Tea love and war, p.12
Tea, Love and War, page 12
Daniel had clearly given the situation some thought. He suggested that Stuart provide funds to buy an area of land on the edge of the village and further finance to build a modest dwelling on the land. That would mean that Monglee had some status in the area, living in her own house on land which she owned, and it would also provide somewhere for her parents to stay when necessary. They would be a valuable support for the children as they grew up. Finally, he said that Stuart should try to provide some small income to ensure that Monglee could care for the children without needing to work: her status as the former partner of an absent European planter would not be helpful in finding suitable employment.
Acting on this wise advice, Stuart secured an area of land near to Pengaree village, thinking that since Monglee’s parents lived in the village they would be close at hand to provide support. It was only a short distance down the track and over the river from the Pengaree tea estate, and he made arrangements for a traditional busti hut to be built so that Monglee could live there with Mary and Ann. Monglee had a sister who proposed to move in with them and help cultivate the land on which they planned to keep a cow and goats. The land was nearly ten acres in all – only the headman of the village had more – and with both the hut and the animals Monglee would have a home, income and some status.
Despite knowing that he had done his best to make provision Stuart remained concerned, although he knew that Daniel and the rest of her family would look out for them as best they could.
Stuart did not know what more he could do. Inevitably he had to contemplate a situation where he might not return, but in that event would the existence of Monglee and his children ever be known outside the confines of the village? She was illiterate, she had no particular skills or training, in the eyes of Shaw Wallace & Co. she had no official standing, and the fact that she had two children by him was more likely to be seen as a negative rather than a positive factor. The company would certainly not take her side. He could leave her with papers which should convince his father in England that the children were his: but would his father and mother want to acknowledge two half-Indian grandchildren with no knowledge of Western ways? His sister Mary might show some sympathy but he had to remember that he had taken the decision not to confide in her during his leave, and he could see that this might well cause her to be less than enthusiastic. What could she do anyway?
After a number of sleepless nights Stuart made up his mind. Although he was conscious that what he had decided was something of a weak compromise, he would leave Monglee with sufficient documentation to prove his identity and also his paternity of the children, together with some mementos that might strike a chord with his parents, but he hoped that she would not need them. He would tell her that if all else failed then she should take the documents to the company and ask them to make contact with England, but make her understand that he had no way of knowing what the reaction of his family might be. He would also explain all this to Daniel.
The time came for Stuart to say goodbye. In the days leading up to his departure Stuart had purchased for Monglee the cow that was to be kept on the land and he had carefully put together an album of photographs of his family back in England. To this he added other paperwork acknowledging that the children were his.
Mary was five and Ann had just reached three months. A tearful Monglee held them both in her arms as Stuart kissed them one by one, and then turned away from the entrance to the mud house and walked out of the village along the path into the jungle. He wondered whether he would ever see them again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Now the events of the war dominated everything. Following the invasion of Belgium and Holland, Neville Chamberlain had at last resigned. Winston Churchill was voted in to take charge, to the enthusiastic approval of my father. As the news came of the Germans advancing along the Western Front we again gathered round the radio at Morland Avenue to hear Churchill’s call to arms. It was 13th May 1940.
… We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: it is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable category of human crime. That is our policy.
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival …
Fear was in the air and Churchill’s words gave us strength.
My father was based in Nottingham and was in charge of ‘Emergency Regional Staff ’; there were about a dozen middle-aged, experienced doctors who could be deployed to any suitably large emergency which occurred. He spent the war travelling backwards and forwards to Nottingham and sometimes staying overnight. He coped with the evacuation of hospitals and the inspection of first aid posts and convalescent homes. Because of the bombing and also the evacuation of casualties it must have been a big job. Unfortunately this meant that he was not often at home to support mother in her bouts of depression. It was an odd time because despite all our worries our reasonably comfortable existence continued. Certainly there was rationing, there were shortages, there were endless rules and regulations from blackouts to gas masks to air raid shelters; but we were still feeding ourselves and living in the same houses and going about our business in the usual manner. But what could we do but continue to back the government and the troops in every way possible and carry on with our lives in the meantime?
We had terrible fears and the extinction of our army in France seemed certain. There was very little real news but then, suddenly, came the extraordinary announcement of the evacuation of the expeditionary force from Dunkirk. Hearing of the rescue armada of small boats crossing the Channel and listening to the stories of the survivors over the radio gave us all great encouragement.
Whilst my mother and I tried to persuade my father that this was at least partial victory out of defeat, he was sensible enough to realize but discouraging and harsh enough to remind us that the country was in a desperate state, standing alone against Germany. As he put it, France was defeated, the whole of Europe was occupied save for Spain and Portugal, the country faced imminent invasion and there was I thinking about weddings.
He was right. None of us knew what was going to happen to us. If the invasion took place our lives, if we were spared, were going to change dramatically. Arthur and I wanted to get married as soon as possible, partly to face this new terrifying world as a couple and partly to enjoy some time together while we could. So I continued, notwithstanding all the threats around us, to work on persuading my parents to permit the wedding to take place.
It was not the best time to be seeking parental approval for any sort of celebration. Nonetheless after a stormy family conference they relented. Arthur’s diary note summarises:
An absolutely perfect summer’s day. After the grandparents left we had a long and exhausting family conference which left us all limp but we safely cast the die. In good spirits in spite of the Germans entering Paris.
Which shows how our future and the events of the war had become inextricably bound together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The hurricane lamp suspended from the central ridge pole of the tent gave out an incessant hiss, almost blocking out the cicada shrill of the tropical night. Wrapped in a khaki towel, Stuart sat at the low table as the tip of his tongue mirrored the movements of the fountain pen across the flimsy sheet of airmail paper. A bead of sweat had just smeared the customary opening of ‘Dear All’, and he moved on to the ‘Here I am’ hoping that the censor would see no reason to require anonymity of the location of a training camp.
‘PoonAH’ he wrote, hearing in his head the rarified accents of the British officers in this long-established military garrison and wondering whether being stationed for so long in the heat and humidity of central India caused some strangulation of the larynx – but immediately dismissing the irreverent thought, otherwise his eight years in the higher humidity of Assam would have altered his own accent.
Five of us from Assam and twenty-four men in all, and here for six months at least.
Stuart’s scratching pen went on to relate brief detail of his two thousand mile journey from the Burmese border, including the three nights in Calcutta en route. As he wrote, his mind sought to imagine the scene at 23 Morland Avenue in Leicester, visualising his father reading the letters out loud to his mother; smelling the pipe tobacco and imagining them waiting to turn on the wireless for the nine o’clock news. At least they might now feel that he was closer to some active participation in this war: eighteen long months since the declaration, and they still seemed not to understand that all his efforts to return to Europe to join up had been frustrated. What little purpose his years of volunteer involvement in the Assam Valley Light Horse seemed now to have been. All right, it had provided a route into his present situation, but with none of the flexibility of choice or purpose that he had hoped for.
‘Come on Poyser, old man; let’s go and see what this camp cinema can offer. “French without Tears” according to the noticeboard. Queue up for the rear stalls and hope for some spare floosies?’
‘Fat chance of that, you silly bugger.’
Stuart came out of his reverie and started to dress as his companion hauled himself out of a canvas chair, stubbing out a third cigarette since dinner in the mess. This was Teasdel from the Budla Beta tea estate in Assam who together with Roach,Turner and Groves made up the remainder of the five planters who had waved their farewells to those staying behind on the estates only a week before.
In the first lecture that morning they had been told that the target was that they should complete their training as Royal Engineers and emerge as full-blown commissioned officers in the ‘Sappers’ within six months, less than half the usual time. And bloody hard work it had sounded.
‘Swimming, rowing, tennis, hockey, even a primitive golf course; all the facilities but are we ever going to have time to use them?’They were walking back to their tent through the moist and humid clutch of the night.
‘Christ knows – bridge building, drill, and then bookkeeping tomorrow. What a combination, and half of it in Urdu.’
The colonel had talked of the crash course of all crash courses, and that if Italy came into the war they would need another hundred sappers in addition to the twenty-four now in training.
Would he end up in Italy? Would it be the Libyan desert? Why could it not have been Europe where he would have felt connected to the world, rather than on some distant planet looking down and not knowing when he would be able to join in.
Frustration was not limited to his inability to fight. It was scarcely a week since his last desolate pleasuring of Monglee’s pliant body, hearing the sounds of her passion yielding to convulsions of grief in contemplation of his departure. Did she, like him, seek solitary relief from their enforced abstinence? It was two years since she had welcomed him home – he supposed he was now entitled to call Assam home – following his five months’ leave in England. Remembering his return, reliving Daniel’s warm but deferential greeting on the front verandah and then, behind the door, the vivid memory of Monglee joyously launching herself, almost crushing three-year-old Mary in their embrace. Only four months later the arrival of baby Ann, what was she now – eighteen months? How well little Mary had taken to her new sister and how he missed them already.
How would Monglee be coping back in the village? He had bought the plot of land and put the busti on it, sumptuous by the standards of many; but the money he had left would run out, and the money he sent to Daniel to pass on to his niece was very little.
The days marched by. Stuart was pleased to find himself second out of the whole section in the rifle course, proud of his 87 points out of a possible 100 – the game shooting in Assam had obviously stood him in good stead. He was less successful, with 26 points out of a possible 50, in the revolver course; but he found it intimidating to have targets on rails rushing forward from ten yards and having the stress of trying to fire three straight shots in five seconds. Still, he enjoyed the weaponry, wondering how strong he would be under fire and whether he would have qualms about seeking to kill another human being in response.
Less enjoyable were his daily struggles with subjects as diverse as the mechanics of field geometry and the intricacies of military law. There was so much to learn – the geography of different terrains, use of local materials to construct roads, carpentry skills to direct the building of wooden structures, mixes of concrete for foundations and pillboxes, explosives for demolition, methods of dealing with a gas attack – an endless list to equip him to become a cross between a construction engineer, a builder and a soldier. But construction included destruction, he thought, and in a war situation destruction might well be his lot.
It was all-enveloping: as a future officer he needed leadership skills, and Stuart joined the other officer cadets as they drilled and inspected the Indian troops on the one hand, but then had to be taught how to survive the intricate but irrelevant formalities of the officers’ mess on the other. The sheer physicality was immense: the thousand techniques of the army engineer included joining the troops in heaving on wire ropes, swimming with mawls, using blocks and tackle, carrying heavy weights and learning to operate the massive variety of machinery. When there was spare time they went swimming in the open-air pool or played tennis. Stuart was pleased to be selected as centre half for the regimental hockey team and also for the football team, notwithstanding continued pressure from the ‘rugger buggers’ to give his allegiance to the oval ball.
Then there was the golf. Not the bracing winds of the links course at Bamburgh overlooking the long sands of the North Sea, where Stuart had so often played with his father. Here the greens were called ‘browns’, a fair description of the areas of flattened earth which so reminded Stuart of the first XI cricket pitch at Epsom College. The parched areas of coarse grass between the encroaching scrub were unhappy fairways and the few trees added little to the bleak terrain. Above all the fierce sweat-inducing glare of the Indian sun dominated each sporting experience.
Early mornings were glorious. The sun came out of a clear sky and Stuart would often walk across to the pool and swim thirty lengths before breakfast in the mess. As he swam he would think of the incongruity of his being able to carve through the cool waters under the strengthening sun, whilst his parents and sister endured the bombing, deprivations and continuing uncertainties of the war in Europe.
On that particular morning Stuart was wrestling with the news last night of the invasion of Denmark and Norway. What would the Germans do next? Would they not be repulsed before they reached France? As he hauled himself out of the water he realized that the sky had darkened, and before he could reach his tent his bare shoulders were stung with the first pellets of heavy rain. Two days previously he had made his first tentative use of explosives, blowing up a concrete bunker – surprising himself and terrifying his instructor when the flying debris had reached his chosen place of shelter behind the iron legs of the water tower which supplied the camp. They had joked of the flood of water had the tower collapsed. Now the power of the rain suggested a similar calamity. The heavy drumming had become a roar and a fine spray forced its way through the distended canvas of their shelter.
Throwing their belongings together, protecting watches and valuables, the men floundered as a river of water rose above the coconut matting and flowed across the tent.
‘Provided by the colonel for early practice for the Regatta!’ Stuart’s reaction started the laughter. The Poona Regatta was regarded by the senior officers as a major event in the calendar and they had insisted that the erstwhile planters be entered into a four. The planters’ blistered hands bore testimony to the daily training sessions under the eye of the commanding officer whose enthusiasm was not shared by his subordinates.
Stuart and Teasdel spluttered and started to sing as they waded through the flood, gathering ruined textbooks and papers from the chaos.
‘Jolly good boating weather …’
The old refrain mingled with the diminishing roar of the downpour as the freak cloudburst ran its course and the rain suddenly stopped.
A week later the Regatta was held at the man-made lagoon. A long dais with a canvas roof to protect spectators from the sun ran along the centre section of the bank and loudspeakers announced the competitors and exhorted the crowd. Full military dress was the order of the day and the few wives who were stationed in the area were incongruously resplendent in their hats and long dresses. Stuart and three other planters comprised the only novice four; despite the hated practice sessions sandwiched between their other duties they had found difficulty in mastering the timing necessary to succeed. They refused to be seen to be taking the event seriously, but when they approached the starting line, sideways at first to the amusement of those watching, they found they were nervous rather than nonchalant. Their opponents were an experienced crew from another regiment, suitably disdainful of their amateur opposition.
At the starting gun the novice crew went off sharply. They heard the loudspeakers saying ‘Sappers four nicely together and holding well’ and ‘Well done the novice team!’ and their pride and fitness began to carry them through. It was exhausting work, having to maintain the speed of strike set by Teasdel who was stroke. Pouring with sweat under the glare of the sun and constantly cursing they stuck at the pace and were finally rewarded to hear the crackling declaration, ‘Novice sappers first – very well done chaps!’
A fatal loss of coherence and failure of confidence prevented success in the semi-finals. ‘Lost by a canvas’ was the final verdict. But Stuart felt that honour, and the colonel, had been satisfied.
