大象传媒

Amid the polyglot crowds in Bombay every Indian soldier we saw was dressed like a new pin, with smartly creased khaki drill shirt and shorts and neatly wound puggaree or turban,despite the heat and humidity. We felt ashamed of our untidiness. Except when active service conditions did not permit, all ranks of the Indian Army dressed smartly, thanks partly to the regimental dhobis or washermen, but also due to regimental pride.

The day after the 鈥淣ieuw Holland鈥� had berthed in Bombay a Royal Engineer staff officer set up a desk to interview personally every RE officer on Draft RGHOF. I was surprised and pleased to be asked which type of unit I would prefer to join. My previous two and a half years experience in the British Army had been in units of the 鈥渇ield鈥� or 鈥渃ombat鈥� arm of the Royal Engineers, the traditional Sapper role. I had therefore expected to be posted to a Field Company of one of the three Indian Army Sapper and Miner Groups.

However the Indian Army was very short of qualified and trained electrical power engineers such as myself. I was therefore given joining instructions to No.1 Works Services (Electrical and Mechanical) Group I.E., Lahore Cantonment

We had a lot to learn about the Indian Army, and the Corps of Indian Engineers in particular. The British land forces in India were in two main categories. One was the 鈥淏ritish Army in India鈥�, consisting of wholly British units and formations. Quite separate and distinct was the Indian Army, representing two thirds of the total military presence.

In the British army, a typical infantry division consisted of three brigades each of three infantry battalions of about 700 men. The Indian infantry division was very similar except that in each brigade typically, one battalion was of a British regiment, one of an Indian Regiment, and one of a Gurkha regiment. Both Indian and Gurkha soldiers were volunteer mercenaries with family and village traditions binding them to loyal and proud service with the British Raj under their British, Indian and Nepalese officers. A brigade group is normally the smallest formation containing 鈥渁ll arms鈥�. In addition to its three infantry battalions each Indian brigade group had a Field Regiment of (British) Royal Artillery and a Field Company of Indian Engineers with Signals, Medical, Service, Ordnance and other supporting arms.

Signal messages would normally be sent in English written in Roman capital letters. The language of the Indian Army was Urdu, written in Roman script with which the signallers were familiar. English was thus sent and received as if in code. The Artillery was a special case. After the 1857 Indian Mutiny Indian artillery units were abolished and their place taken by British Royal Artillery. Only Indian Mountain Regiments were retained, armed with light鈥漵crew guns鈥� carried on pack mules but during the 1942 -45 war against Japan, Indian field artillery units were gradually brought back.

Each Indian Infantry Brigade would also have one Field Company, Indian Engineers. Indian Field Companies have a long and distinguished history. They each belonged to one or other of three Sapper and Miner Groups, dating back to the days of the Honourable East India Company and its three Presidency Armies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras. With their Depots, they were:-The Bengal Sappers and Miners, Roorkee, the Bombay Sappers and Miners, Kirkee, and the Madras Sappers and Miners, Bangalore, each named after the Presidency Army with which it originated.

Together they formed the field or 鈥渃ombat鈥� arm of the Indian Engineers. Its other arms, Works Services (W/S) and Military Engineer Services (MES), were at first inadequate to meet the needs of the war against Japan. In the Burma campaign it had to provide electrical and mechanical, road and airfield construction and earth moving equipment services to build and maintain Lines of Communication for General Slim鈥檚 British/Indian 14th Army, the largest British army raised in World War 2. By May 1942, in addition to the three Sapper and Miner Groups, four new Works Services Groups had been formed and by August 1943 had raised:

At Lahore:
No.1 E and M Group.........................60 units
No.3 Construction Group...........165 units (total 15,000 men)
No.6 Mech.Equipt. Group............42 units

At Sialkot:
No.4 Engineer Equipt Group.........20 Engineer Battalions

All the units raised by these Groups were, like the Field Companies, trained and equipped for the dual role of soldiers and engineering tradesmen. As was traditional in the Corps of Indian Engineers they were officered by Royal Engineers, supplemented during the Japanese war by British and Indian emergency reserve officers of the Corps of Indian Engineers. British NCO s were relatively few and few and employed as technical specialists. As in all Indian Army units Viceroys Commissioned Officers (formerly known as 鈥淣ative Officers鈥�) were interposed between the British officers and the non commissioned Indian ranks.

Before World War II Indians were already being awarded King鈥檚 Commissions as for British officers. During the war Indian and British civilian engineers working in India received emergency commissions in the Corps of Indian Engineers, wore its Star of India badge and took post alongside RE officers on equal terms. A close Indian friend, then Lieutenant, retired as an engineer Lieutenant-Colonel of the present Indian Army, and with whom I served for three years, quite recently wrote saying that as the only Indian among British officers he had never experienced any distinction of colour or creed and was very happy. He was very much one of us.

Indian Engineer electrical and mechanical units provided electricity generation and a wide range of general workshop, manufacturing and construction services for an army campaigning in remote and underdeveloped regions. As Line of Communication (鈥淟 of C鈥�) units they were armed for defence.Their role was quite different from that of the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) formed in 1942, with its Indian Army equivalent IEME, to maintain, recover and repair armoured fighting vehicles, guns and motor transport vehicles in the field.

With three other Sapper officers I had entrained at Bombay in a first class four berth compartment of the Frontier Mail. Two red turbanned porters brought in a large block of ice in a rusty square steel pan and placed it in the centre of the floor. This was our air conditioning unit! Two electric fans mounted near the ceiling directed the air downwards to us and the ice block.The windows of the compartment were each fitted with three sliding panels. The inner was plain glass, the middle panel was of fine wire mesh, the outer of horizontal louvred wooden ventilator slats. Any desired combination could be adopted.

I can not recall whether there was a restaurant car. In those days it was quite normal for the train to stop long enough for passengers to have a meal in the station restaurant. It was often the best place in that particular town for Europeans to have a meal even when they were not travelling. Lahore, then capital of the Punjab, is about 1700 kms from Bombay and the journey time was about 24 hours. (Punjab means 鈥渓and of the five rivers鈥� and forms the basin of the rivers Sutlej, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum.)

Lahore is the legendary birthplace of Rudyard Kipling鈥檚 鈥淜im鈥�, it is more distinguished by its associations with Akhbar the Great and other Moghul emperors. Its Shalimar Gardens laid out in 1637 at the order of Emperor Shah Jehan (1627-1658) rival the Shalimar Gardens of Kashmir built a few years earlier by his predecessor Jahangir (1605 1627) who spent the summers there with his wife Nur Jehan 鈥� The Light of The World鈥�.

I was sorry not to have had more time there, but the Indian Engineers were waiting! We arrived on 20th May 1942. The average daily temperature range for May in Lahore is 104 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit with relative humidity 36 to 20 %. I was given temporary accommodation in a single bedroomed bungalow with concrete floored 鈥済husl - khana鈥� or bathroom.

I bathed in a tin bath filled by my personal 鈥渂earer鈥� with tepid water from buckets. In that climate cold water is unknown. I kept a wary eye on the drain hole in the foot of one wall, having been warned by an aunt who had lived many years in India that it was a potential route for cobras! Later on I would often lie in such pleasantly tepid water for half an hour, playing a mouth organ. Our pleasures were simple.

At that stage of the war the habits of peacetime still lingered on. Because of the intense heat most activity ceased between 1 pm and 5pm.There was no air conditioning other than the traditional 鈥減unkah鈥�(the Urdu word for fan). This was a large cloth stretched horizontally just above head height from a wooden beam hanging from two ropes from the ceiling. It was caused to swing through the length of the room by a rope leading through a hole in the wall.A pulley wheel allowed the rope to hang down within reach of a servant known as the 鈥減unkah wallah鈥�, located on the verandah.

He often lay on a mat, pulling the rope鈥檚 end by a loop over his foot and frequently fell asleep. From all directions the cry 鈥減unkah wallah!鈥�,indicating that he had fallen asleep, punctuated hot afternoons in India! During my first 鈥渟iesta鈥� period in Lahore I met the traditional pedlars and shopkeepers of the country. Each would enlist one鈥檚 bearer to knock on the bedroom door and secure an audience, whereupon their various wares would be produced from a battered suitcase or a large cloth bundle set out on the floor. A Sikh fortune teller also called and I was cajoled into listening and paying cash for the privilege.

According to him, I was going to be promoted to Captain and posted to the North West Frontier. I was married and was going to have three children, a boy and two girls. I was, above all, going to have good luck. Although in the event I was posted South the rest of his predictions were near enough. It was a time when the Indian Army was expanding at a tremendous rate and no doubt his ear was closer to the ground than mine.

After a private interview with the Commandant of No.1 Engineer Depot, Lieutenant-Colonel Veitch RE, a Bengal Sapper and Miner, I was posted to 345 Indian Workshop and Park Company IE, Jhansi Cantonment, United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh).A few hours later I stepped down on to Jhansi Railway Station platform to be met by a Naik (Corporal) of 345 Company with an open fronted 30 cwt lorry. In the hot afternoon it was like driving into a blast furnace. The heat and glare were bearable only because of the shade provided by the hood of the lorry and the dry moving air with a relative humidity of about 15 per cent. As we passed the deserted parade ground, 鈥渄ust devils鈥� spun and danced across its red sandy surface.

I wondered how long I could survive in this hell hole.It was the dreaded 鈥渉ot weather鈥� season of the Indian plains. We were on the edge of the Thar or Rajasthan desert.The upper atmosphere was so full of dust that the sunlight was deficient in ultra-violet rays and shone with a curiously brassy glare. Photographs taken by guessing the exposure were usually under exposed.

I was set down with my valise, suitcase and tin trunk at the portico of a white washed bungalow which I was to share with Lieutenant and Mrs J E M Alexander IE of 608 Indian E and M Coy IE which was also training at 14 ETC. Before joining, Alexander had been a Sub-Divisional Officer in the Indian Civil Service, a post of some responsibility. Both he and his young wife were friendly and helpful. It was a great shock to hear a year or two later that he had died in Calcutta from poliomyelitis.

I was introduced to my bearer. He was a real life version of Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy fame.The Havildar Major had obviously tried to pass on a problem! Once settled in I acquired a replacement - a cheerful youngster who remained as my bearer for the next three years.

By the time I had settled in, changed out of sweat sodden clothes and had a bath, it was time to meet my fellow officers. The sun was setting as I walked over to the row of corrugated iron roofed, verandahed huts which the other officers were temporarily occupying. They were sitting in a group on a verandah having drinks and I was offered an iced 鈥渘imbu-pani鈥� or fresh lime in water, the staple drink of India.

The O.C. was Major Philip R Eden RE, a forty year old Liverpudlian and in civil life a works safety engineer at Joseph Crosfield鈥檚 soap works in Warrington, Lancs. Captain R K Redgrave RE the Officer i/c Stores, was a young London University graduate from southern England. Then there was Lieutenant Colin J Sandeman RE, a tall thirty five year old architect from Worthing, Lieutenant Herbert Eastwood RE a thirtyfive year old builder from Sheffield, Lieutenant Alec C. Scott IE, a jute mill engineer from Dundee, and Lieutenant Minu Nanabhoy Patel IE, a charming young Parsi from Bombay.

On 1st July 1942 I was apponted Acting Captain, 2nd in Command and Officer i/c Workshops. The Sikh fortune teller鈥檚 prophecies were coming true. Pity he got it wrong about the North West Frontier!

In the brick walled corrugated-iron roofed huts of my brother officers an afternoon shade temperature of 126 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded. Fortunately they soon transferred to new thatched quarters, each officer having a private bedroom with en suite (as we would now say) 鈥済husl-khana鈥� containing as well as a tin bath, a 鈥渢hunder-box鈥� or commode, emptied at regular intervals by one of the regimental sweepers.For my first two or three weeks I had a self contained bedroom and ghusl-khana in the Alexander鈥檚 bungalow, and experienced something of the traditional way of life of the British Empire builders. Like all permanent living quarters in India the rooms of the bungalow were high ceilinged and whitewashed, with traditional punkahs in bedrooms and living room.

During the 鈥渉ot-weather鈥� we only used the bedroom for afternoon siesta. Also during this hot weather period, as part of the constant battle with the climate thick woven grass mats filled the window spaces. The punkah wallah included in his duties the throwing of buckets of water on to the outside of these 鈥渃us cus tattis鈥� so that evaporation of the water would cool the air in the room.

On the same cooling principle water was always stored in porous earthenware jars known as chattis鈥�. The number of Indian words which have passed into the English language through our historic preoccupation with India is quite astonishing e.g. bangla or bungalow, pyjama, etc.. In my childhood a glazed porcelain chamber pot was always referred to as a 鈥渃hatti鈥�.

At night the Alexanders and I slept with our 鈥渃harpoys鈥� spaced out outdoors under the stars, in the bungalow garden. A charpoy is a traditional wood-framed bedstead with woven string as the only mattress. Despite the dry heat we slept under mosquito nets as a precaution against bites from malarial mosquitoes. I sweated, tossing and turning, night after night, to the background noise of cicadas rubbing their rear legs together, punctuated by the hawking and spitting of the Chowkidar or watchman as he patrolled the grounds as a precaution against dacoits or thieves.

In such a climate it was essential to keep fit, and, I was advised by old hands,鈥漷o keep the bowels open and the mouth shut.鈥� Also to drink vast quantities of water usually in the form of nimbu-pani, at lunch adding a teaspoonful of salt in it. Alcohol, except heavily diluted, in strict moderation and after sundown, was not recommended.The occurrence of any feverish condition in the hot weather, with body temperature out of control, was potentially lethal. This was before the days of anti biotics and other medical aids we take for granted today, and of course air conditioning was not available.

During this short period, before the breaking of the monsoon at the end of June I marched behind the coffins of two British sergeants who contracted dysentery and who I was sure would have survived but for the intolerable climate.

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