Goggle-eyed, the children watched as soldiers of the King’s African Rifles rounded the bend and marched towards them. The Jem grinned. ‘You are in luck, Miss Collins. We won’t keep you hanging around for much longer.’
The African askari tied ropes to the back of the bus, holding it down, allowing the rest of the children and finally Grace to wriggle out of the rear window. It was a tight fit, no easy way of pulling off an exit that could be deemed lady-like. Her etiquette teacher hadoverlooked the problem of leaving a bus over-hanging an abyss by the back window while wearing a frock in front of two hundred African soldiers. She extracted herself with as much dignity as she could and treated the Jem to her grandest scowl. Bowing, he said. ‘Are you always in such a bad mood before breakfast, Miss Collins?’
Like a dog shaking dry its fur after a swim, she shook her head, but had to turn away from him to hide her smile.
One of the askari, Private Tomasi, coal-black, almost a boy, thin and very light, looped one end of a long rope around his shoulder and tied it off. After squeezing through the back window of the bus, he crept down the aisle to the front step, the bus tilting its nose as he went forward. He swung around above the drop, gripped the bumper, heaved himself up and rested his feet on it, his body leaning forward against the bonnet. Another askari threw him the end of a second rope, which he caught in one hand while he held on to the bonnet with the other, and then he tied the rope end round a metal ring fixed to the chassis. A third rope was thrown and that, too, was tied to the ring at the front of the bus. That done, he swung back through the open door of the bus in one smooth arc and popped out the back, as neatly as a circus trick. The askari fixed block and tackles to an enormous, overhanging branch of a teak tree, and three dozen of them tugged on the pulleys and the tackles creaked horribly but the front of the bus was hoisted an inch in the air. Another inch, and a third, and slowly the bus came to a level and they swung it back onto the road like a toy and Emily cried out, ‘Three cheers for the King’s African Rifles, pip pip!’ and the girls hurrahed, and Allu fired up the engine and the bus spluttered back into life and everyone climbed back on and Ruby stood up in her seat and sang the first lines of sultry ‘Summertime’.
‘Ruby Goldberg, where on earth did you learn that?’ asked Grace, incredulous.
‘That would be a secret, Miss,’ said Ruby.
At high noon, as they were passing a large army camp, hundreds of soldiers milling around, tents, lorries, guns, even a few tanks, backed up underneath the trees, Hants & Dorset gave out a pathetic woof, like the last bark of an elderly dog, and stopped. Allu stood up, took a straw mat from beneath his seat, stepped out of the bus, unrolled the mat, lay down and within seconds was fast asleep.
As places to break down in Burma, in the borderland between the great river plains and the highland jungle, the army camp was perfect: food and water, and a whole squad of mechanics given an exciting new challenge: how to bring back to life a dead bus engine. Observing the soldiers pouring tea for the children or attacking the innards of the bus, boredom, Grace realised, was the great enemy of soldiers everywhere, boredom while they waited for someone in authority to order them to the front line. Or to the next camp, and more boredom. They relished any excuse to do something different, to entertain the children, to fix an ancient engine, and, of course, to chat up the schoolteacher.
But of the Jem, no sign. It was weird, Grace thought. When they were in trouble, he would appear immediately. But if something happened and he was not needed, then he disappeared.
It took the mechanics two hours of sweat and tinkering before old Hants & Dorset groaned and gibbered into life, its exhaust pipe sending up a thick black smoke cloud. The senior
The African askari tied ropes to the back of the bus, holding it down, allowing the rest of the children and finally Grace to wriggle out of the rear window. It was a tight fit, no easy way of pulling off an exit that could be deemed lady-like. Her etiquette teacher hadoverlooked the problem of leaving a bus over-hanging an abyss by the back window while wearing a frock in front of two hundred African soldiers. She extracted herself with as much dignity as she could and treated the Jem to her grandest scowl. Bowing, he said. ‘Are you always in such a bad mood before breakfast, Miss Collins?’
Like a dog shaking dry its fur after a swim, she shook her head, but had to turn away from him to hide her smile.
One of the askari, Private Tomasi, coal-black, almost a boy, thin and very light, looped one end of a long rope around his shoulder and tied it off. After squeezing through the back window of the bus, he crept down the aisle to the front step, the bus tilting its nose as he went forward. He swung around above the drop, gripped the bumper, heaved himself up and rested his feet on it, his body leaning forward against the bonnet. Another askari threw him the end of a second rope, which he caught in one hand while he held on to the bonnet with the other, and then he tied the rope end round a metal ring fixed to the chassis. A third rope was thrown and that, too, was tied to the ring at the front of the bus. That done, he swung back through the open door of the bus in one smooth arc and popped out the back, as neatly as a circus trick. The askari fixed block and tackles to an enormous, overhanging branch of a teak tree, and three dozen of them tugged on the pulleys and the tackles creaked horribly but the front of the bus was hoisted an inch in the air. Another inch, and a third, and slowly the bus came to a level and they swung it back onto the road like a toy and Emily cried out, ‘Three cheers for the King’s African Rifles, pip pip!’ and the girls hurrahed, and Allu fired up the engine and the bus spluttered back into life and everyone climbed back on and Ruby stood up in her seat and sang the first lines of sultry ‘Summertime’.
‘Ruby Goldberg, where on earth did you learn that?’ asked Grace, incredulous.
‘That would be a secret, Miss,’ said Ruby.
At high noon, as they were passing a large army camp, hundreds of soldiers milling around, tents, lorries, guns, even a few tanks, backed up underneath the trees, Hants & Dorset gave out a pathetic woof, like the last bark of an elderly dog, and stopped. Allu stood up, took a straw mat from beneath his seat, stepped out of the bus, unrolled the mat, lay down and within seconds was fast asleep.
As places to break down in Burma, in the borderland between the great river plains and the highland jungle, the army camp was perfect: food and water, and a whole squad of mechanics given an exciting new challenge: how to bring back to life a dead bus engine. Observing the soldiers pouring tea for the children or attacking the innards of the bus, boredom, Grace realised, was the great enemy of soldiers everywhere, boredom while they waited for someone in authority to order them to the front line. Or to the next camp, and more boredom. They relished any excuse to do something different, to entertain the children, to fix an ancient engine, and, of course, to chat up the schoolteacher.
But of the Jem, no sign. It was weird, Grace thought. When they were in trouble, he would appear immediately. But if something happened and he was not needed, then he disappeared.
It took the mechanics two hours of sweat and tinkering before old Hants & Dorset groaned and gibbered into life, its exhaust pipe sending up a thick black smoke cloud. The senior
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