Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750–1914. Richard Holmes
on the fort with admirable precision’ and then, as Lieutenant Martin Neill of the 40th recalled:
The Admiral and Brigadier landed in the evening to inspect the scene of their triumph after which they returned, accompanied by [Lieutenant] Colonel Powell [commanding officer of the 40th] to enjoy a comfortable dinner, while we small fry amused ourselves planting picquets.70
Soldiers bound for the garrison at Karachi faced a protracted journey. Steamers from Bombay anchored a mile offshore and passengers had to land from shallow-draught boats: it was another mile by carriage to Karachi itself. There was not much to Karachi even when you arrived, and a generous assessment of the Sind Club in 1890 suggested that although its denizens ‘“swear” by their whisky … by constantly using the same spirit without any change, the palate loses to a great extent its power of appreciation’. It would not be until the First World War, when the Mesopotamia campaign greatly increased the traffic through the port, that Karachi would really come of age.
By the 1880s Bombay was the base for one of the two lines of communication running up to the North-West Frontier. One followed the line of the Grand Trunk Road from Calcutta to Lucknow and Peshawar, and the other ran from Bombay to Mhow and Quetta. Many battle-wounded soldiers bound for Britain came through Bombay, and on the railway north-east of the city were the barracks and military hospital at Deolali. The latter was the last leg in the evacuation of men whose nerves had given way under the influence of drink, climate and danger, and the nervous tics of its patients gave rise to the expression ‘doolally tap’. Private Frank Richards observed that Deolali was the depot where British soldiers whose enlistment terms had expired awaited a troopship home (the ‘trooping season’ then ran from October to March):
The time-expired men at Deolalie had no arms or equipment; they showed kit now and again and occasionally went on a route-march, but time hung heavily on their hands and in some cases men who had been exemplary soldiers got into serious trouble and were awarded terms of imprisonment before they were sent home.
The practice of holding men at Deolali was abolished while Richards was in India, and thereafter they went straight to ports of embarkation. 71
It was Bombay’s importance as India’s chief military port that led to construction of the symbolic Gateway to India that looks eastwards across the harbour. Planned to celebrate the accession of George V as King Emperor, it was designed, in Anglo-Saracenic style, by George Wittet: its final plans were accepted in that momentous month, August 1914. Its symbolism would continue until the very end of the Raj with the last British unit to leave India, 1st Battalion the Somerset Light Infantry (the old HM’s 13th Light Infantry of Jelalabad fame), departing from the gateway on 28 February 1948.
B EHIND THE MAJOR PORTS lay the expanse of India, the mofussil, the vast and varied world of districts, country stations and cantonments. To a citizen of Calcutta the mofussil was anywhere in Bengal apart from his own city. But to an inhabitant of a sudder or chief station, the mofussil was the rural localities of his own area. Thus to an inhabitant of Benares, the mofussil was anywhere out of the city and station of Benares.72 In most colonial slang there was a term that meant the same: the bled in French North Africa or the ulu in Malaya: the great unseen hinterland, shimmering or steaming behind the coast. The soldiers who arrived at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay set off into this by river boat, rail or, for the first century of British rule, simply on their feet. Regiments, British and Indian, crawled across the mofussil in marching columns like a great torrent of soldier ants. There was no clear break between the great martial caravanserais of old princely India and the armies of the Raj. Assistant Surgeon John Dunlop watched a British army on the move in 1848, but we might almost subtract a century or two.
The usual calculation is that for every fighting man in the high-caste Bengal army there are five servants or noncombatants: and in a Bombay force, where the caste is generally lower, there are about three camp followers to every fighting man. Consequently, at the lowest calculation, the two divisions moving towards Mooltan, numbered in all nearly 20,000 human beings; with from twelve to fifteen thousand camels, besides elephants, horses, mules and bullocks. The procession usually formed by this enormous cortege, is thus described by Lieutenant Colonel Burlton … :
First comes a bevy of elephants, noble-looking animals, laden with the tents of the European soldiers; then follow long strings of government camels, carrying the spare ammunition and the tents of the native troops. Then again, we have more government camels carrying hospital stores, wines, medicines, quilts, beds, pots and pans of all sorts and sizes. Imagine, for a moment, a county infirmary, or rather its contents live and dead, stock, furniture and stores, to be removed daily, some ten, twelve or fifteen miles on the backs of camels, and you will have some faint idea of this very small portion of our baggage …
Another long string of Government camels, carrying the day’s supply of grain for the cavalry and artillery horses comes next, as well as what are called troop stores, viz horse-clothing, head and heel ropes, pickets, nose bags, spare shoes etc. The supply of grain for one day, for 8,000 horses, would require 200 camels for its conveyance. And now comes the private baggage; the tents of the ‘sybarite’ officers; the spare clothing, blankets, pots and pans of the soldiers, European and Native.73
Unless there was a vital operational necessity, it was important not to march during the heat of the day, and armies often broke camp while it was still dark. But whatever the hour, the procedure was the same. Captain Innes Munro was in Eyre Coote’s army in 1780:
The first [drum-] ruffle is no sooner made by the senior corps in camp than there is a general stir throughout the whole army. The lascars knock down the tent pins; the dubash prepares breakfast for his master; the cook boils water for tea; the coolies pick up their loads; the soldiers are warming up some curry and rice and receiving their morning drams; the carriage bullocks are brought up from the rear; down fall the tents like trees in a forest yielding to the stroke of the woodcutter. While the officers finish their breakfast some cold meat is packed up for the march. By this time also swarms of the black race have kindled blazing fires in every corner of the camp, and such of those connexions as had agreed the night before to keep company on the line of march are now heard, man, woman and child, bellowing aloud each other’s names in the most discordant sound.
The assembly now beats off, and, breakfast over, the tents are packed upon the bullocks’ backs, as are the rice and other public stores; the baggage is mounted upon the coolies’ heads, the officers’ foot boys sling their brandy bottle, a tumbler, and an earthen pot of cool water, carrying also a chair or camp stool upon each of their heads. The soldiers are by this time fallen into their ranks, and all the officers attend, when the horse-keepers are ordered to bring up the horses to the rear of the regiment. The pickets having joined, all the drums of the army strike up the march, and the whole line steps off, the followers with the baggage being commanded to keep upon the most convenient flank of the army; but this last order is very rarely obeyed, for the baggage and multitude extend to such a length and depth that the whole line, which generally marches by files, becomes a perfect convoy.74
In the hot-weather season the march started very early indeed. On the advance to Multan, John Clark Kennedy reported that:
The weather is intensely hot, and we are like the birds that fly by night. Reveille sounds at midnight. Everyone rubs his eyes and calls for his bearer. A hurried word, a biscuit and something to drink. We assemble as best we can in the dark. The generals take their places and then, after an hour of seeming confusion, tents being struck, camp followers making an awful noise, camels doing ditto, we are on the march …
Our route has been marked out by heaps of earth by the sappers who have gone on ahead the day before with the Q[uarter] M[aster] G[eneral]. When the bugle sounds