I. A PLEDGE FULFILLED

I. A PLEDGE FULFILLED - Music: 'Rienzi Overture' - We can't tell you her name, but, as she unloads wheat from Australia in Calcutta's port, it might well be 'The Art'. For like the ship that Noah built, she carried in her hold the promise of new life. Across the wastes of the Southern Ocean, down Bengal's waterways, the promise of new life makes its way. Journey - ten thousand miles from Australia; objective - the lives of ten families in some remote village. It's a slow battle with time and the river - to reach hungry men in places that have no other road to the outside world. Arrived - and no time is lost in the unloading. Where there are not enough villagers to do the work, soldiers get the precious bags ashore, soldiers light cooking-fires by the dozen, and soldiers, here, as always are the servants of their people. Nor are they asked to live by bread alone, field hospitals are quickly set up, and there come the little children, children whose famine-sharp faces plead for help, help that these workers bring in time, often, only just in time. There are others, more remote, and this doctor and his orderly pack haversacks of medicines and ride out into the countryside to find them. Threading uncharted racks, they probe deeper and deeper, knowing that always at the end they will find people who would be forgotten castaways in the midst of their own native land, if they had not found them. But they are not forgotten. They suffered hunger and disease alone in their island villages, but now there is hope for them; medicines to guard their wasted bodies against malaria and all the plagues that run riot in the wake of famine. And they're grateful to the men who have searched them out and brought them a refreshing draught of life itself.

II. PROGRESSIVE MYSORE

II. PROGRESSIVE MYSORE - Music 'Samson and Delilah' - The rule of Mysore is opening a new Institute of Indian Medicine - a new home for a very old science. It might be argued that India's the best country in the world to fall sick in - you can be treated by two different systems of medicine. One's homemade, the Ayurvedic - the other's imported, along with its drugs, from the West. His Highness, addressing the gathering, pointed out that it didn't matter a flick of the fingers to a sick man what the doctors called their treatment - all the patient wanted was to get better. With that remark he laid the foundation stone of what he said he hoped would become a meeting ground for doctors of every sort - and a testing ground as well.

III. SAFETY FIRST

III. SAFETY FIRST - Music - 'La nozze Figaro' - It's a pity, if you like fires - and who doesn't? But the firemen always seem to get there first and spoil the fun. Here's a promising blaze for instance, but, no, there's the fire engine. Talking of liking fires, it's said that people who appreciate a really good blaze made the best firemen. Anyway, Bombay's firemen certainly make a sport of the whole thing. Here they are doing it, with a prize for the fastest team to unpack, hose the bull's eye, and pack up again. If you're trapped in a burning building there are two ways of escape. Gentlemen should step out of the window in a dignified manner, while ladies should pick the best-looking fireman, faint in his arms, and leave the rest to him. He's well-trained. All the same, fire-fighting's a dangerous and complicated business, and Bombay's firemen deserve all the prizes they can get. So next time your house catches fire, call the fire brigade and insist on having nothing less than prize winners, like these.

IV. MORE NAILS IN THE JAP COFFIN

IV. MORE NAILS IN THE JAP COFFIN - Music: 'Fall in and Fly' - The Chief royal engineer, Sir Ronald Charles inspected this parade in a jeep. He's sixty-eight years old, but that wasn't the reason for the jeep. Far from it - he's famous in their forces for his vigour. It was just that ten thousand men were on parade, and they'd take a lot of time to walk round. They were Bengal sappers and miners and here are some pictures of the sort of jobs they do. Bridge building for an instance. Sappers hold that without them an army couldn't fight. It would just stand and wring its hands, so to speak, on bank of the first river it came across. This is just an exercise, but pontoon bridges like these are the first step in every big push on the Italian front. The army crosses the bridge that the sappers build, but first the sappers have got to get across themselves. Here's how they do it. Tough going, and so they're toughened up to cope with it. It's made to be as difficult as anything they're likely to meet in battle, and judging from this some battles might be a nice quiet rest after a month or two of this sort of training. Many a recruit, joining the sappers and miners because he always wanted to be an engineer finds himself turned into a fully qualified acrobat.

V. WAR & INDUSTRY

V. WAR AND INDUSTRY - Music: 'My Country' - Kapurthala has been holding an exhibition and the ruler took the Resident round to have a look at what his state has been doing. It doesn't look much like the Princes India of the guide books, and that's what makes this exhibition worth thinking about. For instances, vests and blouses don't make much show compared with gem-studded tunics of spun gold - not until we remember that the people who made these things get paid for their work here and now, while the people who made the golden tunics are probably dead and gone these fifty years. Even the gorgeous princes of old India would have given a bag of pearls for one of these fans. Although it isn't all mass production, and Kapurthala's craftsmen still have plenty of time for good solid pieces by piece-work. The ruler's grand-children came to the show, and there was a display that must have gone to any small boy's heart. The state troops were supposed to be defending Kapurthala against a raid by dacoits. The dacoits were certainly dressed to look the part. But if the dacoits were make-believe, India's got enemies on her frontier who are committing super-dacoities over half the earth. And these exercises are good training in the way to beat them. We never seemed to hear of rivers in the last way, but this time battlefields seem full of them. Here's one way to getting across. Distinguished guests were impressed with the skill and strength displayed in the river-crossings, but for themselves, well, they modestly preferred the motor-boat.