SAVAGE elephants are as rare as really wicked men, but those that are not savage sometimes give way to moments of bad temper. They are particularly liable to do so when they are in harness dragging a very heavy weight. Their most tiresome and dangerous habit at such moments is to pick up a large stick or stone with the trunk and throw it with great force and accuracy at some onlooker, particularly at someone in authority, whom they guess is responsible. One has to be prepared to jump, and jump quickly, when this happens.

A young European Assistant of my acquaintance visited the London Zoo with his mother and his sister on his first leave home. They went straight to the elephant house. After explaining all about the female elephant on view, he was emboldened to suggest: "Shall I make her sit down?"

His mother and sister were delighted at the idea, and the onlookers were most impressed.

"Hmit!" he shouted, in close imitation of a Burmese oozie.

The elephant merely swished her tail and tickled her mouth with imaginary bananas.

"Hmit!" he shouted again, and, as the elephant ignored him, he grew angrier and more determined with the disobedient animal. "Hmit! hmit! hmit!"

At last the elephant condescended to notice him, swinging her head round, cocking her ears, and eyeing him with an expression as though she were saying, "So you come from Burma, too, do you?" Then, with lightning swiftness, she seized a lump of her dung the size of a cottage loaf and slung it at the young Assistant. It missed him, but it knocked a feather out of his mother's hat and exploded against the wall behind them. No one laughed, but the elephant house was soon empty.

Savage elephants---whether male or female---are rare, and the few exceptions are usually of a savage temperament from birth. Of course, during the musth period all males are of uncertain temper. My interpretation of musth is that it is an instinctive desire in the male elephant to fight and kill before mating. His blood is up, and his brain is affected. The mere act of mating does not cool his passion. He would rather fight for his chosen mate before he wins her, and drive off and kill an intruder during the time that he is making love.

The great majority of cases in which oozies are killed by their elephants take place when their charges are on musth. For some unknown reason, the animal may then suddenly attack his rider, first striking him with tusk or trunk, then crushing him to death with a knee, when he is on the ground. A vicious young animal will throw his rider, and then attack him on the ground. Once he has done this he is classed as dangerous and given a metal bell, as he is likely to repeat such an attack. For three years he may never show a sign of viciousness---then suddenly he will catch his new rider off his guard, and so kill his second man.

Strange as it may sound, there is very little difficulty in finding a new rider for such an animal. Many riders take pride in riding an elephant known to be dangerous, and take such a job in a spirit of bravado. Such men find life easy; they care nothing for anything or anyone. They are usually opium-eaters, but in spite of that they work well. Every village girl knows them by name. But, though they gain in reputation and importance, they do not get spoilt, as they are not paid much more for such work than the ordinary riders.

In addition to the rider, a dangerous animal has a really good type of spearman attached to it as an attendant, whose duty is to cover every movement of the rider when he lies entirely at the mercy of the elephant---undoing his fetters, for example. Although the spearman carries a spear, the secret of his control is by the eye. He keeps his eye fixed on the elephant's. The two men together are usually sufficient to keep a savage elephant under control.

The temperament of a nasty-tempered elephant is somewhat like that of a Burman. The animal loses its temper and kills, and realises too late what it has done. In just the same way a Burman will lose his temper about some trivial gambling debt and will draw his dagger and stab his best friend---ten minutes later he will realise with most bitter regret what he has done.

I have known one case of something that seemed like remorse in an elephant. He was a tusker who killed his rider. But he guarded the body, and would let nobody get near it, for a whole week. He grazed all round it, and charged in mad fury at anyone who came near. When the body had quite decomposed he wandered away from it, and ten days later was recaptured, without any difficulty, and behaved quite normally. He was not on musth.

An animal named Ah Noh (a Siamese name) killed nine riders in a period of fifteen years, but there was never any difficulty in getting a new rider for him. He was peculiar in that he always killed his man with his tusks, actually goring him to death. He was never in harness unless there was a rider on his head and two spearmen, one on each side, with their spears at the ready.

It was finally decided to saw his tusks right off to the lip, or as near as possible to the lip. This involved overpowering him completely, and a description of it would make very painful reading, as it was cruel. But the job was done, under my supervision, and we cured him. The two great nerves were almost exposed by the sawing. They healed in a remarkable way, for the tusks did not grow again, but formed a rosette of ivory at each end. He was one of those exceptional and magnificent animals which are rarely seen, either in the wild state or in captivity. One could walk up to him and give him a banana, and he was so beautifully behaved one would think butter would not melt in his mouth. I have come across him feeding alone in the jungle many times, and have stopped to admire him. He never made the slightest attempt to attack me.

The wickedest elephant I ever knew was called Taw Sin Ma (Miss Wild Elephant). I never knew her when she was a calf, but she cannot have been greatly loved, to have earned herself a name like that, and she must have been very truculent in the crush. She was about twenty-five years old when I first knew her, and there was nothing in her recorded history which gave any explanation of why she should just loathe every European she saw. She had never been operated on, and could never have been ill-treated by a European. Even when she was had up for inspection she had to be chained to a tree, and when one was a hundred yards away would begin to lunge and strain at her chains, in order to attack one.

She recognised a European by his appearance quite as much as by smell, because she would attack a Burman rider if he were wearing a khaki shirt. I had a nasty experience with her, when she first attacked me on sight, and then chased me, following my trail by scent for four miles, from one catchment area over the watershed to the next. It was terrifying.

I met her by chance, when I was walking from one camp to another. We came on her suddenly, and she went for us at once. The Burman I had with me stampeded in one direction, and I in another, and for two miles I was not sure whether I was on the right track back to the camp I had left. There would have been no hope for me if her hobbles had snapped or come undone, unless I had found refuge up a tree. But I knew well that if I had done that I might have had to stay there for twenty-four hours or longer. As she was hobbled, my pace was a little faster than hers. She wore a brass danger bell around her neck (docile elephants wear wooden bells). Often it sounded from the bell as though she were nearly up to me, at times as though she had cut me off. Of course, I know that sounds in the jungle are deceptive, and play tricks; but it was not pleasant. This experience gave me the first opportunity I had ever had of trying out a trick for delaying a pursuing elephant, by dropping an article of clothing, in the belief that the animal will halt and attack it, and so give one a chance of gaining ground.

I first dropped a haversack, but I heard no check in the sound of the clanking bell on the elephant hurrying after me. When I had climbed to the top of the ridge I halted for a few moments, to locate her whereabouts. Then, after going as fast as I could along the ridge, I chose the steepest place for my descent, hoping she would hesitate to follow, and there I dropped my khaki shirt, for her to savage, or to chew to her heart's content. But I had no sooner reached the small spur reaching to the drainage area below than I heard an avalanche of crashing trees and bamboos, and it needed very little imagination to visualise Taw Sin Ma sitting on her haunches and tobogganing down the steep incline, much faster than I had done. My shirt had not delayed her a moment. Perhaps she was holding it in her mouth, to chew after she had first caught me. On I plunged, trying to remember to act on the law of the jungle, that one must never hurry and always keep cool. Once one breaks that rule every thorny bush that grows reaches out a tentacle to impede one, to tear and scratch, or even trip one up. I thought of discarding my once white, and very wet, vest, but I thought that if I was eventually treed, I might need something on. My relief was great when I met two men, busy with a crosscut saw on a fallen teak-tree. But I had only to shout out the words: "Taw Sin Ma!" and they joined me in my flight, without asking questions.

They soon took the lead, and as I followed I at least had the satisfaction of knowing I was on the right track to camp and safety.

One of them got into camp, well ahead of me, and gave the alarm on my account. When I got in I met a chattering group of elephant-riders and their families, all of them doubled up with laughter, or smacking their hands on their hips in mirth at the sight of me---all, that is, except Maung Po Net (Mr Black as Night), who tucked up his lungyi skirt, as he prepared to go out and meet his "pet."

There was no alternative but to join the Burmans in their joke---for I often wanted them to share in mine. So I joined in their laughter and their hip-smacking.

Within an hour a rider came back with my shirt and haversack, quite undamaged and not even trodden on, and Po Net rode Taw Sin Ma back into camp. The expressions on both their faces seemed to indicate that the same incident might be repeated next day. It did not, as I at once issued twenty-five feet of chain, for Taw Sin Ma to trail behind her, whenever she was at large, grazing, in addition to her hobbles.

As far as I know, she was the only animal we never inoculated against anthrax. She was the type that never gets it!

Some riders teach their charges tricks that give a wrong impression of the real disposition of the animal. Bo Gyi (Big Man), a young elephant, which became well known, always charged his rider, as soon as he appeared to catch him and bring him to camp. But at ten paces the animal would stop dead, and sit down for his fetters to be undone, as gentle as a lamb. Any other rider would bolt when the elephant charged him. The secret, that it was just a matter of standing one's ground, was only discovered after the rider who had taught him the trick had been killed by a bear. The elephant was at large for a month after his rider's death; nobody would face him. Finally a reward of three hundred rupees was offered for his recapture. A young village lad turned up one day, saying he could capture him, but asking if he would get the reward, since he was not one of my riders. I told him that of course he would. Two days later he came into camp riding the animal and smiling gaily, and was paid his three hundred rupees. Two of my own men had gone with the lad, and had watched the whole procedure, from a hiding-place near by. The secret had come from a young Burmese girl, a former sweetheart of the dead rider. The young lad was her new lover, and no doubt boy and girl found the three hundred rupees a useful start in life.

After a strike among eighty elephant-riders, in the early days, at a time when there had been political agitation in the neighbourhood, I was left with the job of capturing what appeared to be six savage elephants, simply because none of the men left with me knew the tricks that had to be employed with each animal. These tricks were just the result of habitual methods employed by their riders. In some cases the approach had to be made from the near side, in other cases from the off, or from in front, or behind, or when the animal was sitting, or standing. The approach to each animal had to be learned separately.

The last one to be caught was Toe Hline (The Destroyer). I got the information of how to catch him by bribing the rider who was on strike, through an agent of my own, who confided to the rider a long story of how he wanted a job so as to get enough money' to marry a certain girl in camp. If he could catch Toe Hline he would get that money reward and the job of riding him.

I watched this recapture with great relief, as Toe Hline had a bad reputation for tearing down jungle rice godowns (store-houses), and he had taken up his grazing quarters near my jungle hut, which was by no means substantial, being built of bamboo, with very flimsy posts, and it looked just like a godown. The volunteer to catch Toe Hline was "attacked" twice, on getting within one hundred and fifty yards of the animal. It looked pretty hopeless, but I soon discovered that these "attacks" were merely a method of getting the elephant and the rider in full view of each other. Once this had been achieved, the rider designate sat down on his haunches and began calling in a very persuasive voice: "Hmit! Hmit! Hmit! Hmit!" This went on for at least fifteen minutes, with the elephant taking no heed, but just going on feeding, keeping one eye on the rider, all the time. Quite abruptly, he stopped feeding, and stood perfectly still. Then, slowly moving his head towards where the rider sat, and, setting his ears forward inquisitively, he decided to "Hmit."

Even then it needed great pluck for the rider to go up to him. As he advanced, he repeated the same word, and, bending down, unfastened the fetter, which is normally done when the animal is standing up. Then he climbed on the elephant's head and said: "Htah !" Toe Hline rose, and proceeded to camp, and I proceeded to get myself a peg, to celebrate the recapture of the last elephant. I had them all equipped with eighty new riders, and the strikers were left wondering.

The rider married his girl and got his money reward. Then Po Lone, the original rider, who was the pleasantest of rogues, came in to say that now he had enabled his friend to win the reward, and get his girl, he would like to ride his old elephant again himself. He got him, for the two riders had fixed it all up between themselves, while I thought I was breaking the strike. They are lovable rogues.

Sawing off the tips of the tusks so as to make them grow thicker. The trunk is lashed to prevent its being cut by the saw, and the operation is performed in the river so that the saw may be frequently cooled in the water.

A dangerous tusker who has killed several oozies. The oozie and the spearman are both armed.

Young calves, if they have not been properly trained, are apt to get savage if not well handled afterwards. One particular calf, named Soe Bone (Wicked Bone)---the name of the creek where he was born---delighted in chasing me whenever he got an opportunity. I thought at first it was only rough play, but my head Burmans assured me it was not, so we decided he was not too old to learn his manners. "Shoot him in his toe-nails with roasted rice," was the suggestion. So I emptied two cartridges and, after filling them with rice instead of shot, I wandered out of camp to find Soe Bone. He was in a sandy creek, throwing wet sand over his body with his trunk, and was under a bank, only three foot high.

"Hullo, little chap!" I said, greeting him.

"Little chap to you," he seemed to reply, and charged me on sight, as though determined to see me off.

I stood my ground, and gave him a left and right in the forefeet, so as to sting his toe-nails. Did it stop him? I nearly lost my precious shotgun as I made my getaway. He was up that bank with his fetters on almost as quickly as I could turn to run. And did he love me next time he saw me?

"What's the next move?" I asked.

"Oh well, we'll put him back into a crush and cane the little devil."

A substantial crush was made, and into it he was enticed and trapped. My head Burman came to fetch me, carrying in his hand a six-foot whippy cane.

At least a dozen Burmans were there to witness the caning of this naughty schoolboy, as even Soe Bone's own rider had no use for this tiresome game of chasing people.

I was asked to give him the first twenty strokes. And what a behind it was to whip! I went to his head first, and showed him the cane. He showed me the whites of his eyes, as if to say: "Wait till I get out of here," but I changed his mind for him, and he squealed blue murder. Then everyone present, except his rider, was ordered to give him half a dozen, whereas his rider was permitted to stay behind and give him lots of tid-bits, after we had all gone.

I saw him next morning being loaded with some light kit as we were moving camp, and he looked rather ashamed of himself. Suddenly he saw me, carrying a stick, and, instead of pricking his ears, as he did when he was going to chase me, he gave one shrieking trumpet and bolted into the jungle for his life.

Shortly afterwards I left him for another forest, and did not see him again for fifteen years. By that time he was a magnificent beast of twenty-five, and quite docile. I won't say that he had forgotten, but he had certainly forgiven me.

One of the most remarkable incidents I ever had with savage elephants concerned a young Shan woman of about twenty. I was sitting in my hut near the camp one evening, very worried over a seriously injured spearman, Maung Chan Tha, who had been gored that afternoon by an elephant, named Kyauk Sein (Jade-coloured Eyes) while he was trying to save the life of the rider, Maung Po Yin, who had been killed instantaneously by the elephant, who had then attacked the spearman. The animal had gone on musth, and was at large in the neighbourhood of the camp.

I was discussing with my head Burman how we were going to get the wounded spearman away to hospital. To put him on an elephant would kill him, as he had a serious abdominal wound and a broken leg. To carry him on a bamboo stretcher to hospital would take five days, and was the only alternative.

Suddenly, quite unannounced, a tall, fine-looking girl walked into my bamboo hut, and I immediately recognised her as the widow of the dead rider. She was not wailing, or weeping, or carrying her youngest child, which is the custom on such occasions, nor did she kneel and sit before me, in the customary manner. She just stood erect and in a firm, unemotional voice said: "May I have a dismissal certificate from you for my husband Maung Po Yin, who was killed today by Kyauk Sein?"

"Yes," I replied. "And your compensation, if you will wait till tomorrow, as I am busy arranging to get Maung Chan Tha to hospital." I added how grieved I was, and, in sympathy, asked her if she had any children.

My head Burman answered, instead of her, that she had none, and then, addressing her as though he were most displeased with her for coming to see me in such an unceremonious way, said:

"You can go now. I shall be coming back to the camp presently."

She moved quietly out of the room, a tall and graceful figure.

When she was out of earshot I turned to my head Burman and asked: "Is that Po Yin's wife?"

"Yes," he replied, "but she takes more opium than Po Yin did, and that is the reason why she has no children."

I was very much surprised, as it was the first time I had ever heard of a Shan girl taking opium. I was even more staggered when my old Burman said in a quiet voice, "Give me ten ticals of opium to-night, and she will recapture Kyauk Sein to-morrow, because she has often caught him for Po Yin, when he was in a heavy opium bout."

I gave him the opium he asked for, but I went to bed that night with a very disturbed conscience. To add to my troubles, Chan Tha died before dawn.

I met my old Burman very early the following morning, but I asked him no questions, and waited to see what the day would bring forth.

By ten o'clock, however, he came to me saying:

"Kyauk Sein is coming in, with Ma Kyaw riding him. Come and look."

I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw Kyauk Sein passing through the camp, with the Shan girl riding him, oblivious to everything, and her eyes fixed straight in front of her. Her long black hair was hanging loose down her back, and she wore her blue tamain girdled above her breasts, leaving her beautiful pale shoulders bare. Again I did not interfere, and by noon I was informed that Kyauk Sein was securely tethered to a tree, as is customary for elephants on musth.

That evening Ma Kyaw was brought to me, to receive the compensation due to her. She was dressed in her best, wearing a multi-coloured tamain, a little white coat, and a flower in her jet-black hair. She knelt and shikoed three times, and then sat down in front of me. She kept her eyes lowered, looking at the mat she sat on, and she toyed with a matchstick in her right hand, as though she were drawing something.

After paying her the compensation due to her for the loss of her husband, I gave her an extra bonus for recapturing Kyauk Sein. When I told her this, I could see a wisp of a smile at the corners of her mouth. I then wrote for her a certificate, such as is customarily made out for all men killed in accidents. These certificates are for the benefit of the jungle Nats, who require them before admitting the spirit of the dead rider to their domains. The certificate ran, "I hereby give leave to Maung Po Yin, rider of Kyauk Sein, to go where he wishes, as he has been dismissed from my service," and I signed it.

When I had risen from my table and given the money and the certificate into her hands, she wiped away two crocodile tears, did three shikos with her hands, got up and went quietly out into the dusk, back to the camp, three hundred yards away, on the other side of the creek.

I was only left guessing what the future developments would be for another twenty-four hours, for then, when I asked my old Burman about finding a new rider for Kyauk Sein, he told me:

"Oh, that is all arranged. Maung Ngwe Gyaw is an opium-taker, too. He has 'taken on' (not married) Ma Kyaw, and they tell me that the biggest opium-taker of the lot is Kyauk Sein, the elephant. Another ten ticals of opium would be useful."

By that time I would willingly have given him twenty, if he had asked for them.

I do not believe to this day that the girl took opium, but she was a resolute character, and the elephant Kyauk Sein knew her well enough to take opium out of her hand. He probably knew the smell of her hand, because she was the wife of his rider. I think she completely stupefied the animal before she caught him.

The ways of the jungle are strange, but all is not savage, hard and cruel in it. For every savage elephant that attacks or kills his rider there are ninety-nine that are docile and friendly.

I FIND it hard to realise now, after living for twenty-five years in the jungle with the most magnificent of all animals, that for the first three and a half years my eyes were blinded by the thrill of big-game shooting. I now feel that elephants are God's own, and I would never shoot another.

However, it was as a result of those three and a half years that I reached my present views, and because of my experiences then that I developed as deep a reverence for the jungle and all the jungle creatures as anyone possibly could.

Of course, the big cats are a nuisance. There are too many tigers and leopards in the jungle---so many, indeed, that the few which are shot make scarcely any impression on their numbers. Quite apart from seeing them, when sitting up for them in a tree over a kill, hoping to get a shot, the European Assistant almost invariably has some memorable incident in his career, when he sees tiger in more natural conditions. I once jumped into a creek, ten yards from a tiger, that was lying down eating a freshly killed samba deer. He was magnificent. I could not jump back from the boulder I had alighted on to the bank behind me. For what seemed quite half a minute we stared at each other, and he snarled at me. Then he jumped up and, with the most graceful movements, bounded from boulder to boulder up the creek. He whoofed twice as he went, as though disgusted that the stench of a white man should interrupt his lunch.

Willie, whose reception of me when I first arrived in the jungle will be remembered, first came out to Burma in the early years of this century. Although he belonged to a good family and was a good shot, he arrived with very little equipment, for I fancy he had exhausted his father's purse and patience before he was sent East. If he was anything like his son, Willie's father must have been a formidable disciplinarian in his day. On Willie's arrival he was at once invited to a big shoot, at which high jungle-fowl were expected. Poor Willie had to confess that he had not got a gun. However, as it was obvious that the lad was very keen, one of the party took pity on him and lent him a small-calibre rifle, saying it was possible that the beaters might put up some ground game, and that Willie might get a shot. He was told, however, that he must not fire in front of him towards the line of beaters, but must wait until the game had passed through the line of waiting guns. The first two beats were most successful, with numbers of high birds, which were brought down brilliantly by the guns. But poor Willie did not get a shot.

The third beat was a blank. Not a single jungle-fowl rose to meet the line of waiting guns, and the beaters were almost up to them and had ceased rattling their sticks on the bamboos, when there was the crack of a rifle, and Willie's neighbours were horrified to see that he had disobeyed instructions, and fired in front of him, towards the beaters.

"What the hell do you think you are doing, young man?" demanded "Growler" Moore, going up to him in a fury. "What on earth are you firing at?"

"I saw a tiger," said Willie.

"Tiger? What d'you mean, tiger? Don't talk nonsense!" shouted Growler, intent on ticking off the offender.

"Well, there it is, and it's dead," said Willie.

And there, twenty yards from them, was a fine tiger, with a bullet through its head. Willie could not make out why the other guns made such a fuss about it when they came up and inspected it, for he had assumed that tigers were a normal part of the bag in a Burmese jungle-fowl shoot.

Although I now dislike the thought of shooting big game, I can still recall, and live over again, the thrill when I was young enough to take any opportunity that offered which gave me even chances of life or death.

I remember how for two whole months I spent day after day near the mouth of the Manipur River, trying to get a solitary wild bull elephant---and every day was hard, and ended in disappointment. He was well known by the name of Shwe Kah, which my elephant-riders had given him.

These words are used to describe the pose of a Burmese girl's arms and hands when she is dancing: a pose in which the forearms and the hands and extended fingers are gracefully curved upwards and outwards. In the beautiful and perfectly symmetrical tusks of this wild elephant my riders had seen the same lovely upward and outward curve. Shwe Kah had gored two of my tuskers badly, and had continually worried my elephants. He was far too bold for the liking of my riders, particularly when they were catching their beasts deep in the jungle. Many of them had seen him, and they described the dimensions of his tusks outside the lip, by stretching both arms out horizontally, to show their length, and by encircling their legs above the knee with the outstretched thumbs and forefingers of both hands to indicate their girth. Some tusks!

I had numerous opportunities to bag other wild elephant at that time, but I was set on getting Shwe Kah. I saw him twice, but not in a position for a shot. I then went on leave for a month, knowing I should be back in the same area during May, the best month in Burma for big game.

If I got him, Shwe Kah would be my fourth elephant, and I had learned quite a lot about tracking and all that big-game shooting entailed. One night during my leave, a very pleasant Sapper Major joined our small party at the bar of the Maymyo Club (now no more). While we were chatting, he mentioned that he had just purchased a rifle from someone going home, and that he was more than keen to bag an elephant before he left Burma. It was a case of finding him somewhere where he could shoot. I did not like the description of his purchase. It was a magazine rifle with a high-velocity bullet, but on the small side. My opinion was (and is) that a double-barrel breech-loader 400-450 was the right weapon for Burma big game. This difference of opinion led to a hot argument, as it usually does, but we ended up such good friends that finally I said: "Can you get a month's leave, from the twenty-fifth of April, as I am going back for a tour of jungle camps, during which I hope to get some big-game shooting in my spare time?" He jumped at it, but, to make it quite square, I explained that I would do all that I could to put him on to the track of a decent wild tusker, but that it must be understood that Shwe Kah was to be mine only. This he fully appreciated.

He had never done any big-game shooting, and he was thrilled with the idea of the trip, even apart from the chance of getting an elephant. He was a man of thirty-seven. I was just twenty-six. I worked out that he might expect to get ten days' actual shooting, and that, with any reasonable luck, working from my little jungle headquarters, he ought to bag an elephant, and stood a good chance of getting a bison and other game.

He joined me on the appointed date, and we set off, poling up the Myittha River in a country dug-out. One evening we had a bathe after I had been out with a rod. While I was drying my feet, he said: "Lord, I wish I had feet like yours!"

Laughingly I replied: "Why, have you got corns?"

"No," he replied. "But I have eight hammer toes."

Looking at them, I saw eight tightly clenched toes, in spite of his feet being flat on the boat boards. I howled with laughter, and asked him how on earth he thought he was going to trek all day through the jungle. He was quite honest, and said he had hoped to sit quietly in one spot and wait for the game to go by. This rather damped my hopes that he would have any great success. But he was quite happy, as he was much enjoying all my routine work of inspecting elephant camps.

When we reached Sinywa (Wild Elephant Village), late one evening, I was told by my men that Shwe Kah was about, and had been seen the previous day, two miles away, on the other bank of the river. My shikar companion insisted on accompanying me the next day, without his rifle, purely to see what would happen. He had a morning which quite cooked him, but he saw two female wild elephants, and was thrilled to the marrow of his aching toes.

We eventually got on the tracks of a big tusker, which I imagined to be those of Shwe Kah. These led us back to the Myittha River bank, where it was quite obvious that during the night the animal had crossed the river, to the side on which we were encamped. It was then well after noon, and was sweltering hot. As we should pass near our camp, I suggested that we should have a cup of tea and something to eat there, and then continue our attempt to find Shwe Kah. My friend was all for the cup of tea and the cold Green Pigeon pie, but candidly admitted he was far too cooked to leave camp again, but said he'd excuse me if I went.

I had just eaten a first mouthful of pie when a Burman arrived to say there was an enormous wild tusker, believed to be Shwe Kah, not three hundred yards from their camp, a mile away from where we were.

Without any hesitation, I was off. No tea, no pie---I left my companion resting his weary bare feet on a box by our camp table. As I left, he graciously said: "I'll leave some pie for you."

By three p.m., under a sweltering tropical sun, I had got near enough to this wild elephant to hear an occasional flap of his ear. There was no other sound, as he was browsing in elephant grass, twelve feet high, through which I had ventured, following up his tracks. I knew that the river bank could not be far to my left, I knew only too well that if he were suddenly disturbed he would stampede back, direct on his tracks. I therefore decided to get off them into the tall grass on one side. There I rested my rifle against a small tree, and wiped the sweat from my face and brow. I took a quick swallow from a water-flask, as that was probably the last refresher I should get. I was determined to get a shot that afternoon.

I was suddenly alarmed by realising that my presence had been detected by the elephant, probably, as so often happens, by scent. There was a never-to-be-forgotten noise of the animal cracking the end of his trunk on the hard ground---it makes a sharp, clear, metallic, ringing sound, owing to the trunk being hollow. Then there followed that awful silence. I had no alternative but to stand my ground. Both of us were left guessing, but the elephant broke first, and made away from where I was standing, whereupon I made direct to where I imagined the river bank to be. It was closer than I had realised, and I reached it where the tall kaing grass grew to the very edge, which was eight feet high above the water, and had recently fallen in. The edge was unapproachable without risk of further collapse, but not many seconds passed before I heard a tremendous splashing, and through the tall grass I saw a magnificent tusker elephant, crossing the river fifty yards below me, moving at a fast ambling trot, the splashes of water covering his body.

Without hesitation, I jumped down the eight feet, landing in three feet of water, but sinking into the mud

to the tops of my boots. I was bogged. It was now or never for a shot. I decided on a heart shot, as he was moving quickly, water splashing, and I was unsteady.

Crack! He was quite seventy-five yards away when I fired. He stumbled a bit, recovered, and then swung round, like a polo pony, and came back on his tracks, not twenty-five yards below me. He was wild with rage---so wild that he did not see me. I was stuck, and had no hope of regaining the bank. As he climbed up, where he had slid down a few minutes before, I realised that he was mortally wounded, and noticed that his tusks did not appear as big as those of Shwe Kah, nor as tilted.

I gave him another heart-shot, and there was no mistake this time. He collapsed stone dead against the top of the bank. Before I had extricated myself from the mud, my gun-boy, who had remained behind in a tree on the bank, went off to inspect him, and came rushing back to me yelling: "Amai! (Oh Mother) Amai! You have shot a Kyan Zit."

I was far too excited and occupied to appreciate what he meant. It was about half-past four in the afternoon, and sweltering hot. I well remember my feelings when I realised that I had not bagged Shwe Kah, as I so much wanted his tusks as the trophy of my last wild elephant. For I could not get a licence to shoot another for a year. However, all my disappointment vanished as soon as I saw the head of the magnificent beast I had shot. For he was something very rare, and was already causing great excitement amongst all the elephant-riders, who had come rushing along from their camp.

"Ky an Zit! Kyan Zit! Kyan Zit!" was all they could repeat, as if one of the strangest myths of the jungle had been proved.

I could not have been more astonished if I had shot a unicorn. The words Kyan Zit describe a rare type of elephant tusk, that has grown in rings or corrugations, like the sections of a piece of sugar-cane. The Burmans speak of such an animal as such a rarity as to be almost mythical, but in existence, and they believe that a Kyan Zit is a king of elephants, to whom all other elephants do obeisance, in terror of his strength.

The tusks were corrugated, in rings, from the tip to the lip where they entered the head; after they were extracted the corrugations were found to continue, but faded out gradually, right up to the socket and root. A photograph of the tusks was afterwards published in the Bombay Natural History Journal, but no explanation of the cause of their formation was forthcoming. It was not a malformation, as the rings were symmetrical in both tusks. I have never seen comparable tusks amongst any of the thousands of captive elephants I have known in Burma.

I rested on the leg of the dead beast and had a drink of water, and looked at him with a mixture of excitement and remorse, and I asked myself what had the King of Elephants with the Kyan Zit tusks done to me?---What had I done to him?

Long discussions followed among the riders standing round and admiring the rare tusks. A head man arrived from camp to supervise their removal with small axes and sharpened knives. Then the women of the camp arrived with children and babies in arms, all to be shown Kyan Zit.

Up to this time I had not allowed any of them to touch him, as I knew that once those Burmans started on a dead elephant they combined the qualities of Americans after souvenirs and vultures after flesh.

I then heard someone yelling my name. It was my guest, who, on hearing my two shots in camp, had just hopped off his camp bed and, without waiting to put on his shoes, had come along, with two or three of the men from my camp. Hammer toes or no hammer toes, he wanted to see the result of those two rifle-shots. When he emerged from the tall kaing grass he nearly collapsed with surprise.

"Lord, how magnificent!" was his only remark, as he opened up his camera and took several snapshots.

Not till he had finished did I get the chance to explain that it was not Shwe Kah but Kyan Zit-and I explained the whole story, as we stood beside the tusks.

"Oh! I am sorry!" he exclaimed.

But I assured him that I was more than content. So pleased, in fact, that our next job must be for him to bag Shwe Kah, as he was now his game. My guest was beginning to be a little doubtful about having to take on anything the size of such a monster, but I told him he could borrow my rifle for the job, which seemed to relieve his mind a little.

I had not noticed that he was barefoot, until I suddenly looked down.

"Good Lord, man! Your feet will be blistered to hell!" I exclaimed.

So I sent back to camp for his shoes, and for tea and sandwiches for myself, and we settled down to supervise the removal of the tusks, taking also the hairs from the tail and one forefoot, as the Kyan Zit had the most perfect feet and toenails I have ever seen on an elephant. The toenails looked as though they had just been manicured, and the oil sweat-glands between the nails showed that he was an animal in his prime. The forefeet were perfectly circular, and my shikar companion was quite ready to take a heavy bet that twice their circumference was not equal to the animal's height at the withers. He was astonished when I measured it up and showed him that it was.

By this time the human vultures had started operations. Whole baskets of meat were carried off to camp, to be dried in the sun. There was enough to last them many months. It was my Burman hunter's perquisite to have the two aphrodisiac snips, which consist of the triangular tip of the trunk and the tip of the penis, also the big nerves out of the tusks, which are a native medicine for eye troubles, as well as a coveted aphrodisiac.

By the time we had removed the tusks and the forefoot it was almost dusk. More men and women from Sinywa Village had arrived, to carry away meat. It was a really savage-looking party, with a lot of jokes and chatter. My Burman hunter came in for a great deal of chipping and cross-chat from the girls on the subject of his special perquisites.

As dusk fell we left them to it and went back to camp. Before we went to bed I had many things to tell my guest, as he was thrilled with all this, and was one mass of questions. The last thing he said to me, after I had done what I could for his poor feet by anointing them with Zam-Buk, was: "You know, I am so enjoying this that I don't mind if I don't shoot anything."

Travelling elephants of sixteen and seventeen years of age about to cross the Yu River. One is belly deep in mud which he would not have entered unless he could feel a firm bottom. The leading animal has Burmese panniers, the second a Siamese pack.

Cooling off after the day's work.

I had work to do the next day, and left my guest to watch my men cleaning the tusks and the forefoot for curing.

That evening news came into camp that there was a small herd of wild elephant feeding in a swamp area three miles from camp, and that it was more than likely that Shwe Kah was hanging round.

Next morning my guest insisted that his feet were not fit for marching that day, but I overcame his objections by saying we would ride an elephant of mine as far as the swamp, so as to have a look round, though I did not think it sounded very promising. The swamp was about half a mile wide---of tall, dense kaing grass, flanked on either side by fairly open jungle with big trees.

On the west side there were all the signs that the herd had entered the swamp during the night, and about half a mile to the north there were tracks of two solitary and separate bulls, which had gone in also. Either of these tracks might have been those of Shwe Kah.

We talked it over with my hunter, and agreed that very little could be done in this dense swamp area, but that if my guest remained on the west side, and we stampeded the animals from the east, he might have the luck of a novice in seeing a tusker pass him.

I explained everything, and placed my guest in the fork of a large tree, fifteen feet from the ground. His farewell remark was to whisper: "What a host! This is what I call a sitter." I left my rifle and gun-boy with him, and skirted the whole swamp on my own elephant, with an expert rider.

It was two hours before I got into position on the eastern side. I had warned my guest that he would have a long wait, and that he was to take no notice of any calling or talking he might hear. I moved up and down on the edge of the swamp, from north to south and back again, speaking as loudly as I could to my rider. Unfortunately, my elephant was completely silent as it strode up and down, as there was no fodder for it to snatch at whilst walking.

Presently I heard a wild elephant "chirping," at short intervals. It is a beautiful note of warning, rather than a signal of real danger, as though to say: "Keep in together. There are voices from the east side."

We halted our elephant for a short time on high ground, and from its back I could overlook the sea of kaing grass covering the swamp.

My elephant, Chit Sia Yah (Lovable), who was trained to stand a rifle-shot fired from his back, stood facing west, with his ears cocked forward, listening. He could hear something that we could not. Then my rider pointed to the sea of kaing grass, and said in a quiet voice: "See the grass tips moving. Wild elephant are closing in."

I was particularly anxious that they should move west without any panic or stampede, so we remained perfectly quiet for fifteen to twenty minutes.

It was all most exciting to watch---there was silent movement without a sound. Here and there I could see the grass stirred, as though by a fitful breeze, though there was not a breath of wind.

Then from the very centre three or four elephants' trunks appeared above the sea of kaing. They kept moving from side to side in an uncanny fashion, like cobras poised to strike.

My rider whispered: "They have scented either you or the other Thakin on the other side."

Without hesitation, I gave a series of shouts, in which my rider joined. This left the herd in no doubt as to our position. One animal trumpeted, and then the whole herd began moving west towards my guest in the tree. It was like watching a silent, slow roller, as the herd moved in a body through the tall grass. One could see it going down, as they moved steadily, not in a stampede, but in an organised stream. Their leader had undoubtedly decided to leave the swamp, which was a small area and a poor hiding-place, as it was surrounded by open jungle.

It seemed an hour before they passed out of sight and hearing, but really it was only ten minutes. Then there was an overpowering silence, while we waited to hear a shot. Even my elephant seemed in a state of tension, and to be expecting it. I had very nearly come to the conclusion that all the elephants must have passed either to the north or to the south of my guest in his tree, when two rifle-shots echoed through the jungle. I began to move towards him on my elephant, when "Crack! crack!" came another couple of shots, shortly followed by two more.

I began to wonder whether my guest was having a stand-up fight with Shwe Kah, or whether he was shooting down the whole herd-males, females and calves---and was also wondering if there would be any rifling left in the barrels of my precious rifle!

Suddenly Chit Sia Yah, my elephant, pulled up, motionless. I then heard, and immediately afterwards saw, a magnificent bull elephant with a pair of finely shaped tusks about three hundred yards away on my left, moving rapidly into the jungle behind me. I thought it was Shwe Kah, and that beginner's luck had not favoured my guest.

Complete silence reigned once more. The pageant was over as far as we were concerned on the eastern flank. But what was happening on the west?

I yelled and shouted to my friend, but could get no answer, although I knew he was within hearing. I was still uncertain if there were a wounded animal in the sea of kaing grass, and did not dare to take Chit Sia Yah through it until I knew. One thing I did know, and that was that my friend would not come down from his perch if he had only wounded an elephant.

Finally I could not wait any longer so, dismounting from Chit Sia Yah, I told the rider to wait till I called, and started to cross the swamp on foot, heading towards my friend. The going was fairly good, as it was the month of May, and therefore fairly dry, and the wild elephant had made a wide trail through the tall, heavy grass.

I occasionally halted and called, forgetting my rider would follow up, so I had a severe shock when he appeared behind me. I halted him, as I thought that if my guest had downed all the beasts he could in the wild herd, he was quite capable of finishing off his day's sport by shooting Chit Sia Yah by mistake. The track I followed was that along which the herd had avalanched, leaving a roadway fifteen to twenty feet wide through the kaing grass, as though a reaping-machine had gone through it.

Finally I came out, calling to my friend before I did so, and found him sitting twenty yards away in his tree.

"Why the hell can't you answer?" I asked him.

"You told me not to," he replied, adding: "But look out, I've shot an elephant."

I did not know what that meant, or stop to inquire, but dashed forward to the protection of the nearest big tree. From there, however, I saw a magnificent dead tusker on the edge of the kaing grass directly in front of my friend. The shape of his tusks left no doubt that he was Shwe Kah.

"He's dead, isn't he?" I shouted.

"I think so, but I'll make certain again," replied my friend, and gave the carcase another couple of rounds.

"For God's sake have some respect for my rifle," I shouted, and then Kya Sine, who was with him in the tree, called to me in Burmese:

"It has been dead nearly an hour. It must be cold by now, but he won't let me come down the tree."

I went up to the dead elephant, and saw the largest and most magnificent pair of tusks I have ever seen in Burma. My guest was so thrilled by all that had happened to him that he could not get it out, but Maung Kya Sine gave me a wonderful description. The whole herd of twenty-two animals had walked directly under their tree, and they had had a circus view of them. According to Kya Sine, my guest had the rifle at his shoulder the whole time, pointing it in turn at every animal with the least sign of a tusk. As the parade was coming to an end, Kya Sine spotted the back of an enormous beast which was following up at the tail of the herd, and indicated by nods and shrugs that my friend must wait. My guest had then dropped the rifle from his shoulder, thinking he had lost his chance, when this enormous tusker had appeared and halted with his head projecting from the kaing grass.

My friend dropped him first shot and wisely gave another. But, being determined not to let him rise again and escape, he began to try to get a heart shot. I had discussed this with him, telling him it was often more advisable than one through the brain. It was, however, an impossible shot from the angle at which he was up the tree. My gun-boy went back to camp on Chit Sia Yah to give the news, and soon the scene was the same as that we had watched two days before when I had shot Kyan Zit. My friend had quite forgotten his blistered feet and hammer toes, as we went back to camp. He spent the next two days with his trophy, while I continued my daily work. On his fifth day in camp I sent him off to hilly jungle, in spite of his feet, to see if he could find a bison. Before they left, my gunboy told me that he knew the whereabouts of a bull. They reappeared by noon. My visitor had again had the most phenomenal luck. He had come across a bull bison, which was lying down chewing the cud, like any dairy bull in an English meadow, and he had bagged him. I rather regretted this, as it would have given him a real shikar thrill if he had met the great beast face to face, for it stood five feet ten inches at the withers.

My visitor left me to return to his unit, in a country dug-out, piled high with elephants' feet, tusks measuring six feet two inches in length, a bison's head and two hoofs, not to mention all sorts of curios that he had collected in camp, such as elephant bells, rings and bracelets of elephant's hair, and bamboo gongs. He waved good-bye to me, with a smile spreading from ear to ear, and wished he might return.

He never came back, and with his visit my own big-game shooting came to an end. I never shot big game again, and never catered for others who might want to do so.

Nevertheless, though I dislike it now, I have no regrets in regard to those early years. For it was those years that laid the foundations of a love and understanding of the jungle and the elephants in it. I shot four elephants; but on the other side of the account is all I have tried to do for hundreds of their fellows. I fought for their well-being for years, and fought with them during the years of war.

	detail
NOTE: IN the perspective map of Upper Burma above, the dotted red line shows the route of the elephant party evacuating women and children from Burma. The continuous red line shows the author's route while in charge of the Elephant Companies' escape from Burma into Assam.

DURING the open season of 1925-6 I had to run a shoot for General Sir William Birdwood, as he then was, the Commander-in-Chief, India, and his staff on the Upper Chindwin River. I met him and his party at Sittaung.

Burma was at that time under India Command, but the significance of the Commander-in-Chief trekking into India from Imphal to Tamu on foot can scarcely be linked with the subsequent events over the same track, eighteen to twenty years later.

As far as I can remember, the trek took him five days, during which time he made every member of his staff swim in the coldest mountain streams imaginable. The track was then a six-foot ungraded bridle-track; it had, apart from any strategical importance in the future defences of India, a political interest, as at that time the question of the separation of Burma from India was very much to the fore.

Opinion in Burma was strongly against any development of this road to India. It was pointed out that a good road might serve as a backdoor entrance through which a flood of undesirable Indian immigrants might pour. It would be more difficult to control than immigration by sea. The road would have no value as a trade route, and it was concluded that it would be of no advantage to Burma.

The whole of the Burma Campaign from 1942 to 1945 depended on the existence of this route. For there are only two ways of reaching India from Burma---by sea, and by this, and one or two other mountain tracks leading from the tributaries of the Upper Chindwin into Northern Assam. In other words, there is an impenetrable mountain barrier running down the Burma-India frontier, which completely seals off the valley of the Irrawaddy from Assam; and there is no feasible coast road along the Burmese seaboard province of Arakan. Thus, to reach India from Burma overland, one has to go up the Chindwin as far as Kalewa, go up the Kabaw Valley to Tamu, and cross the mountains into Manipur and the Imphal plain.

The strategic importance of the road is therefore immense. But so long as it was believed that Britain had undisputed command of the sea, the strategic importance of the road was subordinate to the political disadvantages to which it might lead.

The impression I gathered from General Birdwood at that time was that he favoured the improvement of the road, as a strategical communication of great importance. He had enormously enjoyed trekking over it, as during the trip he had escaped entirely from the world of red tape and official receptions. He obviously felt as though he were a subaltern again on a month's leave. Lady Birdwood came by sea from Calcutta to Rangoon, and then proceeded to Mandalay, where she painted some water-colours, and later on joined her husband on the Chindwin.

The object of the shoot was to get duck and geese, and there was no question of big game or elephant.

I remained with the Commander-in-Chief and Lady Birdwood for two days, having at my disposal the Bombay Burma Corporation launch Chindwin, which had been suitably victualled. It made a very enjoyable break for me.

Little did I guess then that during the war years of 1942 and 1944 I should lunch informally with Lord Wavell when he was Commander-in-Chief, and dine informally with Sir Claude Auchinleck when he was Commander-in-Chief, on the same road between Burma and India.

The Japanese invasion was not the first time that the Kabaw Valley and the bridle-track from Tamu to Imphal had been a scene of war, and of all the miseries that go with it. As far back as the sixteenth century this route was used by the Burmese General, Ba-Yin-Naung, to lead his army from Burma to Manipur.

Again in 1812 the Burmese King Bo-Daw-Pa-Ya annexed the Kabaw Valley, after intervening to decide the succession to the throne of Manipur.

It is one of those valleys which impress one either as a miniature paradise or as a green hell. During the years I have lived there, in peace and in war, I have known it in both aspects. The Manipuris and Burmans look on it as an ideal grazing ground for their cattle and buffalo herds, during the hot and dry seasons of the year, when pasture has been dried up elsewhere. And in the cold season it is a sportsman's paradise. The wild jungle-fowl provide almost ideal high driven birds, and the gin-clear waters of its streams abound in mahseer up to eight pounds in weight. But in the monsoon it becomes a squelching swamp, generally overgrown by heavy unhealthy jungles.

In describing the withdrawal of the British Army in 1942, the Chief of Staff said that "death dripped from every leaf." That phrase might damn it for ever, but, visiting it today, one would not guess that his words had ever been true. Nor would one find many signs that the largest British Army of the Second World War, the XIVth Army, had fought its way down it.

In 1938 I was at home on leave and, as war seemed imminent, was for some time undecided whether I should return to Burma and my elephants. However, I finally made up my mind to go back, as I thought that if war did come, Japan would join our enemies, and that I should be of more use East of Suez than in the West.

With the outbreak of war in 1939, teak became as important a munition of war as steel, and all those employed in its extraction were regarded as engaged in work of national importance. Vast quantities of it were shipped to England during the first period of the war. When the Italians came in, supplies of timber were required in the Middle East. India's demand for teak alone was greater than could be supplied from Burma, and work in the forests was accelerated. Elephants were required for the extraction not only of teak, but of other kinds of timber as well.

After the Japanese came into the war, India's demands increased still further, and vast projects were put in hand after December, 1941. Practically every officer concerned with teak extraction was away in the jungle in the three months which followed. Many of them were accompanied by their families. Their only link with developments in the war was by wireless. In spite of the rapid advances of the Japs, everyone was confident they would be held at Singapore and in Malaya. However, things were going so badly that a hurried warning was given by the Bombay Burma Corporation that it might, as a private firm, have to arrange for the evacuation of its European officers and their families from the Upper Chindwin into Manipur, and thence to Assam. A scheme for this was therefore prepared. If we had not had elephants for transport, it is unlikely that the scheme would have been put forward.

At that time I was on tour with my wife and family in the Shan states, right up the Shweli River.

By the same mail runner I received a confidential letter, strongly advising that all wives should return to headquarters, and a telegram instructing me to proceed to Monywa, on the Chindwin River, and to be ready to proceed beyond. I had no knowledge of the scheme for evacuation, but knew the country so well that I guessed what might be coming. My first thoughts, however, were that my instructions might be due to internal troubles in Burma. By forced marches with elephants to the river, followed by two days' voyage downstream in my own launch, we reached the Irrawaddy. I little thought that I was saying good-bye to my Shweli elephants.

At Mandalay I found that the conditions, to which one had become accustomed since the war, were unchanged. But all wives and children, except those who were members of the Women's Auxiliary Forces, had proceeded up the Chindwin. There was great tension, and the wealthy Indians were already on the move.

I was instructed to go direct from Mandalay to Monywa, but I decided to go first to my home and headquarters at Maymyo, for one night, to dump my camp kit and collect the light kit my wife would require while up the Chindwin. I felt sure that even if she were forced to leave Burma, I should have an opportunity of returning to Maymyo myself.

Even at this stage the trains to Monywa and the steamers to Kalewa were crowded by Indians. The Bombay Burma Corporation had been the first to move all the European women and children of its employees up the Chindwin, from which they could get a good start if the worst should happen. A few of the more farsighted Government officials had privately made the same arrangements for their wives. The Government had formed no plans to deal with such an emergency. The Bombay Burma Corporation was severely criticised at the time for its policy of partial evacuation of women and children. But it had the excellent effect of stirring the Government to action, at a time when the situation was becoming grave. Quite apart from the fact that the policy of women and children first was the right one, it relieved the married men among the employees of their heaviest responsibility, and greatly increased their usefulness.

At Monywa I overtook the second batch of women and children. The first batch had travelled up the Chindwin River by launch, as far as Mawlaik, where it had been decided to assemble, to await a final decision. It had been my intention to return from Monywa, but when I reached it I was instructed to proceed to Mawlaik on the launch, in charge of the second party.

When I reached Mawlaik, and had handed over the party in my charge, I was instructed to stay there, to help organise preparations for the trek to India, via Manipur State, in case it finally became necessary. If it were decided on, I was to accompany the party of women and children with elephant transport. The elephants were not for them to ride on, but to carry their food and a minimum of camp kit and their personal belongings.

From that time forward the elephants began to play an important part. Geoff Bostock, the senior member of the Forest Staff up country, ordered all elephant work in timber extraction on the west bank of the Chindwin, north of Kalewa, to be stopped, and the elephants to be used to assist evacuation wherever possible. It was February, 1942.

Rumours had spread that a road was being hurriedly constructed from Imphal to Kalewa, for the use of some phantom army which was coming from India to check the rapid advance of the Japanese on the Sittang River on which we were falling back from the border of Malaya. Some people believed these rumours. Work had in fact been begun on the road, from the Kalewa end, and on to Tamu, from where the ranges of hills towered up to the west---an effective bottle-neck. Elephants were used in road-making, dragging timber to the bridge sites. The riders and elephants worked very hard for long hours, but with great willingness, and were quite unperturbed by the stream of Indians going past them.

Other elephants were being used to start a shuttle service to carry aged and sick people from Sittaung on the Chindwin to Tamu. There was a Forest Assistant in charge at each of the temporary camps at which they stopped on the way. Other elephants were being used to carry up rations for the evacuee rest camps. In the final stages the Bombay Burma scheme was handed over to the Government, together with the Forest Staff and elephants necessary for its operation.

The elephants and their riders continued on the work until the end of April, after which date there was no water left to water the animals. Those working on the Kalewa-Tamu road stayed there, until the retreating Army in Burma crossed the Chindwin at Kalewa, on its way out.

Our women and children were to reach Tamu by forest paths, as I thought that it would have created chaos to have travelled on the main track, with elephants among the packed crowds of refugees. I left Mawlaik with Bostock on 14 February, 1942, in charge of a party of twenty women and fifteen children, with a train of elephants. The second party, under Parker and Jones, left with twenty women and twelve children, two days later. There were, altogether, forty women, twenty-seven children and one hundred and ten elephants. The reports sent us from Tamu were that it would be impossible to take elephants beyond that point. However, I was certain it could be done, even if it meant destroying them at the end of the trek, after we had reached the Imphal Plain.

In general, Bostock's job was to look after the women and children, and mine to manage the elephants. Both of us were married, and our families were with the party. Parker was also married, with his wife in the party, but Jones was a bachelor and, no doubt, glad to be put in charge of elephants only.

Fortunately, during the whole of the trek from Mawlaik to Tamu, over the route we took, there was ample fodder. We were thus able to tie the elephants up by night, and their riders were able to cut enough bamboos, branches, grass, etc, to hand-feed them. The camps from Kalewa to Tamu were well off the beaten track, and were pleasant places for the women and children. For me they were rather a nightmare, as the elephants were continually breaking loose at night, and I felt the responsibility. We reached Tamu in six marches without any incidents except one bad stampede of elephants at night, when it was lucky no one was killed. The spirit of the women was remarkable, as every one of them had had to leave a comfortable home and abandon all her possessions at a few hours' notice. The novelty of roughing it in camp kept them from brooding over their misfortunes. Their chief worry was that their husbands were remaining in Burma, no scheme having been organised for withdrawing them, even with the Army. I got very exasperated on being told by several women that I was lucky to be in charge of them, and I found it more and more difficult to return a polite answer.

Tamu had become a congested bottle-neck, filled with thousands of Indians, all wondering how they would negotiate the next fifty miles, along a rough bridle-track, and over mountains five thousand feet high.

During the one day we halted there I thought it necessary to throw out all the tuskers and proceed with only thirty-two female elephants, all of them between twenty and forty-five years of age. Kit and personal luggage were cut to sixty pounds per head, as sufficient supplies of food had to be carried. A head Burman was killed on our arrival in Tamu. He was standing ten yards from me at the time, taking an air-travel suitcase, covered with labels from voyages in more civilised quarters of the globe, from an oozie sitting on an elephant's head, when the animal suddenly attacked him. I privately thought we were extremely lucky to have got so far with nothing worse happening, but the camp was greatly upset for the rest of the day.

From Tamu onwards the women became less talkative and their tempers more strained. However, I don't think any of the women in our two parties travelling on foot, but with elephant transport for kit and food, could describe the journey as anything worse than uncomfortable at times. For others it was a hellish nightmare, which became worse and worse as time went on.

I had many worries with the elephants, but the oozies remained serene. At one camp eight refugees had died of cholera and the elephants had to drop one thousand six hundred feet down from the ridge before they could get water. The women and children, however, camped on the ridge, although the ground had been fouled under every tree by the hordes who had preceded us.

We pushed on, although we were warned that it would be worse ahead. The warning proved only too accurate. The elephants were without water or fodder for thirty hours, except for twelve wild plantain stalks each, which were cut for us by some Lushai Chins from a Chin village. This just saved the situation. The elephants had to be tied up directly we reached our bivouac, and they could do no foraging for themselves. It was a big undertaking to have embarked on a sudden march, with women and children, without any rehearsal. However, every day things became better organised, and a routine was established.

Before dawn the children were pulled out of their blankets, and the camp resounded with their pathetic wails. They wondered why they were there, and what it was all about. Then, after they had been given some food, they set off on their long and weary trek with Bostock in charge. I remained behind, and supervised loading the elephants. When I had seen the last of the elephants fall into the line of march, I set off at a rapid pace, to overtake the party of women and children, and forge ahead to pick the next halting place about nine miles farther on. The presence of water was usually the reason for my choosing it.

On the third morning, when I was passing the party, and trying to make a cheerful remark to each family as it trailed along, my wife called me back, as though she had something important to say to me; but it was to show me something. In her hand she held half a dozen wild white violets. It was a tremendous thrill for us both that she should have found them growing at five thousand feet, among the mountains of Manipur, and for a moment we were able to forget all that this march meant to us, leaving Burma and our home. The sight and scent of those fresh, perfect little flowers was a wonderful stimulus to my morale, as I walked on up the line of straggling children. Some were singing, some crying. The track was narrow, and the sides so precipitous that it was easy to roll any dead who collapsed in their journey over the edge and down into the jungle. But a tell-tale stench lingered, and at such places mothers hurried the children on, leaving their questions unanswered.

At Tengnopal the country ahead to the saddle appeared a little less trying to the elephants; and the two young Assam tea-planters, who had just arrived to set up some sort of rest camp for the hordes of refugees, told us that things were not so bad ahead to Palel. It was, however, between Tengnopal and the saddle that the elephants met the first of the bulldozers, monsters which were to become their workmates in the months and years to follow. It was what was known as a D4, which had been sent forging ahead to reconnoitre the track which was later to become the Burma Road. We had all heard rumours that some phantom engine of war lay ahead of us, but late one night Major Murray Lees came to see me in our camp, in order to ask me what was likely to happen next morning, when his baby bulldozer encountered my train of elephants, going in the opposite direction. I was quite as scared that his bulldozer would make my elephants stampede, as he was that they would charge his mechanical pet and hurl it down the precipitous slope, or khudside, with their tusks. I was careful not to give away, in our discussion, that my fears were more realistic than his.

Since we seemed to hold equally strong cards, we compromised, and decided that he should start up his bulldozer at dawn and jockey it into a position which would allow my elephants room to get by. The track where it was working was the width of an ordinary single bed, and was cut out of the side of a precipitous slope.

I went ahead to have a look at my first bulldozer, and thought that if anyone ever deserved a knighthood it was the subaltern who was working it. I watched him for ten minutes, expecting that he would crash two thousand feet with every bladeful of earth, stones and shrubs his machine excavated and pushed over the edge. I found a spot where my elephants could pass round his machine, and work was stopped while they did so, leaving the engine idling. I have been informed that in one of the stages of D.T.s the sufferer sees visions of green elephants with yellow braces. But I am sure that if elephants have D.T.s, they see bulldozers. The look on the faces of both the elephants and the oozies riding them, as they sidled round this yellow-painted D4 bulldozer, with a British subaltern perched upon it like an oozie, while it blew out a blue diesel engine exhaust from its head, was that of sufferers in the most acute stages of D.T.s, seeing things. When we reached the saddle, the roar of the larger bulldozers working up the bill could be heard, but we were able to avoid passing them, by dropping down to a foot track to the plains from Sita. As far as the eye could see, it was marked by an irregular line of refugees, walking in single file, each with a bundle, or a child, on shoulders or head. From above it looked like a line of black ants.

We halted for an hour or so on the saddle, so as to get women and children well ahead. Eventually the word was given for us to push on, as within a few hours another larger tide of refugees was expected. I went ahead. I had been told that the track crossed many small ravines, which had been roughly bridged. There were dozens of them, and we had continual trouble in getting the elephants into the ravines and then out again, as the bridges were only made of the branches of trees, and none of them would have stood an elephant's weight. I watched all the animals pass alongside a particularly bad one, and as they went by gave orders that no one was to risk trying to cross over any bridge ahead. I then followed the last elephant, and stopped for a moment to speak a few cheering words to an unfortunate Anglo-Burman family.

Suddenly terrific yells and shouts burst out ahead of us, and, looking down the steep path, I saw odd refugees and stragglers jumping this way and that, bundles rolling into a ravine, and signs of chaos. Then I saw a riderless elephant, with its pack gone, coming up the slope towards me at a fast stride. Her ears were forward and she had an expression on her face which, I thought, meant that she was off back to Burma.

The path had cleared by magic, and I faced her alone, armed with an alpine stick fitted with a spearhead. I thought there would be an awful tragedy if I did not stop her, as there were hundreds of Indian women and children coming down the slope behind me. The valley below was ringing with shouts and yells. But she came straight at me, without hesitation, and only by hurling my spear at her and rolling down the khud did I escape being crushed. Only one of the deep narrow ravines behind me would check her.

I collected myself and my spear, and had regained the path, when I saw her come tearing back upon me at a high speed. Between us lay a deep, narrow ravine, which she must have crossed going up, though I had not seen her do so. To my amazement, I saw her "jump" it, with an action I had never seen an elephant make before, except a hobbled animal in slow motion. But there was no slow motion here. She was over the obstacle like a chaser over a brook, and I jumped clear of the track. I followed her down as fast as I could, and found she had been caught, and a batch of men were helping an injured oozie out of a deep ravine. He was in charge of the last elephant in the train, and it was obvious that he had disobeyed my orders, for fear of being left too far behind. He had tried to force his mount across the bridge, but she had refused, and had pushed it down with her forefeet, with the unfortunate result that the rider and pack went headlong into the ravine, while she kept her balance on the brink. Then, like a convict making a bold bid for liberty, she had stampeded up the hill, hoping to return from the barren hills to a land of bamboos. She stood quietly to be saddled, and went on with her work. She is the only elephant I have ever seen jump something wider than it could step across, but she must have hurt herself in doing so, as she went dead lame on both fore pads within two days. But by then the trek was over.

All the way to Palel, in the Imphal Plain, we could hear the bulldozers, coming up the new road they were cutting from that end. But was it for an army to march into Burma, or to help an army march out? The news from Burma was very grave. From Palel we were able to get motor transport to Imphal, but instead of destroying my tired and run-down elephants, I decided to march them back again, as there was more work for them to do. There was quite fair fodder and water for them near Palel, and while Bostock and I took the women and children to Dimapur, on the Assam Railway, the elephants had a well-earned rest for five days.

It was a relief to see the families off by the train on the Assam-Bengal Railway, and after we had waved good-bye, Bostock and I returned, against the tide of evacuees, to Palel and our elephants. The second party did not use elephants for the hill section from Tamu, but engaged Chin coolies.

The Assam tea-planters were travelling in the same direction, coming up with thousands of their coolies to help in constructing the road, while others were putting up relief camps for the increasing numbers of homeless Indian refugees.

We were asked if on our return journey we would take supplies, by elephant, for a projected camp for evacuees at Konkhan and build it when we got there. This we did successfully, and when we had completed it and stocked it with food we went on back to Tamu and Burma.

The elephants all got back, none the worse for their journey to Manipur, and at once went on to help in the work on the Kalewa-Tamu road. The riders were still game to carry on, though by that time they realised that the fall of Burma was imminent and that India was threatened.

In this terrible upheaval big men became petty. I do not wish to blame anyone, for the struggle against odds was appalling. One night there were two thousand four hundred Indian refugees in Tamu, and only eight sacks of rice to feed them on. But the more I saw of men during those last days in Tamu in 1942 the better I liked my elephants. I don't want to criticise others, for I have no doubt I was criticised myself.

I made one final bid to get two hundred elephants out, but it was too late. I was told that if I had carried on with my plan I should have congested the one remaining walking-track for the wretched Indians, and so have caused even greater hardship and greater loss of life.

Mr Justice Braund, of the Allahabad High Court, did much stalwart work in those dark days, and in an article on the evacuation over the Manipur road said: "It was an affair of 'tea' to the rescue at one end, and 'teak' to the rescue at the other. But for the help of the planters, the Indian Tea Association and the men of the Bombay Burma, it would never have been possible."

There are few occasions in life when one is in such a tight place that one is unable to help others. But I can record two incidents, which happened when I moved out for the last time as an evacuee myself. I left Tamu on 9 April, 1942, under a scorching mid-day sun, carrying all the kit I possessed, and leading a friend's faithful old Labrador---for I had lost my own dogs. As I turned a bend where the track took off for the first ascent into the Manipur hills, I found two sobbing little Indian children, a girl of about seven and a boy of about four. Against the bank lay an Indian girl mother, aged about twenty, dying of thirst, hunger, exhaustion and grief. I could do nothing less than give her a drink out of my water-bottle, and in her eyes I read gratitude and a terrible question: "What will happen to my children ?"

While I was looking at her, in despair of doing anything, the change came suddenly, and a moment later I realised that I was left alone with the responsibility of these children, and that every man and woman coming up the road was fighting for his or her own life, and many of them would be lucky if they could save themselves. I could not carry one child, even if I were to leave the other. Something made it impossible for me to go on, and so I turned back instead. Providence came to my aid, for within a mile I met a jeep---one of the first jeeps we had seen on that road. It was being driven by a Staff Captain, whom I had met a few days previously in Tamu.

I stepped out in front of him, blocking the track, and taking the risk that he would drive over me or send me spinning down the khudside. But he recognised me, and pulled up. Then he greeted me with the words: "Can't be done, old chap. If I pick you up, I'll never get through, and I have to get over the mountains before dark."

I told him I would rather die by the roadside than be seen in such a car, or take the risk of being driven by him, but I begged him to take the two children, packed under his kit in the back, and to drop them at the evacuee camp at Imphal. I was determined he should take them, and I think if he had refused I would have tried to shove his car off the road, down the khudside. But he did not, and when I had loaded the two children and watched them being driven off, there was a lump in my throat. Then I plodded on after them with a lighter heart, while the noise of the jeep grew less and less. When I had crossed the mountains for the second time, I went along to the evacuee camp at Imphal, and found both children being properly looked after in the Orphan Section.

But before then I saw many heart-rending sights, when I could give no help. At one of the wayside camps, which would obviously be washed away when the rains broke, a young Anglo-Indian spoke to me. He was sitting in a ditch near the camp, with his wife and a little girl of six huddled beside them in a blanket. They all seemed ill, and had that look that one sees only on the faces of refugees and lost animals.

The man's voice sounded as though he were delirious with fever, as he asked me if I had passed a little boy of eight, lying dead on a blanket. Without waiting for me to answer, he poured out his tragic story. He had carried his son, who was dying of pneumonia, until his wife had collapsed and could carry the little girl no farther. Then he had abandoned his dead, or dying, boy, to carry the little girl and enable his wife to continue. He was haunted by the fear that the little boy wasn't actually dead, and might have been saved. By the end of the trek over the mountain both the man and his wife were casualties with pneumonia, and I discovered that when he spoke to me he had been describing what had happened to them five days before. So there could have been no question of turning back.

That road was full of tragedy and tears. But it was rapidly becoming a road. We met the bulldozers coming down, clearing a real road to Tamu, just in time to enable the Army to get out from Burma. When the elephants saw them they must have felt their day was over ---but if so they were wrong, for they were needed in all the stages of the campaign.

The first army lorry reached Tamu from Manipur just before I started to walk out, and for a time the Army tried to clear the road of evacuees before the retreating troops arrived from Burma. I remember one big lorry passing me, loaded with forty people, and as it reached the bend I saw it fail to turn, and take a headlong dive, keeping upright for an amazing distance, before it was shattered on a tree. I went down to help. There were four dead and any number of broken arms and legs. This sort of accident was always happening.

When I was climbing to the saddle overlooking the Palel Plain, on my second walk out, a staff car going towards Tamu along the newly cut roadway pulled up. A Major-General got out, spoke a cheering word to me, and admired my Labrador. The wise old dog wagged his rudder and looked eagerly at the car, as if asking him to give us a lift. The General told his A.D.C. to turn his car round, at a perilous spot on the edge of the precipice, and took us as far as where the old bridle-track diverged from the new road, overlooking the Palel Plain. There the General dropped us with the words, "Au Revoir." His farewell words came true, for within six months I was serving under him in the Army at Tamu, when he was commanding the 20th Indian Division.

Chapter Thirteen
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