by Vicky Unwin
Of the boyfriends, only John is nearby but she suspects she is in his ‘black books again’. She is cheered when, out of the blue, Robin sends her some Jane Seymour Peach Skin Food, ‘I couldn’t help smiling when I opened it and am longing to know its history as Robin is so shy I can’t imagine him going into a shop and buying face cream!’
A week later John gives in and pays her a visit; they ‘spent the afternoon sunbathing. He was in good form and we got on very well. Poor man – he says he will still hang on – for as he says, you never know – but I told him I really couldn’t marry him, and he said, well if he didn’t marry me, he wouldn’t marry anyone, so it looks as if I have made a permanent bachelor out of him.’ He has volunteered to serve his final months in India; as he has already been abroad four and a half years, Sheila thinks he is mad as ‘once there he’ll never get home’.
She and John go to Cairo overnight to do some shopping and to see Esmé Cameron, who is going back to England too, as she has been unwell. Diana Booth is also returning to England and Sheila is increasingly desperate to find out what will become of her. The Eastern Fleet seems as ‘remote as ever’, the UK is ‘uncertain’ but there are some possibilities for the Mediterranean. They have also been told that no one at their station is being relieved to go ‘home’ until after the Second Front, which was continuing with Operation Overlord and the D-Day landings on 6 June. She thinks they have something ‘in mind’ for her as she had to have yet another medical.
Her last few meetings with John were fraught: one of the rows was over Sheila wanting to go to Ceylon and John’s disapproval: ‘really he is quite impossible’; and a few days later he appears unexpectedly at the French Club, having turned down her invitation to a dance there. So Sheila had gone with a girlfriend and her party – and guess who was sitting at the neighbouring table after all:
Tewfik 30/5/44
Old John was furiously jealous because I was at the French Club in another party, and also because of the trip to Abu Zenima, which he was very rude about! All this time Owen Meade, who is a clown, was making the most terribly funny remarks – the band was playing Night and Day (you know what the words are) and there he was encouraging John to ‘spend his life making love to me’, etc. to a very black looking non responsive John who informed me that his faithful girlfriend from home will be out here soon and from then I shan’t get a look in! ‘Don’t be pompous John’, commented Owen and really it was all so funny and yet maddening, because it’s hard to speak out your mind with a whole host of people round who would wonder what on earth we were thinking of! However, I gather John has gone off to Palestine in a huff – and I am to see him no more! It’s rather strange really, as I was beginning to wonder if one day I wouldn’t marry him after all – he’d been so much better lately and strange as it may seem, I am very fond of him! Still, I’ve no time for stupid people like that!
Needless to say the ‘high and mighty John came down from his pedestal on high last Sunday, when he deigned to pay me a visit – Really, what babies men are!’ and in mid-July they go to Palestine together, the travel writer’s eye taking it all in:
c/o Fleet Mail Office Suez
11.7.44
John and I had very pleasant leave in Palestine, punctuated by a few quarrels, of course! We travelled up to Haifa by train, spent a night there, and then took a bus on to Jerusalem, via Tel Aviv. Jerusalem is among the hills, and stands very high so we had a beautiful journey there, and weren’t too hot. We couldn’t get into the King David, which is the best hotel there, a modern place, awfully nice, so we went to a small pension in the German Colony, where we lived like fighting cocks, on the fat of the land, which is black market of course. Everything is rationed, and sugar absolutely unobtainable. We’d brought a bag of our own, so we were all right. I very much enjoyed visiting the old city – a terribly smelly place surrounded by the old walls of Jerusalem. We visited the church of the Holy Sepulchre – a terribly commercialised affair, the old wailing wall, where as it was Friday, all manner of Jews were bemoaning their sins, and eventually wandered out of the city by the Via Dolorosa. The following day we went to the Garden of Gethsemane, a glorious spot outside the walls, on the side of a hill. Above stands a most picturesque Russian church, with many minarets rising above the Cypress trees, and in the garden itself is the Church of All Nations, a quiet peaceful spot, with glorious purple stained glass windows. We also visited Bethlehem (where I lost my identity card!) and saw the stable and manger where Christ is said to have been born, a lovely old church is built on top – dating back from the times of the Crusaders and there are some beautiful mosaics. Eventually we returned to Haifa and stayed in a small Jewish village called Nahania [Nahariya], some miles away. The pension was delightful, owned by a German Jew called Weidenbaum. From Nahania, we went to Acre, the Crusaders’ town, which is still enclosed in old walls and battlements and seems exactly like it must have been hundreds of years before. We climbed to the top of a minaret in a famous old mosque there, and viewed the city – a jumbled mass of streetless buildings, wherein, in a square kilometre, live 17,000 people. It’s unbelievable! I was more impressed by Acre than by any other place in Palestine – it really is worth a visit!
Heaven knows whether I’ll come home or not, but maybe I’ll turn up some day. Lots of love, Sheila
By this stage Sheila had made up her mind that if she doesn’t go to the Eastern Fleet by the next convoy she will never leave Suez, so she decides to apply, via Alexandria, to come home, which would mean arriving back in England in August. Stung by the news of her former junior colleague’s appointment with Admiral Ramsay – even if this is after the D-Day landings – she wants to be there so she may ‘do likewise in the next show’. She believes she could still get a job abroad if she ‘wangled hard’ at it.
John in the Garden of Gethsemane.
On return from Jerusalem she is ‘annoyed’ to find that in her absence she was given an appointment in Colombo which was turned down by FOLEM ‘in view of the fact I had applied to go home’. It was as Principal Cypher Officer and would have entailed promotion. Showing remarkable humility she says perhaps it was a ‘good thing’ as it would have ‘worn her out’ and made her ‘swollen headed’.
Despite having promised her a place on the next convoy she is let down again:
c/o Fleet Mail Office Suez
19.7.44
… I do hope you get the wire I sent off to you yesterday also telling you that I have literally missed the boat this time. I am really very annoyed about it. They promised me I could go in this trip – otherwise I should have made more effort to get to Colombo and now they have let me down – only 2 Wren officers are going this time, and both with their husbands, tho’ neither have been out as long as I have – I have pulled every thing possible, but of no avail – my relief is not here yet. However, I may try and get an air passage in which case I may arrive fairly quickly. Otherwise, don’t expect me till the end of September. Maddening isn’t it? I am firmly resolved to have another shot at Colombo from home after a little leave.
Nevertheless she begins to prepare for the trip home despite feeling extremely unsettled. Her luggage is a major concern: ‘I have got an awful lot of stuff I am afraid.’:
c/o Fleet Mail Office Suez
24.7.44
My dear Mummy – I haven’t been doing very much of note lately – In fact I’ve rather gone into a recline on hearing they are not sending me home yet – they are devils really – a whole lot of Wrens from S. Africa have recently gone through on the way home who haven’t even served their two years! Still, we are on a different station and it seems to make all the difference – However, I have packed up my trunk and my large black box, and have sent them off to the Navel Stores Officer, who will embark there over the next ship going to England. They will then be sent to the N.S.O. [Naval Stores Office] at Newcastle, who will either send them down to Durham direct, or write to me and tell me they are there for collection. It certainly saves me a
lot of bother, as I am now only left with one suitcase and a small bag for if I have to fly. If I do this, then I shall give my big case to anyone who is going by sea next time, and they can bring it home as part of their luggage – I’ve hardly got anything to wear left at all – all my whites, of course – 1 suit of blues with everything to go with it, greatcoat, 3 summer dresses, 1 evening dress, 6 pairs of shoes, underwear, 1 afternoon dress, 2 shirts and 1 pair of shorts and that’s about all, except for a bathing dress – at the minute I am knitting wildly at a thick red jersey, as I am sure it’s going to be awfully cold! I’ve got very used to the heat, that, tho’ whilst I am sitting now, I am all sticky and little channels of water are running down my legs, I don’t mind a bit – I like it! It must be about 90 degrees in this room at the minute – somehow it doesn’t seem hot at all – Have you told the family I am coming home? If not, for goodness sake keep it dark – as I don’t want to have to do a ton of relations on my return, and exhibited as an interesting specimen from the M.E.!
Love, Sheila
It seems strange that Sheila never writes of any war news, but I suppose it was all so far away and she felt very distanced from any of the action. She doesn’t even mention Italy, where both John and Bruce had been fighting, and D-Day comes and goes, then the liberation of Paris in August. She remains completely focused on getting out, but continues to work hard. Her relief has finally come and she is free to leave when the opportunity arises. So she and her friend Aenid Brothers decide to seize the chance, have some fun, and get some last-minute leave in Cyprus. First they go to Ismailia to see Aenid’s family who live there:
Sheila and Aenid in Suez, shortly before her departure.
c/o Fleet Mail Office, Port Tewfik
5.8.44
My dear Mummy – … No further news of my coming home yet, except that everyone seems to think I’m definitely going.
On Wednesday Aenid and I went up to Ismailia with 2 Naval people we know from here. Her family lives there, so we stayed with them – A grand change we went up in a truck – a frightfully bumpy one – and stopped at the U.S. Club at Ismailia for a bathe first. I hadn’t been there since the Flap – I was just filthy – however, it’s salt, so we came to no harm! In the evening we dined at the French Club and returned to Suez the next morning. Ismailia is the best place in Egypt for mangoes – and the Brothers have 3 trees in their garden – lovely things! These two Naval people are quite fun – one, called Tony Cox, is a New Zealander, and if he can get in a row or scrapes, he’s always right in the middle of trouble – Tonight we are motoring up the canal and coming back down here in an ‘R’ boat – a sort of landing craft – There’s a full moon – so should be rather fun. Last night I went out to a duty dance in a South African Sergeant’s mess – we had a sit down supper first, and danced after – but it’s really too hot for dancing especially as it was inside. They had a band of Italian P.O.W.s – there are hundreds of them round here. Personally I loathe the Iti’s – oily creatures. We have on occasions been asked on board Italian Naval ships which sometimes come down here, but I wouldn’t go on a matter of principle, tho’ I should be most curious to go and see what they are like.
Our S.O.O. [Senior Operations Officer] has been drafted away recently, and as he was Signal Officer, I was asked to step in and take the job over – which I said I would do. It doesn’t entail much extra work, but I am now in charge of the W/T [wire/telephone], coding office and S.D.O. [Staff Duty Officer] – as well as the telephone exchange. However, having been personally asked by NOIC if I could and would do the job, the first time I sent a signal, he made me look a frightful fool by stopping it, altering it so that it wasn’t intelligible, and then telling me that I have no authority to make signals and am not to do so in future. If I wasn’t leaving, I should kick up a hell of a fuss – whoever heard of a Signal Officer with no powers to send signals, especially when she’s the only person who knows anything about it!
Aenid and I are going to Cairo on Monday to do a wee bit of shopping – All the boy friends seem to be getting on OK. Robin and John are both in Italy – and Bruce has now gone to France but says he hopes to be back on leave by the time I get home. John hopes to be back in UK by October – things will be very complicated! Have you got your evacuee yet? I hope she will be nice. Molly Rendell hopes to be down here next weekend. I do hope she can come, she is such a dear.
With heaps of love
Sheila
This is the last ever mention of John Pritty in any of Sheila’s letters; we will never know if they met again in England, whereas Robin and Bruce continue to play an important part in her life. I found some of Robin’s letters to Sheila penned from Italy, tucked away in her writing case; tiny, spiky writing, not at all romantic, talking mainly about opera. They were written after her return to England in the last part of 1944.
Finally, at the end of August, Aenid and Sheila go on leave, which turns out not quite as they plan, but it is a great adventure. The photographs show them disporting themselves among the ancient ruins at Baalbek, clad in their whites, complete with hats! Remember it is compulsory to wear uniform at all times in public, except when ‘at dances or sporting events’. A recent rule has just tightened up the wearing of civilian clothing, which causes great ire among the girls:
My dear Mummy – I have just completed the most hectic week – a grand one, too. I hastily turned over to my successor, a rather wet individual and Aenid and I bailed off to Cairo last Wednesday to try and fix an air passage to Cyprus. Yes, Sub. Lt. Collis said he could fix us up, would we come back in the morning? Next day we went down to the RAF people near Shepheards to be weighed, yes we had a passage! Where too! Oh to Habanya. Where’s that? Oh, somewhere in Palestine I think said Lt Corporal. Then up came a Fl. Lieut whom we also asked – it’s in the Persian Gulf, he replied – they do send you to some funny places, don’t they? More and more we insisted we asked what would we do when we got there? Oh, get in a boat and sail down the Euphrates, he replied. We really did jib at this, and said we only wanted to go to Cyprus – he nearly had a fit and said that he’d no idea, but anyway, he could do nothing for us, so we stormed back to Collis who took a very maleish [meaning ‘so what?’ in Arabic] attitude and said well, we’d have to go by train. We did! Our companions to Haifa were an Indian sister, and an Italian, presumably married to an English soldier, and her 2 children – one of which had a cold and the other spots. We have since caught the cold, but not spots to date! When we arrived at Haifa we found the last way to get to Beirut was by military diesel, which took 4 hours, but as it was such a lovely journey on the edge of the sea we didn’t mind – on arrival at Beirut we fixed accommodation facing the sea and collapsed into bed – The next day we went up to Tripoli with the Naval M.O. [Medical Officer] – another lovely drive by the sea – we took with us an Army M.O. who was scared stiff of the driver, or at least the way he drove! He sat up in his seat muttering away and could even hear him heaving his breath when we shot past anything as we invariably did! However, we arrived OK and soon we were pottering round the souq and exploring a castle on a hill. It seemed to me to be a smaller edition of Beirut, unfortunately we didn’t have time to go down to the harbour which is most picturesque they say, full of caciques. We returned the same way, but over the Chekka Pass, a new road cut in the mountains by 9th Army Engineers in 100 days – a great feat. The other road invariably gets blocked in winter by land slides. The Army M.O. nearly had a fit, but the Naval M.O. insisted we should go across! Anyway, we got back in time for a grand bathe. Next day we planned a spot of hitchhiking and eventually arrived at the crossroads for Baalbek and Damascus after 4 lifts including one with the Greeks, and another with the Poles, who could speak no English at all. However, one of the priests spoke a little French and we got on marvellously, chatting away in the most frightful grammar! They were thrilled to the marrow when they heard I knew Romanowski, a S/M [Submarine] Captain, and there was much frivolity – all in Polish, Russian and broken French. I
was most sorry to leave them. Aenid had a bright idea we ought to go up to the nearby NAAFI, so we did and soon a truck drove up with about 4 army officers and 3 O/Rs [Other Ranks], on a recce of sorts. They were off to Baalbek and soon we were off with them. Those people had set their hearts on a good lunch, so we drove up to a hotel in Baalbek with the grand name Villa Kaoum – Hotel de la Source, where we had lunch under the trees. Baalbek is a fascinating place, streams of clear water running everywhere, even under the houses, of course, we visited the ruined Roman Temple a magnificent affair, and we pottered round for over 3 hours – when we’d seen all there was to see, we drove back to the NAAFI, for tea, and as Aenid and I were keen to get on to Damascus that night, the senior member of the party fixed us up in an ambulance that was just going on, so we pompously sat in the front and simply tore through the mountain passes until we approached the city when it was dark. You drive in through a narrow pass with a river running beside the road and there were lights everywhere. We were most impressed and although very tired, had to have a prowl before going to bed! The following morning we set off for the Souq – probably the most famous in the world, 3 small boys besieged us to guide us round – each accusing each other of being liars, bad boys, not Boy Scouts, tho’ what this had to do with it we couldn’t guess! However, we saw all there was to see including the silk factory and the place where St. Paul escaped from the well in a basket. We left Damascus at 4 and arrived in Beirut at 7 – after a lovely drive over the hills and very cold it was in places! Alas, almost as soon as we had arrived, I received a message recalling me to Tewfik, so we hared down to Haifa the next day and I caught the 3.20 train to Ismailia where I now am – sitting in the French Club awaiting my car to be sent from Suez. I must really run over to Navy House now and see if it has come – so no more.