大象传媒

Name Dropping

Winston Churchill met me once, not on a social occasion but in the course of our duties engaged in defeating the Hun. The meeting is not mentioned in any of his biographies, at least, as far as I am aware, so I thought I would set the record straight and report it in mine. In all fairness I think I should point out that it wasn鈥檛 a meeting in the sense that I shook him by the hand and enquired after his health, but he passed by me as close as I am to you. I could clearly smell his cigar smoke. The Duke of Kent nearly met me at the same time, but he just stood at a safe distance and looked at us; somewhat despairingly I thought at the time. However, I am sure that you are eagerness itself to know the details of this meeting that was not quite on the same level as Casablanca, of Yalta, but interesting at the time.

It was the early summer of 1940 when the bedraggled British army had recently arrived from Dunkirk, angry and humiliated, and we were all waiting for the onslaught that we were sure was going to follow it across the Channel. The 9th Super-heavy Battery R.A. was in the station yard somewhere near Hull where gun crews were engaged in trying to dig holes in ten feet of concrete in which to sink huge baulks of timber that would be chained to the guns to act as anchors. These anchors were vital, and without them the two seventy-six tons of ordinance could not go into action; when fired they tended to fall over. After three days we had managed a three inch dent into the concrete, and were seriously considering giving up and going home. Gunner O鈥橰iley suggested that it might be worth while sending a telegram to Herr Hitler asking him not to invade yet as we weren鈥檛 ready. Gunner O鈥橰iley, being Irish, convinced everybody that he wasn鈥檛 joking, but said he could use a pneumatic drill if we could get hold of one. We were saved by a phone call from the War Office.
鈥淎wfully sorry, old chap, been a bit of a mess in the communications. I shouldn鈥檛 have told you to go to Hull; seems that the jolly old enemy can鈥檛 stand the smell of fish. Could you move down the line a bit? Dover. Be jolly grateful if you could tootle off down there. Soon as poss. The jolly old Hun may be knocking at the door soon. Good man.鈥�

Our two railway mounted monsters and their ammunition set off in one train, and the railway coaches that we lived in set off in another. To our great surprise the two trains met at Dover East station, where one gun was sent off somewhere, and my gun was despatched to a deserted station on a single line section of the line a few miles out of Dover. To call it a station was exaggerating a bit; it was a wooden platform about twenty yards long, with a garden shed that served as a waiting room, and, when we arrived, as our battery office, cookhouse, and sleeping quarters. It would accommodate one sleeping soldier lying down, or three of four sleeping soldiers standing up. There was nowhere to play cards, the nearest NAFFI was about ten miles away, and the closest we could get to any crumpet was a village where the youngest female appeared to be at least fifty, so there was nothing for it but to pass the time by getting the gun, Cleopatra, into action.

It was at this time that our great leader (referred to as WC from hereon) set out on a tour of the defences of his country in those areas where it was considered the enemy might attack; he wanted to find out if we had, indeed, got and defences, and at the same time to put some heart into us poor sods who were expected to throwback the Hun with little more than our bare hands.

On the great day we all had a wash and lined up ready to be inspected by the great man. A cavalcade of cars swept along the cart track that led to our gun site, carrying WC and his staff, a couple of generals, and redcaps by the dozen. In the very last car sat the Duke of Kent all on his own, with the air of a man who has got out at the wrong station while travelling on the wrong train. He got out of his car and stood beside it pretending to be vitally interested. We would have presented arms, but we only had one rifle, and Sergeant 鈥淐ush鈥� Cannon pulled rank on us and kept it for himself. Wasn鈥檛 any use anyway, the rifle was 300 calibre and the only bullets we had were 303. Cush did his best with more energy than skill; too much energy really鈥� his false teeth jumped out, as they were to do on a number of occasions. Not that it mattered, WC strode straight past and completely ignored us as did the tons of brass and acres of red tabs who were in tow; he took one look at the gun, then the waiting room, turned to one of his minions and growled something, then made straight for his car. In a few minutes the cavalcade disappeared down the track in a cloud of dust.

He never asked for our opinion of the situation. We would have been very happy to tell him. We afterwards learned that for the whole of that summer he had a plane standing by to whip him off to America if the Germans did come, so he couldn鈥檛 have been very optimistic.

There are two things about that period of the war that have always puzzled me. One, why didn鈥檛 Hitler invade? It would have been a doddle for him. Two, why didn鈥檛 Churchill, after seeing us, head off at top speed for his plane and hotfoot it to Washington?

Cont.

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