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To get away from history and back to the present (life in India pre-war), the Royal Signals soldier who was not on active service, had a reasonably good, if boring, life in India; for example the feeding arrangements were excellent.
Unlike the U.K., we were paid our ration money directly into our pay accounts that were paid over immediately to the Messing officer, plus an agreed amount of our own money to buy extras. This amount varied between 4 and 8 annas (4½-9 new pence) per day according to where your unit was stationed and the cost of food in that locality. The cooking and hygiene of the unit was performed by Indians who, whilst they were part and parcel of the unit, were not soldiers; they were known as 'camp followers' and were sub-divided into three classes:
1. The Cooks, who were subject to strict medical supervision; they were called 'Bobagees';
2. The water-carriers (Gunga Din!) called 'Bhistis';
3. The grooms (Syces) sweepers and those colloquially known as ‘turd stranglers’. The latter, as their name denotes, looked after the toilets and general hygiene. In charge of Group 3 was the head or 'Jemadar' sweeper. His leadership had certain perks: one of which was to have first pick of the swill bins before the others of that group (known as Untouchables - the Indian name for them, not mine), could help themselves. The Untouchables in India were the very bottom of the caste system of the Hindu and, believe me; they were far better off with the Army than they were anywhere else.
Our Mess halls were run under the supervision of a British other rank, usually a. local acting unpaid Lance Corporal and, if he was a good chap at his job, and the majority were, you lived off the fat of the land. Our Mess Halls were laid out with tables for four, tablecloths, vase of flowers, and a carafe of water with glasses for each one. Food was either served by a bearer (waiter) or, in some places, cafeteria style. You could purchase small portions of butter, cream, etc. to augment your rations and often, when the boys went on a shikar (game hunt) we had venison, roast pea-fowl (magnificent!), green pigeon, buck and other delicacies; truly the life of a Rajah!
As I said before we were years ahead of normal military thinking and, in fact, it was to be twenty- five years later that this style of eating first saw the light of day in the U.K.
A typical week in the life of my Unit would be Reveille at 6 a.m. and the first thing would be to reach over to your table to grasp, and drink, the mug of tea awaiting you; secondly to feel your face to find out if you had been shaved. Shaved? Yes, believe it or not, the bearer (Nappi) would shave you whilst you slept; unbelievable but true. The only time that I ever woke up whilst being shaved was when the nappi, in bending over me, belched a very garlic belch and the stink of it woke me up.
Next, at 7 o'clock, was breakfast; a very good one usually, then at 8 o'clock a Parade and off to wherever you were working: garages, stables, line store etc., and at 9.30 a.m. return to the Canteen for a cup of tea. 11.30 a.m. finish work for the day, unless you were detailed guard or other duty.
Every Thursday was a day off, ostensibly to de-bug the Barracks and take anti malarial precautions. Saturday morning was inspection by the C.O. and Sunday day off, unless on Church Parade.
Church parades were detested throughout the Army; it wasn't that the troops were any more irreligious than anybody else, it was because it was a Parade - a Ceremony - the religious part was just an excuse.
Most of the troops were C of E. I was not (Church of Scotland in case you ask), but with all the other non-conformists we were marched to the Church (C of E.) then told to make our own way to the nearest Church of our denomination. The R.C's got off lightly as their Church started at 8.a.m. and they made their own way there without parading as there was usually only a few of these.
The rotten 'gits' used to take the mickey out of the rest of us, getting all cleaned up, including rifles, to go to commune with our Maker.

During my sojourn in India my pal and myself fell foul of the law; military law, that is. We were in an Out-of-Bounds place, doing what comes naturally when we were pounced upon by the Regimental Police who, taking no account of our embarrassing situation, hauled us up to our feet and informed us that we were 'nicked.'
Well I don't know if any of the readers' of this missive have ever been in such an undignified position - two naked men, with the evidence of their pastime in full bloom and two equally naked females, screaming and raising hell about the place. There then took place a mighty punch-up. What sort of men would calmly submit to such an assault on their manhood? So they bashed us and we bashed the intruders and the females joined in as well!
After a few minutes, when more Police reinforcements had arrived, we were subdued, made to dress and marched off to the 'nick' where we spent the night; the next day we were hauled up in front of the 'beak' who was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Artillery; a doddering old fool if there ever was one, and I don't mean that in any degree of bitterness, he was a doddering old fool and when the charge against us was read out and the Police gave their evidence, I started to giggle at the memory of it - after all, to an onlooker it must have appeared like an extract from a French farce.
That giggle cost me dear for I got 28 days detention in Lucknow Military Prison and Detention Barracks and my mate only got 14 days detention in the Guard-Room. So be it! The wheels of Justice had ground and made mincemeat of me; nowadays the Colonel would probably ask you for the address!
So I was committed to Lucknow and I must say that my thoughts were far from happy: no smoking, no drinking, rigid Military discipline, no pay, no nothing! But I was in for a big shock as in addition to these deprivations, which were fair enough, there was sheer bestial cruelty, both mental and physical in this hellhole they called a 'corrective establishment.'
When my escort and self arrived at the gates of this place they had been helping me to carry my gear, a Sergeant screamed at them to give me all the kit (two kitbags and a blanket), which they did, and thus laden and in the middle of my escort we were 'doubled' to the Commandant's office. One of my escorts, a Corporal, protested that he wasn't a prisoner and wasn't going to be treated like one, whereupon the subhuman, who was the Sergeant, raged at him,
"If I hear another whine out of you I'll charge you with attempting to assist the prisoner to suborn Military authority and evade his proper punishment."
He must have taken months to learn that off as I am certain he couldn't have read it, he was a Cretin. The Corporal wilted and tried to apologise and was told to 'shut up' and to get out of the Barracks before he was found a place in it. He grabbed the proffered 'Pass Out' card and, with the other escort, vanished in a cloud of dust.
The Sergeant turned to me and said "Number, Rank and Name" I told him.
"A Scotch bastard, are you? A fly man? The Commandant hates your breed and you are going to hate it here."
He then 'doubled' me into the office and there I met the Commandant who was a Conductor (Warrant Officer) in the Indian Military Prison service. This person, who was not even a commissioned officer, was actually in charge of the Detention Barracks. I never saw an officer, other than the Medical Officer; who was a person I am sure who had never taken the Hippocratic oath but made a pact with the Devil instead.
All the people in the Prison Service were British soldiers but who had transferred to the Indian Army to do a particular job. You met them in the Royal Indian Ordnance Corps and other Indian equivalents of British Army units. They always seemed to be a Warrant Officer Class I. and some of them were masters unto themselves. One, who I met inside as a prisoner, was doing time for a big grass farm fraud; there were huge areas in India where the Military grew grass, which was harvested and made into large haystacks and this provided a continuous supply of fodder for the Army's many horses and mules.
The prisoner to whom I referred, was in charge of these areas and had been selling the grass to an Indian contractor and had hit upon the ingenious plan of building large frameworks the shape of a haystack, covering the outside with hay until it looked like the real thing, so when an inspecting officer came round doing a stock check, he could count the haystacks and, as they were exactly all the same size, be able to ascertain how many tons of fodder were present. Alas, as with things it came to a sudden end; an officer, whilst checking stopped to chat to the Warrant Officer beside the haystack. To make himself a bit more comfortable, he leaned against the haystack and fell through it! I would have loved to have seen both their faces when it happened. The Warrant Officer was naturally stuck in the 'nick' and all the haystacks were investigated; a goodly proportion was found to be fakes; he must have made a mint of money before he was caught.
The Commandant looked at me, trembling with the fear of the unknown, then read the papers concerning me.
"Fly man from Glasgow, are you"
"From Glasgow, yes sir. But not fly, if I was I wouldn't be here, would I?"
Dear Lord, it was as if the heavens had fallen on me; a punch in the kidneys was my answer, with screams of "shut up, only speak when told to,” ringing in my ears.
"Look after that one, Staff" (all prison staff were called staff). "He is a Glasgow scum and a trouble-maker."
Staff marched me out, my back aching, and ordered me to pick up my kit and took me to my cell, which was one of a row. My kit was put down beside the slab of wood that was my bed and I was then shown the next cell, which had the occupant’s kit, laid out for inspection.
"Take a good look at that and have yours like it in the morning” and then back to my cell and the steel-barred gate, that was the door, was clanged shut and locked.
I will gloss over the day-to-day the endless, pointless cleaning and polishing of buckets, spades; the hard physical work and the inadequate food. To this day I can’t stand the sight or thought of porridge but I must describe one particular torture that most of us were subjected to daily, for two hours every afternoon. In the open space in the prison there was a well, but a well with a difference; the top of the well was about ten feet higher than the level ground. Access to the well was by a ramp of well-trodden earth and stones, probably about thirty-five to forty feet in length. The bucket was a square of leather, caught at the corners by four pieces of rope, which were spliced into a single rope. This, when it was lowered into the well, sank and, when it was raised, formed a sort of bucket which was naturally full of water (about 40 gallons we were told, i.e., 400 lbs. plus the weight of the wet leather) the total being very, very heavy.
The single rope passed over a roller and was in turn spliced onto a chain which was long enough to allow eight men to put it on their shoulder (right one) and on the command 'march' marched down the slope, thus pulling the bucket to the top of the well. When the bucket was clear of the rim of the well, a long-term prisoner stationed there, would pull it over the outside edge and tip the water away. We would be facing away from the well, marking time whilst this operation was going on, and when the bucket was empty, were commanded to put the chain on the other shoulder, 'about turned' and marched back up the slope, thus lowering the bucket down into the well to be re-filled.
This cruel torture, with the Indian sun beating down and the chain links biting into your shoulder when straining against the weight of the water-bucket, was carried out under the eyes and tongue of the 'Staff' without respite or even a drink for two hours.
I later heard it said by a member of the public, who had been reading about the concentration camps in Germany, that it couldn't happen here, we British didn't have the beastliness in us for it; and then I thought of the well in Lucknow Prison and the sub-humans who ran it and I thought, oh no, given the necessary incentive, be it money or rank or both, somebody will always do the unspeakable with relish.
The Staff, in whose tender care I was, had just about one saying to cover everything - 'cleanliness is next to Godliness.' When I left that place I had lost over 14lbs in weight. I weighed 10½ stone when I went inside so I wasn't very fat and I completely wore out two pairs of Army boots, but, on the credit side, I never saw the inside of a Military Prison during the rest of my service. One dose of that and I never ever forgot the 11th Commandment, -'thou shalt not be found out!'
I don't wish to be a moaner about my 28 days detention; I was caught out, so be it; but I wouldn't subject anyone to the bestial treatment that prisoners received in that Military corrective establishment and I sincerely hope that those days are long dead and gone.

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