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A possibly hostile confrontation averted; Pangsha's threats of reprisals against villages |
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To Noklak - 12 miles. Before we marched at 6:30 a message was brought from Noklak by the Yimpang messengers that they would neither clear the path for us nor get a camp site ready, as they did not want to offend Pangsha. Pangsha have sworn to wipe out any village which helps us. They have terrorised everyone all round. We marched light, with four sections of coolies, three of Lhotas and Rengmas, and one of Aos. Chingmei had cleared more than half the path, but the last two hours were very bad indeed along an overgrown path, usually dropping sheer to our right. We had six Chingmei scouts leading, looking out for bow-traps and panjis. Even so we had three casualties: one scout got a panji clean through his foot, and one scout and one lance-naik were cut in the left by panjis. The scout who got a panji through his foot had it bandaged up, said, "How silly of me to put my foot on it", and insisted on going up to the head of the column at once; Changs are tough people. The panjis were by no means all old ones put in the path as a defence against Chingmei; some had been freshly sharpened yesterday for our benefit. I will deal with Noklak for their conduct later. |
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Save for one man seen moving off a path in the far distance there was no sign of life till Noklak village had been long in sight. Then a large body of armed men suddenly came in sight on a path below us. The conspicuous manner in which they advanced made it clear that there was some chance they would parley. A little later they began to wave branches and came within shouting distance. They asked if it was peace or war, and on our replying it was peace they asked if Chingmak was with us. He was, and persuaded two men to come up and meet us. Though Noklak and Chingmei are at war they greeted Chingmak like an old friend, the faces of all three wreathed in smiles. The rest of the armed party bolted. We then went on and cleared a camp on an excellent site. It was difficult to get anything out of Noklak. Before they had proved our intentions they had removed all their belongings into the jungle and when they found they were not being attacked (to the great disgust of our Chingmei scouts) they busied themselves moving their things back again. They produced some pigs after dark. Nokyan, the small khel on the far side of Noklak, visited us with a chicken and four eggs, three of which were bad and one doubtful. Pangsha men were in Noklak today "to see what things were like". I am also told that their statement that the remaining slave girl has been sold in Burma is false, and that she is in Pangsha, the man who owns her refusing to give her up unless he is paid. |
