On a Wing and a Prayer

It was the pigeon loft under which I lived for a week in a deserted Italian house in Asmara, Eritrea in 1950 that gave me the idea of using an alternative means of communication to my wireless sets. As signals officer of my unit I was always being chased by the commanding officer for the shortcomings of the radios. There was very little I could do about it. I didn't really understand how they worked and my efforts to repair them when they went wrong usually made them worse.
We had been garrisoning a scruffy little village on the outskirts of Asmara after a Muslim fanatic tossed a bomb into a Coptic Christian funeral procession. The effect was like putting a thunderflash into a wasps' nest and the battalion had been hard pressed to find enough men to keep the two communities from slaughtering each other.
When we eventually moved back to barracks, I thought about the pigeons in the loft of the house we had used and I spoke to my signals sergeant about catching some of the birds and training them as message carriers. He was interested in the idea and, as we had reached rock bottom in communications efficiency, he thought we should give it a try. When I decided to go ahead with the project, there was no shortage of helpers from the signals platoon. Within a few days, a loft of generous proportions was constructed half way up a water tower behind the signals store.
When everything was ready, a few of us went back one evening to the deserted house armed with a pair of crook-sticks (for lifting telephone cable over trees etc.), a mosquito net, a ladder and a wicker basket. We lifted the mosquito net over the loft with the crook-sticks and then I climbed up the ladder under the net. I gently explored the inside of the loft with my hands until I found a bird. As soon as I closed my fingers around its body there was pandemonium and I was quite unprepared for the rush to escape. Pigeons can work up a fair head of steam in a small space and I was pounded on all sides by birds whose only thought was to get away from me and the confines of the mosquito net. More for self protection than trying to catch pigeons, I found that my hands were full all the time. All I had to do was pass them down to a signaller who put them straight into the basket. Within a short time we had as many birds as we wanted, had loaded them into a jeep and were heading back to camp. We put them directly into the loft where an ample supply of food was available to make them feel at home.
I managed to get hold of an old Army pamphlet on pigeon management and I learnt that new birds must be kept in the loft for seven days and fed every day just before dusk. On the eighth day, the birds should be let out just before feeding time so that they can have some exercise and then return for their food. Thereafter, they should stay quite happily in the loft and should return from considerable distances.
For the next seven days the fifteen or so birds ate a considerable amount of food and some of the more mature birds put on so much weight that I wondered if the exit from the loft was big enough to let them out. On the evening of the eighth day, the entire signals platoon turned out to see what would happen. I climbed up the ladder on the water tower, opened the door of the loft and stood back. There was a pause before the first bird came forward to have a look around. He spread his wings and flew up into the evening sky. That was the signal for the others to take-off as well. We never saw them again.
All was not lost. When I looked inside the loft, I could see some birds huddled in a corner. I left the door open hoping that the mature birds would return, while some of the youngsters stuck their heads out and vainly flapped their wings.. They were too young to fly and knowing their capabilities, went back inside and ate the food I had put down for them. After another week, they plucked up courage to jump off the water tower and it was a delight to watch them as they exercised in their new found freedom.
For the first couple of days, they were content to stay near the loft and then they became adventurous and went off to explore one of the fine legacies which the Italians had left to their former colony - the aerial ropeway. This engineering marvel, which ran near the camp perimeter, was designed to carry coal in large steel buckets from the seaport of Massawa up and over the spectacular mountain range to Asmara, eighty miles away and eight thousand feet above sea level. It had not been used commercially for a long time, but once a week someone pressed a button and the whole one hundred and sixty miles of ropeway creaked into action and ran for about half an hour. My pigeons used to sit on the wire, when it wasn't moving, and as it was so well oiled, they all developed little black backsides - by which they could be recognised.
The birds became quite tame as they were fed on food not readily available to less privileged birds in Eritrea. The cook sergeant kept me well supplied with dried peas and lentils and they soon developed into fine plump birds.
When I considered that they were old enough to do some serious work, I took them for flights in multiples of half mile distances. Before long, they were finding their way home from twenty miles away.
The commanding officer who up till now had had doubts about my signalling skills, started to show interest. I explained the reason for the large packing case half way up the tower and the system of string and pulley that ran from the signal office to a spring-loaded door on the front of the loft. The routine worked like this: (1) Pigeon lands on platform in front of closed door. (2) Platform depressed and rings bell in office. (3) Signals clerk pulls lever and opens door to loft. (4) Pigeon hops inside. (5) Signals clerk relaxes lever and closes door. (6) Signals clerk climbs ladder, catches pigeon and recovers message. It was very impressive and the CO was pleased with what promised to be a great leap forward in communication technology. From the look on his face, I believe he had a vision of pigeons winging their way around Eritrea on a sort of aerial milk-run.
This fantasy could never get off the ground for two reasons. First - pigeons can only fly in one direction; you have to take them to a distant point and then let them fly back home. Second - hawks. Eritrea abounds with all manner of birds of prey whose favourite food is pigeon. The chance of a pigeon travelling on His Majesty's service over the sort of terrain found near Asmara without being seen by a hungry carnivore was fairly slim; in the early days of my pigeon post I lost quite a few birds. A serious impediment to their mobility was the message, in a plastic bag, strapped around its leg with an elastic band. When attacked by a hawk, the poor bird must have felt like a Spitfire with its wheels down being chased by a Messerschmitt 109.
There was also the problem of transporting the birds. They never took kindly to being stuffed into cardboard boxes and being bounced around on a mule or the back seat of a jeep. I suspect that some of my signallers felt sorry for them and released them prematurely.
One day, the CO told me that he and the brigadier were going to visit one of the detachments about forty miles away on the road to Keren and that this would be a good opportunity for the brigadier to see the pigeon post in action. My most trustworthy bird was a snowy white female (marred only by a black ring on her bottom). She was placed in one of the specially prepared cardboard boxes and handed over to the intelligence sergeant who was detailed to accompany the party.
When they arrived at the detachment, the intelligence sergeant set about preparing a message to say they had arrived and would be returning in about one and a half hours time. The CO casually told the brigadier about the contents of the cardboard box and the old boy was fascinated as he watched the procedure with the plastic bag and the rubber band. "How remarkable!" he exclaimed. "I haven't seen this done since I was a subaltern just after the Great War. Does it work?" "Oh, yes, sir," said the sergeant, "she'll be back in Asmara in about twenty minutes." He then released the bird.
The pigeon flew up to about one hundred feet and made a number of large circular passes over the camp. "Just getting her bearings," said the colonel, "she'll be off next time around, I expect." His expectations of her flying back to Asmara were wrong. Instead, she set a southerly course and disappeared from view when she reached a range of barren hills. "She'll end up in Addis Ababa if she goes that way," grunted the brigadier, and with a motion to the colonel that he wanted to start work on more serious matters, he stomped off.
About twenty minutes later, the party were striding around the perimeter fence when a solitary white bird flew in from the south and settled on a thorn tree next to the cook house. "Isn't that your bird, Johnny?" asked the brigadier. Unless there was another white bird in Africa with a plastic bag tied around its leg, it was fair to assume this one was a member of the signals platoon of the South Wales Borderers. "Uh, yes, sir, I believe it is," said the colonel, who by now had had enough of my pigeon and wished it would fly off anywhere and not come back. The brigadier then took over. He grabbed a handful of gravel and hurled it at the bird. Pigeons are sensitive creatures and they value their long association with man. This unfriendly act by a senior officer who should have known better could have destroyed the trust I had built up over a number of weeks. As the old boy was a good shot and was bending over to collect a second handful of gravel, the bird did not wait for another salvo and flew off once again in the direction of Ethiopia.
The inspection came to an end during the late afternoon and after a cup of tea in the detachment commander's tent, the party embarked in their vehicles and set off for Asmara.
Meanwhile, I was standing outside the signals office scanning the sky for my pigeon. I realised that something had gone wrong because, for once, wirelss communications were working reasonably well. I had been given a running commentary by one of the signallers who had watched the antics of the brigadier and the reluctant pigeon. I was also given the time he had left the outpost and I knew within quarter of an hour or so, when the party would arrive in camp. I also had a pretty good idea what the CO would say if I was not in possession of the pigeon post message.
From where I was in my observation post, I could see the main gate and my heart sank when I saw three vehicles approaching. The provost sergeant and a few regimental policemen tumbled out of the guard room and saluted the brigadier's jeep as it passed them and headed in the direction of the officers' mess. "Well. that's it," I said to myself. "It's only a matter of time before my birds get the order of the stock-pot." With this dismal thought in mind, I decided to slink off to my quarters and bury my head. But just then, a flash of white appeared over the roof of the signals office and, as I looked up, I saw my beautiful white bird banking in fast flight around the water tower. The signals clerk was alerted by my whoops of joy and a few seconds later I heard the bell ring as the pigeon landed on the platform. It was working like magic, the ringing stopped when the bird went inside and then the clerk pulled the lever to stop her getting out. I sprinted across to the water tower and climbed the ladder two rungs at a time. I opened the door and gently removed the mesage from her leg before free-falling down the ladder in my haste to get a date/time stamp on the small piece of paper.
I felt I could face the commanding officer and the brigadier with confidence, so I made my way over to the officers' mess. It turned out better than I had hoped, for on my way to the mess I met the colonel and the brigadier on their way to see me. The CO was looking sick as he had had enough of me, my pigeon and the brigadier. "Did your bird turn up?" asked the old boy. My answer was to hold up the piece of paper. He chuckled, slapped me on my back and told me how much he appreciated initiative. I glanced across at the commanding officer who was staring at the message in disbelief. Eventually, but only after he had submitted the message to intense scrutiny, a grin spread over his face as he handed it back to me.
From that moment, and for some considerable time after, I held the position of 'most favoured subaltern'. It seemed I could do no wrong and, to add coals to an already healthy fire, the brigadier asked me to address the joint operations planning committee on the subject of 'communications in a hostile environment'.
Eritrea is still a wild and lawless country and, as yet, there is no hope of it finding a slot on the tourist route. It will happen one day though and, who knows, the aerial ropeway may come into its own again. If you ever visit one of the most remarkable capital cities in the world and take a ride on a cable car, look out for some snowy white pigeons with black backsides - they could be regimental property.