Page 65 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL2

brother, Chang, and his maternal grandparents in the province of Trang. The day we were due to go back to Bangkok, Chang came into my bed- room at dawn. His six-year-old childish mind told him that today we were to part again.He sat down silently beside me while his mother was busy with Sing in another room. I had a feeling that something was bothering my elder son, so I prodded.“You know, don’t you, that today Dad and Mum are going back to Bangkok.”“It is sad, isn’t it, Dad?” Chang said, as if rehearsing a play repartee, but he didn’t have his usual cheeki- ness.We remained silent for quite a while. My mind drifted to jungle scenes. In one of them a little baby sat all coiled up in my lap in a hut at the foot of the Elephant Cliff in Phayao province. He was gazing almost without blinking at the newly lit torch. I didn’t know what his three-month- old brain was thinking. I only knew that his chubby face registered obvious amazement at finding out that light can come out of the night.A few days later that same child found himself tied to my back and diving through a thick bamboo grove to reach a mountain chain to the west with his parents. It was one of the toughest treks of my life in the jungle. When we halted in leech-infested areas, untying Chang from my back was out of the question. I had to rest standing up, keeping my eyes peeled for scores of land leeches that blindly wriggled their sticky bodies to reach us from every direction. As we crossed a patch of jungle thick with chest-high bamboo, I had to put my son under a plastic sheet to prevent bamboo thorns from irritating his sensitive skin. Chang took it in his stride. Heremained under his plastic bell for over an hour without uttering a cry.At one point in the trail that led to the main road where a car was due to pick us up, we had to walk around foothills by skirting a military camp. We could clearly see the tin roofs of the camp and were within range of weapons of all kinds.While we crouched and dashed from tree to tree the man in the lead suddenly froze and whispered that someone was coming our way. Every- body in the column turned around and ran for cover.It was then that Chang uttered a loud cry for the first time since the beginning of the march. In such a crisis situation, the child’s cry put everyone’s nerves on edge.“Wait! Stop!” the comrade walking behind me whispered urgently.“What happened? What’s the matter with you, Chang?” I asked without breaking my stride, which only made things worse. My son was crying because a twig had flailed his face and a dry thorn had imbedded itself in his forehead. In my haste, the thorn sank deeper and the twig snapped.No one dared to pull a thorn out of the face of a three-month-old as it might tear off the flesh of the face that bawled. So it was up to me. I pulled sharply on the length of cloth holding Chang which I had wrapped around my waist. I grabbed my son, held him in the crook of my arm and with my free hand tore off twig and thorn in a single sharp pull. The thorn broke. I promptly took out the splinter and put my hand over the bawling mouth.Chang, unable to cry, hiccupped. On his little forehead a blood spotElite+ 63