Joyce's War (27 page)

The ride there, by tonga, was something to remember, through many bazaars and villages. It must have taken us quite half an hour each way to cross the bridge that spans the river. What an amazing spectacle it was: such a conglomeration of human beings and animals and vehicles one could find nowhere on earth but in India. Tongas and oxen carts, many with painted horns and gay garlands of flowers or coloured beads round their necks; tiny donkeys, laden with panniers of stones or firewood or anything at all, picking their way on their incredibly dainty feet in and out of the medley; boys on bicycles; an odd motor car; army lorries; carts with cage-like tops drawn by skinny underfed horses; women in gay saris or, more usually here about, full gathered skirts and tight shawls; naked or half naked children. In fact every variety of Indian and animal passed with us, at length, at long length, over the Jumna Bridge.

On the roadside: all the vendors squatting easily in the sun: the local barber shaving his clients; the scissor grinder; the dursie cutting his cloth; women delousing each other’s hair; dhobis and women washing in the river with their garments spread out to dry on any nearby fence or the bare ground itself; the oxen cart carrying great loads of stones or bricks or hides or bales of cloth – their brass bells clanging as they ambled along; dogs barking, children playing in the sun, women walking wearily along with great bundles of washing or fire wood on their heads – so gracefully they walk; old men with faces one would like to paint and young men with grave intelligent expressions. This is the real India rather than the India of the cities, more colourful, more varied and much more interesting.

And so I leave Agra this morning for Calcutta. It has been so full of pleasant lovely things and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I should like to go to the Taj again this morning to say farewell, but there is no time. Perhaps one day I shall come back again – who knows – I hope I shall.

January 17th 1943

Calcutta

Major Robertson saw me off at Agra armed with a packet of cream crackers and a tin of gorgonzola cheese, together with some Christmas cake, chocolates and golden halva – an Indian dessert made of sugar, walnuts and ghee – which I find delicious having a depraved taste; he evidently didn’t mean me to starve. The train obligingly stopped for quite twenty minutes quite near the Taj so that I could feast my eyes once again, before going on my way. I looked out of the carriage window until it was just a blur on the horizon and then I could see it no more.
Vale
Agra and so much that was beautiful!

Despite my booking a seat three days previously nothing had been done about it, as usual, and as the solitary ‘ladies first’ was occupied by two females, I got myself into an empty four-berth first compartment, only to be followed two seconds later by a Cingalese gentleman. He was as sorry as I was about it, but there was nothing that could be done, so the guard said. At Allahabad I spotted a major in the IMS on the platform so I went up to him and asked if I should go to bed as usual or what! He was highly amused and asked me if I would feel safer with him! Well of the two I think the Cingalese gentleman would have been the more reliable. However, he went along and spoke to the occupants of the ‘ladies’ and found that one was getting out at midnight so that I could transfer my things then, which I did, and all was well. As I was leaving two British officers arrived, so it would have been three to one; not that it matters in India, but it was much better for all concerned as things were. My travelling companions had lived in Burma for six years and had a small boy at school in Simla. They had lost everything of course in the Burma evacuation, having time only to bury their silver.

I had a good night’s sleep and the day passed at length, rather wearily, and so we arrived at Calcutta at 7.25 and ON TIME. This was simply and solely because the Swami of Assam was on the train in a special white coach, and all along the way police with red pagris
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guarded the stations. What awful deferential rot really in these days! I arrived at the hospital gates only to be told that the taxi must not go in because we were in quarantine – smallpox having broken out. We had been in quarantine before we left and we had all been vaccinated, but this fresh outbreak was new to me. However, it transpires that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded, though there are some cases and some of the wards are definitely in quarantine. A lovely pile of letters to greet me including six from Mother from whom I hadn’t heard for many weeks. It is reassuring to know she is well and strong again except for that awful dermatitis which still persists. A letter from Bob suggesting that I meet him at STO office in Bombay and a letter cable saying, ‘Proceeding via Killarney
.
Wait my arrival!’ It arrived on the 14th – re-addressed via the bank but in Calcutta on the 10th and according to the date, it left Basrah on the 9th – which doesn’t seem possible when they normally take at least eight or nine days or longer. I reckon that if it left on the 10th or 11th, he might normally be expected to reach Karachi about the 14th–16th. The train journey I am not sure of, but it would take almost three days, I fancy. So all things being equal he should arrive on Tuesday, possibly even tomorrow. Sometimes when I re-read the cable I wonder if he meant me to go to Karachi and wait at the Killarney, although this didn’t strike me at first. Even if I had done that next day (16th) I think I would have missed him, passing each other en route. I can only hope that everything will turn out without any unexpected hitches. As it is, I feel I daren’t leave the mess in case a message comes through, or the gentleman himself arrives. It is almost six months since we were in Basrah – how hot it was and how far away and long ago. But now I wait.

February 10th 1943

On the morning of the 19th I had a telegram to say that Bob was arriving on the 20th. I had packed most things and was cleaning out drawers and generally tidying up when Deacon came up to say that Bob had arrived. It seems that he had sent a second telegram from Lahore, which I hadn’t received, so unfortunately I wasn’t at the station when he arrived. It was unbelievable that he had actually come and now, of course, he is gone again. We went into town at once to arrange accommodation for the night and got our tickets and reservations for the train for Darjeeling the following evening. There was an air raid that evening which cut short our dinner at the Grand but we went to the cinema later and saw a film, without further incident. We just caught the train the next evening with scarcely a minute to spare and settled ourselves for the night, arriving at Siliguri next morning at 6am and took breakfast at the station.

Then the long ascent up to Darjeeling with the great valleys below us, and mountains towering above us on either side. Tea plantations everywhere, on neat terraces, and luxurious tropical-cum-alpine vegetation: hibiscus, bougainvillea, poinsettias, ageratum, eucalyptus, tree ferns, acacias and all manner of other shrubs that I know not. We stopped occasionally at some funny little station, while the train took in water or coal or both. We wound in and around bends and puffed and climbed our way ever upwards the whole of the 7,000ft to Darjeeling. Since Siliguri the whole nature of the countryside has changed, and the people too – now distinctly Mongol in type – Tibetans. The women do all the chores and the men sit around smoking and generally enjoying life; the women carried everything on their backs, including their children, who look for the entire world like little Chinese dolls that I remember from my extreme youth. They seemed happy and contented and oddly naive and unselfconscious. Most of them wore shawls and highly coloured beads and sometimes a version of the Indian sari. Apparently one can wear exactly what one fancies as regards a hat. They were delightfully varied and cosmopolitan throughout.

It was cold enough when we actually arrived and, after rick-shawing it up and down and uphill again to the Windermere and not being sure of accommodation, we transferred ourselves to Mount Everest, where we were sure of a roof over our heads. We had rooms overlooking the ‘snows’ – at least the hotel authorities said so – mine did certainly, but Bob’s, with the exception of about two inches in one corner, overlooked the well next door. Anyway, we were extremely lucky throughout and even the weather, although not always clear, didn’t deter us from enjoying ourselves. We had fires in our rooms day and night and how we needed them. It was so lovely to come in after the cinema at night, cold and breathless after the last climb up the drive, to turn the key in the lock and to see the fire burning brightly in the grate and feel the warmth leaping out to greet us.

We usually spent the mornings walking aimlessly and doing odd bits of shopping and got back in time for lunch. After tiffin we would draw up the sofa in front of the fire and have a sleep until teatime. At first we started to make toast at the fire and started seriously to collect butter for it, keeping what was left from breakfast and so on, but then we discovered delicious sausage rolls in the village and from then on we heated them up daily, in readiness for 4pm, when the bearer would enter with the tea tray. He always tiptoed in but immediately proceeded to knock things over as soon as he arrived. He had attached himself to Bob at the station and proved reliable and very helpful. After tea we sallied forth to the cinema – every night except Sunday, when we went to church! Usually the show was quite good and the place was always full of Tommies who saw all the jokes. Then the long climb home again in the cold night air and uphill all the way. Bob had found the elevation trying for the first week but I didn’t notice it. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any films at all, so couldn’t take any snaps with my camera – and just when I most wanted them. But we were able to buy very good photos of Darjeeling and the mountains, but then they have nothing personal about them. I was disappointed.

Kanchenjunga was a grand sight on days when it was clear – usually early in the morning while we were having breakfast. I shall never forget the first morning when I went across to the window – there it was looming so closely I felt I could lean out of the window and touch it. The eternal snows – how they must have intrigued and exasperated travellers and explorers and painters and poets of all ages. Always there, if not always to be seen. Sometimes the green valley below was full of woolly clouds like a great sea with the peaks standing crystal clear and sunlit above them; sometimes they would vanish completely as though they had been some product of the imagination. Always it seemed like some far fair promised land, ever beckoning, tantalizing and luring one on to find it. How I would have loved to follow on ‘beyond that last great mountain capped with snow’ away into Tibet, far from wars and the army. Then, the last evening, as we stood at the window and watched the sunset – the valley clouded and most of the mountains obscured – the very tips of the furthest peaks were clearer, standing out and glowing in the setting sun. It was a lovely last glimpse of those great mountains that maybe neither of us shall see again. We had had a fortnight there – completely removed from the maddening crowd – and returned to Calcutta early on Wednesday morning. I stayed in town that night as I wasn’t due back on duty until the Friday.

I saw Bob off on the train on Thursday evening bound for Bombay and Basrah. That’s a week ago now and it seems like a dream already that he has been and gone his way again. Now everything seems flat and uninspiring and I have a definite feeling that something is missing. I went to D1 for the first few days but appear to have come to roost for the moment in E2, with Watson. It’s pleasant there – quiet and tucked away and no one bothers us.

I have discovered a Welshman – a minister’s son – from Pembrokeshire in H Ward (TB) and he has a friend, Davies, from Portmadog who is a patient in one of the other wards. They are an interesting pair. Davies is mixed up with the Welsh National Theatre and knows many people that I knew once upon a time. Like a breath of fresh air from the Caernarvonshire hills, it is, to talk about the old spots again. But it fills me with ‘hiraeth’
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all over again and I am not sure it is good for me.

There have been letters from Gwen, Mali and Ruthin cousins this week and one from Mother. It seems that sister Mona has been appointed leading lady in
Night Must Fall
.
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They must be busy, wherever they are doing their war service; at all events she must have some more energy than I have. I’m in the throes of a wretched cold, which is rather shocking just on top of a month’s leave. The weather is still very lovely, warm in the sun and the nights are cool, not cold.

The war news remains good: Kursk re-taken by the Russians and the Solomons evacuated by the Japanese. Oh, if only it would all finish soon!

June 19th 1943

What a shocking lapse and so much, so very much has happened in the interim that I just can’t think where to begin. To begin with for instance, I am married. Even as I write it, I rather wonder if it is true – but I have my marriage certificate so I suppose I haven’t dreamed it. Also I distinctly remember saying, ‘I do’ rather remotely and nervously and hearing David say the same, even more so as he stood beside me. That was on May 20th, a little over a month ago, and David is long ago back among the flying things and I am endeavouring to run the staff, nurse the patients and control the equipment on my large and difficult ward, Surgery A – BMH. I left Loreto to do night duty about three months ago and I have remained here since, living in my more sane moments in No. 5 Minto Park.

Mona, very nobly, came all the way from Dehra Dun to lend me moral support on my wedding day. David had come down the previous Sunday. What a week that was in Calcutta: a taxi strike and a water strike. We had to gharry or rickshaw everywhere. And whereas at one stage in my life, I might have considered it highly diverting and delightful to be conveyed thus to my destination, the idea of arriving thus at the church door on my wedding day definitely had no appeal. Geoffrey Holland arrived that day with no less than two beautiful gharries complete with the usual weary and disillusioned-looking horses, having captured them triumphantly at Enbally and brought them all the way for the purpose. However at the very last moment David had managed to enlist the sympathy of an RAF padre who conveyed each of us in turn safely and comfortably to the appointed place in his camouflaged car. I have never appreciated the ordinary motor car as a means of transport until this occasion. The water problem, which was desperate indeed – I loathed washing piecemeal any time and go breakfast-less daily in order to have my morning bath – was solved at the eleventh hour, when the taps decided to run. So I was saved the indignity of having to proceed to my wedding unwashed!