The Dongola left Southampton on the thirteenth, crammed with officers rejoining regiments in Egypt and India. Sammy Hinshelwood, and a few others from the West Kents who had been on leave, were also on board and the first days of the voyage out were passed in frenzied speculation about the possible length of the war and what role the West Kents would play in it, assuming it lasted long enough. As they sailed slowly across the Mediterranean the now familiar boredom began to infect them all. Interminable games of contract bridge were the main diversion, sessions starting at breakfast and lasting long into the night.
From time to time the odd wireless message brought snippets of news of the progress of the war in Europe: the German advance through Belgium, the fall of Liège, the disastrous French attack in Lorraine, the battle of Mons. The sense of frustration at missing out was acute. But there were no mails at Gibraltar (they were not even allowed off the ship) and none waiting at Port Said either. As they neared Port Said the weather became noticeably hotter. Awnings were stretched over all available deck space and most of the officers forsook their cramped cabins to sleep on deck during the night. Gabriel, fortunately, had a cork mattress that he could lie on and so passed the night in some comfort. The others had to make do with blankets, or at best a deckchair. One break in the routine occurred when they were all inoculated against smallpox and yellow fever. Gabriel was incapacitated for two days with a high temperature.
It took the Dongola a week to chug through the Red Sea. The thermometer rose to 114° (140° in the stoke hold) and everyone went about stark naked at night in an attempt to keep cool. “Just as well there are no ladies on board,” Gabriel said to Sammy Hinshelwood one evening as they picked their way through naked bodies towards their mattresses. “On the contrary,” Hinshelwood laughed, “it’s a great shame.” That night as they lay side by side Hinshelwood talked for a long time about sex. About a girl he knew, a tart he’d picked up at the Adelphi theatre. Gabriel lay beside him, uneasy and embarrassed. Hinshelwood made some coarse jokes about his interrupted honeymoon, and described Charis as ‘a truly charming girl’. Gabriel made no response, but the muted talk of women made him excited and he had to roll onto his stomach to conceal his arousal.
One of the stewards died of heatstroke in the Red Sea. Gabriel attended the small religious service and watched as the weighted body was tipped into the water with a forlorn splash. Gabriel found that the death depressed him unusually. He found his thoughts continually on the armies in Europe and the war ahead. One night somebody said that a quarter of the troops would surely be killed. That gave each individual a one in four chance, Gabriel thought. Even when it was figured as personally as that Gabriel found, to his vague surprise, that the idea of war seemed even more exciting.
After the Red Sea the Indian Ocean was cooler. However the Dongola caught the tail end of the monsoon season and rolled and pitched the rest of the way to Bombay. Everyone on board suffered terribly from seasickness. Often there were two hundred or more men leaning over the leeward side of the ship being sick into the sea. The sides of the Dongola became streaked and spattered with dried vomit and the faint acid smell of sick hung in every corridor and companionway.
They arrived in Bombay after a twenty-six-day voyage. Gabriel and Hinshelwood were given instructions to proceed directly to the regiment at Rawalpindi. “I’m damned if I’m getting straight on a train after a month in that accursed ship!” Hinshelwood swore. He and Gabriel booked in to the Taj Hotel for a night. They bathed, had two enormous meals and went shopping. The next morning they boarded the train at Bombay Station and spent a dusty, but tolerably comfortable, fifty hours crossing the Punjab to Rawalpindi.
For two weeks life regained its sense of composure. News of the German retreat to the Aisne caused great belligerent excitement. Gabriel returned to a means of existence that he had known before his marriage. Except on this occasion there was no Charis nearby. Nor was there much time for entertainment of any sort as the Regiment was busily preparing itself for embarkation. The main Indian expeditionary force for the European theatre was in the process of being despatched, and in addition two subsidiary forces were being raised. One was for the Persian Gulf and one for the invasion of German East Africa. Rumour had it that the West Kents would be embarking for Europe in early October, but no one was sure. Gabriel thought it was typical of the army’s Byzantme reasoning to send him all the way to India just to send him back to Europe. It was, he later realized, equally typical of the army to decide that, of all the officers in the regiment, he was the one chosen not to accompany it. The fateful Movement Order telegram arrived from headquarters in Simla. It informed him that he was being ‘attached’ to the 69th Palamcottah Light Infantry, who were due to embark for East Africa in mid October as part of Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’.
East Africa! The Palamcottah Light Infantry! Gabriel’s disappointment was bitter and acute. A third-rate Indian regiment from the little-regarded Bangalore Brigade in Madras. His prompt protestations and appeals had no effect. His colleagues sympathized but their patience over his relentless moaning and complaints was limited. Sammy Hinshelwood reminded him that the West Kents could end up guarding the Suez Canal and that at least Gabriel could be sure of some action before the war ended.
So, for the second time in a month Gabriel crossed the Punjab, but on this occasion, as if cruelly to remind him how his plans had gone awry, the journey took ninety hours. He shared the train with a hospital unit full of Indian sub-assistant surgeons and with dozens of coolies and bearers. They, it transpired, were are going to East Africa; but the British doctors seemed quite content with their lot. A place called Nairobi, they said: apparently the climate was superb. Gabriel spent most of the journey in a corner of the crowded compartment (the fan wasn’t working) trying to read a book. The doctors repeatedly congratulated themselves on their good luck. All they seemed to care about, Gabriel reflected, was the weather. One day they spent a full ten hours motionless in a railway siding with nothing to eat or drink except some petit beurre biscuits and warm soda water.
Gabriel’s spirits had been set in a decline ever since he’d received the news of his transfer. At the barracks in Bombay they took another plunge when he was united with his new battalion. The 69th Palamcottah Light Infantry hadn’t seen active service since the Boxer rebellion in 1900, which battle order for that campaign hung proudly in the mess. A little inquiry on Gabriel’s part provided him with the information that the Palamcottahs had in fact only got as far as Hong Kong.
There they had been pressed into service with a regiment of Army Pioneers and had made roads for nine months, an activity for which they had shown a surprising efficiency and which had earned them an official commendation from the Governor of the colony.
It was small consolation also when it turned out that the Palamcottahs were so undermanned and ill-prepared that six other officers, apart from Gabriel, had been separated from their official regiments to bring the battalion up to something like operational strength. The seven new boys swiftly formed a circle of malcontents in the mess, ignoring and being ignored by the regulars. Gabriel was the last to arrive and was happy to contribute his own grumbles to the dark mutterings that continually preoccupied the disaffected group.