![]() ![]() When the first booms reached the stall there was a silence, followed by a flurry of questions and whispered answers. It was cold, the start of central Burma’s brief but chilly winter, and the sun had not risen high enough yet to burn off the damp mist that had drifted in at dawn from the river. The stall had only two benches, and they were both packed with people, sitting pressed up against each other. And then, abruptly, it would change to a deep rumble, shaking the food-stall and rattling its steaming pot of soup. At times it was like the snapping of dry twigs, sudden and unexpected. ![]() The noise was unfamiliar and unsettling, a distant booming followed by low, stuttering growls. His name was Rajkumar and he was an Indian, a boy of eleven – not an authority to be relied upon. There was only one person in the food-stall who knew exactly what that sound was that was rolling in across the plain, along the silver curve of the Irrawaddy, to the western wall of Mandalay’s fort. ![]()
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