Memoir of the Career of Thomas Edward Rogers [‎21r] (41/118)

Three years later the same itch for travel led me to race the Delhi Mail
over the nine hundred and thirty miles to Delhi from Calcutta. This meant
continuous driving for 26 hours on crowded roads and through hundreds of towns
and villages. My average speed would have to be about 35 miles an hour. This
was feasible if I more or less went without sleep and made up with faster night
driving for the slow pace of the day when I would have to weave the car through
a close-packed warp of mainly pedestrians and bullock carts. I had with me my
. VV . , .
India Police colleague's driver to help with roadside repairs and look after the
car if it broke down. For the Mail's arrival in Delhi was also a near deadline
for me to keep an important appointment.
I drove off from Howrah station as the Delhi Mail pulled out with a staccato
blast of steam. Looking back I see I could hardly have won the race without risk
to Indian life or limb as I should have known who felt that Ben Kindersley, my
District Magistrate drove too fast through the Mymensigh bazaar. But I was
leading the train at the 300 mile mark and getting up a little speed at times as
night reduced traffic on the still crowded road. Suddenly I ran into a pile of
bricks shed by the swaying action of a bullock cart just ahead whose driver had
dozed off and left the going to his beasts. The damage was not great but crucial
a punctured radiator. If I was not to give up my appointment, and in any case I
could not now outstrip the Mail, I had to abandon the race. I begged a lift to
the nearest railway station and climbed aboard my competitor. With hindsight I
half condemn this youthful joy-ride and half defend it as compulsive flight from
the cramping official cage.
My first Political posting was on the external side as Vice-Consul at the /
Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. Residency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, established in the provinces and regions considered part of, or under the influence of, British India. , Bushire from which all our posts in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. were
supervised: Khorramshahr, Kuwait, Bahrein, the Trucial Coast A name used by Britain from the nineteenth century to 1971 to refer to the present-day United Arab Emirates. and Muscat. In mid-
July, 1941 a BOAC 'C' class flying-boat lifted me off the Hooghly to set me down