When I was appointed Recruiting and Publicity Officer of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and Royal Regiment of Wales, I set about visiting as many Army displays as I could find during the summer season of 1972. Recruiting was top priority in those days and regiments that did not keep themselves in the public eye were in danger of being disbanded or amalgamated with other under subscribed units. My boss at Headquarters Prince of Wales's Division of Infantry in Lichfield, gave me a directive that was short, sharp and simple: "Wales is your oyster. There are thousands of young men out there wondering what to do with their lives - encourage them to 'go for a soldier’!" He went on to say that I would be left very much to my own devices and that if I needed anything, I only had to ask.
My predecessor had assembled two teams of six men each plus a senior non-commissioned-officer from the two infantry regiments and they spent the previous six months assembling a mobile display of military hardware. The first outing for this free-standing, canvas covered caravanserai was unfortunately hit by the last of the equinoctial storms which reduced it to a heap of bare poles, ripped canvas and twisted frames. It was obvious I had to start from scratch.
My first venture into the world of advertising was a careers exhibition in Birmingham. There was no shortage of civilian exhibitors and the Army was well represented with impressive display material which advertised the many and varied opportunities in its ranks for young men and women. At that stage I did not know quite what I wanted and, even though my boss at Lichfield had told me to give him a ring if I needed anything, I knew that a two word expletive would be used if I had ideas above my station. Nevertheless, I spent an interesting few hours making notes about techniques and presentation styles which might come in useful if/when I ever managed to get my own show on the road.
By late afternoon I had seen as much as I could absorb in one session so I decided it was time to make my way back to Crickhowell. I headed for the car park but just as I was about to leave the show ground, I spotted a caravan which bore the sign of the cross and the letters RAChD above the jockey wheel. Some might have taken a pot-shot and thought it stood for ROYAL ARTILLERY CHEMICAL DISPLAY, but they would have been wrong. It actually stands for ROYAL ARMY CHAPLAINS DEPARTMENT and this was painted in large letters on the side of the van.
I could see three people inside so I knocked on the door. One of the occupants put his nose to the window and looked me up and down. He made no effort to find out what I wanted but turned away and continued to chat with the others inside the caravan. I knocked again and a middle aged man wearing black trousers, black shirt and a dog collar (white strip around the neck) - which established him as a cleric of the Christian faith, opened the door. I told him about my quest for ideas about advertising and he looked at me with undisguised suspicion. "Wait there," he said. "I’ll have to ask my colleagues if they are prepared to talk to you." I checked the writing on the side of the caravan just to make sure that it did read 'CHAPLAIN'S' and not 'CHEMICAL' and then watched the trio as they discussed the matter of conversing with the Prince of Wales's Division Recruiting Officer (me). At last, the same gentleman to whom I had spoken previously, opened the door and invited me to step inside.
The interior of the caravan was like a very small church with chairs set uniformly on a crimson carpet leading to a communion rail. Two steps beyond the rail was an altar upon which stood a pair of candlesticks and two small vases of flowers; on the frieze was a portrait of Jesus Christ. A candelabra above the altar frontal gave a pleasant glow to the scene and the air was rich with the smell of incense.
The elder, and obviously senior member of the trio, gave me a quizzical look and asked me to repeat my request. When I had finished, they put their heads together and conferred in whispers so quietly that I could not hear what was being said. The 'Bishop', for that is what he appeared to be, eventually spoke. "Before we are prepared to discuss the matter of advertising with you, we would like you to kneel before the altar and say a prayer." Ostentatious demonstrations of faith have always embarrassed me and I wished I had stuck to my original plan of heading for the car park and driving home to Crickhowell. I stood up and said: "I am sorry to have wasted your time, but really, I must be going," and made for the door.
The trio of ecclesiastics had other ideas and, with the 'Bishop' directing operations, I was manhandled by the other two into the kneeling position below the altar. Not knowing what to expect, I became aware of the sound of heavenly music. I was raised to my feet and told to look at the portrait of Our Lord. What had been a perfectly normal 'head and shoulders' shot of Jesus Christ was now surrounded by a halo of light which flashed intermittently from the same electrical circuit as the candelabra. "We've got another one!" said the lesser cleric triumphantly, while the 'Bishop' thumped me on the back and asked me what I would like to drink. All three then opened up and shared their ideas with me about recruiting padres for the Armed Forces.
The 'Bishop' had the last word. "The most important thing is to show potential padres that they will be sailors, soldiers or airmen made from the same mould as others in the service. A lightness of spirit is essential so that's why we practise the 'halo' trick to get them in the right frame of mind from the start."
I drove back to Crickhowell and pondered on the lessons I had learnt in Birmingham. The great display vehicles from the School of Infantry, the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers etc. plus the modest attempts by cavalry and infantry regiments to attract recruits had given me much to think about. But it was a trio of clergymen in a mobile church that lit a beacon in my mind which burned for the following eight years of my service which I spent as Recruiting and Publicity Officer for the two regiments of line infantry in Wales.
Sunday, 3 February 2008
A POINT TO REMEMBER
When I was a young officer I learnt many lessons from the experience of others. One of them was never to use a bamboo shooting stick.
Shooting sticks had not entered my orbit until I went overseas. If I had been asked to describe one, I would most probably have said it was some sort of blow pipe from the East Indies. The first one I saw belonged to the late Major 'Winky' Benyon who was posted in as second-in-command.
I met 'Winky' on the day he joined us in Khartoum in the middle of the 'hot' season of '49. He was standing on the steps of the officers' mess veranda in South Barracks looking down the Blue Nile wearing the most enormous pair of shorts I had ever seen; their knife edge creases stood out fore and aft like two huge rudders. I learnt later that he wore two pairs of shorts each day, one for standing up and one for sitting down. If you were summoned to his office, you could be forgiven for thinking you had come face to face with the 'invisible man', for perched in the corner were Winky's 'standing up' shorts, supported by nothing but starch ready for him to slip into when he made his round of the barracks.
"It's good to be back in the Sudan," he said. "I was here many years ago as a subaltern." I looked at him and had a vision of a young Benyon swiping dervishes with his sabre as he battled up the Nile with Kitchener's army. A glance at the Army List in my office as I write this story, shows me that Winky was thirty eight years of age when he joined us in Khartoum, but there was a presence about the man that gave him an air of majesty far beyond his years. Maybe it was his eyebrows that made him different from other men; they were about twice as long as normal and he used to twirl them until they stood up like two wireless aerials on each side of his face. He had a thick moustache over a broad upper lip and a voice that seemed to get its resonance from a forty four gallon oil drum buried deep inside him. I don't mind admitting that he frightened the life out of me at first and there were occasions when he nearly stopped my flow of blood. To be at the end of one of Winky's rockets was an unforgettable experience, but these outbursts were like tropical storms; they passed as quickly as they came.
Winky soon set about his job as overseer in training matters and announced there would be an officers' TEWT in a few days time. For the uninitiated in Army jargon, a TEWT is a 'tactical exercise without troops'. In other words, a simple way of practising officers how to fight a battle and letting soldiers get on with other things back in barracks.
Winky committed his plans to paper and none of us were surprised to hear that the TEWT would be held in the usual area.
Jebel Meriam was the only place for miles around where the ground rose slightly above desert level. It was well known to the rest of us as the previous second-in-command had used it to beat off scores of imaginary attacks from all points of the compass. It was, therefore, with a feeling of gloom that we faced the prospect of spending four or five hours being baked alive on this pimple in the desert.
We set out from Khartoum at sunrise on the day of the exercise and drove over the bridge where the White and Blue Niles meet. We turned left through the maze of mud huts that was Omdurman and passed the Mahdi's tomb before heading south for Jebel Meriam. Within an hour we were standing on the summit - all two hundred feet of it.
Winky outlined the situation and waved his shooting stick in the direction of the 'enemy'. For those of us who could not remember all he said, a hand-out was issued and a few minutes later we were given a piece of paper with 'Question 1' written on the top. The routine was always the same on these occasions, first - trying to understand what the directing staff (ie. Winky Benyon) had written, and second - trying to work out, within one's syndicate, a sensible answer. At this stage, 'Fatty' Smith, the mess sergeant, would produce a splendid breakfast, but as the wind blew at 50mph, it was toss up which would fly off first - the corn flakes or the question paper. There was never enough time to eat the eggs and bacon and work out the problem before we were called forward to give our answers.
Winky finished his breakfast and bellowed that he was ready. We assembled before him in our syndicates, hoping that one of the others would be asked to give the solution. The law of averages has never operated in my favour and, on this occasion, not only was my syndicate selected - but I was nominated as spokesman.
Winky was sitting on his shooting stick looking at me in such a way that I knew that whatever I said would be wrong. He allowed me to go through the rigmarole of preparing for battle before he spoke his mind, which consisted of a single word of five letters. He waved his shooting stick around and stabbed at various points in the desert which made my plans a lot of nonsense; it was an impressive performance by someone who had real battle experience.
Like a conductor bringing a symphony to a tumultuous finale, Winky twirled his shooting stick once more around his head before driving it into the ground and depositing his voluminous shorts into the seat. Instead of a crash of cymbals, there was a crack like a pistol shot and Winky travelled a further thirty inches until he was sitting on the ground.
Despite his size, Winky was remarkably light on his feet. Obviously something was wrong when he just sat there and did nothing. The awful truth dawned when we went to help him and saw his broken shooting stick lying alongside him. A jagged spike at the bottom of the stick meant that a matching piece was somewhere underneath him.
Very slowly we raised him and saw the rest of the shooting stick projecting from his shorts. With commendable initiative and enormous courage, one of the subalterns gave the broken piece of bamboo a sharp tug and withdrew it. Winky was not capable of walking, so we carried him down the jebel to a jeep which took him off at top speed to Khartoum military hospital. He remained remarkably cheerful throughout the journey even though he had a nasty bamboo splinter in a very tender part of his body.
The doctor and nurses in the hospital did a great job on Winky's bottom, so we were led to believe. It was one of those operation scars that Winky could not show his friends. By the evening of the same day, he was receiving visitors.
Winky was up and about within a few days and was soon his usual snorting, eye brow twisting, cantankerous but loveable self once more.
As far as I know, he didn't use a bamboo shooting stick again. Come to think of it, I've never seen anyone carry a bamboo shooting stick since that day in 1949. It's amazing how the word gets around!
Shooting sticks had not entered my orbit until I went overseas. If I had been asked to describe one, I would most probably have said it was some sort of blow pipe from the East Indies. The first one I saw belonged to the late Major 'Winky' Benyon who was posted in as second-in-command.
I met 'Winky' on the day he joined us in Khartoum in the middle of the 'hot' season of '49. He was standing on the steps of the officers' mess veranda in South Barracks looking down the Blue Nile wearing the most enormous pair of shorts I had ever seen; their knife edge creases stood out fore and aft like two huge rudders. I learnt later that he wore two pairs of shorts each day, one for standing up and one for sitting down. If you were summoned to his office, you could be forgiven for thinking you had come face to face with the 'invisible man', for perched in the corner were Winky's 'standing up' shorts, supported by nothing but starch ready for him to slip into when he made his round of the barracks.
"It's good to be back in the Sudan," he said. "I was here many years ago as a subaltern." I looked at him and had a vision of a young Benyon swiping dervishes with his sabre as he battled up the Nile with Kitchener's army. A glance at the Army List in my office as I write this story, shows me that Winky was thirty eight years of age when he joined us in Khartoum, but there was a presence about the man that gave him an air of majesty far beyond his years. Maybe it was his eyebrows that made him different from other men; they were about twice as long as normal and he used to twirl them until they stood up like two wireless aerials on each side of his face. He had a thick moustache over a broad upper lip and a voice that seemed to get its resonance from a forty four gallon oil drum buried deep inside him. I don't mind admitting that he frightened the life out of me at first and there were occasions when he nearly stopped my flow of blood. To be at the end of one of Winky's rockets was an unforgettable experience, but these outbursts were like tropical storms; they passed as quickly as they came.
Winky soon set about his job as overseer in training matters and announced there would be an officers' TEWT in a few days time. For the uninitiated in Army jargon, a TEWT is a 'tactical exercise without troops'. In other words, a simple way of practising officers how to fight a battle and letting soldiers get on with other things back in barracks.
Winky committed his plans to paper and none of us were surprised to hear that the TEWT would be held in the usual area.
Jebel Meriam was the only place for miles around where the ground rose slightly above desert level. It was well known to the rest of us as the previous second-in-command had used it to beat off scores of imaginary attacks from all points of the compass. It was, therefore, with a feeling of gloom that we faced the prospect of spending four or five hours being baked alive on this pimple in the desert.
We set out from Khartoum at sunrise on the day of the exercise and drove over the bridge where the White and Blue Niles meet. We turned left through the maze of mud huts that was Omdurman and passed the Mahdi's tomb before heading south for Jebel Meriam. Within an hour we were standing on the summit - all two hundred feet of it.
Winky outlined the situation and waved his shooting stick in the direction of the 'enemy'. For those of us who could not remember all he said, a hand-out was issued and a few minutes later we were given a piece of paper with 'Question 1' written on the top. The routine was always the same on these occasions, first - trying to understand what the directing staff (ie. Winky Benyon) had written, and second - trying to work out, within one's syndicate, a sensible answer. At this stage, 'Fatty' Smith, the mess sergeant, would produce a splendid breakfast, but as the wind blew at 50mph, it was toss up which would fly off first - the corn flakes or the question paper. There was never enough time to eat the eggs and bacon and work out the problem before we were called forward to give our answers.
Winky finished his breakfast and bellowed that he was ready. We assembled before him in our syndicates, hoping that one of the others would be asked to give the solution. The law of averages has never operated in my favour and, on this occasion, not only was my syndicate selected - but I was nominated as spokesman.
Winky was sitting on his shooting stick looking at me in such a way that I knew that whatever I said would be wrong. He allowed me to go through the rigmarole of preparing for battle before he spoke his mind, which consisted of a single word of five letters. He waved his shooting stick around and stabbed at various points in the desert which made my plans a lot of nonsense; it was an impressive performance by someone who had real battle experience.
Like a conductor bringing a symphony to a tumultuous finale, Winky twirled his shooting stick once more around his head before driving it into the ground and depositing his voluminous shorts into the seat. Instead of a crash of cymbals, there was a crack like a pistol shot and Winky travelled a further thirty inches until he was sitting on the ground.
Despite his size, Winky was remarkably light on his feet. Obviously something was wrong when he just sat there and did nothing. The awful truth dawned when we went to help him and saw his broken shooting stick lying alongside him. A jagged spike at the bottom of the stick meant that a matching piece was somewhere underneath him.
Very slowly we raised him and saw the rest of the shooting stick projecting from his shorts. With commendable initiative and enormous courage, one of the subalterns gave the broken piece of bamboo a sharp tug and withdrew it. Winky was not capable of walking, so we carried him down the jebel to a jeep which took him off at top speed to Khartoum military hospital. He remained remarkably cheerful throughout the journey even though he had a nasty bamboo splinter in a very tender part of his body.
The doctor and nurses in the hospital did a great job on Winky's bottom, so we were led to believe. It was one of those operation scars that Winky could not show his friends. By the evening of the same day, he was receiving visitors.
Winky was up and about within a few days and was soon his usual snorting, eye brow twisting, cantankerous but loveable self once more.
As far as I know, he didn't use a bamboo shooting stick again. Come to think of it, I've never seen anyone carry a bamboo shooting stick since that day in 1949. It's amazing how the word gets around!
A WHIFF OF FRANGIPANI
I do not know who was the more surprised - Lt. Col. Jack Crewe-Read or me when I appeared before him in his office on my first full day with the 3rd (Kenya) battalion, King’s African Rifles. I had never met him before, but I knew his brother, Major Offley Crewe-Read, with whom I had served in the South Wales Borderers.
He looked at my cap badge and then the posting order on his desk. “I was expecting an officer of the Welch Regiment,” he said. I explained that I had been one of five officers of the Welch Regiment serving with the South Wales Borderers and that only ten days previously I had left the 1st Battalion then stationed in Asmara, Eritrea.
He was wearing a bespoke bush jacket of a KAR officer crafted by that most expert of tailors - Jivan Nanji of Nanyuki. On one side of his desk was a bush hat with seven folds of pugri tipped by a thin scarlet border. An Arabic ‘3’ (‘telata’) in brass was mounted on a diamond shaped piece of scarlet felt on the up-turn which was itself surmounted by a tulip-shaped crow’s neck of iridescent hues. Only after I had done an eye-check of his apparel did he introduce himself as an officer of the South Wales Borderers, (24th Regiment).
It is necessary to transport the reader to Eritrea two weeks before I was due to leave 1/SWB. I had, only a week before, proposed to a young English lady whose father was the chief executive of Aden Airways. Neither of us had any thoughts about a life-long union until one evening when we sat under a frangipani tree in her parents’ garden. The intoxicating fragrance from the bell-like flowers turned our platonic friendship into one of sudden passion. Before I realised what had happened, I had proposed marriage to her and she, similarly bowled over by the aphrodisiac effect of the flowers, said, “Yes.” I did a check the following morning just to satisfy myself that the events of the previous evening were not a figment of my imagination. She confirmed that we were engaged to be married and that her father wanted to see me at 7pm that night. With this twist in the pattern of my life, a posting to the KAR in Kenya was not as attractive as it had been twenty-four hours earlier. I had a word with the Commanding Officer, himself an ‘old’ KAR hand, to see if I could stay on in Eritrea a bit longer, but he felt that the needs of the KAR were stronger than those of my fiancee.
I was sitting at the bar of the officers’ club in Asmara a few days after my engagement when a friend said, “Let’s go over to that table by the window, I’ve got something to tell you.” The ‘friend’ was another young English lady who might also have sat under under a frangipani tree as she had married a subaltern of the Regiment a few months previously.
“What I am going to tell you is ‘TOP SECRET’, ” she said, “and I must have your promise that you will not breathe a word to anyone - including your fiancee.” I knew that she worked in the headquarters of the British Administration for the ex-Italian colony but I had no idea what was coming next. “A decision is being made this year (1951) about what is going to happen to Eritrea,” she said. “It might be handed over to Ethiopia, made into a province of the Sudan or even given independence. Whatever happens there is going to be trouble, and I can tell you on the highest authority that a battalion of King’s African Rifles has been put on stand-by to come here and monitor the hand-over.” At that stage I could only hope that one of the Kenya battalions of the KAR would be selected, but I had no means of knowing which one it would be until I got there. It was infuriating not being able to say anything about this to my fiancee and when the time came for me to pack my kit and catch the boat to Mombasa, all I could say was: “See you soon - I hope.”
I was met at Nanyuki railway station by Bob Cobbing. On the way to 3 KAR officers’ mess, not far from the Mawingo Hotel, he told me that the battalion was preparing for a move, but nobody knew where we were going. I felt bound by my oath so I didn’t say anything to him or anyone else, but that night I lay in bed dreaming pleasant thoughts of returning to my beloved in Asmara as a member of a battalion of Kenya askaris.
We now return to Colonel Jack Crewe-Read’s office. Everything seemed to be going very well: I had been given the job of Signals Officer and the Colonel asked me to come around and have supper with him and his wife that evening. “We’ll expect you at 7 o’clock,” he said. “It’ll be quite informal.”
I turned up in a lounge suit and the door was opened by his wife, Diana. I have carried the memory of my first sight of the Honourable Diana Crewe-Read for fifty seven years. She could have stepped straight off the front cover of Vogue and the incredibly seductive long blue dress she was wearing made me gulp and say, “I’ll go back and put on my DJ.” “Don’t be silly,” she replied, “we are very informal here.” She led me into the drawing room where, despite the fact that Nanyuki straddled the equator, the Colonel was standing in front of a log fire dressed in a silk dressing gown and cravat with pyjama trousers peeping out at the bottom. I had never heard of the Kenya custom of dressing for the evening in bedroom wear and I had to take a closer look at Diana before I realised that the heavenly creation she was wearing was a neglige. I was the only guest, which was just as well as the conversation centred around the South Wales Borderers.
After a splendid meal the Colonel and I took our brandies and sat near the fire. Notwithstanding the oath of secrecy I had made to my friend in Asmara, I decided to ask him if it was true that the battalion was going to Eritrea. He looked surprised and said it was a possibility. The wine and brandy had infused me with bravado and I leaned forward and told him about the ‘TOP SECRET’ information I had been given. He rose to his feet and said that up until yesterday there was only one man in the battalion who knew where we were going - and that was him. With my arrival there were now two of us who shared the secret and he made me swear (again) that I would not mention a word of this highly classified information to anyone.
Over the next few weeks, rumours were scattered like chaff and the subject of our move monopolised all other topics of conversation. Most married officers came to the mess at lunch time and the Colonel had to parry countless questions that might have given the game away. Occasionally he would catch my eye and we would exchange a wink. I felt very close to him when this happened. It’s not often that a newly joined temporary captain has such a relationship with his commanding officer.
We all knew that the secret was going to be made public when the Adjutant announced there would be a scale ‘A’ parade in the camp theatre at 08.00 hrs the following day. That evening speculation reached fever pitch and bets were being taken on the most likely place for the battalion to be sent. As none of them featured Eritrea I kept quiet.
I sat about three rows from the front when the Commanding Oficer mounted the dais and addressed British officers, warrant officers and sergeants. “All of you have been wondering what is going to happen and now I am delighted to tell you that we are going to MALAYA. Those of you who are married will be able to take your families. The advance party leaves in October (1951) and the main body departs in January.”
I thought the Colonel had taken leave of his senses and almost got to my feet to tell him that he’d got it wrong. But then the Adjutant took over and got down to the fine details of the move.
I was still in a state of shock when I got back to the mess, where we repaired to toast the news with champagne.
The Colonel came up to me and said: “I’m sorry about our secret - but it was never an option. Still, you’ve kept me amused for the last month.”
He looked at my cap badge and then the posting order on his desk. “I was expecting an officer of the Welch Regiment,” he said. I explained that I had been one of five officers of the Welch Regiment serving with the South Wales Borderers and that only ten days previously I had left the 1st Battalion then stationed in Asmara, Eritrea.
He was wearing a bespoke bush jacket of a KAR officer crafted by that most expert of tailors - Jivan Nanji of Nanyuki. On one side of his desk was a bush hat with seven folds of pugri tipped by a thin scarlet border. An Arabic ‘3’ (‘telata’) in brass was mounted on a diamond shaped piece of scarlet felt on the up-turn which was itself surmounted by a tulip-shaped crow’s neck of iridescent hues. Only after I had done an eye-check of his apparel did he introduce himself as an officer of the South Wales Borderers, (24th Regiment).
It is necessary to transport the reader to Eritrea two weeks before I was due to leave 1/SWB. I had, only a week before, proposed to a young English lady whose father was the chief executive of Aden Airways. Neither of us had any thoughts about a life-long union until one evening when we sat under a frangipani tree in her parents’ garden. The intoxicating fragrance from the bell-like flowers turned our platonic friendship into one of sudden passion. Before I realised what had happened, I had proposed marriage to her and she, similarly bowled over by the aphrodisiac effect of the flowers, said, “Yes.” I did a check the following morning just to satisfy myself that the events of the previous evening were not a figment of my imagination. She confirmed that we were engaged to be married and that her father wanted to see me at 7pm that night. With this twist in the pattern of my life, a posting to the KAR in Kenya was not as attractive as it had been twenty-four hours earlier. I had a word with the Commanding Officer, himself an ‘old’ KAR hand, to see if I could stay on in Eritrea a bit longer, but he felt that the needs of the KAR were stronger than those of my fiancee.
I was sitting at the bar of the officers’ club in Asmara a few days after my engagement when a friend said, “Let’s go over to that table by the window, I’ve got something to tell you.” The ‘friend’ was another young English lady who might also have sat under under a frangipani tree as she had married a subaltern of the Regiment a few months previously.
“What I am going to tell you is ‘TOP SECRET’, ” she said, “and I must have your promise that you will not breathe a word to anyone - including your fiancee.” I knew that she worked in the headquarters of the British Administration for the ex-Italian colony but I had no idea what was coming next. “A decision is being made this year (1951) about what is going to happen to Eritrea,” she said. “It might be handed over to Ethiopia, made into a province of the Sudan or even given independence. Whatever happens there is going to be trouble, and I can tell you on the highest authority that a battalion of King’s African Rifles has been put on stand-by to come here and monitor the hand-over.” At that stage I could only hope that one of the Kenya battalions of the KAR would be selected, but I had no means of knowing which one it would be until I got there. It was infuriating not being able to say anything about this to my fiancee and when the time came for me to pack my kit and catch the boat to Mombasa, all I could say was: “See you soon - I hope.”
I was met at Nanyuki railway station by Bob Cobbing. On the way to 3 KAR officers’ mess, not far from the Mawingo Hotel, he told me that the battalion was preparing for a move, but nobody knew where we were going. I felt bound by my oath so I didn’t say anything to him or anyone else, but that night I lay in bed dreaming pleasant thoughts of returning to my beloved in Asmara as a member of a battalion of Kenya askaris.
We now return to Colonel Jack Crewe-Read’s office. Everything seemed to be going very well: I had been given the job of Signals Officer and the Colonel asked me to come around and have supper with him and his wife that evening. “We’ll expect you at 7 o’clock,” he said. “It’ll be quite informal.”
I turned up in a lounge suit and the door was opened by his wife, Diana. I have carried the memory of my first sight of the Honourable Diana Crewe-Read for fifty seven years. She could have stepped straight off the front cover of Vogue and the incredibly seductive long blue dress she was wearing made me gulp and say, “I’ll go back and put on my DJ.” “Don’t be silly,” she replied, “we are very informal here.” She led me into the drawing room where, despite the fact that Nanyuki straddled the equator, the Colonel was standing in front of a log fire dressed in a silk dressing gown and cravat with pyjama trousers peeping out at the bottom. I had never heard of the Kenya custom of dressing for the evening in bedroom wear and I had to take a closer look at Diana before I realised that the heavenly creation she was wearing was a neglige. I was the only guest, which was just as well as the conversation centred around the South Wales Borderers.
After a splendid meal the Colonel and I took our brandies and sat near the fire. Notwithstanding the oath of secrecy I had made to my friend in Asmara, I decided to ask him if it was true that the battalion was going to Eritrea. He looked surprised and said it was a possibility. The wine and brandy had infused me with bravado and I leaned forward and told him about the ‘TOP SECRET’ information I had been given. He rose to his feet and said that up until yesterday there was only one man in the battalion who knew where we were going - and that was him. With my arrival there were now two of us who shared the secret and he made me swear (again) that I would not mention a word of this highly classified information to anyone.
Over the next few weeks, rumours were scattered like chaff and the subject of our move monopolised all other topics of conversation. Most married officers came to the mess at lunch time and the Colonel had to parry countless questions that might have given the game away. Occasionally he would catch my eye and we would exchange a wink. I felt very close to him when this happened. It’s not often that a newly joined temporary captain has such a relationship with his commanding officer.
We all knew that the secret was going to be made public when the Adjutant announced there would be a scale ‘A’ parade in the camp theatre at 08.00 hrs the following day. That evening speculation reached fever pitch and bets were being taken on the most likely place for the battalion to be sent. As none of them featured Eritrea I kept quiet.
I sat about three rows from the front when the Commanding Oficer mounted the dais and addressed British officers, warrant officers and sergeants. “All of you have been wondering what is going to happen and now I am delighted to tell you that we are going to MALAYA. Those of you who are married will be able to take your families. The advance party leaves in October (1951) and the main body departs in January.”
I thought the Colonel had taken leave of his senses and almost got to my feet to tell him that he’d got it wrong. But then the Adjutant took over and got down to the fine details of the move.
I was still in a state of shock when I got back to the mess, where we repaired to toast the news with champagne.
The Colonel came up to me and said: “I’m sorry about our secret - but it was never an option. Still, you’ve kept me amused for the last month.”
AMBUSH IN MALAYA
BY
MAJOR PETER ST. V. HARDING-ROLLS
(AS TOLD TO MAJOR BOB SMITH - BOTH OF 3/KAR)
The golden rules for a successful ambush are: ONE - good information, TWO - careful planning, THREE -. strict observance of drills and FOUR - quick follow up action.
During the uprising in Malaya from 1948 to 1960 most casualties among communist terrorists (CTs) were the result of carefully laid ambushes - a new style of warfare for the British Army following its defeat by the Japanese in 1942.
Before infantry battalions were allowed to carry out operations in jungle, they had to undergo an intensive period of training at the Far East Land Forces Training Centre at Kota Tinggi in South Johore, not far from the causeway linking Malaya with Singapore. General Sir Gerald Templer, the Supremo, who arrived in early 1952 following the ambush and death of Sir Henry Gurney the previous High Commissioner, had good reason to put 'ambush drills' high on his list of priorities.
Lieutenant Peter Harding arrived aboard the troopship ‘DILWARA’ with the main body of the 3rd (Kenya) Battalion King’s African Rifles in Singapore in January 1952. He was a new boy as far as serving with askaris was concerned, having joined the battalion at its home base in Nanyuki only a few months before leaving for Malaya. Not having a platoon of his own he was a general factotum and during the journey from Africa to Singapore he was in charge of the battalion baggage. When he arrived in the Training Centre at Kota Tinggi, where the battalion was to undergo six weeks training, he was appointed Weapons Training Officer and understudy to the Intelligence Officer. Even so, he felt his potential had not been tapped and looked enviously at other more experienced subalterns who commanded platoons and spoke Kiswahili fluently.
His first chance for doing what he called ‘proper soldiering’ came when the Commanding Officer sent him on attachment to the 1/10th Gurkha Rifles who were operating near Kuantan on the east coast of Malaya. After a day’s journey down the Sungei Pahang from Mentakab to Pekan in a native long-boat, he eventually arrived at the government rest-house in Kuantan where he was told there was no chance of joining any of the Gurkha patrols as they were many miles away in deep jungle. He had to be satisfied with helping out in the ops. room, but as he did not speak Gurkhali he was not much use there either. He began to feel he was never going to take part in a jungle patrol - but that was going to change sooner than he thought.
When Peter returned to 3/KAR, he was sent to ‘A’ Company based in Temerloh in central Pahang. His Company Commander, Major David Swannell, set about educating him in the finer points of jungle warfare and within a day or two of his arrival he was told to prepare himself for a patrol into the ‘ulu’ (jungle). This was a ‘dummy run’ for a new boy, but exciting just the same. He learnt an important lesson - don’t carry anything that’s not vital, like a full bar of soap and a towel - half of each will do.
A few days previously, a patrol from ‘A’ Company had killed three terrorists. One askari had also been killed and the patrol commander decided to visit the scene to see if there were any signs of terrorist activity. They drew a blank but Peter was able to see for himself the primitive conditions under which they lived.
The flanking unit, 4th Battalion Malay Regiment based in Mentakab, had a huge area to cover and could not patrol all of it effectively, so the brigade commander allocated ‘A’ Company 3/KAR a large tract of rubber and jungle to the north. Peter was told by his company commander he would lead a patrol into this previously unknown area; the following day he and 20 askaris set out from camp. They marched through a heavily overgrown rubber estate for a few miles until they came to a fork in the track. One route led into more overgrown rubber while the other branched off into jungle that had been cut down but was growing back again, ie - secondary jungle. Peter decided this would be a good place to set up an overnight camp so he placed sentries 50 yards away on each track.
Just before dark, at about 6pm, one of the sentries fired two shots. Mess tins and food went flying as askaris grabbed their weapons and set off down the track like a pack of hounds. Thirty seconds later there were more shots and by the time the askaris reached the sentry they found that one terrorist had been killed while another was running for his life. He didn't stand a chance and was brought down in a hail of shots as he sought safety in a swamp.
Peter set about transporting the bodies, lashed to saplings, back to camp for identification. He decided to remain in his position for another 24 hours just in case some more terrorists made an appearance, but torrential rain during the night put a stop to movement. He learnt another valuable lesson - how to make a three man ‘basha’ and stay dry!
In mid June 1952, David Swannell received information from Special Branch that terrorists were expected to visit a village in his area that evening. The information was far from being top grade, but nevertheless he decided to act upon it and told Peter Harding to work out a plan for an ambush.
The first part of Peter’s appreciation was done from the map and aerial photographs from which he could see three paths leading from the jungle to the village. The village itself was situated on a broad bend of the Sungei Pahang, the largest river in the state. It would be necessary for the platoon to travel by road to a point where they could disembark and approach the village through a mixture of overgrown rubber and secondary jungle.
The operation commenced during the afternoon and before last light Peter was able to make a reconnaissance of the three approach routes to the village. He decided to set three ambushes, one on each track, with WOPC (Warrant Officer Platoon Commander) Kiberen and three men on the right hand track, Sergeant Tiongi and three men on the left track and himself in the middle with Corporal Kiplangat and Lance Corporal Chipiyego. The remainder of the platoon were to remain in reserve near a hut on high ground between Sgt Tiongi and himself. There had been little time to set the trap but Peter knew what to do.
At 6pm the cicadas started their evening chorus and flying foxes, few in number at first and then in their thousands, came in search of fruit. Mosquitoes started to bite and soon it became dark. The only sounds that broke the silence was a rustle of leaves as a porcupine waddled along the track and the occasional bark of a dog from the village.
It was eight o’clock and Peter was dozing off before taking the ‘ten to midnight stag’ when the silence was ripped apart by gunfire from the bottom of the hill to his right. He grabbed his verey pistol and fired two cartridges which lit up the area. Nothing could be seen at first, then came the sound of someone running up the hill from Kiberen’s position. Peter told Cpl Kiplangat and L/Cpl Chipiyego not to fire until he gave the order.
Within a few seconds, a terrorist appeared and Peter, instead of shooting him, decided to capture him alive. He yelled: “Usipiga,” (Don’t shoot) and then brought the startled CT down in a flying tackle. Peter felt a hammer-like blow and knew he'd been shot. In darkness, it was difficult to know where he had been hit, but he soon became aware that something was wrong with his thumb. Alongside him was a CT who seemed to be dead.
Peter did not blame Cpl Chipiyego for letting off the contents of his Bren gun magazine at two apparent 'terrorists'. He had broken rule No. 3 - 'strict observance of drills' and realised he was lucky not to have been killed.
He attempted to apply a tourniquet on his upper arm but his finger went through the muscle. On further examination he found that one of Chipiyego’s bullets had entered his body under the armpit, exited through the muscle of the upper arm, gone through the terrorist and then into his thumb; the CT was as dead as a doornail.
Another bandit was in the vicinity and, for the second time, bullets whizzed through the trees. Eventually, quietness descended and Peter shouted to WOPC Kiberen, who was still at the bottom of the hill, for a sitrep. Kiberen reported that two CTs had been killed.
Nothing else could be done until first light so Peter instructed Kiberen to join his own group around the hut near Sgt Tiongi’s position. When his men had been concentrated in one area, Peter gave himself a couple of morphine injections and accepted copious cups of tea, well laced with rum, from his orderly, Private Kimelek.
As soon as it became light, Peter could see there was hardly an inch of his jungle green clothing that was not soaked with blood. Despite his severe injuries he walked down the hill with Kiberen and some askaris to see the dead terrorists. Some villagers appeared and it was obvious from the look on their faces they knew the identity of the CTs. Peter regretted not taking them back to Temerloh for questioning, but he had other things on his mind. It was important that he got back to base as soon as possible to have his wounds dressed; three askaris accompanied him to the main road. WOPC Kiberen was left to bring in the remainder of the patrol and the dead CTs.
When Peter and his escort reached the road, they stopped the first vehicle they saw and instructed the driver to take them to Temerloh.
Peter was patched up in the local clinic and was able to give an account of the action before being cas-evacd by air to the British Military Hospital in Kuala Lumpur.
L/Cpl Chipiyego felt badly about shooting his platoon commander but it was not his fault that the ambush commander changed the rules at the last second and he was absolved from blame.
Post-script:- The commanding officer 3/KAR recommended Peter Harding for a Military Cross but this was downgraded to a 'mentioned in despatches'. The brigade commander commented: "Should have had a court martial for breaking the rules!"
MAJOR PETER ST. V. HARDING-ROLLS
(AS TOLD TO MAJOR BOB SMITH - BOTH OF 3/KAR)
The golden rules for a successful ambush are: ONE - good information, TWO - careful planning, THREE -. strict observance of drills and FOUR - quick follow up action.
During the uprising in Malaya from 1948 to 1960 most casualties among communist terrorists (CTs) were the result of carefully laid ambushes - a new style of warfare for the British Army following its defeat by the Japanese in 1942.
Before infantry battalions were allowed to carry out operations in jungle, they had to undergo an intensive period of training at the Far East Land Forces Training Centre at Kota Tinggi in South Johore, not far from the causeway linking Malaya with Singapore. General Sir Gerald Templer, the Supremo, who arrived in early 1952 following the ambush and death of Sir Henry Gurney the previous High Commissioner, had good reason to put 'ambush drills' high on his list of priorities.
Lieutenant Peter Harding arrived aboard the troopship ‘DILWARA’ with the main body of the 3rd (Kenya) Battalion King’s African Rifles in Singapore in January 1952. He was a new boy as far as serving with askaris was concerned, having joined the battalion at its home base in Nanyuki only a few months before leaving for Malaya. Not having a platoon of his own he was a general factotum and during the journey from Africa to Singapore he was in charge of the battalion baggage. When he arrived in the Training Centre at Kota Tinggi, where the battalion was to undergo six weeks training, he was appointed Weapons Training Officer and understudy to the Intelligence Officer. Even so, he felt his potential had not been tapped and looked enviously at other more experienced subalterns who commanded platoons and spoke Kiswahili fluently.
His first chance for doing what he called ‘proper soldiering’ came when the Commanding Officer sent him on attachment to the 1/10th Gurkha Rifles who were operating near Kuantan on the east coast of Malaya. After a day’s journey down the Sungei Pahang from Mentakab to Pekan in a native long-boat, he eventually arrived at the government rest-house in Kuantan where he was told there was no chance of joining any of the Gurkha patrols as they were many miles away in deep jungle. He had to be satisfied with helping out in the ops. room, but as he did not speak Gurkhali he was not much use there either. He began to feel he was never going to take part in a jungle patrol - but that was going to change sooner than he thought.
When Peter returned to 3/KAR, he was sent to ‘A’ Company based in Temerloh in central Pahang. His Company Commander, Major David Swannell, set about educating him in the finer points of jungle warfare and within a day or two of his arrival he was told to prepare himself for a patrol into the ‘ulu’ (jungle). This was a ‘dummy run’ for a new boy, but exciting just the same. He learnt an important lesson - don’t carry anything that’s not vital, like a full bar of soap and a towel - half of each will do.
A few days previously, a patrol from ‘A’ Company had killed three terrorists. One askari had also been killed and the patrol commander decided to visit the scene to see if there were any signs of terrorist activity. They drew a blank but Peter was able to see for himself the primitive conditions under which they lived.
The flanking unit, 4th Battalion Malay Regiment based in Mentakab, had a huge area to cover and could not patrol all of it effectively, so the brigade commander allocated ‘A’ Company 3/KAR a large tract of rubber and jungle to the north. Peter was told by his company commander he would lead a patrol into this previously unknown area; the following day he and 20 askaris set out from camp. They marched through a heavily overgrown rubber estate for a few miles until they came to a fork in the track. One route led into more overgrown rubber while the other branched off into jungle that had been cut down but was growing back again, ie - secondary jungle. Peter decided this would be a good place to set up an overnight camp so he placed sentries 50 yards away on each track.
Just before dark, at about 6pm, one of the sentries fired two shots. Mess tins and food went flying as askaris grabbed their weapons and set off down the track like a pack of hounds. Thirty seconds later there were more shots and by the time the askaris reached the sentry they found that one terrorist had been killed while another was running for his life. He didn't stand a chance and was brought down in a hail of shots as he sought safety in a swamp.
Peter set about transporting the bodies, lashed to saplings, back to camp for identification. He decided to remain in his position for another 24 hours just in case some more terrorists made an appearance, but torrential rain during the night put a stop to movement. He learnt another valuable lesson - how to make a three man ‘basha’ and stay dry!
In mid June 1952, David Swannell received information from Special Branch that terrorists were expected to visit a village in his area that evening. The information was far from being top grade, but nevertheless he decided to act upon it and told Peter Harding to work out a plan for an ambush.
The first part of Peter’s appreciation was done from the map and aerial photographs from which he could see three paths leading from the jungle to the village. The village itself was situated on a broad bend of the Sungei Pahang, the largest river in the state. It would be necessary for the platoon to travel by road to a point where they could disembark and approach the village through a mixture of overgrown rubber and secondary jungle.
The operation commenced during the afternoon and before last light Peter was able to make a reconnaissance of the three approach routes to the village. He decided to set three ambushes, one on each track, with WOPC (Warrant Officer Platoon Commander) Kiberen and three men on the right hand track, Sergeant Tiongi and three men on the left track and himself in the middle with Corporal Kiplangat and Lance Corporal Chipiyego. The remainder of the platoon were to remain in reserve near a hut on high ground between Sgt Tiongi and himself. There had been little time to set the trap but Peter knew what to do.
At 6pm the cicadas started their evening chorus and flying foxes, few in number at first and then in their thousands, came in search of fruit. Mosquitoes started to bite and soon it became dark. The only sounds that broke the silence was a rustle of leaves as a porcupine waddled along the track and the occasional bark of a dog from the village.
It was eight o’clock and Peter was dozing off before taking the ‘ten to midnight stag’ when the silence was ripped apart by gunfire from the bottom of the hill to his right. He grabbed his verey pistol and fired two cartridges which lit up the area. Nothing could be seen at first, then came the sound of someone running up the hill from Kiberen’s position. Peter told Cpl Kiplangat and L/Cpl Chipiyego not to fire until he gave the order.
Within a few seconds, a terrorist appeared and Peter, instead of shooting him, decided to capture him alive. He yelled: “Usipiga,” (Don’t shoot) and then brought the startled CT down in a flying tackle. Peter felt a hammer-like blow and knew he'd been shot. In darkness, it was difficult to know where he had been hit, but he soon became aware that something was wrong with his thumb. Alongside him was a CT who seemed to be dead.
Peter did not blame Cpl Chipiyego for letting off the contents of his Bren gun magazine at two apparent 'terrorists'. He had broken rule No. 3 - 'strict observance of drills' and realised he was lucky not to have been killed.
He attempted to apply a tourniquet on his upper arm but his finger went through the muscle. On further examination he found that one of Chipiyego’s bullets had entered his body under the armpit, exited through the muscle of the upper arm, gone through the terrorist and then into his thumb; the CT was as dead as a doornail.
Another bandit was in the vicinity and, for the second time, bullets whizzed through the trees. Eventually, quietness descended and Peter shouted to WOPC Kiberen, who was still at the bottom of the hill, for a sitrep. Kiberen reported that two CTs had been killed.
Nothing else could be done until first light so Peter instructed Kiberen to join his own group around the hut near Sgt Tiongi’s position. When his men had been concentrated in one area, Peter gave himself a couple of morphine injections and accepted copious cups of tea, well laced with rum, from his orderly, Private Kimelek.
As soon as it became light, Peter could see there was hardly an inch of his jungle green clothing that was not soaked with blood. Despite his severe injuries he walked down the hill with Kiberen and some askaris to see the dead terrorists. Some villagers appeared and it was obvious from the look on their faces they knew the identity of the CTs. Peter regretted not taking them back to Temerloh for questioning, but he had other things on his mind. It was important that he got back to base as soon as possible to have his wounds dressed; three askaris accompanied him to the main road. WOPC Kiberen was left to bring in the remainder of the patrol and the dead CTs.
When Peter and his escort reached the road, they stopped the first vehicle they saw and instructed the driver to take them to Temerloh.
Peter was patched up in the local clinic and was able to give an account of the action before being cas-evacd by air to the British Military Hospital in Kuala Lumpur.
L/Cpl Chipiyego felt badly about shooting his platoon commander but it was not his fault that the ambush commander changed the rules at the last second and he was absolved from blame.
Post-script:- The commanding officer 3/KAR recommended Peter Harding for a Military Cross but this was downgraded to a 'mentioned in despatches'. The brigade commander commented: "Should have had a court martial for breaking the rules!"
BEWARE - BOUNCING BULLETS
Things were getting back to normal again when I was stationed at the depot of my regiment in Cardiff in 1947. The place had been occupied by American forces during the war, but two years after hostilities ended a basic recruit training centre for national servicemen was set up.
I remember feeling very honoured when asked if I would like to be a member of the team in the new '41st Primary Training Centre'. I had recently attended a small arms course at Hythe and I felt confident I could handle the job of weapons training officer. I might have come away from Hythe with a reasonable grading, but I soon learnt that I knew very little about musketry compared with my two sergeant instructors.
Sergeant 'Dai' George of the Welch Regiment was the senior NCO and he patiently listened to the new theories I propounded about marksmanship. But when it came to shooting, it was he who could group consistently at four inches over 100 yards. Sergeant 'Nick' Rees of the Royal Welch Fusiliers was my other sergeant instructor. He used to travel from Brecon every day on a motor bike with side car. At least once a week, during winter months, he would bring me a pheasant which, he said, he had been unable to avoid as he drove over the Beacons. During the summer months he would occasionally remove a salmon from the inner depths of his side car. Each story of their procurement was more implausible than the last. When he left my team at the end of 1947, I lost contact with him. I did not see him until fourteen years later when I bumped into him on the bank of the River Usk at Brecon. Like so many of his kind, he had crossed the divide and become a water bailiff. Knowing all the tricks of the trade he was always one step ahead of the poachers.
Maindy Barracks in 1947 was not so well equipped with training aids as it is today, but at least we had a 30 yards range. I can well remember standing on the firing point and giving the first post-war order to fire: "Load with seven rounds. Two rounds into the bank (to warm the barrel) and five rounds grouping. Carry on when you're ready."
We had been shooting in this fashion for half an hour when a head appeared around the wall of the stop-butts. "Stop!" I yelled. "Open your breech and stand by your weapon." When it was safe to proceed, I went forward to speak to the fellow who still had his head sticking around the corner of the wall. "Do you realise you could have been killed if I hadn't seen you? We are firing live ammunition." "I know," he replied. "They're landing on my bowling green and if you don't stop it, there's going to be trouble." It sounded preposterous that rounds should ricochet out of the butts and I told him I should need some proof. He provided this in an instant when he took from his pocket half a dozen 'sharp ends' of .303 rounds. "There you are," he said, "there's plenty more where they came from."
Someone at officer training school told me never to admit anything to a civilian if it might cost the Army money, so I just reminded him never to stick his head around the side of the butts again and left it at that. We had come to the end of shooting practice, which was just as well, so I gave the order: "Boil out rifles" and "Fall out."
Over tea in the officers' mess, I had a word with my company commander who was horrified to hear that bullets had landed on the bowling green. He was all for putting the range 'out of bounds' until I explained my plan for making it safe.
The following day, Sergeants 'Dai' George and "Nick' Rees accompanied me to Curran's Engineering Works in Cardiff docks where we collected a pile of railway sleepers. We took them back to Maindy Barracks and spent the rest of the day making them into a box which, when strongly constructed of sleepers and sand bags, would surely catch any ricochet rounds. I felt so confident that my contraption of wood and sand would be the answer to the problem that I decided to try it out the following day; and at what better time than when the local bowling team were playing a league game at home.
We fired about a hundred rounds into the 'box' before I peeped around the corner of the butts to see if there had been any reaction. Woods were rolling gently down the green towards the jack with nothing to disturb their progress other that an occasional butterfly. The company commander was delighted with my simple solution of the problem but a few weeks later a team of experts from the Small Arms School at Hythe paid a visit to the depot. They nearly had a fit when they saw my 'box' in the butts. I explained the reason why it was there but it made no impression upon them and I was ordered to remove it. Instead, they gave me advice about raking the sand, sieving it for lead and making sure that the sand was at a certain angle to the trajectory of the bullets.
A considerable number of national servicemen were diverted from potato peeling fatigues to the 30 yards range where an immense amount of sand was given the full cleansing treatment. By the end of the week, I was satisfied that every piece of lead had been removed and that the angle of sand conformed to the regulations contained in the Small Arms School manual.
The next Monday afternoon, another batch of national servicemen were lined up to shoot on the range. I gave the usual orders and the crackle of rifle fire disturbed what was otherwise, a quiet summer afternoon. Suddenly, a familiar voice boomed out from the butts: "Eh, mister - your bullets are landing on my bowling green again." "Cease fire," I yelled, shattered to find that all our hard work had been to no avail. I went forward to impress the groundsman, once again, that his regard for his bowling green, although commendable, was highly dangerous.
It was obvious to me that my solution worked, while the one from Hythe did not. I stalked off to the company office, rang up the chief instructor at the school and told him so. Within a few days, one of the warrant officers of the touring team came to Cardiff to see for himself what was wrong. Without firing a shot, he pronounced that we were using the wrong sort of sand. The range was out of action for two weeks while fleets of vehicles removed the old sand and brought in pure 'Severn' sand. Once again, tape measures were used to ensure that the angle of the surface was correct to the last degree.
I stood on the firing point as half a dozen recruits were brought forward to shoot for the first time in their lives - an experience they would never forget, but for a reason quite unconnected with their introduction to gunfire.
"Eh, mister - now you've really gone and done it!" said the voice which had become a familiar accompaniment to shooting practice. "Cease fire!" I shouted, and then went forward to find out what had gone wrong this time.
The groundsman had with him a young lady who was holding a spent .303 round. "That's him," he said, pointing at me. "He's the one who's been shooting all them bullets on the bowling green." The young lady was not concerned about the bowling green; she had other things on her mind and she let me know she was going to sue me for every penny I possessed. I gathered from her invective that her small daughter, who had been gurgling happily in her pram alongside the bowling green, had suddenly let out a yell. When her mother investigated the cause of her baby's discomfort, she found a hot spent round in the child's nappy. The thing had become trapped in a fold of the towelling and had branded the child's stomach as effectively as a cowboy would brand a steer.
Whether or not she took the matter further, I do not know. If officialdom had only allowed me to use my 'box' of sleepers and sand, there would have been no trouble, but the so-called experts knew best and I had to conform to their instructions. Nevertheless, I still have a guilty feeling and that is why I pay attention during the summer months to bare midriffs of 42 year old (or thereabouts) ladies wearing bikinis speaking with a Cardiff accent. Perhaps, one day, I will see the brand mark of a .303 round - then, maybe, I'll introduce myself.
`11
I remember feeling very honoured when asked if I would like to be a member of the team in the new '41st Primary Training Centre'. I had recently attended a small arms course at Hythe and I felt confident I could handle the job of weapons training officer. I might have come away from Hythe with a reasonable grading, but I soon learnt that I knew very little about musketry compared with my two sergeant instructors.
Sergeant 'Dai' George of the Welch Regiment was the senior NCO and he patiently listened to the new theories I propounded about marksmanship. But when it came to shooting, it was he who could group consistently at four inches over 100 yards. Sergeant 'Nick' Rees of the Royal Welch Fusiliers was my other sergeant instructor. He used to travel from Brecon every day on a motor bike with side car. At least once a week, during winter months, he would bring me a pheasant which, he said, he had been unable to avoid as he drove over the Beacons. During the summer months he would occasionally remove a salmon from the inner depths of his side car. Each story of their procurement was more implausible than the last. When he left my team at the end of 1947, I lost contact with him. I did not see him until fourteen years later when I bumped into him on the bank of the River Usk at Brecon. Like so many of his kind, he had crossed the divide and become a water bailiff. Knowing all the tricks of the trade he was always one step ahead of the poachers.
Maindy Barracks in 1947 was not so well equipped with training aids as it is today, but at least we had a 30 yards range. I can well remember standing on the firing point and giving the first post-war order to fire: "Load with seven rounds. Two rounds into the bank (to warm the barrel) and five rounds grouping. Carry on when you're ready."
We had been shooting in this fashion for half an hour when a head appeared around the wall of the stop-butts. "Stop!" I yelled. "Open your breech and stand by your weapon." When it was safe to proceed, I went forward to speak to the fellow who still had his head sticking around the corner of the wall. "Do you realise you could have been killed if I hadn't seen you? We are firing live ammunition." "I know," he replied. "They're landing on my bowling green and if you don't stop it, there's going to be trouble." It sounded preposterous that rounds should ricochet out of the butts and I told him I should need some proof. He provided this in an instant when he took from his pocket half a dozen 'sharp ends' of .303 rounds. "There you are," he said, "there's plenty more where they came from."
Someone at officer training school told me never to admit anything to a civilian if it might cost the Army money, so I just reminded him never to stick his head around the side of the butts again and left it at that. We had come to the end of shooting practice, which was just as well, so I gave the order: "Boil out rifles" and "Fall out."
Over tea in the officers' mess, I had a word with my company commander who was horrified to hear that bullets had landed on the bowling green. He was all for putting the range 'out of bounds' until I explained my plan for making it safe.
The following day, Sergeants 'Dai' George and "Nick' Rees accompanied me to Curran's Engineering Works in Cardiff docks where we collected a pile of railway sleepers. We took them back to Maindy Barracks and spent the rest of the day making them into a box which, when strongly constructed of sleepers and sand bags, would surely catch any ricochet rounds. I felt so confident that my contraption of wood and sand would be the answer to the problem that I decided to try it out the following day; and at what better time than when the local bowling team were playing a league game at home.
We fired about a hundred rounds into the 'box' before I peeped around the corner of the butts to see if there had been any reaction. Woods were rolling gently down the green towards the jack with nothing to disturb their progress other that an occasional butterfly. The company commander was delighted with my simple solution of the problem but a few weeks later a team of experts from the Small Arms School at Hythe paid a visit to the depot. They nearly had a fit when they saw my 'box' in the butts. I explained the reason why it was there but it made no impression upon them and I was ordered to remove it. Instead, they gave me advice about raking the sand, sieving it for lead and making sure that the sand was at a certain angle to the trajectory of the bullets.
A considerable number of national servicemen were diverted from potato peeling fatigues to the 30 yards range where an immense amount of sand was given the full cleansing treatment. By the end of the week, I was satisfied that every piece of lead had been removed and that the angle of sand conformed to the regulations contained in the Small Arms School manual.
The next Monday afternoon, another batch of national servicemen were lined up to shoot on the range. I gave the usual orders and the crackle of rifle fire disturbed what was otherwise, a quiet summer afternoon. Suddenly, a familiar voice boomed out from the butts: "Eh, mister - your bullets are landing on my bowling green again." "Cease fire," I yelled, shattered to find that all our hard work had been to no avail. I went forward to impress the groundsman, once again, that his regard for his bowling green, although commendable, was highly dangerous.
It was obvious to me that my solution worked, while the one from Hythe did not. I stalked off to the company office, rang up the chief instructor at the school and told him so. Within a few days, one of the warrant officers of the touring team came to Cardiff to see for himself what was wrong. Without firing a shot, he pronounced that we were using the wrong sort of sand. The range was out of action for two weeks while fleets of vehicles removed the old sand and brought in pure 'Severn' sand. Once again, tape measures were used to ensure that the angle of the surface was correct to the last degree.
I stood on the firing point as half a dozen recruits were brought forward to shoot for the first time in their lives - an experience they would never forget, but for a reason quite unconnected with their introduction to gunfire.
"Eh, mister - now you've really gone and done it!" said the voice which had become a familiar accompaniment to shooting practice. "Cease fire!" I shouted, and then went forward to find out what had gone wrong this time.
The groundsman had with him a young lady who was holding a spent .303 round. "That's him," he said, pointing at me. "He's the one who's been shooting all them bullets on the bowling green." The young lady was not concerned about the bowling green; she had other things on her mind and she let me know she was going to sue me for every penny I possessed. I gathered from her invective that her small daughter, who had been gurgling happily in her pram alongside the bowling green, had suddenly let out a yell. When her mother investigated the cause of her baby's discomfort, she found a hot spent round in the child's nappy. The thing had become trapped in a fold of the towelling and had branded the child's stomach as effectively as a cowboy would brand a steer.
Whether or not she took the matter further, I do not know. If officialdom had only allowed me to use my 'box' of sleepers and sand, there would have been no trouble, but the so-called experts knew best and I had to conform to their instructions. Nevertheless, I still have a guilty feeling and that is why I pay attention during the summer months to bare midriffs of 42 year old (or thereabouts) ladies wearing bikinis speaking with a Cardiff accent. Perhaps, one day, I will see the brand mark of a .303 round - then, maybe, I'll introduce myself.
`11
DITS AND DAHS
I have experienced only a few complete failures in my life, but one that came quite close was trying to teach conscript soldiers of the South Wales Borderers how to use Morse code.
The signals training pamphlet states that messages transmitted on carrier wave, using Morse code (a series of dits and dahs), travels further than normal voice communication. Certain wireless sets we used in the ‘50s had this facility but, even though my signal sergeant and I spent many hours trying to train our signalers to transmit and receive messages, we never achieved any meaningful success.
At the end of my three year tour with the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers, I joined the 3rd (Kenya) Battalion King’s African Rifles in Kenya. When I met my new commanding officer he was interested to hear that I had been signals officer of my previous unit. He was short of an officer to fill that specialist appointment and, as we were under orders for active service in Malaya, I dropped into his lap like a ripe plum. Warrant Officer Platoon Commander Kathuka, of the Kamba tribe, had been doing the job for the previous 12 months and he was summoned to the CO’s office to meet his new boss. We got on well from the start.
When we walked across the playing fields towards the signals lines I was able to learn something about him. He had been with the KAR since the end of the war, he spoke very good English and was, by African standards, well educated. He had the natural dignity of a member of his tribe and he was proud to be a warrant officer in the King’s African Rifles. He was also proud to have commanded the signals platoon for 12 months and, if the truth be known, must have been somewhat disappointed about handing over to me – a ‘new boy’ as far as the KAR was concerned who could not speak a word of Kiswahili.
When we were about 200 yards away from the hut where the signals cadre was receiving instruction, I could hear a strange noise. Kathuka opened the door and I thought that some sort of black magic ritual was being practised. “What’s going on?” I asked. “We do this every morning, effendi,” replied Kathuka: “Morse code and physical training.” He went on to explain that the first 40 minute period of the day was a mixture of learning the Morse code alphabet and strenuous PT.
Askaris were coming to the end of one bout and were bathed in perspiration. They had a few minutes rest before the instructor rapped the table with his stick and asked: “Watu wote tayeri (Is everyone ready?)” “Ndio (yes), tayeri,” came the response. “Sekia,” said the instructor with his stick raised like a conductor: ‘ABLE’, (the first letter in the old phonetic alphabet) said the instructor. Back came the answer from the askaris: ‘DIT DAH’ (the Morse symbol). ‘BAKER” was delivered from the front, ‘DAH DIT DIT DIT’, came the chant with askaris already prancing in time with the dits and dahs. ‘CHARLIE, DOG, EASY and FOX” were signals for askaris to mount chairs and tables or to gyrate on the floor. African rhythm is infectious and before long I found myself caught in the sensation of movement and sound. Not all the letters of the alphabet followed each other in sequence. The instructor produced, either by coincidence or sense of rhythm, a series of letters which continually altered the flow and tempo of the chant.
Everyone enjoyed themselves and what impressed me most was that those askaris, after only four weeks training, could read and send 15 words a minute. That may not seem much to a layman, but I can assure you it is more than adequate for a regimental signaler.
The signals training pamphlet states that messages transmitted on carrier wave, using Morse code (a series of dits and dahs), travels further than normal voice communication. Certain wireless sets we used in the ‘50s had this facility but, even though my signal sergeant and I spent many hours trying to train our signalers to transmit and receive messages, we never achieved any meaningful success.
At the end of my three year tour with the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers, I joined the 3rd (Kenya) Battalion King’s African Rifles in Kenya. When I met my new commanding officer he was interested to hear that I had been signals officer of my previous unit. He was short of an officer to fill that specialist appointment and, as we were under orders for active service in Malaya, I dropped into his lap like a ripe plum. Warrant Officer Platoon Commander Kathuka, of the Kamba tribe, had been doing the job for the previous 12 months and he was summoned to the CO’s office to meet his new boss. We got on well from the start.
When we walked across the playing fields towards the signals lines I was able to learn something about him. He had been with the KAR since the end of the war, he spoke very good English and was, by African standards, well educated. He had the natural dignity of a member of his tribe and he was proud to be a warrant officer in the King’s African Rifles. He was also proud to have commanded the signals platoon for 12 months and, if the truth be known, must have been somewhat disappointed about handing over to me – a ‘new boy’ as far as the KAR was concerned who could not speak a word of Kiswahili.
When we were about 200 yards away from the hut where the signals cadre was receiving instruction, I could hear a strange noise. Kathuka opened the door and I thought that some sort of black magic ritual was being practised. “What’s going on?” I asked. “We do this every morning, effendi,” replied Kathuka: “Morse code and physical training.” He went on to explain that the first 40 minute period of the day was a mixture of learning the Morse code alphabet and strenuous PT.
Askaris were coming to the end of one bout and were bathed in perspiration. They had a few minutes rest before the instructor rapped the table with his stick and asked: “Watu wote tayeri (Is everyone ready?)” “Ndio (yes), tayeri,” came the response. “Sekia,” said the instructor with his stick raised like a conductor: ‘ABLE’, (the first letter in the old phonetic alphabet) said the instructor. Back came the answer from the askaris: ‘DIT DAH’ (the Morse symbol). ‘BAKER” was delivered from the front, ‘DAH DIT DIT DIT’, came the chant with askaris already prancing in time with the dits and dahs. ‘CHARLIE, DOG, EASY and FOX” were signals for askaris to mount chairs and tables or to gyrate on the floor. African rhythm is infectious and before long I found myself caught in the sensation of movement and sound. Not all the letters of the alphabet followed each other in sequence. The instructor produced, either by coincidence or sense of rhythm, a series of letters which continually altered the flow and tempo of the chant.
Everyone enjoyed themselves and what impressed me most was that those askaris, after only four weeks training, could read and send 15 words a minute. That may not seem much to a layman, but I can assure you it is more than adequate for a regimental signaler.
FIRE CALL
I could never understand why I was selected to be unit fire officer. I had no qualifications for the job, very little interest - compared with one member of the regimental police who loved fire duties so much that he used to start them, and what seemed to be the most remarkable thing of all, I missed every real fire we had during my first overseas tour; all four of them.
I remember sitting in my office in South Barracks, Khartoum smarting under the injustice of being saddled with this onerous job when, as signals officer, I had enough to do keeping my old wireless sets working. The quartermaster made me sign for scores of stirrup pumps and red buckets, all of which had to kept full of sand or water. The former commodity was no problem as sand got into everything in the Sudan. I also had two fire engines which had to be kept in pristine condition and ready for action.
The commanding officer expected everyone to follow his own high standard of good order and cleanliness; fire precautions were high on his list of priorities. His eagle eye could detect a missing flake of paint on a fire bucket or a defaced copy of fire orders at two hundred yards range; I soon got used to the routine of being summoned to the adjutant's office after Saturday morning barrack inspection and asked to account for my idleness. After receiving a particularly nasty reprimand for not noticing that a length of rubber pipe was missing from a stirrup pump, I decided to do something spectacular to restore my standing with the commanding officer.
The colonel was a well regulated person and I had a good idea how he would respond to a given situation. One of the events in his weekly routine was to go for a sail on a Sunday morning on the Blue Nile, which ran only a hundred yards or so in front of the officers' mess. The clubhouse was one of the boats General Kitchener used on his expedition of 1898 and was anchored close to the bank a few hundred yards down the road.
A plan began to take shape in my mind. A more than ample supply of water was available in the river, the fire engines had suction pumps capable of drawing water and the flowers in the mess garden always needed watering. The whole scenario fell into place and I only had to smooth a few edges to show the commanding officer what an imaginative fire officer I had become.
On the dot, at 08.00 hrs the following Sunday, the colonel entered the dining room to have breakfast. A bevy of white robed Sudanese waiters attended to his needs and the latest copy of The Times was propped up in front of him as he tucked into his kedgeree. He must have wondered why I kept popping up and down outside the window, but my feigned interest in the spiky plants which passed for flowers was merely a cover so that I could keep my eye on him. I was ready to run out to Kitchener Avenue at a moment's notice and give my fire engines the signal to advance. That moment arrived when I saw a couple of waiters descend upon the CO's empty plates as he rose from the table. He picked up a few things to take on the boat and marched smartly down the broad stone steps of the mess portico towards the large wrought iron gates that opened onto Kitchener Avenue.
I was in position in the middle of the road, like a race starter at Le Mans, and I waved my handkerchief as a signal for the fire engines to advance.
The timing could not have been better. Both vehicles were far enough away to get into top gear and they made a fine sight as they charged down Kitchener Avenue with sirens blaring towards the colonel and me. I began to explain what I was doing and I recognised the CO's approval by the nods and smiles as he listened to my plan.
The fire engines were travelling much faster than I had expected; it was not supposed to be a race but I had not taken into consideration the rivalry that existed between the two crews to be the first one to bring succour to the officers' mess flowers. I had to break off my conversation with the CO to take control of the second phase of the operation which involved directing the vehicles towards the river.
During the winter months, the Blue Nile is swollen with flood waters that come from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. But during the summer, the water level gets lower and lower exposing the muddy banks which bake hard into a crazy paving design. Anyone with a grain of common sense would have appreciated that the closer one got to the river the softer the surface would become, but not the two drivers who continued the race, now going backwards, to the water's edge. I shouted at the top of my voice and waved my arms, but it was no good as the crews were looking the other way. Slowly and inexorably the surface of the bank collapsed and both fire engines sank into thick brown mud. They were not even near enough to throw the pipes, with wicker baskets on the end, into the river to suck up the water.
I looked at the colonel and his eyes had narrowed into thin black slits. "How do you propose to get them out?" he said. The vehicles were wallowing in the mud like a couple of hippos and I wondered if they were going to disappear completely. Trying to sound brisk and business-like, I said: "I'll have a word with the motor transport officer, sir. The Bren gun carriers (tracked vehicles like small tanks - with an open top) should be able to pull them out." "No, you won't," he snapped. "The annual vehicle inspection takes place tomorrow and I'm not having them messed up at this late stage. You'll have to think of something else." With that, he strode off in the direction of the sailing boats.
The transport officer was not available, he had gone to shoot duck, and 'Tiger' Morris, the transport sergeant, let me know in even stronger terms than the colonel that the carriers, or any other vehicles in the transport park for that matter, were not going to be used. Instead, he gave me the telephone number of the local REME workshops who, he said, might be able to help with a Scammel breakdown vehicle.
Trying to get a Scammel in Khartoum on a Sunday in August turned out to be quite a problem and I spent most of the morning pacing up and down on the bank of the river waiting for it to arrive.
At last, at about 1pm, it appeared. A Scammel is a large beast and as it drew level, a head popped out of the window high above me. I pointed towards the fire engines in the mud and the driver gave a nod of understanding. The cab door opened and three soldiers clambered down the side of their vehicle to survey the problem.
"OK, we'll fix it in no time," said the corporal, while the others pulled a large hook from the inner depths of the vehicle. They attached this to one of the fire engines, took up the slack and slowly pulled the first vehicle from its muddy hole. An identical operation was carried out on the other vehicle and within a matter of minutes they were both back on the road. My morale, which had taken a nasty knock, was restored and the prospect of a cold beer in the mess began to occupy my thoughts.
The crew of the Scammel were replacing their kit and getting ready for the return journey to Gordon's Tree, on the White Nile, when who should come around a bend in the river but the colonel. What a perfect piece of timing I thought.
As the driver of the Scammel had seen how my fire engines had got into difficulty, I did not think it was necessary to warn him about the unstable bank. I gave the crew a wave as they moved off but within seconds I could see they were on a disaster course. Instead of taking the shortest route back to Kitchener Avenue, the driver took a wide track which brought his huge vehicle too close to the river. With a lurch and a grunt and a sound of spinning wheels it broke through the surface of baked mud and started to sink.
Even though he was a hundred yards away and sailing fast with a following wind, I could see the colonel was not amused. It was not long before he had tied up at the moorings, returned to dry land and was striding purposefully towards me. "Are you playing some sort of game?" he said. The lack of humour in his voice gave me no reason to think he wanted to join in.
There was no other recovery vehicle in the Sudan, the nearest was in Egypt about a thousand miles away! It was obvious that the only way to get the Scammel out was to use the bren gun carriers and 'Tiger' Morris was ordered to get them at once.
The carriers, in immaculate condition for the following day's inspection, were harnessed to the Scammel like a pack of huskies. Their engines roared to full throttle and slowly the recovery vehicle was pulled free from its muddy embrace. The transport sergeant was almost in tears when he surveyed his carriers that were now covered with mud and dust.
I have never been so unpopular with so many people in all my life. The carrier platoon worked all afternoon and well into the evening to get the carriers into the gleaming state they had been until I got my hands on them. The regimental police were turned out and spent hours restoring the shine on the fire engines, The colonel was furious and so was the adjutant - but he was always furious. The transport officer returned without shooting any duck, and he was furious as well. It was without doubt the worst day of my life.
I have often wondered why I was not given the sack on that disastrous day. Maybe the colonel and the adjutant despite their severe expressions really did have a sense of humour. Perhaps they anticipated some of the other remarkable things that were yet to happen. Even to this day, elderly retired officers greet me with such remarks as: "Remember the time you blew your hair off in Eritrea?" - but that's another story.
I remember sitting in my office in South Barracks, Khartoum smarting under the injustice of being saddled with this onerous job when, as signals officer, I had enough to do keeping my old wireless sets working. The quartermaster made me sign for scores of stirrup pumps and red buckets, all of which had to kept full of sand or water. The former commodity was no problem as sand got into everything in the Sudan. I also had two fire engines which had to be kept in pristine condition and ready for action.
The commanding officer expected everyone to follow his own high standard of good order and cleanliness; fire precautions were high on his list of priorities. His eagle eye could detect a missing flake of paint on a fire bucket or a defaced copy of fire orders at two hundred yards range; I soon got used to the routine of being summoned to the adjutant's office after Saturday morning barrack inspection and asked to account for my idleness. After receiving a particularly nasty reprimand for not noticing that a length of rubber pipe was missing from a stirrup pump, I decided to do something spectacular to restore my standing with the commanding officer.
The colonel was a well regulated person and I had a good idea how he would respond to a given situation. One of the events in his weekly routine was to go for a sail on a Sunday morning on the Blue Nile, which ran only a hundred yards or so in front of the officers' mess. The clubhouse was one of the boats General Kitchener used on his expedition of 1898 and was anchored close to the bank a few hundred yards down the road.
A plan began to take shape in my mind. A more than ample supply of water was available in the river, the fire engines had suction pumps capable of drawing water and the flowers in the mess garden always needed watering. The whole scenario fell into place and I only had to smooth a few edges to show the commanding officer what an imaginative fire officer I had become.
On the dot, at 08.00 hrs the following Sunday, the colonel entered the dining room to have breakfast. A bevy of white robed Sudanese waiters attended to his needs and the latest copy of The Times was propped up in front of him as he tucked into his kedgeree. He must have wondered why I kept popping up and down outside the window, but my feigned interest in the spiky plants which passed for flowers was merely a cover so that I could keep my eye on him. I was ready to run out to Kitchener Avenue at a moment's notice and give my fire engines the signal to advance. That moment arrived when I saw a couple of waiters descend upon the CO's empty plates as he rose from the table. He picked up a few things to take on the boat and marched smartly down the broad stone steps of the mess portico towards the large wrought iron gates that opened onto Kitchener Avenue.
I was in position in the middle of the road, like a race starter at Le Mans, and I waved my handkerchief as a signal for the fire engines to advance.
The timing could not have been better. Both vehicles were far enough away to get into top gear and they made a fine sight as they charged down Kitchener Avenue with sirens blaring towards the colonel and me. I began to explain what I was doing and I recognised the CO's approval by the nods and smiles as he listened to my plan.
The fire engines were travelling much faster than I had expected; it was not supposed to be a race but I had not taken into consideration the rivalry that existed between the two crews to be the first one to bring succour to the officers' mess flowers. I had to break off my conversation with the CO to take control of the second phase of the operation which involved directing the vehicles towards the river.
During the winter months, the Blue Nile is swollen with flood waters that come from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. But during the summer, the water level gets lower and lower exposing the muddy banks which bake hard into a crazy paving design. Anyone with a grain of common sense would have appreciated that the closer one got to the river the softer the surface would become, but not the two drivers who continued the race, now going backwards, to the water's edge. I shouted at the top of my voice and waved my arms, but it was no good as the crews were looking the other way. Slowly and inexorably the surface of the bank collapsed and both fire engines sank into thick brown mud. They were not even near enough to throw the pipes, with wicker baskets on the end, into the river to suck up the water.
I looked at the colonel and his eyes had narrowed into thin black slits. "How do you propose to get them out?" he said. The vehicles were wallowing in the mud like a couple of hippos and I wondered if they were going to disappear completely. Trying to sound brisk and business-like, I said: "I'll have a word with the motor transport officer, sir. The Bren gun carriers (tracked vehicles like small tanks - with an open top) should be able to pull them out." "No, you won't," he snapped. "The annual vehicle inspection takes place tomorrow and I'm not having them messed up at this late stage. You'll have to think of something else." With that, he strode off in the direction of the sailing boats.
The transport officer was not available, he had gone to shoot duck, and 'Tiger' Morris, the transport sergeant, let me know in even stronger terms than the colonel that the carriers, or any other vehicles in the transport park for that matter, were not going to be used. Instead, he gave me the telephone number of the local REME workshops who, he said, might be able to help with a Scammel breakdown vehicle.
Trying to get a Scammel in Khartoum on a Sunday in August turned out to be quite a problem and I spent most of the morning pacing up and down on the bank of the river waiting for it to arrive.
At last, at about 1pm, it appeared. A Scammel is a large beast and as it drew level, a head popped out of the window high above me. I pointed towards the fire engines in the mud and the driver gave a nod of understanding. The cab door opened and three soldiers clambered down the side of their vehicle to survey the problem.
"OK, we'll fix it in no time," said the corporal, while the others pulled a large hook from the inner depths of the vehicle. They attached this to one of the fire engines, took up the slack and slowly pulled the first vehicle from its muddy hole. An identical operation was carried out on the other vehicle and within a matter of minutes they were both back on the road. My morale, which had taken a nasty knock, was restored and the prospect of a cold beer in the mess began to occupy my thoughts.
The crew of the Scammel were replacing their kit and getting ready for the return journey to Gordon's Tree, on the White Nile, when who should come around a bend in the river but the colonel. What a perfect piece of timing I thought.
As the driver of the Scammel had seen how my fire engines had got into difficulty, I did not think it was necessary to warn him about the unstable bank. I gave the crew a wave as they moved off but within seconds I could see they were on a disaster course. Instead of taking the shortest route back to Kitchener Avenue, the driver took a wide track which brought his huge vehicle too close to the river. With a lurch and a grunt and a sound of spinning wheels it broke through the surface of baked mud and started to sink.
Even though he was a hundred yards away and sailing fast with a following wind, I could see the colonel was not amused. It was not long before he had tied up at the moorings, returned to dry land and was striding purposefully towards me. "Are you playing some sort of game?" he said. The lack of humour in his voice gave me no reason to think he wanted to join in.
There was no other recovery vehicle in the Sudan, the nearest was in Egypt about a thousand miles away! It was obvious that the only way to get the Scammel out was to use the bren gun carriers and 'Tiger' Morris was ordered to get them at once.
The carriers, in immaculate condition for the following day's inspection, were harnessed to the Scammel like a pack of huskies. Their engines roared to full throttle and slowly the recovery vehicle was pulled free from its muddy embrace. The transport sergeant was almost in tears when he surveyed his carriers that were now covered with mud and dust.
I have never been so unpopular with so many people in all my life. The carrier platoon worked all afternoon and well into the evening to get the carriers into the gleaming state they had been until I got my hands on them. The regimental police were turned out and spent hours restoring the shine on the fire engines, The colonel was furious and so was the adjutant - but he was always furious. The transport officer returned without shooting any duck, and he was furious as well. It was without doubt the worst day of my life.
I have often wondered why I was not given the sack on that disastrous day. Maybe the colonel and the adjutant despite their severe expressions really did have a sense of humour. Perhaps they anticipated some of the other remarkable things that were yet to happen. Even to this day, elderly retired officers greet me with such remarks as: "Remember the time you blew your hair off in Eritrea?" - but that's another story.
GIVE HIM ENOUGH ROPE
I sometimes wonder if things happened the way I remember them. Did I witness them, hear about them and then exaggerate the details, or just dream them into reality? One such incident I have had in mind since 1948 must have been second-hand because it happened in Wayne's Keep, Nicosia before I joined the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers in Cyprus. I have often chuckled over the situation where a temporary camp commandant found himself on a collision course with an irate district commander. A few weeks before I retired I was able to test the efficacy of my mind when one of the players came into my office in Brecon Barracks.
He was about to introduce himself, when I exclaimed: "Jack Medlicott!" He seemed surprised that I remembered him after such a long time and it was obvious that any memories he had of me had been discarded long ago. He was accompanied by his wife and I spent the next half hour showing them some of the interesting things in the Regimental Museum of which I was Curator. They then wandered around on their own for the rest of the afternoon before returning to my office at closing time to say farewell.
We shook hands, vowed to keep in touch and then, as he was about to leave, he said: "Do you know what happened to Brigadier Anstice?" I told him that I believed the brigadier had gone to live in Kyrenia when he retired. I paused for a moment and said: "Wasn't there some trouble between you and him over a dog?" Jack gasped: "Good Lord, do you remember that business?" In answer to his question, I related the incident as if he was a third person: "The Brigadier telephoned the Commanding Officer of the South Wales Borderers in Famagusta and asked him if he could borrow one of his officers for a week to be acting camp commandant at his headquarters in Wayne's Keep. The incumbent, it seemed, had been taken sick and was bedded down in the local British Military Hospital. The CO agreed and gave orders to Jack Medlicott to proceed forthwith.
Jack arrived at Wayne's Keep during the forenoon and was directed to the brigadier's office. He was told that the camp was filthy and had to be smartened. Stray dogs, in particular, were a nuisance and he was given instructions to destroy any that were not wearing collars. A few other terse instructions were issued, and he was dismissed to attend to his duties.
Jack ordered the Provost Sergeant to accompany him on his inspection of the camp and found that the place was worse than the Brigadier had described. As they approached the cookhouse, a collection of dogs were scavenging at the swill bins. One of them was slower than the rest at making a getaway and the Provost Sergeant threw a rope around its collarless neck. Jack gave instructions for it to be shot. As he was heading for the officers' mess for lunch, he heard a single pistol shot from the area of the thirty yards shooting range.
Brigadier Anstice was standing in the ante room with a glass of beer in his hand, asking if anyone had seen his dog, which always accompanied him to the mess at lunch time. When Jack was told that the Brigadier's dog was a large black Labrador, he began to feel that his instruction to the provost sergeant to kill a similar animal might have been precipitate. His worst fears were realised and Jack's appointment as acting camp commandant was terminated forthwith. He was back in 1/SWB officers' mess for tea."
Jack listened to my account of his misfortune with amazement. "That's just what happened," he said.
I'm pleased that my memory, on that occasion - at least, proved to be accurate.
He was about to introduce himself, when I exclaimed: "Jack Medlicott!" He seemed surprised that I remembered him after such a long time and it was obvious that any memories he had of me had been discarded long ago. He was accompanied by his wife and I spent the next half hour showing them some of the interesting things in the Regimental Museum of which I was Curator. They then wandered around on their own for the rest of the afternoon before returning to my office at closing time to say farewell.
We shook hands, vowed to keep in touch and then, as he was about to leave, he said: "Do you know what happened to Brigadier Anstice?" I told him that I believed the brigadier had gone to live in Kyrenia when he retired. I paused for a moment and said: "Wasn't there some trouble between you and him over a dog?" Jack gasped: "Good Lord, do you remember that business?" In answer to his question, I related the incident as if he was a third person: "The Brigadier telephoned the Commanding Officer of the South Wales Borderers in Famagusta and asked him if he could borrow one of his officers for a week to be acting camp commandant at his headquarters in Wayne's Keep. The incumbent, it seemed, had been taken sick and was bedded down in the local British Military Hospital. The CO agreed and gave orders to Jack Medlicott to proceed forthwith.
Jack arrived at Wayne's Keep during the forenoon and was directed to the brigadier's office. He was told that the camp was filthy and had to be smartened. Stray dogs, in particular, were a nuisance and he was given instructions to destroy any that were not wearing collars. A few other terse instructions were issued, and he was dismissed to attend to his duties.
Jack ordered the Provost Sergeant to accompany him on his inspection of the camp and found that the place was worse than the Brigadier had described. As they approached the cookhouse, a collection of dogs were scavenging at the swill bins. One of them was slower than the rest at making a getaway and the Provost Sergeant threw a rope around its collarless neck. Jack gave instructions for it to be shot. As he was heading for the officers' mess for lunch, he heard a single pistol shot from the area of the thirty yards shooting range.
Brigadier Anstice was standing in the ante room with a glass of beer in his hand, asking if anyone had seen his dog, which always accompanied him to the mess at lunch time. When Jack was told that the Brigadier's dog was a large black Labrador, he began to feel that his instruction to the provost sergeant to kill a similar animal might have been precipitate. His worst fears were realised and Jack's appointment as acting camp commandant was terminated forthwith. He was back in 1/SWB officers' mess for tea."
Jack listened to my account of his misfortune with amazement. "That's just what happened," he said.
I'm pleased that my memory, on that occasion - at least, proved to be accurate.
MAYDAY
Among the many sports facilities the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers had in Khartoum in 1949 was a sailing club with three 16 foot dinghies. There was also a club house - Melik, one of General Kitchener's gun-boats which he used to re-capture the Sudan in his campaign of 1896-98. It had one regular crew member, Osman, the bos'n, who lived in a locker full of sails, rope and cans of paint.
I had not sailed before I arrived in Khartoum, and I was one of the first to put my name down for membership. It did not take long to learn the drill and within a week or two I was able to satisfy the Commodore (Major Ken Taylor) sufficiently to take the helm on my own.
The one big disadvantage about sailing on the Nile is the flow of water in one direction. This is offset by a wind in the opposite direction but, if the strength of the wind drops, you run the danger of ending up in Egypt. We used to sail up-river to Crocodile Island, aptly named as scores of 10 - 12 foot long scaly amphibians slithered from the sand banks into the water when we came into view. They were all around us as we sailed on, with just the tips of their noses and two eyes showing. It was rather frightening the first few times I sailed amongst them, but we had a pact - we didn't bother them and they didn't bother us.
There was a large swimming pool in South Barracks, but whenever we wanted to use it, it was performing its primary role of supplying water to flower beds and grass on the sports pitches. It took a day for the water to flow out, another day to have it cleaned and yet another day to fill it up again. For the first day after the re-fill, the chlorine was so strong it brought tears to the eyes of those who swam in it. Therefore, there were only three days left for swimming before the cycle started again. A much better alternative was the Khartoum Swimming Club, about one and a half miles down Kitchener Avenue.
It was a delightful place sporting an elegant club house, beautiful lawns and a swimming pool made to look as if it was a Roman bath-house. Monthly subscriptions were within my limited means and the atmosphere provided a welcome change from the spartan confines of South Barracks. Most 24th Regiment officers could be found at the swimming club on Sunday mornings but as lunch was extra, subalterns usually walked back to the mess for their mid-day meal.
The thought came to me one day as I trudged back to the mess that I could use one of the sailing boats to carry me and a few others to and from the mess for a Sunday morning swim. Captain John Matcham (not his real name) was my best chum in those days and he agreed we should give it a try.
John turned up the following Sunday morning looking like an officer of the Senior Service. He was dressed from head to toe in white drill carrying a white towel and matching swim suit; I felt somewhat embarrassed in my crumpled khaki pants with a pair of army issue PT shorts under my arm.
Osman, the bos’n, had a boat ready so we placed our kit in the locker, ran up the jib and when we were in mid stream, heaved up the mainsail. We hurtled down the river, making use of the strong current at that time of the year, and within a very short time I was steering the boat to the mooring alongside the swimming club. Nothing could have been easier (or less expensive) and we caused some envious looks from brother officers who wished they had thought of the idea themselves.
When it was time to get dressed and return to South Barracks for lunch, I took the helm and asked John to look after the jib. I released the boat from its mooring but instead of making way to deep water, it acted sluggishly and drifted downstream. I could not understand what had happened and, being an inexperienced sailor, had not realised that the large flat piece of steel (called the centre board and used for keeping the yacht stable) had gone past the 'lock' position and was drifting about aimlessly below the boat. There was nothing we could do but watch the Governor General's palace and the landing stage getting closer.
More by luck than skill on my part, I managed to avoid hitting the jetty only to find that another hazard lay ahead. John stood in the bows with one arm locked around the jib stay and the other ready to fend the boat off the wall when the inevitable collision occurred. At the moment of strike, a deluge of effluent poured out of a large hole above his head. It was as if he had pressed a button to release the contents of every lavatory in the palace and this, combined with a quantity of kitchen waste, started to flood the boat. From being an immaculate officer one second, John became a muddy brown one the next with sewage and rubbish covering every inch of his body.
He was more concerned about his appearance than the state of the boat and I had to use some pretty strong language before he pushed us away from the wall. As we bumped along in front of the palace for another hundred yards or so, we started baling out the mess that filled a large part of the bilge. We were not in any danger of sinking, but the smell was awful.
It was obvious we needed assistance otherwise we would drift down to the great bridge that spanned the confluence of both Niles - the White Nile with its source in Lake Victoria and the one we were on already - the Blue Nile, which sprang from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. From then on, it was non-stop to Cairo.
The sound of a powerful outboard motor was music to our ears and a cabin cruiser swung across the river and drew up alongside us. The daughter of the Civil Secretary was at the wheel (I recognised her as the prettiest girl at a party held only a week previously in the home of a Sudan government civil servant). Her companion had recently arrived from France to spend a holiday in Khartoum. "Are you in trouble?" trilled the elegant Bidsey Wallace. Even at that stage, John and I did not like to admit we were, literally, in the 'mire'; our inclination was to say: "Not really, we're just pottering around helping to keep the place clean." But the reality of the situation was that we were in deep trouble and needed help. Besides, the wind had dropped and even if the centre board had been working, we still would not have been able to get back to our mooring at the Melik.
Bidsey steered her father's boat close to ours, and Chantelle threw us a line which John hooked to a bar on the bow. The French girl's nose twitched when she caught a whiff of 'eau de Governor's sewage works' and when she looked inside our boat and then at John and found that one matched the other, she let out a shriek. I had to explain to Bidsey that it was not as bad as it looked and that if she let out her tow rope to its full extent she would avoid most of the smell. In that manner we chugged slowly up the river and were deposited alongside our mooring.
The final disaster to befall us that day was the loss of the centre board which, when not in use, is held in place in the upright position inside the boat by a steel bolt. While I was having another shot at securing it in its housing, the pin slipped out and the centre board fell, breaking the steel hawser in its descent and coming to rest somewhere on the bottom of the Blue Nile. Osman came out in his little boat to collect us and sucked his solitary tooth when he saw what had happened. I asked him if he had a spare and he shook his head.
Major Ken Taylor, the Commodore, was furious when I told him about our misfortunes. Cleaning the boat was the easiest bit. Osman's son, Ali, was given the job and an hour later it looked cleaner than it was before we took it out. The loss of the centre board, however, was in a different category and I was told that if I could not find it, I would have to pay for a new one.
Later on that afternoon, I took my fishing rod and a magnet from one of my Tele 'Ls' (field telephone - I was the Signals Officer) and tried to locate the centre board on the river bed. After a fruitless hour's trawling, I offered Ali a handful of piastres if he could find it. He grabbed a length of rope and was over the side like a shot. Thirty seconds later he was waving the end of the tether and claiming his reward.
When I left Khartoum in December 1949, I did not sail until I was with the 1st Battalion Welch Regiment in Pembrokeshire in 1955. I was the second-in-command of a rifle company based at the RAC Ranges and Training Area, Castlemartin at the time.
We were talking about boats in the mess one day when one of the young officers asked me if I could sail. Khartoum seemed a long way off and a long time ago, but I answered in the affirmative. "Good," he said. "What about taking us out tomorrow?". The Regiment had a sailing boat moored alongside the ferry landing stage in Pembroke Dock and, as it was free the following day, the young officer booked it for 3pm.
Singing telephone wires made me aware that the wind strength was way above normal for that part of Pembrokeshire as I packed three passengers and myself into my Morris '8'. However, the die was cast and we drove the ten miles of switch-back road to Pembroke Dock in a cheerful mood.
Milford Haven is what its name implies - a haven for ships and all things that float, including Sunderland flying- boats, a squadron of which was based in Pembroke Dock. When they were not flying hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic looking for Russian submarines, they slumbered in the Haven like a flock of elegant swans.
Our little boat was tucked up under its canvas covers riding happily at its mooring. Someone was at hand to row us out and as soon as I climbed aboard, I set about removing the canvas covers, lowering the centre board and generally getting things ready. One of the young officers, trying to help, unfastened the mooring rope and before I could explain the few basic facts I remembered about sailing, we were drifting into deep water and away from the shelter of the pier.
"Raise the jib (small sail in the bow)," I yelled and the young officer who was responsible for our unscheduled start, hauled one of the ropes until the sail filled with wind to such a degree that we were soon scudding down the haven.
As anyone knows, you cannot manoeuvre a boat properly with just a jib. I wanted to raise the mainsail, but the wind was too strong and I was afraid we would turn upside down if I attempted it with an inexperienced crew. Instead, I concentrated on avoiding the flying-boats that were anchored in my path like bunkers on a golf course.
Unknown to me, we were observed by Lieutenant John Davey using a telescope in his bedroom in the officers' mess, Llanion Barracks (little did we guess in those days he would become Brigadier K.J. Davey CBE, MC, DL and Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Wales).
John was Pembrokeshire born and bred and was the only competent sailor we had in the battalion. He could see we were in trouble, so he rang the squadron office at the RAF base in Pembroke Dock and asked them to provide assistance.
While I was busy dodging flying-boats, my crew were quite enjoying themselves, but after I narrowly missed shaving the wing-tip off the last one of the squadron, and still kept going, they realised that something was wrong. One of them asked if I could turn around and go home as he was feeling cold and sick. The call was taken up by the other two, but I would have none of it. and continued on my course down Milford Haven hoping that I would find sanctuary in an inlet somewhere.
I became aware that we were not on our own when a klaxon horn sounded. I turned around and saw a yellow motor boat flying an RAF flag coming alongside. "Do you need assistance?" bellowed a voice through a loud hailer. "No thank you," I replied, thinking of the embarrassment I would suffer if I owned up to being saved by the RAF. "Yes, we do," shouted the other members of my crew. I was finally out-voted in the 'Yes we do' - 'No we don't' battle of words and we were taken in tow by the launch. I have never been so humiliated in all my life and I sat in the stern of the boat all the way back to the mooring like a modern-day Captain Bligh.
I experienced one other mutiny, but this time my crew comprised my wife and two young children and we were sailing our own boat on Llangorse Lake in South Wales. It was just another family argument which I usually lost - so it doesn't count.
I had not sailed before I arrived in Khartoum, and I was one of the first to put my name down for membership. It did not take long to learn the drill and within a week or two I was able to satisfy the Commodore (Major Ken Taylor) sufficiently to take the helm on my own.
The one big disadvantage about sailing on the Nile is the flow of water in one direction. This is offset by a wind in the opposite direction but, if the strength of the wind drops, you run the danger of ending up in Egypt. We used to sail up-river to Crocodile Island, aptly named as scores of 10 - 12 foot long scaly amphibians slithered from the sand banks into the water when we came into view. They were all around us as we sailed on, with just the tips of their noses and two eyes showing. It was rather frightening the first few times I sailed amongst them, but we had a pact - we didn't bother them and they didn't bother us.
There was a large swimming pool in South Barracks, but whenever we wanted to use it, it was performing its primary role of supplying water to flower beds and grass on the sports pitches. It took a day for the water to flow out, another day to have it cleaned and yet another day to fill it up again. For the first day after the re-fill, the chlorine was so strong it brought tears to the eyes of those who swam in it. Therefore, there were only three days left for swimming before the cycle started again. A much better alternative was the Khartoum Swimming Club, about one and a half miles down Kitchener Avenue.
It was a delightful place sporting an elegant club house, beautiful lawns and a swimming pool made to look as if it was a Roman bath-house. Monthly subscriptions were within my limited means and the atmosphere provided a welcome change from the spartan confines of South Barracks. Most 24th Regiment officers could be found at the swimming club on Sunday mornings but as lunch was extra, subalterns usually walked back to the mess for their mid-day meal.
The thought came to me one day as I trudged back to the mess that I could use one of the sailing boats to carry me and a few others to and from the mess for a Sunday morning swim. Captain John Matcham (not his real name) was my best chum in those days and he agreed we should give it a try.
John turned up the following Sunday morning looking like an officer of the Senior Service. He was dressed from head to toe in white drill carrying a white towel and matching swim suit; I felt somewhat embarrassed in my crumpled khaki pants with a pair of army issue PT shorts under my arm.
Osman, the bos’n, had a boat ready so we placed our kit in the locker, ran up the jib and when we were in mid stream, heaved up the mainsail. We hurtled down the river, making use of the strong current at that time of the year, and within a very short time I was steering the boat to the mooring alongside the swimming club. Nothing could have been easier (or less expensive) and we caused some envious looks from brother officers who wished they had thought of the idea themselves.
When it was time to get dressed and return to South Barracks for lunch, I took the helm and asked John to look after the jib. I released the boat from its mooring but instead of making way to deep water, it acted sluggishly and drifted downstream. I could not understand what had happened and, being an inexperienced sailor, had not realised that the large flat piece of steel (called the centre board and used for keeping the yacht stable) had gone past the 'lock' position and was drifting about aimlessly below the boat. There was nothing we could do but watch the Governor General's palace and the landing stage getting closer.
More by luck than skill on my part, I managed to avoid hitting the jetty only to find that another hazard lay ahead. John stood in the bows with one arm locked around the jib stay and the other ready to fend the boat off the wall when the inevitable collision occurred. At the moment of strike, a deluge of effluent poured out of a large hole above his head. It was as if he had pressed a button to release the contents of every lavatory in the palace and this, combined with a quantity of kitchen waste, started to flood the boat. From being an immaculate officer one second, John became a muddy brown one the next with sewage and rubbish covering every inch of his body.
He was more concerned about his appearance than the state of the boat and I had to use some pretty strong language before he pushed us away from the wall. As we bumped along in front of the palace for another hundred yards or so, we started baling out the mess that filled a large part of the bilge. We were not in any danger of sinking, but the smell was awful.
It was obvious we needed assistance otherwise we would drift down to the great bridge that spanned the confluence of both Niles - the White Nile with its source in Lake Victoria and the one we were on already - the Blue Nile, which sprang from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. From then on, it was non-stop to Cairo.
The sound of a powerful outboard motor was music to our ears and a cabin cruiser swung across the river and drew up alongside us. The daughter of the Civil Secretary was at the wheel (I recognised her as the prettiest girl at a party held only a week previously in the home of a Sudan government civil servant). Her companion had recently arrived from France to spend a holiday in Khartoum. "Are you in trouble?" trilled the elegant Bidsey Wallace. Even at that stage, John and I did not like to admit we were, literally, in the 'mire'; our inclination was to say: "Not really, we're just pottering around helping to keep the place clean." But the reality of the situation was that we were in deep trouble and needed help. Besides, the wind had dropped and even if the centre board had been working, we still would not have been able to get back to our mooring at the Melik.
Bidsey steered her father's boat close to ours, and Chantelle threw us a line which John hooked to a bar on the bow. The French girl's nose twitched when she caught a whiff of 'eau de Governor's sewage works' and when she looked inside our boat and then at John and found that one matched the other, she let out a shriek. I had to explain to Bidsey that it was not as bad as it looked and that if she let out her tow rope to its full extent she would avoid most of the smell. In that manner we chugged slowly up the river and were deposited alongside our mooring.
The final disaster to befall us that day was the loss of the centre board which, when not in use, is held in place in the upright position inside the boat by a steel bolt. While I was having another shot at securing it in its housing, the pin slipped out and the centre board fell, breaking the steel hawser in its descent and coming to rest somewhere on the bottom of the Blue Nile. Osman came out in his little boat to collect us and sucked his solitary tooth when he saw what had happened. I asked him if he had a spare and he shook his head.
Major Ken Taylor, the Commodore, was furious when I told him about our misfortunes. Cleaning the boat was the easiest bit. Osman's son, Ali, was given the job and an hour later it looked cleaner than it was before we took it out. The loss of the centre board, however, was in a different category and I was told that if I could not find it, I would have to pay for a new one.
Later on that afternoon, I took my fishing rod and a magnet from one of my Tele 'Ls' (field telephone - I was the Signals Officer) and tried to locate the centre board on the river bed. After a fruitless hour's trawling, I offered Ali a handful of piastres if he could find it. He grabbed a length of rope and was over the side like a shot. Thirty seconds later he was waving the end of the tether and claiming his reward.
When I left Khartoum in December 1949, I did not sail until I was with the 1st Battalion Welch Regiment in Pembrokeshire in 1955. I was the second-in-command of a rifle company based at the RAC Ranges and Training Area, Castlemartin at the time.
We were talking about boats in the mess one day when one of the young officers asked me if I could sail. Khartoum seemed a long way off and a long time ago, but I answered in the affirmative. "Good," he said. "What about taking us out tomorrow?". The Regiment had a sailing boat moored alongside the ferry landing stage in Pembroke Dock and, as it was free the following day, the young officer booked it for 3pm.
Singing telephone wires made me aware that the wind strength was way above normal for that part of Pembrokeshire as I packed three passengers and myself into my Morris '8'. However, the die was cast and we drove the ten miles of switch-back road to Pembroke Dock in a cheerful mood.
Milford Haven is what its name implies - a haven for ships and all things that float, including Sunderland flying- boats, a squadron of which was based in Pembroke Dock. When they were not flying hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic looking for Russian submarines, they slumbered in the Haven like a flock of elegant swans.
Our little boat was tucked up under its canvas covers riding happily at its mooring. Someone was at hand to row us out and as soon as I climbed aboard, I set about removing the canvas covers, lowering the centre board and generally getting things ready. One of the young officers, trying to help, unfastened the mooring rope and before I could explain the few basic facts I remembered about sailing, we were drifting into deep water and away from the shelter of the pier.
"Raise the jib (small sail in the bow)," I yelled and the young officer who was responsible for our unscheduled start, hauled one of the ropes until the sail filled with wind to such a degree that we were soon scudding down the haven.
As anyone knows, you cannot manoeuvre a boat properly with just a jib. I wanted to raise the mainsail, but the wind was too strong and I was afraid we would turn upside down if I attempted it with an inexperienced crew. Instead, I concentrated on avoiding the flying-boats that were anchored in my path like bunkers on a golf course.
Unknown to me, we were observed by Lieutenant John Davey using a telescope in his bedroom in the officers' mess, Llanion Barracks (little did we guess in those days he would become Brigadier K.J. Davey CBE, MC, DL and Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Wales).
John was Pembrokeshire born and bred and was the only competent sailor we had in the battalion. He could see we were in trouble, so he rang the squadron office at the RAF base in Pembroke Dock and asked them to provide assistance.
While I was busy dodging flying-boats, my crew were quite enjoying themselves, but after I narrowly missed shaving the wing-tip off the last one of the squadron, and still kept going, they realised that something was wrong. One of them asked if I could turn around and go home as he was feeling cold and sick. The call was taken up by the other two, but I would have none of it. and continued on my course down Milford Haven hoping that I would find sanctuary in an inlet somewhere.
I became aware that we were not on our own when a klaxon horn sounded. I turned around and saw a yellow motor boat flying an RAF flag coming alongside. "Do you need assistance?" bellowed a voice through a loud hailer. "No thank you," I replied, thinking of the embarrassment I would suffer if I owned up to being saved by the RAF. "Yes, we do," shouted the other members of my crew. I was finally out-voted in the 'Yes we do' - 'No we don't' battle of words and we were taken in tow by the launch. I have never been so humiliated in all my life and I sat in the stern of the boat all the way back to the mooring like a modern-day Captain Bligh.
I experienced one other mutiny, but this time my crew comprised my wife and two young children and we were sailing our own boat on Llangorse Lake in South Wales. It was just another family argument which I usually lost - so it doesn't count.
MEDITERRANEAN-MERRY-GO-ROUND
I arrived in Liverpool on a bright sunny day in August 1948 to begin my journey to Cyprus. Although I had been commissioned for two years, this was to be my first experience of travelling aboard a troopship.
"That'll be two and sixpence, guv," said the taxi driver as he drew up alongside the gangway of Canadian Pacific's liner 'EMPRESS OF AUSTRALIA' moored at Prince's Quay. As he unloaded my kit, I looked up at the ship which was to be my home for the next two weeks. Troopships in those days were painted white with a blue line just above the anchor all way round. This one, which displaced 21,830 tons, had three funnels and two masts from which were draped signal flags of many colours.
The taxi driver handed me over to a porter who told me he would attend to my baggage. "I see you've got it well labelled, sir," he said. "Don't worry, leave everything to me. Your 'cabin baggage' will be delivered to the purser's square, 'wanted on voyage' will go to the baggage room and the rest will go down to the hold." He seemed to know what he was doing so I picked up a Gladstone bag which contained my travel documents and a few other odds and ends and went aboard.
I shared a cabin with another officer who soon had all his cabin baggage stowed beneath his bunk, but despite a number of trips to the purser's square, there was no sign of mine. I looked over the ship's side to the place where I had last seen it, but there was nothing there. The baggage room and the hold were out of bounds and no one was able to help me find my kit. At 6pm the restraining hawsers of the ship splashed into the sea and we moved out into the River Mersey. Tugs fussed about us like terriers, nosing here and pulling there until we were in midstream and able to look after ourselves. Soon, we left Liverpool behind and headed down-river to the open sea.
The loss of my kit did not worry me for the first few days, but when we reached Gibraltar, everyone else was able to change into lightweight clothes. I was the exception and had to put up with my heavy winter uniform for the rest of the voyage. It was not too bad during the day, but I missed the white 'drill' mess jackets and navy-blue trousers which I had had made specially for Mediterranean wear.
Our arrival in Malta was an unforgettable experience. I awoke to hear the sound of church bells and when I looked out of the porthole, I saw tiers of brilliant white buildings, all jammed together, rising from the green sea; we were entering Grand Harbour, Valetta. My cabin companion and I got dressed and were up on deck to see more of the island which only six years before had been battered by the German and Italian air forces; there was still plenty of evidence of the damage they caused.
Our next landfall was Haifa in what was then called Palestine, soon to be re-named Israel when the avalanche of Jewish emigrants from Europe forced the hands of the United Nations. Many soldiers disembarked at this point and then, in the late afternoon, we drew anchor and sailed for Port Said in Egypt, only twelve hours away.
Up to this time I was a free-agent, but as we left Haifa I was called to the adjutant's office and told I would be responsible for exchanging English money for Egyptian piastres for about fifty soldiers who would be disembarking at Port Said. The process started that evening when I assembled the soldiers and relieved them of their spare cash, which I handed to the adjutant for safe keeping. As I was leaving his office, one of the clerks put a list of names on the notice board. This gave details of those who would be disembarking the following day and I was surprised to find my name was entered. This was obviously a mistake as the next port of call after Port Said was Limassol in Cyprus, the island where the South Wales Borderers were stationed. I told the adjutant about the error, but all I got was a rude reply.
We arrived in Port Said early the next morning and most people were up on deck to see the waterway that joined the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. History came to life when I saw the huge statue of the French engineer who masterminded the project - Ferdinand de Lessops, at the entrance to the canal. The 'EMPRESS OF AUSTRALIA' moved majestically down the canal parallel to the waterfront where shops were already open for business. I saw the well-known store of SIMON ARTZ which claimed to stock everything required by the discerning traveller whether going east or west or deep into central Africa; we tied up close to the Canal Building.
'Bum-boats' were the first to make contact and it was not long before rope lines were thrown aboard and trading commenced. Baskets containing merchandise ranging from rugs to sculpted wooden figures passed up and down until a price was agreed. Soon to follow were the 'gilli-gilli' men who squatted on the deck and drew a crowd of soldiers by shouting their 'trade-sound': "Gilli-gilli-gilli-gilli." At the same time, they juggled with their props which consisted of chickens' eggs, dice, and small brass pots. They had a quick-fire routine which started with the apparent disappearance of an egg which had been placed beneath one of the pots, only to reappear in a soldier's pocket six feet away. The ship's regimental sergeant major was heard to say: "Take care lads, if that chap there can make those eggs disappear, what chance have you got keeping your wallet safe in this thieving town?"
As soon as I had finished my breakfast, I went to the adjutant's office to get the bag of money and collect a form which I had to complete and present to a field cashier of the Royal Army Pay Corps when he came aboard. I was not the only one who had to change English money into Egyptian piastres. There must have been half a dozen of us who had been detailed to look after various groups of soldiers, and there were officers, warrant officers and families who were being dealt with individually. The cashiers, about five or six of them, sat in a row behind tables on the purser's square and we formed queues in front of them. Eventually, my turn came to be served but when the cashier took my bag of money he said: "You haven't completed this bit." Cursing under my breath, I took the form to a spare table and spent a few minutes completing the extra detail. The queue filled up again and when my turn came, for the second time, I looked into the face of an officer I had not seen before.. I glanced right and left at the other cashiers but none looked like the one to whom I had given my bag of cash. The chap in front of me held out his hand but all I could say was that I had given my money to someone in that exact spot a few minutes ago, and now he seemed to have gone. "What was his name and what did he look like?" asked the cashier. I told him I wasn't on personal terms and, as for a description, he looked remarkably like the 'gilli-gilli' man on the promenade deck. The present incumbent of the chair was getting impatient. "You had better go along to the pay office in Port Said," he said. "Someone might have taken it there."
For the second time on the voyage I was the unwitting victim of the loss of chattels. The first, as yet, unresolved disappearance of my kit was, at least, a personal problem. But the loss of soldiers' money was a different sort of thing altogether. I went along to see the adjutant to get a pass to go ashore. "Do you make a habit of this sort of thing?" he said icily.
I had only a sketchy idea of the location of the Army pay office . On my way there I was accosted by a number of small boys who showed me photographs of their sisters, all of whom were available that morning. Thanking them for their offers, and nearly falling over three other children who were trying to clean my shoes, I followed the directions I had been given. More by luck than judgement I found the building, identifiable by a Union Jack flying from a pole on the roof. I explained my presence and once again sensed a lack of sympathy for my misfortune. The Royal Army Pay Corps require signatures and, as I did not have one, they were not interested. Just as I was about to give up, return to the ship and surrender myself to the soldiers whose money I had lost, I saw the fellow I was looking for walk from one room to another. I grabbed him and demanded he return my money. He looked at me for a second or two and responded with an appropriate analogy: "Now the penny's dropped. I wondered why I was £500 up."
Within a few minutes he had given me the equivalent amount in grubby piastre notes. Never having seen Egyptian money before, I spent a considerable amount of time sorting them out. When I had finished, the cashier arranged for me to return to the ship in a staff car. "You wouldn't last more than five minutes in this area with that bag of cash," he said. I have never experienced such a feeling of relief as I felt that day when I was driven back to the waterfront. As soon as I got aboard the ship, I called my soldiers together and paid them out to the last piastre.
Not all the soldiers on the ship had changed their money because many of them were going to join units in Cyprus including the South Wales Borderers. I went to the adjutant's office again and remonstrated with him, but it was no use. "I don't give a damn about where you say you are going. I have orders to put you off here and that's what I'm going to do." he said. "What about my kit which I haven't seen since I left Liverpool?" I asked. "It will catch up with you sooner or later," he said dismissively.
When the time came to disembark, we descended into lighters which took us across to the east side of the canal. From there we marched to Port Fouad transit camp, which was only a few hundred yards away. We passed through pleasant tree-lined avenues where opulent houses were set back from the road in well tended gardens. This was obviously the wealthy residential district of the metropolis of Port Said which, at that time, was one of the great ports of the world. I began to buck up at the prospect of spending some time in this cheerful place, but the 'cheer' faded when I entered the transit camp and saw rows of khaki '160 pounder' tents.
I had never experienced the heat of a Mediterranean summer before and I found that a small tent on a dusty camp-site was not the best place to start. Even with both ends open and lying on my bed in a state of near nudity, the stifling heat numbed my senses. It was not until about 5pm, when a slight breeze brought some relief, that I started to take an interest in things again. I placed my canvas-backed camp chair at the entrance to the tent and picked up one of the novels I had brought. Before I had read one page, I heard the sound of squeaky wheels. Looking up, I saw an Arab coming towards me pulling a barrow. When he stopped alongside my tent, he took out a small book from within his long white nightshirt, checked the number on my tent-pole and off-loaded two suitcases which I recognised as mine. He made a few more trips between the tent and his barrow and eventually I was reunited with all my kit which I had not seen for two weeks. I felt like kissing him, but on second thoughts I emptied my pockets and gave him all my loose change. I knew exactly where to find a pair of white shorts and a shirt and I could hardly wait to get them on.
No sooner had I got dressed than an announcement was made over the PA system: 'Anyone wanting an advance of pay should report to the camp office'. My pay was then about £25 a month so, as I was about £20 in credit in my bank at home, I cashed a cheque for the lot. That was a considerable amount of money in those days and, as life was sweet and the morrow could take care of itself, I and a few other friends went out for a night on the town.
I must have been in the transit camp for three or four days thoroughly enjoying the routine of swimming at the French Club and spending the evenings in Port Said. Cyprus seemed a long way away and, if the British Army couldn't make up its mind what to do with me, I was prepared to soak up the good life, providing the field cashier continued to sustain me.
The Army had not lost contact with me though and one morning I was told I was being transferred to Base Transit Depot (Suez) the following day. Additionally, I would be responsible for conducting a draft of forty men. At this point, I began to wonder if these people had any idea of sending me to join my regiment at all. Perhaps it was East Africa or India they had in mind!
After an early breakfast, I reported to camp office, collected the documents and met the draft that was formed up ready to move. Our kit was put aboard a truck and we marched to the canal, which we crossed by ferry - then another short march to the railway station.
Before we boarded the train, I told the men not to stick their heads out of the windows when the train was moving. It was a common occurrence for thieves to relieve passengers of their watches and rings as the train moved along the platform. I had heard one nasty story about a soldier nearly having his wrist severed by a cut-throat razor when a 'clefty-wallah' tried to cut his leather watch strap.
As we moved out of Port Said and into the delta area of Egypt, we saw the moving pattern of life in this fertile region irrigated by the mighty River Nile. On one side was a pastoral scene, biblical in its simplicity, while on the other side huge ships seemed to be floating through the desert but were, in fact, on passage through the Suez Canal.
The journey from one end of the canal to the other is about one hundred and ten miles, with a stop at Ismailiya - the half way stage, where we changed trains. I had to attend to the documentation of the draft so I told the senior rank - a sergeant, to look after the men and get them to the right platform. I became immediately involved with the station master who objected to the amount of kit I wanted to take aboard the train. There was no way I was going to let it out of my sight in the guard's van, so I had to reach an understanding with him. When he was satisfied with the crumpled pile of piastre notes I put in his hand, I was allowed to proceed. The station master himself summoned a porter and led the way to the platform for Suez. There was nobody there when I arrived, but eventually the sergeant and a corporal turned up. They looked mystified when I asked them what had happened to the draft. We eventually came to the conclusion they had boarded the train to Cairo which had recently departed from the other side of the platform. Half an hour later, the train for Suez was shunted in and we, the remaining three of the draft, climbed aboard and set off on the second part of the journey. This latest loss of mine had the potential for being the biggest so far and I saw very little of the Bitter Lakes - a natural deep water section of the canal; I was too busy working out what I would say when I arrived, draftless, at the other end.
I had always imagined Suez to be a romantic outpost of the Middle East, but the reality of the place dispelled my illusion. The town itself was set in a stretch of flat desert upon which were built some hideous blocks of flats. The rest of the sprawling township consisted of mud huts with corrugated iron roofs. We went on for a few more miles to a place called Port Tewfik, where the southern part of the canal flows into the Red Sea - or vice versa.
I stuck my head out of the window and saw some soldiers wearing red arm bands on their khaki shirts. I recognised them as Army Movements staff and realised that the time had come for me to report the loss of the draft. "I'm sorry to tell you that I've only got two left. I think the others have gone to Cairo." The senior officer took the documents which I offered him and scanned the contents as if it was an unwelcome bill. "We weren't expecting a draft today," he said. "Where did you say they'd gone?" I told him I could not be sure they had gone to Cairo as I was not conversant with the Egyptian railway system. "It could have been Alexandria," I suggested, as this was the only other place I could think of. The movements officer put the documents in his brief case and went off to attend to some soldiers who were going to Port Said. I found it difficult to understand why no one seemed the slightest bit interested in thirty eight men going adrift, but I had done everything I could think of, so the sergeant, the corporal and I climbed into a truck which took us to the transit camp.
Base Transit Depot (Suez), at Port Tewfik, was much the same as the one at the north end of the canal while the inside of a '160 pounder' tent looks the same anywhere in the world. The down-town area was in walking distance and had the same sort of spacious houses and wide boulevards as in Port Fouad. The Europeans who lived there were mainly French and the club was spectacular.
For the next six days or so, I reported to the camp office each morning to see if there was any news of the missing draft, but the answer was always the same. I would then wander down to the French Club and spend the day by the pool. During the evening, there was usually a film show and I became more proficient in the French language during that week in Port Tewfik than I ever did at school. On my seventh day in the transit camp, I was told I would be going back to Port Said the following day and that I should make myself ready to board the train at 8am.
Even though there were a number of British soldiers travelling on the same train, I was not responsible for them. I do not think they believed in drafts in Port Tewfik and even if they did, I was surely the last person in the world they would have chosen to be the officer in charge.
When I boarded the train, I noticed that some of the soldiers were looking out of the windows, so I told what I had heard about 'cut-throat' razor thieves. Most of them took my advice, but when we arrived at Suez railway station, one soldier continued to lean out of the window. As the train stopped, a native spat in his face. The soldier immediately retaliated by punching the fellow on his nose. That was the signal for all hell to be let loose. I could see that the natives were eager to get to grips with the unarmed soldiers, so I ordered the windows to be closed. This made the Egyptians try another line of attack and I watched as they went further up the train to make their entry.
Before I left home in Wales, a friend of my father gave me a Colt .45 revolver which he had carried during the second world war. I thought it was a kind gesture at the time, but realised later I might have been a convenient depository for a weapon and ammunition that had become an embarrassment. The Egyptians were now racing down the train towards me so, with their leader only about ten yards away, I pulled my enormous revolver out of its leather holster and stuck the muzzle into the fellow's stomach. This had the desired effect and I herded the Egyptians, with their hands in the air, to the nearest door where they fell out onto the platform. The guard realised that something was wrong and he acted promptly when I told him to get his train moving. The enraged natives ran alongside the carriage for the whole length of the platform letting us know what they would do if we ever came to Suez again.
When we arrived at Port Said, we had the problem of getting ourselves and our kit to the waterfront. A sergeant mustered the soldiers into three ranks and then contracted a porter with a large barrow to carry the kit. When all was ready, we moved off with the soldiers up front followed by the porter and finally me, bringing up the rear, keeping an eye on my kit.
When we were half way to the waterfront, the porter stopped and put the shafts of the barrow on the ground. I shouted to the sergeant to halt the men while I dealt with the porter who had gone on strike. The sergeant, who wore a kilt and was made of stern Highland stuff, was not prepared to renogotiate the contract and gave orders to three of the soldiers to take over the barrow and proceed. The porter was outraged and shouted so loud that a hostile crowd collected around us. Our little force closed ranks and, like a Roman phalanx - with the barrow in the middle, we progressed slowly to the canal. Reinforcements in the shape of half a dozen military policemen eventually came to our assistance when we emerged from the native quarter. The sergeant, with magnanimity typical of his race, handed the purple-faced porter a handful of piastres and advised him in a broad Highland dialect: "Dinnae try yurr tricks wi' me agin laddie."
When I reported to the adjutant in the transit camp at Port Fouad, I asked him if there were any other interesting places I could visit. A trip along the north African coast as far as Tobruk would, I suggested, be most acceptable. He looked sourly at me and told me I would be sailing for Cyprus in three days time on the 'EMPIRE COMFORT'.
The 'EMPIRE COMFORT' turned out to be an ex Royal Navy corvette which carried about fifty soldiers in extreme discomfort and a dozen or so officers in medium discomfort. She had a sister ship called 'EMPIRE PEACE MAKER', aptly re-named 'EMPIRE SICK MAKER' by all who voyaged in her. We sailed out of Port Said harbour into a rough sea and I found that my sea-legs were inadequate for this vessel that bobbed round like a cork. I consoled myself with the thought that I would have to spend one night only on board.
Famagusta came into view the next morning and we were soon alongside the jetty. Familiar Welsh voices greeted me as I stepped ashore and one of my friends from Brecon days whisked me away in a jeep to Karaolos Camp, the home of the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers, a few miles out of town. I was allocated half a Nissan hut in the officers' compound and given the rest of the day to get settled. The adjutant told me the commanding officer would like to see me first thing the following day.
At the appointed hour I appeared before the CO. He was interested to hear what I had done since I was commissioned and he explained the role of the battalion which was guarding twenty thousand illegal Jewish immigrants. Then he dropped the bombshell: "How would you like to be my signals officer?" Anyone less knowledgeable about wireless sets than me would have been difficult to find, and I told him so. "We'll soon fix that," he said. "If you think you can do the job, I propose to send you home to do a signals course in Yorkshire in six weeks time." Naturally, I accepted the offer but I was beginning to wonder if I was destined to be a human albatross, forever travelling over the oceans of the world with only temporary visits to dry land. When I had time to reflect upon the offer, I realised how lucky I was to be given, what many people believed, the best job for a young officer in an infantry battalion.
I travelled home from Port Said on the 'ASTURIAS', a large and luxurious ship returning to Southampton after carrying British emigrants to Australia at £10 a head. I successfully completed an eleven week signals course in Richmond, Yorkshire, spent Christmas 1948 with my parents and returned to Cyprus in the good old 'EMPRESS OF AUSTRALIA'. This time I had no trouble with my kit - after all, I was by this time a seasoned traveller.
"That'll be two and sixpence, guv," said the taxi driver as he drew up alongside the gangway of Canadian Pacific's liner 'EMPRESS OF AUSTRALIA' moored at Prince's Quay. As he unloaded my kit, I looked up at the ship which was to be my home for the next two weeks. Troopships in those days were painted white with a blue line just above the anchor all way round. This one, which displaced 21,830 tons, had three funnels and two masts from which were draped signal flags of many colours.
The taxi driver handed me over to a porter who told me he would attend to my baggage. "I see you've got it well labelled, sir," he said. "Don't worry, leave everything to me. Your 'cabin baggage' will be delivered to the purser's square, 'wanted on voyage' will go to the baggage room and the rest will go down to the hold." He seemed to know what he was doing so I picked up a Gladstone bag which contained my travel documents and a few other odds and ends and went aboard.
I shared a cabin with another officer who soon had all his cabin baggage stowed beneath his bunk, but despite a number of trips to the purser's square, there was no sign of mine. I looked over the ship's side to the place where I had last seen it, but there was nothing there. The baggage room and the hold were out of bounds and no one was able to help me find my kit. At 6pm the restraining hawsers of the ship splashed into the sea and we moved out into the River Mersey. Tugs fussed about us like terriers, nosing here and pulling there until we were in midstream and able to look after ourselves. Soon, we left Liverpool behind and headed down-river to the open sea.
The loss of my kit did not worry me for the first few days, but when we reached Gibraltar, everyone else was able to change into lightweight clothes. I was the exception and had to put up with my heavy winter uniform for the rest of the voyage. It was not too bad during the day, but I missed the white 'drill' mess jackets and navy-blue trousers which I had had made specially for Mediterranean wear.
Our arrival in Malta was an unforgettable experience. I awoke to hear the sound of church bells and when I looked out of the porthole, I saw tiers of brilliant white buildings, all jammed together, rising from the green sea; we were entering Grand Harbour, Valetta. My cabin companion and I got dressed and were up on deck to see more of the island which only six years before had been battered by the German and Italian air forces; there was still plenty of evidence of the damage they caused.
Our next landfall was Haifa in what was then called Palestine, soon to be re-named Israel when the avalanche of Jewish emigrants from Europe forced the hands of the United Nations. Many soldiers disembarked at this point and then, in the late afternoon, we drew anchor and sailed for Port Said in Egypt, only twelve hours away.
Up to this time I was a free-agent, but as we left Haifa I was called to the adjutant's office and told I would be responsible for exchanging English money for Egyptian piastres for about fifty soldiers who would be disembarking at Port Said. The process started that evening when I assembled the soldiers and relieved them of their spare cash, which I handed to the adjutant for safe keeping. As I was leaving his office, one of the clerks put a list of names on the notice board. This gave details of those who would be disembarking the following day and I was surprised to find my name was entered. This was obviously a mistake as the next port of call after Port Said was Limassol in Cyprus, the island where the South Wales Borderers were stationed. I told the adjutant about the error, but all I got was a rude reply.
We arrived in Port Said early the next morning and most people were up on deck to see the waterway that joined the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. History came to life when I saw the huge statue of the French engineer who masterminded the project - Ferdinand de Lessops, at the entrance to the canal. The 'EMPRESS OF AUSTRALIA' moved majestically down the canal parallel to the waterfront where shops were already open for business. I saw the well-known store of SIMON ARTZ which claimed to stock everything required by the discerning traveller whether going east or west or deep into central Africa; we tied up close to the Canal Building.
'Bum-boats' were the first to make contact and it was not long before rope lines were thrown aboard and trading commenced. Baskets containing merchandise ranging from rugs to sculpted wooden figures passed up and down until a price was agreed. Soon to follow were the 'gilli-gilli' men who squatted on the deck and drew a crowd of soldiers by shouting their 'trade-sound': "Gilli-gilli-gilli-gilli." At the same time, they juggled with their props which consisted of chickens' eggs, dice, and small brass pots. They had a quick-fire routine which started with the apparent disappearance of an egg which had been placed beneath one of the pots, only to reappear in a soldier's pocket six feet away. The ship's regimental sergeant major was heard to say: "Take care lads, if that chap there can make those eggs disappear, what chance have you got keeping your wallet safe in this thieving town?"
As soon as I had finished my breakfast, I went to the adjutant's office to get the bag of money and collect a form which I had to complete and present to a field cashier of the Royal Army Pay Corps when he came aboard. I was not the only one who had to change English money into Egyptian piastres. There must have been half a dozen of us who had been detailed to look after various groups of soldiers, and there were officers, warrant officers and families who were being dealt with individually. The cashiers, about five or six of them, sat in a row behind tables on the purser's square and we formed queues in front of them. Eventually, my turn came to be served but when the cashier took my bag of money he said: "You haven't completed this bit." Cursing under my breath, I took the form to a spare table and spent a few minutes completing the extra detail. The queue filled up again and when my turn came, for the second time, I looked into the face of an officer I had not seen before.. I glanced right and left at the other cashiers but none looked like the one to whom I had given my bag of cash. The chap in front of me held out his hand but all I could say was that I had given my money to someone in that exact spot a few minutes ago, and now he seemed to have gone. "What was his name and what did he look like?" asked the cashier. I told him I wasn't on personal terms and, as for a description, he looked remarkably like the 'gilli-gilli' man on the promenade deck. The present incumbent of the chair was getting impatient. "You had better go along to the pay office in Port Said," he said. "Someone might have taken it there."
For the second time on the voyage I was the unwitting victim of the loss of chattels. The first, as yet, unresolved disappearance of my kit was, at least, a personal problem. But the loss of soldiers' money was a different sort of thing altogether. I went along to see the adjutant to get a pass to go ashore. "Do you make a habit of this sort of thing?" he said icily.
I had only a sketchy idea of the location of the Army pay office . On my way there I was accosted by a number of small boys who showed me photographs of their sisters, all of whom were available that morning. Thanking them for their offers, and nearly falling over three other children who were trying to clean my shoes, I followed the directions I had been given. More by luck than judgement I found the building, identifiable by a Union Jack flying from a pole on the roof. I explained my presence and once again sensed a lack of sympathy for my misfortune. The Royal Army Pay Corps require signatures and, as I did not have one, they were not interested. Just as I was about to give up, return to the ship and surrender myself to the soldiers whose money I had lost, I saw the fellow I was looking for walk from one room to another. I grabbed him and demanded he return my money. He looked at me for a second or two and responded with an appropriate analogy: "Now the penny's dropped. I wondered why I was £500 up."
Within a few minutes he had given me the equivalent amount in grubby piastre notes. Never having seen Egyptian money before, I spent a considerable amount of time sorting them out. When I had finished, the cashier arranged for me to return to the ship in a staff car. "You wouldn't last more than five minutes in this area with that bag of cash," he said. I have never experienced such a feeling of relief as I felt that day when I was driven back to the waterfront. As soon as I got aboard the ship, I called my soldiers together and paid them out to the last piastre.
Not all the soldiers on the ship had changed their money because many of them were going to join units in Cyprus including the South Wales Borderers. I went to the adjutant's office again and remonstrated with him, but it was no use. "I don't give a damn about where you say you are going. I have orders to put you off here and that's what I'm going to do." he said. "What about my kit which I haven't seen since I left Liverpool?" I asked. "It will catch up with you sooner or later," he said dismissively.
When the time came to disembark, we descended into lighters which took us across to the east side of the canal. From there we marched to Port Fouad transit camp, which was only a few hundred yards away. We passed through pleasant tree-lined avenues where opulent houses were set back from the road in well tended gardens. This was obviously the wealthy residential district of the metropolis of Port Said which, at that time, was one of the great ports of the world. I began to buck up at the prospect of spending some time in this cheerful place, but the 'cheer' faded when I entered the transit camp and saw rows of khaki '160 pounder' tents.
I had never experienced the heat of a Mediterranean summer before and I found that a small tent on a dusty camp-site was not the best place to start. Even with both ends open and lying on my bed in a state of near nudity, the stifling heat numbed my senses. It was not until about 5pm, when a slight breeze brought some relief, that I started to take an interest in things again. I placed my canvas-backed camp chair at the entrance to the tent and picked up one of the novels I had brought. Before I had read one page, I heard the sound of squeaky wheels. Looking up, I saw an Arab coming towards me pulling a barrow. When he stopped alongside my tent, he took out a small book from within his long white nightshirt, checked the number on my tent-pole and off-loaded two suitcases which I recognised as mine. He made a few more trips between the tent and his barrow and eventually I was reunited with all my kit which I had not seen for two weeks. I felt like kissing him, but on second thoughts I emptied my pockets and gave him all my loose change. I knew exactly where to find a pair of white shorts and a shirt and I could hardly wait to get them on.
No sooner had I got dressed than an announcement was made over the PA system: 'Anyone wanting an advance of pay should report to the camp office'. My pay was then about £25 a month so, as I was about £20 in credit in my bank at home, I cashed a cheque for the lot. That was a considerable amount of money in those days and, as life was sweet and the morrow could take care of itself, I and a few other friends went out for a night on the town.
I must have been in the transit camp for three or four days thoroughly enjoying the routine of swimming at the French Club and spending the evenings in Port Said. Cyprus seemed a long way away and, if the British Army couldn't make up its mind what to do with me, I was prepared to soak up the good life, providing the field cashier continued to sustain me.
The Army had not lost contact with me though and one morning I was told I was being transferred to Base Transit Depot (Suez) the following day. Additionally, I would be responsible for conducting a draft of forty men. At this point, I began to wonder if these people had any idea of sending me to join my regiment at all. Perhaps it was East Africa or India they had in mind!
After an early breakfast, I reported to camp office, collected the documents and met the draft that was formed up ready to move. Our kit was put aboard a truck and we marched to the canal, which we crossed by ferry - then another short march to the railway station.
Before we boarded the train, I told the men not to stick their heads out of the windows when the train was moving. It was a common occurrence for thieves to relieve passengers of their watches and rings as the train moved along the platform. I had heard one nasty story about a soldier nearly having his wrist severed by a cut-throat razor when a 'clefty-wallah' tried to cut his leather watch strap.
As we moved out of Port Said and into the delta area of Egypt, we saw the moving pattern of life in this fertile region irrigated by the mighty River Nile. On one side was a pastoral scene, biblical in its simplicity, while on the other side huge ships seemed to be floating through the desert but were, in fact, on passage through the Suez Canal.
The journey from one end of the canal to the other is about one hundred and ten miles, with a stop at Ismailiya - the half way stage, where we changed trains. I had to attend to the documentation of the draft so I told the senior rank - a sergeant, to look after the men and get them to the right platform. I became immediately involved with the station master who objected to the amount of kit I wanted to take aboard the train. There was no way I was going to let it out of my sight in the guard's van, so I had to reach an understanding with him. When he was satisfied with the crumpled pile of piastre notes I put in his hand, I was allowed to proceed. The station master himself summoned a porter and led the way to the platform for Suez. There was nobody there when I arrived, but eventually the sergeant and a corporal turned up. They looked mystified when I asked them what had happened to the draft. We eventually came to the conclusion they had boarded the train to Cairo which had recently departed from the other side of the platform. Half an hour later, the train for Suez was shunted in and we, the remaining three of the draft, climbed aboard and set off on the second part of the journey. This latest loss of mine had the potential for being the biggest so far and I saw very little of the Bitter Lakes - a natural deep water section of the canal; I was too busy working out what I would say when I arrived, draftless, at the other end.
I had always imagined Suez to be a romantic outpost of the Middle East, but the reality of the place dispelled my illusion. The town itself was set in a stretch of flat desert upon which were built some hideous blocks of flats. The rest of the sprawling township consisted of mud huts with corrugated iron roofs. We went on for a few more miles to a place called Port Tewfik, where the southern part of the canal flows into the Red Sea - or vice versa.
I stuck my head out of the window and saw some soldiers wearing red arm bands on their khaki shirts. I recognised them as Army Movements staff and realised that the time had come for me to report the loss of the draft. "I'm sorry to tell you that I've only got two left. I think the others have gone to Cairo." The senior officer took the documents which I offered him and scanned the contents as if it was an unwelcome bill. "We weren't expecting a draft today," he said. "Where did you say they'd gone?" I told him I could not be sure they had gone to Cairo as I was not conversant with the Egyptian railway system. "It could have been Alexandria," I suggested, as this was the only other place I could think of. The movements officer put the documents in his brief case and went off to attend to some soldiers who were going to Port Said. I found it difficult to understand why no one seemed the slightest bit interested in thirty eight men going adrift, but I had done everything I could think of, so the sergeant, the corporal and I climbed into a truck which took us to the transit camp.
Base Transit Depot (Suez), at Port Tewfik, was much the same as the one at the north end of the canal while the inside of a '160 pounder' tent looks the same anywhere in the world. The down-town area was in walking distance and had the same sort of spacious houses and wide boulevards as in Port Fouad. The Europeans who lived there were mainly French and the club was spectacular.
For the next six days or so, I reported to the camp office each morning to see if there was any news of the missing draft, but the answer was always the same. I would then wander down to the French Club and spend the day by the pool. During the evening, there was usually a film show and I became more proficient in the French language during that week in Port Tewfik than I ever did at school. On my seventh day in the transit camp, I was told I would be going back to Port Said the following day and that I should make myself ready to board the train at 8am.
Even though there were a number of British soldiers travelling on the same train, I was not responsible for them. I do not think they believed in drafts in Port Tewfik and even if they did, I was surely the last person in the world they would have chosen to be the officer in charge.
When I boarded the train, I noticed that some of the soldiers were looking out of the windows, so I told what I had heard about 'cut-throat' razor thieves. Most of them took my advice, but when we arrived at Suez railway station, one soldier continued to lean out of the window. As the train stopped, a native spat in his face. The soldier immediately retaliated by punching the fellow on his nose. That was the signal for all hell to be let loose. I could see that the natives were eager to get to grips with the unarmed soldiers, so I ordered the windows to be closed. This made the Egyptians try another line of attack and I watched as they went further up the train to make their entry.
Before I left home in Wales, a friend of my father gave me a Colt .45 revolver which he had carried during the second world war. I thought it was a kind gesture at the time, but realised later I might have been a convenient depository for a weapon and ammunition that had become an embarrassment. The Egyptians were now racing down the train towards me so, with their leader only about ten yards away, I pulled my enormous revolver out of its leather holster and stuck the muzzle into the fellow's stomach. This had the desired effect and I herded the Egyptians, with their hands in the air, to the nearest door where they fell out onto the platform. The guard realised that something was wrong and he acted promptly when I told him to get his train moving. The enraged natives ran alongside the carriage for the whole length of the platform letting us know what they would do if we ever came to Suez again.
When we arrived at Port Said, we had the problem of getting ourselves and our kit to the waterfront. A sergeant mustered the soldiers into three ranks and then contracted a porter with a large barrow to carry the kit. When all was ready, we moved off with the soldiers up front followed by the porter and finally me, bringing up the rear, keeping an eye on my kit.
When we were half way to the waterfront, the porter stopped and put the shafts of the barrow on the ground. I shouted to the sergeant to halt the men while I dealt with the porter who had gone on strike. The sergeant, who wore a kilt and was made of stern Highland stuff, was not prepared to renogotiate the contract and gave orders to three of the soldiers to take over the barrow and proceed. The porter was outraged and shouted so loud that a hostile crowd collected around us. Our little force closed ranks and, like a Roman phalanx - with the barrow in the middle, we progressed slowly to the canal. Reinforcements in the shape of half a dozen military policemen eventually came to our assistance when we emerged from the native quarter. The sergeant, with magnanimity typical of his race, handed the purple-faced porter a handful of piastres and advised him in a broad Highland dialect: "Dinnae try yurr tricks wi' me agin laddie."
When I reported to the adjutant in the transit camp at Port Fouad, I asked him if there were any other interesting places I could visit. A trip along the north African coast as far as Tobruk would, I suggested, be most acceptable. He looked sourly at me and told me I would be sailing for Cyprus in three days time on the 'EMPIRE COMFORT'.
The 'EMPIRE COMFORT' turned out to be an ex Royal Navy corvette which carried about fifty soldiers in extreme discomfort and a dozen or so officers in medium discomfort. She had a sister ship called 'EMPIRE PEACE MAKER', aptly re-named 'EMPIRE SICK MAKER' by all who voyaged in her. We sailed out of Port Said harbour into a rough sea and I found that my sea-legs were inadequate for this vessel that bobbed round like a cork. I consoled myself with the thought that I would have to spend one night only on board.
Famagusta came into view the next morning and we were soon alongside the jetty. Familiar Welsh voices greeted me as I stepped ashore and one of my friends from Brecon days whisked me away in a jeep to Karaolos Camp, the home of the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers, a few miles out of town. I was allocated half a Nissan hut in the officers' compound and given the rest of the day to get settled. The adjutant told me the commanding officer would like to see me first thing the following day.
At the appointed hour I appeared before the CO. He was interested to hear what I had done since I was commissioned and he explained the role of the battalion which was guarding twenty thousand illegal Jewish immigrants. Then he dropped the bombshell: "How would you like to be my signals officer?" Anyone less knowledgeable about wireless sets than me would have been difficult to find, and I told him so. "We'll soon fix that," he said. "If you think you can do the job, I propose to send you home to do a signals course in Yorkshire in six weeks time." Naturally, I accepted the offer but I was beginning to wonder if I was destined to be a human albatross, forever travelling over the oceans of the world with only temporary visits to dry land. When I had time to reflect upon the offer, I realised how lucky I was to be given, what many people believed, the best job for a young officer in an infantry battalion.
I travelled home from Port Said on the 'ASTURIAS', a large and luxurious ship returning to Southampton after carrying British emigrants to Australia at £10 a head. I successfully completed an eleven week signals course in Richmond, Yorkshire, spent Christmas 1948 with my parents and returned to Cyprus in the good old 'EMPRESS OF AUSTRALIA'. This time I had no trouble with my kit - after all, I was by this time a seasoned traveller.
OFF PISTE
One of the most enjoyable aspects about being a public relations officer with 2 Division of the British Rhine Army was covering the annual ski meeting in Bavaria. Not only did I enjoy myself, but I was able to take my wife and children along with me. We used to travel by car from our home in Lubbecke, North Germany during the first week in January and head for Oberjoch in the Algau Alps, a journey of about 500 miles. After the first year (1967) when we battled through blizzards to get there, the following two years - though no less horrific in weather terms, were made somewhat easier by being travellers on a familiar route.
The whole village was taken over by skiers of 2 Division for two weeks. This was convenient for us and beneficial to the local economy, public relations were excellent without any effort on my part. My job was to provide photographs and stories about soldiers taking part in winter sports for local newspapers in the United Kingdom. In addition, my team used to make short TV films for provincial TV stations. In those days we had to work hard to attract young men and women to join the Army and this sort of publicity was considered useful.
One day, my cameraman and I were on the slopes looking for suitable photo opportunities, when I heard a shout. I looked up and saw a heavily built figure on skis heading towards me. Being ski-less and unable to move out of his way, I was relieved when the person narrowly missed me. In his effort to change direction, he lost his balance and collided with a tree. Dropping my camera equipment, I floundered through the snow to see if he had hurt himself.
"Are you alright?" I asked. "No, I'm not bloody alright," he replied, "neither would you be if you'd hit this tree." The skier was obviously British and, by the sound of his voice, was an officer of considerable seniority. I grabbed his arm and attempted to get him on his feet, but he yelled: "Put me down." Within a few seconds a trio of experienced skiers skidded to a halt and took over. I soon became aware that the person who had hit the tree was Lieutenant General Sir John Mogg, the Corps Commander and that he had broken a leg. I could see that I was not in a position to help and, anxious to protect my identity, I struggled to put as much distance as I could between the General and myself.
It is not often in one's career that an opportunity presents itself to incapacitate a corps commander! I realised I had committed the unforgivable sin of crossing the piste without skis and that this would not be dismissed lightly.
It became common knowledge in Oberjoch that the public relations officer had caused the trouble and my own General (of 2 Division) asked me why I had to pick on the Corps Commander when there were many other people available. I tried to explain that I did not 'pick' on him. If anything, he had picked on me as there was plenty of room on the mountain for him to go skiing.
For the next two days General Mogg was confined to bed in the local hospital with his leg encased in a large plaster cast. On the third day he felt fit enough to walk around the town on crutches. I was coming out of one of the souvenir shops near the bottom of the ski lift when I nearly collided with him again. There was an explosion when he recognised me and I beat a hasty retreat for the second time in three days.
Things are rarely as bad as they seem and the Corps Commander was soon able to dispense with his plaster and crutches. I used to meet him quite often at his headquarters in Bielefeld, North Germany and he would glower at me and mutter something about 'bloody pedestrians'. We both moved on, he to greater heights and me to a recruiting/publicity job in Wales. We did not see each other for quite some time.
The Commanding Officer of the infantry training camp in Crickhowell, South Wales in the mid '70s' was a fellow who had gained a reputation for unusual ideas. He was talking to my wife at a cocktail party when the name of General Sir John Mogg was mentioned. My wife told him what had happened at Oberjoch about eight years previously and this gave him an idea - which involved me.
The following day, he checked the accuracy o what my wife had told him and then asked if I would like to join the top-table for lunch in two weeks time when the General would be visiting the camp. I was pleased to accept.
A week later, I found there was a price to pay for having lunch with my old Corps Commander; the CO told me what he had in mind: "When the General arrives at the mess, I want you to stand in the hall dressed in Arctic combat clothing, carrying skis and wearing snow goggles. I will bring him over to you and say: 'I believe you know this officer, General' - that will be the signal for you to remove your goggles." I was struck dumb for a few seconds while I digested the high explosive content of what the CO wanted me to do. When I recovered, I replied as courteously as I could that I would rather put my head in a lion's mouth. The Commanding Officer pressed me hard to change my mind but I stood my ground. I thought the invitation to sit at the top-table would be withdrawn, but it was not and we all had a pleasant time.
General Sir John greeted me like an old friend and asked me if I had been skiing lately. I told him I had never been much of a skier - skating on thin ice was more in my line.
The whole village was taken over by skiers of 2 Division for two weeks. This was convenient for us and beneficial to the local economy, public relations were excellent without any effort on my part. My job was to provide photographs and stories about soldiers taking part in winter sports for local newspapers in the United Kingdom. In addition, my team used to make short TV films for provincial TV stations. In those days we had to work hard to attract young men and women to join the Army and this sort of publicity was considered useful.
One day, my cameraman and I were on the slopes looking for suitable photo opportunities, when I heard a shout. I looked up and saw a heavily built figure on skis heading towards me. Being ski-less and unable to move out of his way, I was relieved when the person narrowly missed me. In his effort to change direction, he lost his balance and collided with a tree. Dropping my camera equipment, I floundered through the snow to see if he had hurt himself.
"Are you alright?" I asked. "No, I'm not bloody alright," he replied, "neither would you be if you'd hit this tree." The skier was obviously British and, by the sound of his voice, was an officer of considerable seniority. I grabbed his arm and attempted to get him on his feet, but he yelled: "Put me down." Within a few seconds a trio of experienced skiers skidded to a halt and took over. I soon became aware that the person who had hit the tree was Lieutenant General Sir John Mogg, the Corps Commander and that he had broken a leg. I could see that I was not in a position to help and, anxious to protect my identity, I struggled to put as much distance as I could between the General and myself.
It is not often in one's career that an opportunity presents itself to incapacitate a corps commander! I realised I had committed the unforgivable sin of crossing the piste without skis and that this would not be dismissed lightly.
It became common knowledge in Oberjoch that the public relations officer had caused the trouble and my own General (of 2 Division) asked me why I had to pick on the Corps Commander when there were many other people available. I tried to explain that I did not 'pick' on him. If anything, he had picked on me as there was plenty of room on the mountain for him to go skiing.
For the next two days General Mogg was confined to bed in the local hospital with his leg encased in a large plaster cast. On the third day he felt fit enough to walk around the town on crutches. I was coming out of one of the souvenir shops near the bottom of the ski lift when I nearly collided with him again. There was an explosion when he recognised me and I beat a hasty retreat for the second time in three days.
Things are rarely as bad as they seem and the Corps Commander was soon able to dispense with his plaster and crutches. I used to meet him quite often at his headquarters in Bielefeld, North Germany and he would glower at me and mutter something about 'bloody pedestrians'. We both moved on, he to greater heights and me to a recruiting/publicity job in Wales. We did not see each other for quite some time.
The Commanding Officer of the infantry training camp in Crickhowell, South Wales in the mid '70s' was a fellow who had gained a reputation for unusual ideas. He was talking to my wife at a cocktail party when the name of General Sir John Mogg was mentioned. My wife told him what had happened at Oberjoch about eight years previously and this gave him an idea - which involved me.
The following day, he checked the accuracy o what my wife had told him and then asked if I would like to join the top-table for lunch in two weeks time when the General would be visiting the camp. I was pleased to accept.
A week later, I found there was a price to pay for having lunch with my old Corps Commander; the CO told me what he had in mind: "When the General arrives at the mess, I want you to stand in the hall dressed in Arctic combat clothing, carrying skis and wearing snow goggles. I will bring him over to you and say: 'I believe you know this officer, General' - that will be the signal for you to remove your goggles." I was struck dumb for a few seconds while I digested the high explosive content of what the CO wanted me to do. When I recovered, I replied as courteously as I could that I would rather put my head in a lion's mouth. The Commanding Officer pressed me hard to change my mind but I stood my ground. I thought the invitation to sit at the top-table would be withdrawn, but it was not and we all had a pleasant time.
General Sir John greeted me like an old friend and asked me if I had been skiing lately. I told him I had never been much of a skier - skating on thin ice was more in my line.
PEARL OF THE ORIENT
The relaxed style of the 'confrontation' campaign by Indonesia against Malaysia when the new state was established in the early 60's became apparent as soon as I landed in Tawau airport, Sabah in October 1965. I was met by a Malaysian officer who wanted to know if I would like to see the Brigadier (Malay). It would have been impolite to say no, so I shook him by the hand and said: "Yes, please." "Well, you can't," he replied. "It's a holiday today."
Holidays are an ever present feature of life in Malaysia and rarely does a two week period pass without a Malay, Chinese or Indian festival taking place. Despite Malaysia being an Islamic country, members of indigenous races enjoy celebrating Christmas and Easter just as much, if not more, than Christians. It's not hard to understand why: the sound of cash registers in all the big shops has long beaten Christmas carols to No. 1 in the Christmas charts.
Another example of the relaxed style with which Malays and Indonesians confronted each other was the presence of at least half a dozen Indonesian sailing boats, known as 'cumpits' at their moorings in Tawau harbour at any one time. These small sailing boats plied their trade without hindrance over a wide area of the South China Sea throughout the troubles.
One of my jobs as Second-in-Command 2/RANGERS was to pursue the 'hearts and minds' campaign. A considerable sum of money had been voted to provide children's playgrounds and this was deemed to be an excellent opportunity to get to know villagers. The procedure went like this: First - a village would be selected and a reconnaissance carried out to see if the villagers wanted a playground and, if so, where it should be sited. Second - the contract for the construction of swings, roundabouts and slides to be drawn up with a local contractor in Tawau. Third - the preparation of concrete foundations in the village and, finally, Fourth - the delivery by me and a working party of the playground, in kit form, ready for assembly on the concrete slabs. The village headman would make it quite an occasion, the children would be given a day off from school and there would be speeches and toasts and, hopefully, declarations of support against the common enemy.
The day before we set off for one of the villages destined to receive a set of playground equipment, I checked to make sure it was complete and then had it loaded on a couple of Army lorries. I and about a dozen soldiers comprising the working party, made an early start as there had been continuous rain during the previous week. Even though it was only a round trip of sixty miles, the roads were so bad that progress could be as little as ten miles an hour. The 'roads' through the jungle were just cleared tracks where trees had been felled by Chinese logging companies. It was quite a useful scheme for all concerned; the Chinese were able to cut down valuable hardwood while the Sabahan government benefited from the revenue paid for timber as well as being able to develop tracks and bridges used by the loggers. Nowadays, many of these tracks have become wide thoroughfares connecting towns and villages which, in my day, could only be reached by sea.
The journey was just as I expected - painfully slow. At one stage, when we were crossing a log bridge, the wheels of one of the lorries slipped between two tree trunks and it took us a few hours to get moving again. As a result, our schedule was badly affected and by the time we had put the playground together and made sure that everything worked properly, it was too late to make the return journey.
This was not a problem; we were operating in Borneo where the pace of life is much slower than most other places in the world. The local PWD (public works department) allowed us to occupy some atap (palm frond) huts in his compound and the soldiers were quite happy to spend a night in the village, where one of them was able to see his family. I had a hut for my own use and I brought a hammock, a mosquito net and a couple of blankets to be on the safe side. I could have joined the soldiers who were making a curry from the contents of their emergency ration packs, but decided, instead, to go into the village for an evening meal.
When I parked my Land Rover near the padang (village green), I could see that the night shift had taken over. Screams of adult laughter rang around the padang as grown men and women gave the swings, slides and roundabouts a thoroughly good test. Some of them recognised me as their benefactor and greeted me again most warmly. I considered that 'hearts and minds' in this particular village had been well and truly captured.
I spent some time with the villagers and then became aware that I had not had much to eat since breakfast. It was only a small place and I did not expect to find anything so sophisticated as a restaurant. I walked around the padang again and someone was kind enough to direct me to a place where food was available.
The door of the house facing the padang was closed, so I walked around to the back. I climbed a few steps, looked through the window and saw a Chinese family sitting down to their evening meal; the father of the family got to his feet and invited me in. I asked him in Malay if he could serve me with food and he led me to a room normally used for that purpose. Seated at a table was a Chinese woman of middle age who listened as the towkay (owner of the establishment) spoke to her in Cantonese. She then spoke to me in excellent English and introduced herself as Pearl Chung.
"I understand you would like something to eat," she said. I was delighted to meet such an agreeable companion and I asked her what was on offer. There was nothing like a menu in this most humble of eating establishments so I told her that anything would do as long as it came quickly. She said that she was waiting for a meal herself, and suggested that she double the order. "Yes, please," I replied, "and what would you like to drink?" She had an empty bottle of Tiger beer in front of her and nodded towards it.
The main course, as far as I can remember, was a pile of rice accompanied by bits of chicken and duck which are usually thrown away by more discriminating cooks. It was food, nevertheless, and when I had finished I was able to give my full attention to liquid refreshment.
Pearl and I sat well into the night drinking rice wine (when the towkay's stock of Tiger beer was exhausted). At about one o'clock in the morning I realized that I would be incapable of driving if I drank any more wine so I offered to drive Pearl home. Getting her down the back steps was quite a job and an even more difficult task was to get her into the vehicle. She directed me out of the village and along the road towards the sea. After we had travelled about two hundred yards, she told me to turn right and follow a track between some banana trees. Eventually, we came to an atap hut with a brilliant white door. "Here we are," said Pearl as she stumbled out of the vehicle.
She told me she was 'attached' to someone and, although our friendship was quite above board, I had no wish to be confronted by a Chinaman who could be excused for thinking otherwise. I was about to drive away when the door opened and a male European dressed in immaculate white drill from head to foot said: "Hello, darling. Who have you brought home?" He grabbed Pearl around the waist with one hand and put the other on the bonnet of the Land Rover. Pearl gave her boy friend, or whatever he was, a kiss and then pointed to me: "This is Bob Smith - we've had a great time together." Short of running over Pearl's boy friend, I was unable to make my exit and, as he showed no intention of enquiring into what sort of 'great time' we had had together, I opened the door and got out. "Andrew Millard," said the man in white, "late of the Royal Navy. Come inside old boy and have something to drink. We don't see many Army chaps around here."
From the outside, the house looked like most other native dwellings, but once inside, I found it was pleasantly decorated. A typewriter on the desk and a wide selection of books on shelves led me to believe that Andrew or Pearl did some writing. I was right in this assumption as Andrew explained that he supplemented his pension by submitting the odd story to the Sabah newspaper printed in Jesselton (now called Kota Kinabalu). I had consumed enough rice wine that night to last me for the rest of my time in Borneo but, over the next few hours, Pearl and I found second wind and by the time I left, at getting on for 3 o'clock, the place was littered with empty bottles.
The story of Andrew and Pearl started in Hong Kong where Andrew was serving with the Royal Navy. He had a shore job most of the time and spent the last three years of his service in the colony. On one of his sea trips, he visited an idyllic village on the east coast of Sabah (then called British North Borneo). He told Pearl about it and when he retired they decided to live there. They bought a ramshackle van which Andrew used as a taxi to carry around employees of logging companies. Pearl, for her part, bought a large refrigerator and went into the ice cream business. Something went wrong with the refrigerator though and when, for the second time in six months, she caused food poisoning among the villagers, they became quite angry and drove the pair out. They had to abandon everything that would not fit into the van and fled to the place where I found them.
Pearl wanted me to stay the night, or what was left of it, but I decided that it was time to get back to my hammock in the PWD compound. A few hours later, I was woken by a soldier offering me a cup of tea at the start of another day. The track had dried out and we had an uneventful journey back to Tawau.
About three months later, I was sitting in my office when the phone rang. I picked it up and a voice said: "Hello, Bob, this is Pearl. I'm staying in the Tawau Hotel for a few days. Can we meet." In a flash, I remembered I had urgent business which would take at least three days to complete on Pulau Sebatik, a large island a few miles from the mainland which was our operational responsibility.
I met her and Andrew once again when I paid a visit to the village to see if the playground was still there. It seemed more circumspect that way!
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