大象传媒

We were allowed to go ashore on arrival in Capetown, and it was only then I regretted being parted from my four weeks pay. However, one of my trusting pals lent me five shillings (25p). That represented five days pay and the biggest debt I had incurred to date. I hurriedly got myself ready to go ashore but all my mates had already left the ship. I went into the city and the first person I spoke to was a young lady. I asked her to direct me to the nearest swimming baths. In the course of conversation I related the story of my dilemma. She could not stop laughing but she took great pity on me and took me to her home, introduced me to her parents, and told them my story. I was given the wonderful privilege of a hot water bath, after which I was pleasantly surprised to find my hair was back to normal again. The young lady was generous enough to take me to a 鈥淭ea Bioscope鈥� a combination of caf茅鈥� and cinema where tea was served during the performance. That was another new experience for me. It was a very old film
about the Klondike Gold Rush starring Charles Bickford - the tough guy of his era. Inevitably it included fisticuffs in the Wild West Style. At the table next to my newfound friend and I was a bearded sailor of foreign origin, who had obviously sampled too much South African wine. Carried away in the first fight and rising unsteadily in an effort to join in the proceedings, he tipped the table over sending crockery and condiments all over the place. We saw the film without any further events and because we had to obey a strict curfew, it was time to depart. My friend accompanied me to the docks, but by this time the five shillings were burning a hole in my pocket. Passing an open market on the way, and much to the amusement of my friend, who did not have an inkling of the strict food rationing system in Britain, nor did she have any idea of what the food was like aboard the trooper, I could not resist buying the biggest bunch of bananas I had ever seen in all my life. There must have been forty or more bananas in that bunch. It was huge, and I got it for three shillings (15p). I think she thought the sun had gone to my head when I bought a walking stick for a shilling, but 鈥渢here was a method in my madness鈥�. I thrust the ferrule through the core of the bunch and having thanked my friend for an unexpected but lovely afternoon, we parted near the dock entrance and I walked back to the ship.

My messmates as I had expected had spent most of their money on souvenirs and alcoholic beverages but they were more than pleased to buy my bananas for three-pence (just over 1p). I repaid my debt and still had quite a bit of cash in my pocket. Fate must have shone her favoured light on me that day because I had a walking stick and I had no idea at that stage that I was going to need it. The next morning as part of our daily exercise, we went on a route march round the outskirts of Capetown and within hours of returning, we were back in the grip of the Iron Mistress of a troopship and back to the monotonous routine of life aboard a wartime trooper; well 鈥攏ot quite? Steaming eastwards for a while we began to think we were bound for the Far East. Suddenly the convoy split into two smaller convoys and we resumed our zigzagging all over again. After many weeks since leaving Liverpool we found ourselves steaming through the Gulf of Aden. - The walking stick? - I am just coming to that.

It was on this final leg of the journey that someone suggested a boxing tournament between all the units aboard.
Still young and foolish I entered, had a couple of contests that I won. When we arrived in Aden the upper deck was so hot they erected awnings to cover the boxing ring. Like an idiot I went into the ring wearing plimsolls and no socks because of the heat. Towards the end of the bout I had felt a sharp stinging pain in the ball of my right foot. While then judges were deliberating over the result, I removed the plimsoll from my right foot and saw that the skin of the ball of my foot was hanging off. The heat and my foot movements had conspired to deprive me of a circle of thick skin, measuring about two and a half inches in diameter. The sergeant in my corner, using the scissors that were for cutting the fist bandages, snipped off the skin and chucked it overboard saying, 鈥淵ou won鈥檛 need that any more鈥�. To add to my aggrieved state, the judges declared my opponent the winner. And I thought I had won!

We left the Barren Rocks of Aden (and the skin off my right foot) behind that same afternoon; at least I had the precious walking stick to help me hobble about the ship for the rest of the journey. We steamed up the Red Sea without any further incidents except for our everlasting thirsts. We disembarked at Port Tewfiq having lost count of the number of days we had been aboard that ship and we recalled that since leaving Liverpool we had spent a little less than twelve hours on dry land. From Port Tewfiq we went by train and by lorry to a transit camp by name of Quassassin, from there we went to the Western Desert - at last we had a change of scenery. Instead of sea and sky we now had sand and sky.

During my wartime service with the Royal Marines I crossed the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, the North, Irish and Mediterranean Seas and the English Channel in ships large and small, including six troopships. But life had been so Spartan, so prison 鈥攍ike, so cramped and uncomfortable aboard that first troopship we all felt we would have been more comfortable in Dartmoor, yet our only crime was serving King and Country. Although I had often cursed the monotonies aboard her, I must confess that when I left her I was a little bit poorer, a little older, but a lot wiser.
John MBE.

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