Death was quite common among the British stationed in India, with 33% of the entire British workforce dying in a single year due to the rainy season set by the monsoon. The average lifespan of a British worker in India was said to be just two monsoons, and the East India Company regularly had shipments of blank tombstones shipped from England just to keep up with the number of dying workers each month. The East India Company tried to help decrease these numbers by shipping vast quantities of spirits and wine, in the hopes that it would help increase the overall health of the workforce but unfortunately it did not do much good