大象传媒

Shortly after the incident at Berka, I was posted to a Unit in the Desert. It was an armoured Brigade and a very fine Unit indeed, and thus was my indoctrination into desert conditions.
The Unit, at this time, was not in action as the Desert Rats (7th Armoured Division) had very successfully destroyed the Italian Army and had penetrated the desert almost to Tripoli, when they were withdrawn to rest and re-fit and others took their place. They were cock-a-hoop with their marvellous victory, rightly so, and nothing can ever detract from this, they were, and remained, the finest armoured fighting Division in the Western Desert. But, whilst congratulating them over a bottle or two of remedial beer, it was pointed out that they had never met the real enemy - the German Army, who, at that moment, were decimating our lads in Greece and, unknown to us, had sent an army across the Mediterranean Sea to Tripoli and were forming up, to take back what the Italians had lost.
They agreed that they hadn鈥檛 met them, but wasn鈥檛 the Desert the 7th Division鈥檚 stamping ground? The Germans had never fought a desert war and would soon be thrashed if they tried to take back any territory. So be it. Try the Afrika Corps did, and very nearly succeeded - they simply over-ran unit after unit in the forward areas, who, it is claimed, never knew there were Germans in Africa.
The fact remains that the Afrika Corps left Tripoli and re-took all the territory we had won, with the exception of Tobruk, where British and Australian troops put up such a ferocious defence that the Afrika corps had to by-pass it, leaving a big thorn in the side of their supply link.
The story of Tobruk has been written about, and a film was made about the months of desperate fighting that took place there but with the defenders, time and again, smashing the German attacks; the conditions there must have been dreadful, but they hung on, the only re-supply being by sea, which was a very dodgy business as the enemy controlled the Western and Northern Med. and us the Eastern part, with Alexandria our port. Obviously, the route from Alex to Tobruk was well patrolled by the enemy, in the air and on the sea.
The Afrika Corps was eventually stopped around Sollum and we, who had escaped the net, were fleeing east towards Alex as fast as we could go. The first intimation we had of the enemy, was a Stuka raid followed by very heavy shelling early in the morning; some vehicles were hit and men killed and wounded; the noise of explosions and engines being started-up was deafening, and we got word to head East with, of course, the fitters鈥� truck last in the
line, to try to get the breakdowns and strays mended and on their way. We eventually got out of the killing zone and, apart from the odd aircraft venting its spite on us, we got safely away with surprisingly few casualties and loss of vehicles.
We were halted by the Military Police and directed to our new assembly point near Halfays (Hellfire) Pass and the powers-that-be took stock and decided that the German menace was real (?) and must be stopped. They were stopped and there it ended for a while, the Afrika Corps on one side of a massive minefield and us on the other, with Tobruk sticking out like a poisoned lance in Jerry's side.

We moved further east and settled down to several months of rest, re-equipping, training and utter boredom. It had its compensations, of course, regular meals, Canteens and Sergeants Mess鈥� being set up, bathing in the Med. mostly without benefit of swimming-trunks as none of us possessed any. It was a hilarious sight to see brown bodies and brown legs, with white bums, rushing down to the water to disport themselves. Needless to say, women were non-existent so from the point of propriety it didn鈥檛 matter, and besides we were all agreed that swimming in the nude was far superior to wearing trunks, much more free; try it sometime and you鈥檒l agree.
I loved the life in the Desert. It was so open, clean and warm; the usual dress was a pair of K.D. shorts, socks and boots, and perhaps a shirt if the sun was too hot, and we were a healthy, tanned lot; as one wag put it 鈥榓ll sunburned men are slightly handsome鈥� -there wasn鈥檛 a mosquito about but we did have pestilential flies, who worried the life out of the troops. Fly traps abounded; these were closed-mesh boxes whereby a fly could get in, attracted by a bit of food but due to the construction - and having no sense 鈥� they couldn鈥檛 get out. It never seemed to make any difference to their numbers and if you were unfortunate enough to be wounded, the injured part was soon crawling with the filthy things. The Tunisian fly, which we were to come across towards the end of the campaign, was a peculiar thing, which had the body of a fly, the nose of a mosquito and used to cause a bit of pain when it settled and drove the nasal spike into the flesh. One mate of mine who had suffered from their ministrations, used to go on his knees and pray to the Lord to make them 6-ft tall so that he could slowly strangle them; thank goodness, his prayer was never answered, otherwise we might have had flying camels too, and that would have been disastrous.
It was said that a soldier clerk had been court-martialled in Cairo over a bit of Empire-building he had arranged, by having the brilliant idea of sending out to all units that a return of flies killed every day had to be made to his office. Humour had it that the fly-count (estimated) was made daily and the return sent off to Cairo; considering the number of units in the desert, he made himself a nice little busy niche, dealing with the child of his brain, which, of course, once initiated, no one would dare to question, and would assume a totally irrelevant position in the scores of returns which had to be made by units back to Cairo. Until one officer, mystified by this constant 鈥榖umph鈥� tracked the fly return to its office and discovered that the information stayed there, with its soldier inventor, who had built up a beautiful little subterfuge, plus an 08.30 to noon working day, all week-ends off and no duties.
Clever fellow, I admired him, whether true or fictional.
Whilst out of action, our living quarters were a square hole dug in the desert, covered with the top of a tent, which held several men and their gear and was a pretty fair protection against air-raids or, if you preferred it, you could sleep in the open, usually with your head against the rear wheel of a truck and your feet pointing out; the idea being that, in the event of an air-raid, the wheel would protect you. This was a good theory but once to my knowledge it came unstuck and this was the manner. We were having a small jug-up with a few bottles of beer which we had scrounged, saved up, swapped with chocolate or cigarettes from the teetotallers (yes, believe it or not, we had a few of them about), when we were joined by one of the drivers, who was very much the worse for wear as he had been drinking rum (where he got it was a mystery). However he eventually passed out, absolutely blotto and when we had finished our few 鈥榡ars鈥� we decided to call it a night and go to our respective billets, or sleeping places, but what about the body?
The desert at night, without a moon, is so dark that it is unbelievable, and, in order not to get lost, we always used to run lines from the billet to wherever we were going, so that we would find our way back again. We knew he slept beside his vehicle but hadn鈥檛 a clue as to where it was, so it was decided to put him in a slit-trench for the night and in the morning, when it was light, he could go to his own vehicle and all would be well. That night we had a visit from the Luftwaffe, he dropped only one bomb and then flew off. We often got these visits, designed to keep us awake and break our morale; the stupid Teutonic fools, little did they know the British. If they had blown up the tea warehouse and the breweries in Alex and Cairo, they would have inflicted a crushing blow to our morale, never with the odd aircraft. However the point of this absolutely true story is that the bomb smashed the wheel of one truck only and that truck was our 鈥榬ummy鈥� driver鈥檚 and the wheel was the one he habitually slept against. When he saw it the next day he turned even greener than he already was with the after-effects of the rum; he swore an oath that he would never run down drink, especially rum, because if he hadn鈥檛 got steamed-up on rum his head would have been mangled with the wheel. So does the Finger of Fate point and then relent - or to put it in the language of one of the boys,
鈥淎 ruddy effin miracle.鈥�
One day, whilst down on the beach, a few of us decided to swan around a bit along the waters鈥� edge and we soon discovered that the sinking of ships in the Med had a bonus for we beach-combers; we came across separate cases and tins of food; rusted, without labels, but well worth investigating further, so with no more ado we summoned assistance and carried this lot back to our laager.
On arrival, amidst great excitement, we had a share-out and it worked out to three tins amongst four blokes - the marvellous thing about the 8th Army was the sharing of everything: if your vehicle broke down you stayed put and, sooner or later, someone would be along and the first thing they would ask would be 鈥渉ave you got enough makings for a 鈥榖rew-up?鈥� This was a standard greeting amongst we desert-dwellers, the offer of a precious cup of tea, before enquiring what the reason was for your being there.
Every, and I mean every, 8th Army vehicle had a brew tin which consisted of half a 4 gallon petrol can, with a wire attached to each side for a handle; this was always hung over the rear towing-hook and was the final thing checked when we moved off. A fire to boil the can was provided by the other half of the petrol tin, half-filled with sand and then soaked with petrol, a match applied and you had a nice, hot, long-lasting fire to cook on).
Everybody trooped off to the various hidey-holes and me and my lot were no exception and, as it so happened, we lived in a dugout with a roof over, and, being the fitting crew, had battery powered electric light - we were very 鈥榩osh鈥�,
鈥淏ring me one of the tins,鈥� said I, 鈥榓nd we鈥檒l eat like hogs to-night.鈥� A tin was duly produced, the ceremonial tin opener was raised and quickly stabbed into the tin, and then two things happened: first the contents of the tin blew out through the hole I had made and literally 鈥榞eysered鈥� their way up to the roof, coating me at the same time; secondly the most fearful stink, stench, pong, revolting in its excrescence, filled the dug-out with me right in the middle of it! There wasn鈥檛 a sound except for the tin hissing and me gasping, and then, when the smell pervaded the dugout somebody shouted
"Ho, B****y Mackerel," (a student of Amos n鈥� Andy, no doubt) "the effing dugout has gone gangrenous; bale-out, sharpish."
They disappeared up the stairs into the fresh air and I crawled up after them, after I recovered my breath. By this time a crowd had collected, wondering no doubt what was up; something they soon discovered when I emerged, plastered with the evil-smelling contents of that thrice-damned can. I must have smelt like a polecat, a skunk and a derelict Italian toilet, all rolled into one. On my oath they chased me down to the beach and into the sea, clothes and all, accompanied by shouts of laughter and expressions of disgust and loathing as they inhaled the fearful odour that I left behind.
Well, the sea cleansed me as it does all things (except that bloody tin) and I rejoined the blokes, who only permitted this after many assurances that the smell had gone and that there was none purer than the purified. Back we went to the dugout to investigate and, if possible, to open it up, but no matter what we did it still smelt. Fortunately, as I had taken the brunt of the contents and the roof the remainder, our gear was untouched and, suitably masked, it was removed and that dug-out was never used again.
I like to think that when the Afrika Corps occupied the area after they had chased us down to El Alamein that, during a counter-attack or air-raid, some of them went in there and got gassed instead!

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