‘I can’t believe what they’ve got on the menu,’ she said with a delighted smile.
Basil looked across the table as Madge waved the menu at him and said, ‘First place goes to . . .’ She handed the menu over so he could read for himself. ‘Yes, steak and kidney pudding!’ she said, choking up a little at the thought of Dad and his second helpings at Friday lunch. The smell of steak and kidney pudding always took her straight back to her gloriously happy childhood in Dover.
‘Oh, that sounds delicious,’ agreed Basil. ‘I haven’t had one of those in such a long time! But my goodness, there are some treats on this menu . . .’
Madge hadn’t eaten since her 7 a.m. breakfast of two slices of toast and a cup of tea in the nurses’ mess and she had no hesitation in choosing the steak and kidney pud with new potatoes and green peas. Basil decided on roast sirloin of beef followed by gateau mille-feuille, which he said was ‘a posh way of describing a vanilla slice in flaky pastry’.
Madge hadn’t realised just how much of a relief it would be to be away from Chittagong. Basil seemed to feel the same way. The barriers melted away and they were finally able to talk heart to heart.
‘Well, I know a bit about you, like the fact that you were brought up in Woking and you have four brothers and one sister, but there’s still so much I don’t know. Like how on earth did you finally end up in the 10th Baluch Regiment of the Indian army?’
‘Well, you know how my brother Brian and I enrolled and we were accepted and joined the Middlesex Regiment there and then. My regimental number was 6216153,’ said Basil, ‘and I have never forgotten it.’
He said that the most interesting time during his many months of training in Chester was being taught to operate the water-cooled Vickers machine guns, which he had to dismantle and reassemble wearing a blindfold during sessions in the battalion camp at The Dale. When it was announced that a war office selection board was being held at a military centre in Kent, Basil and Brian decided it was worth trying and both were recommended for commissions into the Indian army. They sailed on the one-time cruise liner RMS Strathaird from Gourock to Bombay in February 1943.
‘And can you remember your commission number?’ Madge teasingly asked.
‘EC11754,’ Basil replied instantly.
Madge was interested to hear details of the brothers’ sea voyage, because the threat from German submarines was so perilous in the Mediterranean in 1943 that Allied troopships, often carrying personnel in excess of four thousand, went down the coast of west Africa and round the Cape instead of through the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. However, time was running on and Basil promised faithfully to compare his sea journey with her own another time.
Once the bill was paid they made their way to the door, but stopped outside Firpo’s green shutters wondering what the sudden noise was all about. There was banging and shouting and a banner emblazoned with the slogan ‘Jai Hind’ was waved by a group of protestors.
‘Back inside, quickly,’ said Basil and they watched from Firpo’s upstairs windows as the demonstration demanding ‘Home Rule for India’ marched past. ‘Jai Hind means victory to India,’ he told Madge, who expressed surprise at the size of the demonstration.
Once the protest had passed, they decided to walk to a local cinema and got caught in such a torrential downpour that their clothes squelched as they sat down to watch Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland star in The Major and the Minor. Their clothes were still soggy when they got back to the Grand Hotel, where they were given flasks of freshly boiled water for drinking and brushing their teeth.
‘The hotel is completely deserted,’ said Madge. ‘It actually feels quite eerie, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Basil. ‘It’s certainly not what I had in mind, that’s for sure! Let me walk you to your room.’
At the door to Madge’s hotel room, Basil took her hand before kissing her lightly on the lips and wishing her goodnight, then making the surprisingly long walk to his room at the very other end.
At the end of the first full day she had spent in Basil’s company Madge had an overwhelming feeling of happiness and within minutes of her head hitting the soft pillow, she was fast asleep.
They thought they had escaped the attention of stand-in concierge Suresh the following morning as they strolled hand in hand through the lobby but were a little too slow.
‘Good morning, good morning,’ he called out, and although the door was in sight, they politely turned back. After asking how they had slept, he said how sorry he was that the hotel was so quiet because it used to be a lot of fun many years ago. ‘The best time of all was New Year’s Eve when there was iced champagne for everyone and at the stroke of midnight twelve little piglets were released. Anybody who caught one could keep it,’ said Suresh.
‘Well, thank you for telling us that,’ chuckled Madge, and they beat a hasty retreat from the lobby and the very chatty concierge to make an early start exploring a city that had once been the capital of India. They planned to have a leisurely breakfast, enjoy reading a daily newspaper for the first time in months and then slowly make their way across town to see the Victoria Memorial. Traffic was heavy as cycles, rickshaws, motorbikes, cars and several lorries emblazoned with ‘Jai Hind’ banners drove past while they waited to cross the road to pick up a copy of The Statesman, an English-language newspaper.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Basil, as he glanced at the front page. ‘President Roosevelt has died. He was only sixty-three. Apparently
