大象传媒

Chapter 6

Faeroese Camp.

We were detailed off ten men to a tent, but as there was not an equal number of men in the Signals Platoon only eight of us occupied my tent. My companions were Arthur, Les, Charlie and Harry, all signallers; and Bert, Ted and Ray, of the Company office staff. It was with a feeling of great relief that I shed my equipment, loosened my collar and sat down on my kit bag to rest.
After a good rest some of us went to the marquee that served as a wash-house and got rid of some of the grime we had accumulated on our march from the town, then, our ablutions completed to our satisfaction, we returned to the tent and generally mucked about a bit until breakfast-time, laying out our kit in the officially prescribed manner and making sure the tent looked reasonably organized.
Breakfast consisted of porridge, bacon and beans - known to all ranks as cowboy鈥檚 breakfast - two pieces of' bread and margarine, and a pint of good hot tea. We were really hungry and made short work of the meal, then, feeling very much better, we returned to the tent, drew two more blankets from the stores - we only had two each with us, one in our kit-bags and the other in our big packs - made our beds and got our heads down. The clinkers of volcanic lava that covered some of the ground were far from being ideal bedsprings but we managed to sleep soundly until dinner-time.
In the afternoon we were able to have a darned good hot shower, which enabled us to remove the surplus dirt from those parts that ordinary washing cannot reach and from then on we were free to do as we pleased so long as we did hot leave the confines of the camp.
I found plenty to interest me. On the eastern horizon the snow- capped peak of the volcano, Mount Hekla, rose in solitary grandeur from a cluster of smaller peaks, but between them and the inlet on the bank of which the camp was sited was a lot of what in army language is termed "dead ground."
It was the aircraft on the inlet that really claimed my attention. Several Short Sunderlands of Coastal Command rested on the surface, some with engines just ticking over and others roaring with full throttle. On the slipway near the R.A.F. billets another of the "flying battleships" was being overhauled, while seaplanes were there in considerable numbers, sleek, streamlined, and painted a sombre grey.
Not far away an airfield was being built for the landplanes. The concrete runways were already completed and Hurricanes, Hudsons and Barracudas rested there in all their war paint.
One Sunderland with its engines ticking over prepared for take off. With its engines roaring defiantly with suddenly increased acceleration it taxied steadily across the gently ruffled surface of the inlet, then, with an even greater roar it surged along the inlet and headed for the open sea. An ever widening wake of silver foam rushed back from its bows and spread out in a welter of scintillating' bubbles behind it. A thin veil of smoke-like spray partly obscured the rear gun turret and I wondered what it felt like to be in the rear gunner鈥檚 place.
The aircraft rose almost daintily for one so big and the gap between its hull and the water widened rapidly as it became airborne. All the colours or the spectrum were reflected many times in the water that fell from the hull as the plane rose. No rainbow could ever match the beauty of the innumerable diamonds, emeralds, amethysts, and rubies as they dropped back into the water. The Sunderland banked steeply to port and headed in the direction of Mount Hekla.
The roar of its engines had just faded away in the distance when another roar announced the arrival of two American Northrop seaplanes. They circled low over the camp before coming in over the inlet. Then they came down together, passing low over the aircraft resting on the water, and touched down as lightly as autumn leaves falling on a placid lake.
Black smoke from the starboard inner engine of one of the Sunderlands quickly diverted my attention from the Northrops, and a launch chugged steadily away from the shore and headed straight for the Sunderland. Two of the airmen in the launch disappeared into the flying boat, re-emerging a short time later, and the launch then went back to the shore. The Sunderland gradually settled deeper into the water until it disappeared beneath the surface, leaving only its huge tail sticking out of the water like a big sail without a boat.
I could have stayed and watched them all day, having, retained the air-mindedness of my younger days, when I thrilled to the epic flights of Alan Cobham, Jim Mollison, Amy Johnson, Bert Hinkler, Jean Batten, and other daring pilots whose names had become household words, but more essential matters had to be attended to and I returned to my tent and settled down to write a letter to my wife. It is not always easy to write naturally when one knows that some other person has to read and censor the letter. One tends to fight shy of including the little intimacies one likes to write about, and the result could be a rather jerky, un-euphonic composition in which one tries to convey one's feelings without being too obvious about it. As I wrote, however, I overcame my initial diffidence and was soon writing in my usual uninhibited manner The letter finished, I put it in an envelope and addressed it and handed it to Ashy to be passed on to the officer for censoring, after which I sorted out one of my Mouth organs and proceeded to annoy my pals.
As there were still no official duties for any of us that day we just amused ourselves with a sing-song until tea-time, received our first pay in Kronor and after tea drew our first free issue of tobacco. Cigarette smokers received sixty cigarettes in packets of ten, two boxes of safety matches and a two-ounce bar of chocolate. Pipe smokers received a two-ounce tin of tobacco instead of cigarettes. There followed a good deal of horseplay and badinage and more singing until Lights Out at 22,15 hours, when we soon fell asleep in spite of the good s1eep we had had earlier.
My unyielding mattress of grass and volcanic lava caused me no loss of sleep but I was up and doing before the last notes of Reveille had died away. A good wash and a shave, and a vigorous brushing of teeth freshened me up considerably and I trotted back to the tent ready for anything.
We signallers had first sitting at breakfast, at 01.15 hours, but we were there at 07.00. A hungry lot, the flag-waggers. After breakfast we had to get busy and prepare for an unexpected kit inspection at 09.00 hours. We had been told to place our ground-sheets in a straight line outside our respective tents with our kit laid out on them in the usual manner. The first attempt was not good enough, the line was not straight, so the men at one end pulled theirs forward a bit. Still not good enough. There was a bulge in the middle. The middle bit was the signallers', but did we move our stuff back? We did not. We made everyone else move theirs forward. Bright, determined lads, the flag-bashers.
When everything was eventually arranged to everyone鈥檚' satisfaction we were lined up in front of our kits and inspected by the sergeant major to make sure nothing was amiss. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him looking in the field-dressing pockets, and suddenly realising what he was up to I surreptitiously removed the box of matches from behind my field dressing and slid it into my side pocket. I was only just in time, for a moment later the sergeant- major stood in front of me, tugged at my field-dressing pocket, gave me a quick once-over, and passed on to the next man.
Several of them were caught out. Arthur had a comb stuck behind his field dressing, Les had a collection of cinema, ticket halves, and Charlie had of all things his knife, fork and spoon. Harry had left his field dressing in his kit-bag for no reason that made sense so he, too, was caught out.
The 0900 kit inspection took place at 09.30, this time by the island's G.O.C. but to our great relief the inspection was only a cursory one, the general merely passing along the ranks of carefully laid-out kit followed by the usual retinue of lesser mortals and pausing only occasionally to say a few words to someone in the ranks or turning to ask a question or our Company Commander. The so neatly laid out kits were ignored completely.
The rest or the day passed in pleasant idleness and at 1.00 hours Don Falconer and I sallied forth from camp armed with a typewritten pass each and prepared to invade Reykjavik. Not yet being acquainted with the area outside the camp we decided to go via the same road we bad used on our way from the harbour.
The houses seemed much more attractive in the full sunlight of the summer's day and it was difficult to believe that these same houses had looked so drab and uninteresting in the light of the previous morning. One house in particular seemed to stand out from its neighbours. A clean looking white-painted house with a red tiled roof, it was fronted by a well-tended lawn which was edged with a colourful border of red and white carnations which in turn was edged with a grass outer border about two feet wide. A foot-high privet hedge surrounded the whole plot. Many of the other gardens were well kept and attractive, but none so neat or so pleasant to look at as this one.
Our first call when we entered the main part of the town was the N.A.A.F.I. It was crowded with servicemen of all kinds, as well as American sailors and marines. Surprisingly, the American presence was very much in evidence considering the attack on Pearl Harbour was still six months into the future. They were all crowded round the beer counter and tailed off in a ragged queue that straggled across the room to the other counter. This second counter was doing no trade at all.
After purchasing some stationery we continued our tour of the town and called at the Army Post Office to enquire about sending a cablegram home. The corporal gave us detailed instructions for finding the right office, which we found to be at the top of a long steep hill. The sergeant in charge of the office wrote our messages on a couple of forms and handed them to us, then gave us more detailed instructions for finding the office from which they could be sent. The cable office was way back in the opposite direction, so we had to go back down the hill and past the Army Post office to get to it. We wondered what brilliant army brain had thought that one up.
The cable office was a large modern building with wireless masts and a mass of wires sprouting from the roof, obviously the same mast we had first seen from the Polaski. We paid 7 Kronor, 50 aurars out of our week's pay of 10 Kronor for the cables to be sent.
All this walking back and forth between the different offices had made us hungry, so we found our way to the Y.M.C.A. hut by the docks and had tea, cakes and chocolate. This did not satisfy our hunger so we scouted around until we found a fish and chip saloon, where we enjoyed an excellent meal of two fish, a liberal portion of chips, four pieces of bread and butter, and a small pot of coffee. There was sauce on the table, and a basin full of sugar lumps, which worked out at three lumps per cup each, and there were three cups from each pot. The whole meal cost us 1 Kronor 75 aurars each, which was approximately one shilling and fourpence in the currency of the day or seven pence in the washers that masquerade as money nowadays.
Having thoroughly enjoyed our first venture into our first foreign city, and with the inner man completely satisfied, we returned to camp. We had to feel sorry for those who had been caught out in the matter of field dressings. They had spent the entire evening peeling spuds!

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