Pilgrim Son: A Personal Odyssey Read Online Free Page A

have to pay for all of it, I muttered, and went off to enlist the help of the Financial Adviser to G.H.Q. This was Mr Mohammed Ali, later Prime Minister of Pakistan — a brilliant financier and civil servant, a tough watchdog over the country's money, but always a helpful guide to us simple soldiers through the mazes of his speciality; and a gentleman. Mohammed Ali patted me on the shoulder, laughing, and said, 'Next time, come to me before you mention costs to the civil side.'
    The winds heralding political change began to blow through G.H.Q. For many years the Commander-in-Chief had been the head of the Defence Department, and a Member of the Viceroy's Council. Now an interim provisional government was formed, and Mr Nehru agreed to accept the Department of Defence. His long political struggle had pitted the army against him for most of his life, and I think he expected to find that was just another organism designed to further British interests and retain power as long as possible. I know he was relieved and surprised to find that he was mistaken. The Auk had always been a strong and dedicated advocate of early independence for India and from his example all of us took immense pains to separate India's interests from Britain’s in the problems that came to us. Several times, especially on financial matters, we received blasts from London to the effect that we seemed to be treating Britain as a hostile power; but we were not, we were simply pressing India's interests, as we saw them, against anyone else's, including Britain's. I did not find this difficult, for India seemed more home-like to me than Britain did. My family had worked here for 150 years. I was the fifth generation to serve here, as part of the British overlordship. All those years were coming to a head now, and at last one of us had reached the centre of power, at a time when that power would be real, total, and here, not delegated by distant politicians elected by unconcerned and uninformed strangers. I could never be Indian, of course, but surely I could go on serving, as I had served already. Life would go on as before: two or three years in Delhi, then back to the regiment; long leave to England, short leave trekking in the Himalayas. Perhaps we could take Susan next time. (But Barbara was pregnant, the child due in July, 1946.) Sunday lunches of lamb pilao, dal, curried vegetables, pink gins before; and afterwards a sleep on the grass under a tree while Susan crawled over us and the kitten crawled over Susan; dances at the club, old jokes, old friends, British and Indian...
    Sam Lewis came up to me one evening in the club. He was some years older than I, and a personal friend of the Chief's. He said, 'I was having lunch with the Auk yesterday. He mentioned you and I told him you were going to be a future Commander-in-Chief.'
    'What did he say?' I asked, while Barbara glanced at me with a look of quizzical pride.
    'He said, "So I have heard... if there is such an appointment by then. And if he becomes an Indian." '
    I went home in a thoughtful mood. Whether I attained two, three, four or five stars was not at that time a sensible thing to worry about. What was important was the prospect put into perspective by the Auk's words. The Indian Army was the outgrowth of forces first raised in 1695 by the Honourable East India Company and in 1859 placed under the British Crown when John Company was wound up. The enlisted men (other ranks) had always been Indian. The officers had all been British until 1919, when the first Indianization programme began. By now we were about half and half. In peacetime the whole of the Indian Army was stationed in India, together with British Army troops hired from the London government to help defend India against foreign attack and internal dissension. When India became independent it was obvious that the British Army troops would be asked to leave as soon as possible. The Auk's political sense told him that the same invitation