I'LL call him David Shannon. It wasn't his real name, and he was killed in Mesopotamia. WS- who told me the story, is also dead. I am not forgetful, and I, too, have lived among the races in the dark blue mountains to the east of the Irrawaddy. This is the tale.

A year of the Great War had passed; an eddy had just crept up to the little-known country which flanks the steep sides of the Mali Kha, the local name for the northern reaches of the Irrawaddy.

I don't think anybody quite knew why Government had planted unhealthy little police outposts, apparently indiscriminately, over the half-million square miles of bamboo brake, the home of a few savages, many mosquitoes, more sandflies, and most of the leeches in the world. A few civilians spoke of the "Yellow Peril," but at this period it was generally considered by the occupants of the posts that a big mistake had been made, and, "anyhow, the Chinese could have the whole blasted country if they wanted it!"

The local inhabitants were chiefly Kachins or Chingpaws, a race the average man of which appeared to a new arrival to be an exact facsimile of what he had always pictured

as the missing link. The unregistered motto of the clan was " Hpa-n-khrit-ai-lo," meaning, "We fear nothing."

Captain David Shannon, who was responsible for keeping things quiet up there (there is little humour in the Secretariat at Rangoon), was a typical Indian Army officer. He loved his regiment, and his regiment was on service, and the last mail had brought him a letter from a most important personage to say that if Shannon applied to rejoin his unit again, he would be put under arrest.

He was lying back in a long arm-chair in the verandah of the thatched hut which did duty as living quarters for two white men. His feet were braced against one of the verandah poles-the table on his left gave one the impression of a miniature bar,-and he was gently dabbing with a short stick, on the point of which was a bag of salt, sometimes at his shoes and stockings, and sometimes at the chair or ground itself. Each dab was at a leech.

He was apparently in good spirits, though it was pelting with rain and almost dark from the thick mist like poison gas, which blotted out the impenetrable and dripping jungle beyond, for he was singing, to a travesty of the tune of the

"Where were you when the war was on?

I shall hear the last-joined murmur,
Where was I when the war was on?
In the safest place in Burma."

With a final dig at the verandah pole, he stopped and looked at his watch. "That makes forty-two in 30 minutes," he shouted, and you can come and count 'em if you don't believe me."

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A door of thatched grass fell with a crash on to the mud flooring of the verandah, and a voice replied, "There are about fifty-eight more in my bed here, if you care to make a century. Pour me out a virgin, old thing; I'm just coming out."

Adrian Lambert was a youngster in the Lancers. What actual use he was in that portion of the country from a cavalry point of view only the authorities knew. The journey to the men's lines alone meant sinking to one's boot-tops in mud, and there were no mounted infantry in the battalion; but he had made himself acquainted with the local dialects and the local headmen, and was useful.

Shannon was moving out the next day on a journey to headquarters, about 300 miles south, to give evidence in a murder case-an unusual murder, over a woman-a wife. Kachins are not civilised, and many wives are not as virtuous as they should be; but it was generally understood that a young Lothario could do what he liked as long as he had the

Shannon had held the inquiry. The murderer had disappeared, which was unusual, but he had obviously now been found, and was about to stand his trial.

He started off in the dripping rain next morning, followed by his servant, a Burman, and a string of Kachin coolies carrying the necessary kit and food, and each armed with the inevitable leech-stick. The journey, except for sickness, was uneventful till the fifth day, when he lost the track-not a very difficult thing to do, with the excessive growth of vegetation due to the rains and the continual elephant-paths side-tracking the main route,and towards evening he found himself near the Mali Kha, and decided to camp on the bank of the river.

It was a miserable camp, soaking rain and cloying mist, damp bedding, sand-flies and leeches in millions and in everything, the unbearable itching, the slug-like clammy feel of them on his fingers, the hunt in the middle of the night for the salt-bag which had fallen into the jheel at the bottom of his bed, practically no sleep, and-everything, in fact, that could be unpleasant.

Rain stopped at dawn, and he dressed and, crawling out, wandered off to the river's

two worked unceasingly with their puny paddles, though the result gained seemed to Shannon to be nil; later he came to learn their use.

The average pace was about eight miles an hour, and Shannon congratulated himself on his luck, and the possibility of being in headquarters in three days.

On the second afternoon they were shooting some rapids, always an exciting period for a novice, for it seemed to be a continual succession of successful avoidings of complete disaster, continual just missings of ragged rocks that stood out like black teeth from the swirling flood.

Sau Tu was skilfully manipulating the pole when there was a crack like a pistol-shot; the pole snapped, and he staggered and disappeared into the boiling froth. It was madness to go after him, and he never appeared again, and now-there was no one who knew the river.

Sau La leapt like a flash to the front of the raft with a paddle, shouting something that was drowned in the roar of the waters. He seemed to save the raft from being broken up on several rocks, but he himself could have had no hope of any real control, and it gathered speed, whirling and twisting, twirling and bumping on its ricochetting course down the rapids. Shannon was hanging on to the sides of the hut wondering when the final breakup would come. His servant was clinging flat on his face to the floor of the raft, and the slave who had tried to join Sau

Tu and had given up the attempt was glued to the corner of the hut. Then came one rending crash plumb in the centre of the rickety refuge against a smooth slippery rock. The raft tilted half over, slipped sideways, and slid into almost calm water.

Breathing a prayer of thanks to the powers above, Shannon ordered the two men and his servant to get to work on the mending of the raft. He moved over himself to a broken edge with the intention of helping, when he saw Sau La stop and stare fixedly at the water. "What's happened?" asked.

he

"Duwa," replied the man, we are in a whirlpool. Look at that log!"

They all watched the log circling, gather speed, and finally disappear with a sucking gurgle.

At first no one had any idea what to do. Shannon had a vague impression that the raft would follow the log. It was obvious, however, that farther they kept from the centre the better, and Sau La with this idea told the slave to commence work on making some paddles. The raft meanwhile was moving very, very slowly, but by the time they had got the paddles ready they were only a few yards from the middle. All four now paddled hard, and after a strenuous ten minutes succeeded in bringing the raft to the outer edge of the whirlpool, which was marked by a broken line of dirty brown froth.

Repeated desperate attempts, which ended in them lying back gasping, proved that by no amount of paddling could they get the raft out of the suction area. Dusk fell. It looked as if they were in for life, and Shannon's heart sank. It was practically dark, pelting with rain. They were wet to the skin-all cold, and very, very frightened. The sandflies were a perpetual torment, and always in their ears the incessant roar of the rapids. Paddling with a grim determination whenever they felt the rate of the raft increase, always, always at the back of their minds was that central vortex with its beastly gurgle.

And so they passed the night. Dawn came, and Sau La moved across to Shannon. Chief, I think I know one way to get out of here," he said. "We must paddle to the outer edge of the whirlpool, and I will jump beyond, with a rope tied round my waist. Look at that rock," and he pointed to a large black boulder, over the top of which the edge of the race from the rapids poured in a small waterfall. "If I plunge far enough out, the current will carry me down on its farther side. I shall then swing round behind it, and you will be able to pull against me and the rock, and perhaps drag the raft out, and in this manner we shall come out, I think."

It seemed madness on the face of it, but there was no other way, and there was just a possibility.

"Look here," said Shannon, "what about a rope?"

"Duwa, I will make one," replied Sau La.

With infinite patience and care from the lengthy green bamboos of the raft long thin strips were cut and twisted, intertwined and tied together. It seemed years before they produced a rope some sixty feet long, and a quarter of the raft had gone to make it. Shannon tested it most carefully before Sau La tied it round his waist, and then they paddled to the edge of the whirlpool.

Sau La took a running jump over the outer rim of the froth, and breaking quickly into an over hand trudgeon stroke, forged away till he was caught by the current, and flung downstream on the farther side of the rock. The force of the water was so powerful that they found it impossible to pull him back up-stream to the rock; but the strain itself of pulling on the rope slowly, almost imperceptibly, drew the raft out of the vortex.

It hovered a second on the edge, caught some under-current, and was swept away parallel to Sau La, whom they gradually drew towards them and dragged on board. His hands were red with blood, and great pieces of flesh showed white on his waist where the coarse fibre had scarred him.

They pulled into the bank

mile lower down, dressed Sau La's wounds, had a rest and a meal, and started off again.