Part 3 (2/2)
Too soon the time came to move on and we rejoined HMT Aronda; we got aboard and were a.s.signed our places, immediately I was given some task to perform, I forget what but while I was so engaged the stores were opened and everyone drew hammocks; by the time I had finished the stores had closed. Ah, well, I was now used to roughing it so I elected to sleep on the bench seat of a mess table, a plank about one foot wide; again my life-jacket became my pillow and I slept like a babe. I never did draw my hammock.
The seas were calm as we steamed away from Bombay on a north-westerly course, we lost sight of land but now we had an idea of where we were going. The skies were cloudless and the sun blazed down on us for 12 hours every day; thick canvas awnings were erected over the pa.s.sageways on each side of the s.h.i.+p. ”Keep wearing your topees,” we were told, ”harmful rays can penetrate the awnings.” I believe we took four days or more to reach our destination pa.s.sing from the Arabian Sea into the Persian Gulf; the journey was quite uneventful, we spent the days doing very little, looking at the water, playing cards, eating, dozing and listening to even more of Deanna Durbin over the inter-com.
With faint memories of maps in our minds we tried to identify Bandar Shapur and Bandar Abbas on the starboard side with uncertain success. In the afternoon of the last day we entered the Shatt-el-Arab and headed for Basra; now there was a little more to see. The waterway was relatively narrow and we pa.s.sed through the dense groves of the palm trees that lined both banks, however at intervals we came to small inlets intended no doubt to give access inland and here the effect of water upon plant life became apparent. The tall palms at the river's edge gave way to more stunted ones further inland and a couple of hundred yards from the river the desert began.
It was past midnight when we docked at Marquil, we disembarked and got ourselves sorted out. Then we loaded our bits and pieces and ourselves on to waiting lorries and set forth towards our new temporary home, No.15 Reinforcement Transit Camp, a tented camp. We were now members of PAIFORCE, the Persia and Iraq force.
IRAQ
Our arrival at the transit camp was in the early hours of the morning and we didn't try to get organised but being young and tired we slept well, nevertheless we woke with the dawn at about 6am and then surveyed the scene. There were a dozen or so bell tents including ours set in the middle of nothingness, flat vacant desert all around us; true there was some sign of activity a quarter of a mile away that turned out to be the local brickworks but otherwise nothing. We asked the name of this G.o.d-forsaken spot and were told Shaiba.
It was still May and the days were getting hotter. We had to be initiated into the ways of desert life; topees to be worn at all times in the sun, s.h.i.+rt sleeves rolled down and slacks to be worn after 6pm when it was the mosquitoes turn to be around and about, copious amounts of water to be drunk and two salt tablets taken daily.
To get us into condition after the inactive period at sea we were exercised gently. Small groups were marched along to the brickworks, a somewhat over stated term, where some Arabs were mixing up a dough-like slurry that was then put into wooden moulds, something that had been done by their forbears for the last three or four millenia. The moulds consisted of four sides and a bottom; the open face of a filled mould was smoothed off by hand and the brick turned out to dry and bake in the sun. I never measured them but they seemed to be near enough the same size as standard English ones. Bricks made this way were called plano-convex because five faces were flat and the sixth convex; each bore the imprint of a thumb on the convex face, formed as the brick was ejected from the mould. Similar bricks were used in the building of the Sumerian city of Ur several thousands of years ago.
From a pile of bricks we each had to pick up two and march back to the camp, dump them then return for two more; 10 or 12 such trips gave us the exercise we needed and acclimatised us to the dry heat. What was unexpected was the blowing sand that seemed to get everywhere, in one's eyes and ears and sticking like a film to any exposed sweaty flesh; some relief came by eating one's food in the relative shelter of the tent but even so sand could find any c.h.i.n.k to gain entrance. Ignorantly after dinner one day, mindful of instructions, I swallowed the two obligatory salt tablets; later I felt a little strange and then discovered the emetic properties of salt. Ever afterwards I took my salt in small quant.i.ties with plenty of water.
As its name implied the camp was only intended to hold troops until they could be dispersed to their various units; there were no recreational amenities available though we could purchase a local brand of cigarettes called Red Bird in packets of five for five fils (about one farthing each, old currency). We slept 10 to a tent, feet at the central pole and bodies radiating outwards; early on without being taught we learned how to dig a recess for our hips and over this area we spread our groundsheets. Though a bit firm our small packs served as pillows.
After dark the only source of light came from a hurricane lamp, this was not always effective in which case it was swapped for a useable one from another tent when n.o.body was looking, standard army practice.
I forget how long we stayed there, maybe a week but then the draft was split up and dispersed and I was posted to Al Musayyib, some 40 miles south of Baghdad. However before I started the army wanted to get some useful work out of me and so with three others I acted as escort to an ammunition train going up as far as Mosul near the biblical city of Nineveh. We were supplied with canned and dry rations sufficient for the journey and joined the train in the evening with rifles, some ammunition for them, side arms and all our kit. An empty wagon served as our mobile quarters, empty that is except for straw or similar material to soften the hard wagon floor and we slept uncomfortably in s.h.i.+fts. On the first morning we awoke itching, sand flies had feasted on us as we slept fitfully; I think they really enjoyed fresh caucasian blood and we spent a while scratching and slapping.
With the start of the day deficiencies were discovered in our equipment, while we had tea, sugar and dried milk we hadn't any water or the means of containing or boiling it. One difficulty was overcome when we bartered cigarettes for a petrol can from some railside Arabs. Funny really because it was once part of British stores; it was a tall square-sectioned metal can from which the top had been removed; at the top a wooden bar stretched from side to side to form a carrying handle; it appeared to be clean and we a.s.sumed that it was. The problem of boiling water was solved when we asked the locomotive driver to blow some out from his steed. I learned years later that this was definitely not recommended healthwise but that's what we did many times and we survived.
The train stopped at various towns and villages on the way, As Samawa, Ad Diwaniyah, Baghdad, Samarra and lastly outside Mosul. At no stop did we venture far from the train we were guarding. The journey was interesting; except for the towns the land was light brown and mostly barren; in the open country flocks of sheep roamed with their attendant shepherds and this presented an almost biblical scene. To our western eyes there was one noticeable difference however, in the west the shepherd would be behind his flock, driving them but here he was in front, leading. Perhaps in this land of spa.r.s.e vegetation the sheep relied on him to find the best grazing. We reached Mosul in the evening and our train drew up alongside an army camp, the lads there were enjoying a movie; the translucent screen lay between us and the audience and from our wagon we saw one hour of Mrs Miniver, back to front and soundless.
Discharged from our escort duty we boarded a pa.s.senger train heading for Baghdad and enjoyed the luxury of slatted wooden seats. I was quite excited with the antic.i.p.ation of what lay ahead and could hardly wait to see more of the mystic land of the Caliphs. The train drew into Baghdad and as it slowed we could see more of the city, fine buildings mixed with mud brick homes, the Ishtar Gate and the minarets of mosques, the strange clothes, music discordant to my ears, porters bent double with unbelievable loads on their backs and the smells. At that time I had to be content with a pa.s.sing impression because I was bound for Al Musayyib, to No.5 Advanced Base Workshops. That designation in the middle of Iraq puzzled me and it was not until many years after the war that I discovered the reason for it and the reason for my being there.
The workshops were some 40 miles south of Baghdad and a mile or so from the Arab town; the town was out of bounds to us but a metalled road from there pa.s.sed between our camp and the workshops; we only ever saw military traffic on it. Both camp and workshop compound were separately surrounded with barbed wire, three coil dannert and ap.r.o.n was the official name for it. Individual shops were scattered within the compound, seemingly haphazardly and they contained equipment for which any contemporary British engineering firm would kill for.
Accommodation within the camp consisted of huts similar in design to Nissen huts but were built of local materials with low brick walls and pre-cast arches supporting curved roofs of straw reinforced baked mud. The floors were of course bare earth. Outside the end doors of each hut stood a large urn of unglazed earthenware, a chatty, kept full of water laced with salt to make sure we took our daily dose to ward off heat exhaustion. The water was cooled by the evaporation of the small quant.i.ty of water that seeped through to the outside of the chatty and it was very pleasant to drink. Non-potable water for ablutions and laundry was brought in through underground pipes from a source unknown to me, the river Euphrates perhaps, anyway the pipes could not have been buried very far beneath the surface because in the summer the water was quite hot. Again, using local materials, the screens around the unroofed showers and latrines were made of woven palm leaves.
We started work early in the morning, reveille was sounded by an Arab bugler (we didn't have one) at 6am, we marched off to start work by 7am, finis.h.i.+ng at 2-30pm to take advantage of the cooler part of the day.
Most of us were cla.s.sed as tradesmen though we were constantly reminded that we were soldiers first and tradesmen second. Except for mounting guard at the officer's quarters we were exempt from guard duties, these were carried out by Indian troops within the workshops compound and by the Royal Suss.e.x Regiment around the workshops and camp environs. At night they patrolled the streets in lorries equipped with twin Bren guns. One report had it that they once fired on one of their own corporals, hitting him in the legs. Often we would see them in the morning marching back from their duties whistling or singing Suss.e.x by the Sea. Venturing into the workshop compound at night in pitch darkness as we were sometimes required to do was a different matter, quite an eerie experience in fact; the Indian guards were silent and one never knew exactly where they were though their presence could be detected by the faint clinking sound of the chain that attached their rifles to them To ensure that we were not mistaken for intruders we tended to announce ourselves by whistling. One would think that with all these guards the place would be impregnable. Not so. Frequently at night when we were at the mobile cinema sounds of gunfire would be heard coming from the workshops and sometimes there were bodies.
Heat I think was our greatest problem followed by sandstorms. The highest official shade temperature I remember seeing was recorded in Baghdad, 121F, though inside the workshops I've seen the mercury register 128F but this was enervating and little work was done then.
In severe sandstorms we protected our eyes with goggles but exposed flesh was stung by blowing sand; although the lenses of the goggles were not tinted it was like viewing the world through the yellowish amber of Golden Syrup. In 1943 or perhaps it was 1944 I saw the nearly total solar eclipse through a sandstorm, with goggles but with no other eye protection.
During the summer months the prevailing winds came from the north-east, sweeping in over the Iranian plains, by the time they reached us they were bone dry, this was a good thing really because we sweated profusely in that heat and were rapidly cooled by evaporation. Occasionally for a couple of short periods in the summer humid winds would blow in from the Persian Gulf and then it was most uncomfortable, s.h.i.+rts would be sodden and dark with sweat and if they dried before being washed they would be stained white with salt. We had our laundry done twice a week by the dhobi but that was inadequate so we did our own in between times; in the bone dry air a pair of slacks could be worn 15 minutes after was.h.i.+ng.
One of our lads, mimicking the dhobi by bas.h.i.+ng wet laundry on a flat stone was put on a charge for damaging government property; he was acquitted after enlightening the officer who obviously had never done his own laundry.
One piece of equipment supplied by the army for which I was very grateful was the chargul, a water bottle made of a coa.r.s.e canvas similar to fire hose canvas that worked on the same principle as the chatty.
Drawn new from the QM stores it would not hold water but had to be soaked until the canvas had swollen; filled with water and hung outside in the air it provided a beautifully cold drink in a fairly short time.
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