Wotcha Cock!

Kipleli arap (son of) Kindurwa was my Kipsigis orderly throughout the time I was in Malaya, including the journey out from Mombasa on the troopship 'Dilwara' in 1951 and the journey back to Kenya in the same ship in 1953.
During the 12 months Battalion HQ of 3/KAR spent in Kuantan on the east coast of Malaya, officers lived in a requisitioned hotel called the Nan Yang; Kipleli's first duty of the day was to bring me a cup of tea. The prelude to his entry into my bedroom was a thunderous kick at the base of the door followed by a crash as he slammed his jungle boots into the floor boards at the foot of my bed. If I was not awake already, he would shout: "Jambo, effendi."
He had been shrieking "Jambo, effendi" ever since he had joined the Army. Kiswahili was not his first language and I had the impression he considered it necessary to increase the volume whenever he spoke it.
I had been trying to teach him English, without much success, but I had one more try. "In future, Kipleli," I told him in Kiswahili, "I should like you to say 'Wotcha cock' when you bring me my cup of tea. The meaning of the words meant nothing to him, but he seemed to like the sound and he went around muttering: "Wotcha cock" as he prepared my uniform.
That evening the Colonel was sitting in the ante room having a cup of tea, when Kipleli came in with an armful of clean clothes. As he passed the CO, he swung his head left in salute and cried: "Wotcha cock." Colonel Joe Crewe-Read looked surprised and said: "Am I hearing correctly - did your orderly say 'Wotcha cock?'" I confirmed what he had heard and Kipleli gave him another 'WC', with a right twist of his neck, as he marched out two minutes later. For the next two or three days all the mess servants and batmen were greeting each other and the officers with 'Wotcha cocks' but then they got tired of it and reverted to what everyone preferred: "Jambo, effendi."

Abdulahi 52 was the only Somali servant we had in the Nan Yang Hotel. In just the same way that Welsh soldiers with surnames such as Jones, Evans, Davies and Williams were identified by use of the last two digits of their regimental numbers, so were those with names like Abdulahi, Mohammed and Hassan. It can now be said, after the passage of so many years, that Abdulahi 52 was not our most popular African servant. He had ideas above his station and was forever getting into trouble but, as so often happens with misfits, it is sometimes easier to keep them where you can see them.
Colonel Joe Crewe-Read was a man of strict habits before, during and after breakfast. He liked to read the latest copy of The Daily Telegraph when he ate his bacon and eggs and he would take the newspaper with him when he went to his tailor-made mahogany thunder box which sat like a large Easter egg in a wooden shed at the bottom of the garden.
I was checking bar stock in the kitchen one morning as the Colonel strolled down the path. I watched him as he opened the door of the shed and saw him stiffen when he was confronted by Abdulahi 52 squatting above the seat, Somali fashion, with his shorts around his ankles. The Colonel rolled up his Telegraph and beat him about the head until he pulled up his shorts and took cover behind some bushes.
That, you might think, was more than sufficient to have Abdulahi removed from the mess, but he stayed on and was even given the job of collecting ice from the Singapore Cold Storage Company and delivering the large blocks to all the messes and the main cookhouse.
The ice party was a two man team with Private Ngonga Ng'ii, the driver of a powerful Dodge 15 cwt truck, in charge. One day they stopped in a side street off the main road in Kuantan alongside the Cold Storage. Ngonga Ng'ii went inside to do the paper work leaving Abdulahi sitting in the passenger seat of the Dodge. Having nothing else to do, he moved into the driving seat and started the engine.
He had never driven a vehicle before, but he had watched Ngonga Ng'ii depress the clutch, shift the gears and step on the accelerator. Thinking that this was as good an opportunity as he would get, he went through the drill himself.
The Dodge shot out of the side street like a bullet with Abdulahi striving to control the vehicle. Sitting comatose on their saddles with their feet on the handle bars were the drivers of Kuantan's pedi-cab fleet waiting for fares from the super market. Abdulahi went through them like a pack of cards and ended up with the nose of the Dodge wedged into the wide swing doors of the shop. Thankfully, nobody was killed but the mountain of smashed bicycles was damning evidence against him when he was arraigned before the local magistrate a few days later.
Abdulahi was convicted on a civil charge of 'dangerous driving' and 'destruction of property'. He was found guilty and fined an enormous amount of money, by African standards, which he was still paying off when we left Kuantan in June 1953.


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