ECK PASSAGE TO INDIA

By GRAHAM HEATH HE camp bed had been bought second-hand in the bazaar, and was neither clean nor in good repair, but I clutched t tightly under my arm as I went up the ship's gangway. If it .d 't been for Miller I should have lost it already in the ale at the dock gates. (Miller, an American, is in oil, and ieo le who are " in oil " can work things in Basra.) Deck passengerg•aft, please." The Indian purser waves us owards the back of the ship. Indians everywhere—stewards, .ilors, passengers. A steward calls me " Sahib " pronounc- i g it " Saab "), and I feel a sudden thrill. We are leaving the rab world and entering the mysterious East, the world of of Tagore, of Yoga. . . .

Cabins all booked up. Deck passage, with European food, -ven pounds." The shipping agent's clerk had been con- esc nding ; there are too many people coming through Basra, ying to get away from the war. We stake a place on the deck or our beds and spread out our belongings.

Two Americans look up from a game of cards: " You folks going through to Bombay?"

" Cn my way back to the States," says Miller.

So are we. God-awful hulk this, ain't it? Beats me how ritishers have the nerve to run a thing like this."

War conditions, you know," I remark.

Hell, you're telling me! We've just come through from aifa and we know. But this boat has everything beat. Thank od my wife's got a cabin, anyway."

On the deck behind him are two huge trunks labelled: Rosalie and Louis, American Novelty Dance Act."

Back to the card game. Two piastres a hundred. There is smell of cooking. A party of four well-to-do Indians are ;fling round a brazier, preparing their supper. They are oing to do themselves comfortably on the voyage, squatting n handsome rugs and mats, beside them bags of rice, a coop f live chickens, and a sack of coke. Nearby are two grave Id Indians with short, scrubby beards, talking, talking, their ces scarcely twelve inches 'apart. What are they discussing?

ven if I understood their language I should never understand em, for they have an air of detachment as if they are thinking d reasoning on planes beyond the ken of a mere European. should like to live in India, learn to understand the Indian ind . . A small girl sits and picks lice out of the hair of her• other, who is lying asleep. In a corner an old man is being aved by a barber, both sitting cross-legged. Other Indians ecely sit and gaze, wrapped in their own thoughts. This is 'deed the East, mysterious, fascinating. "The ship is moving down the estuary, but there is no breeze relieve the oppressive heat. You don't have breezes in the

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Persian Gulf, Miller says ; you just perspire. A party of Hungarian Jews, emigrants to Australia, are leaning on the rail, fat and hot. There is a young Polish refugee too, plump, bespectacled, and half hidden under an enormous topee, several sizes too large for him, from under which he peers out anxiously, like a caricature of " Darkest Africa." A tall lean Indian has unrolled a mat and knelt down to pray. Must be a Mahommedan, as he faces towards Mecca. But the ship is turning round, and he finds difficulty in keeping his direction right.

Supper for deck passengers is served in the hold. Mutton and potatoes. The drinking water is warm. The atmosphere is stiflingly hot. We remove our shirts and sit over the food with the sweat glistening on our backs. " I'm beginning to understand why they won't have white women travel ' deck ' on these boats," Miller remarks. Indians all round the supper table are washing and preparing for the night. Shouts of " Cold water! Bring us cold water!" from ' Louis' and his companion Ringer, and unintelligible but violent commands from the Hungarians. The Indian waiters, with infinite patience, but with a limited understanding of English, minister to the requirements of the white " sahibs."

Ringer is a journalist from the Balkans, going back to the States; on the way he will " cover " Gandhi, and possibly also the war in China. He talks Balkan politics knowingly until reduced to silence by the unblinking gaze of an Indian squatting on a bale at the other end of the hold ; he has been staring fixedly during the whole meal.

" Why in hell must that feller keep staring me down like that? Gives me the creeps."

The night on deck is hot and oppressive, thick with humanity. It was cool in Bagdad on the roof of the hotel, sleeping under the stars, with the wash of the Tigris below. . . . But that was days back. Blue sea and blue sky, the sun already high. The two bearded Indians already deep in argument. Down be.ow in the hold there is mutton and potatoes for breakfast. Mutton and potatoes. The Hungarians are looking uneasy ; " No rolls? No coffee?" The waiters are puzzled. " Yes, sahib.

No, sahib." There is tea out of an enamel jug, with milk and sugar already added. The ship's butcher appears, dragging down the companion-way a live sheep, which he kills and skins in full view of our breakfast table, adding to the already over- loaded orchestration of smells and sounds.

" Aw, hell! I can't take it." Louis retires to the deck. The " starer " is already at his post, his gaze fixed intently on Ringer.

The ship ambles from port to port down the Gulf, past oil- refineries and pearl-fisheries, bum-boats offering bananas and water-melons, natives diving for coins. Ringer and Louis still playing cards. The fattest Hungarian has bought more bananas. " I haf eat one hundert banana." He mops his brow with a large green handkerchief. The sun scorches down on the canvas awnings, and the exposed parts of the deck are too hot for the bare feet. But Miller has warned us against bare feet anyway, because he's reading Mother India, and is afraid of tapeworms. Up on the distant " cabin " deck the fortunate few are sipping iced water aid lager beer, and gazing down on the jumble of humanity below. Louis has tried already to join his wife up there, but the stewards turned him off ; no room for deck-passengers. " Say, is this your idea of democracy?"

The smell of curry and rancid fat is becoming all-pervading ; Indians are cooking their meals in every corner of the boat. Can't one have the glamour of the East without these smells? And the staring eyes, unmoving, impassive. Makes you feel like an exhibit. Have they no books to read, no games to play?

Eight days out from Basra, and we have left the Gulf ; a slight swell on the waters of the Indian ocean ; the Hungarians are prostrate, bananas dropped listlessly. Ringer and Louis flat on their backs but still playing cards. The smell of rancid fat stronger than ever. And the staring, the endlessly gazing eyes. A few more days on this boat and I shall hate all Indians, all Europeans, all Americans.

It must be the heat.