Blankets of smoke, thick, coal-black, billowed from a dozen burning oil tanks. The bus drew on towards the docks, the children silent. Allu pulled Hants & Dorset to a halt and the children poured out, adding to a vast, swirling crowd. The atmosphere was vile, people punching wildly so that they could get a yard nearer the dock gates.
A black Rolls Royce edged through the crowd, turned and reversed down a wooden jetty a few feet from its end. The Rolls stopped and a uniformed chauffeur emerged and opened the passenger door. A fat white man in a claret suit, white-bearded, ruddy-faced, an out-of-season Santa Claus, got out and walked back towards land as the chauffeur pushed the Rolls over the edge of the jetty into the muddy brown slop of the Rangoon river.
The fat man didn’t look back but placed himself in the middle of a small army of servants carrying suitcases on their heads. As they barged through the crowd, splitting the party from Bishop Strachan’s into two, he shouted: ‘Get these black bitches out of my way.’
Pushing through the mob, Miss Furroughs caught up with him and slapped him hard on the cheek.
‘How dare you insult my children. We are not savages, sir, and I’ll ask you to remember that.’ He touched his face, glared at her, and then pushed on towards the ship. The girls, for the first time since they’d left the school, smiled amongst themselves.
Grace ran to a ticket booth, its grille closed, and darted round the back. Sitting on a chair, smoking a cheroot, was a Burman. She told her story – ten-a-penny on that day – but the shipping clerk took pity on Grace and promised to see what he could do. While theywaited, Grace overheard Ruby entertaining the other children with a sotto voce impression of Miss Furroughs: ‘You horrible little man. We are not savages, sir.’ In the ordinary way, she might have given detention to Ruby for mocking the headmistress. Not that day.
Grace had always tried hard not to show it, but she adored Ruby. She should have been ugly with her beaky nose and heavy features, but Ruby’s brown-black eyes danced with mischief and character. Ruby was as thick as thieves with Emily, the great classical beauty of the orphanage, and there were times when Grace envied the friendship between the two girls who were only a few years younger than her.
Half an hour later, the clerk returned.
‘Yes?’ said Grace, desperate for good news.
He would not look her in the eye.
‘No booking for Bishop Strachan’s.’
‘Is there any chance?’
‘No chance of booking. No spare places on the ship for two European ladies, never mind sixty-two half-Burmese children. The ship is too, too crowded. No room to sit. Japs maybe bomb ship. No good, lady, no good.’
‘Is there nothing you can do?’
‘My brother-in-law, he is engineer on the ship. Maybe, for a thousand rupees, he can help you lady, and the other lady. But the children?’ He stared at the ground, and shrugged.
‘Why?’ asked Grace, pushing him.
‘They are half-castes.’
They clambered back on the bus and Allu drove to the railway station. Humanity as far as the eye could see blocked the main street approaching the station. Grace got out of the bus, climbed up and stood on the engine cowling – not very lady-like – and saw hundreds of people pressing against a thin line of Indian policeman threshing the crowd with staves,beating them back. Beyond them, a locomotive puffing steam, a train overflowing with faces – people on the roof, legs hanging off the sides – but motionless. No one going anywhere.
Hants & Dorset wheezed in reverse, away from the station, and then took the road north, heading three hundred and something miles to Mandalay. Grace thought that the engine must give up the ghost in the next few miles or so.
At a crossroads the traffic was controlled by a European man who did a perfect impression of a policeman’s hand signals – blocking a line of traffic with an imperious
A black Rolls Royce edged through the crowd, turned and reversed down a wooden jetty a few feet from its end. The Rolls stopped and a uniformed chauffeur emerged and opened the passenger door. A fat white man in a claret suit, white-bearded, ruddy-faced, an out-of-season Santa Claus, got out and walked back towards land as the chauffeur pushed the Rolls over the edge of the jetty into the muddy brown slop of the Rangoon river.
The fat man didn’t look back but placed himself in the middle of a small army of servants carrying suitcases on their heads. As they barged through the crowd, splitting the party from Bishop Strachan’s into two, he shouted: ‘Get these black bitches out of my way.’
Pushing through the mob, Miss Furroughs caught up with him and slapped him hard on the cheek.
‘How dare you insult my children. We are not savages, sir, and I’ll ask you to remember that.’ He touched his face, glared at her, and then pushed on towards the ship. The girls, for the first time since they’d left the school, smiled amongst themselves.
Grace ran to a ticket booth, its grille closed, and darted round the back. Sitting on a chair, smoking a cheroot, was a Burman. She told her story – ten-a-penny on that day – but the shipping clerk took pity on Grace and promised to see what he could do. While theywaited, Grace overheard Ruby entertaining the other children with a sotto voce impression of Miss Furroughs: ‘You horrible little man. We are not savages, sir.’ In the ordinary way, she might have given detention to Ruby for mocking the headmistress. Not that day.
Grace had always tried hard not to show it, but she adored Ruby. She should have been ugly with her beaky nose and heavy features, but Ruby’s brown-black eyes danced with mischief and character. Ruby was as thick as thieves with Emily, the great classical beauty of the orphanage, and there were times when Grace envied the friendship between the two girls who were only a few years younger than her.
Half an hour later, the clerk returned.
‘Yes?’ said Grace, desperate for good news.
He would not look her in the eye.
‘No booking for Bishop Strachan’s.’
‘Is there any chance?’
‘No chance of booking. No spare places on the ship for two European ladies, never mind sixty-two half-Burmese children. The ship is too, too crowded. No room to sit. Japs maybe bomb ship. No good, lady, no good.’
‘Is there nothing you can do?’
‘My brother-in-law, he is engineer on the ship. Maybe, for a thousand rupees, he can help you lady, and the other lady. But the children?’ He stared at the ground, and shrugged.
‘Why?’ asked Grace, pushing him.
‘They are half-castes.’
They clambered back on the bus and Allu drove to the railway station. Humanity as far as the eye could see blocked the main street approaching the station. Grace got out of the bus, climbed up and stood on the engine cowling – not very lady-like – and saw hundreds of people pressing against a thin line of Indian policeman threshing the crowd with staves,beating them back. Beyond them, a locomotive puffing steam, a train overflowing with faces – people on the roof, legs hanging off the sides – but motionless. No one going anywhere.
Hants & Dorset wheezed in reverse, away from the station, and then took the road north, heading three hundred and something miles to Mandalay. Grace thought that the engine must give up the ghost in the next few miles or so.
At a crossroads the traffic was controlled by a European man who did a perfect impression of a policeman’s hand signals – blocking a line of traffic with an imperious
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