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     At the end of May 1938 the monsoon at last arrived, bringing with it endless long weeks of solid rain.  One dark, wet night, halfway through the shift they call “Morning Tower” (midnight to eight A.M.), my father found himself on an oil rig in the middle of the jungle.

     He had just come out of the tool pusher’s office; a one-room bamboo shack tacked onto the “doghouse,” another slightly longer shack where the coolies changed into working clothes and boiled their tea and rice.  As he passed the opened doghouse doorway, Dad glanced inside and saw three coolies squatting around the miniature potbellied stove with mugs of tea.  They all grinned at my dad; they were Burmese from the oilfields at Yenangyaung on the Irrawaddy.  My father smiled and nodded at the coolies as he went by.

     Dad’s Burmese Coolies.

     Despite the overhead canvas tarp - stretched out to shelter the walkway - the planks were slippery from  drilling mud and rain water; Dad’s sense of smell being bombarded by the wet jungle, chemically treated mud and diesel exhaust.  He eased past the pair of monstrous diesel engines - rated at 500 hp each - thundering deafeningly away.  They drove the iron rotary table that spun over a thousand feet of vertical steel drill pipe - burrowing its way into the bowels of the earth - behind the grinding jaws of a rotary drill bit.

     Reaching the derrick’s floor, Pop stood next to the immense, mud spattered, turbaned Sikh driller resting a gloved hand on the draw works’ long-handled brake. 

     Dad’s Sikh Driller.

The Sikh kept a wary eye on the console’s instruments and the kelly’s slow progress, as the gigantic traveling block, hook and swivel lowered the kelly (a four-sided, 40-foot length of drill pipe) into the spinning rotary table and hole below.

     Three hours earlier they had been forced to come out of the hole and change the drill bit.  Subsequently they had gone back in and were presently “making hole,” which was what my father was being paid to do.

     One of the coolies in the doghouse kept a close eye on the kelly’s downward progress. 

     When only a couple of feet remained visible above the rotary table, he’d yell at the others and they’d all run out to the floor.  Then take up their positions to add another joint of 30-foot drill pipe - from the vertical pipe rack on the floor - to the colossal drill pipe string stretched out far below ground.

     To keep the majority of the constant rain off the derrick’s floor, titanic canvas tarps had been hung up the sides of the tall derrick.  However a vertical gap had been left at the front of the rig, in order to bring in more drill pipe, which lay in a horizontal stack on a separate platform outside and below the derrick’s floor.

     The powerful diesel engines not only drove the drilling operation, but also supplied electricity for the flood lights inside the derrick that lit up the floor.  A great shaft of vertical light spilt out of the gap in the tarp onto the wet drill pipe waiting patiently to be used. It also illuminated a narrow edge of the rain forest that surrounded them; while transparent curtains of rain continued drifting past this solitary column of light probing the raw jungle.

     As my father studied the diesel engine’s instruments on the driller’s console, movement at the periphery of his vision traversed that shaft of light outside the rig.  My dad looked out the front of the rig, through the gap in the canvas, and saw only drill pipe in neat glistening rows, a section of jungle, and of course more rain.

     The diesel engines and iron rotary table made so much racket on the floor one had to yell to be heard; making normal conversation impossible.  It also made one experience a sense of isolation inside this cocoon of noise.  

     Dad gazed back at the driller, then the engines’ instruments...and I’ll be damned if my father didn’t “feel” something penetrate that shaft of light again.

     Once more he checked the column of light outside the derrick...nothing.

     Puzzled, my pop made his way to the other side of the spinning rotary table, and stood at the middle of the gap in the tarpaulin.  Curtains of rain floated by and he began to get wet.  Dad commenced to take a step backward...when he spotted movement again that consequently froze him in his tracks. 

     The most beautiful, naked woman he had ever seen in his life strode through that shaft of light at the edge of the jungle. 

     Pop was struck totally dumb - it was right out of a movie.

     She was perfectly proportioned, with high breasts and jet-black hair that went straight down her back to a faultless derriere; her flawless, milk chocolate skin glistened in the oil rig’s shaft of light.  Then she strode out of that light and vanished in the night.

     After she disappeared, my father thought about what he’d just witnessed, and noted one discordant feature regarding this woman...she was carrying a spear; its metal point having flashed in the light.

     As my dad struggled with this beautiful vision - wondering what the Devil she was doing out here naked and all alone – a naked man now strode into the light.  He was equally perfectly proportioned, and then likewise dissolved into the night.  He had also carried a metallic object - which had similarly flashed in the light - that caused the hair on the back of my father’s neck to stand up and tingle.

     A couple of weeks before, someone had shown Pop an identical item on sale at the local bazaar in Digboi.  It was a heavy knife – shaped comparably to a meat cleaver - with a long wooden hilt designed to be operated with both hands.  It was not only used for chopping bamboo or felling trees, but also for a religious reason: decapitation.  They had called it a Naga dao or Naga knife.

     By the weapon this gentleman carried, dear reader, it was obvious to my dad he must be a Naga; causing the back of my father’s neck to prickle.  Why?  Because although the Nagas were generally under five-foot in stature, this didn’t prevent them from being notorious headhunters!

     Another naked woman strode across the light - carrying a quiver of arrows and a bow - with a knife inside a scabbard slung over her shoulder.  After several heartbeats another nude man crossed the shaft of light, carrying a spear and a long knife of a different type.  These beautiful, little brown people kept coming in single file order, and spread out at intervals.

     Finally, with a mouth like cotton, Father spun round and ran back to his mean, cramped office at the rear of the rig’s platform.  After bursting through the door he seized the box that held the antiquated field telephone; an item of surplus from the First World War.  Dad pulled out the receiver and cranked madly on the rotary arm attached to the side of the case.  A diminutive bell inside the case rang as he did this.

     Placing the receiver to his ear; Pop nervously scanned the tool pusher’s office.  There was a solitary, naked light bulb overhead for illumination, a battered desk, couch and chair.  Gunnysacks filled with core samples rested on the beat up wooden floor, and leaned against walls of moldy bamboo, as rain rattled loudly off the corrugated tin roof.

     Impatiently my dad cranked on the phone again, and swore at the company’s Indian operator at the other end; being past four in the morning he was probably asleep.

     Following another mad bit of cranking the sleepy operator at last answered.  Father told him they had an emergency and to get the field superintendent on the phone.  After an eternity another sleepy, although familiar voice, answered the phone.  It was “Wooly.”  An English gentleman in his late forties who had been in India 15 years – earning the label “old hand” - and who sported a salt and pepper full beard; hence the nickname.

     Excitedly, Pop blurted out that they were being encircled by Nagas and wanted to know if there was some type of uprising going on.  Wooly calmed my dad down and asked him to describe what he had seen.  Father complied and, after finishing his description, Wooly commenced to laugh. 

     Which really pissed Dad off, dear reader.

     Afterwards, Wooly proceeded to calmly explain to the “new boy” - my pop – what was actually happening.  The big monthly bazaar was scheduled for tomorrow at Digboi, and was likely the destination of these Nagas.  When the Nagas travel at night they space themselves roughly ten to twenty feet apart, and carry weapons for defense.  If one of them is jumped by an animal or enemy, the others can easily surround the threat.  Women and men alternate their position in the line, and the gals fight right alongside their men folk.  These were tough little people.

     A Naga woman in the 1930's. 

     As for their being naked and armed, dear reader, I was told by my mom that the British had set up modest toll booths on major paths leading to the bazaar.  Here a native officer collected their weapons and issued them a longyi (a native wraparound, ankle-length skirt).  In this way none of the White “memsahibs” would be offended at the bazaar; these petite, beautiful people’s nudity being covered up.  Upon returning the longyi to the toll booth, they’d get their weapons back prior to leaving. 

     Additionally, dear reader, here’s a sad oxymoron regarding these little people: For decades the British Raj had pressured the Nagas to give up headhunting.  When they ultimately seemed to get it under control, the Japanese decided to launch their invasion of Burma and India.  Following this, out of desperation, the British backpedaled and issued a bounty on Japanese heads in pounds sterling.  The Nagas were subsequently being paid to continue headhunting - by the same government that had previously tried to shut this antisocial pursuit down - go figure.

      Naga Warrior.

     Consequently, isolated Japanese patrols became terrified of the Nagas.  Who’d remain unseen in impenetrable jungles as they’d silently pick the Japs off one-by-one with poisoned arrows; using identical techniques they had perfected over generations for hunting leopards, tigers and elephants. 

    “Retired “ Naga Warrior inspecting skulls collected during WWII.

     Greatly relieved, and feeling much the fool, my father made Wooly promise his faux pas wouldn’t be the subject of gossip in the company, and that the drinks were on him at the club.  Wooly reassured Dad that he’d keep mum.

     Nevertheless, in the months that followed, from time to time a drunken Brit at the club would spot Father, then point and yell: “There’s the only survivor of the great Chisholm-Naga massacre!” 

     This caused everyone to laugh; Pop had to spring for a round of drinks to shut them up.

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