大象传媒

Iraq

The journey from Basra had a few incidents. The desert track ran at the side of the railway line for some distance and at one point we had to cross the railway. As there were no bridges we had to drive over the lines. There was a train approaching. One of the lads thought he could cross in front of it but he didn鈥檛 manage it. The train hit the rear of the lorry knocking it onto its side. Fortunately, the desert sand cushioned the impact and the driver was thrown clear and didn鈥檛 get hurt. To right the lorry the breakdown lorry had to be partly across the railway track and the first lift we had to make would have landed the lorry on the rails. The lorry we were trying to recover was carrying girders and was very heavy. As we were preparing to do the lift, I noticed another train coming but still quite a long way off. Lieutenant Ward said we would have time to right the lorry before the train arrived. I said it would be safer to wait until the train had passed and I was having nothing to do with it and started to walk away. Thankfully, he saw sense and waited for the train to pass. Fortunately the lorry was not badly damaged and we were soon able to carry on with our journey. That was the first of a number of accidents on this journey the rest of which I will not write about.
We stopped about half way to Al-Habbaniyah and Lt. Ward pointed to what to me looked like a large hill of sand and said that it was the ruins of Ur of the Chaldees which was the city mentioned in the Bible were Abraham was born. I thought he was joking so we went over to have a look. As we got closer I could see that it was a very ancient city, which was half buried in the sand.

Fortunately I had my camera with me and was able to take a couple of photographs, prints of which still exist although they are a little battered . I wish I had taken a piece of stone, as it would have no doubt made a fascinating memento properly mounted on a wooden base. It was not until early in 2001 when we looked in the Bible and the Encyclopaedia Britannica that I found out that Lt. Ward had been correct in what he had told me.
And so we eventually arrived at Al-Habbaniyah and made camp on the shores of Lake Habbaniyah. Not far away was a large British Air Force base, which came in very useful for me, as I will tell later. The reason we had been sent to Al-Habbaniyah was to instruct Polish engineers how to put together pontoons and Bailey Bridges. I will not go into a lot of detail about the construction of Bailey Bridges except to say there were no nuts and bolts. They all fitted together with clamps and special pins like a giant Meccano set. We did find a short manual on Bailey Bridges on the Internet in January 2001 and although I have not been able to include it here, I do still have a copy.

The pontoons were made up of three units; the upstream bow, the downstream bow and the centre unit, which carried the roadway. The two bow units were joined to the centre unit to form a pier. Two piers were fixed together with road bearers (large girders). Wooden decking was then placed across the bearers to make the roadway some twelve yards long. Depending on the weight that the bridge had to carry, it could be built as a Two Pier Raft (for light loads) or a Three Pier Raft (for heavier loads). Two Three Pier Rafts could be joined together for long loads. It was therefore possible to join as many rafts together as necessary to cross a river, whatever the width. The first thing we had to do was ferry some equipment across the river to build the landing bay on the far bank.
A rather large anchor was fastened to each pier of each raft with thirty fathoms of three-inch diameter cable and a marker buoy. So the space at the front of the piers were the anchorman stood was limited. The anchor cable had to be coiled in a special way so that it did not ravel when the anchorman cast it overboard. There were markers on each riverbank both upstream and downstream of the line of the bridge. The soldier who was in charge had to shout when each pier was in line with the upstream mark so that the upstream anchor could be cast. The anchormen then paid out the cable as the river flow carried the pier to the downstream marker. Then the pier could be pulled back to the line of the bridge and fixed in position.
As I have already said, the reason we were at Al-Habbaniyah was to teach Polish soldiers how to build Bailey Bridges. First we had to teach them how to build a landing bay, then a pier, then a two-pier raft complete with roadway. All this was done on the shallow side of the river. Eventually the English Officer who could speak Polish said it was time to take the raft into the middle of the river for the Polish soldiers to practice casting the anchor, which we had already taught them in shallow water. The man who cast the anchor had to be very careful, as it was a tricky job in a confined space. There was a cleat set in the bow of each pier. When the anchorman cast the anchor he was able to let the cable run between his boot and this cleat. This stopped the cable from whipping him overboard. When the raft was finally in position, the cable was then fastened to the cleat. So some of the Poles were sent to the middle of the river on a raft. All went well until the Polish soldier in charge of the raft gave the order to cast the upstream anchor. Unfortunately, one of the anchormen had put his foot in the middle of the cable coil. As soon as the anchor was cast, the cable wrapped round his leg and he went overboard after the anchor! As you can imagine this caused quite a commotion and I immediately knew there was something wrong and I told our motorboat to get to them as quickly as possible. Before we could reach them, the current had turned the raft right round so that two anchor cables had become tangled. We made every effort possible to raise the anchor but it was to no avail. The poor Pole who had gone overboard was drowned.

Sand Fly Fever
As I鈥檝e already said we were camped near a large British Air base and we were occasionally invited to their Sergeant鈥檚 Mess for an evening of entertainment, which was a bit of relief for us. In the base was a large hospital.
One evening I had just finished work and was about to settle down for a rest when I started to sweat. It was so bad I shouted for the guard and he went to fetch the doctor鈥檚 orderly. I think these two took it in turns to stay with me all that night. The next morning as soon as it was light the doctor came and I was immediately taken to the hospital on the Air Base. I was put in a bed between two rough blankets. I was kept in bed for several days until I felt as if I was laying in a bath of water. Eventually I stopped sweating and a male nurse came to ask me if I would like a nice lukewarm bath. That sounded great to me so he took me to the bathroom. There was a bath already for me to climb into and it was heavenly. I would have liked to stay in it all day but after a while the nurse came to take me back to bed. However this time instead of rough blankets, there were nice new white cotton sheets. I was rather reluctant to return to my company after I鈥檇 rested for a few more days but obviously I had to. I must say the treatment I had at the hospital was the best that anyone could have wished for.
The reason for my sweating and why I finished up in hospital was because I had Sand Fly Fever. Someone said that the sand fly is so small that it is able to get though a mosquito net.

The Locals
When I got back to my company we were still working on the Euphrates. One day we saw a gang of about eight Arab men on the opposite bank. They were harnessed to 鈥� and pulling a very large barge. There was a man on the barge who seemed to be beating time as they walked. I could not guess where they were heading for. As far as I knew Basra was the nearest place in the direction they were going but that was a very long way off.
As I mentioned earlier we were also near a large lake. One day we saw an Arab wade about two yards into the water. Even this far in the water was very shallow and only came up to his ankles. He was carrying a rather large bag, which contained seeds. He proceeded to scatter seeds into the water. He certainly knew what he was doing. Before the company moved on we could just make out green shoots poking out of the water. We were not there long enough to see the man gather his harvest so we never did know what it was.
A Stormy Night
One evening as I finished my work I took a short stroll up a sand hill. Out in the distance I could see lightning. It was not a single strike as we were used to seeing in England but five or six flashes all at the same time. It was spectacular and particularly strange, as I could hear no thunder. I went round a few of the lad鈥檚 tents to warn them as I was sure we were in for a heavy storm and for them to make certain that their tents were water tight. I also told the guard to get under cover when the rain came. And it did come 鈥� in great sheets! Suddenly above the noise I faintly hear one of the lads shout that his tent was letting water in. I told him to get in a lorry. I don鈥檛 know what he thought I was going to do for him, but he shouted again and for the second and last time I shouted to him to get in a lorry. Early the next morning, when the rain had stopped, I went round to see if everyone was all right. I could hardly believe what I saw. The lad who had shouted me in the night was still in his tent, laying on a bed of wet sand. I soon had him up and made him have a dip in the lake whilst I went to the stores to get him a clean set of clothes. As we were in the tropics he was soon sorted out and as luck would have it, he was the only one to have a leaky tent.

Escort for a General
Not long after the storm, a General came into our camp and his driver asked me where Colonel Grant was. After a little while Colonel Grant came to me and my mate and told us we were to escort the General as he had to cross the desert and did not want to get bogged down in the sand. So we took a large four-wheel drive lorry and followed the General鈥檚 car. After about two hours drive we came to a road. The General鈥檚 driver flagged us down and told us he would be all right but the General wished to see us. He thanked us for our effort and told us we could return to our unit. It always seemed to me that the higher the rank of officers, the more gentlemanly they were.
On our way back we came across two men with a tank transporter, which had broken down. I said to my mate that we should stop and see if we could do anything for them. They told us that they鈥檇 been waiting a long time for their breakdown to rescue them. The first thing we asked was had they had a meal 鈥� to which the answer was 鈥淣o鈥�. Most vehicles had a tin hanging from the rear tow bar, which was the mash can. So we were able to have a brew up and share the bit of food we had with them. As we were about to leave their breakdown lorry arrived. The driver and his mate lifted the bonnet and inside the engine compartment they鈥檇 stacked a large quantity of tinned food including Spam, corned beef and soup all of which was kept nicely hot from the engine. They thanked us for stopping to try to help their mates and they gave us four or five tins. They didn鈥檛 go into the company sergeant鈥檚 rations. We kept them for when we were sent out on our next job, as they were too good to give away, in fact at that time they were a real luxury.

Queenie
It was only a few weeks after the storm that our work at Al-Habbaniyah was done and it was time to move on. We had a little bet between ourselves on how many of the lorries would breakdown on the long journey though Syria to Lebanon. We were fortunate that in fact we only suffered a few and they were all minor 鈥� mostly petrol, diesel and ignition troubles.
We set up camp in the Bekaa Valley not far from a town called Baalbek. The Greater Lebanon Mountains are on the Mediterranean side to the West and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains are on the Syrian border to the East.
As I have already said each of the three bridge platoons was a complete unit and could operate on their own. Each could be sent to a different place to do whatever work was required. Our platoon was sent to work on the River Khabur miles away from Company Headquarters on the Turkish border. We had to stop at a fuel-filling depot (run by the British). This was at a place called Aleppo and we filled up from cans, as there were no pumps. It was there that a strange thing happened. As we were filing up the breakdown lorry, a little dog came running up and down the side of the lorry. It stopped at the drivers cab and stood up on its hind legs. After a while it ran up and down by the side of the lorry again a few times before returning to the cab and standing on it鈥檚 hind legs. It looked at us in such a pitiful manner. It was clean and appeared to have been well looked and to be in good health. I went to the officer who was in charge of the filling station and asked if he knew anything about this small dog. He said he鈥檇 never seen it before. I also asked the men at the station but they all said they didn鈥檛 know where the dog had come from or who its owner was.
'Queenie'
When we had filled up and were ready to move off I told my driver to go slow and see what the dog would do. It ran alongside of us for a few yards and then it ran in front of us 鈥� into the middle of the road and right in front of the lorry it stood on it鈥檚 hind legs! It faced us a if to say, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not going without me!鈥� If we hadn鈥檛 stopped I鈥檓 sure we would have run it over. I got out of the lorry, picked the dog up and again went to see the officer. I told him we had no option but to take it with us. We were going about a hundred miles into the desert but no doubt we would have to return to Aleppo for rations, so if the owner turned up we would certainly give her back. In the meantime, we would take good care of her.
At the bridge site, the first thing we had to do was set up camp. Then we had to check the vehicles and equipment and launch the motorboat. As the boat was so important there was one soldier who was totally responsible for it. However, the first time we took it out at a new location I always went as well to make sure it was in good mechanical order. So we started it up and had hardly moved away from the riverbank when the little dog came running along and standing on her hind legs. I don鈥檛 know if she thought we were going away without her. Anyway, we pulled in and took her on board. She immediately went to the bow and stood on her hind legs as if to say, 鈥淚鈥檓 captain of this boat鈥�. From then on no matter what, the little dog had to be standing on the front of the boat, just like a mascot. By then she had acquired a name 鈥� we called her 鈥楺ueenie鈥�.

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