"Archer, Geoffrey - The Burma Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Archer Geoffrey)

Random House New Zealand Limited
18 Poland Road, Glenfield,
Auckland 10, New Zealand
Random House (Pty) Limited
Endulim, 5A Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa
The Random House Group Limited Reg No 954009
www randomhouse co uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Papers used by Random House are natural,
recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests,
the manufacturing processes conform to the environmental
regulations of the country of origin
ISBN 0 7126 82465 (hb)
ISBN 0 7126 82961 (tpb)
Typeset by Deltatype Ltd, Birkenhead, Merseyside
printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackays of Chatham pic

To Eva, Alison and James.

Acknowledgements
I am indebted to several authors whose books helped me to understand
present day Myanmar and the Burma of the past.
Aung San Suu Kyi's Letters from Burma, Rory Maclean's Under the Dragon,
and Shelby Tucker's Among Insurgents provided potent illustrations of life
under military rule in the 19905.
Richard Rhodes James" Chindit, Philip Stibbe's Return Via Rangoon,
George Macdonald Eraser's Quartered Safe Out Here, Eric Lomax's The
Railway Man and Theodore F. Cook's Japan at War - An Oral History all, in
their different ways, revealed the suffering of those who fought the Second
World War in Burma.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to the Burma Star Association and to
Arthur Titherington for sharing his painful memories of being a prisoner of
the Japanese. Sincere thanks too to Martin Smith for his invaluable advice
and assistance prior to my research visit to Myanmar.

1
The Andaman Sea, Thailand
Thursday, 30 December 1999
A GLEAMING MOTOR cruiser carved a white scar across the vivid blue
sea, its throttles wide open. The man and woman on the bridge
gripped the grab-handles as it hammered through the curling wake of a
white-hulled ferry on passage from Phuket to the paradise islands of PhiPhi.
Scanning the ship's decks through binoculars they saw passengers
watching them with envy. But the image the tourists had of them - a
relaxed, well-off couple enjoying a vacation in the privacy of their own
boat - was a lie. This was no pleasure cruise.
The real name of the bare-chested man at the wheel was Sam Packer,
but his business card described him as Stephen Maxwell, a Singapore-based