大象传媒

The monsoon was breaking and suprised us with wheel-high water, running fast, where there should have been dry sand.
My 4x4 pick-up and a signals truck were up on the bank, drying out and keeping radio watch for further orders.
Ther was not much to hear, - a couple of the Indian stations very faint, the hint of a voice singing in Urdu, - and of a sudden, Churchill's voice, on the 大象传媒, relayed by All- India Radio from Calcutta, 600 miles away: fading and distorted by atmospherics but clear enough --- the war in Europe was over.
Good show! At least our people were now safe from the bombs and rockets; but no great triumph here, not much show of joy. For us here in Burma there was no end in sight, the Atom bomb was not yet known, -Rangoon would be just the beginning.
The great rivers had been crossed, The Chindwin and The Irrawaddy, the enemy broken, scattered in retreat, but still dangerous and our bridging was still needed.
How much longer, how much more heat, jungle fevers and Japanese fire?
I remembered how by The Chindwin we had moved forward 5 miles in 27 hours.
I thought of London as I had seen it last, nearly 3 years ago: quiet, weary, scarred but watchful by day, with police in steel helmets and Eros a sad mound of sandbags.
Pitch black and dangerous by night with doors to pubs, and bars hard to locate. People walking, grey on black; tiny flashes of torchlight.
Behind the double black-out entrances were light and laughter, noise, music, uniforms of half a dozen nations; a fevered hectic gaiety, with just below the surface, always the unspoken question - will the sirens sound tonight?
"OK, let's move" I said. There were still miles to cover to our rendezvous, but with the hope today, of something better than grey chlorinated water, in atin mug at the end.

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