Evening star., 1942-04-01
Refugees
Continued From First Page.)

to reach Monywa, on the Chindwin
River.
I'VE spent the night there in mat
huts erected for evacuees and had
to wait two more days before we
could get our trucks on a stern
wheeler launch to go up the Chind-
win. The water was only 3 to
feet deep in the river, so two men
had to keep sounding it with poles
all the time. They kept that up all
day Saturday and Sunday and un-
til late Monday afternoon, when we
landed at Kalewa, $50 miles north
and on the western bank Of the
Chindwin.
THE next day we started the
trucks again, driving through the
jungles from Z o'clock in the morn
ing until at night, mostly in low
gear. We saw lots of leopards and
snakes that day and had to drive
through dozens of shallow streams
because there were nc bridges at all
The next day, Wednesday, we
made another long tough trip, but
we reached Tamu, on the Indian
border, and that's where we turned
over our truck to Burmese govern
ment people who were constructing
road.
AT Tamu we had to get coolies to
carry our luggage because we had
to do the next three days on foot
British officials there had fixed the
rate for coolies at rupees (about
S1.35) for three days of mountain
climbing, but the coolies were hiding
in the jungles in the daytime be-
cause they said the trip was much
too hard and underpaid. Finally,
we got coolies by paying each about
four times the fixed rate and, believe
me, they earned every cent. 1t was
the toughest three days travelling
ever hope to do in my life.
"You could hire rough bamboo
chairs at Tamu, but we all pre-
ferred to walk, including the wom-
en-. We set out at 10 at night,
crossed the river and had climbed
1,700 feet by $3.50 the next morning.
We then slept on the ground for
two hours but almost froze. 1t was
bitter cold. To get warm, we start
ed again at 6 in the morning, but
during the night we had passed an
elephant camp. We could hear
them eating bamboos, but our
coolies were very scared and
wouldn't stop. They almost ran
until they couldn't hear the ele-
plants any more.
once that day the trail went
straight down, about 1900 feet, to
the river bed. 1t was hellishly
steep. We never had seen any
thing like it. That was the place
where Charlie Hogg had 10 walk
down backwards. I mean it. He
actually did go down backwards, be-
cause his leg muscles were so sore
from climbing.
"All day it was nothing but wild
mountains and jagged trails be-
tween boulders, winding up and
down. BY sundown we were all
dog-tired and had a wonderful sur
prise We had finally reached an
evacuee camp built by the Bonn
bay-Burma Trading Co. and man
aged by an Anglo-Burman chap
named Goldberg. He was a wonder,
and his first words were, There's tea
waiting for you
Goldberg had built a model camp
and even had a doctor there, who
was busy treating his first case of
cholera. OF course, we had all been
inoculated before we started out
and were very glad we had. Once
we stopped at hut, but the coolies
urged us to hurry on because man,
dead from cholera, was lying inside.
I'VE slept in mat hutS that night
and started on at 5 in the morning.
That day we had the stiffest climb
you could imagine. We climbed
from 1900 to 5000 feet, then went
down to 1900, then back up to $500
feet and dropped back to 1000. But
that was only starter. We climbed
again to 4,20O, went down to about
$500 and climbed to 1890. 1t was
terribly steep going by that time,
but we went down another 1000 feet,
then up another nudge ridge to $500
feet, all in one day; and, besides.
there were countless small ranges in
between. 1t was simply terrific and
In IL hours of hiking we had only
advanced II miles.
"All the way, we kept meeting
docks of Indian refugees with their
wives and children Little tots
struggled along, carrying bundles
On their heads. Babies were being
born beside the road. I don't know
I