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His Majesty's Troopship 'Dorsetshire' was the vessel destined to take me and, so it seemed, half the British Army to India. There were hundreds and hundreds of troops of different Regiments and Corps going to replace time-expired men, men who had done their five, six or seven years in India and were now due to be repatriated. Many soldiers, especially Infantry men, hated the thought of going to this particular jewel in the Crown of the British Empire, as they never knew how long they would be away.
The system was a peculiar one and worked something like this; the Trooping season in India commenced in September each year and finished in March - no trooping during the summer months at all. The reason given was that troops needed to be landed in India during the cool season so that when the summer arrived they would be acclimatised (what a load of cobblers!). The fact of the matter was that hundreds of troops, packed in the various holds of a pre-war troopship would probably have expired before they reached Aden! .
Let us assume that an Infantryman on a normal 7 years with the Colours and 5 on Reserve engagement, enlisted in April (of any year) and was sent to India after his recruit training, say with six to nine months service, he would do the remaining part of his 7 years in India - or did he? Remember, he enlisted in April, thus he was time-expired in April but the trooping season was over and he had to wait until that re-commenced in September; this extra time he did, (over and above his contract, i.e., seven years) was cunningly written into his enlistment contract so the powers-that-be could retain his services for a further year, subject to the exigencies of the Service. Many a soldier went away 18½ years old, a mere stripling, and came home aged 25 to 26. An iniquitous system, which was changed post-war to a maximum of 3 years overseas.
Personally, I looked forward to it. A new adventure, something more to see; as a civilian I would never have had the opportunity to travel, and what an experience it was! No cabins, only for officers - fair enough. Officers, to us, were God- like beings that occasionally appeared on a parade or when someone was marched in front of them for minor misdemeanours and they were allotted roughly half of the best part of the ship. Warrant Officers, Sergeants and married families had about one-third of the remainder, which meant that hundreds of troops had the remaining third of the ship, less the crew's quarters.
We lived in the cargo space, deck upon deck of it, right down to the bowels of the ship, at the sharp end naturally. A typical mess-deck was like this: imagine a slave galley which, instead of oars poking out the sides, had long tables, row upon row of them, coming from the side of the ship towards the centre; each table had long benches called forms either side and was called ‘a mess’ and accommodated 28 men, fourteen either side, with the necessary buckets, tea-kettles and crockery to make each mess complete in itself. Each mess was numbered and at mealtimes, taking it in turns, four men would take the various pots and pans up to the ship's galley and be issued with a cooked, or otherwise, meal for 28 men. Now consider - no matter where your mess was you had to climb up two or more flights of stairs to reach the galley; inversely I: the stairs had to be descended with the food in order to get to your mess.
It is a racing certainty that more men went without food on a trooper, due to bad weather causing the stuff to be spilt on the stairs, be vomited into, to be just refused by the sea-sick than from any other cause in their service. Conditions weren't very good and remember we slept in hammocks, which were slung over the table at night. It was pandemonium getting the hammocks down in the morning and put away tidily.
When we cleared the Bay of Biscay and arrived at Gibraltar, conditions improved. It was warmer, you could sleep up on deck sea-sickness was all over and we settled down to a life of Guard Duty and Tombola and your turn as Mess Orderly. Through the Mediterranean to Port Said, through the Suez Canal down the Red Sea to Aden and then on to Karachi in India which was our destination; (historical note: this was before India was divided into Pakistan and India; Karachi is now in Pakistan.)
Twenty-four days that voyage took but in the main I quite enjoyed it; it was all so new, so different, so smelly. There used to be a joke about an animal Regimental Mascot being taken to India - a goat - and when it was being put aboard, a ship’s officer asked where it was being housed,
"Bottom troop-deck" was the reply.
"But what about the smell?"
"That's all right, the goat won't mind" and that just about sums it up!
We didn't see much of Karachi as on debarkation we were put aboard a troop-train; the trains were solely for the use of troops requiring transport to their various stations. We were bound for the United Province and, when loaded, set off on our long train journey, which took eight days. We, at last, reached our final destination after thirty-two days of continuous travel.

India in those days, was a British Dominion; there were five of them: Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; our other possessions were Colonies (Hong Kong etc.) Mandates (Palestine, etc.) and Protectorates (Uganda, etc.) but of all the Dominions, India was special; the Monarch’s title included the words "Emperor of India" and the other Dominions were referred to as just Dominions. Now part of the Ceremonial that went with the Emperor bit was a ceremony held on the first day of every New Year when the reigning Monarch was proclaimed ‘Emperor of India’. This was known as the Proclamation Parade and was very big stuff indeed and in each area where British troops were stationed, the General Officer Commanding, or the Senior Officer, where a G.O.C. wasn't available, took command. Thus a parade that included a General was very big business and, naturally, he had to have a Military turnout commensurate with his position, which brings to mind one such Parade that had a hilarious end to it.
This particular Parade was a three-battalion one with all the odds and sods like the Royal Signals, Royal Artillery, etc. making up smaller detachments. The Parade was set out as an open square, that is, three sides manned and the other side not, that was where the General, his retinue, Colonels and Adjutants of different Regiments, including native (Indian) troops, all on horse-back, would be stationed and, in the place of honour, the Saluting Base behind the flag-pole.
So with a bit of imagination, even if you haven’t seen the film 'Lives of a Bengal Lancer' you can understand that it really was an impressive sight with the horses, the fancy uniforms, all the troops in the immaculate khaki drill and topees and rifles, which weren't just for decoration.
Each soldier had a blank cartridge, which, on the command, he would load into his rifle and fire a salute known as a 'Feu de joie', which set the seal on the proceedings. Then it was a march past the General with an Eyes Right for the Flag. Before these proceedings, the General would read out the words, which proclaimed the Monarch as King Emperor for another year. The signal would be given for the Colour Sergeant to break the Flag at the masthead to the accompaniment of the National Anthem.
The breaking-out of the Flag was a simultaneous action in which the Union Jack, flying at the masthead, was lowered and the Royal Standard raised and un-furled at the top of the mast. This flag was kept furled and, when it reached the masthead was un-furled by gently pulling the rope and undoing the slipknot that had held it in the furled position.
So now you have the picture of this Great Impressive Parade (sic.), which, to all the troops involved was just a load of bull (this, incidentally, was before it was corrupted by the Popular Press, to mean 'rubbish). I suppose when National Service arrived, the newcomers heard the term and associated it with cleaning up, as regular soldiers usually very disparagingly referred to polishing boots, etc. as 'bull-s**t' or, to put it more poetically, 'that which makes the grass grow blue in Kentucky and green in England!' Thus it was corrupted to 'bull' meaning to clean up and polish for the satisfaction of THEM.
However, to get back to the Proclamation Parade; the scene is set: the troops are in position, the General and his retinue picturesque on their gleaming horses; the band is playing softly, - suddenly, as the General enters the square the music ceases, the troops are brought to the Present (and remembering that this is the 1st January more than a few are feeling like death after Hogmanay celebrations the previous night — and herein lies the answer to what followed). The command 'Slope Arms' rang out and, with the precision of a dismasted schooner, the troops complied.
I will pass over the few bits and pieces that followed and get to the 'nitty-gritty'. The General read his piece, the bugler sounded his call, the Colour Sergeant was given his signal and the Flags began their ascent and descent. When the Royal Standard reached the top the rope was given a short, sharp pull and the flag fluttered to the ground and, in the place of honour, wafting gently in the breeze, was an enormous, blown-up french letter (condom).
There was pandemonium! The order to fire the ‘Feu de Joie’ was given before anybody could stop it, the volley rang out and this was the last straw for the horses, which started bucking and prancing about, unseating some of their riders. Orders were being screamed, countermanded, and in short the whole Parade was reduced to a shambles. The Troops, their iron discipline for once broken (the Faqir of Ipi, couldn’t do it!) were falling about with laughter.
Order was very soon restored, the Parade dismissed and the troops who usually made up the 'drinking set', known as the 'Boozing school', were instantly incarcerated in the Guard-Room for the Powers-That-Be considered that only these lads were capable of such a heinous crime but, due to lack of evidence, that is to say everybody keeping their mouths shut and adopting a holier-than-thou attitude, they had to be released.
The secret of who actually perpetrated this (to some) dastardly deed and to others, a right giggle, was never revealed to anybody who mattered.

All old soldier Sahibs who (hopefully!) read this will either recall, with distaste or pleasure, the time they spent in India. I was never on the North West Frontier (where India adjoins Afghanistan) and, for the troops who were stationed there; it wasn't a very pleasant time, with all the constant fighting, patrolling, and rotten conditions.
Every Afghan had two great ambitions:
1. To possess a British Lee Enfield rifle, the finest service rifle of its day, and
2. To send a British soldier to join his ancestors.
They were expert thieves: in fact I witnessed a demonstration by one who pinched a pair of bed-sheets from a sleeping soldier's bed. He gently removed the top sheet then tickled the soldier until he turned on his side; the bottom sheet was then rolled up to his back, tickled again he would then roll onto his other side and, in so doing, would roll off the sheet, which would then be removed without any more effort. All the clever people aren't Chinese, you know.
Unlike the United Kingdom, rifles were not kept in an Armoury building, but in the room where the soldier lived and slept. This was to safeguard your rifle against thieves. There was a rifle rack in the centre of each room, well bolted to the concrete base, with a lever at the end. This was padlocked and when rifles were required, the padlock was unlocked, the lever pulled back, this in turn pulled back bolts, which passed through the trigger guard of the weapon, thus releasing it and enabling it to be removed. Before locking up a rifle, the bolt and magazine were removed and kept under lock and key in a box at the foot of your bed; this was also bolted to the floor. The box was also used for clothing and personal property.
When we went to Church on Sundays we always carried rifles, this was a throwback to the Indian Mutiny in I857. The Mutiny started in Meerut by the massacre of' the garrison who were at the Church one Sunday; the Indian troops mutinied and attacked the soldiers in the Church, who were unarmed, and they killed all of them; thereafter no soldier was permitted to go to worship without being armed in case it ever happened again.
Even the formation of Brigades and Divisions was altered; no such thing as an all-Hindu or all Moslem brigade was permitted; it was one battalion Moslem, one battalion Hindu and one battalion British, so that in the event of one faction mutinying there would always be two against. It must be pointed out here that the cause of the Mutiny was the rumour put about by agitators that the cartridges used at that time were greased with pork fat and, as the end of the cartridge had to be bitten-off before it could be used, this was revulsion to the Moslem troops who regarded pig as a religiously unclean animal, so the thought of putting this pig fat in their mouths was the last straw. This, of course, was not the whole reason for the Mutiny but it was the catalyst that clinched it.

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