大象传媒

.Chapter 鈥� 7 鈥榁oyage to Middle East鈥�

We sat in the estuary for several days whilst the convoy and its escort assembled and we became aware that we were to be a part of a pretty large flotilla; in fact we learnt later that it was the biggest convoy of troop ships yet to have sailed from Britain. My ship was the 鈥楽tratheden鈥� of the P and O(Peninsular and Orient) line. I don鈥檛 know how many passengers the ship was built to carry but when I sailed on her double berth cabins had been converted to sleep twelve officers in double tiered bunks. And if this sounds tight which it certainly was, the officers were very well housed indeed compared to their men who slept and lived on the 鈥渕ess decks鈥�; sleeping in hammocks above the tables. My contingent was on 鈥楬鈥� deck which as the letter suggests, really was in the bowels of the ship.

I didn鈥檛 know it until we met in London after the War, but also on the ship was my step-uncle, John Papps, Mother鈥檚 step brother. The reason we didn鈥檛 come across each other whilst on board was that I was a commissioned officer and he was an officer cadet going out to India to join the Indian Army Service Corps. So he slept and ate on a mess deck whilst I slept in a cabin and ate in the first class dining saloon. It鈥檚 worth mentioning here that in civilian life before he was called up he had risen, in his chosen profession of the hotel business, to be Banqueting Officer at the Dorchester in Park Lane. When commissioned in India he went on to be major-domo of household to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma, the Commander-in-Chief, South-East Asia. He attended the Admiral at the Yalta conference, where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met to decide the post war partition of Germany, and the formation of the United Nations, and also the Japanese surrender in Singapore in 1945. Finished up with the rank of Major and was awarded the O.B.E.

It was a pretty awesome sight when we did get to sea and spread out into the Atlantic. The troop ships were in the centre of the convoy in three lines astern together with a mighty battleship, the 鈥楳alaya鈥�, and an aircraft carrier, the 鈥楨agle鈥�. These two great ships were flanked by cruisers whilst around the convoy dashed about twelve destroyers, sailing at much greater speed than their charges and frequently sounding their high pitched sirens, a sound which quite unmistakably heralded their presence. We soldiers on the troop ships proudly, and as it turned out naively, imagined that this very considerable naval force was there to protect us but we were quickly disillusioned when sailing south in the Atlantic and coming level with Gibraltar practically the whole of the escort did a sharp left turn and disappeared over the Eastern horizon. It wasn鈥檛 us that the destroyers were protecting, but the battleship and the aircraft carrier that were about to join the Mediterranean Fleet!

From then on we sailed as fast as possible and swinging first to port and then to starboard as the best way to escape the attention of marauding U-Boats in the south Atlantic.

It was about this time that we heard two ghastly bits of news concerning the progress of the War in the Far East. Firstly that two British battleships, the 鈥楶rince of Wales鈥� and the 鈥楻enown鈥� had been sunk by Japanese aircraft. This was bad news indeed as it was thought that these ships were practically invulnerable; but worse was to follow not long after when we heard that Singapore, the great naval base guarding the far eastern approaches of the British Empire, had fallen to the Japanese. This was arguably, to the Allies, the nadir of the Second World War.

One of the occupants of the cabin I shared on the Stratheden was a captain in the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders who was going out to rejoin his regiment in Singapore and of course the whole lot were either casualties of the fight or became prisoners of war. He was truly an enormous fellow and when he heard the news proceeded to get roaring drunk. When he got to the cabin most of the rest of us were in bed and lay there in stunned and fearful silence as this kilted monster started to tear the wooden sides off his bunk. Fortunately, at this point and before he could do any more damage, he passed out to the great relief of the rest of us.

On a lighter note there was also on board the man who wrote the highly patriotic and nationalistic war time song 鈥楾here鈥檒l Always Be An England鈥�. He was wont to play the piano in the saloon somewhat interminably and we had more than our fair share of that piece of music. It wasn鈥檛 the only music that we suffered because there were quite a number of Scottish troops aboard including at least one Pipe Major. He was commissioned by his officers to appear in the entrance to the saloon every night after dinner and regale us with a rendering of whatever their regimental march was. Believe me the bagpipes are better heard at a distance than in the confines of a relatively small room.

The voyage was quite uneventful and we were mercifully spared the attention of any U-Boats, though when we were in the latitudes thought to be most at risk of attack officers had to spend a night or two sitting in the companionways adjacent to where our men were sleeping, armed with our revolvers, with instructions that in the event of the ship being torpedoed we were to shoot the first man that panicked. As I have mentioned mine were on 鈥楬鈥� deck and I have sometimes wondered what I would have done because I can鈥檛 imagine that I would actually have shot any of them: I was only just nineteen for God鈥檚 sake!

I was never sea sick though at the beginning of the voyage was slightly queasy as I lay in my bunk and felt the swell and listened to the creaking of the woodwork that had been built in to the cabins to make our bunks. We were fortunate in not having any really bad weather and the worst that I can recall was the effect of one exceptional south Atlantic ocean swell that occurred one day just as we were lining up for coffee after lunch, so that several hundred empty coffee cups slid off the table and were deposited on the deck.

There wasn鈥檛 much to do during the voyage and as I remember we spent a lot of the time playing cards; Solo Whist was the favourite and although we played for money there was mighty little in it by the end of the voyage. We also seemed to spend a lot of time in the dining saloon and we really did eat very well, with an ample menu for both lunch and dinner. It was said that 鈥楶 and O鈥� were paid a first class passage for every officer aboard and if our quarters were more than a little cramped they certainly didn鈥檛 stint on the food.

We made one port of call at Freetown in Sierra Leone were we moored in the estuary for a few days but did not disembark; just sweated and were very glad to get underway again. Then it was non-stop south and round the Cape of Good Hope to Durban. Here we did disembark and were taken to a Transit Camp on the race-course at Clairwood on the outskirts of the City, where we were to stay for seventeen days because we were destined for Egypt and the rest of the convoy was going on to India. The ship that was to take us the rest of the way to Suez was in dock with turbine trouble which was the reason for our enforced and happy stay in Durban.

Security dictated that the arrival of a convoy in Durban was a strict secret so we were surprised when the day before we were due to dock we were each given a ticket for a dance that had been arranged for us on the night of our arrival. So much for tight security! By the time we had got to the camp, been allocated to tents, seen our men to their tents and dining tent, it was pretty late and getting dark so that several of us were in two minds whether to go to the dance. However we did and got there when it was well towards the end. I remember standing at the side and seeing a girl dancing with a chap and looking decidedly bored, so when they came round again, and as it was an 鈥榚xcuse me, I cut in and so met Maddie Duranty by whom I was entertained for the rest of my stay in Durban. She had a car so took me back to camp and at mid day on each day thereafter was waiting at the camp gate to take me to her father鈥檚 house about seventeen mile north of Durban on the Pietermaritzburgh road at a village called Kloof. Her father was English as were many residents of Natal in those days and he had had a brother in the Royal Artillery in the First World War and made me very welcome. Having entertained me with supper and cape brandy he saw Maddie and I off to Durban to a night club and always insisted that we took half a bottle of his gin so that we didn鈥檛 have to pay the 鈥渞idiculous prices that those club people charged鈥�. After fifteen days the powers that be decided, quite rightly, that we were getting soft and sent us off into the country on a route march of about fifteen miles. It being summer in the southern hemisphere we slept out under the stars and in the morning were told that when we got back to camp it was to be straight on to the ship and away. Half way back this order was changed so that we were to have one more night before we embarked and with this glad bit of news we made the remaining miles back to camp practically at the double. Once there queues formed at the only two telephones on the camp as people hurried to get in touch with their South African hosts of previous days. Needless to say Maddie came to collect me and I well remember we dined and danced at an open air club on the seafront and, unromantically, it was the first time I ever heard the tune, or performed the antics of the 鈥楬okey Kokey鈥�; and it鈥檚 still being performed!

Next day we embarked on the 鈥業le de France鈥�, a ship designed for the north Atlantic crossing and quite a different proposition from the 鈥楽tratheden鈥� built for the tropics, in that the latter had forced ventilation whereas the former relied solely on fresh air picked up from scoops on the deck and delivered by ducts to the cabins and saloons below. Oh and it was hot, even worse for the men accommodated on the mess decks below our cabins. We suffered even more when we got into the Red Sea and were heartily glad when this part of our journey was over. As we left Durban the abiding memory that we shared with every British sailor, soldier, or airman who broke his voyage in Durban, was of a large bosomed middle aged lady in a red dress standing on the end of what was known as the 鈥楳ole鈥� (the jetty) and singing 鈥淲e鈥檒l Meet Again鈥�. Very nostalgic and it was decades later that I saw her daughter on Television telling the story of how her mother used to say goodbye to the troops.

The only notable event that I can recall for this part of the voyage was the occasion when as 鈥楽hip鈥檚 Orderly Officer鈥� I was required to accompany the Master on his daily round of inspection. Not only me but several of the ships鈥� officers took part in this procedure and we solemnly proceeded on a tour of inspection of the ship with the Captain and me in the vanguard. On the first mess deck the Captain made straight for a port hole, looked out, turned round and beckoned to me to look out of the next port hole. Puzzled I did so to be greeted by the sight of the ship鈥檚 side festooned with strings from practically every port hole each one being apparently attached to some object in the water. The Captain told me to haul one up and when I did so not only did I deposit on the deck a soggy mess of somebody鈥檚 washing, but discovered that the line to which it was attached had been fashioned by cutting the strings from the ship鈥檚 hammocks and tying them together. Apparently most of the soldiers preferred to spread their hammocks on the deck rather than hang them from the hooks provided and were thus able to use the strings to aid them with their laundry. The Captain said that on the previous voyage he had had some hundreds of hammocks ruined by this practice and told me to take the bundle of washing to the Purser鈥檚 office so that when it was claimed the culprit would be identified and disciplined: some hope and that鈥檚 the last I heard of it.

It was in February 1942 that we left Britain (seldom referred to as the UK in those days) and it must have been sometime in April when we landed at Port Tewfik at the southern end of the Suez Canal. Landed that is by lighter from the ship because there was nowhere to dock and the ship anchored off-shore. Baggage was loaded into the lighters by derrick and net and brought ashore to be piled into a small mountain on the quay. It was at this stage that I was detailed as 鈥楤aggage Officer鈥� which meant that whilst the owners of the baggage were taken off to a camp somewhere, I and a handful of gunners were left to guard the baggage all night. The only other human beings in sight were a gang of Egyptian dockers engaged in loading and unloading lighters with sacks of grain. Their overseers were very tall and very black Sudanese and as soon as they were left on their own out came their whips with which they laid into any poor docker who showed the slightest sign of easing off. The night passed without incident but we were glad when morning came and we were able to continue our journey; by lorry to Cairo along the western side of the Suez Canal, past the Bitter Lakes and then west to Cairo.

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