My War 1938 to 1947 Part 7 of 8

LIFE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

As soon as the ship was full we cast off and left harbour, on the way passing the remains of the French fleet which had been scuttled during the war to keep it out of the hands of the Germans.

Once out to sea we steered East to take us parallel with the French and Italian coasts until we were past the Straits of Messina, when we again turned East to take us to Alexandria, where we disembarked, entered a train which was waiting for us, and traveled in that to Cairo, where we were billeted in Heliopolis, next to the Cairo airport. .There we were accommodated in a bell tent, with a servant called Hassan to act as a joint batman to us all.

We stayed in Cairo for three or four weeks, so apart from our duties we got the chance to act as tourists as well, seeing the pyramids, going into the great pyramid (with just a candle each for illumination), seeing the sphinx, exploring the bazaars, and so on. I did not much like Cairo. It was too dirty and crowded and noisy for my tastes. We also found that we had little hope of joining our regiments there, either. I was told that there were two battalions of the Green Howards in the Middle East, one in Northern Greece and one at Khartoum, and that neither of them had any vacancies for officers.

Instead, we were told we could be attached to one of three Corps The Royal Corps of Signals, The Royal Corps of Transport, or the Royal Engineers. Since my brother had been in the Signals I asked for that, but was not too surprised to be told I was going to be attached to the Royal Corps of Transport. I and the other subalterns were sent to El Tahag, a semi-derelict camp in the desert some ten or fifteen miles beyond the Suez Canal, where we spent the next few weeks learning the basics of transport work, and being driven round and round the Suez delta practicing convoy drills. We also found that we British were not too popular with the Egyptian fellahin, since we soon found that if we drove in to a village, we would be followed by a deluge of stones as we drove out of it.

However, we all finished our course without failure, and awaited our postings with interest. Mine turned out to be for the Sixth Airborne Division, at Gaza, in what was then called simply Palestine.

So, off we set once more, first of all by truck to the railway at El Qantara, where I was intrigued to see a familiar face on a train passing through towards Egypt, that of a boy I had known at school. Then we pressed Northwards towards Palestine, trundling through the desert night until, not long after dawn, the train stopped in Gaza station, and we unloaded ourselves into the fresh morning air. The main thing I noticed was the sound of a mechanical pump watering the fields, which in my then state of tiredness I found particularly disturbing. A truck met us there to pick us up and transport us and our luggage to the camp, on Gaza ridge. Whether this was the exact location of the 1918 battle with the Turks I never found out. Most people had never heard of such a battle. Anyway, we had our breakfast and met our new colleagues in 398 Company, and then were allowed to rest and get settled in until tiffin (lunch) after which we were told that we were booked to play cricket that afternoon for the company. I never could play cricket, and I proved my lack of expertise that afternoon. They never asked me to play again.

I soon settled down to the routine of life in the company, and began to become familiar with the roads over a wide area. Since we were responsible for carrying goods and men for a brigade of troops I met a lot of officers from other units, as well. The routine was different from anything I had experienced before. In the morning we had breakfast early, and then did all the routine jobs until mid-day, when we ate tiffin. After that we were free until six o’clock, when we had dinner, and then we worked until I cannot remember when (perhaps nine o’clock), when we were free to do what we wished. (I am not quite sure about these times, but they are approximately right). After tiffin we often used to go swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, taking a truck through Gaza, where we could see the Arab way of life, to the coast, where there were some huts in which we could change. It was not a calm sea, being rather choppy, and the currents were very strong, but we managed to avoid any serious problems. At least we were free from the attentions of the local inhabitants, which gave us a delicious feeling of freedom.

Occasionally we would be given a day’s leave, when we could go off in our trucks to explore and enjoy some of the places we remembered from religious instruction or school geography lessons. That was how I first visited Jerusalem, and saw the sites of Bible stories. When visiting the Church of the Crucifixion it seemed strange to me that within the bounds of one building, and not really a very large one at that, we could see so much that was so important to our religion. But others who had made a study of the subject appeared to have accepted their truth, so who was I to doubt them? I have since read accounts which appear to deny the Biblical version, but I do feel that there is sufficient doubt remaining, and sufficient implausibility in all the versions, to render it unlikely that any of them is the true and unvarnished story. So why not accept the Bible? On the same day we went to Bethlehem, where we saw the reputed site of His birth. I say reputed because it seemed to me then, as it still does, that there is insufficient evidence to discover whether this is the real birthplace or not. Not that it really matters. Israel is covered with caves cut to act as graves, many of which were used for successive bodies, often over a very long period. Reading the history of that area it seems to me highly unlikely that any worth while identification is possible unless firm and unimpeachable evidence is found. The same applies to the Church of the Crucifixion.

Another time, at Christmas Eve, I made up one of a party who went to Bethlehem, which was very interesting. The town was packed with pilgrims, so that the only way you could get about was to join the queue for the shrine you were seeking, and when you had visited that to join another queue. We all had a candle to hold, and I remember standing at one point watching the sparks of light moving in procession over the hills and back, each one carried by a pilgrim visiting the Shepherds’ Fields. I did not visit that. All the shops were open, and heavily stocked with souvenirs and mementos. I bought what they called a Crusader Jacket, cut and embroidered like a medieval jacket, which I sent to my Mother as a gift. My wife still has it, I believe we got back from there sometime in the small hours, after our driver had spent some little time trying to run down a dingo, but without any success. And then it was Christmas Day. There were few duties to be followed that day, except for mounting a guard about the camp. The celebrations went on, and on. Christmas Dinner came and went, and still the drinking went on. Fortunately for me I was Orderly Officer that day, so I had to keep sober. I also kept, as far as possible, well away from any likely source of trouble. Even the Commanding Officer had drunk too much, and the other officers had followed his example. At about one o’clock in the morning one of the sentries opened fire with a machine gun. I was at the other end of the camp, so it was a little time before I got back to his vicinity. He, and the other soldiers who were with him, was drunk. The CO came along very soon afterwards, and then the whole sorry story unwound itself. After dinner the CO had decided that he wanted to test the security of the camp, and detailed the Adjutant to try it out. The poor man was instructed to cover himself with a white garment, so that he would resemble an intruder, and then to try to break into the camp. He had drunk enough to make this seem a feasible undertaking. The sentry, if he had been fully sober, might have detected the subterfuge, and in any case he should have notified the guard commander, but instead he opened fire. Fortunately they were all too drunk to take aim efficiently, and nobody was injured, so the whole business was hushed up.

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