barefoot and looked about twelve years old. While one watched us the others inspected the lorry and they soon found some of the bread we had brought. The soldiers ate ravenously. Cyril and Victor both spoke a little Chinese and explained our situation; they even offered to give the Chinese soldiers a lift. This had little effect on the soldiers. One soldier asked us if we had any arms and ammunition.
âBoth my brothers replied ânoâ. Cyril and Victor had hidden their guns under the wooden box seat we had been sitting on in the front cab covered with our blankets. With that, one of the Chinese soldiers climbed back onto the lorry and began going through our possessions.This made my two brothers angry and it took my sister Lucy and I to restrain Victor. If it was not for their rifles Victor would have flattened both of them, for he was a big and powerful man but with two women hanging onto his arms there was little he could do. The Chinese soldiers then asked for our money and valuables; this time their rifles were pointing directly at us. We were now in despair and knew we would miss our train and the flight to India; we could also be shot.
âIt was then that a large party of tattooed Shan tribesmen approached from out of the jungle. All were heavily armed. The Chinese soldiers became afraid and lowered their rifles. There was no love lost between the two races. These wild looking tribesmen seemed to know Cyril. He spoke their language fluently. They demanded the Chinese soldiersâ rifles, which were found to be empty; they then took their watches and rings. The Chinese soldiers were then tied up in the cruel way of the Shans and led away. Cyril thanked the headman of the tribe and gave him one of his guns. He said the tribesmen would take the Chinese soldiers out of sight, make them kneel and club them to death which was their traditional and silent method of killing without wasting bullets. My brothers then buried their remaining guns at the jungles edge, at the request of my mother; it was no longer safe to carry them. On two occasions during the war, Cyril joined the hill tribes ambushing Japanese patrols. At the site of the ambush they hid sharpened bamboo stakes covered in poison in the undergrowth to impale the enemy when they took cover.
âWe slowly resumed our journey to the station; Cyril thought we might just make it if the roads were not blocked. I could not help thinking of those poor starving Chinese soldiers that would soon be killed.
âVictor began driving the lorry very fast and on several occasions I screamed when it looked as if we were going to fall hundreds of feet into the jungle-clad valley below. All the time I was praying that Jack was alive and we would reach the station in time.â
CHAPTER 4
The Perfumed Harbour
PALESTINE & HONG KONG
After his marriage to Kate Talbot, Sergeant Jack Devereuxâs Regiment, the 1st Battalion Royal Scots, was posted from Mandalay, Burma, to Palestine, where they became a machine gun battalion. To the new recruits just out from Edinburgh, Palestine sounded exotic after the cold and windy confines of Maryhill, Edinburgh Castle and the other frigid, frost bound barracks. Images of romantic desert oasis, sunshine and a scattering of orange trees dripping with fruit came to mind (oranges were as rare in Glasgow as golden oracles). There would be plenty of cheap booze and bints. The new recruits had heard of the pleasures of Cairo with its bars and bordellos. Palestine proved a great disappointment.
There were no whispered invitations to visit their very cheap, very young, very clean and very pretty sister. This damsel or dam would be reclining somewhere in the Arab Quarter, smelling of jasmine and admiring her henna painted hands with sleepy dark almond eyes; eyes that dreamily gazed out between long mascara laden lashes (mascara: an Arabic invention). She waited for the bead curtains to burst open and the grinning inebriated
âBoth my brothers replied ânoâ. Cyril and Victor had hidden their guns under the wooden box seat we had been sitting on in the front cab covered with our blankets. With that, one of the Chinese soldiers climbed back onto the lorry and began going through our possessions.This made my two brothers angry and it took my sister Lucy and I to restrain Victor. If it was not for their rifles Victor would have flattened both of them, for he was a big and powerful man but with two women hanging onto his arms there was little he could do. The Chinese soldiers then asked for our money and valuables; this time their rifles were pointing directly at us. We were now in despair and knew we would miss our train and the flight to India; we could also be shot.
âIt was then that a large party of tattooed Shan tribesmen approached from out of the jungle. All were heavily armed. The Chinese soldiers became afraid and lowered their rifles. There was no love lost between the two races. These wild looking tribesmen seemed to know Cyril. He spoke their language fluently. They demanded the Chinese soldiersâ rifles, which were found to be empty; they then took their watches and rings. The Chinese soldiers were then tied up in the cruel way of the Shans and led away. Cyril thanked the headman of the tribe and gave him one of his guns. He said the tribesmen would take the Chinese soldiers out of sight, make them kneel and club them to death which was their traditional and silent method of killing without wasting bullets. My brothers then buried their remaining guns at the jungles edge, at the request of my mother; it was no longer safe to carry them. On two occasions during the war, Cyril joined the hill tribes ambushing Japanese patrols. At the site of the ambush they hid sharpened bamboo stakes covered in poison in the undergrowth to impale the enemy when they took cover.
âWe slowly resumed our journey to the station; Cyril thought we might just make it if the roads were not blocked. I could not help thinking of those poor starving Chinese soldiers that would soon be killed.
âVictor began driving the lorry very fast and on several occasions I screamed when it looked as if we were going to fall hundreds of feet into the jungle-clad valley below. All the time I was praying that Jack was alive and we would reach the station in time.â
CHAPTER 4
The Perfumed Harbour
PALESTINE & HONG KONG
After his marriage to Kate Talbot, Sergeant Jack Devereuxâs Regiment, the 1st Battalion Royal Scots, was posted from Mandalay, Burma, to Palestine, where they became a machine gun battalion. To the new recruits just out from Edinburgh, Palestine sounded exotic after the cold and windy confines of Maryhill, Edinburgh Castle and the other frigid, frost bound barracks. Images of romantic desert oasis, sunshine and a scattering of orange trees dripping with fruit came to mind (oranges were as rare in Glasgow as golden oracles). There would be plenty of cheap booze and bints. The new recruits had heard of the pleasures of Cairo with its bars and bordellos. Palestine proved a great disappointment.
There were no whispered invitations to visit their very cheap, very young, very clean and very pretty sister. This damsel or dam would be reclining somewhere in the Arab Quarter, smelling of jasmine and admiring her henna painted hands with sleepy dark almond eyes; eyes that dreamily gazed out between long mascara laden lashes (mascara: an Arabic invention). She waited for the bead curtains to burst open and the grinning inebriated
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