The Englishman was superintendent of construction for the western half of the line. He had been over the route to Moulmein on horseback, and though he had never known a white man to attempt the journey on foot, he saw no reason why we could not make it if we could endure native “chow” and the tropical sun. But he scoffed at the suggestion that any living mortal could tramp from Moulmein to Bangkok, and advised us to give up at once so foolhardy a venture, and to return to Rangoon as we had come. We would not, and he mapped out on the table-cloth the route to the frontier town, pricking off each village with the point of his fork. When we declined the invitation to spend the night in his bungalow, even his wife joined him in vociferous protest. But we pleaded haste, and took our leave with their best wishes.
“If you can walk fast enough to reach Sittang to-night,” came the parting word, “you will find a division engineer who will be delighted to see you. That is, if you can get across the river.”
“It’s Sittang or bust,” said James, as we took up the pace of a forced march.
Nightfall found us still plodding on in jungled solitude. It was long afterwards that we were brought to a sudden halt at the bank of the Sittang river. Under the moon’s rays, the broad expanse of water showed dark and turbulent, racing by with the swiftness of a mountain stream. The few lights that twinkled high up above the opposite shore were nearly a half-mile distant—too far to swim in that rushing flood even had we had no knapsack to think of. I tore myself free from the undergrowth and, making a trumpet of my hands, bellowed across the water.
For a time only the echo answered. Then a faint cry was borne to our ears, and we caught the Hindustanee words “Quam hai?” (Who is it?). I took deep breath and shouted into the night:—
“Dö sahib hai! Engineer sampan, key sampan kéyderah?”
A moment of silence and the answer came back, soft yet distinct, like a nearby whisper:—
“Achá, sahib.” (All right.) Even at that distance we recognized the deferential tone of the Hindu coolie.
A speck of light descended to the level of the river, and, rising and falling irregularly, came steadily nearer. We waited eagerly, yet a half-hour passed before there appeared a flat-bottomed sampan, manned by three struggling Aryans whose brown skins gleamed in the light of a flickering lantern. They took for granted that we were railway officials, and, while two wound their arms around the bushes, the third sprang ashore with a respectful greeting and, picking up our knapsack, dropped into the craft behind us.
With a shout the others let go of the bushes and the three grasped their oars and pulled with a will. The racing current carried us far down the river, but we swung at last into the more sluggish water under the lee of a bluff, and, creeping slowly up stream, gained the landing stage. A boatman stepped out with our bundle, and, zigzagging up the face of the cliff, dropped the bag on the veranda of a bungalow at the summit, shouted a “sahib hai,” and fled into the night.