Pennies from Heaven and Charpoys.
Wiki tells me that 50,000 tons of shipping were destroyed, the same figure damaged. The ship's boiler came down half a mile away. What also came down were 120 ingots of gold bullion which the ship was carrying, each 28lbs weight and worth 90,000 Rupees (say £6000 then, the paper equivalent today is £300,000 - but with the appreciation in the value of gold, very much more).
These were scattered all round Bombay. Wiki records that one noble citizen handed in his find, and got a 10% reward. The other 119 bars disappeared (there's a surprise), and many were the tales I later heard about cases of sudden, new-found wealth in that fair city. I would imagine that the dock floor has been very carefully swept over the years, but you never know - a scuba diver might yet get lucky, although the bars would be buried in silt now.
Wartime India was indescribable and I will not waste time trying. except to say that tender souls wedded to European ideas of civic hygiene, sanitation and cleanliness in general, were in for a nasty culture shock. The only way to survive was to adapt, and that quickly. India then was still Kipling's Inda, locked in an Edwardian time-warp.
As always in War, a Transit camp came first. This one was in Worli, a few miles north up the coast from Bombay. If you must be dumped in India, December is just about the best month for weather. We lived in bamboo "bashas" (the 70's TV comedy "It's ain't half hot, Mum" showed them to perfection), and met the "charpoy".
This is the ubiquitous Indian native bed, simple, light, cheap and ideal for purpose. I will describe it at some length, as I slept on them for the next three years. (the name formed the root of the RAF word "charping" - the equivalent of the Army's "Egyptian PT" or the Navy's "Counting the Deckhead Rivets").
A rough wooden frame has coconut string woven criss-cross across it. Your bedding goes everywhere with you in a canvas bedroll. This you unroll on a charpoy and put a folded blanket down, with a folded sheet and your pillow on top. Now you're set up. Out with your mosquito net, and tie the tapes up to wires tight stretched across the basha, or - if you're on your own - to bamboo canes lashed to the charpoy legs. Tuck the bottoms of the net under the blanket (making sure a mossie hasn't got in while you're doing it), lift just enough of the net to get yourself in, tuck it in again, and you're safe from mossies and all the rest of the creepy-crawlies which share your life.
Except the bedbug. The roughly mortised joints of a charpoy make an ideal home for these pests. After dark they come out to feast on you. When you catch one and squash it, there is a strong (not unpleasant) smell of almonds and a blotch of your blood. The only way to de-bug a bed is to untie the string, knock all the joints apart, and dunk them in kerosene or petrol. Re-assembled, even without wedges, string tension will hold the joints together well enough, although the bed will wobble a bit.
There was a de-luxe version, called in the back-to-front nomenclature of the services a "Cot Newar". I don't know who or what Newar was - probably just a place name. The idea was the same, but the frame was planed smooth, the joints better fitting, and instead of the coconut string you had two-inch cotton webbing. These luxury items were to be found only in Messes in back areas like Delhi and Calcutta.
One day I came across a broken "Cot Newar" (that must have been quite a night) and liberated the webbing. A charpoy was easy to come by, string cut off and livestock evicted. The short bits (four legs plus two ends) stowed neatly in my cockpit between seat back and armour plate. The two long sides could be lashed to to the internal bomb racks each time we moved. The webbing rolled up in my bedroll. Thus equipped, I could rig up a bed in five minutes, and get a good night's sleep anywhere I landed.
The option in forward areas (no charpoys to be had) was the issue Camp Bed, but these are far too flimsy to last a month before the frame breaks or the canvas tears - usually because a couple of mates come in for a chat, and all sit on your bed. So there was much competition for the loan of my bed whenever I was off camp - obviously I couldn't take it with me if I wasn't flying (why no one copied the main idea, I don't know). I'm sure you could get the webbing in any bazaar - but as the need didn't arise until you got to the sharp end, they hadn't bothered.
All this was in the future. It was just before Christmas '42, and I was at Worli.
That's quite enough for the time being,
All the best, chaps.
Danny.
Thik hai, Sahib !
Last edited by Danny42C; 25th Apr 2012 at 20:24.
Reason: Add Title.