Ceylon

Extract

The strategy of a world war has imposed a new ‘grand tour’ upon our generation. Via the African desert, the Appenines, or the beaches of Normandy, we travelled to the Rhine; and then, sweating in crowded transports, bound for India, Burma, Malaya or Japan, we gasped across the Persian Gulf to call, usually, at Ceylon. Here, at the commercial port of Colombo or in the great natural harbour of Trincomalee, the Navy massed its White Ensigns for what proved to be an unnecessary invasion of Malaya; and here in the months that succeeded the atom bomb we waited impatiently to come home.

For Jack ashore, Ceylon offered ebony elephants and sapphire engagement rings; noodles and birds’ nests in a Chinese café; and a ride in a rickshaw, with an almost naked coolie pulling you through the streets, and making you feel, half-guiltily and half-excitedly, like a Roman emperor. But there was little beer and no girls. We were soon bored, and longed for Tyneside, the Gorbals, or the New Cut.

Looking back, one remembers the constant sunshine, the flamboyant trees flowering their vivid petals down the quiet avenues of English bungalows, the blare of oriental music from arrack taverns, and the indescribable stench of the little native streets. And one tries to write down a description of Ceylon that will mean something in England.

When one became expert, one learnt to differentiate between two kinds of natives. There were the Sinhalese, who wear cotton skirts called sarongs, have narrow faces and prominent teeth, and are the original inhabitants of the island. Englishmen tend to complain that they are fundamentally lazy and have no sense of business; they do not share the prestige of martial races like the Sikhs or Gurkhas, and when the Japanese raided Colombo—very lightly by London standards—aimcrat the entire native population fled from the city and wouldn’t come back for a week; this was considered to prove that they had no ‘guts.’