"There was a Fool, and he made his prayer,
(Even as you or I)
To a rag, a bone and a hank of hair,
But the Fool, he called it his 'Lady Fair',
(Even as you or I")
(Kipling: The Vampire)
[extract from - but it wasn't as bad as that]
Why me ? I wasn't much of an Adonis, even then, and certainly no Fred Astaire (as Mrs D would feelingly testify). Perhaps it was that I was in command of our little group, and power is supposed to be an attraction. And I have often noticed how it is, that when a girl's Good Fairy has made her unusually attractive, the Bad Fairy will endow her with a hopeless taste in men. For whatever reason: "
Danny's the boy I'm crazy about" murmered June to the Friend,
sotto voce, one night in the Club. Danny (just within earshot) lapped it up (
Even as you or I).
You must not imagine steamy nights under the mossie net. It was Not Done in those days - certainly not on such short acquaintance. The Permissive Society was still twenty years in the future. It was all very innocent and decorous. For a start, we were always in the crowd at the Club, the hotel or in the Mess, but never alone. (And there were weightier bulwarks against any hanky-panky).
On her part, June knew all too well that she was deep in the social mire of British India. The very last thing she needed was yet another tin can tied to her tail. And I had been brought up a devout Catholic. "
You can take a boy out of a seminary: you cannot take the Seminary out of the Boy" (you can, actually, one such, Josef Djugasvili by name, is rather better known as Stalin).
So in my case:
"His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true"
(Tennyson: Lancelot and Elaine).
In my ample free time (for now I'd farmed out all my routine tasks to one or another of my supernumeraries), and together with the rest of my people without duties that day, we played tennis at the Club, or swam and surfed off the Club beach (she swam like a fish). After tiffin at the hotel (the Club being too small to cater), we'd laze the afternoons away until the sun was low in the western sky, swim again, then lounge in "planter's chairs" on the Club verandah with our sundowners, watching the silent coasting dhows sliding across a golden sea until sunset.
Then she'd return to her hotel, we back to the Mess, for the invariable evening ritual - shower, change into clean KD (in her case, long-sleeved shirt or blouse and slacks). Later we'd rejoin her at the Club for a quiet noggin before dinner in the hotel, or took her back to the Mess with us.
Full dark now, we'd return to the Club, dance to a wind-up gramophone, played skittles or, (most popular of all), endless games of "l
iar dice" * round the horseshoe bar far into the night. There were moonlight parties on the beach, where she'd dance, "
flashing sea-fires in her wake" # (dripping with fluorescencse) out of the warm Arabian sea.
# (Kipling: Song of the Wise Children)
*
The Prince of Bar Counter games, (it also has the effect of greatly slowing down the rate of drinking).
Christmas had come early that year.
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