by Cecil Beaton
Against the green surroundings of the jungle the face of the white man is easily spotted at a distance; so faces are ‘made-up’ with dappled dabs of blue and green grease. Corporal Mitchell, from Perthshire, looks like the original Bairnsfather ‘Ole Bill’; in spite of his maquillage, he has carefully waxed the ends of his large moustache. Tin hats are worn with sprays of tropical leaves threaded through their netting cover. The white turbans of the Punjabis are veiled with layers of coarse camouflage net: Sikhs appear in turbans covered with huge woolly tufts of green and blue and Gurkhas, patrolling with mobile wireless sets, support tall branches like wings on their shoulders, as they lean forward to penetrate the undergrowth. A tropical Burnam Wood is on its way to Dunsinane.
We came unexpectedly upon a battle. A picnic lunch in a ruined temple was interrupted by gunfire. While we climbed a flight of stone steps to discover what was happening, two over-life-size black satin crows swooped down from the magnolia-trees and carried off the remainder of our meal. So we moved on, down a disused road, through an overgrown village, once bombed, now abandoned and looking like the precincts of the Sleeping Beauty: exotic creeping plants sprawled over the half-destroyed bashas and summer pavilions and over the gutted motor-car still parked in its neat, cement garage. At the deserted farm, provisions were dumped in a courtyard — tins of bully-beef and packages of biscuits lay among hundreds of small eggs, gourds and the exotic vegetation of the tropics.
A group of young officers, with serious expressions on their sunburnt faces, were discussing the situation. During the night some Japs had come down through a nearby jungle range and had taken up their former positions which, inadvertently, we had not filled in before advancing farther. Now this enemy group was dug into the earth as snug as moles, and with a two-pounder gun previously captured from us was doing considerable damage to our rearguard. Several men had been killed, and the wounded at this moment were being brought back under fire. The stretchers were placed in the Red Cross ambulances, which the drivers manipulated on the rough roads with dexterity and compassion.
A young major appeared, his khaki battledress stained with dark, dry splashes of blood. ‘We thought you’d been killed,’ the others greeted him. ‘Better have your arm seen to, and if you can cross that bridge, do so quickly and on all fours.’
Meanwhile, in the fields of paddy, Indian men accompanied by their naked children were still working, unmindful of the bursts of shrapnel. Bombing by air alone will send them seeking shelter.
Old Dr Seagrave is accustomed to operating under fire. The old man’s hand trembles until it touches the flesh of his patient, then he slices the body open as if he were taking the rind off a cheese, delves into the entrails, scoops out the shrapnel, and starts on the sewing up. That job finished, another begins. A young man, who had been shot through the eyes, is brought in. ‘No, he has been unlucky! He’s just one that lowers the average. Too bad.’ The old doctor shakes his head with a terrible look of anguish. It is as if he had never before seen such tragedy. Then the next case: a young man shot through the groin — the shrapnel goes in small, comes out enormous — a huge hole in the left side of the thigh. ‘Ah, this scrotum wound’s not so serious after all! He’s lucky! Here’s one of the lucky ones!’
PRESS CAMP
Camilla
The Press camp is in process of being built. It will not survive a series of violent storms for it is made entirely of bamboo. But with its lofty pointed ceiling, elaborately contrasting textures of wattling and glowing honey-colour, it has a fantasy and charm. The PO of the RAF, Dickson, who says ‘Tickety-boo’ every sentence, is a Scot with staccato charm. He lent me his sergeant secretary, Jock, a swarthy good-looking fellow who worked on the Glasgow Herald, for help on a Daily Mail article I have contracted to do. Jock shook his sleek black head every time I started a sentence that had no connection with the former one. ‘No, och! you caim’t puett tuewh quhotes tergether.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘Bay instinct. They are booth on diffurunt subbjecttes. To me that suntunce is just a nasty blott on the papair.’ I had already rewritten pages of notes many times, and knew they made no sense. But in desperation I dictated a few jerky non-sequiturs in an attempt to get something down for correction. Jock winced visibly. Still he did his best to help me, and not only rewrote many fair copies before, together, we had evolved something good enough to send by wire, but then translated the article in ‘cablese’. Jock worked at the typewriter until long past midnight, and I was touched by his generosity as this was a gratuitous gesture at the end of a full day’s work.
Today there had been a great flap as the Press boys had naturally wanted to get off stories of the RAF’s latest success in bringing down fifteen Jap fighters. But all communication with Delhi and Calcutta had been chaotic.
Dickson, undaunted, was now at the telephones and was shouting himself hoarse and using foul language in his determination to get a batch of troop newspapers down to the ‘boys who are doing the job of bringing down the Japs’. He yelled and beat his fist, ‘You arrange it, or I’ll resign my commission and return to the Kemsley newspapers.’
By finding myself in the clutches of that pettifogging, narrowminded, bilious, razor-edged little martinet, Duncley, and having to go everywhere under his wing, I have really plumbed the depths. Imagine the relief when he put me on a plane for Chittagong and at my next port of call I was greeted by my new cicerone who turned out to be Anthony Beauchamp.
Beauchamp was a successful photographer of ‘glamour girls’ before the war, and said that he had gone into the business through my influence. He is dark and handsome in a rather flashy way with piercing leopard’s eyes. I soon discovered he has a sense of fun and he proves that to be efficient in the army one need not be dull. Moreover, instead of making me feel at my worst, as Duncley did, he gave me zest and enthusiasm. His stories of life at Sandhurst were quite a revelation. I have always thought my idea of hell would be to find myself at Camberley under the irate eye of some fierce sergeant-major. ‘No, it isn’t serious enough to hate — it’s just a lot of balls. I love sergeant-majors! You always bribe them — give ‘em bottles of whisky and they’ll make a special point of bawling hell out of you on parade, but you know it’ll never go further. You’ll get called early, but you needn’t turn up to every parade, and the exercises are easy — childish. You’re free in the evenings, and we all had our cars and went off to Great Fosters. Of course, after the week-ends everyone was swaying with dizziness on parade on Monday. It was bags of fun.’ While motoring along rough jungle roads we talked with zest about subjects completely unrelated to our surroundings.
Much of the time is spent being uncomfortable, dirty and tired and doing things that do not normally interest me; but I am without anxieties. I have discovered that, degrading as this remote and primitive existence can be, there are compensations: even warfare may bring peace of mind and a feeling of physical serenity. Now that the jeep races towards my aeroplane and a return to civilization, my former rut will envelop me. I am able to sympathize with the RAF officer who, on hearing that he was to be sent home, confided: ‘It may be such an anti-climax to go back to England, after all these years of thinking about the place and building it up in my imagination. I have glorified it all this time, and now that I’m really going back I’m beginning to be frightened.’
BOMBAY — DINNER AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE
Less artificial than Delhi, less dirty than Calcutta, beautifully situated on the sea, Bombay cannot be considered an Asiatic city. It is the most cosmopolitan and emancipated city in India. In spite of its orchid-house climate, its inhabitants seem to possess unflagging initiative and make the town a throbbing Eastern metropolis that welcomes Western civilization. Sects, clubs, associations and newspapers are legion. Bombay is also a great town for gambling — particularly among the Parsees. Many of those present at the race meeting each Saturday have dreamt about doubles. ‘Of course the favourite will win,’ someone in the crowd is heard to say, ‘or the stewards will
want to know why...’
As the horses flash past, the crowd groans in a vast orgasm of excitement. Young women are extremely decorative in their clear coloured saris, but some of their menfolk, with tweed jackets worn over their muslin shirts, look messily indecent. The general effect, with the bright, coarse flowers set in stiff borders and a distant rainbow in the sky, has the period charm of a Manet painting.
Suddenly a violent downpour of dramatic rain disperses the crowds, not before they are soaked through. The drainage system does not allow for such a rainfall. Lawns are immediately flooded, cars are waterlogged: a few straggling Indians paddle with battered umbrellas held aloft in one hand, shoes in the other; and husky BORS, like children at play, proceed by slow degrees, climbing along with their stomachs pressed to the railings.
In the throne-room of Government House, an assortment of respectable English and Indian citizens is assembled. The inevitable Belgian Consul and his wife stand next to the huge retired colonel with high blood-pressure who must avoid the brandy. One of the Indians wears a dark green shade above his glasses, a most peculiar effect, as if he were wearing a Pullman-car reading-lamp. Some officers are in uniform; business tycoons, wearing baggy dinner-jackets of tropical weight, are accompanied by their scraggy wives.
Since there is no thought of arranging a formal dinner table such as this in any but the order of precedence, the same people find themselves, continuously and irrevocably, placed side by side. It is not to be wondered at that there is nothing much for them to say to each other and that the evening does not go with a swing.
‘Will you kindly form a line along there?’ suggests a rosy ADC, with only one arm and a cursory manner. ‘Two rows please — come along now.’ Some of the ADC’s enjoy making the guests suffer. ‘They don’t come to Government House for nothing,’ they snigger.
A long delay, long enough to make each guest fully realize what he is waiting for. At last a slight commotion is heard in the distance. ‘Their Excellencies’, shouts the obstreperous young ADC.
Dinner is served on an enormous strip of table decked with bougainvillaea. The inanimate faces of the heterogenous company are reflected in the row of silver cups.
Thirty servants, with scarlet turbans and bare feet, run around serving the inevitable banquet food. Each of the Governor’s jokes is greeted with sycophantic laughter.
‘Mercifully he seems in a good mood now,’ says ADC2, sitting next to ADC3 in starvation corner. ‘But I’ve seldom seen HE so rattled as he was this morning.’
Her Excellency personifies graciousness itself, though she, too, had a bad morning. Someone placed flower garlands round her neck at the opening of the agricultural exhibition, and they dripped down a new dress she had had copied by the dzersi.
The long ritual of the meal over, the company retires to the illuminated garden and sits out in arm-chairs and on sofas, placed on Turkish carpets. A police band plays ‘Merrie Englande’ and ‘Poet and Peasant’. The bandsmen are in yellow and blue, with white spats.
At 10 o’clock more of the European colony are let in to the sacred precincts. A further display of Anglo-Indian fashions; some of the sailors of the RIN, in immaculate white uniforms, are almost throttled by their high collars — beaux ideals of all novelettes.
An intellectual lady, in a taffeta picture dress with a berthe of old lace, leans forward:
‘Isn’t it extraordinary that so great a country as India should have fallen so low? There is nothing of promise to be found anywhere here today. No writer, no painter. The only hope for the young Indian is to go into politics; and the only hope, if the country is to regain vitality and honesty, is revolution. If Congress were to take over, they’d make the inevitable mess of it; the dishonesty and craft of the Congress leaders would soon be discovered — bloodshed and anarchy would follow — but out of that some fresh life might spring.’
An elderly industrialist leans forward and says, ‘India is a feminine country, all her faults are feminine ones,’ and he raises his glass gallantly.
A beautiful Indian in a pink sari says, ‘Whatever those faults may be, let us make them. Please allow us our own headaches. India for the Indians, please.’
The ADC’s move everyone around, as if in a game of musical chairs.
Under a vast electric fan, like the propeller of an aeroplane, a lady in cornflower-blue lace welcomes a newcomer. ‘We were just saying that the problems of India only begin to get really confusing after the first year here.’
A young subaltern says, ‘Yes, I always say it takes a year to learn to hate India.’
Two ADC’s are standing apart, eyeing the guests. One holds a small printed card up to his mouth.
‘He’s already had the sanitary specialist’s wife three minutes. It’s time we got the expert on humus heaps ready for him.’
‘Oh no, Mrs Bumface gets seven minutes, she’s on post-war reconstruction, but look, Her Excellency is getting a bit browned off with the Brigadier, hurry up and take that old chap over, he’s the Commissioner of Police, what’s his name?’
The obstreperous ADC is determined that the party shall end as soon as possible, as he has a clandestine appointment down in the hotel bar, which shuts at 11 o’clock.
Her Excellency is enjoying her talk about servants with the widow of the opium agent, Ghazipur, when the ADC interrupts.
‘I think, your Excellency, that His Excellency is preparing to say good night.’
The guests are hurriedly thrown into line again. Their Excellencies smile with relief. It is the smile the dentist receives when his patient is freed.
‘Good night — good night! — good night!’
The cars are churning up the gravel, especially imported from England. But in the first limousine, leaving a wake of dust and small stones, is the rubicund ADC, mopping his brow and telling the chauffeur to drive ‘Jaldi! Jaldi!’
Jaipur
The village of Purana Ghat, of colonnaded, pale yellow buildings, thrush-egg blue pagodas and massive archways painted with decorations of birds and flowers, leads to the coral-coloured town of Jaipur.
Laid out in the eighteenth century, the wide streets run parallel. With its open squares and pleasure gardens, the city is a pattern for well-planned spaciousness. Another overall felicity is the rule that every house must be painted pink. Some of these façades are embellished with designs of birds and bouquets of flowers painted in white. The general effect of Jaipur is of an almost dream-like beauty and serenity. The native populace seems to have an innate understanding of the use of colour, and they vie with each other in the beauty of their coats and turbans.
In the inner court of the Zenana Palace women in daffodil yellow, apricot and orange draperies, polish the white marble columns. A young man, wearing a pea-green turban and a lilac coat, spends his morning lolling against an archway and looking like a figure painted on enamel 500 years ago. Small carriages with hoods shaped like pagodas disgorge Rajputana ladies and their children, all dressed in varying reds, with heavily painted eyes and a mass of jewels. When the billowing, freshly-dyed lengths of vivid yellow or magenta muslin are brought out to dry in the sun even these robust colours produce a symphony that is refined, subtle and harmonious.
LEOPARD HUNT
Jaipur
The Maharajah had arranged a shoot for us. In my simplicity I had imagined a certain amount of personal risk was involved; but not on this occasion at any rate.
We drove into the mountains where the preparations had begun last night, when a tethered goat was provided for the dinner of a female leopard. She had been successfully shot while at her meal. A male leopard had subsequently finished off the goat table d’hôte and, it was surmised, would doubtless return tonight in the expectancy of a further banquet. Indeed, another goat was led out and staked. We sportsmen retired behind the foliage-covered windows of a small concrete building, strategically placed ten yards away, to watch the misery of the bait.
As the mountain landscape faded into darkn
ess, plaintive bleats rang through the canyons. The lonely, chained animal strutted in circles around its stake. Suddenly in panic, its blunt, rock-like profile darted this way and that. Then its front legs collapsed, and the animal lay quite still. It whimpered to itself. Then, in abject terror at some noise, it was up in a flash; again its head pivoted in all directions — ears cocked the better to listen.
Why was I allowing myself to be party to something I considered so ignominious? It was awful to watch an animal suffering the mental torments that, mercifully, most of us leave behind in the night-nursery. Yet I must admit that I had worked up a certain blood-lust, as we watched and waited in deepest silence for the great moment when the lurking leopard would spring out of the blackness of the night and the loaded guns go off. Although there was little chance of the leopard escaping or attacking us in our concrete fastness, our eyes popped with excitement.
The goat continued to emit pathetic, grating croaks, like whimpers of despair, then, exhausted by misery, lay down to sleep.
After a one and a half-hour’s wait no leopard came, and the colonel who was organizing the shoot said that it was useless to remain. The anticlimax was crushing, but the joy of the goat when we came out of hiding to unleash it was heavenly to see. The goat had, at any rate, one more day to live.
BENARES WITH HASHISH
Benares
I am staying with Raymond Burnier, a brilliant young Belgian photographer of early Hindu sculpture. The house is completely native, and since Raymond has adopted the Hindu religion one of the guest-rooms is occupied by a sacred cow. He asked me if I would care to take hashish. Willing to try anything once, I waited, full of anticipation, while he prepared a concoction of milk of almonds, rose-water, carminum nuts and eight other ingredients of which hashish, or bhang, the ‘laughing drug’, was the principal.