Escape to Pagan by Brian Devereux Page B

behind them. Many families were separated from their loved ones. They would never see each other again. Some of the arriving planes circled and left without landing. I began to cry. We would not be going to India. Mother decided to leave the airport.
    â€œWalking away from the airfield, many of the greatly disappointed people decided to make the trek to India on foot via the Hakawng Valley. It was rumoured by the refugees from Rangoon that a mass exodus to India on foot was expected by the British Administration in India; food and shelter had been organized along the way for the refugees. This may have been true initially, but we found out later all assistance had ended after a few weeks. People who still believed help was available left with few of the necessities of life and perished. Thank God for my mother’s good judgement. She refused to go.
    â€œMany other refugees were convinced that if they stayed together in one large group, the strong helping the weak, it would be possible to reach India. People said it would only take two to three weeks to cover a distance of a hundred miles. But there was one immense problem: the pending monsoon. Not many people had taken this important fact into account. After the war we heard that hundreds of families had disappeared along the trail to India. Some of these poor people were friends of our family.
    â€œWithout a doubt my mother’s total refusal to be persuaded by me to join the vast throng of fleeing refugees, saved our lives. The Hakawng Valley became known as the Valley of Death.”

    The Trek to India: The Empire’s 1812
    This retreat was the British Empire’s 1812. Instead of marauding Cossacks there were the voracious retreating Chinese soldiers; instead ofsnow there was rain; instead of biting frosts there were biting malarial mosquitoes and typhus-carrying ticks. Instead of slippery ice-bound dirt roads there were slippery muddy paths and steep hills; instead of black crows overhead, there were circling vultures.
    Both retreats left their trail of human detritus for many years afterwards. It was not difficult to retrace the route taken by the refugees, their jungle vine entwined skeletons marked the way. These late trekkers had been coaxed by the administrators to linger till the eleventh hour. British soldiers escaping to India had to harden their hearts at the sights of misery along the way. Whole families sat helplessly under the dripping leaves, their sunken eyes blazing with typhus fever. Healthy and strong members of a family waited for the weak, until they themselves succumbed.
    A fortunate few, anticipating the danger, left early. These people did not believe the picture of false hope placed on a crumbling wall of a dying empire. At the beginning there was some organization. These lucky ones had a pleasant journey to safety. They were taken over the rivers by boat, sometimes even riding on elephants.
    The brave soldiers who fought as a rearguard were coldly received in India by the pen-pushers and armchair warriors. These officers found this a convenient opportunity to look down with contempt on these fighting men from Burma. Their reason it is said: “they no longer looked like soldiers.”
    It was first claimed that the Japanese (who walked into Burma) would soon run out of supplies. The Japanese were in fact short of everything. Perhaps the British Generals in charge of the fighting had a secret weapon to delay the enemy; they left behind vast amounts of supplies. The enemy however were not always happy with their booty of tinned dairy products. Like the Chinese, the Japanese did not eat such food, as it upset their rice-loving stomachs. Milk they considered was only fit for calves. However, we also left behind cases of Andrews liver salts, which the Japs used to clean their teeth and add to soft drinks for the fizz. There were also mountains of bully beef, rice, white flour, sugar and even vitamins; everything to balance the diet