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Dedicated to Kelda Harrison
LAWRENCE’S WAR MEMOIRS: PART 3
Now I must tell you about my dog Pluto. One day my jeep was all packed up ready for us to move camp. This was in the early days. As I got into my seat beside the driver I saw, lying on the rear wheel box, a dog, a disgusting looking mangy village dog.
I was just about to bawl out at it to get out of my jeep, when its tail gave a tiny wag and he said with his eyes “I’m not a village dog. Let me stay, please!�
Looking more carefully, I could see that under all his scars and sores that he was really a black Labrador. He must have belonged to some officer, and in the retreat from Burma, had got left behind. He had clearly only just survived, the village dogs had cut him up badly.
I couldn't throw him out, so off we went. We had to stop twice at rivers, so that he could hobble down for a drink and I washed him with the cool water, for he seemed feverish and I wasn’t sure he would last the journey. He did though.
Next day our doctor checked him out and patched him up and in a few days, with good food inside him, he blossomed out and became his old self — a lovely glistening black labrador.
From that day on, he never left my side, sitting beside me on parade, riding on my wheelbox wherever I went in my jeep. He insisted on lying on it although it was very slippery, so that whenever we had to brake suddenly, over my shoulder he came, and if I didn’t catch him, out he fell.
He used to sleep under my bed and each morning when I stirred I’d feel through the mosquito net a lovely wet nose pressed against my face.
But a morning came when there was no wet nose, I got up hurriedly to see where he was. I soon saw him, he was lying down, quite a long way away but looking towards my tent. I strode towards him, ready to scold him. But as I got near, there came again that tiny wag of the tail. I saw that he had been badly wounded in the night. No doubt he had gone off in search of a girl friend and had been carved up by the fierce village dogs again.
I picked him up carefully and took him to the vet of the Mule Company who was nearby. There I laid him on the operating table, with just my hand on him, while the vet proceeded to stitch him up with the big needles he used for the mules. To use these on an animal so much smaller must have been very painful for Pluto, but he never whimpered once.
Soon he was up again and his old self. Many more months passed and then once more the urge to find a girl friend overcame him. But this time it was the last, for when I found him he was dead.
I really loved that dog and writing about him even now, brings tears to my eyes.
We travelled on down to Rangoon and had happy days exploring the city, for now the war was nearly over. The great Shwedegon Pagoda was particularly impressive.
Burma was a beautiful country and the people were truly delightful, showing an instinctive dignity and always courteous. It’s such a pity to think of the horrible military government they have at this time.
I remember one town we passed through, had the reputation for being the gambling centre of Burma. Once a year the men from all over the country would gather together there to gamble. I’m told they would often gamble their land, their houses and even their wives and usually - as so often happens, they lost.
I remember another time, our Colonel visited us and said there were several Military Crosses available for bravery and asked if any of us thought we deserved one. We couldn't think of anything we’d done, so it was given to an officer in another unit, who had ingeniously wrapped the Colonel’s jeep in a tarpaulin and floated it down the river!
Another memory was of an East African unit wanting to go home, but which had to capture one small hill first. They called in fighter bombers to give it a good strafing, then they pounded it with heavy artillery and finally they assaulted it, but when the officer got to the top he found he hadn’t any of his men behind him! Luckily there weren’t any Japs either.
When we first came out from England we wore old fashioned solar ‘topees’ on our heads — they were a bit like a kind of helmet — plus long sleeved shirts, and shorts with huge turn ups which you could unbutton and tuck into your long socks as protection against the sun and the mosquitoes. But when we left, we were bare chested and wearing short socks, short shorts, and bush hats. And we were all as brown as berries, which no doubt was a natural protection from the fierce rays of the Burmese sun.
To make sure we didn’t get malaria we had to take a daily dose of mepacrine, a small yellow pill which seems to have protected us but, unfortunately, at the same time turned us all yellow! Luckily it wore off after a few moths.
And so the war came to an end and as you can see, for me, as a young man, it was enormous fun. Perhaps that’s the way we all remember our lives as we get older. But I’m glad to say that I was never called upon to display great courage or fortitude — for I don’t know how I would have behaved then. It was always dangerous, for our advance was only down the roads or forest tracks, the Japs were adept at leaving pockets of soldiers behind, making us vulnerable to attack from the rear.
But looking back on it all now, I can see how, once we had stopped them at Kohima, we were always bound to win. Their supply lines were immensely long — all the way back to Japan, whereas ours’ were just back to India, where we could get everything we needed, because India was our colony. Our aircraft which flew from India soon shot theirs’ out of the skies, and we never saw any again. We could move about on the ground with impunity but we could spot them from the air whatever they did.
Before, whilst we were still at Roorkee I had managed to get two bits of leave and one of sick leave. I’ll tell you what we did:
I had had malaria - not badly, but there I was in hospital. Every day we all had to give samples of urine. There were six of us in my Ward and every day there were six beakers of cider on the mantelpiece, and then one day everyone but me went down with jaundice and then there were five beakers of beer and one of cider. The other five men were all told that their two illnesses entitled them to two weeks’ holiday in the hills! But not for me. Until one day there were six beakers of beer and I became entitled too. I don’t think I ever did have jaundice, I think it was just one of the other officers, who maybe took pity on me and mixed up the beakers!
So then we all went up to Naini Tal in the Himalayas, where there was a beautiful lake, and as you could hire ponies I spent every day and all day riding. The hill stations where we were, were where all the ‘memsahibs’ — the wives and daughters of the white men came when the hot weather arrived on the plains, and I think my five fellow officers were entertained by them.
My next two weeks’ leave was spent in Kashmir. There were four of us and we caught a taxi in Rawalpindi (in the Punjab region) and travelled all day, until as evening approached we had climbed to a place called Gulmarg. It was a ski resort but not like those in America and Europe, there were no ski-lifts.
So to ski, we got on ponies while our ski bearer carried our skis and we climbed steadily up along a track through the forest where the snow was so deep it came up to the ponies’ backs. When we came out of the forest, there before us was the clear mountain and a ski hut. In there we fixed on our skis and then under them we strapped a long piece of bearskin with the fur pointing backwards. With that it was possible to climb up as far as you liked. Take the skins off, wrap them round your waist and ski down to the hut. When we had done this two or three times, our ski bearer had produced lovely hot lunches.
When we’d finished for the day the final run was down through the forest to our room, where our other bearer had a big galvanised tub ready — full of lovely hot water, so that we could strip off and have a bath!
On the last leave I remember there were just two of us. To decide where to go, we looked at the map and found the place where the railway line appeared to go furthest into the mountains. Actually it didn’t, and we had to decamp and get on a country bus, which climbed up and up, through the lovely Kulu valley, where we got out and settled for the night in a dak-bungalow. This is a bungalow for travellers and had a bearer or chowkidar, a man who looked after the place.
In the morning we were going to climb up to the Rothang Pass, 12,000 feet! This was the place where Hannibal — the famous Emperor of olden times — brought his army when he conquered India centuries ago, in Roman days.
During the evening another bunch of officers arrived and they were also going up the Rothang, so we decided to tackle it together.
We set off on a beautiful sunny day, through the lovely orchards of the Kulu Valley. Soon we were on the mountain proper and the track was easier to follow, as on one side there was a cliff and on the other, a sheer drop. After a while, I thought the others were going unnecessarily fast and suggested it was time for a break and a snack. But they didn’t want any of that; so I said I was stopping anyway, and as no one else wanted to, off they went and I was left to take my rest alone. Which I did.
After a while, rested and refreshed, and with a little food inside me, I walked on at my own pace. Several hours went by and eventually I arrived at the Pass. It was a wonderful sight — a bare expanse of snow and the mountains stretching away as far as you could see. There was no sign of the others, so I concluded they must have been extraordinarily energetic and gone on down the other side, for there had been no possibility of passing on the way up.
There was a large boulder nearby and the sun had dried off all the snow, so I chose to lie down there and was soon fast asleep. After a while I was woken by the sound of voices and as I sat up, I saw, wearily coming up the way I had just come, my friends. We were all entirely puzzled as to how this could have happened. They thought I must have been magicked up there in some mysterious way. I think it was just one of those strange things that can happen to one in the Himalayas. After all, they are supposed to be the dwelling of the Great Masters, where the Ultimate Truth is to be found!
One day Jake asked me to go ahead and try to find a good site for our next camp. So I set off with my driver at the wheel, and Pluto’s head on my shoulder, and somewhere nearby the Sten gun. Officers were only armed with pistols — which I considered useless.
We went straight down the track for what seemed miles and we hadn’t seen any site which would do for a camp. We rounded a corner and ran smack into a party of Japanese soldiers! My driver braked suddenly, I got off a burst of Sten gunfire in their direction, Pluto of course fell out but he clearly didn’t like the look of the Japanese. Perhaps he had bad memories; he scrambled back and my driver drove hard off back. I think the Japs were more surprised than we were, for I didn’t hear any gunfire from them.

We had two incidents when the army justice had to be invoked and wasn’t. When I was shot on the train, we all agreed that we’d keep quiet about it and so Jake didn’t hold an official Court of Inquiry as of course he was required to do. It would have been bound to damage my jemadah’s reputation.
The other was a Rape case. Three of our sikh soldiers had raped a young Burmese girl and her mother brought her to demand justice. This actually shows in what high esteem the Burmese people held us. They’d never have dared to do this with the Japs. I was the prosecuting officer and Jake was the judge. It was a very hot afternoon after a large lunch. I managed to persuade the girl to give us exact and graphic details, not nice and not easy for her, but apparently required by law. Then, I was half way through my speech declaring the sikhs undoubtedly guilty, when Jake woke up with a start, banged the table, declared “Case dismissed — not proven!�

Such was justice but at that time it was probably fair; the war was over, and our troops had generally behaved faultlessly with the population, so all could go home and restart their old lives again with no stain on their honour.

While I was writing all this, I woke up one morning about 2.30 a.m. and opened my bedroom window, and there, pouring his silver notes into the night was a nightingale. I don’t know if I can really believe it, Bracknell is a busy town — not the sort of place you’d expect to find nightingales.
But it reminded me of the interest in birds that had grown from my first days in Kirkee and into Burma and which still remains with me to this day.

My first encounter with the avian world of India was sudden and I was the loser. We must have been camping out doing some engineering task, such as lashing together a trestle with ropes. You see we had to learn to do all the things that soon we would require our jewans to do.
We were lined up getting our lunch, we held out our mess tins and the kharsama put in a piece of chicken and some spuds. Mine was no sooner in, than it disappeared before my eyes — and there up in the tree was a kite, happily enjoying my chicken! They were amazingly bold robbers. So my interest started.

From my bedroom I could see a lot of small yellow birds building their elaborate nests. They started by fixing some grass to a leaf, in a palm tree. They formed it with a loop, and then built a pouch on one side, and some really busy fellows had soon completed it and were starting on the entrance tunnel. When one day in flew all the females. Each male hopped about on his creation, hoping to attract a mate. Those with nearly completed nests were soon picked and settled down to produce their family, but the others hopped frantically around on some of their rather miserable efforts — all to no avail. At last they were all paired up and the females helped finish the nests. They were weaver birds.

There was a little finch we called the Urdu bird because we saw it each day as we were cycling to our Urdu classes.
There were sparrows, like our’s and no doubt like your’s, there were robins — except it was their rear end that was red, not their breasts. There were also mynahs, which can be taught to talk, ibis and huge kingfishers on the river.

Many’s the time in Burma when I should have been using my binoculars to look for the enemy, but I was busy tracing a racket-tailed drongo!

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