Julia, page 7
“You’re an eager beaver,” Gregory said.
“I look like a tourist, I’m sure,” Julia quipped, patting the large bag she’d brought and the camera she’d hung about her neck. “I’m no photographer, but I’m not going to miss a thing. Oh, and don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been keeping a diary. Nothing that reveals my country’s secrets though.”
Gregory laughed at this. He’d freshened up too. If possible, he was skinnier than when she’d first met him, and his trousers nearly hung off his tall frame.
“I’ve been a bad influence about keeping a diary, I see,” Ellie said.
Julia linked arms with her friend. “I’m totally and completely blaming you.”
They found a restaurant that smelled delicious, and although Julia wouldn’t exactly call the place sanitary, she was too hungry to care.
One of their OSS friends met them—the cartographer Joseph R. Coolidge—along with his friend John Bolton-Carter, who was South African and had already been in Bombay for a while. The dinner party created a merry group.
Gregory cautioned them to eat in moderation though. “You don’t want to get the Delhi Belly, especially if you have to share a toilet.”
“You can’t really avoid it,” John said with a lopsided smile. “Everyone will succumb sooner or later.”
Julia winced as she speared another piece of what looked like chicken in red curry sauce. They’d been served plates of rice with various meats and curries, and Gregory had pointed out the chicken, shrimp, and lamb—at least he’d assumed that was what they were eating. Then he’d insisted they doctor up their servings with condiments, such as paprika, chutneys, crumbled bacon, and crumbled fried bananas. All to make an interesting flavor.
“Thanks for the warning about our portions,” Julia said, “but we have to acclimate, right?”
“Right.” Gregory took a sip of his canned orange juice. He’d already recommended they drink only from cans or bottles. Never from a water tap.
“We’ve got John’s car for whoever wants to go on the red-light district tour,” Joseph said.
Julia’s eyes about popped out.
“You mean you aren’t brave enough to walk it?” Peachy teased.
“I don’t think I could handle it,” Ellie said with real concern. “I mean, it’s terrible that those women are selling themselves because they feel like they have no choice.”
Gregory nodded somberly. “I’ll walk you back to your house. My wife will hear about it if I take any sort of tour.”
“We’re driving straight through,” Joseph countered. “Not stopping.”
Julia didn’t know what made her do it, but she said, “I’ll come along.” She was curious, if nothing else. She wanted to see everything she could about Bombay; who knew if she’d ever return.
So that was how Julia found herself with Mary, Peachy, Joseph, and John, driving through the red-light district. She couldn’t exactly say she regretted the experience, but she knew she’d never return again. “I suppose every city has its seedy side.”
“Bombay has more than its fair share,” John commented. “Tell me about where you ladies are from and what your assignments will be.”
They chatted, and by the time John dropped them off at the rented house, Julia had agreed to go golfing with him—curious to see where the golf course was within this bustling city.
Over the next eighteen days they spent in Bombay, Julia took advantage of every experience available. She quickly became used to the stifling heat, and the other women told her it was because she was so thin. She’d found everything enjoyable—eating new foods, golfing, shopping, dancing, and sightseeing.
Their stay had lasted longer than expected, which was fine with Julia, and they finally found out that it was because there was confusion over their US military division in Bombay. Apparently, the military hadn’t been aware that some of the OSS agents were women. Rosie received her orders first. She was being sent to New Delhi instead of China, like she’d hoped. Julia’s and some of the other ladies’ orders came next. Apparently, Lord Mountbatten, who both oversaw the Southeast Asia Command and consulted for the OSS, was moving the OSS headquarters from New Delhi to Ceylon, which had become a vital Allied outpost since the fall of Singapore in 1942.
When Julia’s orders arrived, she learned that she wasn’t staying in India. She’d be reporting to Colombo, on the island colony of Ceylon, on April 25.
Chapter 7
Kandy, Ceylon
April 1944
“I find Kandy has a delightful climate, skin-warm all the time. Life is pastoral. Our office is a series of palm-thatched huts connected by cement walks, surrounded by native workmen and barbed wire. It is somewhat primitive, but airy and far from dressy.”
—Letter from Julia to her family
If there was one thing to be said about a long, heat- and dust-filled train ride across India, it was the education that Julia received from a Sinhalese police officer on board who told her all about the one-hundred-fifty-year oppressive colonization that Ceylon had endured by the British. And the previous colonization of first the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch. He also educated her on the virtues of Buddhism.
Julia didn’t even know if she could adequately capture all that she was experiencing in her letters back home, or in her clandestine diary, for that matter.
Peachy, Cora, and Mary moaned about the cruel heat, and they were all grateful when they boarded the ferry, enjoying the breeze as they traveled from Madras to the island of Ceylon. Its capital city of Colombo was very different from Bombay. Gone was the polluted haze and dusty streets and overcrowded buildings. They had been replaced by a tropical paradise. The heat was still sweltering, though, being so close to the equator, and she couldn’t wait to swim somewhere—anywhere.
Gregory Bateson didn’t seem too bothered by the heat, but he didn’t seem bothered by much. Julia wondered what his wife was like—probably much the same if she spoke other languages and had traveled so much.
S. Dillon Ripley, an OSS man, met them in Colombo, and Julia liked his open and frank manner immediately. He was a Yale and Harvard biologist and ornithologist, but he wasn’t pretentious.
“Now, Celyon is not considered a hardship or dangerous post,” Dillon said as he escorted them away from the harbor toward the waiting motorcars. “But mind you, your work here will be integral to the progress of the war. We have OSS posts in southern Burma, Malaysia, Siam, Sumatra, the Andaman Islands, and French Indochina. Our post on Ceylon has become the collector and distributor of intelligence on the enemy. Getting the right information regarding bomb targets, troop locations, and projected movements to the right people is essential.”
His gaze fell on Julia. “Among the group of you, you probably have thousands of intelligence secrets in your heads right now. So while you’ll be in a fairly protected and secure location, your letters home need to be completely free of any military information.”
“Noted,” Julia said.
A group of gnats swarmed them as they neared the cars. Julia batted them away, though most of them seemed interested in Dillon.
He grumbled as he shooed the gnats for a few seconds before climbing into the car. “I might be an expert on birds of the Far East, but I can’t, for the life of me, understand how all these clouds of gnats seem to survive on the humid air alone.”
Julia looked up at the blue, blue sky, marred by what looked like a moving cloud of hovering gnats. “Maybe they smell our perfume or ladies’ cigarettes?”
“I’ll have to add that to my notes,” Dillon teased. “See if the gnats favor the ladies over the gentlemen.”
“I don’t think any of us even knows what perfume is anymore,” Peachy said, fanning her face with a newspaper.
Their car pulled away from the harbor and onto the city streets crowded with carts, bicycles, trishaws, and tramcars attached to overhead powerlines. Julia’s gaze was glued to the people and the carts and the animals.
“There’s a cow on the sidewalk,” Peachy said at the same time Julia saw a rust-colored cow with long horns.
It was the skinniest cow that Julia had ever seen. She could have counted its ribs. Up ahead, another cow wandered as well.
“Cows are sacred in Ceylon,” Dillon said. “They go where they want and do what they want. We don’t eat beef here.”
“Like India?” Julia asked.
“Correct.”
Her gaze stayed glued to the window as she watched the people—some of the men in sarongs, and many women wore brilliantly colored saris—again reminding her of India. The women walked behind their husbands—something that Julia had read about. Then she saw several Buddhist monks wearing orange robes, moving along the sidewalks with an air of serenity. She watched them stop near a beggar who seemed to be living on the sidewalk. Occasionally, she saw women with a red dot on their forehead, indicating their Tamil religion.
Dillon began to explain the different ethnic groups in Ceylon, which included Sinhalese, who were mainly Buddhist; the Tamils, who followed Hinduism; the Muslims; and the Burghers, who were a mixed race descended from Europeans.
“Oh, wow, is that a snake charmer?” Julia asked as they drove past a man crouched on the ground, a basket before him. A crowd had gathered, and he was playing a flute. A cobra’s head poked above the basket.
“It certainly is,” Dillon said. “Do you want me to pull over?”
“No,” Peachy said immediately. “I think we can keep driving.”
Dillon chuckled. “Cobras are revered in Hindu tradition. You don’t have anything to worry about. Just make sure you check your shoes and under your bed each night.”
Peachy shuddered, then she began to fan her face. “Is it always this hot?”
Dillon chuckled again. “Every day. And every night. You’ll be hot unless you’re swimming.”
“Is there a swimming pool nearby?” Julia asked.
Dillon raised his brows. “Sure, the Indian Ocean.”
Maybe he expected Julia to backtrack, but she said, “Sounds wonderful.”
And she did swim in the ocean a few hours after they settled into their hotel. All the women joined her. The men lounged on the shoreline and chatted, drinking juice out of cans.
Peachy splashed around like a little kid. “I love this place already,” she gushed. “And the gnats apparently don’t like the ocean.”
Julia smiled as she floated on her back, letting the undulations of the warm ocean water move her gently about. She could get used to this very quickly.
But their stay in Colombo was only one night, and the following morning at 8:00 a.m., they boarded an old-style train set for headquarters in Kandy.
“We Americans call this the Toonerville Trolley,” Dillon said, overly cheerful this early in the morning, “but it’s run by the British.”
“So maybe we should call it the Mountbatten Special,” Julia quipped.
“I’m not opposed to that.”
They settled in their seats to take in the lush tropical vegetation outside the train window. The journey to Kandy was seventy-five miles from Colombo and was 1,600 feet above sea level, and every mile of it was gorgeous—like any imagined paradise a person could dream up.
“It’s breathtaking,” Cora said, glued to the window as much as Julia was.
And Julia wholeheartedly agreed as the train climbed the green hills and wove through jungles, around tea plantations, along palm tree groves, and across mountain streams. In the distance, Adam’s Peak majestically rose. Julia had been told by her police-officer-train-ride friend that Adam’s Peak was where Buddha had spent time.
“The headquarters in Kandy is newly established,” Dillon informed the group. “Mountbatten has only been here since mid-April. He’s staying in the King’s Pavilion. It’s like a miniature palace.”
“At the top of these mountains?” Peachy asked.
“Yes, we’re going to the tea plantation called Nandana, which is a colonial estate,” Dillon continued. “You’ll be housed at the Queens Hotel. Kandy used to be the stronghold of the ancient Sinhalese kings.”
It was all very interesting, so Julia began to ask questions about the political strategy behind this location since she was sure the others were curious as well.
“I can’t speak to the exact nature of your jobs, of course,” Dillon said, “but the Allies needed a relatively safe stronghold for the intelligence headquarters. This supports SEAC’s operations in Siam, or Thailand now—which holds the seat of our organized resistance—while the country is under Japanese occupation.”
Julia had read enough reports to know that Japan had pressured Thailand into allowing them to pass through the country in order to invade the British colonies of Malaya and Burma. Then, on December 8, 1941, Japan had invaded Thailand. Now there was a military alliance treaty between the two nations. This allowed the Japanese military access, and in exchange, Japan had promised to help Thailand regain territories previously lost to France.
Once the Allies won the war—at least Julia could only assume so—the political state of the Southeast Asia countries would be in turmoil. It was like watching a materializing war brewing beneath an existing war.
The train slowed, bringing them into a station surrounded by exotic vegetation. Above the station rose a terraced rice paddy, and in the higher foothills, Buddhist temples stood out from the greenery.
“Look at the monkeys,” Mary said with a laugh as they climbed off the train.
Julia looked toward the nearby banyan trees, and sure enough, monkeys scrabbled around in the branches. Some of them stopped to stare at them with comical dark eyes.
“Don’t feed them—ever,” Dillon warned. “They won’t leave you alone if you do.”
The air was different this high above sea level. No longer the stifling humidity of Colombo, it was the perfect warm temperature, and it was drier too.
When a couple of black limousines pulled up to the station, Julia was surprised that they were for them.
The group split up, and Gregory said he’d see them all later.
“No expenses spared?” she asked Dillon when he led the women to one of the cars.
“You’ll find that Kandy is like its own empire,” he said. “You don’t swoon over British accents, do you? Because if so, you’ll be swooning all day here.”
“I haven’t swooned yet,” Julia said, “so I’m sure I can stay on my feet.”
The man who climbed out of the limousine was indeed British, indicated by his uniform.
“Now, don’t let his charming accent fool you,” Dillon murmured in an undertone. “While the British and Americans are collaborating on OSS operations, methods aren’t always agreed upon.”
The driver greeted them, then everyone piled into the limousine.
As they headed to the Queens Hotel, Dillon told them more about Kandy. “Kandy is the home of the Hinayana Buddhists,” he said.
Outside her window, Julia caught glimpses of monks walking along the streets, heads shaved, wearing saffron yellow robes. As in Colombo, the women here wore saris, which looked very comfortable about now. Beggars seemed to be camping on the sidewalks—their permanent home. And there were more cows wandering about. And, oh, the elephants. Smaller elephants than what Julia had seen in American zoos, but here they were diligent beasts of burden. Julia watched as an elephant lumbered along one street, carrying bundles on its back.
“It’s quite the sight to see the elephants bathing in the lake at the end of the day,” Dillon said.
“Can we ride them?” Julia asked.
“Of course,” Dillon said. “Offer a little money and you can ride all you want. Wait until you see the Kandy Esala Perahara festival, which takes place in July and August. We call it the Festival of the Tooth.”
“What is that?”
“The processions happen several nights in a row to pay homage to the sacred tooth relic of Buddha. You’ll see decorated elephants, fire dances, the peacock dance, cannonball firing, drummers, and music. The festival’s end is marked with a water cutting ceremony called Diya-kepeema.”
“Sounds interesting,” Julia said. She should still be in Kandy to see it.
As the limousine stopped at the Queens Hotel, Dillon said, “A truck will be by in an hour to pick you all up and bring you to the plantation—where you’ll be fed lunch and shown around the plantation.”
Julia and the others thanked him, then Dillon offered a final warning, “Don’t drink any water that hasn’t been boiled yet. And that includes brushing your teeth.”
Julia and the women climbed out, and once their luggage had been delivered to their rooms, Julia finally took in her surroundings. She and Peachy were roommates, and their beds were impressive—four-poster canopy beds draped with mosquito netting.
Julia parted the netting and sat on the edge of her bed as she watched Peachy unpack. Julia wasn’t in any big hurry. She was just looking forward to a meal.
A knock sounded on the door, and Peachy answered it.
Ellie strode in. “Did you hear about the cockroaches? They’re four inches long! I don’t think I’ll ever walk anywhere barefoot in this place.”
Julia laughed, and at that moment, Peachy screeched.
Julia jumped off her bed. “What is it?”
Peachy backed away from the open drawer of the bureau in front of her. “There’s a scorpion in there.”
Julia moved close enough to see that, yes, indeed, there was a scorpion in the drawer. It was small, so maybe it was young—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous.
“I think we should head outside and wait for the truck to take us to the plantation,” Julia said. “At least outside, the scorpions will stay hidden.”
