We Arrive
Slowly the train steamed into Howrah Station. Hot, tired and incredibly dirty, we still managed to generate a little excitement at the thought that our journey was over. For more than three weeks we had been travelling, and the previous thirty-eight hours had been spent in this train, chugging from one side of India to the other.
With a sigh of escaping steam and a groaning of wheels the train came to a standstill. We stood at the barred windows of the carriage, anxious to catch the first glimpse of some missionary come to meet us and take us to the mission home.
"Can you see anyone?" I asked over David's shoulder.
"Yes," he said ironically. "Plenty of people."
And he surely could. The whole platform seemed to be a seething mass of humanity rushing hither and thither like ants in a recently stirred ant hill. The noise was deafening. Outside our coach a milling mass of sweating, half-clad coolies pushed and struggled, pulling and banging at our locked door trying to open it.
"What do they want?" I asked a little fearfully.
"They don't look like first-class passengers," David replied. "I think they must be porters after our luggage."
Remembering all the warnings we had been given in Poona, David tucked his wallet into an inside pocket and I took a firmer grip on my handbag. I was thankful we had kept the door of the coach securely locked. These grimy individuals might be railway employees, but they looked more like a gang of thieves.
"Daddy, how can we get out?" asked four-year-old Kendall.
"We had better not try," answered David rather grimly. "You children would be knocked down in all that crush. Let's just stay here a while and see if someone comes to meet us."
So we stayed. Five minutes slowly ticked away. The crowd had thinned perceptibly. Even the coolies had tired of trying to batter down our door and most had dashed off to find more lucrative prospects. Gingerly David unlocked the door and stood behind it as half a dozen almost naked men leaped inside and pounced onto our luggage. With much yelling and shouting they hoisted our bags and trunks onto their heads and were out the door and halfway to the gate before David managed to get them to stop. I lifted the children onto the platform and we made haste to join David and the coolies.
By now the place was almost deserted, but still we could see no white face. What to do now? We knew one word of Hindi between us - jow, which means "go" - but it didn't seem to help in this predicament. Strangers in a strange land surely never felt worse than we did at that moment.
"I think I have the address of the mission somewhere," said David hopefully, beginning to hunt through the books and oddments of papers we carried in our hand luggage.
"That's good." My drooping spirits revived momentarily, only to wilt again as I remembered the language problem. "We could get a taxi, but how could we make the drive understand the address? He might take us anywhere and we wouldn't know the difference."
"Well," David replied, "it's obvious that there is no one here to meet us. We can't stay on the station forever, so there's nothing else to do."
So off our little cavalcade moved, the perspiring coolies leading the way and David carrying the baby and striding ahead, anxious to keep the baggage in sight. The other two children and I hurried along, intent on keeping David in sight.
Once outside the ticket barrier, we had to slow our pace. Every foot of the station floor was occupied by ragged, tattered, dirty people. Some were sitting, some lying, some squatting over tiny charcoal fires cooking little pots of frothing rice. There was a withered crone rocking back and forth as she held out a sinewy hand begging alms. Here sat a young mother apathetically nursing a naked brown baby. Over there an old man with glazed eyes was smoking a hookah. Groups of men squatted on their heels doing nothing. In and out and over and among them all crawled naked little children, flies stinging their eyes and buzzing around their dribbly mouths and noses. Older editions, heads tousled and clad in filthy rags, surrounded us loudly and boldly begging for money.
We stopped short in horror. So these were the people we had come to tell about the love of Jesus - these poor, homeless refugees. Victims of racial and religious hatred; eating and sleeping, living and dying, here in the railway station. They seemed more like animals than human beings, yet our wonderful Saviour loved them as much as He loved us.
With heavy hearts we picked our way carefully through this maze of suffering humanity. The burden of the poor of India had settled on our hearts, never again to be wholly lifted.
Entirely at the mercy of the coolies, we followed them until they led us outside the station. A long line of horse-drawn conveyances was standing on the far side of the road. Their owners leaped into action at the sight of us, and came running across the road offering their vehicles. One look at the poor bony nags convinced us that they would probably collapse under the weight of us and our luggage, so we declined their services.
Presently a taxi rattled into view. The glass was missing from three of the doors. The fourth was a spider-web of cracks liberally plastered over with gummed paper. The upholstery was protected by brightly flowered cotton-print covers. The car had recently been hand painted, but even the thickness of the Duco could not conceal the bumps and dents and scars borne by this old warrior of the road. Majestically the driver bore down on us. He was a powerful Sikh, made more fierce looking by his bushy black beard and the gleaming dagger stuck into his belt.
I glanced weakly at David, but he was already flourishing his bit of paper under the Sikh's nose and trying to make him understand where we wanted to go. With much grunting and puffing the coolies stowed our luggage in the taxi and we climbed aboard. We did not know how much to pay the coolies, so David emptied his pockets of small change and the taxi driver helped him pick out the appropriate coins, though this did not seem to satisfy them, for even as we drove off they were still running alongside yelling for more buksheesh.
This taxi driver was like his counterparts the world over. With his right hand continuously squeezing the ancient bulb horn attached to his side of the windscreen and his left hand erratically jerking the steering wheel, we made our noisy way across the huge Howrah Bridge. Alternately speeding, so that every bolt and screw in the chassis squeaked a protest, or stopping with stomach-sinking suddenness, we drove through the crowded streets and at length swung past the iron gates of the mission compound at 36 Park Street.
It was recess time for the school children and they stopped their play to gaze curiously at us. No one came forward to greet us. We carefully sorted ourselves out and stepped from the taxi. Still no welcoming voice.
"Apparently the school occupies the lower floor," said David. "I'll go upstairs and see if I can find someone."
Up the flight of cement steps he went, tried several doors and finally found three American men bending over some books. They glanced up cordially as he entered but there was no exclamation of surprise or recognition. Clearly they expected him to state what business he had in their office.
"Down is my name," began David diffidently. As the men's faces registered no indication of enlightenment, he added, "Could you please tell me where we are to stay?"
A moment of stunned silence and then a look of incredulity crossed Dan Harris' face. "You wouldn't be the new worker who is coming from Australia, would you?" he asked.
"That's right," David replied, feeling much encouraged. "We have just arrived from Bombay."
Hearty handshakes and an enthusiastic welcome followed, but still Pastor Burr was mystified. "Why didn't they let us know from Poona or Bombay that you were coming? We could have met you at the station. Why, brother, we didn't expect you for months yet."
"Didn't you receive a telegram from Pastor D. W. Hunter?" protested David. "He put us on the train on Sunday night and said he would send you a telegram next morning."
"Brother, this is India," laughed the pastor. "The telegram will probably come later."
And it did. Five hours later!
"You certainly chose the hottest month of the year in which to arrive," said our host after we were all comfortably settled in easy chairs in his flat. "April is always the worst. In another six weeks or so the monsoon will begin and the temperature won't be quite so high."
"But the humidity will be higher," chimed in one of the other men jovially. "You can't get away from it, brother. Calcutta is a hot spot all right."
"How did you folks get to India so quickly?" asked Pastor Lange. "It seems to me only a few months since the call went through for a pastor-evangelist for Calcutta church."
"It is," David replied. "We sailed from Melbourne just six weeks after we received the call from the General Conference."
"Were you folks interested in mission service previously?"
"No," I broke in. "It came as a great shock to us to be called to India."
"It certainly did," added David. "We had just settled in Bundaberg in Queensland and were busily preparing for an evangelistic campaign. When the president telephoned me about the call I was so surprised you could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather."
Everyone smiled understandingly.
"But it has always been our policy never to refuse a call," continued David, "and they told us the need was urgent, so we got our health requirements, sold most of our belongings, packed the rest and got berths on the next ship leaving for India."
"And here we are!" I concluded for him.
refugees The year was 1953 and there were still many refugees from the fighting and massacres that had attended the Partition of the sub-continent between Hindu India and the Muslim Pakistans. Return
Pastor Burr We later got to know Pastor Burr much better when we were stationed first in Shillong and then in Ranchi with him. He was a pleasant man with a bald head, his wife a rather plump lady. He had three daughters, the only one I remember being Brenda. Return
Pastor Lange "Daddy" Lange and his wife were elderly missionaries from Denmark - or at least, he was from Denmark and she from Sweden (or was it the other way round?) His passion was cars, and there were always disembowelled wrecks to be found at the Lange place. They very kindly put me up when I went to Delhi to sit my Leaving Certificate exams at the Australian embassy and at that time Pastor Lange was trying to restore the car in which Mrs Ruby Nelson (the wife of a volunteer missionary doctor) had been murdered. There was still the muddy footprint on the front seat, where one of the murders had placed his foot for purchase while dragging the poor woman out of the car. Return
health requirements Travellers to India in those days required a whole list of vaccinations and inoculations. Diseases covered included small-pox, cholera and typhoid, and we also had to take regular doses of quinine to guard against malaria. Return