The next morning, they attacked the Indian ports of Vizag and Cocanada, further up the coast from Madras. Silhouetted against the sun, the Mitsubishis banked, bombed the docked ships and machine-gunned the vessels in the port channels. On 9 April, they returned to Ceylon to raid Trincomalee, the base of the British East Indies Naval Squadron. The antique aircraft carrier HMS Hermes escaped the harbour, but Nagumo’s planes found it and tore it to pieces on the deep. The British navy scattered and fled. It abandoned its bases on the Andaman Islands, handing Japan an effective base to stage landings in Ceylon and South India. This was, for Churchill, ‘the most dangerous moment in the war, and the one that caused me greatest alarm … The capture of Ceylon, the consequent control of the Indian Ocean, and the possibility at the same time of a German conquest of Egypt would have closed the ring, and the future would have been black.’4
From the government came more and more rules for hiding: vehicles must have their headlights shaded; no lights visible outside any building, from any angle. Rather than suffocating behind heavy drapes and blackened glass, Nugs simply left the electric lights off. Like a sinking ocean liner, the city descended into gloomy darkness, and thieves came out into the street. Hundreds of wells had been dug around the city for fire-fighting, and had curdled with larvae. Mosquitoes poured out thick as gas.
The air-raid sirens struck up their song in the evenings. They were signalling practice drills, which meant blackout without stoppage of civilian traffic. There was a siren chart to memorise, so you knew which combination of steady note and modulated wailing meant a real air raid, but Nugs’s mind went blank each time the sirens started.
Ganny arrived every day before sundown. As the light left through the window, they lit the kerosene lamp and slipped under their bed net together. The days were enervating, but at night their senses grew large, from the narcotic mix of heat, dark and dread. When the sirens fell silent, their hearts drummed in their ears. The skin hummed, and sweat ran down their necks with touch as sure as fingertips. At any moment, the world might go up in flames, and Nugs and Ganny made the most of that possibility.
As one of those nights turned to morning, they were woken at a quarter to five by the siren crying out a real air raid. The sound that had baptised half the world into war washed over them. They didn’t move, and Nugs, in secret, felt more at peace than she had in years. For as long as she’d been with Ganny, they’d both felt a ruining anxiety about leaving their homes and losing their families. Suddenly that feeling was universal. Everybody was afraid of losing everything. It was wonderful. It made their vulnerability seem less like the cost of a private passion, and more like the rule of a new age. Henceforth, all homes are forfeit, everyone will be afraid.
No bombs fell that morning, though. The city trembled, awaiting words of instruction. Nothing came until 13 April, when the message issued by Southern Command repeated on the radio: ‘The Government have reason to believe that the danger to Madras is now more serious and would advise all whose presence in the City is not essential, to leave within the next few days …’ The phrasing was as formal and elliptical and British as ever, but the message was as clear as a gunshot: Run.
Rajaji, no longer premier but still a towering figure in Madras, was called to the municipal headquarters at the Ripon Building to urge essential staff not to leave their posts. ‘Our calmness,’ he announced, ‘is our best weapon against both death and the Japanese.’5 The general public demurred. Madras took flight for government camps and ancestral villages inland. The highways were choked with carts and carriages, and at night, on the pitch-dark platforms of Central Station, men hoisted up wives and daughters and pushed them through carriage windows before the trains had even come to a halt. Within forty-eight hours, Madras was emptied of 300,000; within a week, half a million of its 900,000 residents had fled.
The domes remained, over silent halls. The civil government was gone, to Ooty and Chitoor. Burma Shell had pulled back to Salem, followed there by the Board of Revenue. The atmosphere reminded Nugs of standing at the gate at the Guzdars’ house in Calicut, frozen still, as their Alsatians padded up, growling, and drove their cold, wet noses against her skin: the agony of waiting for the bite. A bite that never did come. Already, on the other side of the world, a posse of American warships was chasing across the Pacific. Nagumo’s fleet turned back, and the two groups met in the middle of the Pacific. Japan’s navy would never fully recover from that battle, and could never return to dominate the Indian Ocean.
Day by day, the threat of invasion shrank back, until it concerned only Assam and Bengal on the Burmese frontier. For a while Madras stayed motionless, like a man who hears a gunshot and thinks himself dead. Then, shocked but untouched, it swayed back to its feet. Managers dragged their workers back to factories and mills, and an embarrassed Governor Hope returned to his lodge. On the beach, the catamarans lowered their dry prows and nuzzled back into the surf.
Bobby returned to Calicut, and the weird prospect of a holiday. The silence in Calicut was so deep that he almost missed the panic. His parents took him to ticketed recitals where kids scraped at violins and veenas to raise funds for the war. All the young men were gone: Nanoo and Rusi Heerjee were off with the Jats and the Ordnance Corps, leaving just little Bomi, who stayed busy helping his mother knit mufflers for the troops; Mukundan had applied for his commission, and Kurien had already received his, though Kurien’s mother, just widowed, was so upset by the thought of her son warfaring that she tore the letter to pieces before he saw it.
Khodadad would not see, either. He could only see that Bobby had the family firm to inherit, and to carry on, perhaps after a few years of instructive civil practice. ‘Don’t try to be heroes,’ he’d say – but it would not matter, because he had already taught his children to disobey him, and it was Bobby’s turn now. He would not be left out while the others went off to the fight. The war wasn’t a political problem any more: it was an existential one. It was not the war Manek or Ganny had signed up for, but they were in it. It was just like Beau Geste, and Bobby could hear the call to a Frontier rendezvous. Ganny had orders to a hospital beyond Peshawar, and Manek’s squadron ought to be returning there soon. It seemed likely that Bobby and his brothers-in-law would end up posted not far apart.
These reveries carried Bobby through the day, and each day passed quietly till sundown, when he took a book and cigarettes back to the beach, and gazed out towards other continents. The Arabian Sea looked soft, well ploughed. He watched the pier, skulking in the tide, and he imagined its short thrust extending westward, its timbers multiplying and flying out over the water, building him a bridge to the war.
6
Things Sacred Between Us
Mhow, August 1942
550 Medical Wing
OTS Mhow
17-8-1942
My dear little sister,
I was so happy to get your letter and all its news about home. It is very strange that the two people I had the least to do with, or quarrelled the most with, should be the only people to write to me – I mean Dadi and you. I suppose there is some truth in the fact that each time we knock against each other we stick together firmer.
I shall tell you all the news – if it can be called news. First, about my marriage. Yes, I was married on 4 August at Kohat. I don’t know how you will feel for me after this, but in your case also if it is the end of our relationship, I cannot help but accept it. My heart breaks to think that because I want to marry a girl I have loved for six years my people curse the union and cause me my life’s greatest sorrow – disinheriting me. Had there been any other way to have had my parents’ blessings I would have done anything, but I knew there never was.
Meens, I wonder if you sometimes think why & what I see in Nurgesh. You are fair in spite of your prejudice so let me tell you. Someday, if you ever get to know Nurgesh, you will love her so very much. Her affectionate nature, her kindness & sympathy to all poor, her understanding & patience, draw one to her. From o
utside she appears as a carefree, light spirit but there are oceans of deep thought in that woman’s mind. Any man would wish for a wife like that.
When I first had asthma, both in college and at her sister’s place, she has been both a nurse and a sister to me. The things she has done when I have had fever & gone to her place, only I know & I cannot ever forget. Can I forget her intimacies for over five years and let a trusting woman down?
The war broke out and gave us our commissions. I am 27 and she is just ten months older. If we have to wait for this war to end, I may be 30 for all I know and who wants a home then & children (I love them) so late? The beauty of life is lost by then and for so many other things sacred between us, we wanted to marry.
So, when she came to Delhi she was very upset about my health and she came back to Thal with me where she stayed with Capt Banerjee’s family. It was God’s hand in that Meenu, because two days after she came, I had to go to an outpost at 10pm. The nervous tension and the ducking I got afterwards brought on acute bronchitis. Nurgesh sat up with me whole days, doing the sweeper’s work even, as I did not go into hospital. In four days my fever came down and on the fifth day came my order to report to Mhow for training (special). I didn’t want to miss the chance as permanent comm depends on all this. My OC wouldn’t let me go in my state, but I left for Mhow against both his and Nurgesh’s objections. On the way at Kohat I got married.
Poor Nurgesh had to go back and I always write to her to say that I am quite well. I am far from well. I have once again become a thin shadow of my past self. I beg you not to tell her this because just at present I don’t want her to worry about anything. She has had too much of mental worry about something and the poor girl pretends to look happy. I am trying my best to cut short the attack but the agony of mind & suffering I have been through has left a permanent mark which I can never again wipe out.
I am at heart a home-bird, Meens. Even this IMS I joined because I wanted money. As I wrote to Papa, if I knew that I would have his backing when & if I married Nugs, I should have loved to go on to Calcutta Tropical Medicine School. Here we lose touch with our work and gain no benefit. I have just had [a] letter from Mummy. It is very sad and it really tears at my heart-strings to read her words – ‘pay the girl some money if you are in trouble’ etc. – And ‘you will be the cause of my death’, etc. Someday, if you get to know Nurgesh well, you will realise how good a girl she is. Poor Mums won’t understand.
I had a letter from Papa saying that he was proceeding legally to disown me. Oh god, Meens. I don’t think I will ever bear up with this torture of mind. What is my future without my father & his guidance? I risked it, no doubt, but I prayed so hard to try to make him understand that we must marry. My youth of life is cut & now I exist with one determination – I shall never let Nurgesh feel the pangs of sorrow & shall try my best to keep our home happy. Over it will be Mum’s blessings and someday I shall win my parents.
Nurgesh writes that she sees you often, but since you ignore her, she ignores you. I suppose I couldn’t ask you to try to make things easier for me. When I go off overseas, my little baby will come and I would worry less if I knew one sister was looking after my wife. Perhaps I ask too much – then forgive me and please forget it.
I hope you can write to me sometimes & tell me about home. I shall be dying to know as I can never again know for myself. Pass on those drops of water to my scorched soul. Pray for me sometimes. Look after yourself and God bless you with all luck & help & happiness.
I remain ever your affec. brother,
Papu
Ganny set down the pen, then picked it up again and dated the last page of the letter, two days later than when he started it.
He shuffled the sheets together, folded them and slipped them into the envelope. The stationery was Indian Medical Service, printed with the regimental ensign, a crown mounted above the staff of Asclepius. It was framed by a motto that meant more to him now than ever. ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ – Shamed be he who thinks evil of it.
7
Do or Die
Thal, August–October 1942
Monsoon brought India its usual relief, but another kind as well: it grounded the Japanese. In the north of Burma they had succeeded in cutting the road by which the United States sent aid to the Chinese. With the land route closed, the Americans dreamt up a scheme of impossible derring-do: to airlift goods from Bengal to Yunnan right over the Hump of the eastern Himalayas. To the north-west, the Japanese had come as far as the river Chindwin, just before the kingdom of Manipur, where they hunkered down in the rain.1
The relief did not extend to Nugs and Ganny’s lives, and they almost missed April, when together they had been a spot of calm amid the city’s turmoil. Now they were back to spinning in the rapids, without much by way of a paddle. Ganny was an unlikely candidate for a soldier, but he was a Kodava, a qualification of sorts. They were prominent among the earliest wave of Indian officers: the ones trained at Sandhurst, the King’s Commissioned Indian Officers. The adjutant of the Madras Battalion had been a Kodava, replacing another Kodava. Both were from Ganny’s own clan, the Kodanderas. Both had faced an establishment that was wary, often hostile, to native officers.
K. M. Cariappa, for instance, was the highest-ranked Indian in the Army, but after seventeen years with the Rajputs he was still a major. His successor in Madras, ‘Timmy’ Thimayya, had arrived as adjutant, and even then was refused housing among White officers inside Fort St George. When the war broke out, Timmy returned to his regiment in Peshawar, where his new CO summoned him only to snarl about a point of etiquette Timmy had overlooked. ‘If you have the temerity to think that you and other Indians can be good officers, you’re sadly mistaken,’ the colonel said. ‘Your behaviour proves otherwise. You people just don’t have it in you.’2
The Indian Medical Service had its own reputation for racial pettiness. Now, however, the Army was desperate for medical staff of every sort, from surgeons to stretcher-bearers.3 Few Indians were keen to join a party to which they had only been invited once the fun was over. Just that month, a lobby of Indian doctors in the IMS had made a formal complaint about Europeans being shielded from war postings. ‘The head of the IMS may tell you that the government do not now make any racial discrimination between Europeans and Indians,’ said their memo in the papers. ‘It is in reality a myth.’4
The application was still a nuisance. Ganny and Nugs had just finished their medical exams, and now there were more tests, though this time they were the ones being studied. He had provided proof of his degrees, reports of his personality and academic record, certificates of his moral character, and finally he had to get a physical from a captain of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Ganny was weak from a bout of malaria, but the captain wasn’t concerned. Half the Indian Army had malaria, he said. He ticked his way down the list of conditions that Ganny was ‘not at present suffering from, or previously affected with’:
a) Tuberculosis
b) Insanity or Mental Disease
c) Venereal Disease
d) Disease of the heart or lungs
He raised his eyes, then looked back at the form and kept going. More interviews followed, and a final one in Delhi, before a selection board of senior IMS staff.
While Ganny was gone, Nugs visited a doctor for some tests of her own, and then went back to have them repeated. When the results confirmed that she was carrying a child, the questions that had paralysed them for years all disappeared. She and Ganny had the clear and stark answer that they had desired and dreaded. They would have to be married, very soon. Then they would have to tell their families. But Ganny already had service orders which could not be ignored and he left in July for the Frontier, for the Combined Military Hospital in Thal.
Khade-Makh, ‘the Beautiful Face’, was showing its beauty. The season of rain cooled the days and scattered colour over the ramped mud, washed the pine and deodar cedars, sprung melons from the sandhills at the riverbank.
Shepherds led their flocks higher uphill to reach the new grass, and the face of Khade-Makh, the mountain which overlooked the fort of Thal, was softened by its brief fertility. But it would harden again at the first sign of winter, and Ganny prepared to do the same.
Thal, on the banks of the Kurram river, was one of the last British outposts before the mountain passes. It was a permanent fort built of mud, with a moat and bastions for mountain guns. This was as far as the Afghan army had advanced in 1919, when it dared to cross the Durand Line.5 Beyond Thal was only Miranshah to the south and Parachinar to the north, and the nervous pickets clutching the sides of the Safed Koh range. Ganny wondered if there was anywhere in the Empire a hospital more remote.
In Thal, senior officers lived in apartments with their families, while the lower ranks were each other’s. Ganny had neither; his only remaining family was Nugs. But the homesickness passed quickly, because soon he was due back in Delhi, where Nugs would be waiting.
At the opposite end of the country, Nugs stepped onto her train to Delhi, right foot first for luck. She settled into her compartment and a pair of coolies entered behind her, hauling a tin basin which held a block of ice. As the train started moving the fan on the ceiling began to turn, blowing air down onto the ice and back up into her face. Nugs turned her cheek into the drape of her sari. She hoped it would be cool.
Three days later, she was sitting beside Ganny on her way from Delhi to Thal, swept unexpected from the teeming coast to the arid roof of the world. At Peshawar they switched to the light, sapper-built railway which went on past Kohat and up the Miranzai valley. In her life the only pass Nugs had ever seen was the Palghat Gap, where the Madras railway crossed the Ghats into Malabar, and temples were piled on top of each sweating mount. Now they climbed through awesome passes, earth ramping into the stratosphere, over ground where any bump might be the grave of an Englishman.
Farthest Field Page 7