I shall just have time to write you a line about our journey so far,
and may be able to write to Papa later.
They gave me a very nice farewell dinner on Friday at Agra. Raju came
and sat next me and it all went off very well. Almost the whole
station turned up. After dinner we sat outside, playing the
gramophone, etc. Swift, seconded by Luly and Purefoy, made a
determined effort to make me tight by standing me drinks and secretly
instructing the Khitmagar to make them extra strong; but I was not
quite green enough for that and always managed to exchange drinks at
the last moment with the result that Swift got pretty tight and I
didn't.
I sat in the bungalow talking to Purefoy till 2, and was up again at
6. From 6 till 11 I was busy with seeing to things and hardly had a
moment's peace. We paraded at 10.45 and marched to the station, with
the Punjabis band leading us. It was excessively warm for marching
orders--96° in the shade--and the mile to the station was quite
enough. There was a great crowd on the platform and everyone was very
nice and gave us a splendid send-off. I was too busy all the time to
feel at all depressed at leaving Luly and Purefoy, which I had rather
feared I should. Partings are, I think, much more trying in the
prospect than at the actual moment, because beforehand the parting
fills one's imagination, whereas at the moment one's hopes of meeting
again come into active play. Anyway, I hadn't time to think much about
it then, and I was already very sleepy. We started at 12.5.
At 1.30 Sergt. Pragnell came running along to say that L/C. Burgess was
taken very bad; so I went along, with the Eurasian Assistant-Surgeon,
who was travelling with us to Bombay. (These Eurasian A.-S.'s are far
more competent than the British R.A.M.C. officers, in my experience.) We
found Burgess with all the symptoms of heat-stroke, delirium and red
face and hot dry skin. A thermometer under his armpit, after half a
minute, showed a temperature of 106°. So the A.S. had all his clothes
removed and laid him on a bench in the draught and dabbled him gently
with water all over from the water-bottles. Apparently in these cases
there are two dangers, either of which proves fatal if not counteracted:
(1) the excessive temperature of the body. This rises very rapidly. In
another half an hour it would have been 109°, and 110° is generally
fatal. This he reduced, by the sponging and evaporation, to about 100°
in the course of an hour. But the delirium continued, because (2) the
original irritation sends a rush of blood to the head, causing acute
congestion, which if it continues produces apoplexy. To prevent this we
wanted ice, and I had wired on to Gwalior for some, but that was three
hours ahead. Luckily at about 3 we halted to let the mail pass, and a
railway official suggested stopping it. This we did, I got some ice
which soon relieved the situation. But of course we couldn't take poor
Burgess with us, so we wired for an ambulance to meet us at Jhansi, and
put him ashore.
Meanwhile at Gwalior a pleasant surprise was in store. We had "train
rations" on the usual measly Indian scale, but for tea on Saturday we
were to rely on tea provided by Scindia at Gwalior. Happily a
Maharajah's ideas of tea are superior to a Quartermaster's, and this
is what we had for fifty men! Unlimited tea, with sugar, twenty-five
tinned cheeses, fifty tins of sausages and twenty-five 2lb. tins of
Marie biscuits! This feed tinted the rest of the journey rose-colour.
The only other incident was the loss by one of the men of his
haversack, which he dropped out of window.
Yesterday, Sunday, was much cooler. When I woke at Bhopal it was only
76° and it only got even as high as 89° for about half-an-hour. We ran
into rain in the afternoon.
We reached Bhusawal at 7 p.m. and had to wait four hours to be picked
up by the Nagpur mail. In the refreshment room I met a Terrier gunner
officer who was P.M.C. of the Mess at Barrackpore when we messed there
in December. He was just back from a course at Mhow and had been
positively told by the Staff Officers there that his and most other T.
batteries were to be sent back to Europe in a month's time: and
moreover that a whole division of Ts. was going to the Persian Gulf
and another to E. Africa.
The air is full of such rumours. Here the Embarkation N.C.O. says
78,000 K's have already sailed to relieve us. But the mere number of
the rumours rather discredits them. And the fact of their using us for
drafts to P.G. seems to show they don't intend moving the units.
We left Bhusawal at midnight and arrived here at 9.15 without
incident. Bombay is its usual mild and steamy self, an unchanging 86°,
which seemed hot in November, but quite decently cool now.
This boat is, from the officers' point of view, far more attractive
than the "Ultonia." Being a B.I. boat it is properly equipped for the
tropics and has good 1st class accommodation. She is about 6,000 tons.
The men are, I'm afraid, rather crowded. There will be 1,000 on board
when complete. We pick up some at Karachi. We sail to-morrow morning.
If not too sea-sick I will write to Papa and post it at Karachi.
I am going out now to do a little shopping and get my hair cut, and I
shall post this in the town.
P.S.--The whole country is deliciously green now, not a brown patch
except the freshest ploughed pieces, and the rivers no longer beggarly
trickles in a waste of rubble, but pretty pastoral streams with
luxuriant banks.
* * * * *
"S.S. VARSOVA,"
_August 21st_,1915.
To N.B.
I don't know when I shall next get one of your letters. It will have
to follow me painfully round _via_ Agra. And if I post this at Basra,
it will have to go back to Bombay before starting for England; though
people here are already talking of the time when we shall have
finished the Baghdad Railway and letters come by rail from England to
Basra in about 5 days.
Meanwhile as I have no letters of your's to answer and no news to
discuss, I will try and give you an account of myself and my fifty
veterans since I last wrote.
The fifty just form a platoon. You see, my retromotion goes on apace.
A Company Commander from August to April, a Company Second in Command
from May to August, and now a platoon Commander. I shall find the
stage of Sergeant harder still to live up to if it comes to that.
Twenty-five are from 'D' Double Company; but only seven of these are
from my own original lambs of 'F': because they wouldn't take anyone
under twenty-three, and as I have mentioned before, I think, very few
of 'F' have qualified for pensions. As it is, two of the seven gave
false ages. The other twenty-five are from a Portsmouth
Company--townees mostly, and to me less attractive than the village
genius: but I daresay we shall get on all right.
Our start wasn't altogether auspicious--in fact taking a draft across
the middle East is nearly as difficult to accomplish without loss as
taking luggage across Scotland. We had a very good send-off, and all
that--concert, dinner, band, crowd on the platform and all the moral
alcohol appropriate to such occasions. It was a week ago, to-day, when
we left Agra, and Agra climate was in its top form, 96° in the shade
and stuffy at that. So you can imagine that it was not only our
spirits that were ardent after a mile's march to the station in
marching order at noon. An hour after the train had started one of my
lance-corporals collapsed with heat-stroke. The first-aid treatment by
the Eurasian M.O. travelling with us was a most instructive object
lesson. The great thing is to be in time. We were summoned within ten
minutes of the man's being taken ill. His temperature was already
106°: the M.O. said that in another half-hour it would have been 109°
and in an hour he would probably have been dead. We stripped him
stark, laid him in the full draught, and sponged him so as to produce
constant evaporation: held up the Punjab mail and got 22lbs. of ice to
put under his head: and so pulled him round in less than two hours. We
had to leave him at Jhansi though, and proceeded to Bombay forty-nine
strong.
The ten-little-nigger-boy process continued at Bombay. We arrived on
board on Monday morning: and though orders were formally issued that
nobody was to leave the docks without a pass, no attempt was made to
prevent the men spending the day in the town, which they all did.
On the Tuesday morning the crew told the men we should not be sailing
till Wednesday: and accordingly a lot of them went shopping again. But
for once in a way the ship actually sailed at the appointed time, 11
a.m. on Tuesday, and five of my gallant band were left behind. However
they were collected by the Embarkation Authorities, and together with
their fellow-victims of nautical inaccuracy from the other drafts were
sent up by special train to Karachi, where they rejoined us: the C.O.
according them a most unsympathetic reception, and sentencing them all
(rather superfluously) to Confinement to Barracks for the remainder of
the voyage.
There are no fewer than forty-one units on board this ship. They include
drafts from almost every Territorial Battalion in India, convalescents
rejoining the regular battalions already in Mesopotamia, and various
engineers and gunners. The ship is grossly overcrowded--1,200 on board
an ordinary 6,000 ton liner. The officers are very well off, though. She
is a bran-new boat, built for this very run (in anticipation of the
Baghdad Railway), with big airy cabins and all the latest improvements
in lights, fans and punkahs. There is nobody I know on board and though
they are quite a pleasant lot they don't call for special comment. The
C.O. is a genial major of the Norfolks. He did some star turns the first
two days. There was a heavy monsoon swell on, and the boat rolled so,
you could hardly stand up. However the Major, undaunted, paraded about a
score of men who had squeaked on to the ship after the roll-call at
Bombay. These were solemnly drawn up in a line as defaulters and
magisterially called to attention to receive judgment. On coming to
attention they over-balanced with the regularity of ninepins in a row:
and after three attempts the major had to harangue them standing
(nominally) at ease. Even so, his admonition was rather impaired by his
suddenly sitting down on the deck, and having to leave rather hurriedly
for his cabin before the peroration was complete.
We are just going through the Straits of Ormuz now: we saw the coast
of Persia on and off all to-day. We spent Thursday, by the bye, at
Karachi, an awful hole it looks--treeless and waterless and very much
the modern port. It reminds one strongly of Port Said, though not
_quite_ so repulsive: and there is a touch of Suez thrown in.
So far it has been quite cool, 84 to 86°: but we shall be beyond the
cloud-zone to-morrow and right inside the Gulf, so I expect it will
get hot now.
We expect to reach Basra on Tuesday evening. After that our movements
are wholly unknown to us.
The casualty lists just before we left were so dreadful that I am
rather dreading the moment when we see the next batch.
* * * * *
"H.M.S. VARSOVA,"
OFF FARS IS.
_August_ 22, 1915.
To R.K.
It is too warm to be facetious, and I have no letter of yours to
answer: so you will have to put up with a bald narrative of our doings
since I last wrote.
They gave us various binges at Agra before we left. A concerted effort
to make me tight failed completely: in fact of the plotters it could
be said that in the same bet that they made privily were their feet
taken.
We left on Saturday, 15th: fifty rank and file and myself. One had a
heat-stroke almost as soon as the train had started (result of
marching to the station at noon in marching order and a temperature of
96°) and we had an exciting hour in keeping his temperature below 109°
till we met the mail and could get some ice. We succeeded all right
and sent him safely to hospital at Jhansi. The rest of the journey was
cooler and uneventful.
We reached Bombay at 9.15 a.m. on Monday, and went straight on board.
The ship did not sail till next day and when it did they contrived to
leave thirty-two men behind, including five of mine.
This is a new and pleasant boat, almost 6,000 tons and fitted up with
every contrivance for mitigating heat. But there are far too many
persons on board: nearly 1,200: and as they simply can't breathe
between decks, the decks are as crowded as a pilgrim ship's. There are
over forty units represented: including drafts from about twenty-eight
T.F. battalions.
We had the devil of a swell the first two days, though luckily we hit
off a break in the monsoon. Anyway, Mothersibb preserved me from
sea-sickness: but in every other respect I felt extremely unwell. We
reached Karachi on the Thursday morning and stayed there all day. It
is a vile spot, combining the architectural features of a dock with
the natural amenities of a desert. The only decent spot was a Zoo and
even that had a generally super-heated air.
The thirty-two lost sheep turned up at Karachi, having been forwarded
by special train from Bombay. No fatted calf was killed for them: in
fact they all got fourteen days C.B. and three days pay forfeited;
though, as Dr. Johnson observed, the sea renders the C.B. part rather
otiose.
All Friday we coasted along Baluchistan and Persia. It is surprising
how big a country Persia is: it began on Friday and goes right up into
Europe. On Saturday we reached the Straits of Ormuz and to-day
(Sunday) we are well inside the Gulf, as the mention of Fars doubtless
conveyed to you.
It is getting pronouncedly hotter every hour. It was a quarter to one
when I began this letter and is now half-past twelve, which is the
kind of thing that is continually happening. Anyway the bugle for
lunch has just gone, and it is 96° in my cabin. I have spent the
morning in alternate bouts of bridge and Illingworth on Divine
Immanence: I won Rs three at the former: but I feel my brain is hardly
capable of further coherent composition until nourishment has been
taken. So goodbye for the present. It will take ages for this to reach
you.
* * * * *
"P.S.S. KARADENIZ,"
BASRA.
_Friday, August 27th_, 1915.