大象传媒

7April 29 1942

Let me quote C. Ross Smith ("A time in India").
"After Calcutta's Howrah Station there is little profit in being impressed by any other station, little probability, no matter what time of night, thousands upon thousands of people are there, most of them asleep on the station's immense floors. There is no telling how many children are born in Howrah station, nor how many people die on its marble floors. When you arrive, your pick your way carefully between those hundreds of prostate bodies as though you were walking through heavy brambles and when you finally come out onto Guiersen Road there is the Sikh and his taxi and you cross the Hooghly river via Howrah Bridge AND THERE IS YOUR FIRST SIGHT OF CALCUTTA., the most abominable city, yet one of the most poignantly exciting on the face of the earth.

All roads in India lead back to Calcutta. Your train jolts into Howrah station. There you are, the heat is crushing, annihilating. In the end there is only Calcutta; the rest is delusion鈥︹�or three weeks the temperature ranges between 98 (night) and 118 (afternoon) without giving quarter. It was very hot. When we came out into Park Rd. the sun hit my face and chest as though I had unwittingly walked into an invisible swinging door. In the direct sunlight the temperature must have been 130; within a minute all three of us were soaked".

There is no doubt about it, Calcutta really is incredible -- a seething mass of all types and conditions of men. So from Howrah across the Hooghly.

The pontoon bridge must be unique. It was constructed in 1871 and expected to last twenty-five years. The bridge is usually crowded with lorries and carries a heavier volume of traffic than London Bridge. It is of the floating type with the whole structure supported on the steel pontoons. In order to allow the passage of vessels too large to pass under the bridge, the authorities arranged to open it at previously notified times, generally at night. This is done by floating upstream for two central pontoons, each carrying 100 feet of roadway and swinging them to lie clear of the 200 foot gap thus formed. Of course, I am writing of the Calcutta I knew. This exotic contraction has nowbeen replaced, I understand, by a modern cantilever bridge which should be more efficient, though you can never be quite sure, this being India

One of my first sights was an elephant on the pavement. I've no idea what it was doing there. No one seemed to be responsible for it or tried to move it -- they just walk round it.

Our destination was La Martiniere School off Louise Circular road where we were stationed at 221 Group HQ. Settling in was bewildering. Different ways of doing things at work, and outside, a city that was different to anything we had seen before and so large and crowded that we had great difficulty finding our way around. Different did I say? Well, I hadn't expected to have to defend my dinner before I could eat it. One old stager warned me "keep your food covered when you cross the yard". The food was collected individually from a kitchen -- then we crossed the small yard about 12 feet across and ate our meal in what had been a classroom. After collecting my first dinner I set off across the yard, ignoring the "line shooting" of my new friend. Whoosh!! And I looked in disbelief -- my meal had gone, leaving just the veg. Apparently the "Kite Hawks" as we called them, were experts at this sort of thing. I made sure it didn't happen again.

May 1942

Less than two weeks after arrival, I and many others, were moved again to Barrackpore, about 20 miles away where a new Air H.Q was being formed. 3rd Tactical Air Force HQ it started as, but it changed its name a few times during my stay. I was to spend about two years in Barrackpore,

I am not going to continue a chronological tale of events from here on. The background to the places that loomed large over the three years I spent in India and details of a few outstanding events will be enough.

Barrackpore, was the place where I spent most of my time. On the grand trunk road from Calcutta and on the main railway line from Calcutta to the east and north of India, it was situated on the River Hooghly, a tributary of the Ganges.

It consisted of a Railway station, a barracks, a cantonment, the Governor of Bengal鈥檚 residence and grounds and a native village. It had the river on one side, the railway on another and on the other two sides, jungle. The road from the station became just a dirt path as it neared the village, about a mile away.

The climate, whilst tolerable from a month or two, during what we can laughingly call winter is decidedly hot for the rest of the year and in the five monsoon months is VERY hot, a "prickly heat" difficult to avoid. Mosquitoes are plentiful and difficult to keep out from under your mosquito net.


A common sight on waking is a mosquito on the wrong side of the net bloated with your blood which leaves a vivid red mark when you squash it. Of course, wild life is prolific and even in the most immaculate cantonment bungalow the rains bring all sorts of crawlers, flyers and jumpers into your living room, particularly when the lights are lit. The noises at night are truly prolific - bull frogs and jackals are easily identified, but many others sounds from the gentle to the horrific are not - except to the expert. Snakes are common - some very large and fast moving, others quite small and it is best to wear slacks at night when it is dark. They don't normally attack and are apparently as pleased to keep out of our way as we are to keep out of theirs. There are, however, a large number of fatalities each year amongst the native population and we had some in the jungle war zones. We usually carried a lit torch when changing watches at midnight as our bamboo signals hut was in a rather remote part of the grounds at the back of the governor's residence. Perhaps my most nerve-racking "snake" experience was during one Christmas midnight to 0800 Watch. There was a sudden "flop" and looking up we saw that a snake had fallen through the bamboo roof and had dropped on top of our transmitter, about to seven to eight feet from the ground. We couldn't do much about it without damaging the transmitter and none of us knew sufficient about snakes to know whether it was dangerous or not. Anyway it curled up - no doubt attracted by the warmth of the transmitter (it was the coldest part of the year) and was still there when we went off watch five to six hours later. I gather that it moved of its own accord shortly afterwards.

The wildlife could occasionally bring its own joy like the fire flies that sometimes laced the wires like fairy lights.

Barrackpore wasn't really a bad place to be, as India goes. It had atmosphere. After a few days in tents we moved into the huge three story barrack blocks where we were as comfortable as expected. During our short stay in tents the local wildlife hit back at Brian Wilson. He spent the best part of his pay (we were paid fortnightly) on a leather suitcase from the local bazaar. It seemed a bargain, but he left it on the ground in the tent and the following morning, when he opened it to move his kit in, he found that the bottom had completely disappeared and in its place were thousands of red ants busily enjoying themselves with apparently a taste for leather..

No matter how hard you try, India takes over. Barrackpore - or part of it - had done its best to give the feel of England. It had the Governor's house and grounds, two crescents of beautiful bungalows and gardens mostly occupied by white Britishers and some wealthy Bengalis. It had an Anglican church and a Methodist chapel. During the daytime you can almost pretend that it is a little bit of England - even if it means ignoring a lot - but come nightfall and you are in no doubt whatsoever that you are in Bengal, India. Indian music live and from radios, sounds and smells from the jungle and bazaars. The large brilliant moon, rickshaws, the distant sound of the train - an Indian train - and all sorts of rustlings and noises on the edges of the road. Eventually I came to terms with it and indeed loved India best in the atmospheric moonlight with the characteristic smells and noises. To start with, we felt like intruders and overwhelmed by India.

We fought back by "singing".

It seems daft but whenever we left the train at the station at night and started to walk along the road or even if we just happened to be on the road from the station to the cantonment and village we would almost always burst into song.

We all had our favourites - almost a "signature tune", that the others would join in. Mostly well known - Dan Davies - 'I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain '. Brian Wilson - 'Greensleeves'. Bob Stannard - 'My love is like a Red Red rose', my own contribution - -The Turtle Dove" and Bill Kirk's " Helen of Kirconnell?" This last was new to me until Bill Kirk came along and " The Turtle Dove" was new to the others.

As you can see from some of the words that I quote the overall theme was nostalgia for home and loved ones.

Our identification with these tunes had one curious happening sometime later when we had all left Barrackpore and were out of touch with each other. One night (or early am) I was on duty in Comilla. As often at night, conditions were hopeless by our normal radio links, the teleprinters were O-S and I had a fairly important message to get to 22nd Groups HQ at Chittagong. No other of the main signals stations I could contact could help and indeed, apart from a few small places nearby, we seemed to be in a world of our own. As a last resort I decided to try R-T (Radio Telephone) knowing it was usually the first link to go in bad conditions and we now had a tropical storm on our hands. To my amazement, through the splutters and interference there came a voice. At first we couldn't read each other but eventually we made it with difficulty. I had got to Cox's bazaar. They thought they could pass our message being only half the distance away. After the message had been passed the voice I had thought to be familiar started to hum "I wish I were where Helen lies鈥� and together we gave it a loud and lusty rendering. I knew now that Bill Kirk was at Cox's bazaar and he knew I was in Comilla.

HELEN OF KIRCONELL (ANON)

I wish I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies;
On fair Kirconnell lea!

O MY LOVES LIKE A RED RED ROSE (BURNS)

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass.
So deep in love am I:
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will love thee still my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee well, my only love!
And fare thee well awhile;
And I will come again, my love,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

GREENSLEEVES (TRAD)

I have been ready to your hand
To grant whatever you did crave
I have waged both life and land
Your love and goodwill for to have.

Greensleeves was all my joy
Greensleeves was my delight

Well, I will pray to God on high
That thou my constancy mayst see
And that yet once before I die
Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me

Greensleeves was all my joy
Greensleeves was my delight

THE TURTLE DOVE (ANON)

Fare you well, my dear,
I must be gone.
And leave you for a while;
If I roam awhile
I'll come back again
Though I roam ten thousand miles.

So fair thou art,
my bonny lass,
So deep in love am I:
But I never will prove false
to the bonnie lass I love
Till the stars fall from the sky.

The sea will never run dry,
my dear,
Nor the rocks never melt with the sun
But I never will prove false
to the bonny lass I love
Till all these things be done.

FROM "THE INDIAN QUEEN" (DRYDEN-PURCELL)

I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain,
Since I am myself my own fever and pain.
No more now, fond heart, with pride no more swell
Thou canst not raise forces enough to rebel.

I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain,
Since I am myself my own fever and pain.

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