Flight by Elephant by Andrew Martin Page A

white man they had ever seen close up, and they were now having a very good look.
    Millar risked another glance over to the fire, which the Mishmis had tried to damp down. But why had they lit it in the first place? Breakfast. On top of the fire were many parcels made of banana leaves; inside them, fish were being smoked. Bowing again at the Mishmis, Millar – who was ‘ravenous’ – began inching towards the fire. The Mishmis, who had settlements along the Debang river, were known to be expert fishermen. They would divert the water on the margins of a river by building stone dams; a small pool would be created at the termination of these, and after a while there would be fish in that pool.
    ‘To cut a long story short,’ wrote Millar, ‘we made great friends – not by words but by signs.’ The rest of the party were brought into the enclosure, including Leyden on his stretcher. A breakfast of smoked fish was eaten – and fast. A deal was then made with the Mishmis, who had been very interested in Millar’s .450 rifle when it had been glimpsed protruding from one of the packs carried by a Kachin. The tribes of Assam could make most things they needed from jungle materials, but they couldn’t make guns, and who could deny the usefulness of this particular one? It had saved the life of the party when they’d come upon the herd of sambhur, and it would now save their lives again. Millar offered his rifle to the Mishmis if they would assist in the trek west. The Mishmis agreed, and so further parcels of dried fish were loaded into the packs and they set off. ‘What a joy,’ wrote Millar, ‘our whole party intact and saved – except for little Misa.’
    In the late morning of that day – 2 June – they crossed the Noa Dehing in its lower reaches, Millar does not say how, but probably by boat, since they were now into inhabited territory. Thirty miles after leaving the Dapha confluence, they came to the mainly Buddhist village of Miao, which sat on the river’s left bank. They walked on, skirting the deep puddles of a rocky track. The jungle continued on either side, but it was sparser now, and flat, which was just as well since Leyden was still being carried on the stretcher. Looking left in gaps between the trees, they could see the misty outline of hills bristling with trees, through which the bigger evacuation route, the Hukawng Valley, ran. In the fading light of late afternoon on 4 June, they came to the tiny settlement known to the British – and only to the British – as Simon. (The locals called it Sangmo.) Here a small camp, and rice dump, had been established as a north-easterly outpost of the Hukawng Valley refugee relief effort, and, when they arrived here, Millar and Leyden finally knew they were safe.
    They were met – and ‘given a great welcome’ – by a man called J. A. Masson, a tea planter who had volunteered to work on the refugee relief effort. If they were given the meal that usually met the British Burma refugees then they would have had sausages, fried potatoes and sweet milky tea – none of that foreign muck, in short – but the meal is not recorded.
    Masson had heard rumours that people were trying to come through the Chaukan, and he told Millar and Leyden – which they already knew – that planes had been flying over to look for the Chaukan trekkers. Millar and Leyden told Masson of Sir John’s railway party, and the Rossiter party, of which two they were the advanced guard. Millar and Leyden said that a rescue effort had to be mounted immediately. Masson quite agreed, and what was more he knew just the man for the job.
    His name was Gyles Mackrell.
    Guy Millar knew Mackrell, too. He insisted that a runner be sent immediately to him.

The Man With Elephants
    Gyles Mackrell – the man whose name had caused such an upwelling of hope in Guy Millar – was working on the relief effort directed towards that major escape route, the Hukawng Valley, but he was rather out on a limb.