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CHAPTER 8

BACK TO THE HILLS
Summer 1942

There were rumours that a secondary reason for the air raids on Ceylon was to investigate and test the strength of the Island's defences, possibly in preparation for an amphibious invasion. Those rumours were discouraged but it remained a strong possibility. Improved defence plans were put into operation, more troops brought in , Army manoeuvres intensified and security precautions considerably increased.

One result of this was the more careful censoring of letters we wrote home, or to friends. We could not divulge our whereabouts, our only address was our Unit, then British Army Post Office, India. Censoring was done, not by blacking out the offending words or sentences, but by cutting them out, probably with a razor blade, leaving holes in the paper. I don't know how true this was, but one lad complained that when one of his letters reached home, all they found when opening the envelope was "Dear Mum" written at the top, and "from your loving son Tom" at the bottom!

As summer progressed to June and July, so the temperature and humidity increased in Colombo. The air was suffocating and clinging, it was like a hot, wet blanket. We were in a constant state of perspiration. Having a shower-bath was no help, the "cold" water was so warm it neither cooled nor refreshed. You came out of the shower sweating just as much as before. Consequently, we were not sorry when, in August, our detachment was called back to Kandy, where the climate, though hot, was much more bearable.

To further increase the contrast, at the weekend some if us went for a day trip to Newara Eliya (pronounced Newrailia), 6000ft up in the mountains. The 50-mile drive takes you on a tortuous road that snakes its way up through the hills, along high ledges on mountainsides, and winds away up "staircases" of hair-raising hairpin bends.

Newara Eliya was a hill station of the old British Army and Colonial days. The European part is built almost like and English country town - gabled roofs, bow windows, cross-beamed walls. Cottages with roses round the doors, and herbaceous borders round the lawn. We even found a racecourse, with paddocks and some racehorses in the stables.

Several miles on beyond Newara Eliya is a place called "World's End", one of the great scenic wonders if the island. It is a cliff which has a sheer drop of 5000ft, giving from the top a fantastic view of the southern coastal plain. On a clear day it is possible to see the sea 50 miles away.

UNDER CANVAS

The small barracks in Kandy became overcrowded subsequent to the recall of the detachments. All personnel except HQ Company had to move out of town, live under canvas and travel in to work each day. One of the roads going out of Kandy ran alongside the River Mahaweli, through a small village called Haragama, then through many miles of coconut plantations, a picturesque road.

We made our camp among the coconut trees on the slope of the valley, overlooking the wide river. It was quite a change of lifestyle. Discipline was relaxed, dress was informal and minimal, meals were eaten "alfresco" and the river was our swimming pool.

Settled in bed at night, you could hear the palm trees whisper and rustle in the breeze, the cicadas calling to each other and the great bullfrogs honking away down by the river. Quite romantic it was!

Waking up in the morning you could find white ants have eaten the bottom out of your kit bag, there's blood running from a leech puncture in your stomach, a bloated leech is still hanging on your leg. Lighting a cigarette, you apply the burning end to the leech's tail to make it withdraw it's sucker otherwise it may turn septic if not removed from the skin.

Opening the tent flap, there's a pair of scorpions squaring up to each other just were you are about to place your bare foot. Dull thudding sounds make you realize that the local natives are harvesting the coconuts.

They shin barefooted up the tall slender tree trunks, cut the nuts loose, still in their thick husk cases, then drop them to the ground. Its raining nuts all round! Sitting down to an alfresco breakfast wearing your steel helmet for safety, a monsoon storm suddenly breaks out and in no time at all the tea becomes watery and the toast soggy! Not very romantic was it, at Haragama Camp?

One day, two of us were going out to a breakdown through jungle country when we suddenly came upon a large snake crossing the road. It was as thick as a man's leg, and covered the full width of the road, we felt both the front and rear wheels bump over it. Braking quickly, we reversed back to the same spot but it had disappeared. There was some faint rustling in the undergrowth but we did not risk investigating!

Whilst Divisional manoeuvers for the defence of the island were going on all sections of the Royal Signals were involved. The maintenance and repair of their instruments, equipment and vehicles kept us of "M Section" very busy. Bill Wesley and I concentrated on the motorbikes, which the Dispatch Riders, always in a hurry, wanted tuning up to go ever faster. One of these DR's, red-haired Ron Newell from Richmond, was one day belting along a narrow jungle track when he ran smack into a wild elephant that charged across the track in front of him! Ron went to hospital with a broken leg; Bill and I had the job of straightening out his motorbike.

We were always on good terms with the local Candy population, both European and native. Football and cricket matches were arranged, we were invited to clubs and dances and other social events, and sometimes to parties at people's homes. The dusky Sinhalese girls were very attractive and the Burgher girls, of mixed Sinhalese and European blood, were beautiful.

Later in the year the maneuvers became less frequent. It was becoming apparent that the threat of invasion by the Japanese Navy was receding, and therefore the defence of Ceylon was less vital.

CHAPTER NINE

RETURN TO INDIA
December 1924

Towards the end of 1942, several parties of our company were posted back to India. With one of these went four of our "M" Section Fitters, Tommy Walker, Ginger Ritchie, Bill Wesley and myself. On December 1st we packed our bags, said farewell to old friends, and once more set off into the unknown. We were sorry to be leaving this lovely island and the friendly Sinhalese people, but once again I was making plans for the future. "One day", I thought, "why not come back to Ceylon and be a Tea-planter"…..

This was the longest journey I made in India, from Ceylon to Assam in the far North -East, getting on for 1,600 miles and taking nearly 3 weeks. Crossing to the mainland, we boarded a train that took us very slowly all the way up the East Coast of the South India triangle, away past Calcutta to a transit camp in East Bengal. There we spent a week waiting and wondering what fate had in store for us.

We lived in long bamboo huts or "bashas". It was a bad place for malaria and, although we had mosquito nets, men were going down like flies with the fever. The two men whose beds were on either side of mine were victims, but I was fortunate, in fact I was never effected by malaria.

In those days there was no bridge over the Brahmaputra River, which is over a mile wide as it comes down through Assam. To get to the first railhead in Assam on the South side, from where the railway follows the valley eastwards, the only link is by river steamer. We boarded an old 3-decker paddle steamer, with a paddle on each side towards the rear end. It was also known as a "side-winder". Noisy and smelly, vibrating from the dull thudding of its coal burning engines and belching dark smoke from the funnel, at full speed it could make little more than 5 knots against the river current.

After a long day sweltering in the heat we disembarked late in the evening, and were conveyed in lorries to the nearby 21st Reinforcement Camp. Out in the wilds of the country, the camp was about 15 miles west of Gauhati, a small market town and the main shipping port for the tea-gardens of Assam. Gauhati was 450 miles from Calcutta traveling by rail and river as we had done.

REINFORCEMENT CAMP

December 1942

The camp where I would stay for the next 5 months was in a pleasant situation on the high bank, above the wide river. Our living quarters were long huts called bashas, made entirely of bamboo. They had no glazed windows, just a large square hole in the wall, perhaps with a few thin bamboo crosspieces like trelliswork, and a flap that could be dropped over at night, or in very wet weather. The floors were concrete.

The food was very boring - bully beef served in every imaginable way, cold, minced, fried, boiled, battered, or as cottage pie. Occasionally for a change we had "Machonachies", tinned stew. Sweet was invariably banana fritters, or rice pudding and soggy prunes.

We arrived just in time for Christmas, it was the least happy Christmas I've ever had! For dinner they gave us what they called "chicken". It was so touch and scrawny we swore it was kite hawk, noisy scavenging birds which were always hanging around the camp. They would take a sandwich you were eating out of your hand if they got half a chance.

We four fitters were still together, but the only Christmas drinks we got were two bottles of beer, "Army Issue" between the four of us! Having left behind our friends in Ceylon, who we knew would be having a gluttonous feast, for this meagre diet we were feeling thoroughly browned-off.

It was a fine, sunny Christmas day, with the temperature around 75F. The favourite song just then was - yes, you've guessed it - Bing Crosby singing "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas". So were we! Another favourite song at that time was called "Long ago and far away".

RURAL INDIA

Early 1943

Other memories of that camp that come to mind: the native drums, the jackals, and the "burning ghats". On the wide flat plain of the river there were lots of small villages, some quite close to the camp. Almost every week one of them would have a wedding or a feast, or some other celebration. The drums start up at dusk, soon joined by "music" and "singing", going on non-stop. Every so often the noise increases, excitement builds up, the drums go faster and faster, the din grows to a crescendo! It quickly dies down until there is only the soft throbbing of the drums. This continues for a few minutes, then off they go again. The celebrations usually went on all night long, sometimes all next day and into the following night.

Normally during the daytime the tom-tom drums were used as a kind of telegraph system, sending messages from village to village. They could also "talk" to each other across the river, the sound traveling quite clearly across the mile of water.

On other nights, when all seemed quiet and peaceful, one of the packs of jackals that roamed around the country would set up their mournful howling. A book I read recently gives an apt description of this - "somewhere in the darkness a jackal howled eerily, other jackals took up the cry and blended it into a yelling, shrilling chorus of souls in torment".

Between repeated choruses, a hyena's cruel, fiendish "laugh" would rend the night air, making your skin creep. Locals said that there was always a hyena with each pack of jackals.

Then the "burning ghats" - Hindu funeral pyres - cremation in the open air. Most villages had them. One would see processions making their way to the ghat, carrying their dead, relatives and friends tending the flames, evil smelling fumes drifting through the trees. On the high branches a row of vultures, waiting.

TEMPORARY TELEPHONIST

In January 1935, Bill and Tommy were posted-on up the line, Bill went to the 17th Indian Division, of which, more later. I lost track of Tommy, but he came home safely, I ran into him once after the war. Another Signalman and I were detailed to go, temporarily, to anther small camp along the road. The Sergeant said there was a job for us, but he did not know what it was. On arriving we were told by an Officer our job was to operate the camp telephone exchange!

Looking a bit dim we explained that I was a Fitter and Jim was a Driver.
"But you are Royal Signals aren't you?" "Yes, but……" "Then you should be able to operate a telephone exchange."

Actually it was quite a cushy job. It was only a 12-line exchange, quite simple to work, connecting several local camps with each other and with the main local exchange in Gauhati. We had a large basha to ourselves, our beds, the exchange, a spare table, and two armchairs. Nobody worried us, we arranged our own shifts, if one wanted a day off the other stayed on duty all day.

The Officer was an Anglo-Indian, with the usual inferiority complex - "I am a British Officer". Being half-breeds, the Anglo-Indians were never fully accepted by either society. The British called them "Anglos", Blackie-white, or chi-chi. The Indians had their own derogatory term "Kutcha-Butcha", which means "half-baked bread).

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