大象传媒

CHAPTER 6

During the next few weeks we managed several trips into Alexandria and I was very impressed with it. There is a beautiful bay sweeping round in almost a half circle and the wide, well maintained road is lined on the one side with very imposing buildings. On the other side of the road is the sea, the Mediterranean. Each time we were there, other traffic was almost non-existent, at least along this coast road, We just zoomed along at high speed, without a care in the world. On these tripe we used a jeep. Further back in the city, it was, of course, teeming with people. There were factories, office buildings and slums, as there are in all large cities, the world over. Alexandria is the second city of Egypt, with a population of over four million, so it has to be very large and I only saw a minute part of it.

On one occasion I was driving a few of the other soldiers into Alexandria for an evening out. As they were intent on getting very drunk, it was agreed that I would drink very little, so there would be one of us sober enough to drive us all back to camp. As already explained, the problem was that throughout the war, I did not wear spectacles and my sight was not that good. I could see fine to read, and drive during the day, but driving at night with not very good headlights and almost no street lighting was, to say the least, a bit hazardous. Anyway I drove us all back to the camp with some help from the other passengers, with cries of 'look out' and even on one or two occasions, by one of them grabbing the wheel. When we reached the camp, I had to drive in and out of the tents, because they had been pitched higgledy piggledy instead of in straight lines. I had also to miss the guy lines, stretched out tautly from each tent. Two days later, we learnt that one of the soldiers had been killed. He had been sleeping on the ground behind one of the lorries, as was a fairly common practice, when the driver inadvertently reversed over him. Either he had forgotten that the man was there, or did not even know that the man was there in the first place. I am sure there were very many tragedies like this during the war. The words 'killed in action' could mean many things and not always as a direct result of enemy action. Another tragedy was that of a soldier from another unit close by who accidentally set his tent on fire and was burnt to death.

I developed a 'desert sore' on the back of my hand and it took well over a month to heal. We all suffered from 'prickly heat', an itchy rash across our waists where our trouser belts went, but worst of all were the bouts of dysentery, which many of the soldiers suffered. Fortunately it never affected me.

One night there was an air raid over Alexandria. I was asleep in my little bivouac tent, when an almighty bang woke me up. It seemed to turn me over, one moment I was lying on my right side and the next second on my left. This happened several times and the explosions were so loud it was impossible to sleep. I expect the noise came from anti-aircraft fire immediately above me. I gave up any idea of sleep and watched the action in the night sky. There was not very much to see, only some tracer fire and the sound of shell bursts in the distance, and shortly afterwards it was all quiet again. I was lucky that I have always been a good sleeper and in a few minutes I was flat out again.

At this time I was acting as quartermaster for our signal section and so off I went as soon as possible to the nearest Supply Depot. I made out a list of requirements for as many things as I could think of, such as towels, underwear, soap and blankets. Plus a new battle dress for myself. I had noticed there were some of the New Zealand type, which were a nice shade of khaki/ green instead of the usual British khaki colour. They were also of a much better cut. I wore this for the next two years at least and always fancied that the colour and fit rather suited me. Then came the day when it rained. It rained so heavily that all our vehicles were completely bogged down and for at least twenty-four hours there was no movement of vehicles in our camp at all. During this time we always maintained wireless communication with all the units around including our own Brigade. We anticipated that any day orders would come through for a British attack on the Germans. It was well known that General Montgomery did not believe in sacrificing troops, as some Generals have done in the past, more for their own glory than for winning a battle, and during these months he was building an army of such strength, that it could not fail against Rommel's troops. While we were still waiting for the 8th Army to be built up to full strength, we made further trips into Alexandria, and noticed on the way in that the water lapping the beaches was blood red. It was an uncanny sight and although this effect may have been more apparent at sunset, so far as I can remember, it was that colour every time I saw it and whatever the time of day.

One day, a message came through to all troops. It simply read 'there will be no retreat - Montgomery'. From this, we realized that our advance on the German positions was imminent. A few days after we received that message, a further message came, instructing our Brigade to return back over the Suez Canal and await instructions. Apparently the 8th Army was now fully up to strength and we were not needed. Almost immediately after we turned back, the 8th Army advanced and so badly beat the Germans that they were now in full retreat right across the Libyan Desert. We did not, of course, learn about this until much later. We had no contact at all with newspapers and very little with radio. In fact, at this time, I could not remember having seen a newspaper since we left England more than two years ago.

We continued on our way back, but this time we made our way towards Cairo, and to my delight, we saw the pyramids at El Giza. I am sorry to say that we were not allowed to stop, and so we only saw them from a distance, but that was better than never seeing them at all. My recollections of Cairo were that it was teeming with people and not attractive in any way at all. As with all cities there was a rich part and a poor part, and I think we went in through the poor part. One of the first things we saw was a huge sign that read " Take care - 50 lorries a month are stolen in this city". A few minutes after this, when we had stopped in a traffic jam, a young lad peered up at us with a huge grin on his face. We did not think much about it, but waved to him, thinking what a nice young boy he seemed. It was not until later we discovered that a bulb from one of our headlights was missing. While he was smiling at us he was busy unscrewing the bulb. Unfortunately, these lights had no glass over the front, and the bulbs just screwed in. This was another example of the fact that the people who design these things have no idea how the real world lives. It is a wonder we did not lose every bulb on every truck. At least we did not have our lorry stolen!

We soon left Cairo and as we saw so very little of it, it would be impossible to describe it other than to say that we were not impressed. We continued on to the Suez Canal and again crossed over the swing bridge at Ismaillya, and from there another drive right across the Sinai Desert.. After we had travelled about one hundred miles, suddenly from over a ridge appeared a group of Arab Legion soldiers. In full uniform, armed with rifles and mounted on camels, they looked very smart and formidable. They stopped and looked at us for a minute or so, then turned and rode away over the sand and disappeared. It was a sight that I could never forget, and the same as that which must have inspired Lawrence of Arabia. Our next stop was close to Beersheba. I suppose most days we drove around two hundred miles and then camped down for the night. Every night our meal consisted of a whole tin of McConachys stewed steak and beans, for each man. It was very tasty and I cannot remember anybody ever complaining about it. It was always tea to drink and never were we offered coffee. I doubt if I drank one single cup of coffee since the day I left England.

We made our way gradually towards the sea and then continued along the coast road past Tel Aviv to Netanya where we stopped for three days. This gave us an opportunity to swim in the Mediterranean. We splashed around as if we were on holiday, and it seemed difficult to believe that we were, at least technically, on 'active service' and part of the Allied effort fighting the Germans. After leaving Natanya, we headed inland towards Nazareth and round part of the Sea of Galilee. The road went along almost at the water's edge and then suddenly we came across a sign that stated it was the Sea of Galilee and that it was 600 feet below sea level. By that I suppose it meant below ocean level. The thought went through my head that tourists pay a lot of money to see sights such as this, and I was seeing it for free.

We were told that our next stop would be Damascus, the Capital of Syria, but as so often happens in wartime, we saw very little of it. We camped just outside and did not see the centre or the best parts of it. I drove a lorry into the city, on my own, and finished up in what looked like a market. The road became very narrow, only just about the width of the lorry, and everywhere was very busy. A little further on I found I was driving into the covered part of the market. Almost at the same time I saw that young Arabs were climbing all over the lorry. All this time I was just crawling along because of the masses of people all around, and the youngsters had no problem in jumping on the back of the truck. I began to feel a little worried, and quickly thought that this place would be better off without me. Not that the Arabs were unfriendly and in fact they all had huge grins on their faces, but this did not convince me that I was not in some sort of danger. Not perhaps in danger of injury to myself, but in danger of having the lorry stolen, and if that had happened, that would have been trouble enough. I immediately stopped the lorry and started reversing back along this very narrow road. As soon as I started to go backwards the young lads jumped off, and a much relieved me drove back to the camp. On another occasion I took a lorry into Damascus, taking a different road. This time I had two other chaps with me, but the trip was no more successful than the last one. After a while, turning left and right along what we thought looked the best way, we suddenly found we were travelling alongside a canal, and the road deteriorated into little more than a track that sloped ominously towards the water. Once again, discretion proved the better part of valour, and we reversed the lorry with some difficulty, and made our way back to camp. We certainly could not say that we had seen much of Damascus, but at least we had been there.

Somewhere during the last month or so and I can never remember where it was, we passed by and camped near, villages where just outside the doors of the houses, there were grave like bumps of earth, and that is just what they were. When somebody died, they were buried just outside the houses. These graves were everywhere and us soldiers were constantly tripping over them because there was no protection around them, and no real indication of what they were. To us, they were just mounds of earth, but admittedly the shape of a grave.

All over the Middle East we came across phallic symbols. Most villages had one at least. Many of them were six feet in height and in some instances they were painted red. One day we passed through a completely ruined and utterly deserted village. There no inhabitants at all, nor was there a dog or even a chicken. Apart from the ruined buildings, there was nothing there at all, and it looked to me like those places in North America that had been abandoned after the gold rush fever had subsided. There was no way we could find out what really happened here.

After five or six days we left for our next destination, and to this end, we turned westwards and travelled right through Lebanon and then back into Syria. The weather all this time was perfect, and the drive through Lebanon was mostly at 1600 to 2000 feet above sea level, and it was exhilarating to say the least. We continued for another two days, through Latakia and on to Aleppo, which was our final objective, at least for the time being.

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