MY FIRST COMPANION IN PURSUIT OF THE J. H. WILLIAMS STORY was Robin Perkins Ugurlu, who came with me to Tasmania in the spring of 2010. Robin had provided me with a remarkable cache of letters from her family archive for my book The Lady and the Panda, and in the decade since, she had become a close friend and international travel partner. She’s such a charmer that wherever we go, doors and hearts open to us. As we set out to meet Williams’s son Treve, I thought that talent might prove useful.
I already had the six memoirs (one written by Williams’s wife, Susan) that make up the substantial published record of the life of Elephant Bill. What I needed were the traces that were unpublished, unknown, private. I had been in touch with Treve, a well-known racehorse veterinarian, for several months, yet I still did not have a clear impression of how much archival matter he possessed. As is often the case with research, I just had to go and find out.
The moment of truth came at Treve’s lovely house in a picturesque town in northern Tasmania, where he had set out, on the polished table in his dining room, a small overnight suitcase of letters and clippings—a little anticlimactic, but I was grateful to examine whatever material existed. Robin and I began to sift through the yellowed papers while Treve worked upstairs in his study examining X-rays of a Thoroughbred’s legs. The three of us broke for lunch that day in the village pub, and later, after more reading, there was supper, Scotch, and conspiratorial laughter. Before bedtime, we were a tight-knit trio.
The next morning Robin and I again arrived at Treve’s to discover that he had lugged down a massive chest filled with archival treasures: unpublished manuscripts, autobiographical screenplays and movie treatments, typed speeches, diary fragments, handwritten notes and essays—it was the El Dorado of Elephant Bill files. Apparently, though we hadn’t even known we were on probation, Robin and I had passed muster. I was ecstatic. It was clear that from this immense cache would emerge the heart of this book: the truer, funnier, earthier, and more emotional James Howard Williams.
There is no way to adequately thank Treve for his contribution. This book was made possible by his generosity, insight, and drive. Besides providing an enormous repository of materials, he was unstinting in sharing memories and helping pin down dates that his father had left vague. By knowing Treve, I could know, to some extent, James Howard Williams in the flesh—witnessing through the son the father’s rangy physique, his great zest, his humor, his stamina, and, above all else, his kindness. Jim Williams still has a voice every time his son speaks. All of these things were a blessing for a biographer, but beyond that, I’ve once again made a beloved friend. As Treve put it once during a passing disagreement, “We’re mates, that’s for life, nothing will change that.” Thank you, dear Treve, for everything.
I am also indebted to Denis Segal for uncovering J. H. Williams’s government, employment, shipping, and military records in London. I was told that Denis could discover in ten minutes files that would take other scholars ten years to track down. It turned out to be true. And Denis has contributed much more. His own experience in the British military in India during World War II provided many insights. His supercomputer of an intellect was always humming, waiting to field any question. And even though the research is done, our email correspondence has sustained the exquisite pleasure of knowing him.
Thanks also to Dr. Kevin Greenbank, archivist and administrator, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge. Kevin provided me with invaluable materials on Burma, including footage of tea planter and World War II refugee rescuer Gyles Mackrell, and introduced me to Denis Segal. Kevin is a modest man but an incredible polymath. I thank him for allowing me a glimpse of his astonishing “other” lives—musician, heroic activist, and writer. His accomplishments might have intimidated me, but Kevin’s wicked sense of humor kept our communication down to earth.
Much love and many thanks to Diana Clarke. Di is the little girl in this story who broke my heart. When she arrived with her brother, Michael, at Jim and Susan’s front door in 1940, she was only three years old, motherless, and quite ill. She immediately became a beloved member of the family, one whom Treve still refers to as his sister. In helping me, she recollected details about Jim and Susan that only a daughter could. She is, today, as brave and kind and generous as she was then. Late in the project, she offered an example of British decorum. I was on the phone with Treve and Di the day they had a reunion in London. They had not seen each other in decades and I asked Di if they wept. “Oh, no!” she objected. But then she paused, and whispered, “We just blinked a lot.” I am honored to consider her a friend.
As always, thanks to Jan Freeman, a friend and editor without equal (she’ll roll her eyes at such a superlative). I hardly write a personal letter without requesting Jan’s red pencil. A colleague once asked how I had the nerve to show Jan my “raw copy.” It’s actually easy, because along with being an exacting reader, Jan is the tenderest of friends.
John Bostock, son of Geoff Bostock of the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, generously provided me with his family’s private correspondence, which recorded the exodus from Burma they shared with the Williamses in 1942. Among his father’s papers was the “Evacuation Scheme,” a detailed seventeen-page outline of the supplies and logistics necessary for the trek and the names of all the evacuees. Everything was calculated with precision down to the last bedroll, tin bath, and fork. His mother’s letters home, full of detail as well as emotion, provided an invaluable glimpse of the journey.
To David Air and his posse of retired tea planters, many thanks for providing insight and information on the details of Elephant Bill’s stay in Silchar.
I am grateful to Felicity Goodall, author of Exodus Burma, who was unstintingly generous in sharing her research, and to Harvard scholar Kyi Thant, who kindly edited the Burmese phrases used in these pages.
And then there are the elephants. They are the reason Billy Williams traveled to Burma and the inspiration for this book. They, and Williams’s love for them, are what first attracted me to this story and sustained me throughout. I knew I could not understand the man if I did not understand his elephants. The journey toward that end has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. And the biggest part of the education was provided by two remarkable elephant matriarchs—Ruth and Emily.
In 2010, Dr. Bill Langbauer, the head of the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford, Massachusetts, invited video artist Christen Goguen and me to come down and meet “the girls.” Emily had lived much of her life alone in the zoo, when it was run-down and sad. Ruth had arrived in the 1980s after being abandoned by a private owner in a dump in Massachusetts. Known as a striker—one who lashes out with her trunk—and a dangerous elephant, Ruth was rehabilitated by a curmudgeon with a heart of gold—a keeper named Bill Sampson. Bill was patient and dependable, and he turned Ruth into a lap elephant—a trustworthy animal who thrives on love and attention.
Christen and I visited the girls every other week for nearly two years, learning about life, love, and all things elephant from Emily and Ruth. They taught us to close our eyes when reaching up to rub them (sand rains down from their hide), where they liked to be scratched (often along the tire-tread “elbow” of their trunks), and how easy it is for elephants to open a coconut (the girls would just place a foot on the hard shell, close their eyes in anticipation of the pop, and press). Of course, they had bigger lessons to provide, too. I didn’t need to be convinced of what J. H. Williams wrote about elephant emotions, but the girls validated all of it—they have courage, kindness, intelligence, humor, and loyalty. I hope these deserving animals receive the expansion and renovation of their living space that some of my friends have fought so hard for.
The elephants didn’t come with an instruction manual, but I have been fortunate to have five remarkable guides: Bill Langbauer, Jenny Theuman, Kay Santos, John Lehnhardt, and Katy Payne.
“Dr. Bill,” a renowned elephant researcher, opened his mind, his home, and, as the head of Buttonwood at the time, his zoo to me, giving me full immersion into the hearts and minds of these incredible creatures. Dr. Bill is a scientist, a skeptic, and a man of integrity and joy, and like his elephants, he inspires one to be a bigger person in his presence.
Jenny and Kay, sensitive and insightful elephant keepers, let me tag along, sharing their observations on elephant life. Jenny is smart and talkative, Kay quiet and intuitive; both are masterly elephant whisperers.
John Lehnhardt was my elephant guru on my very first book, The Modern Ark, and has remained a friend and adviser on all things elephant ever since. He was a curator at the National Zoo then, and now he is beginning a remarkable endeavor—making a sanctuary for elephants in Florida.
Finally, Katy Payne is a gift from Ganesha. I had read and reviewed her book Silent Thunder and for years had admired her work on elephant behavior and vocal communication. I had hoped to introduce myself someday. Then, in 2009, as I headed to Truro for my annual visit with filmmaker Cynthia Moses, I found out that Katy would be joining us for the week. I hadn’t even realized that Cynthia, most generous and plugged-in of friends, knew Katy. I had long talks with Katy that week, and many strolls with her on the beach, but my favorite memory is sitting on her bed one windy afternoon as she read my book proposal and I reread Silent Thunder, taking turns quoting favorite passages from each other’s work.
If we were elephants, my dearest friends would be my twai sins, sister matriarchs with whom I share fierce loyalty but no DNA: Amy Macdonald, Mary Savoca Crowley, Ellen Maggio, Jan Freeman, and Louise Kennedy. I thank them all for their unstinting support.
Thanks also to Jane von Mehren at Random House, for believing in this story, and to Jonathan Jao for his vision and the strength and delicacy of his editing. To his assistant Molly Turpin, too, my gratitude for a fine and astute reading.
I continue to be indebted to my literary agent, Laura Blake Peterson, at Curtis Brown, Ltd. Laura deserves credit for the good fortune I have enjoyed in the world of books. Magical opportunities seem to just fall into my lap because of her. I never see the effort, just the wonderful result. She is so breathtakingly good at what she does, and so smart, funny, kind, and courageously protective, that I benefit every day from being associated with her.