大象传媒

Now life was very free and easy and pleasant, hours spent on the beach and swimming and often Mad Dogs of Englishmen out in the mid-day sun. We were told by those with pre-war experience of India that people were amazed that we should be in the sun without head covering. Most of us stripped off and very carefully and gradually became various shades of brown, not lying in the sun but walking and running on the hard sand at low tide. Someone had the bright idea of playing 5-a side hockey. We bought some hockey sticks and balls and taught an Indian boy how to mark a right angle on the beach 鈥� then mark a line in the sand and then another right angle and another three lines to mark out a rectangle for a hockey pitch. We played every morning 鈥� the pitch was quite large and misshapen but improved with Billy鈥檚 experience. Annas well spent!

We became very fit, lots of running and swimming. We found it fascinating to watch the fisherman take out their long wide net in two parallel boats at a fair distance from the beach, return to the beach with ropes attached and after some time haul in the catch. A remarkably diverse collection of sea life 鈥� many fish like our cod or haddock and many more exotically shaped and finned and spiky fish and snakes. We thought of the snake which frightened us in Poonamallee but we were told that fresh water snakes were harmless but sea snakes 鈥� well I don鈥檛 know - but the way that the fishermen whacked them with sticks suggested that they were of no use. The fish were sorted, packed in boxes, loaded on donkeys and off they went, leaving the debris on the beach. We paid an occasional visit to Bombay and had lunch in the Gymkhana Club. The cold lunch was a speciality 鈥� salads and fruit and cold meat etc. Officers were honorary members but because it had become overcrowded with the arrival of more troops the rule was that Infantry and Signals and the odds and ends were alternated with Artillery and Engineers. I鈥檓 not sure if anyone took much notice of it but it was the Raj and very pleasant. We had tea at the Taj Mahal Hotel, really posh and presumably expensive. The building we thought was back to front. Everybody used the back entrance, which was lively, as the imposing front, which was very quiet, was facing the harbour which was considered a boring view. The Taj Mahal was more Raj than the Gymkhana Club. The contrast with the Indians in the Hotel acting like sahibs and the general population was extreme but it was a long time ago and I believe there is now a large Indian middle class and Bombay鈥檚 film industry is bigger than Hollywood. But whatever happens in India there are still obviously large numbers of untouchables living 鈥� existing in abject poverty.

I used my revolver in earnest one morning. There was a terrible hullabaloo as I was getting up and I found that the excitement was caused by a kite hawk which was spreadeagled 鈥� spreadhawked I ought to say - on the barbed wire boundary of the camp near my hut. It was hopelessly caught but it could only move its head. I didn鈥檛 want it bashed with sticks so I went a reasonable distance away, far enough to be fairly sure of hitting it but not far enough to have a fair chance of missing it. I cleared everyone away from outside the wire behind the target and scored a bullseye and went in to finish my toilet. It is illegal to shoot vultures or kite hawks in India 鈥� or it was 鈥� for from time immemorial they have scavenged and stripped dead anything to the bone. Refuse collection was non-existent outside the posh areas 鈥� may still be.

We knew we were enjoying ourselves on borrowed time 鈥� there was obviously no point in keeping Combined Operations Units going. With people being demobbed in artillery regiments the gaps could be filled. Gradually we disbanded and people were posted in various directions in India. In October 1945 I was posted to an artillery regiment in the famous old town of Secunderabad 鈥� really the British garrison area of Hyderabad and quickly developed a sore throat. It was obvious from my loss of voice and to my horror I was packed off to hospital. I was horrified, there were a number of officers manoeuvring about in wheel chairs and walking with sticks and someone explained they all had poliomyolites. I was examined and had tests and after a few days was pronounced to be clear, my sore throat tonsillitis, laryngitis or whatever.

On Sunday morning, showered and shaved I returned to the ward which was quite splendid overlooking the main imposing pillared entrance.I couldn鈥檛 believe my ears, the sound of a military band playing Rosamunde, Schubert鈥檚 incidental music 鈥� usually called an overture to a play I believe. Somehow it wasn鈥檛 quite right, good but not quite right, like a good school band. I went out onto the balcony and there was a band below, splendid in white uniforms with green facings. The Maharajah of Hyderabad, one of the most important Indian princes, sent his band to play to the officers every Sunday morning. They didn鈥檛 tackle anything too demanding. I really enjoyed it.

I had become friendly with another officer who developed a sore throat and he too was packed off to hospital. One evening, after dinner I thought I would pay him a visit and also see some of the polio victims I had got to know. It was not more than half a mile away straight up the road, so I walked through an area of Indian houses. When I returned it was dark and all was quiet but I was suddenly frightened out of my life by the arrival of a pack of pi dogs who surrounded me, snarling and barking very aggressively. I thought the aggressive noises were building up to a serious attack so with my back to the wall I stood revolver in hand to shoot the most venturesome. After a minute or so I heard a number of Indian voices shouting and the dogs dispersed. But was I scared! I didn鈥檛 see an Indian. So I returned to the mess and treated myself to a Scotch 鈥� which normally I never touched.

Within a day or so I was posted again, another very long train journey to Dehra Dun, right up in the North. I was told by a regular major that I was a lucky devil and that it was a damn good posting 鈥� and it was 鈥� but more of that later. I really wasn鈥檛 looking forward to such a long train journey. Crowds of Indian men, women and children on the train packed into their compartments on wooden seats carrying cases and bundles and bags of food 鈥� the usual scene. At every stop comings and goings and the monkeys arriving from all directions out of the trees swarming all over the train. That really was India. There were numerous halts and another officer and I walked up the train and looked at the engine and those poor devils who were the coal shovellers. To my surprise, a sunburned white driver addressed us in good English and we had quite a conversation. We returned and I remarked that the driver had a Welsh accent and the other occupant of our carriage fell about laughing. 鈥淲elsh?鈥� he said, 鈥渢hat was an Anglo-Indian鈥�. When the railways were first constructed, some British workers were recruited to run them. Inter-marriage with Indians and subsequent generations following in fathers鈥� footsteps meant there were many Anglo Indians on the railways. There used to be an Indian Test Cricketer named Engineer 鈥� I wonder.

I had time at Delhi to have a look around at all the impressive white buildings. I had seen betel nut stain on the walls of buildings in Bombay but the red splashes in Delhi mostly about three or four feet above ground level were a real mess. The betel nut business in India must be a good earner. The famous Red Fort was impressive. Then I went to D.D. via Meerut where the Indian Mutiny started in 1887. I don鈥檛 remember what happened at D.D. station. My first memory is shaking hands with the adjutant and being introduced to the C.O. Now the Army had this wretched business of substantive rank which for junior officers was Lieutenant. So on posting I believe it was quite usual to drop from Captain to Lieutenant until a Captain vacancy arrived. I don鈥檛 think it happened in the Navy or R.A.F. I know that in aircrew in the R.A.F. the pilot was the boss 鈥� could be a Sergeant ? pilot with a Flight Lieutenant navigator and another officer rear gunner etc. Nothing like this could happen in the Army. In the Navy there could be a Lieutenant commanding a corvette with another Lieutenant as navigator 2 i/c. The three services were different with their own customs and traditions. The Navy and RAF made a distinction with separate service dress uniform insignia for emergency commissioned officers the army didn鈥檛. It was very clear in the navy 鈥� the R.N.V.R., wavy navy, or if commissioned from Merchant Service different stripes again. But I digress. The C.O., very pleasant, chatted for a bit and asked about my experience and then said one of my Territorial Army battery commanders Major Toms is being demobbed next week and I shall want you to take over.

That first evening I was introduced to the Dehra Dun club, another bit of the old Raj. We were sitting on the balcony having dinner and surveying the scenery when we saw an attractive English girl walking up the path. Now talk about surprise, as she approached I realised that it was Kathleen Simpson the girl I had sat next to at Torridon Road Junior School and when I had gone to Brockley she had gone to Sydenham; we had very rarely seen each other during grammar school years. The last time I had spoken to her was on leave after Dunkirk when we both got off a bus, she from inside and I from the top. After a few minutes we wished each other well and now here she was 鈥� now that was a coincidence, not like my arrival at Mauripuar airport in Karachi which was a contrived semi- coincidence. She was looking for her boyfriend who wasn鈥檛 in his quarters and wasn鈥檛 at club; she wouldn鈥檛 join us for dinner and returned to wait for him. Must have been keen!

I spent a couple of days with Major Toms and off he went [January 1946], and I borrowed a cloth crown 鈥� worn on battledress or khaki-drill, and with the whole battery on parade I addressed them and gave them a pep talk about the war being over and some were waiting for demob but as far as we were concerned nothing had changed. We were still soldiers with a job to do. My battery was to be working with the cadets of I.M.A. at D.D. but time passed and things or politics were changing quickly. What else? Well the Adjutant had a daschund, which followed him everywhere. He took it in a jeep to D.D. a few miles away and calamity, it disappeared. In spite of searching and offering a reward for days there was no sign of the dog. Then a week later there was a whimpering at his bedroom door early in the morning and there was the dog, looking worse for wear. What a fuss! I expect he had daschunds all his life after that.

D.D. was a very pleasant area as I had been told. There were a number of other units in the area, British, Indian, Gurkha. Inter unit football matches were very popular. I saw Indians barefoot kicking a ball about but the Gurkhas like the British troops wore football boots. The Gurkhas were regarded with great respect by the British troops - almost like us was the feeling. The surrounding terrain was almost like English woodland in places and not like Kipling鈥檚 jungle. It was tiger country. No doubt they were attracted to the pig farms in the area which were run by Italian P.O.W.s who had been captured in North East Africa - Abyssinia as it was in those days, Somaliland, Eritrea. They were free agents, often seen around. No point in keeping them guarded. How to get back to Italy? No good being loose in India. Pork was often on the menu 鈥� in different dishes.

We used to do exercises and I used a motor cycle often in dried beds of streams 鈥� rough going but the easiest way to cover the ground. I saw antelope occasionally and once a snake sunning itself curled up on a flat slab of stone in the stream bed. Bird life was varied and very interesting. Peacocks were always making a racket and there were lots of smaller guinea fowl types and of course the raptors.

I enjoyed the D.D. club 鈥� small of course compared with Bombay Gymkhana but nice (I want to avoid pleasant). On Saturday was dancing and plenty of room because there were comparatively few women. There was one gorgeous Anglo-Indian girl there who always wore a long white dress 鈥� not the same one I observed because of the various degrees of exposure. The story was that her mother 鈥� white 鈥� had been trying to get her off, if I can use the phrase, for years. Certainly I was told there had been many smitten young subalterns over the years - and older majors 鈥� well aged 25 anyway. One evening my red beret was stolen from the club. Strolling down the road in the dark I was accosted by a Military Police Sergeant who asked me very respectfully if I would be good enough to replace my hat. I explained the circumstances 鈥� which no doubt spoiled his story later in the Sergeant鈥檚 mess.

All these months in India had made me realise that the British were on their way out of India. Congress Party activists were busy all the time. I only met hostility once. I was sitting in the front of a vehicle in D.D. and for some reason or other we were stationery. A brown hand appeared actually inside the window and I was showered with gravel at short range with considerable force. It drew blood in places and I remember that I had a mark on one eyelid where it was decided I must have had time to close my eyes and a cut lip but the little scabs left minuscular scars on my forehead particularly. That was the day when I had been highly amused to witness a Congress procession which consisted of four British soldiers in the front and a smiling crowd with cardboard signs shouting 鈥淨uit India鈥�, 鈥淨uit India鈥� and none shouting more loudly that the soldiers. Military police arrived and manhandled the soldiers who appeared a bit worse for the wear out of the procession 鈥� all very good humoured. But the signs were there and in April 1946 my order to quit India arrived. Report to Deolali as soon as possible. Another long train journey I wasn鈥檛 looking forward to.

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