A Shillong farewell

Now here is a tale of a Pathan sailor and his coal burning ship HMS Shillong. Hailing from Burikhel, a village on India8217;s remote northwest frontier, Mohammad Khan had lost his older brother in a tribal feud and as per Afghan custom was forced to marry the widow. On the farm his father bullied him and, furthermore, his newly acquired wife treated him as a youngster. To escape from all this, he went one day to the recruiting office in nearby Daudkhel.

Four years later, while the good ship Shillong was on anti-submarine patrol duty in the Bay of Bengal, newly promoted Leading Seaman Khan was up as defaulter on a charge of insubordination. Chief Petty Officer Aslam a Punjabi had shouted at him, 8216;8216;Oi, Mohammad Khan. Come here at the double.8217;8217; Our proud Pathan found this highly insulting, and conveyed his sentiments in no uncertain terms, in the choicest Pushto. Well, discipline had to take its course and Khan was demoted to Ordinary Seaman.

Ups and downs in his career had never bothered our hero much except now. On 8220;rest and recreation8221; leave in Madras, he had married again, secretly, for the third time. He needed the money as well as status, for his new wife was a senior typist in the navy office in Madras and he did not want to meet her till he became a Leading Seaman again. Then one morning, with a cyclone raging, the ship got a submarine contact. Depth charges were quickly dropped amidst wild excitement on deck, leading to Chief Steward Francis falling overboard. Everyone knew Francis could not swim. Without a second thought, Mohammad Khan plunged into the sea to save him. The captain promoted Khan again to Leading Seaman.

Some forty years on he passed away, leaving a family in Pakistan and another comfortably settled in Bangladesh. There is a belief among mariners that when a sailor dies he is born again as a seagull. Might then, perhaps, Khan8217;s indomitable spirit be roaming free, with many mates acquired in his new life?