大象传媒

THE ROAD TO BAGHDAD, 1941 STYLE.

6th Indian Division set sail from Bombay for an unknown destination on the 10th September 1941. As we sailed westward through calm seas and blazing sunsets we speculated about our ultimate destination; favourite was Egypt and it was not until we sailed into the Persian Gulf that we were told that we were bound for Iran (known to us then as Persia) to confront the Germans should they break through in southern Russia and threaten Suez, the key to India.

On the 7th October we docked at the grubby port of Tanuma (place names change so rapidly
these days that it is likely that it was what is now Umm Qsar) where lines of black oil pipes came to an abrupt end at stilted jetties stained with the drippings from a commodity that nations were prepared to go to war for. The air was heavy with the pungent smell of crude oil. The temperature stood at about 40 centigrade and my section of the Signal Corps was detailed to unload our equipment and stack it up on the open desert. Stripped to the waist, we toiled until dusk when the temperature plummeted to something like 35 degrees, not cold by British standards, but bitterly cold in relation to the daytime values. We had no idea where the bulk of our Signals Section was bivouacked and our only protection against the steady wind that stirred the desert sand was a marquee which we were to exhausted to erect, so we burrowed beneath its canvas and slept the like babies, although theoretically we were supposed to be guarding the equipment. I awoke at dawn and heaved my way out of the rough fabric of the marquee and gazed in wonderment at the scene before me. I saw the huge sweep of a lagoon away to the east (I think) with long headlands, dotted with nodding palms, embracing the rose-tinted waters. As I watched, enchanted by this magical scene, I became aware of two giant figures, trembling in the shimmering air, advancing towards me.

As they drew closer they diminished in size until they resolved themselves into the cousins Hopkins, one lanky and the other small, who had been sent to relieve us of our guard duty over our precious equipment. And as they shrank to human stature so the lagoon faded into a seemingly endless panorama of sand and sky.

Lofty and Titch Hopkins were real 鈥� all else was a mirage!

Over the span of sixty - two years, even with the help of contemporary notes, I cannot recall how many days or weeks we stayed in Basra. But my friend, 鈥淭ug鈥� Wilson and I did manage to make a trip to Shat-el-Arab, a point of land at the confluence of Euphrates and the Tigris, before those two rivers flowed into the Persian Gulf, apocryphally the site of the Garden of Eden, and where two separate pontoons, mounted on native feluccas, provided passage for our vehicles across both. I remember 鈥� Tug" and I deciding to visit the town which stood across the river from where we were encamped. We crossed in a frail shell of a ferry with the water lapping within an inch or so of the gunwales under they weight of a dozen soldiers and civilians and located a local drinking joint. We ordered a couple of beers of doubtful pedigree and, almost immediately, were joined by a 鈥渉ostess鈥� whose purpose was abundantly clear to the worldly-wise 鈥淭ug鈥�. In passable English she asked if we would buy her a drink. Tug politely refused the invitation on the grounds that he was not going to provide her with a glass of lemonade and be charged for champagne. He went on to lecture her on the folly of her ways. She watched him closely through mascara rimmed eyes and it was obvious that she didn鈥檛 understand a word of what he was saying, her vocabulary limited to the bare necessities of her trade. We left under her bemused gaze and spent a few hours in the dusty city before risking our lives aboard the fragile bark 鈥� a trip rendered even more hazardous by a few boisterously drunk soldiers.

Eventually we received orders to move off to Baghdad. You must remember that at this time Iraq was a Regency, the king being a boy of about five years of age, friendly and much under the influence of Britain. Our progress to the capital was therefore unimpeded by enemy forces. Our ultimate destination, we learned later, was Kerman Shah where there was an American-operated oil refinery in the mountains of Iran.

The Iraqi desert is like a vast, dry ocean where, apart from the need to avoid rocks, icebergs and suchlike, courses can be plotted in straight lines. The desert is flat, hard at this time of the year and navigable by vehicles and camels. As a consequence we were given a compass bearing on Baghdad from which we were instructed not to deviate except under orders from above. (God or our own commander?). We loaded our equipment on fifteen cwt. Trucks, all recently assiduously purged of sand, checked our compass bearing and headed into the desert. The official driver, Satara Singh (why should I remember that name which is not in my notes?) was parked in the back among our signal equipment and I was at the wheel. This was strictly against orders and was based on the belief among British troops that Indian drivers were totally incompetent 鈥� a belief that, through ignorance, I shared at the time but which I subsequently found to be false

We packed reserves of fuel in flimsy tin four gallon cans and our water in chaguls, bags made of flax which swells when wet, thus creating a water-tight flask. We tied the latter to the sides of the truck where condensation caused by the passage of air over the surface kept the contents very cool. One veteran NCO warned us not to jettison any empty petrol cans as they would be useful later. How right he was.! Thus accoutred we headed into the hot shimmering desert .where the sand reflected the rays of the sun upwards, allowing no respite for our eyes through the daylight hours.

Whenever our route took us within sight of the Euphrates on our right, usually at the end of the day, we staged and serviced our trucks before eating and sleeping. The banks of both the Euphrates and the Tigris provide a swathe of green through the desert where villages and towns have thrived throughout the centuries. We were in the region of the site of the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldees where civilisation existed when we were savages and, although the ancient irrigation systems of those days had disappeared, the riverside still supported communities. Whenever we stopped villagers would descend upon us with arms full of water-melons 鈥� large, delicious water melons that tasted of nectar and slaked our sand-filled throats. Our benefactors demanded neither money nor food. They wanted nothing more than our empty cans! The importance of this was revealed weeks later when, breasting the crest of a mountain pass in Iran, we saw the glittering dome of a mosque in a town beneath us. It shone like a jewel in the midst of dun-coloured buildings; it was clad in the beaten out metal of fuel cans which spoke of a religious dedication comparable to that which created our own ancient cathedrals.

We were within sixty miles of our destination and we camped overnight, intending to arrive in Baghdad the following day. The endless routine of purging our equipment of sand having been completed we got our heads down and slept the sleep of the very tired. For some reason or another I awoke before dawn and could not go to sleep again so I stepped quietly over the incumbent bodies of my companions and crept out of the tent into the night air. Usually a vast, peaceful silence hangs over the desert when all the clatter of human activity is stilled but now there was something different in the air. Overhead, against a velvety sable sky, the stars glittered as they always did, seemingly so close that I felt that I could reach up and pluck one at will, but towards the horizon a pall of deeper hue blanketed the sky. And as it moved rapidly towards me a deep murmur grew into a roar and a violent wind struck the sleeping camp, whipping the tents and truck canopies into a cacophony of noise and motion. Now there were no stars above only an orange tinge behind the manic dervish dance of millions of grains of sand as the sun, heedless of the turmoil, kept its appointment with the new day. My comrades spilled out of their tents, wondering what disaster had overtaken them, confused and fearful. The wind-driven sand scoured and stung every exposed part of our bodies; it clogged our nostrils, ears, throats and eyes. We were experiencing our first sandstorm and it was distinctly uncomfortable. The sun began to penetrate the veil of sand as the fury of the wind abated.

The main ingredient to our morning rations was sand and more sand, gritting nerve-rasping between our teeth and on our gums.

The order came for us to move off once more and we set off on our constant compass bearing into a kind of smog that gave us a visibility of about 20 metres. After a few hours a rocklike obstacle appeared in our path. I alighted to investigate and discovered that it was the canopy of one of the vehicles further up the convoy which had become detached. There were two brilliant navigators in that convoy, and one of them was us!

At last we drew into a grove of date palms on the outskirts of Baghdad and once more went through the ritual of servicing our equipment before resting. I recall as vividly as yesterday sinking down beneath a date palm, hands on knees and perspiration pouring from my body until it formed a pool in my waistband. Clouds of flies swarmed around the burnished brown clusters of dates, filling the humid air with the murmur of their wings.

I cannot recall how long we remained in Baghdad 鈥� only a few days at the most 鈥� but 鈥淭ug鈥� and I managed to make a visit to the flicks in the town. An Edwardian-style theatre had been converted into a cinema. Images on the screen were elongated upwards and diagonally like those in a fairground Hall of Mirrors and the acoustics had the growling effect of a lion house at feeding time. With a nice sense of occasion we were treated to a B film entitled 鈥淭he Thief of Baghdad鈥�. The body language of this excessively athletic film (it may have featured Douglas Fairbanks0 was sufficient to compensate for the poor quality of the sound. It was followed by an interval during which all the doors were flung open to give a short respite from the oppressive heat. Local men then invaded the stage and re-enacted the derring-do of the film 鈥� almost as athletically. The main feature was 鈥淒ark Victory, starring Bette Davies. This was a different proposition; the dialogue was vital to the story. The French sub-titles moved too swiftly for my inadequate mastery of the language and I could not begin to decipher the Urdu and Arabic shown on two small screens each side of the proscenium. Perhaps one day it will appear on TV and then I shall know what it was all about...

Within a day or so we made for the border with Iran, not sorry to leave the flatness of the desert behind us and to find ourselves among the mountains around Kerman Shah.

The 6th Indian Division travelled light in khaki shorts, shirts, topees, turbans or puggarees. We were also in friendly territory In Iraq. Today a soldier in that theatre of war faces a determined enemy, must wear anti-chemical clothing and carry much heavier personal equipment. The common factor, the desert and all its heat and sandstorms, remains - and that alone is purgatory!

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