'A Grandfather's Tale: Memoirs being mainly concerned with service in the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service in India and the Persian Gulf from 1932-1947' [‎23r] (45/118)

turmoil I rmd to return the thousand miles by rail, across country, to
Rajkot. Three weeks later on June 8 th I repeated the journey in the
opposite direction back to Kathgodam and thence up the hill by car to
Naim. This time I stayed in a Hotel and kept a low profile Lough I
saw as much of Jane as possible in the interyals of her "fittings" and
other last minute preparations. She was then just twenty and I twenty-
seven. In the ena all went very well on the 1?th June and our main
difficulty was in breaking away from the Reception after the wedding.
Normally in Naim only the Governor and the General were allowed to use
cars, but we were given special dispensation to drive in Ian Macrae's
car to Showali, a tiny little place a few miles out of Naini, where we
spent our three days' honeymoon.
After^that back to Naini for one night and then on the 21st June
we were chauffeur driven in great luxury down to Delhi in Ian's car.
This was a two hundred mile journey involving crossing the Ganges by ferry
at Garhmuktesar. The following morning we went by light aircraft the four
hundred miles from Delhi to Lahore. It was only a three-seater, including
the pilot who was^dashing young Muslim. All went well until about fifty
miles from Lahore we ran into a duststorm and the pilot had not the least
idea where he was going. It was extremely bumpy and poor Jane had to
use my best (and only) mufti soft hat for a basin. We circled round and
round m the vicinity of Lahore for forty minutes and then in desperation
came down very low a nd picked up a railway line and by following this
eventually located the aerodrome. There we landed safely and after cleaning
ourselves up and disposing of my hat, we had a belated lunch, and then
ooarded another small aircraft to fly the remaining seven hundred odd miles
to Karachi. This was a slightly more powerful machine and the pilot this
time was a very charming Hindu. We were again the only passengers though
there was one spare seat. No one else, I think, was mad enough to travel
by air at that time of year, just before the Monsoon, when weather
conditions were so dicey. We had to land first at Jacobabad and then at
Hyderabad, Sind, two of the hottest places in India, to refuel, the latter
being about one hundred miles short of Karachi. There we heard that more
dust storms were expected, and the® was some question as to whether we
should have to complete the journey by road. The temperature on the ground
was about 125° F. and we hastily made for the shade of the mud hut which
was the only "airport building". There we were overjoyed to see an
enormous refrigerator but to our horror, when it was opened, it contained
just one bottle of beer. This we shared with the pilot. What made it so
infuriating was that there were crates of beer outside the fridge but they
were so warm that as soon as a bottle was opened, the contents shot up
to the ceiling. We had no wish to hang about any longer and decided to
risk going on by air, and reached Karachi safely that evening. It had
been a long day, with something like ten hours in the air, in very turbulent
conditions for much of the time, but it was a great experience, and better
than 48 hours in an un-airconditioned train at that time of year.