大象传媒

These are just a few of my recollections about the stories my Dad told me of the six years he spent in East Africa.

I really and truly wish I had paid more attention now, written them down or recorded them because although he had a quiet war it was certainly an interesting one.

My Dad left Broadclyst in Devon and joined the Royal Engineers. He became a Sergeant Major which I found hard to put together with the popular image because he was such a gentle man.

He spent most of his time in East Africa, helping to keep roads open. He became very fluent in Swahili and used to tell me stories about the Masai people.

He was often all alone or with just one or two other soldiers camped hundreds of miles from other groups. His war time friend, Ken Smith from Birmingham told me that the loneliness and boredom could drive you crazy but that my Dad helped to save his sanity by reciting realms of poetry, memorised from his elementary school days. Wordsworth, Longfellow. Dad could still remember verse after verse right up until his death in 1992 at age 76.

He used to talk to me about the Big Skies of the African plains, the animals, Mount Kilimanjaro.

If my mother had turned down his marriage proposal after the war I believe he would have gone back to live there.

He awoke one morning to find a couple of paw prints close to where he had lain his head. He shouted to an African to take a look and there was suddenly great excitment and panic.. "Simba, Simba" the man shouted. At sometime during the night a lion had strolled into my father's tent and obviously had a very close look at him. Dad was grateful he had not woken up.

Another incident was when my father and Ken woke one night to find robbers in their tent. A brave struggle ensued but my Dad and Ken were unable to capture the offenders. They had greased their bodies in oil or fat and were too slippery for Tom and Ken to get a grip.

One young soldier who joined them for a while was a very charming man unless he got hold of a drink. Even a small amount of alcohol would have a devastating effect upon him. He would become delusional and extremely aggressive for no reason at all. My Dad had to wrench a gun away from him on more than one occasion.

My dad did not see any action in the sense of conflict with the enemy. However, he told me of seeing American sailors, their white bell-bottoms pink with blood as someone threw buckets of water along a street in Durban to wash it down. There had been a big fight, possibly someone had strayed into the wrong area.

When he was in Durban, arriving on a troop ship my father was appalled at the way the Durban police treated the black Africans. The men on the troop ship threw them money but as they went to grab it the police attacked them with whips. Dad said that the British soldiers jeered at the police. My father was shocked. He said he had been taught to love his 'black brothers and sisters in the British Empire' at Sunday School. He was not prepared for such brutality and hated that black people had to step off the pavements to let a white person pass.

My Dad had mixed with some very well to do types. At a party once he met the woman whose husband, a Lord was tried for murdering her lover. He then committed suicide. She was very aloof. The book of the story is caled White Mischief.

Sadly my Dad is not here to fill in the details of his quiet war. But this is my tribute to him, poor though it is.

Maria Moore

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