A Lancashire lad Goes to War: Chapter 6

I stayed there for about 10 days, after which I was fully recovered. (The hospital had an easy relaxed atmosphere: just before we had moved up to El Alamein I had been taken ill with dysentery. It was Saturday afternoon and the lads I shared the tent with were going into Ismailia, but I did not feel like the trip so stayed behind.

Apparently, when they returned in the evening I was on the floor between two of the beds more or less unconscious. They loaded me into an ambulance and took me to an English field hospital nearby. I do not remember much about getting there or being put into bed, but later I became aware of my surroundings. It seemed to be the late afternoon, the nurses were changing shifts and after a while I noticed a nurse (who turned out to be the night sister) looking at the beds and checking as she came towards my bed. She stopped, had a good look at me, then took my pulse and said "Hello Brooke, glad to see you. I didn't expect to see you here tonight; you have been out for two days. I'll get you some jelly and water and see how you get on with it."

When the medical officer came through to do his rounds, everyone had to be sat up straight in their beds, no matter how ill, and if anyone was unconscious he was propped up with pillows until the doctor left. Once he had gone those who were recovering had to sit on a form without a back to it and not allowed back into their bed until nightfall. At the South African hospital, one could lounge on one's bed at any time.)

As I was being discharged from the hospital, I met up with Norman Pearson, a signaller from my unit ('S' Troop), and three other RA men going back to Base in Cairo. There was also a military policeman with a beautiful German Shepherd dog. We were taken by ambulance to the railway station, complete with our passes. We had to change at some little wayside halt to join the Cairo train - the halt was just a platform with a bit of a tin roof. No booking office or waiting room! There was a village about 500 yards away. We all decided to walk down and have a look at it as we had an hour to wait for the connection. We set off, five-abreast plus dog. After we had gone a few yards into the village we realised that there were a lot of men right across the road behind us. We ignored them and continued slowly into the village. Some women in their upstairs rooms tried to pour water on us. Fortunately they missed - I don't think it was clean water, if you understand my meaning.

By now we had realised that we were not welcome, but when we turned round to go back we faced about thirty men who did not look at all friendly. The MP slipped the dog's lead and said something to it. It bounded towards the crowd who were blocking our way. When it reached them he said something else: the dog stopped and barked and snarled at the Arabs who quickly moved back along the house walls. We slowly made our way back to the station. Occasionally two or three Arabs made a move towards us, but the dog quickly changed their minds for them. We breathed a sigh of relief when we cleared the village - none of us were armed as we had just come from the hospital and if we had not had the dog we would have been in serious trouble.

Cairo

I think we waited about an hour and a half for the train. It was full, mainly with Arab civilians, and we found it difficult to squeeze into the corridor with our kit. It took about an hour to travel to Cairo station. After we had disembarked from the train, we went to either a NAAFI or YMCA to get something to eat and drink. At the same time, we watched a film in an outdoor cinema. The seating consisted of individual basket chairs, each chair having an arm to support a plate or a drink which was brought by the Arab waiter.

We returned to the camp at AI-Marza at around 21:00. We reported to the orderly sergeant and were given blankets and a tent, with instructions to report back at 09:00 the following morning. At 08:00 we went to breakfast - both Norman and I remembered to cover our breakfast as we passed from the cookhouse to the dining room, because we did not want the kites to take it. Incidentally, the kite was protected by the Egyptian Royal Family.

We reported to the orderly sergeant as ordered, and were given new shirts, shorts, socks and boots in exchange for our old ones, which by now were in a rather sorry state. We were also given a 3-day pass to Cairo and some money: there was a lot held over for us, as we had drawn no pay since September. I filled my small pack with a change of clothes and my washing and shaving kit, and handed in our blankets and the remainder of my kit to Stores.

We caught the tram outside the gates and went into Cairo. When we alighted, an English boy aged 12 or 13 asked if we were staying in Cairo for a few days, to which we answered in the affirmative. He asked us if we had a hotel and said that he knew of a nice clean Arab hotel, which was not too expensive. We went along with him. He spoke good Arabic and the proprietor spoke good English. As the boy had promised, the beds were spotless so we booked in. The proprietor gave us a cup of transparent green tea, which was really nice, and we agreed terms - the English boy did most of the negotiating for us.

We agreed to let the boy show us around. We tried to find out something about him and his people, but all he would say was that his parents were English and he lived in Cairo. He took us around many places that I had never seen before, even though I had been to Cairo several times when I first arrived in the Middle East. He left us at about 17:30 and asked if we wanted to go to the Pyramids the following day. We agreed, had our evening meal and then went for a stroll around the main streets, ending up at a little bar called The Pole Nord for a drink - a Tom Collins made with fresh limes. The bar was actually just across the corner from our hotel, where we were once again given a cup of green tea before we retired to bed, requesting a wakeup call at 08:00.

We were awakened right on time with a cup of green tea. We washed and shaved and went down to breakfast; I cannot remember what the food was, but it was accompanied by green tea. As we finished our meal, our little English guide returned. We walked down the street to where the Garrys (horse-drawn carriages) waited for customers. The boy haggled with the drivers and told us that he had obtained a good price to take us to the Pyramids and back again. It took us a long time to reach them. We had to travel over miles of featureless sand.

The photographs I had seen suggested that the surface of the Pyramids would be smooth, so I was surprised to see how rough they were - I suppose that over the years the sandstorms have weathered them. We had to hire a candle before we were allowed in a Pyramid. This was an old used one that had about one inch of it left. We need not have bothered, as it was difficult to see anything by the light of a single small candle. We then went to have a look at the Sphinx, which was far larger than I thought it would be. The Egyptians were working on it to mend the ravages of time. Both Norman and I were glad we had seen these sights and returned to Cairo by the Garry. We took our companion to the YMCA for something to eat. (When I had first arrived in Egypt from England I got a half-day pass for Cairo, and I had found a small Arab shop selling a really nice tart, whose name translated into English, was 'Palace Bread'. The tart had a pastry base with a very sweet, delicious filling but I never found out its ingredients.) I now took Norman a couple of times to this cake shop. At the back of the shop were three or four Arabs smoking hookahs. I can't remember what else we did that day, and once again our companion left in the early evening. This time he said that he could not return; he would not take any money from us and we never did see him again.

On 12th March, 1943 we went on a tourist boat to the Nile Delta Barrage. We had our photos taken on the boat with some young Jewish men and women. We also went into the Cairo Museum; it pleased the curator greatly to see two English soldiers there, so he spent a lot of time showing us around and explaining all about the artefacts from the tombs. At the Blue Mosque one of the mullahs wanted to tell me my fortune, which I did not want. After I had a look around he eventually sold me a small coin, which he said had come from a tomb of the pharaohs and would bring me luck (I still have the coin).

On one of the afternoons we spent a couple of hours in an indoor roller-skating rink, where it was nice and cool. The “Burka Girls” were having an afternoon off from the local brothel and we had a good time chatting and skating. They weren’t seeking business, but were enjoying the cool of the hall - just like us. Another time we strolled into the Arab Quarter. We were in no danger, but all of the stall holders tried to sell us something. We went into one shop, which sold a vast array of perfumes. The proprietor offered us a seat and asked someone in the back to bring us coffee and water. The coffee was very rich and sweet and very thick- the water was needed to help it down. The owner then produced bottles with glass dippers and soon had us smelling dozens of different perfumes. I eventually settled on one called Lotus to be sent to my girlfriend in Stalybridge in a blue, satin-lined, velvet-covered box, and we agreed on a price. I later found out that although the perfume arrived, it did so in a tin box rather than the posh one I had paid for. However, Dorothy told me that it was a perfume like nothing she had ever smelt before, and she thought it was marvellous. I left the shop smelling like a brothel!

Our break was over so we reported back to base camp at 21:00 hours. We went to the Stores to draw out our blankets and kit, but we were not allowed in as the storeman had turned in for bed. We could hear his bed creaking, but he wouldn’t come to unlock the door. We had to sleep on the sand, which gets very cold at that time of year after dark. We managed to borrow an overcoat from someone in the tent, so Norman and I had to sleep close together with the overcoat on top of us. It was not the best of sleeps and we were glad when dawn came so we could go to the cookhouse and thaw out with a cup of tea. We washed and shaved and had breakfast before reporting for the 09:00 parade, where we were each allocated various fatigues. This kept us busy until noon, when almost everybody retired owing to the heat. We went to the canteen for a cup of tea before having lunch at the cookhouse. I cannot remember how we passed the afternoons and evenings, although there must have been some sort of recreation within the camp as nobody was allowed out without a pass, and it was a very big camp.

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