大象传媒

CHAPTER 4

Eventually we arrived in Baghdad and made camp to the north of the Tigris which runs right through the centre. Apart from the bridge across the river, Baghdad, in my opinion was nothing at all like the fairy story visions most people have of this city. To us it had a very run down look and was teeming with people, but as usual we had no opportunity to travel around it. We did manage to visit a cinema. The film had English dialogue, but on each side of the screen there was a large white board on which the words came up in Arabic and another language, which I cannot remember but was probably French. On another day I had a very bad toothache and decided to go into Baghdad with a friend of mine - a Geordie- and try to find a dentist. We had no idea where we would find one and wandered around the back streets for quite a time. We finally found a place which looked as if it might be a dentist's. I think there was a picture of false teeth outside. We climbed up an iron staircase to the first floor of a building. We opened a door and were immediately inside the dentist's surgery - if you can call it that. There was no waiting room or reception. It was just a room with a dentist's chair in the middle. There was also a long bench, presumably for anybody awaiting their turn. The dentist himself was sitting down and greeted us immediately we entered. When I say he greeted us, I mean he muttered something in Arabic. He did not understand a word of English. On the wall, there was a large poster all about teeth and all written in French. We thought, Ah! so we said to him "Parlez-vous Francais? but not a peep came from the dentist. He could not speak English or French and we could not speak Arabic.

I sat down in the dentist's chair, opened my mouth and indicated the aching tooth. He gave me an injection which was very painful and after a few minutes set about extracting the tooth. First of all, the tooth broke and then it broke again and again. It was a painful experience, and in fact, my friend sitting on the bench, almost passed out watching me. He was sweating profusely and mopping his brow. Finally, the dentist decided he had done all he could. We paid him. I cannot remember how much and off we went. I suffered considerable pain for a week or so afterwards, until the piece of bone left in the gum came to the surface.

We left Baghdad en route for Iran, which was then called Persia. Our first stop was Khanaqin, which was in Iraq but actually right on the boundary between that country and Iran. At that time we ignored all boundaries between countries, we just drove straight through, and there was nobody there to stop us. We drove on and were now in Persia, which sounded very romantic. The road climbed and climbed up into the mountains. There were fantastic views all around as we went round one hairpin bend after another. On a number of occasions we met a trans-continental lorry coming in the opposite direction. They were huge and to watch them negotiate these hairpins was a revelation. They had to actually reverse on to a levelled out piece of rough rock in order to get round the bends. When one considers they were within a few feet of a thousand foot drop at least, one can only marvel at their skill.

We continued on and on, still climbing, and as it quickly became dark, we now had our headlights on. I was driving up a very steep climb, with a sheer straight up rock face on my left and a drop of a thousand feet on my right. I came to yet another hairpin bend, although at the time I did not realize it. All I knew was that whereas my headlights had been shining on to the rock face on my left, they were now shining into space, thrown back at me by the mist so that I could see nothing. Fortunately I immediately slammed on the brakes and stopped on a small flat plateau as the road turned away to form the other half of the hairpin bend. The flat piece of rock that I was on could not have been much more than about thirty feet either way and if I had travelled just a few yards, we would have all been over the top. I took a few deep breaths, got back into the lorry, reversed a couple of yards and I was on my way, a much wiser and safer driver, because I had been taught a lesson in concentration. If the lorry had gone over the edge, myself, the soldier in the passenger seat who slept through this incident, and six soldiers in the back, would have been killed.

I went through the war without wearing spectacles, even though I was very short-sighted, and the event, just described, happened high up on a misty mountain in the dark, I have always thought I was extremely lucky, as were of course the other chaps in the lorry.

We finally reached our destination and pitched camp in the dark. It was a short distance from Kermanshah and high up in the mountains. We set up a signals office for the Division, which was the Sixth Indian. All the messages were by radio and in Morse Code, so they went first to the Cypher Sergeants who decoded them. We then arranged for the messages to be delivered either by further transmission by radio or delivery by dispatch rider. A great number of these messages were reporting the deaths of soldiers and of these a high percentage were deaths by smallpox, which was a terrible scourge at that time, but has now been eradicated throughout the world.

We were destined to spend the whole winter in this camp and it was a very severe one. There was up to ten feet of snow where it had drifted in the mountains and the temperature at night dropped so low that it was a wonder I survived. At this time I was sharing a two-man tent with another chap. Fortunately, when I was on duty, he was off and we were rarely in the tent at the same time. Because of the extreme cold I slept in most of my clothes, and the only parts of me that were washed for five or six weeks were my face and hands.

Suddenly the thaw came and the whole campsite was flooded. Some of the tents were flooded with water up to eight inches, the depth they were dug into the ground. This happened in the middle of one night and the occupants were not very happy! Our tent was all right I am glad to record.

When off duty we spent a good deal of our time climbing the mountains all around. It was hard work, because apart from the high altitude we were in, there was about a quarter of a mile up a very steep slope before the actual rock face was reached. The peaks jutting up were very jagged and looked much like the Dolomites. It was very dangerous and I had several near escapes from falling. I was wearing slippery army boots with studs on the soles, and without any climbing experience it was all rather foolhardy. It was very exhilarating, and on the occasions when an eagle flew serenely by at eye level and only a few yards away, it felt great to be alive. I would have enjoyed it even more if I had not been rather scared a good deal of the time. Most of the time I was climbing on my own, with other soldiers on the mountain but not very close to where I was.

One morning, an officer from another unit close by, peered into my tent and asked if I wanted to climb with him. I said 'yes' and off we went. I soon realized that he was an expert climber, with the correct climbing shoes, a rope and more important, lots of experience. I had great difficulty in getting over the first obstacle, a huge boulder. The army boots were no help and my feet kept slipping but I eventually made it. The next problem was to get up a fifteen foot 'chimney' with my back pressed to one side and my feet to the other. I gritted my teeth and managed it, but was now losing what little confidence I started out with. My companion, who had accomplished the first two challenges effortlessly, next started along a narrow ledge with his face pressed close to the rock face. It was at this point that I decided enough was enough, and I watched him disappear. I continued climbing and it was not long before I was in real trouble. I found I could go neither up or further along, and it would have been very difficult to retrace my steps. My only way was down from the little ledge I was on, to another small ledge below me.

It looked very unsafe and if I slipped there was a drop of at least fifty foot, and in any case the ledge I was aiming for was eight foot down. I eased myself over the edge and let go, praying I would not slip. More by luck than judgment I landed safely, and for the rest of the climb I had no further serious problems. On two other occasions, with a couple of friends, we had a dip in a mountain stream. We had no swimming trunks with us, so it was a case of taking everything off as quickly as possible and a quick splash in the water which was paralysing cold! Each dip only lasted a few seconds and a good job too, otherwise we stood a good chance of emulating the proverbial brass monkeys. I suppose we did it just for the hell of it, and also for the other usual reason that if one did it then the others followed suit. Twice was enough though, and we never even thought about doing it again. We did sometimes go into Kermanshah in the evening when it was dark, and although there was very little to do other than buy non-alcoholic drinks, we did occasionally have a meal, always chicken. It seems that at that time the whole world was eating chicken, except in the U.K. where it was considered a bit of a luxury, as it had been as far back as I can remember. I grew up in England eating beef, lamb, and pork regularly, but chicken only at Christmas, Easter or on very special occasions. How times change? Now in the U.K. everybody eats chicken but a goodly proportion of the population cannot afford good beef or lamb. That seems to be reserved for France and the rest of Europe, all the countries who were on the losing side in World War 11. We export our finest beef and lamb because it is too expensive for the vast majority of our people. What a sad reflection on a country that has been the victor in two world wars.

When we returned to camp after dark, we were always very careful to shout out who we were as we approached, because the guards were all Indians and inclined to be trigger-happy. There was no road and we just wandered in to the camp across country, and when we heard the click of rifle bolts and a cry that sounded something like 'who goes there?' we became decidedly worried and kept on shouting who we were, until we were past the guards. One of the reasons we were so worried about the Indians was that on a recent inspection of the guard, when they were given the order 'ease springs (this is when the bolt is used to eject bullets prior to the trigger being pulled), one of the guards still had a bullet left in the gun and a .303 bullet whizzed by within inches of the next soldier's head. This was not an isolated incident so far as Indian soldiers were concerned

During the winter months we had heard of two deaths of officers. The first one was of a Captain who shot himself, whether by accident or design, we never knew and then a week or so later came news of a Major dying through inhaling fumes from a coke burning stove in his tent. We also had stoves in the tents when on duty, but fortunately, ours used paraffin. When the weather finally improved, we played a lot of football and hockey between ourselves and also against the Ghurkhas, who were very tough little men. Part of their equipment was a kukri, a large curved knife, which they always carried with them.

Of course we always had our duties to do, running a Signals Office twenty four hours a day, transmitting and receiving hundreds of messages each day. Sometimes I had to take a lorry through to Khanaqin, which was down the same tricky mountain road with hairpin bends on which we first arrived. As explained before, one side of the road was the rock face and the other a sheer drop down to the valley below. On one occasion when the mountains were covered in snow and ice, I had to drive down the mountain, but I was stopped by Military Police who said I could not pass. When I insisted that I had to go down to the valley in spite of the danger, they finally agreed after I signed a note to the effect that I was going at my own risk. It certainly was dangerous going, very icy and slippery. I changed up to third gear but hastily changed back down to second and kept it that way right to the bottom of the mountain.

As the weather gradually improved we started to notice the insects of which there were literally millions. Many of them were locust like insects. They looked like grasshoppers with bright reds and yellows under their wings, which only showed when they jumped, which was all the time. When walking through the grass, every footstep caused dozens of these insects to jump up out of the way. They jumped and flew about a yard or so ahead each time. Another insect that is worth mentioning is the praying mantis, which was fascinating to watch. Whenever we were working in a tent there was at least one of these insects perched close by and watching us intently. They are a type of stick insect with a little head that goes from side to side, and they do somehow look as if they are praying. Some of these insects were more than six inches in length and we always left them alone because they did no harm but just stayed there looking at us. They appeared to be just as fascinated with us as we were with them. There were also lots of centipedes around. One day I found one on my leg that was about eight inches long. I brushed it off my hosetop but if it had been on my flesh, I would have had to have been more careful. They apparently have a tendency to leave some of their legs behind imbedded in the flesh and these often turn septic. The only way is to hold a lighted cigarette to them and they fall off and there is no problem.

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