大象传媒

In early 1942, my father had completed his basic army-training in North Wales and he was sent to his Royal Signals unit at Catterick Camp, Yorkshire for the Corps鈥� specialist training programme. Catterick Camp was a vast military base, a temporary home for many units, from infantry to corps-regiments and ATS. The names of the various camp districts, such as Helles Lines, evoked Britain鈥檚 military exploits from earlier wars. My father鈥檚 friend Geordie Clark, from the same Perthshire village, was there too. He was an open-faced, smiling lad who was a bit younger than my father. Late the previous year, they had both gone off together to volunteer for the army, having travelled to the nearest recruitment office in Blairgowrie. The old-sweat Black Watch recruiting sergeant,surmising correctly that the surnames of these two identified them as sons of ex-comrades of his, from the 6th Black Watch of the 51st Highland Division of WW1, steered them away from the Scottish regiments and toward a corps he felt befitted their educational achievements. They were not best happy, but accepted his wisdom and were destined to become gentlemen of the Royal Corps of Signals. One of the curious military traits my father had to get used to was the marching speed of the Corps. It seemed like sleepwalking rather than marching, with the regimental march 鈥淏egone Dull Care鈥� acting more like a lullaby. When faster-marching Scottish infantry units were on the same parade ground, it caused much mirth and cursing to see them swinging by in jaunty fashion, right up the backs of the Signals !

Of course, the Royal Signals, as well as being the Army鈥檚 highly skilled communications experts who were assigned as required to operational and other units, were soldiers first and foremost and performed the duties expected of any soldier, including guard and sentry duty. One night, it was the turn of Geordie and my father to patrol a designated part of the camp. Complete with 鈥榯in-hats鈥� and bayonet-mounted SMLE鈥檚, they moved around in the moonlight, looking for intruders, spies, fifth columnists and general ne鈥檈r-do-wells. Now, Geordie was a really nice bloke, but he was accident-prone and if something was to happen, pound to a penny, Geordie was involved. On this particular night, they went to check an air-raid shelter which was on their beat. As they entered the brick-walled building, each started jabbing the wall with their bayonets, feeling their way forward in the pitch-dark. According to my father, who was behind Geordie in the blackness, the sound of Geordie鈥檚 bayonet jabs on the solid wall went something like this 鈥淒ok - dok - dok - dok - Owwwwww !! Bluddy Hell !!鈥�. Suddenly, a soldier and ATS girl scuttled out of the shelter and hurried outside into the moonlight. The man was trying to pull up his battle-dress trousers while clutching his injured bottom as the woman, resembling a crab, waddled as she struggled to pull up her army-issue underwear from around her ankles ! Surely, never, in the field of human conflict, had seventeen inches of cold British-steel been used in such an unfortunate way, to separate a young warrior from his true-love ! C鈥檈st la guerre !

Later, when my father鈥檚 assignment came, he found himself a part of Special Operations Executive (SOE), as a member of Force 136, for operations in the Far East. As Geordie was still too young to be assigned just yet, he stayed on at Catterick. After leaving Catterick, my father lost touch with Geordie for many years, until one day he read in the Dundee Courier about a man, George Clark, who risked his life to rescue a child from drowning. The photo certainly looked like his old friend Geordie, now an elderly man of course, but still with the same open-hearted smile. He approached the paper, obtaining the address etc. It was Geordie indeed ! They chatted for ages on the phone, filling in those missing years. As for young Geordie, do you know what his first taste of action was ? Doing nothing by halves, he 鈥榳ent in鈥� on a landing-craft on D-Day, as a specialist radio-operator with Lovat鈥檚 Commandos !

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