Road to Mandalay

British columns were winding deeper into Burma, strangling Japanese retreat lines, coiling around strong points. They worked their way down the coast of the Bay of Bengal, snaked along the Irrawaddy River, reached out for the gleaming pagodas of Mandalay.

In one central Burma village a character straight out of Kipling stepped up to meet the advancing troops. Regimental Sergeant Major Watts, Retired, of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, now deaf, blind and 88 years old, reported. He had spent 55 years in the British Army, 13 years in the Burma police, learned ''what the ten-year soldier tells: 'If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else.' "

Watts had settled down to live out his span under the palms, took a Burmese wife, fathered half-caste children. When the Japs came he had elected to remain with his family; the enemy let him alone.

Men of the county regiments--the Dorsets, Devons, Durhams, York and Lanes--and the Scots and Welsh Border regiments marveled at this gaffer of the old Army, admired him in the usual unprintable phrases, gave him a cheer. They had fought their way through mountain jungles; tough fighting lay ahead before the last Jap would be driven from Burma. But they were in lush valleys now.

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