William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

They arrived in Bombay after a twenty-six-day voyage. Gabriel and Hinshelwood were given instructions to proceed directly to the regiment at Rawalpindi. “I’m damned if I’m getting straight on a train after a month in that accursed ship!” Hinshelwood swore. He and Gabriel booked in to the Taj Hotel for a night. They bathed, had two enormous meals and went shopping. The next morning they boarded the train at Bombay Station and spent a dusty, but tolerably comfortable, fifty hours crossing the Punjab to Rawalpindi.

For two weeks life regained its sense of composure. News of the German retreat to the Aisne caused great belligerent excitement. Gabriel returned to a means of existence that he had known before his marriage. Except on this occasion there was no Charis nearby. Nor was there much time for entertainment of any sort as the Regiment was busily preparing itself for embarkation. The main Indian expeditionary force for the European theatre was in the process of being despatched, and in addition two subsidiary forces were being raised. One was for the Persian Gulf and one for the invasion of German East Africa. Rumour had it that the West Kents would be embarking for Europe in early October, but no one was sure. Gabriel thought it was typical of the army’s Byzantme reasoning to send him all the way to India just to send him back to Europe. It was, he later realized, equally typical of the army to decide that, of all the officers in the regiment, he was the one chosen not to accompany it. The fateful Movement Order telegram arrived from headquarters in Simla. It informed him that he was being ‘attached’ to the 69th Palamcottah Light Infantry, who were due to embark for East Africa in mid October as part of Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’.

East Africa! The Palamcottah Light Infantry! Gabriel’s disappointment was bitter and acute. A third-rate Indian regiment from the little-regarded Bangalore Brigade in Madras. His prompt protestations and appeals had no effect. His colleagues sympathized but their patience over his relentless moaning and complaints was limited. Sammy Hinshelwood reminded him that the West Kents could end up guarding the Suez Canal and that at least Gabriel could be sure of some action before the war ended.

So, for the second time in a month Gabriel crossed the Punjab, but on this occasion, as if cruelly to remind him how his plans had gone awry, the journey took ninety hours. He shared the train with a hospital unit full of Indian sub-assistant surgeons and with dozens of coolies and bearers. They, it transpired, were are going to East Africa; but the British doctors seemed quite content with their lot. A place called Nairobi, they said: apparently the climate was superb. Gabriel spent most of the journey in a corner of the crowded compartment (the fan wasn’t working) trying to read a book. The doctors repeatedly congratulated themselves on their good luck. All they seemed to care about, Gabriel reflected, was the weather. One day they spent a full ten hours motionless in a railway siding with nothing to eat or drink except some petit beurre biscuits and warm soda water.

Gabriel’s spirits had been set in a decline ever since he’d received the news of his transfer. At the barracks in Bombay they took another plunge when he was united with his new battalion. The 69th Palamcottah Light Infantry hadn’t seen active service since the Boxer rebellion in 1900, which battle order for that campaign hung proudly in the mess. A little inquiry on Gabriel’s part provided him with the information that the Palamcottahs had in fact only got as far as Hong Kong.

There they had been pressed into service with a regiment of Army Pioneers and had made roads for nine months, an activity for which they had shown a surprising efficiency and which had earned them an official commendation from the Governor of the colony.

It was small consolation also when it turned out that the Palamcottahs were so undermanned and ill-prepared that six other officers, apart from Gabriel, had been separated from their official regiments to bring the battalion up to something like operational strength. The seven new boys swiftly formed a circle of malcontents in the mess, ignoring and being ignored by the regulars. Gabriel was the last to arrive and was happy to contribute his own grumbles to the dark mutterings that continually preoccupied the disaffected group.

There proved to be virtually no chance to get to know the men under his command because the day after his arrival embarkation orders were received. The Homayun was a dirty little steamer which before being drafted into war service had plied the route between Bombay and Arabia, conveying pilgrims to Mecca and back again. About a thousand men were finally crammed aboard: the Palamcottahs, a detachment of sappers, the Punjabi Coolie Corps and about thirty mules and four dozen sheep, which had to be tethered on one of the decks.

Gabriel found himself sharing a small cabin with two other officers, a doctor from the Indian Medical Service, and a tall thin major from the Welch Regiment called Bilderbeck, who had been at the staff college at Quetta but was now attached to the expeditionary force’s headquarters staff as intelligence officer because he’d served in East Africa before the war.

Embarkation was completed by the thirtieth of September. The last mules were winched on board, the last lighter had deposited its load of excited coolies and had returned to the wharves. The Homayun got up steam and moved slowly out of Bombay harbour until she was some three miles offshore.

Then with a rattle of chains the anchors were released and she stopped once more. Gabriel assumed, as he looked over the railing at the distant shore, that they were waiting for the rest of the fleet to form up.

The days went by with an inconceivable slowness. Two, three, four, five. The Homayun rolled heavily at anchor in the ocean swell and to a man, it seemed, the coolie corps went down with seasickness. A widening slick of human effluence polluted the sea around the immobile ship. Gabriel inspected his company twice a day, just to give himself something to do. They were thin-faced, resentful men in baggy uniforms and thick khaki turbans. The Indian officers — the jemadars and subadars — seemed too old and slack, and treated Gabriel with caution and suspicion. On the seventh day new Maxim guns were ferried out and each company supplied with two. Seizing the opportunity, Gabriel held machine-gun drill every afternoon, teaching the lethargic sepoys how to strip down, load and fire the bright, shiny weapons. They fired at empty barrels thrown over the side, kicking up the scummy surface of the sea with a flurry of bullets.

Ten days went by and still the Homayun swung listlessly at anchor. Gabriel fell into a state of thoughtless passivity of which he would never have believed himself capable. After breakfast he would make a cursory inspection of his troops, send the sick men to the surgery, and then retire to the shadiest part of the ship and try to write letters. His life was so empty that once he’d got beyond, “Dear Mother and Father, here we are still on the Homayun …” there seemed little point in going on. He tried several times to write to Charis on more personal matters but to his consternation he found that even harder. He did think about her a lot, and the emotions he experienced were genuine, but when it came to giving them some shape, pinning them down in a few heartfelt words, he found it impossible to identify and name correctly what were in actuality only the most vague and nebulous sensations.

“My Darling Charis,” he would write. Then he would pause. What could he say? That he loved her? But surely she knew that; it wouldn’t do to state things so bluntly, he needed a more elegant turn of phrase…And he would drift off into a doze until it was time for luncheon. In the afternoon came yet more sleep, or else vacant staring at the shoreline. Sometime she would plunge into the sailbath that had been rigged up and for ten minutes feel more alive. In the evening he’d mix uneasily with the other officers, but nobody really knew each other and the talk was desultory and formal. No orders had been issued and Lt Col. Coutts, the portly, ageing commanding officer, had nothing to report at the few briefing sessions called. As on the Dongola most officers ended up passing the time by playing cards, or deck quoits. Gabriel played a few hands of whist, but he didn’t know how to play contract bridge and couldn’t be bothered to learn.