Escape to Pagan Read Free

“haiku” (a farewell poem).
    â€œSayonara, sayonara, when
The cherry blossoms fall I will return
    Look for me at Yasukuni Shrine Mother.”
    Nipponese soldiers also loved their mothers.

    â€œMy mother and I carried all that we possessed. To add to the difficulty of our situation you had the habit of bolting. We were so tired andgot fed up of chasing you and calling you all kinds of names, for our shouting could give our position away to anyone nearby. God knows how many dangerous wild animals were in the vicinity that could have snatched you.”

    Being deeply religious my grandmother and mother never swore at me in English. Swearing in Burmese, it seems, was not a sin: “Come here you little …” or “wait till I get my hands on you – you little …” When older, I began to understand Burmese swear words, and then realized what they were calling me. It still makes me smile.

    â€œApart from the advancing enemy, another immediate danger to us was trying to avoid the desperate locust-like retreating Chinese Army. They would take everything we had as they were starving themselves, poor men. These ravenous Chinese soldiers left a trail of their own dead in burnt out Burmese villages.
    â€œWhen our small group passed through such a destroyed village, the fire blackened skulls looked evil in the half light of evening. My mother could always recognize the skulls of Chinese soldiers by the worn v-shaped gap between their front teeth due to a lifetime habit of cracking open dried salted pumpkin seeds. Their dead were placed in huts which became their funeral pyres. We were now alone, two women and a child hoping to avoid capture. My mother led us deeper into the wild …”

CHAPTER 2
    Golden Hill
    MAINLAND CHINA
    Sergeant Jack Devereux lay prone and semi-conscious on the Golden Hill battlefield. He had been shot through the head by an explosive or hollow-point bullet fired from the standard Japanese 6.5 calibre Arisaka rifle. The bullet had entered his left temple exiting from the back of his neck, leaving a gaping wound and many small fragments. Every now and then his body twitched and periodically went into violent spasm as the shattered and torn nerves in his head and neck struggled to function. From the corner of his right eye he glimpsed a single stray dog wandering among the dead and dying. The Sergeant could taste stale congealed blood in his mouth.
    A sound slowly began to seep into Sergeant Devereux’s pain-ridden thoughts; it slowly began to awaken him from his dreams of oblivion. The sound grew louder, a humming drone, the pitch of which rose and fell lingering around his shattered throbbing head. His brain was still numb from the impact of the Japanese bullet and struggled to analyze the sound and the reason he could no longer control his once strong body. Other thoughts also troubled him. Where was D Company? Where was Lieutenant Ford? Why was he alone? They had both led the counter-attack on Golden Hill.
    These questions would remain unanswered; he could not move his head and look around. If he could, he would see the droning sound was coming from clouds of glinting, swollen green flies who were attending him. He had become the lord of the flies. As his body was paralyzed he was unaware of them crawling over his deep head and neck wounds. The flies were paying him homage while laying their eggs; for the maggots of some species prefer helpless living tissue over rotting dead flesh.
    Sometimes he heard the voice of a human being groaning in despair and pain; he later realized the sounds were coming from his own parched throat. He craved water. The Sergeant continued to study the same few inches of Chinese real estate that his one open eye could see; instead of grass, he saw a glutinous mess of congealed blood and pieces of his own raw flesh, framed by small splinters of white bone from his shattered skull and jaw. His thoughts drifted to his young wife Kate