CHAPTER 1: Through the Gateway

The voyage from Liverpool had been pleasant, but conditions on a troopship can hardly be described as ideal, and I think there was a general feeling of relief when, after twenty-one days at sea, we finally dropped anchor in Bombay. India at last! Imagine the excitement, for very few of us had ever been East before, and as the thirty women welfare workers prepared to disembark the deck rang with farewells and good-byes. Expecting to be two or three days in transit, we had planned to visit among other places the famous Hanging Gardens and the Towers of Silence, but hardly were we ashore than the convoy of troop carriers lined up on the quayside, whipped us away to Victoria Terminus. Here, to our amazement we caught up with several hundred troops who had disembarked two hours earlier – the train in which they were due to leave having gone off and left them standing! So there they stood in the sweltering heat while a message was sent down the line to bring it back! We were more fortunate, and in little over an hour found ourselves on board the Military Special for Calcutta.

The scene at the Indian Railway Station is one to be seen to be believed, for the crowds, the chaos and the confusion are indescribable. As the unsuspecting traveler alights from his taxi, a dozen or more porters immediately bear down upon him from all directions, shouting, arguing and shaking their fists at each other. Then, before the bewildered man realises what has happened, they seize his luggage and go haring off down the platform! Speechless with indignation he hurriedly pays off the taxi and rushes in the direction of the fast disappearing porters. Picking his way between the recumbent bodies of innumerable Indians taking a siesta on the platform, and tripping over boxes and bundles and babies, he eventually rounds up his porters and climbs into his compartment. And then the trouble begins! There are only four packages, but no less than six or eight porters are lined up waiting to be paid! He protests indignantly, but the porters menacingly stand their ground, hurling abuse at him in a tongue which fortunately he cannot understand. At this stage, if he is lucky, a fellow traveler, more conversant with the ways of the East, comes forward, gives one of the porters an eight anna piece and tells the rest to “Jow!” in no uncertain terms. Having murmured the requisite, “I say, old boy, jolly decent of you, you know,” he sinks back into his seat completely exhausted and murmurs, “India – good god, what a country!”.

The journey by rail across India was certainly an experience. The dust and the heat were intolerable, and like most of the trains ours had no corridors so that we could only enter or leave our compartment when the train was stationary. No bedding was provided, as it is the custom out East to take bedding and bearer with you wherever you go, nor was there a dining saloon on the train, with the result that all our meals had to be taken at “European Style” restaurants en route. And what restaurants, and what meals! However, starvation being the only alternative, we had perforce, to eat whatever was provided. Each time the train came to stop, a dozen little faces would appear at the window while a chorus of plaintive voices wailed “Baksheesh memsahib, baksheesh memsahib”. The countryside was looking wonderfully fresh and green after the monsoon, and everywhere I was impressed by the resemblance of the scenery to that of certain parts of South Africa – in fact, we might well have been traveling through Natal instead of across Central India.

Next page: CHAPTER 2: City of Palaces