Shattered Dreams

by Vivienne Dockerty

  “Jump off with the others,” he had said to the officer accompanying him on the trip. Had he jumped then he would have jumped to comparative safety, but he hung on grim-faced, gripping the passenger seat with his hands. They came to a stop when the vehicle hit rough ground around the Pyramids, much to everyone’s relief!

  As luck would have it there was a second lorry waiting and word was sent back to the depot about the incident. Eddie finished the day in ignominious fashion, being towed through Cairo, a frightening experience in such a busy city. He was without a vehicle for a week and missed his trips out very much.

  The men found that fruit was abundant there and it made a welcome addition to army rations. Eddie enjoyed eating dates, which he bought in large chunks from the fruit seller. The soldiers would buy dates and take them in with them to eat, whilst they watched film shows in the camp.

  “The very best dates were put on the stones which marked the graves in the local cemetery,” Eddie said to a friend when he got back home to England.

  “How do you know that?”she had asked. Eddie left her guessing.

  One of the new sergeants fell in love with a pretty girl that he met on the beach. She was a French girl and very friendly to him. Starved as they had been of female company, the soldiers found that the Europeans they met in Cairo were very pleasant. They had all been warned to treat the Egyptian women with respect and not to make friends with any of the young ones.

  “Isn’t she a smasher,” said young Lennie eagerly to Eddie. He agreed with the man, she was really quite sensational with a lovely figure and lovely legs. Something tugged at Eddie’s memory though, as he felt he had seen her before. He listened while Lennie told him that he had written to his parents to tell them that he was going to be married, although he was already committed to a young lady back home and did not know how to break the bad news to her.

  Eddie made some visits around the camp, asked some questions and found that most of the soldiers had a photograph of the same young lady. What was more to the point, they knew her better than the young sergeant did. She was in the habit of hiring a room for the day and taking her boyfriends to it.

  Eddie had a hard time talking to Lennie. He took a lot of convincing that the love of his life figured in the love life of a lot of his fellow soldiers. His mother had written from home saying how disappointed she was in him, if he persisted in the marriage, then she advised him to make a career of the army, as she would not wish to meet his wife. Later, he forced himself to go and see the photos that Eddie had told him about and listened to the stories that the other men had to tell. Finally, he decided he’d had a lucky escape and wrote off to his mother to say that the situation had resolved itself.

  The staff car driver went on leave to Ireland to visit his family and Eddie was given the job while he was away. The work wasn’t hard, but the hours were long and he didn’t get much free time. He mainly drove the C.O. around on his official duties and in the evening drove him to his club. There he would wait outside until the officer came out with friends and, after driving them home, he would be dismissed for the night.

  One afternoon he was waiting outside a building where a meeting was taking place. The officer had been there for around an hour, whilst Eddie sat inside the car that was like an oven, as there was no air conditioning. He mopped at the perspiration that was running down his neck and prayed that the officer wouldn’t be much longer.

  A hand rapped on the window nearest to Eddie and he turned to see a face grinning at him through the glass. It was a young Egyptian who made quite a decent living from the troops as a ‘shoe black’.

  Eddie asked him what he wanted, though he knew what he would say straight away.

  “Clean your shoes, Johnny?”

  Eddie, who as usual was attired in an immaculate uniform and wore shining army boots, opened the door to show the youth. To his dismay he received the entire contents of a bottle of blacking down his uniform front. He went red with rage and, getting out of the car, he raced after the youth, who was running down the street. Though the youth was swift, Eddie was swifter and being in such a temper at the insult on his uniform, he gripped the young Egyptian and bundled him, shoe brushes, blacking and all, into the Sweetwater Canal. He then ran quickly back to the car and went to change his uniform, as although the soldiers had been told to keep a low profile with the locals, he had been badly provoked.

  Eddie returned to his quarters, changed hurriedly into a fresh uniform and hoped that the C.O. wouldn’t be waiting outside the building when he returned. He didn’t report the incident, but told his sergeant when he saw him next. He was told to forget the incident, but he would have done the same.

  The driver came back from Ireland and Eddie returned to the depot and to other duties.

  He was assigned to garbage disposal and he and another driver took the camp rubbish to a disused sand pit, which was being used as a dump.

  They tipped the contents of the lorry into the bottom of the pit and stood back to watch, as a swarm of women and children descended upon it. They picked up empty boxes, discarded items and anything else that took their fancy. Then they laid it in small piles at the top of the tip, with a child left to guard it.

  One woman had left her baby at the top while she rummaged and it was crying pitifully for its mother, whilst flies buzzed around its eyes. A large Egyptian rode up on a donkey, his legs dangling on either side of the small animal. When he dismounted, he kicked the baby out of the way and it rolled over and fell to the bottom of the pit.

  The large Egyptian received one of life’s little surprises then, when Eddie kicked him on the backside and it was his turn to go rolling down to the bottom of the dump. Eddie just had time to look at the women who stood around watching, Bedouin women who didn’t wear the yashmak, but drew their black veils over their faces instead, as he hastily jumped into the lorry with his mate to make a run for it. They were tittering discreetly behind their veils, enjoying the discomfort of their fellow Egyptian. It seemed to Eddie that life there was very cheap.

  Driving on the desert roads were hazardous in daytime and at night it was even worse, but Eddie chose it as the lesser of two evils at the time. He had been chosen to drive an armoured car to Gaza and he was accompanied by an officer who had to take a test on driving the vehicle before he could drive it around the area.

  When he got to the camp at Gaza and the officer had taken his test, Eddie asked permission to return back to his billet in Egypt. He had seen the mosquito nets that hung ready for use in the night time and knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

  He set off at dusk along the sandy tracks of the desert, the road was very rough and he met no other vehicles on the way. He drove as fast as he could until he got to the Sweetwater Canal and flashed his headlights across the canal to attract the attention of the boatmen. Two Egyptians poled a raft across and Eddie drove onto it. He was very late getting to bed that night.

  The following morning he was on a duty trip to Cairo and had no money, nor an inclination to sample the delights of the place. He had a late start back after a holdup, whilst dropping the soldiers off for their sightseeing, as another lorry should have been there to bring them back.

  He drove along the desert road, appreciating the sound of a well-tuned engine as it was performing well, when he noticed that a set of headlights behind his vehicle had come into view. Remembering the time when a tall, thickset fellow had jumped onto his running board, asking for guns to sell and noticing the knife sheathed in the scabbard dangling from the Egyptian’s waist, Eddie put his foot down on the accelerator. He had been lucky that the man had been content with his explanation, that he was just a driver and didn’t carry guns.

  Feeling apprehensive, he began to drive faster, knowing that there was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see. The headlights disappeared from view and Eddie heaved a sigh of relief.

  There was a small café at the halfway mark and, when Eddie saw the building, with its lights shining i
nto the darkness like a lighthouse on the edge of a rocky coast, he pulled into a parking space. The driver of the vehicle who had been worrying Eddie again for the last few miles, came to a stop beside his. He had gone inside the café by then, where he had ordered a coffee.

  “What have you got under that bonnet of your lorry, wings?” asked a girl dressed in an American uniform, as she came in through the door and joined Eddie at the counter. “I’ve been trying to catch up with you since leaving Cairo.”

  Eddie laughed, knowing that she had probably been nervous and had just wanted to follow him on the lonely desert road. He offered to pay for her coffee, but she ordered egg and chips for both of them and said it was her treat. He agreed to drive at a speed that she could keep up with, as she was driving a staff car and her destination, like his own, was Ismailia.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The days in the sunshine were coming to an end for many of the men and the swimming and sunbathing at the Lido was beginning to pall. The weeks were flying by and thoughts were turning to home. There was no longer a goal, a war to be fought and won, and the windswept summers and the green fields of both Ireland and England seemed so desirable in contrast to the desert sunshine. Eddie wrote to his wife that he would soon be coming home.

  But first he was to go on loan to another unit, where he was detailed to drive the staff car there for a week.

  On the first night of the transfer, Eddie found that he had to, as usual, wait outside the officer’s club for a number of hours. It seemed longer than the normal spell of duty and he was feeling very thirsty. The door of the club opened and a young officer and a pretty girl walked down the steps towards him. The officer appeared to hesitate, then seemingly having made up his mind, he came to the car and asked if Eddie would run the young girl back to the hospital where she worked as a nurse.

  Eddie was reluctant. He was waiting for a senior officer who had the official use of the car. There would be trouble for him if he wasn’t there when the man came out to be driven back to camp.

  “Have you had anything to eat or drink?” asked the officer. He had hit on a sore point with Eddie, as he was absolutely parched. On getting a reply in the negative, he disappeared back up the steps and came back five minutes later with a brimming glassful of beer for him.

  “Your officer will be some time yet,” he chuckled. “He is in the bar drinking with some of his friends.”

  Eddie handed the glass back when he was finished; his thirst was slaked and, in gratitude, he was willing to agree to the officer’s request. The officer, who decided to accompany the young lady and not intending to return to the club, threw the empty glass into the bushes nearby and Eddie drove the pair of them to the hospital.

  It was past midnight when the senior officer appeared at the door of the club. He was holding up a fellow officer and growling about the state that the fellow was in.

  “Bloody man, can’t hold his drink,” he grumbled, pushing and pulling at the man until he got him onto the back seat of the car. The officer rose up again crying in anguish, he had been pushed right onto the spike of the armrest.

  They finally moved off with the staff car now loaded to capacity. Eddie was directed to drive down a road and on to a field dotted with tents. His officer selected a tent that still had its flaps up and the inebriated man was helped from the back seat and put to bed. His boots were removed and he was left to sleep it off in peace. Eddie thought he wouldn’t like his head in the morning.

  He was ordered to drive on to another unit and after his passengers had alighted, he asked the senior officer for permission to go off. He was so tired by the time he reached his quarters that he didn’t even go for a cocoa and a natter to his friendly cook.

  Next morning, having slept the sleep of the dead, Eddie ate his breakfast, then grabbed his swimming trunks and towel, intending, as it was his day off, to spend his time at the Lido. Later he would read a book in the billet and have a day of rest. He was just about to dip his toe in the water to see how warm it was when a voice shouted his name. He recognised the man as one from the driver’s unit and it appeared he was wanted at the transport office.

  “It’s my day off,” said Eddie.

  “You’re wanted to drive the staff car.”

  What else could he do, but dress and go?

  When he got to the office, it appeared that a new recruit that had been detailed to drive the staff car just for the day to take Eddie’s place, had parked on the ‘holy of holies’, the parade ground, where no car was ever allowed to park. The senior officer had come out and torn a strip off the unfortunate recruit, then asked for Eddie to take his place. After a few minutes, Eddie, dressed in a hurry having come straight from the pool, found himself on duty again. He came to loathe the staff car duty spells and was happy to hand the duty over to a man who’d been on leave.

  There was a new batch of soldiers who had come out from England. These men were to be the future drivers of the army vehicles, when the ’39 group were demobbed. Eddie was one of a number of drivers who had been selected to teach the rookies how to maintain and drive the vehicles.

  There was plenty of space on the hard sand at the back of the camp for the drivers to practice on. Eddie discovered that one of the men came from Birkenhead and back in Civvy Street he had been a milkman, and so Eddie found him very easy to teach.

  Eddie’s brother, Sam, who belonged to the Signal regiment, was attached to their regiment at the time and came to see Eddie in his billet where he was having a rest. He asked why Eddie and the other veterans were excused from going on long exercise runs like he had to. He was feeling a bit underprivileged at the time. Eddie explained that because so many of them were to be demobbed in a very short time, it was now not necessary for them to keep on training.

  A party of soldiers were chosen to go up to Bethlehem at Christmas. They would have the privilege of visiting the Church of the Nativity on Christmas Eve. It was a long journey from Ismailia and Eddie had volunteered to drive one of the lorries on a journey he never forgot.

  It was dusk when they reached the city and they drove in with the stars coming out and shining, as they had done nearly two thousand years before.

  When the soldiers arrived there, the streets seemed very quiet. They parked the lorries and went in an orderly fashion to the church. There were many devout Catholics amongst the men and they were awed by the solemnity of the occasion. They were actually in the city where it all began... it was a sobering thought and emotions began to get the better of them. They took off their caps prior to entering the church.

  The church was dimly lit and they could just see inside. A doorman barred their way and asked to see their passes. No one had mentioned the need for passes and Eddie and the sergeant, who were in charge of the party, looked at each other in despair.

  The rope which barred their way was unhooked to let a party with passes go through and they could see that there was plenty of room inside for all of them and, having come all that way to attend the service, it seemed very unfair.

  “Line them up,” said the sergeant, “just march them straight in.”

  The doorman couldn’t argue with that, as two lorry loads of soldiers pushed by him, determined to attend the service anyway. It was a ‘Fait Accompli’ in the best tradition and they had their Christmas in Bethlehem where Jesus was born.

  One trip that Eddie remembered well was to the hill of Calvary. The chaplain was recounting the trial of Jesus before the Roman, Pontius Pilate, and the subsequent events after. The chaplain spoke then of our Lord carrying the cross, how he had stumbled and fallen with the weight of it. An Irish voice came from the back, simple and sincere:

  “And sure, your Reverence, I’d have stumbled and fallen meself if I’d been carrying the weight of it!”

  On the occasion of the trip to Galilee, Eddie was able to buy two necklaces made of delicate green and mauve shells to take home. Another souvenir was a small trinket box made by a German prisoner of war. The box had been
made out of mess tins, the only available metal which the craftsman was able to get. Eddie thought that the man must have been a silversmith at least, for the quality of the work merited a much more precious metal than tin. It had been made with loving care, with a spray of roses on the lid, flowers and leaves adorning the sides of the box, with a pair of doves standing beak to beak, as though kissing. Engraved under the lid, a pair of doves stood on a leafy branch. Small pieces of glass had been inserted at intervals, colours that simulated precious stones. Had the whole work of art been in silver and precious stones, it would have been a collector’s piece.

  Eddie had wished to pay the man for it, but he refused, though accepted fifty cigarettes from him. Neither of the men had sufficient command of the other’s language for conversation, but Eddie felt, like him, he had been conscripted into army service. Like Eddie, he would be only too happy to leave the war years behind him and pick up the threads of his civilian life again.

  Eddie had other souvenirs, besides these, to take home. There was a pair of sparkly sandals for Irene and Egyptian bracelets, which were square pieces of metal with Pharaoh’s heads on them, linked together with thin chains. They seemed unique until Eddie saw that nearly all his unit had them. Some Egyptian entrepreneurs had been very busy supplying souvenirs for the British troops to take home with them.

  Eddie was still on driving duties in Egypt and Palestine as his demob’ date drew nearer. Many of the older men had already gone, some of these had been regular army men, the ones with whom Eddie had trained. He would have liked to keep in touch with them, for they gave him comradeship that he had never known before or since. Many came from Southern Ireland and Eddie was Irish, by descent, but born in England. They had been his comrades; he had fought and endured hardship with them.

  The regiment’s Quarter Master was due for demob’. His fellow officers put a rope on the staff car and drew it outside the main gate in traditional style. Eddie had the privilege of driving him to Port Said, which he deemed an honour, as this man had been very good to him during his time there. The first part of the journey was to a leave camp and afterwards he would board a ship for England. Eddie said his own farewell and was really touched to see the tears running down the elderly soldier’s face. Parting from the army where he had been so happy for many years was a very emotional time for him.