time.’ In his strange singsong voice, he had tried to explain the situation as they were making their way down the gangplank. ‘So, he sent me instead, and I hope that I can be of some service to you. Sorry that I am not the usual welcoming committee that you are used to, but you see I was the only one available. But I did manage to get a car - and a driver!’ he added by way of appeasement.

‘What has happened to the Adjutant? Isn’t it his duty to replace my father in State matters so that he can get away for a few hours on other important business? Does he have to be on duty all the time? I think it is disgraceful! If my mother was here this sort of thing would never have been allowed to take place.’

‘Regrettably, Captain Bowden-Smith was also busy. I’m so sorry, Missy! You see, there’s a bit of a flap on.’

He seemed sincere in his apologies, even though he appeared to be hot and flustered in his dark suit and tie, as if he had dressed for the occasion. She gave a grimace and screwed up her nostrils as if there was a nasty smell. She wished he wouldn’t call her ‘Missy’, coming from him it sounded so ‘shee-shee’.

‘I was expecting something better,’ she seemed disgruntled. ‘After all I have been away for over a year. And my name is not Missy, it’s Allison.’

For some unknown reason his discomfort served to bring a smile to Allison’s lips and she felt a twinge of guilt as she realized that before she had barely set foot back on what was regarded as a Crown colony, here she was slipping back into feelings of a superior ruling class attitude reserved strictly for the English masters. The guilt arising from the feeling that she was enjoying it, and something that she hadn’t been able to indulge in during her two-year sojourn in England. Having succeeded in unsettling the young man, she now felt sorry for him and tried to make conversation by asking him to explain himself.

‘A flap? What kind of a flap?’ she enquired as they followed the disembarking passengers.

‘Well, it’s not for me to say, Miss - er – Allison’ he declared hesitantly. ‘Most of the regular staff have left Rangoon. The Governor’s office has been dismantled, and moved north to Mandalay. There are only a few left. It’s a military matter; all I know is that there was a lot of big brass around. I’m sure your father will explain the situation when you get home.’

He didn’t say any more and Allison was left to wonder what he meant by that as they joined the line of people making their way off the boat.

Her lips were pressed in a fine line and she squinted in the bright sunlight as she stepped gingerly along the canopied incline. She was conscious of her straight hair that was hanging limp on either side of her face, poking out from under the straw hat with the ribbon and the simple print dress which made her look what she was, a schoolgirl straight out of a convent. Compared to the bright splashes of scarlet ankle length longyis that she could see on the dockside, and the women in their colourful national costumes, she must have looked like a refugee sparrow that had just come in from the rain.

Allison looked around anxiously at the unfamiliar surroundings. The last few years that she had spent at the Convent of The Sisters of Mercy in a secluded area of Hove on the south coast of England, had only served to make her passionately aware of her own shortcomings. This was another world that she had now been hurriedly thrown into, one that she had almost forgotten, where none of the good sisters had ever envisaged that one of their charges would have to face in so short space of time, but from what Allison could recall they had simply tut-tutted in their good old British do-goody manner as if the ways of the outside world was not really their concern.

The stentorian tones of Mother Superior. ‘Your father, Sir Jeffery, has written.’ She held up a sheet of paper, and Allison could just make out the crown motif in gold that was standard on government letterheads. ‘But that was dated the 10th of November, which was three weeks ago, since then I have received an urgent telegram also from your father. You are to go and stay with your Aunt Amelia, in Cheshire. I have written to her to come and collect you, or to make other arrangements. The school closes in another three days for the Winter holidays. As you know we are closing early because of the expected bad weather, but of course you can remain here until appropriate under the circumstances.’ Her voice trailed away.

It was no use protesting that her passage was already booked on the SS Batory out from Southampton, and to cancel it now would be unthinkable. She wondered what her father was thinking about. It was out of character for him to change his mind at such short notice. At that time in England the cold weather was already closing in, and the snow was sweeping in from the North, causing drifts that were almost three feet high. Once that happened they could be locked in with icy roads and only the trains would be running.

Later that evening she spoke about it to her true friend the novice Sister Bridget, who was only just a little older that she was, when she managed to catch her alone that same evening as she hurried along one of the cold draughty corridors.

‘Oh, my goodness, Alli! What are you going to do?’ Bridget inquired, as they hurried towards the chapel for evening prayers. ‘But wouldn’t it be nicer for you at your Aunt Amelia’s grand house in the country, I’m sure. You’ll be comfortable there. At least you won’t have to rush out and find a job, but you can take your time.’

‘Oh, I can’t go and stay there,’ she had told Bridget, keeping her voice low. ‘She’s an old battle-axe. It will be just like being ruled by Mother Superior all over again. If I can get to Southampton I will be able to get away. Once I am on the high seas they won’t be able to stop me, and I can send her a telegram that I am going home. You have got to help me, Bridie.’

The young Irish nun had looked uncertain. She came from a large family in Castletown, in County Mayo, a quiet little village on the west coast of Ireland. It would be a terrible disgrace if she were to get into trouble and was sent back home. But she also knew what it was like to be brought up without a mother as her own mother had died when she was young. In this way she had a little in common with the young English lass who was also far from home and her beloved father. She also knew she had her own stubborn streak by living the rough and tumble ways of five raucous brothers and three older sisters. At nights she sometimes overheard the stories of the ‘Black and Tans’, the crude army of thugs who were conscripted from prisons, and who the English had sent over to help police the southern counties, and of the harsh way they treated the local Irish at home, perhaps in some slight way she felt she could get her own back on the occupiers who had ravaged her country by helping this young girl to ‘put one over ‘em.’ So, she nodded.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said, making a swift sign of the cross as they were passing a statue of St. Jude. ‘No one has told me not to, so it’s not as if I am doing anything sinful. As long as you are certain it’s what you want.’

‘I need to join the group that is catching the transport to the station. If you can only help me to put my cases with the others, then I can slip onto the bus without being seen. I have some money to buy a train ticket to Southampton, and I think the train goes right into the docks where the ships are. My passage for the boat is already booked, with my ticket waiting for me. I only must pick it up from the purser’s office. Oh, please Bridie!’

‘Oh, is that all you want me to do!’ The girls put their heads together and began to giggle. ‘Now, I thought you were going to ask me to do something reelly bad.’

And so, she had made up her mind. As her cases were already packed, she joined the group of girls headed for the station, leaving a note with Sister Bridget to give to the Mother Superior, to say she was making her own way to her Aunt Amelia’s residence in Cheshire, and managed to go on board the ship just a few hours before it was due to leave.

She didn’t know, not that it would have mattered to her at the time, that under cover of darkness a contingent of Lancashire Fusiliers had embarked aboard ship and were billeted somewhere below in the bowels of the ship. She kept to her cabin for the most part of the journey being seasick and only met some of the junior officers when she joined them on deck during the last week of an uneventful voyage. She had barely got to know them when they had orders to disembark as soon as they arrived at Calcutta. The next stop had been the port of Rangoon. It was almost as if she was starting a new life again.

To take her mind off the depressing thought she began to wonder about the young man who had introduced himself when he came on board to help her with her luggage. He looked very mature though she guessed he was only a few years older than herself. From the lightly tanned complexion she could tell that he wasn’t a local boy and from his way of speaking it was obvious that he was of mixed blood. Yet she couldn’t help admiring the almost perfect line of his handsome face with dark eyes accentuated by black eyebrows and the hair swept back from his forehead in a sporty way like the feathers of a bright cockatoo. As she followed him she could see that his jacket was a little tight and the muscles of his arms threatened to burst the seams as he struggled with her cases down the narrow gangplank to the dockside.

‘I’m surprised that you decided to come back to Burma at a time like this, Miss Allison,’ he said, speaking over his shoulder. ‘Everyone else is packing up and thinking about leaving the country.’

‘Are they leaving? I hadn’t heard anything like that. But then I’ve been at sea for the last six weeks.’

‘Oh, yes, they are fleeing in droves. Mostly the Indians and the Chinese; ever since the Japs bombed the docks and the railway lines. Some of the English are staying, of course, but they have been given orders to leave Rangoon, even the Governor who has left to set up shop in Maymyo. You know that your father is now the Deputy Governor and he’s staying at the Governor’s residence.’

‘I didn’t know that. What is the situation now? Everything seems quite peaceful – I mean since last year. Isn’t it?’

‘It’s been peaceful since then; but that was just before Christmas. We can’t say how long it will stay like that.’

‘But what do you think is going to happen?’

Mathew stayed quiet for a long moment until they reached the bottom of the gangway and were on firm ground once again. He put the suitcases and the hold-all down and looked around the perimeter as if he was catching his breath. Allison thought he had not heard her question. Something or someone caught his attention among the other passengers and then he dismissed it and looked away.

‘We will have to evacuate Rangoon shortly, or we will all be killed,’ the young man said softly, as if he was confiding something that was for her ears only. ‘No one seems to realize that the main Japanese army is only a few thousand miles away. They are not going to stop simply because England protects Singapore. First the US, then the French and now the British. Who is going to stop them?’

He was taller than Allison, and she noticed that she only came up to his shoulder. In fact, as most of the Burmese people were short she observed that he could look over the top of their heads quite easily, and he seemed to be searching for someone. With a quick movement he stripped off his jacket and tucked it under his arm.

‘Are there any of the English families still here in Rangoon?’

‘Oh yes, quite a few. They must set an example. Stiff upper lip and that sort of thing. They won’t give up the country that easily. What with the war with Germany, and the Japs who have been doing a bit of sabre rattling. You’ve heard about the Japs of course.’

‘Yes, of course.’ The truth was she hadn’t given it much thought, but now she was beginning to feel worried, just a bit, a slight wobbly feeling in her stomach, like butterflies or even crawly caterpillars. She put it out of her mind. She would be safe with her father.

‘The situation has been a little unsettled,’ he was saying. ‘But perhaps you didn’t know about that when you left England, a bit like the frying pan and the fire, don’t you think?’

‘I had no choice,’ she replied, perhaps a little too forcefully in case he thought she was just some silly schoolgirl. ‘My time at the Convent had come to an end, so there was nowhere else for me to go. So, I decided to come home to my father. I only managed to get a passage at the last minute. A cabin had been reserved, but I had to be there to confirm it, of course.’ She added lamely.

‘Of course!’

Mathew had managed to grab hold of a dockside coolie to carry the suitcases and the young girl’s hold-all, which he noticed was tied securely with a length of jute string around where the canvas had started to split, and the edge of a book was protruding. Even the suitcases had seen better days, the poor girl, she was quite young, a bit gauche, yet the fact that she had a suitcase at all set her apart from the bedding-roll contingent. A tatty label on the handle was hand printed with the name ‘Miss Allison Rayleigh, 37 Charlbagh Road, Calcutta. India.’ He remembered vaguely that it was a rather posh residential area just off Chowringhee where most of the Government officers had large colonial style houses. He had ridden past there sometimes on his bicycle while on his way to school. There were large white stone pillars with iron railings, and sometimes even a uniformed ‘havildar’ guarding the gates.

The other label just said ‘Government House, Rangoon’. With the coolie leading the way, they joined the melee on the dock side.

Allison had noticed there were several Indians disembarking among them, who were dressed in long tunic style jackets that reached down to their knees and with high buttoned collars.

They pushed their way through the throng of people and made their way to where a car was waiting.

When she finally met her father, he had seemed pleased to see her, but she sensed an underlying feeling that she wasn’t welcome.

‘I wish you had consulted me about your plans,’ he had said rather testily. ‘It would have been better for you to have stayed in England, with your Aunt Amelia, at Culloden House. You seemed to have got on very well with her in the past - didn’t you? I sent a telegram to Mother Superior. Perhaps it was delayed. I suppose like everything else, these days the standards appear to be slipping, even at home.’ She didn’t say anything. After a while he seemed to be appeased to having her there.

But Allison had been quite surprised when she greeted her father.

He appeared to have aged considerably since she had last seen him, with lines of worry creasing his face. He had asked her how she was, and they talked for a short while, and that was it. After that he had handed her over to the ‘Amah’.

‘You remember the old Amah. She used to take care of you when you were little. And then there’s her grandchild Lette; you practically grew up with her. She’ll help you to get settled.’

Then he had become involved in other matters and appeared preoccupied and she was left on her own.

It had taken her a week to settle in to a way of life that was quite different to what she had known for the past few years. She began to get used to the round of social events in the small English community. If it wasn’t for the old Amah and Lette she would have felt lost in this big house. In a way it reminded her of a big hotel. Everything was so huge, with the rooms and the staircase to the main hall, it was all done on such a grand scale, with none of the intimacy of the houses in England where they were huddled close together as if for warmth from the biting winter wind. Even the smell of the air and the sounds had changed completely, and what she had known before she was dispatched to England were beginning to come back into her consciousness, it was as if she is coming home again. The last living memory she had of this country was of running barefoot through the dust and feeling the rain on her face. It was all so confusing.

* * * *

There was a whisper of bare feet on the marble floor as the Amah came into the room and drew back the mosquito net from around the bed.

‘Is my bath water ready, Amah?’ Allison asked as she slipped out from between the sheets.

‘Of course, it is all ready and waiting for you, Missy.’ The gentle olive-skinned woman spoke softly. Her long delicate fingers reached out and stroked Allison’s golden hair with almost a caress as she smoothed the sleep-ruffled strands.

Allison had been surprised when she had first seen her again, on the day of her return. In her appearance the old nurse hadn’t aged at all, with her smooth skin her face was almost without blemish. But Allison was glad that Lette was there. They were nearly the same age and there were lots to discuss and giggle about. It was like old times.

‘I have waited since one hour for you to awake,’ the Amah said. ‘You have got into bad habit since you been away. But you will be all right now, now that I am here to look after you. You will have to hurry if you are to be with your father to attend the big parade.’

‘Oh, I had forgotten about that. I suppose I will have to go, but I may be going with someone else. I don’t think I will want to stand on the rostrum with all those people in their uniforms.’

The Amah smiled knowingly. ‘He must be nice boy, yes?’

She felt her face flush. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t say anything about a boy. Who are you referring to?’

‘That Bowden-Smith boy, the one you danced with last night, and then came home long after midnight. Your father was very angry. Yes, Amah knows everything. Now if he’s the one you going with this morning, don’t you go running around like gibbon-monkey. You make him wait, - not too much mind you, just a little bit. That make him anxious, and he wonder if he got the time wrong and he the one who’s late.’

Allison laughed. ‘I sometimes think you must be evil right down to your toes, Amah. Only I know better. You wouldn’t even hurt a fly.’

The old nurse straightened the silk sheets on the bed. ‘Yes, my father taught me to be good Buddhist. You don’t kill fly because he may be ancestor. But we have eleven in our family, seven girls and plenty boyfriends. Between us girls they don’t have any chance. So, I know about these things. Now come and have your bath. Everything is prepared just like when you were a little child and I used to get you ready for school ever since your good mother died. She was a lovely lady. So kind. Then your father sent you away to posh school in England. But I knew you would come back. This your home. You belong here.’

‘And I am truly glad to be back. You’d never believe how cold and damp it could be in England. There’s a lot of trouble there, with all the bombing, even though I was far away from all that. At least here nothing seems to have changed.’ She didn’t say that what she had missed most were the servants who did everything for her. She didn’t have to lift a finger. She was looking forward to enjoying herself and was determined to make up for the years that she had lost while she was away. Then she noticed the worried look in the Amah’s eyes. ‘What is it, Amah? Is something troubling you?’

‘There will be many changes here, my little one. Nothing will be the same again. There is much trouble ahead for all of us.’

‘But the war with Germany is much too far away to affect us, isn’t it? At least that’s what Jimmy said only last night.’

The Amah shook her head. ‘It is much closer than that. They will come from over the hills, from the East. The Nippon army is already on our doorstep. There is much talk in the market place. The Indian traders are already starting to close up their shops and flee from the land. But don’t you trouble yourself, Missy. Your father will protect you. After all he is acting Governor, now that the real Governor is away.’

‘But they wouldn’t dare attack the British colonies, would they?’

‘It is not for us to question what God has already decided. Enough of these thoughts, they are not for a young mind such as yours. Go and bathe and make yourself beautiful.’

Allison indulged herself, it was a pleasure that she had denied herself for too long. She remembered how much she had missed the simple pleasure of sluicing the cool water over her body with a large enamel mug so that it ran down onto the marble floor and simply disappeared through a hole in the wall. It was such a change from the cold enamel bath tubs in England. It was like standing under a waterfall. She felt refreshed.

When she was dry, Allison slipped into the soft silk dressing gown that the Amah held for her and sat down at the small bamboo table on the balcony, where a tall glass of sherbet was already placed there for her. She sighed happily as she looked around her, relishing the sounds and the heady scent of the tropical garden and the myriad colours of the bougainvillea that surrounded the Governor’s residence.

Even at that hour of the morning she knew that the house was a hive of activity, as the various departments prepared for the day. Throughout the marble corridors bare-footed maids, dressed only in a cool longyi would whisper