大象传媒

Onwards we travelled, picking up more ships to make up the convoy. We had escort warships, namely HMS Repulse and an aircraft carrier HMS Argus. We called in at Freetown, in Africa, and it was there I saw my first green banana, brought out by the little native boys. They threw ropes up to the ship with a basket on the end, one put money in and hoped they would send up the goods, they also dived for the money we threw in, but only silver coins, no copper. We did try to put silver paper round the coins, but they were wise to that.

On we went to Durban, in South Africa, and we stayed there for a week awaiting orders and taking on more ships, then on to Bombay. It was then that we knew we were going to Singapore. But lucky for us Singapore fell, so we caught another ship, HMS Devonshire, a proper troop ship with its own hospital. It was the first time that I used a hammock to sleep in, we slept on the Mess Deck, so we had to stow the hammocks every morning and this went on for ten days going through the Red Sea, till we disembarked in Iraq, in the port of Basra. There we picked up transport and for two weeks, travelled through Syria, Jordan and Palestine to Egypt, stopping at Port Said and staying there for two weeks awaiting orders.

While there I had one week鈥檚 leave and went to 鈥淧alestine鈥�, it was most interesting. Having gone round the Fourteen Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem, I visited Mount Sinai and also went to the Wailing Wall.

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