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.