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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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OTS, DEHRA DUN, JANUARY 1945

by bertielomas

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Archive List > British Army

Contributed by听
bertielomas
Location of story:听
India
Background to story:听
Army
Article ID:听
A6458754
Contributed on:听
27 October 2005

1.Bombay

O city, city 鈥� city of spectacular
cripples. A legless trunk is swinging,

arms for crutches. The streets are nested
with big-eyed beautiful children.

They clutch and stretch like new-hatched beaks.
Vultures circle over the Parsee cemetery.

So many things to see 鈥� stupefied
by misery and humid heat.

Parents cut off limbs to give
their child a trade, and we are here to make

more cripples, or be made. The train's
squat-bog is showing my first scorpion.

2. Dehra Dun. Watch Your Saluting

Our CO鈥檚 handsome and a wonderful wit.
He makes us feel the army鈥檚 terrific sport.

Narayan Singh, a Garhwali,
is proud to be my bearer.

In khaki drill, with a forage cap,
he looks a soldier, which is high-caste.

Every evening a zinc bath of hot water
waits in my little room, by clean clothes.

I find I鈥檓 good at squash and relish
clean white shorts and my 1st XV school blazer.

War seems far away. I keep a map of Europe
and mark the progress of our troops advance.

One night, our CO falls asleep with a fag
and is nearly burned alive.

3. Poetry

Major Cooper鈥檚 dark, chimp-eyed, gung-ho,
bushy-moustached and a little callipygous 鈥�

with all the traces of appreciative
teachers and fond womenfolk.

When he realises I鈥檝e an Auden in my kit-bag
He鈥檚 a trifle awed, even wary.

He writes a lot and has a poem that starts,
What glory is in sound of Kanchenjunga!

I don鈥檛 know what to say, because I like him
and he almost seems to hold me in esteem.
4. Learning Urdu

My munshi is a poet. Mousy,
plump, beaming, civilian, with a shiny-eyed

modest good opinion of himself.
I鈥檓 always floored by people who say they鈥檙e poets.

鈥楤eing a poet鈥�, I can see, is a state of mind.
I put it that the poet鈥檚 is a rare calling.

He tells me everyone in India鈥檚 a poet.
I sense a criticism of England,

but what does he mean? He must mean
a life lived in the light of samadhi?

Right or wrong, on the path it gives him
identity in a country鈥檚 crushing disasters.

Golgonooza, thought Blake, is built by every
poetic act. Nothing anonymous is overlooked.

Perhaps my little munshi will be glorying in those
gold and ruby streets and diamond houses.

5. Infantile Paralysis

I鈥檓 in the sick bay myself with dysentery
when Stringfellow鈥檚 brought to the next bed.

He鈥檚 studious-looking, a sixth-form swot,
with almost white hair and wire specs.

On the edge of frightened tears,
he tells me he can鈥檛 move his legs.

I鈥檝e hardly spoken to him before, but I feel
guilty when, two days later, he鈥檚 dead.

6. McCulloch

I don鈥檛 know how he knew it was my birthday.
He bought me a box of cigars.

Not very good cigars: more like
brown paper, but it's the thought.

Dry, fibrous, brittle, a hot smoke,
they slightly burn my mouth.

Nevertheless they're a luxury,
redolent of affluence. I loll in my chair

and smoke one in front of him. I can see
from his face it鈥檚 a good performance.

I blow smoke rings. But the gift embarrasses me.
I find his friendship cloying and tend to avoid him.

When he was sick in hospital, I didn鈥檛 go.
Our platoon-commander told me how ill he was.

Now McCulloch鈥檚 dead of a bug, like Rupert Brooke,
and I, like a pie dog, have my tail between my legs.

7. Religion

Narayan Singh can infallibly tell
a converted sweeper from a real Sikh.

When we go on an exercise to the Jumna
he begs a canteen of the holy water.

We can see the sacred Himalayas, which even
Englishmen want to climb because they're there.

Mountains, however dumb, speak
spectacularly, of ice, of holy heights,

intoxicating air, and the force of
continental shifts that folded them.

I gave up God for war, but Nanda Devi
Doesn鈥檛 seem to have given up me.

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