大象传媒

THE GLORY AND THE PIG IN THE POKE

Shillong, in the Himalayan foothills, a few days before Christmas 1943.

36th British Division has been withdrawn from Burma after a gruelling campaign in the Arakan. The Japanese are continuing their advance towards the Burma/India border and we feel it in our bones that our high command must have some desperate plans to halt them before India is overrun.

The 36th, originally trained for sea-borne landing, was diverted to the Arakan peninsula to campaign as jungle fighters and now were whisked out of the front line at a most crucial time.

It had to be something special, as we soon found out. We were to be trained as an air-borne force to be assigned to Northern Area Combat Command under the American General Joseph Stilwell (Vinegar Joe). An elite force, trained in all aspects of the war in South East Asia, we knew that we were part of an immense gamble and that there was a distinct possibility that this Christmas could be the last for many of us.

George and I, both sergeants in the Signals, have been detailed to forage for a pig to provide Christmas dinner for the Signals Unit. Our destination is Cherrapunji, which is the first of a number of odd events on that strange day.

As a schoolboy, geography was not my strongest subject and I found it most difficult to visualise and sketch the outlines of most countries. Only India proved uncomplicated for me with its simple triangular shape, the dewdrop that was Ceylon, the pleasing symmetry of the Western and Eastern Ghats and the great curve of the Himalayas in the north. True, I was a trifle hazy about the coastlines to the west of Karachi and to the East of the Ganges delta. I was to learn much about these regions at first hand in later years. At the back of the Philips atlas in use in the twenties was a series of graphs showing the annual rainfall in various parts of the world in descending order of quantity. Cherrapunji headed the list and for some unknown reason this placed gripped my imagination as I savoured the magic of the sound as it rolled off my tongue-Cerrrrra-pooonjeee ! And here I was heading for that remote little town, hardly more than a village, high in the foothills of the greatest mountain range in the world, known only for its meteorological station and the rain it measured; being led inexorably to the one speck on the globe that could marginally justify the heroic efforts of my geography teacher鈥︹�︹�� to buy a pig!

With a trailer bouncing along behind, we headed southeast from Shillong. Soon the narrow road made its way along the edge of a ravine that I sensed was precipitous and very deep- sensed rather than knew because it was filled with a woolly white mist, though the sun shone brightly overhead. The road had been hacked out just below the ridge of a long headland and the strata of rock were exposed to view on our right. We discovered layer of coal that gleamed like polished ebony in the sunlight and loaded a few lumps into the trailer so that we could add a touch of real British Christmas to the forthcoming festivities.

As undeviating as the finger of fate (it couldn鈥檛 be otherwise with a ravine on the left and a rock face on the right) the track seemed to be endless, particularly as the narrowness of the road demanded intense concentration. We stopped to relax for a while where a buttress of rock thrust itself into the ravine. George was on my left as we rested our elbows on a slab of stone that could have been placed there specially for that purpose. We looked down in to the mist that filled the valley ands I felt the invisible depth in the pit of my stomach.

It was then that we witnessed the Glory!

It was of such a splendour that we could have been forgiven for thinking that it was indeed a divine revelation, but I use the word 鈥済lory鈥� as defined as a circle of light around the head of a deity or saint. There below us, resting on the mist was a great rainbow that had followed the logic of its arc to complete as a full circle. All the colours of the spectrum were there, but more brilliant than I had ever seen before and there, in the centre of the circle, was the ghostly shadow of something or someone.

It slowly dawned on George and me that the image could be of ourselves, but there was only one image, yet we were standing with shoulders touching. I raised my arm and surely enough the image did the same. So it was me! George raised his arm and his image responded in the same manner but mine remained still. It was as if we each had separate control of this magnificent heavenly dartboard and that felt very weird. Neither of us was prepared to accept a metaphysical explanation for the phenomenon so we decided that the rays of the sun at our backs split our outlines so finely that only the tiniest difference in the angle of perspective would permit us to see our two silhouettes together.
We couldn鈥檛 find this angle as our bodies overlapped in the attempt and George couldn鈥檛 see through me, nor I through him. I think the theory was basically sound- but supposing we had indeed been granted a divine revelation and failed to recognise it!

Sobered by what we had just seen we set off once more down the road to Cherrapunji and at last came to a cluster of huts. I had expected some rain during our trip even though the monsoon season was over. How else could the place accumulate such a huge annual rainfall without doing a bit of overtime? But the only water we saw was that of a stream that forced its muscular way over black rocks worn smooth through centuries of swirling current before, I presume, hurtling down into the mist-shrouded valley downstream.

A villager raised his hand to halt us and I had a strange feeling that he expected us although we had been told that the shopping expedition was an afterthought and that we must make the best deal we could with any of the small pig farmers. We alighted and without a word passing between us he lead us to a pig-pen in which browsed two massive black pigs. My command of Urdu was only marginally better than George鈥檚 and his was confined to drill ground imperatives, not exactly suited to bargaining for a pig. However between us we strove to make our purpose known Again I had the feeling that we could have saved our breath and that the peasant already knew what we had come for and that he listened to my halting Urdu more out of politeness than comprehension. Through pantomime we selected the largest pig but the owner by a vigorous working of his jaws convinced us that it was a tough old boar and that we should have smaller one I signified my consent and he jumped into the pen to confront our Christmas dinner which eyed him resentfully and backed away. They circled one another slowly, the man slightly crouched and finely tensed, the pig black and hairy and menacing. Neighbours had begun to assemble around the corral and one of them gave a hoarse shout. The pig, startled, turned its head and our man took advantage of the opening and pounced on his victim, threw it on its side and bound its hind legs with a piece of rope that came somewhere from his dhoti. Meantime the larger and allegedly tougher pig had watched the proceedings with some bewilderment. It was only when a few onlookers leapt into the pen to help with the trussing of the forfeit that he decided that something had to be done. He charged at the intruders, scattering them in disarray to the corners of the pen where they stood petrified. The pig stood in the centre whilst the owner crouched fearfully over our prospective meal. It was a stand-off in the true traditions of the Wild West with Big Pig slowly turning his head from side to side to eye his tormentors as if daring them to move. Once again there came a shout from the spectators outside the pen and Big Pig, like his companion before hi, glared in the direction of the cry. The fearful helpers took advantage of this lapse of concentration and leapt out of the corral to safety, leaving the farmer stoically embracing his captive.

Oddly enough, Big Pig didn鈥檛 seem to mind sharing the pen with his own farmer and ambled over to the feed trough and snuffled through the contents. Without delay the farmer removed the hurdle and dragged our pig out. It took little time for the hog-tying to be completed and the pig to be loaded on the jeep trailer among the lumps of coal. We went through a spell of haggling (a formality in this part of the world) and I parted with a wad of rupees which I suspect was massively in excess of his expectations.

On our way back along the track, I pondered on a curious fact. Throughout our dealings the pig farmer never failed to call George 鈥渟ahib鈥� whereas he always called me 鈥渂rother鈥�.

Gently we drove along the edge of the ravine, pausing at the buttress of the rock where we had first seen the Glory. But it had gone! Below us the mist slowly swirled and pointed ghostly fingers of vapour at us. A vast silence seemed to rise from the abyss beneath as if in mourning for the lost Glory. The sun rode high on our backs and on the mist below our shadows stood in the same companionship as we did in reality, no longer separated and enthroned at the heart of the Glory.

Our pig stirred and gave a great sigh, breaking the silence and recalling us both from a sadness that had descended on us both.

We drove back to Shillong and delivered our passenger to the cooks who in due course built a fire in a sterilised oil-drum and packed it round with clay. At an intuitively decided temperature the ashes were raked out and the dismembered parts of the pig installed before the oven was sealed. Cooking, Tandoori style doubtless!

Footnote:

In his book 鈥淐hasing the monsoon鈥� Alexander Frater on p.229 tells how his father told him about the Glory phenomenon, known as 鈥楤rocken spectres鈥� that people travelling in the mountains sometimes saw. Fifty years after my experience I was much relieved to read of this because I had begun to suspect that my memory had played tricks and that the whole thing was a hallucination.

And why did the farmer call me 鈥榖rother鈥�?

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