Danny and the Long March back from the Arakan.
Now that the brief day of the Vengeance was over, the idea seemed to be that they should be put "out of sight, out of mind" -as far away as possible on the subcontinent. The spot chosen was Samungli, a small airfield a few miles to the West of Quetta (in Baluchistan), and just about touching the SE Afghan border. My memory of those days is extremely hazy.
However, the distance involved was just short of 2,000 miles. How the air movenent was planned, I do not know, but would guess at two 300-350 mile stages per day with two overnight stops en route. It seems (from S/Ldr Thomas) that one British crew crashed on arrival and were killed, but I have no details, as I travelled on the main (rail) party (and there must have been an advance rail party to welcome the air party to their new home).
Why didn't I fly? - Don't know (could it be that there were not enough aircraft to go round, and as I'd pranged mine it would serve me right). I thought that we entrained at Chittagong, but S/Ldr Thomas says Dohazari, so I'll take that as read. For the next sixteen days my little world was our group of four in a train compartment. All RAF, we were the M.O. (very nice chap, name forgotten), F/O 'Pete' Ganthony (Signals), * the Engineer Officer (F/Lt Steele) and myself.
(Note *: After Samungli, I saw S/Ldr Ganthony just once more, close to death from a brain tumour in Halton hospital in 1959).
So where was Stew? We certainly didn't leave him behind, he was with me at Samungli, he must have basely deserted me and cadged a ride as supercargo on another aircraft.. Of course ! Stew was still a Warrant Officer; he couldn't have been with us (yes, it still mattered in those days). As an SNCO on the train, he would have been much less comfortable than the "Orficers", he must have squeezed himself into the back of a VV as the better option.
F/Lt Steele must have taken over the dog "Scruff" later at Samungli, and the dog must have given his bird-catching tour-de-force there (#2922 p.147), for he certainly wouldn't have been left behind, and he wasn't with us. This often happened, the original owner had to go home tour-ex, he couldn't take his dog on the troopship, the dog would have been the pet of the whole section/flight, so he was among friends, he would soon settle down with a new master he knew well already.
We started in some style. The East Bengal Railway had dusted off the Official Saloon of the Chief Operating Superintendent(ca 1880) for the Sahibs' use (have you seen Queen Victoria's Royal Coach in the York Railway Museum?). But we travelled in mahogany, crystal, chintz and polished brass only as far as the eastern ferry terminal somewhere in the Sunderbands. Then stern-wheel paddle boat again (might even have been the same one which had brought us from Khumbirgram six months before). Finally "bog-standard" first-class for the rest of the way.
And it was quite a way. The arithmetically minded reader will have worked out that we averaged 125 miles per day, and Puffing Billy could do better than that. The trouble was that the insertion of our (quite long) special troop train into the already crowded rail schedules was causing chaos. So for hours at a time they had to pull us off onto some siding or other to unscramble the blockage, before letting us back on the main line again. When we got into the northern and north-western areas, we were overrun with monkeys at some of these halts. We had to close all doors and just rely on fans and the louvred shutters to get a bit of air.
Food was never a problem on Indian railways, all ranks could always get something to eat at any station. S/Ldr (Corporal then) Thomas was under the impression that the IAF were left to fend for themselves, whereas the Sahibs were "fed on the train". Nobody was fed on the train; there was no such thing as a dining car on any Indian train I was ever on; the (far better) arrangement was that the train stopped at a station for half an hour or so while the passengers enjoyed a meal, then climbed back aboard.
Alcohol helped to relieve the tedium of the endless days, our M.O. reported that one ingenious solution found in the IAF coaches was meths and raisins shaken up in a bottle. We had prudently invested in a 4-gallon jar of "Carew's" gin (Rs 65, Rs 4 back on the jar) before we left. This is 24 bottles, six apiece for the sixteen days, so we should suffer little pain. The problem was the "chaser". For some reason, the supply of fruit cordials seemed to be concentrated over in the East. At first, we could buy bottles of squash at. shop price from the stations en route. Then they became scarcer, and we had to buy at "peg" price. Then they dried up altogether.
The resourceful M.O. sallied out into a local village with an IAF airman as interpreter, returning with a big bag of fresh limes. We had our mess tins, and the little burner, and plenty of sugar. Water was no problem. We cut the limes up and boiled them. The result was quite creditable: we could enjoy our "Collin's" again in the evenings; the cooled loco boiler water would be fairly sterile, even if the cooling had been done in a "chagal" * hung out of the moving train window.
(Note *: Canvas water-bag, water slowly seeps through, cools by evaporation).
At every long halt, a queue of men would form at the footplate steps with tin kettles, and anything that would serve as a kettle, to "milk" the loco and brew tea. The tap is at the bottom of the steps (might be worth knowing one day); the kindly (always Anglo-Indian) drivers didn't mind; the extra few gallons were neither here nor there at the next water stop. At about the fresh-lime stage, the train ran through the Sind desert and we clocked our best figure on the journey - 132 (F) late one afternoon (cf : "It ain't half hot, Mum !").
The last day on the train came to an end, that night we were to climb the Bolan Pass up to Quetta (I think we were double-headed now). The lime juice had been finished, fruit squash was unobtainable for love or money. Necessity is the mother, etc....... We looked around, there were still a couple of tins of "Carnation" milk.........it didn't taste at all bad, but I can't see it catching on commercially!
In the morning, we thought we'd died and gone to heaven (no, nothing to do with Carew's and tinned milk). Quetta is over 5,000 ft amsl; it is really a Hill Station; the temperature was hardly warmer than the English summers we used to know, and above all it was dry. There is no monsoon there. We were going to enjoy our stay.
All about Samungli next time,
Goodnight, all - (and a special "thanks" to Reader123 for the wonderful link about Pring and the Calcutta air raids; told me much I didn't know).
Danny42C
All in the day's work !