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.
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