Page 73 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)
I t was February before Adela finally reached India again.
They had spent a month in North Africa on the way, entertaining at military hospitals and desert camps, before taking the train to the end of the Suez Canal and embarking at Port Tewfik on SS Port Ellen .
It was a small ship carrying parts for Spitfires and Hurricanes, with only a couple of hundred passengers, mainly American airmen and Royal Navy personnel.
Their passage on a large troop carrier through the Mediterranean in December had been anxious– a ship carrying ENSA members had been torpedoed two months earlier– but Adela felt no such fear as they steamed across the Red Sea to meet a naval escort at Aden.
The sight of porpoises and flying fish leaping from the azure sea had quickened her excitement for the East and quelled any nerves at their daily emergency boat drill and submarine watch.
How she wished Josey had been with her to share her excitement, but her friend had come down with pneumonia on the eve of departure and was still convalescing in Newcastle at Tilly’s.
With huge disappointment, Adela had gone without her.
Prue, however, had been enjoying the attention of an American airman called Stuey, with whom she played regular deck tennis and cards.
She and Adela had slept out on deck under the stars so that Prue could chat late into the night with Stuey.
Adela had lain restless, wondering if she would be able to get to Belgooree during the tour.
And now she had this new quest on behalf of Marjory Jackman to put her in touch with Sam, which gave Adela an excuse to discover what had become of him.
Her greatest fear was that Sam had settled down somewhere with Pema and begun a family.
But she had to know; not knowing was ten times worse.
Lying on the warm deck, she would be beset by old doubts; Sam’s feelings had never been as strong as hers, and once he knew her shameful secret, even those feelings might be blighted.
Adela clung to the thought of getting back home; Belgooree would be a balm on her sore heart. And there was the joyous possibility of seeing her beloved Auntie Sophie.
Rafi had been seconded to timber production for the forces and was based at the Gun Carriage Factory in Jubbulpore.
Even though he travelled all over India sourcing timber and inspecting factory production, Sophie had set up temporary home in the garrison town.
Prue’s parents were also still living there, and the two friends had talked excitedly about the likelihood of them getting to see their loved ones.
But by the time the tugboats and small islands around Bombay hove into view, Prue’s talk was only of her romance with Stuey.
She declared she was head over heels in love with the airman from North Carolina and that they were unofficially engaged until Stuey could seek her father’s approval.
‘I predict that will be the first of many plightings of troth for our dear Prue,’ Tommy said dryly, tapping out his pipe. He had taken to smoking one since leaving London; even though he didn’t like the taste, he thought it made him look distinguished.
‘God this place pongs!’ cried Mavis. ‘Worse that the fish quay in Grimsby.’
The city was teeming with servicemen in uniform, alongside the brilliant colours of sari-wearing women and the dazzling white suits of high-caste Hindus.
Mavis was full of complaints about the state of the dingy and overcrowded hostel where they were billeted.
Adela took her out sightseeing before Tommy choked on his pipe with exasperation.
But the things that were endearingly familiar to Adela– the oily smells of cooking, and the red spit from paan chewing that spattered the ground – caused Mavis to squeal with horror and retreat indoors.
Mavis had the knack of irritating others without realising it.
Tommy couldn’t forgive her for ruining their first show in Egypt; it was only then that they had discovered she sang out of tune.
After that, Tommy had ordered her to mime the words to all The Toodle Pips’ songs, while Betsie, one of the ukulele players, sang off stage on her behalf.
They hardly saw Prue for three days while she spent snatched hours with Stuey, eating ice cream at the Taj Mahal Hotel and going to dances.
Then the troupe was boarding a train for Lahore, and Prue was saying a tearful goodbye to her American fiancé.
From Lahore they travelled by truck along dusty roads to Rawalpindi and stayed in Flashman’s Hotel while they gave two performances every day for a week to the many servicemen billeted in the army town.
Every night they were entertained at mess parties and plied with whisky while the officers gossiped and asked for news of home.
The next month was spent in the north of India.
They toured the tribal territory of the North-West Frontier under an armed escort of Sikh soldiers in a convoy of lorries that kept breaking down.
Adela and Prue wore bandanas to keep the dust off their hair, and Mavis moaned about her feet swelling in the heat.
‘Call this heat?’ Tommy derided. ‘This is a spring picnic. Wait till we get to Calcutta and Bengal– fires of hell. That’s when you’ll really start to melt.’
The days were hot in the rocky, barren hills around Peshawar, but the nights were still cool.
They performed to pilots training with the Indian Air Force, to Gurkha soldiers and British conscripts.
The paratroopers at one remote camp made so much noise with rude comments and ribald laughter that they could hardly hear themselves sing.
‘ENSA– Every Night Something Awful!’ one shouted out when the juggler dropped his batons for the third time.
They mocked the impressionist and booed the ukuleles. At his wits’ end, Tommy sent The Toodle Pips back on again, which received rousing cheers.
‘Think I prefer the officers’ wives knitting in the front row at Rawalpindi to this lot,’ Mavis panted, her face beetroot red and her blonde wig awry after a final encore.
They travelled on to Risalpore, where they played to RAF audiences.
Then March came and they moved up into the hills around Murree.
Leaving the plain, with its walled villages, temples and bullocks, they climbed steep, winding roads surrounded by thick emerald-green bushes.
As they gained altitude quickly, Adela felt a jolt of familiarity.
She leant out of the truck window and breathed in the sweet scent of pine and was transported back to Simla.
Arriving in the hill station of Murree, Adela was struck by how similar it was to her former home in the British-Indian capital.
Wooden bungalows, hotels and shops were strung out along a ridge, which was milling with rickshaws, the road being closed to motor traffic.
It too had a Cecil Hotel, with dizzying views over a sheer drop away to the distant hazy blue plain, and a bazaar spilling down the hillside that throbbed with activity and noise in the rarefied air.
The chalet where they were staying, with its flight of wooden steps up from the hotel lawn and the glimpse of Himalayan mountains beyond the fir trees, reminded Adela nostalgically of her home with Fluffy Hogg.
Her eyes smarted to think of her carefree life with her kind guardian.
Fluffy had kept in touch by occasional letter.
From her she knew that Sundar Singh had distinguished himself in North Africa fighting the Italians and that Boz had re-joined the army and was training mortar gunners.
Fatima was still at the hospital in Simla, working all hours.
But there had never been any more news of Sam or where he had gone.
Adela stood on the veranda, gazing at the peaks of Kashmir, and felt anew the sharp tug of longing for Sam Jackman.
She was older and wiser than the impulsive seventeen-year-old who had fallen so deeply for the handsome former steam captain that heady spring of ’38, but her feelings for him had not abated.
Despite the intervening years and the separation of continents, she knew she still loved him– and now back in India, that love flared ever stronger.
It had taken just the sweet smell of pines and the sight of snowy peaks to conjure up Sam’s lean smiling face and vital eyes, his deep laughter and passionate talk.
From the breast pocket of her uniform, Adela drew the photograph of her with Sam at Narkanda. It was creased and dog-eared from use, but the image of Sam still set her heart hammering.
‘Where are you, Sam?’ she whispered.
Adela vowed to herself that she would not leave India a second time without knowing what had happened to him.
‘Dancing up here is worse than the heat,’ Mavis gasped. ‘You can’t catch your breath.’
Her litany of complaints had gone on all month as they ventured to outlying camps.
They travelled up hairpin bends, where the narrow road was sometimes washed away, and had to clamber out of vehicles while their drivers negotiated the ruts and avoided toppling into ravines.
At other times they had to squeeze past oncoming local buses, with only inches to spare above dizzying drops.
One evening, as the temperature plummeted their truck skidded and slewed towards the cliff edge.
The driver ordered them all out as he fought for traction and managed to regain the bend.
‘Got nerves of steel, these Indian laddies,’ accordionist Mack said in admiration.
‘They’re hopeless mechanics,’ Mavis retorted. ‘The motor vehicles are always breaking down.’
‘Well, go by bloody mule then!’ Prue snapped. ‘There’s a war on and we’re not priority. They do their best.’