大象传媒

1944

One of my first jobs in the New Year was to write to my commanding officer, giving details of my present situation and asking to be claimed. It may seem an odd statement to anybody who has not been in the army, but it was normal procedure and helped an absentee to return to the fold. Certainly I thought it worthwhile as I felt that I was wasting time now and could not get away quickly enough. Here in the Base Depot there were hundreds of Sergeant Majors and Sergeants milling around and even more of the lower ranks. How they stuck it I could not guess. I was fed up after one day, but I must hasten to say that it was well run, the food, was reasonable and affairs were conducted in a reasonably efficient manner.

Actually I was here for nineteen days and managed to employ some of my time more profitably than I first imagined. On New Years Day in the afternoon I had to take five men to detention barracks and a peep into the way prisoners were treated was quite enlightening. As soon as they entered the building they had to do everything at the double and all orders, so far as I heard then during the few minutes I was there, were given in a very brusque voice. I was very glad and quite relieved to get out of the place. On January 2nd, I obtained a days pass and caught the tram into Cairo, h ad a good look round and later on saw the film 鈥淩eunion in Paris鈥�. The cinemas in this city, or at least those used by soldiers had a folding roof so that most shows at night were in buildings open to the night sky. At the end of each performance both the National Anthem and the Egyptian National Anthem were played. The Egyptians did not stand for ours, or they walked out. In retaliation we sang a bawdy ballad to the official music!

For the next seven days I managed to obtain a place on a 鈥淢ines Course鈥�, which dealt with the construction of German and Italian mines, how to lay them and more important how to lift them safely. Unfortunately at the end of the course an entry was made in my paybook with the result that on returning to my battery I was immediately given the job of seeking out mines should any be suspected, in addition to my other duties. In fact, I was called upon to put my knowledge to the test only a couple of occasions when back in Italy. One turned out to be clear with no 鈥渂lips鈥� on the 鈥渄etector鈥� and on the other the high pitched alarm heard through the earphones turned out to be nothing more than a metal spring six inches or so under the ground at the entrance to a field where the guns were due to take up their position. The course included taking quite a lot of notes and making several sketches. These I carried around with me and treated with some care, but I have no recollection of what happened to them and can only think that I left them behind with all the other command post stores when finally I left the unit at the end of the war.

In the remaining nine days here at El Masa, I made two more trips to Cairo and saw 鈥淭o have and to hold鈥� with Deanna Durbin and another film called 鈥淢r Lucky鈥�. I looked in at a cabaret which I found not at all to my taste during one of the visits, it could only be described as sleazy. I also had a typhus injection, had another tour of duty on guard and read a few books.

January 19th saw me up at 0430 hours and on my way out of camp at 0630 and with no regrets at leaving El Masa. I was one of a small draft of thirteen men bound for Italy and I realised that the worst part of my absence from my regiment was over and I was now only on my way back. We travelled by train from Cairo to Port Said where we went on board the Dutch ship Sivijan of 14000 tons. For the first two days of the voyage the sea was fairly rough and a lot of men on board were ill, but strangely enough, in view of my upset tummy on the way out from England, I was not affected. I shared a comfortable cabin with some other sergeants and spent each morning walking around the deck as did many other passengers.

The sea quietened down and became much smoother for the remainder of the voyage. It was also rather warm, so I imagined we were close to the North African shoreline.

The clocks went back an hour and even more importantly I was able to have a sleep each afternoon. I was particularly impressed by some United States soldiers who were present. Each little group had to arrange among themselves the collection of food for their table and the Americans were always the quickest at fetching, eating and clearing away their meals. They never wasted a second! By comparison, my draft had a solemn discussion each day as to what each man should do and we lingered over every meal. Neither did we begrudge the passing of time. In fact, it helped to speed it on its way. And strangely that number thirteen appeared again. It was the number of our Mess deck table. Four days out to sea and the temperature rose even further, the clocks went back another hour and I spent most of my time lying or squatting on deck and enjoying the sunshine.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.