Rangoon Battalion: Epilogue - Part 11

PART 11
Epilogue

I am going to leave off here as I am getting so little time for writing these days that you will never get this instalment unless I send it now. I am sorry it has taken so long to write but I hope you will find it interesting. The last part of the story is going to be the most difficult of all to write as even now in my mind it is nothing but a vague and hazy memory of a month of utter misery. I started walking from Mogaung on 4th May and it took exactly 28 days to reach the first point of civilisation in India. The trek through the densest possible jungle, with mud and rain all the way, was indescribably horrible and even now I do not like to recall it. Some day perhaps I will write the full story of the trek but not now. I came through the worst possible way — via the Hukon Valley. Of one thing I am certain — that in the course of time the Hukon Valley will become legendary and the evacuation by that route will become as historic as the Charge of the Six Hundred. It is already know as the valley of death.

One often reads in story books of a road lined with corpses but, believe me, it is not so pleasant to travel along such a road. Actually the “road” was never more than a jungle track. It was an exceptionally good day if we passed less than ten corpses and after the first couple of weeks there was a rotting corpse to at least every half mile They went down to cholera, dysentery, starvation, exhaustion and exposure chiefly. It has been estimated that, in all, about 15,000 people tried to get through the swamp known as the Hukon Valley, of which I doubt if there are more than 10,000 alive now. Many who completed the dreadful 300 mile trek died of exhaustion on arrival in India. I have heard of no one apart from myself who came out that way who has not spent some time in hospital since. The worst part of the trek was the knowledge that a slip in the mud causing even a slightly sprained ankle meant certain death.

As I say, it was no fun and even now I don’t like recalling the details. The only thing that matters is that I survived with health unimpaired, although I swear that if anyone ever suggests to me when I eventually come home that a walk in the country would be a good idea, I will cheerfully shoot him!

I hope you will pass this screed round to anyone who may be interested; but please keep it with my last instalment. Some day, who knows, I may write a book on my adventures in Burma.

Once again my apologies for taking so long writing this. Sometimes I am afraid I have let weeks pass without adding a page.

With fondest love to you all.

Ever affectionately,

Fred

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.