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Authors: Andrew Martin
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George and Isabelle – had already left Burma.)
N. Moses. He was a railway surveyor (among other things), rather rudely referred to by Sir John as ‘Dutch Jew’. But then Moses carried the stigma of having directed Sir John and his party into the Chaukan Pass, as we will see.
There were also three Indian railwaymen, who had all been based at Lashio, and we know at least how they described themselves:
C. V. Venkataraman, ‘store clerk of the Burma–China Railway’.
R. V. Venkatachalam, ‘office superintendent of the Burma–China Railway’.
S. T. Rajan, ‘divisional accountant of the Burma–China Railway’.
All the above three were in their fifties or sixties, and another diary of the Chaukan would describe them as ‘elderly railway servants’.
There was also Dr Burgess-Barnett, a medical doctor, but also Superintendent of the above-mentioned Zoological Gardens in Rangoon since 1938, the place from which the boa constrictor had escaped. He had been a house physician at St Bart’s in London, and an honorary captain of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He had been the curator of reptiles at London Zoo from 1932 to 1937, and the author, in 1940, of a pamphlet on
The Treatment of Snake Bites
. A good man to have in the jungle, then, except for his age (he was fifty-four), and Sir John would designate the doctor his MO, or medical officer, on the Chaukan trek.
This, then, was ‘the railway party’. It also included two Indian porters and five Indian servants, none of whom belonged to Sir John, who wrote in his letter: ‘I brought no servants. They had all gone previously. The cook, his wife and family to India. Poor Sam, my butler, found his wife and three children had fled from Maymyo when we arrived there; his brother killed by a bomb and his sister injured by another, so he went into the wilds to seek his family. I never saw him again.’ We have the name of only one of the servants: Applaswamy, butler to Manley.
The railway party managed to commandeer some ‘vanettes’ at Myitkyina, and in these they drove along the track (now strewn with abandoned cars) towards the town on the hill, Sumprabum. Another diarist has left a terse description of the ‘road’ to Sumprabum at this time: ‘Everything was burning.’ It was mainly cars that were burning – torched to keep them from the Japanese. As they neared Sumprabum, Sir John and his men abandoned their vanettes and rolled them into a gulley. They knew they wouldn’t be any use beyond Sumprabum. They then walked into the town of that name, and there, on 10 May, as rain fell on the tin roofs of the red houses, Sir John mustered rice rations, recruited some Kachin porters and retained two elephants and their mahouts.
The route leading to the Chaukan Pass branched off to the left from the track leading from Sumprabum to the most northerly settlement, Putao. On 11 May, at a village along this track referred to by Sir John as Hkam Ho (it does not exist on any modern map), the railway party joined forces with what we will call Rossiter’s party.
This was led by Edward Wrixon Rossiter, who was a colleague of one of our opening pair, John Lamb Leyden, even if he did work eight days’ travel north of him. Rossiter, like Leyden, was a sub-divisional officer of the Myitkyina District. Rossiter’s particular sub-division was Putao. In other words, he administered the most northerly and remote territory in Burma. He was also a Superintendent of the Frontier Service, the body that dealt with the outlying minorities of Burma, particularly the Shans of the north and east, with whom the British were on reasonably good terms. (Britain had never conquered the Shans, but just inherited them when she conquered the Burmese, whom the Shans did not like. They were tenants, so to speak, who had found themselves with a new and slightly more congenial landlord.)
Edward Wrixon Rossiter’s job called for an independent-minded man, and he seems to have fitted the bill.
N. Moses. He was a railway surveyor (among other things), rather rudely referred to by Sir John as ‘Dutch Jew’. But then Moses carried the stigma of having directed Sir John and his party into the Chaukan Pass, as we will see.
There were also three Indian railwaymen, who had all been based at Lashio, and we know at least how they described themselves:
C. V. Venkataraman, ‘store clerk of the Burma–China Railway’.
R. V. Venkatachalam, ‘office superintendent of the Burma–China Railway’.
S. T. Rajan, ‘divisional accountant of the Burma–China Railway’.
All the above three were in their fifties or sixties, and another diary of the Chaukan would describe them as ‘elderly railway servants’.
There was also Dr Burgess-Barnett, a medical doctor, but also Superintendent of the above-mentioned Zoological Gardens in Rangoon since 1938, the place from which the boa constrictor had escaped. He had been a house physician at St Bart’s in London, and an honorary captain of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He had been the curator of reptiles at London Zoo from 1932 to 1937, and the author, in 1940, of a pamphlet on
The Treatment of Snake Bites
. A good man to have in the jungle, then, except for his age (he was fifty-four), and Sir John would designate the doctor his MO, or medical officer, on the Chaukan trek.
This, then, was ‘the railway party’. It also included two Indian porters and five Indian servants, none of whom belonged to Sir John, who wrote in his letter: ‘I brought no servants. They had all gone previously. The cook, his wife and family to India. Poor Sam, my butler, found his wife and three children had fled from Maymyo when we arrived there; his brother killed by a bomb and his sister injured by another, so he went into the wilds to seek his family. I never saw him again.’ We have the name of only one of the servants: Applaswamy, butler to Manley.
The railway party managed to commandeer some ‘vanettes’ at Myitkyina, and in these they drove along the track (now strewn with abandoned cars) towards the town on the hill, Sumprabum. Another diarist has left a terse description of the ‘road’ to Sumprabum at this time: ‘Everything was burning.’ It was mainly cars that were burning – torched to keep them from the Japanese. As they neared Sumprabum, Sir John and his men abandoned their vanettes and rolled them into a gulley. They knew they wouldn’t be any use beyond Sumprabum. They then walked into the town of that name, and there, on 10 May, as rain fell on the tin roofs of the red houses, Sir John mustered rice rations, recruited some Kachin porters and retained two elephants and their mahouts.
The route leading to the Chaukan Pass branched off to the left from the track leading from Sumprabum to the most northerly settlement, Putao. On 11 May, at a village along this track referred to by Sir John as Hkam Ho (it does not exist on any modern map), the railway party joined forces with what we will call Rossiter’s party.
This was led by Edward Wrixon Rossiter, who was a colleague of one of our opening pair, John Lamb Leyden, even if he did work eight days’ travel north of him. Rossiter, like Leyden, was a sub-divisional officer of the Myitkyina District. Rossiter’s particular sub-division was Putao. In other words, he administered the most northerly and remote territory in Burma. He was also a Superintendent of the Frontier Service, the body that dealt with the outlying minorities of Burma, particularly the Shans of the north and east, with whom the British were on reasonably good terms. (Britain had never conquered the Shans, but just inherited them when she conquered the Burmese, whom the Shans did not like. They were tenants, so to speak, who had found themselves with a new and slightly more congenial landlord.)
Edward Wrixon Rossiter’s job called for an independent-minded man, and he seems to have fitted the bill.
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