Small Island (41 page)

There was no point in me staying. ‘Excuse me, I want to leave.’

Several men around me jeered. I pushed and shoved to get to my feet. And I was jostled roughly back. One of them grabbed my ankle with a ‘Watch where you’re bloody stepping.’ I made my way like a blind man to the door. Squeezing against clammy torsos and slimy bulks. Grabbing what I could to steady myself. I wished Maxi was coming with me. Away from this rabble.

I felt some fingers again, back under my foot. ‘Fuck off,’ the chap screamed. Curly had trouble getting the door open. Pushing at it nearly brought the walls down. But the sticky night air soon had me – hitting me fresh as a mountain breeze.

Forty

Bernard

I had a stint of guard duty that night so I would’ve had to leave the meeting anyway. A three-hour patrol on a hangar out near the edge of the field, guarding gliders that were still stacked up in their crates. Funny thing was, during the war, filters, magnetos, even simple washers you could get new for neither wish nor prayer. Had to scavenge everything from somewhere else. An undamaged wing off one kite put on to another. Use the butchered one for spares. Most of the mechanical training we had back home had been pointless. Stripping engines down to the last nut and bolt. Endless tests and VVs. Out here if it didn’t work, take it out and replace it. Engines, props, wheels, anything. We had to ransack a Japanese Oscar 2 after it landed intact. Maxi (disgruntled) said we should have been trained by thieves. Said any loose wallah could have taught us the skills we needed – how to dismantle and carry away in the fastest possible time. Absurd, I know, but he had a point. We even patched up a kite’s cloth bodywork with a chap’s shirt and then doped it with rice wine – never taught that in Blackpool. Yanks had had it all, of course. All their bent kites tinkered and fussed over in their well-equipped workshops.

But even though the war was over – the Japs having long surrendered – supplies still kept coming out. Stuff we’d dreamed of during the fighting. The explanation: the ships were on their way and couldn’t be turned back. Most chaps complained, of course. No crates of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding found their way out. No hangars filled with bacon sandwiches on white crusty bread. No barrels of spotted dick and custard. Just the ammunition COs had begged for. The planes, the trucks, the nuts, the bolts, the spares every erk had wished away his back teeth to fondle. Out they came. The trouble was, now it all had to be guarded. Kept safe from the thieving little black hands that sneaked all around us.

Those loose wallahs could lift anything. Took a man’s wallet, more than once, from under his sleeping head. Didn’t know a thing about it until the morning. Every piece of Perspex was stripped from a hangar full of kites, while the two armed guards outside pooped off their rifles at shadows. The booty was then carried off into the jungle leaving His Majesty’s Forces scratching their heads. A priest lost his entire church: the bell tent that housed it, the altar, the seats. One night there, the next morning an unholy gap. Chaps jeered that not even God had seen that one coming.

But the worst by far were the dacoits. These men were murderers, not sneak thieves. Thugs. Thought nothing of stabbing, shooting, bludgeoning a guard to get their booty. Professionals of a sort. Everyone complained. ‘Now the war’s over,’ they said ‘we’re fighting these wretched bandits.’ Dacoits everywhere. Hell bent on using our ammo against us to tear up the British Empire. Everyone was jumpy. Worse than the Japanese, we all agreed, because we couldn’t tell them apart from the coolies.

And there were camp followers everywhere. Nothing those dark little Indians wouldn’t do for the precious baksheesh. Char-wallahs wherever you turned (‘
Ek piala cha
, sahib’) with their urns of foul tea. Dobie-wallahs washing clothes like women. Throw a few coins at a nappi wallah, get a shave, they’ll even do it while you sleep. And all around us a plague of untouchables – happy to clean out the toilet cans with bare hands. Miserable creatures. Even other Indians hated them. Several chaps had seen Indian women squirting their own breast milk for a thrown rupee. Shocked even the most worldly.

That night my guard duty was with an Indian. Army wallah. Conscripted, not a bearer. I’d worked with this one many times before. Spent several months with him taking tyres off bent kites and putting them on others. He was keen to learn. Eager to know what to do. Took orders well. Black eyes always watching me quizzically. Put him straight on the proper way of quite a few things. Arun was the name he went by. Last name rather queer (tongue-twister). He tried writing it down for me once, slowly with great concentration, but it was just a jumble of letters in no apparent order. Little chap, but muscly for an Indian. And happy. Not miserable like most of them. I noticed him straight away. He was outside my
basha
where the meeting was being held. A little way off but watching. One chap walked up to him, asked him what he was doing there.

‘Please, I am hanging about,’ he said. His English was hopeless. I had to jump in quick in case the chap gave him a thump for his cheek. Another Indian had been assigned to our watch. Ashok was his name. New to the camp. Been up in Cawnpur and Cox’s Bazar. Guards on duty always walked to their patrol together. Collected their rifles, then out to relieve the last watch. On your own you’d be picked off by dacoits. Murdered – or, worse, found wandering the jungle in your underwear.

Usually I spent a watch with Arun very quietly. A need to be vigilant (of course), but the truth of it was, there was not much to chat about with a native Bengali. Not so with this Ashok. No sooner had we three settled down than he started: ‘Tell me, Mr Bernard, how do you like India?’

These people could never get the hang of our names. But I let it go. ‘Hot,’ I said. ‘Too many mosquitoes. You don’t get that sort of thing in Earls Court.’

‘Earls Court?’

‘In London, where I live.’

‘You miss London?’

‘Of course. Who wouldn’t, so far from home?’

‘All Englishmen say this. I wonder why you stay in India if your Blighty is so missed?’

‘Well, I’m afraid I don’t have much choice in that matter.’

‘Of course. Forgive me. Are you wanting to get home?’

‘We all want to go home.’

‘But like the other men – the ones who strike for their demob.’

Strange thing for this little Indian to say. ‘What do you know about that?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, nothing. Just that many men – like Johnny Pierpoint and others, are they not browned off? They want to get home do they not? To Blighty. The white cliffs, Vera Lynn, a jolly good cuppa.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It is that I am hearing that men are tired of India now the war is over.’

‘Everyone wants to get home, of course. See their loved ones.’

‘Exactly. Loved ones.’

‘What do you know about all this?’ I had the feeling he was being a cheeky fellow.

‘I know nothing, Mr Bernard, please forgive me. My English is not good. Not pukka.’

‘You speak good English,’ I told him.

‘You are surprised?’

I knew lots of them had been educated. ‘Taught by missionaries, was it?’

‘No.’

‘Where did you learn? In the army?’

‘No, I am lucky to learn the language at school. They call me a little brown Englishman there. The British have taught me so many useful things.’

I was glad to hear he was grateful.

‘What would we poor Indians have done without you British? I say this to Arun. “Arun,” I say, “all the things the British are giving us in India.” “The Taj Mahal?” he says,’ Ashok whispered to me, breath foetid with garlic. ‘Arun is a simple man. Not educated.’Then louder, ‘I have to tell him the Taj Mahal was built before the British came. “Who by?” he is asking me. “Indians,” I am telling him. And he is looking surprised. “No,” I am saying, “not that marvel. But let us think – ah, yes, tax and cricket . . .”’

‘Fair play,’ Arun adds, grinning like a simpleton.

‘Fair play, tally ho, let’s play the white man,’ Ashok was shouting. Excitable people.

‘Keep the noise down,’ I told him.

‘Forgive me. I am happy when I talk of the British. Like the King. What a great man. Some say he stutters like a devil is holding back his tongue. But I say no. He is a noble man.’ He looked up humming and thinking, then slapped his head – a comic movement for an Indian. ‘The railways! How am I forgetting? A gift from the British to an ignorant people. Just like your Lancashire cloth. Better than homespun, my mother says. Better.’

I could hear some shouting coming from a way off. I lifted up my gun. ‘Hear that?’ I said.

‘I hear nothing.’

I listened. Told him to be quiet. Our duty was to guard not to chat. But all was still. No sooner had I relaxed than this Ashok was jabbering again: ‘Now what am I saying? Oh, yes. The British. The rule of law – let us not forget the rule of law. Look here – are we not defending quality British goods from thieving Indians? Without your rule of law what are we?’

As he spoke I noticed smoke rising from the vicinity of the camp. Could smell it more pungent than usual on the night air.

Still he went on: ‘I am not one of those people who wish the English out of India. I like you. Are you not protecting us all this time from the filthy Japs with their slitty eyes? Your British bulldog understands that there is nothing worse than foreigners invading your land. Look how you British fight those Germans. No sausages and language of the Kraut for Englishmen. “Go back,” you say. “Leave us or our bulldog will bite.” A dreadful thing to have foreign muddy boots stamping all over your soil. Do you not think?’

The horizon was beginning to glow orange. The sun had set hours ago but looked to have popped up again. Something was going on.

‘You have seen what we Indians are like when we are being left to ourselves. The Hindu hate the Muslim, the Muslim hate the Hindu. They are fighting all the time. You were in Calcutta. I know this, Mr Bernard. Shocking, was it not? We must learn to live in peace – like you British when you are not at war with your neighbours.’

There was shouting again. This time unmistakable. Something was happening at the camp.

‘But, tell me, are you ever wondering why the British are coming here to India?’

The chaps will take care of it, I thought. The shouting, the smoke, nothing to do with my watch.

‘Mr Bernard?’

This Ashok had obviously asked me something. I wished the blighter would shut up. But it was our duty to get along. ‘Did you ask me something?’

‘I am just musing why the British are here in India.’

‘Are you serious? There was a war on, man!’

‘Mr Bernard is angry, I can see. Please forgive me.’

‘I’m not angry. Can we just be quiet now? There’s some flap going on and I need to . . . No more questions.’

‘Of course, of course. I am hearing this noise too. But I am sure it is nothing more than your British high jinks.’

‘Really, I would prefer it if you did not speak to me.’

‘As you wish,’ Ashok said. He turned to Arun. Shifted, moved his body away from me to talk tête-à-tête to him. Thought I couldn’t understand but I knew what he said in Bengali to Arun: ‘So this is the man you say is your friend?’

Arun shook his head in that snaky way they all have. Looks like a no to the inexperienced – all fresh white-kneed erks confused by it. But it’s a yes. Both of them started jabbering away. I couldn’t understand a word now. But Arun kept glancing my way. Sheepish. Embarrassed. Then I heard the word ‘Lifebuoy’ through the babble. Soon I realised he was saying something about me to Ashok. Arun was stroking his own arm as if washing. His brown fingers were tapping the air to show rain. Ashok, wide-eyed, was listening like story-time at school. The penny soon dropped and I knew what he was telling him.

It was the day the monsoon broke. The smell of sodden earth was like perfume to our gritty nostrils. Relief at being rid of dusty heat had all the chaps out. Dripping wet in the rain. Loving it. Frenchie – Claud Winters to his family – told us all of his cure for prickly heat. Lifebuoy and rainwater. Soap yourself up in the monsoon downpour, he prescribed. Got everyone doing it. Stripping off. Lathering up. Passing the soap through many slippery hands. Frenchie was soon nervous – his precious bar of Lifebuoy was getting smaller and smaller. He was yelling for everyone to go easy. ‘Come on,’ the chaps said. ‘Your turn, Pop.’ But I was reluctant. Naked in the rain – that’s something for the young. But an end to the itching was a super thought. And Maxi, more sensible than most, was doing it. It works, he told me. ‘Soap’s nearly gone. Come on, Pop,’ everyone called out. Nothing for it. Stripped off. Wonderful. The cooling rain beating against my bare skin. Tiny stabs of ecstasy. Lathered up, bubbly as a Hollywood bath. I was ready to wash it off when just then the rain stopped. Quickly as it had started. (Monsoon can do that.) Left me standing there naked as Adam in full lather and not a drop of water coming from the sky. The chaps all laughed (of course). It was a comical sight, I suppose. Palms up. Bewildered. Me in the wherewithal frothing like a sponge.

I didn’t realise Arun had seen and had woven it into a tale to tell his friends. This Ashok laughed at the end of the little story, and went out of his way to slap me on the back. ‘Forgive me,’ he started, ‘Please excuse. You do not speak our language, do you? Arun is telling me—’

‘I know what he was telling you,’ I said sharply.

‘You do? It is a funny story.’

‘Monsoon is very unpredictable.’

‘As you say. But . . . Pop, is it, what they are calling you? . . . How is your . . . what is it you British get when you are too far from home? Prickly heat?’

I stood up at this point. Did he think I’d take it sitting down? I was being laughed at by coolies. ‘Come on. On your feet, you two. Someone’s coming. On the double. Come on. Shift yourselves.’