On an Eastern train
Our train journey would carry us Northwards through the night to it’s terminus. After nightfall the carriage windows were tightly shuttered and the lights dimmed to almost total darkness. We travelled slowly through an area where train ambushes were common, slow because a deliberate derailment usually preceded such an attack, and a stop to remove logs from the line was preferred to a violent derailment and it’s consequences.
As a normal precaution the train was carrying a detachment of well armed troops with every carriage having two individual soldiers who took it in turns to march up and down the aisle at intervals. The main body of troops occupied a carriage next to the engine.
However in the early hours of the morning we came to a stop in the middle of nowhere, so it seemed, and transferred to a 4WD for a short trip through the pitch black jungle to a point where we made a cautious descent by foot towards a lantern far below. This proved to be on a boat moored to a river bank. We boarded and the ancient motor was stirred into life moving us out into the silent darkness of a wide river. Several hours down river found us at a point on the slippery and steep Western bank that seemed to be inhabited entirely by pigs around a cluster of huts. Another 4WD and we were engulfed in jungle once more till we arrived at our destination and fell into a bunk for a couple of hours sleep.
Daybreak found me gazing with amazement at the huge width of the Irrawaddy River, it’s far bank barely visible in the morning mist. Fishing boats dotted it’s expanse, and the immediate banks were planted with stands of young Australian eucalypts, a result of Aussie occupation in the area. This was the trademark of SMECMA worksites throughout the world!
This particular journey was to carry out a fault investigation in machinery supplied by our parent firm, and although I was convinced that the problem could be corrected by minor surgery, my job was to positively identify the supposed fault. As it happened the problem was not easily corrected, an internal assembly mistake being irreversible in the field without the correct parts. On arrival on site I was horrified to find that absolutely no tools were available in this isolated place, but was informed that an American heavy machinery contractor was in the area and may prove helpful. And so it proved to be when, after a short trip, I found a warm welcome and soon left laden with every conceivable heavy tool that I was likely to need – except for one thing! I didn’t realise it then, but later when I requested a length of rope to carry out a lift, I was informed that no such thing existed anywhere.
The closest I could get was a few pieces of locally made rough twine more like heavy fishing line – it was probably fisherman’s anchor rope! Totally useless. I overcame this problem by getting the natives to build up a tower of logs and, by using a car jack below, I was able to proceed with difficulty.
The fault was located and proved to be as I had suspected. I was able to carry out a Heath Robinson adjustment that at least partially cured the problem and everything was reassembled and ran satisfactorily. We retraced our journey back to Rangoon immediately as my seven days Visa expired the following afternoon. Once again I have no memory at all of the return journey, I probably slept and dozed throughout the rough Jeep rides and the train journey. My first recollection is the train coming into the Rangoon area between rice paddies as the sun rose.
An interesting footnote to all this was that the parent company steadfastly refused to accept the fact that an assembly mistake had been made originally, though I visited the factory in Melbourne where I was well known and actually identified the point in assembly where a wrong part had been fitted. It was a left hand/right hand part error! The upper brass refused to accept my finding and I was considered to be a very unpopular loose cannon.
From there on I was hauled over the coals for rocking the boat but my contract was already finished and it wasn’t till later that I learned that the parent company had despatched one of it’s trusted engineers all the way from Australia, and he had retraced my tortuous journey, only to come home and give an identical report to mine. The stupidest part of the whole exercise was that, had he carried the correct part (which I took pains to identify) he could have fixed the whole problem without any trouble! I actually met up with him at a later date, and together we discussed the insane attitude of the company but, as he said, he had a very pleasant all expenses paid two weeks holiday!