The moment finally came to drag our baggage downstairs, don our harness, sling our ATS handbags over our shoulders, and accept the welcome help of a cheerful soldier driver, who hoisted us up one-by-one into the troop carrier. Getting into a troop carrier is a most awkward and undignified affair for anyone in a skirt, but most of us were already in trousers, khaki or otherwise, which proved to be a wise move as the night was to be cold and none too comfortable. So there we sat, all thirteen of us who had done the course, somewhat breathless and overheated but as keen as mustard and thrilled to the marrow.
Note
2 These were donated to the Military Medical Museum in 2001.
4
To an Unknown Destination
W e did not travel for long in the troop carrier, but soon came to King’s Cross Station, which was very ill-lit on account of the blackout. There we became lost in a man’s world, something that more or less pervaded the whole of our time overseas. Military police, smart and business-like, were directing the traffic and also the personnel. It was not long before we discovered the officer commanding the troop-train, and were ensconced in a coach set apart for women travellers, about four of us to a carriage, so we were lucky. Besides ourselves, there were some Queen Alexandra nurses, some physiotherapists and some Free FANYs on the train; the total female population amounted to about forty. The rest of the train was full of men of different ranks and representing many regiments and services. But that of course one could not tell at a glance; it was only later that one came to know who was there and what they were.
Fortunately there was no air raid, not even an alarm, and we finally moved gently out of the station at about 1 a.m. We seemed to advance very slowly and most of us were too excited to sleep, but sat up chatting or munching chocolates or biscuits. Towards morning I dozed a little and woke up to find the train meandering through what seemed miles of storage yards and railway sidings. It was about 7 a.m. and a grey drizzly morning. After studying every possible hoarding minutely, we decided that we must be moving into Liverpool. This slow progress lasted some time, and included a certain amount of shunting to and fro, but we eventually came to a halt, within sight of the looming funnels of waiting ships. Everywhere seemed grey and rather depressing, but a cup of tea brightened the outlook, and from then on we craned out of the windows, eager to miss nothing that might take place.
It was about 9 a.m. that we were de-trained and, lugging our cases and grips, we clambered up the gangway of what seemed to me, after my experience of small channel steamers, an enormous ship. We were given breakfast shortly afterwards, and very welcome it was too. We then set about unpacking our affairs, trying on our lifebelts, and finding our way about. I was sharing a cabin with our junior commander, Wilhelmina Boswell, commonly known as Willy. She was the most senior woman on board and was quite soon nominated CO of the female section, including ATs, nurses, masseuses and FANYs. The FANYs did not greatly fancy an AT CO, and did not pay much attention to any arrangements made, so perhaps it is just as well that there were so few of us in proportion to the enormous number of men that ‘the eye missed much of what went on and therefore not much was grieved after’. There must have been several thousand on board altogether, as other trains besides ours disgorged their mostly khaki-clad passengers into the ship.
The first thing to be impressed on us was naturally the importance of always having one’s lifebelt with one, and learning to distinguish the alarms, and being prepared to abandon ship if that should, in the event of an enemy submarine attack, prove necessary. After that there were few rules and regulations, apart from the times for meals, fire precautions and such obvious matters.
I spent the first evening on deck talking to a major in the Tank Corps. We had not weighed anchor when I went to my cabin, but when I awoke we were at sea and the ship was heaving gently on a slight swell. Next day, Iris was not very happy, being almost the only bad sailor amongst us. Apart from her, we all enjoyed a hearty breakfast, particularly savouring the first white bread for many months.
We came into the Firth of Clyde at about three o’clock that afternoon, having left the blue Mountains of Mourne in the distance on our port side. I would not personally have known where we were, but there were quite a few people about who knew the landscape from pre-war days.
The Clyde is a most magnificent sight and I was thrilled to see it. It is perhaps something like a fjord, with coves, promontories and islands, and all the land was so green and fresh. There we were evidently to join our convoy, for until then we had been solo. But it was comforting to think that we should soon have the escort of destroyers, and perhaps submarines, for it was a large convoy of which we were to form part. Of course none of this information was given to us. It was gleaned and passed on, probably exaggerated and perhaps falsified, but circulated it most certainly was. We had our first boat-drill and felt rather foolish parading with a great cushion in front and behind. We knew where to go and what to do should the alarm be given. And we were seriously warned of the dangers of ever being without one’s lifebelt. Gas masks, the bête-noire of uniform, now assumed a very secondary role.
We got ourselves orientated and installed on the ship. Willy and I were moved into a state cabin – a great privilege and accorded to her as CO Women. But it was more convenient, as it was necessary for her cabin to assume a certain official aspect and some business naturally had to be transacted there. I was sharing with her, and as we were already friends and had worked together, I became her adjutant (of sorts) and thus was fortunate enough to come in for the privilege of the state cabin, which was a sort of glorified bed-sitting room. The beds, not bunks, were of white oak, and there was a nice writing desk against one wall. There was also a carpet and two easy chairs, as well as an upright chair. Thus we really were in the lap of luxury, and as we were both good sailors and as fit as fiddles on board, our trip was an extremely pleasant one, and we endured none of the hardships of troopships; there certainly are compensations for belonging to the weaker sex.
We must have left the Clyde in the early hours of the following morning, for the next day we were again on the open sea with not a sign of land anywhere and only the distant outlines of the sister ships in our convoy. We had an escort, but it was very unobtrusive and I never saw a submarine, except at the cinema!
For the first two or three days it was grey and cold, but one could take plenty of exercise promenading on the deck. I believe our route went out well west into the Atlantic, so that we completely avoided Brittany and the north coast of Spain. But presently we must have veered south or south-east, for the weather began to warm up and the sun shone radiantly. There was a marked contrast between the grey, cloud-ridden sky of the north and the bright southern blue, which all of a sudden seemed to replace it.
The moment the weather became a trifle warmer we started PT on deck. The assorted female crowd did it on an upper deck under the instruction of a male warrant officer. He did not make it too arduous, and it was enjoyable, the only thing marring it being the audience of men who would finish their own exercises and then come to see how we were getting on. For that reason, enthusiasm slacked off in our ranks, but unfortunately this did not seem to deter our supporters.
A far more pleasant feature of our daily life was the dancing that took place on deck. All the girls were encouraged to take part and most of us did. We danced in the afternoons with the soldiers and in the evenings with the officers. The music was provided by a Guards band, which the ship was lucky enough to be transporting overseas. They played marvellously, and as well as providing dance music, also gave open-air concerts in the evenings.
Once in the south, of course, we spent practically all our time on deck, and khaki drill became the order of the day. Here it must be related that the quartermaster’s prognostics about shrinkage proved entirely misleading. In spite of leaving our skirts and shirts in seawater for days, they scarcely shrank at all, and as a result we were obliged to wear long and distinctly dowdy skirts until it wa
s possible to alter them. They were too long and also too wide, and in most cases had to be completely remade later on. The bush shirts were the same. So we managed with barathea skirts and tropical shirts, i.e., ordinary shirts with epaulettes and open attached collars, until the necessary alterations had been done. We spent some time sewing pips on our epaulettes, for it was actually forbidden to go without. Sunglasses, also, were now generally worn. As the climate became hotter, people began to speculate yet again as to our destination, and some of them asked Iris, fluent in Italian, if she would give them lessons in the language.
There was a NAAFI shop on the boat and the allowance of sweets and cigarettes was most generous. The sweets we positively guzzled, having been short of sugar for so long. The only drinks obtainable were soft ginger beer, lemonade and other soft drinks. Perhaps just as well.
The RAF Gang Show were among the passengers, and one night they gave an excellent performance. I especially remember a prophetic sort of scene, where two men returned from war-service, one who had been a wing commander and the other an ordinary airman. In private life, however, the wing commander was a butler and the airman his employer. They found it somewhat difficult to settle down to their old ways again, and the employer’s wife was not a little puzzled when her husband would jump up as the butler entered the room and address him as ‘Sir’.
Somehow we learned that we were to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar, and so there was great excitement. The blackout unfortunately prevented us from seeing anything of the Rock, but we could see the lights of Tangier on our right, twinkling merrily for some time, and a distant light or so on the Spanish coast. Probably few of the passengers knew exactly when we passed through the Straits, although many stayed up late that night in the hope of seeing something; it was said to be about midnight when we actually passed through.
A day or so after this we had an alarm and had to go to ‘action stations’ in the early hours of the morning. There were sounds of distant thuds and gunfire. A destroyer nearby was dropping depth charges. But we were saved, and not one ship in the convoy was hit. Of course one never heard exactly what happened, at least not if one was in our humble station, but I did hear later that the convoy succeeding ours had had a pasting and several ships were hit, and quite a few people had to take to the boats.
A day or so later we passed the Italian island of Pantelleria, leaving it on our port side. It looked wonderful in the evening light, a sheer, grey rock jutting up out of the sea, suffused in the cochineal-coloured rays of the setting sun.
Meanwhile we girls had managed to make quite a few friends on board, and were getting used to the sun and thoroughly enjoying life. When the ship entered the Mediterranean zone, all passengers were introduced to the consumption of mepacrine. This was no magic potion, but a yellow substance in the form of small pills, about the size of a half-grain luminal, of which we were ordered to take three a day. This was supposed to guarantee one against malaria. Many people did not take these, scorning them and sceptical of their efficacy, or on account of the peculiar effect they had. They seemed to affect people differently. On some they had the effect of alcohol, and poor Iris was one of these, as she quite lost her balance and in the end gave up the struggle. Other people felt giddy and had headaches, and yet others felt the effect of a good purge. Others still said that mepacrine made them feel sick. I continued to take them, as I was very prone to insect bites and had perhaps a blind faith in them as they were prescribed by the ‘authorities’. After all, surely the War Office would not pay for such immense quantities of mepacrine, if they were not considered at the highest level to be of considerable value?
Before any mainland came into sight again, we were each issued with a small yellow booklet, giving us some history and general information about the Mediterranean zone, health precautions to be taken (including the use of mepacrine) and the sort of attitude the British troops were expected to adopt towards the civilian population of an occupied country. This was certainly a great step forward – now it only remained to land, and the rumour went round that we were going to Algiers. The powers that be, however, decreed differently, and it was on the evening of our ninth day at sea that we came within sight of land, by now being separated from the rest of the convoy who had vanished into the blue distance. It was a real Mediterranean evening, calm, with an impression of blueness that one never sees in our northerly clime. The sun was slowly setting and forming into a vast red ball in the west, whose reflections lit up the little red-roofed houses and the red sandstone cliffs of a smallish port with the glow of a crimson lantern. I was leaning over the bows of the ship talking to one of the MOs, whom I had discovered to be a family friend and from the same part of England as myself. And as our ship slowly slipped into port and passed the jetty of the harbour, we watched the changing crimson of the paling light as it gradually and imperceptibly merged to mauve and then violet, later to complete the spectrum from ultramarine to indigo. But by the time the stars were twinkling we were having our evening meal, and the gossip, of course, was circulating as to where we were.
It was not long before everyone on board knew that we had docked at Oran, and furthermore that unlike the rest of our convoy we were not to unload at Algiers, but here, the very next day, and were to complete the journey by train. Stories of trans-continental troop-trains did not bear any resemblance to the reputation of the once famous Orient Express, and faces became a trifle dubious. But time marched on, and the next morning at about ten o’clock we females found ourselves travelling in troop-carriers up the road from dock to station, and shortly afterwards were installed in carriages in a long troop-train – half a mile long, it seemed to me. The officers were very favoured, for they at least had carriages to travel in, even though not very comfortable ones, whereas the men had only cattle trucks. The ATs and other girls were still more favoured in being given the only First Class coach. In this way, the Army always behaved very decently towards us, and on every single journey I took we were always taken marvellous care of by CO troops, train-conducting officers and transit camp officers. Which all goes to prove that the Englishman has lost none of his traditional gallantry.
We were scheduled to move off at twelve, but it must have been after one by the time all the long lines of soldiers were allotted their trucks and the mountains of kit were stowed away in the luggage vans. During this time, our train was a great source of interest to a number of rather ragged little urchins, who were mainly on the quest for titbits, especially sweets. At last, after several whistles had been blown, the officer i/c Oran station waved the train off, and then probably went back to his mess for a nice, cooling and most likely stiff drink. For it must have been a big responsibility and hot work getting us under way.
I would not have fancied being stationed in Oran, for there can be little to do there, and the cleavage between the French and Arab subjects must have made the situation rather tense and difficult at times. But to look at from the sea Oran was wonderful – it was only when you landed that the illusion of aethereal beauty was dispelled, and one saw the shabby tumbledown houses and the poorly-dressed, though cheerful, population. For the first time, we saw men wearing fezzes, which gave one a nice feeling of experiencing Oriental glamour, and made one wonder whether the wearers kept harems. Probably in reality they could not afford harems, but concentrated on the black market.
As we travelled at an average speed of about 15mph into the interior of Algeria, we were to see more of the dark-skinned and gleaming-eyed Arab people. We stopped at every village, sometimes for nearly an hour. At each such stop, a number of soldiers left the train and disappeared out of the station off to the village, which usually seemed situated a few hundred yards, or perhaps half a mile, from the railway. They would return carrying bottles of cheap local red wine or other bargains, some of them running as the train whistle blew repeatedly, each blast more urgent than the last, to warn malingerers that they would be left behind if they did not return to the fold immediately. Som
etimes the train would even be moving out as latecomers came dashing up to the small, hut-like stations, catching up with the coaches and helped in by willing hands, or actually in several instances, jumping on to the roof of the end coaches and running along until they came to their own truck. Rations were issued to us in tins, and we were given enormous loaves to carve up ourselves. Tea was made from the engine two or three times during the journey, and the second time was at about 2 a.m. I queued up in a colossal crowd of very happy and cheery soldiery for some mugsful for our carriage. The tea was sweet, strong and very hot. It revived one’s flagging spirits and made the dawn seem less dismal.
The first part of the journey was mainly across dry, rather barren plains, but towards evening we came to green patches, something perhaps on the lines of an oasis, and here were villages with attractive villas of the French type, and great trees with luxuriant foliage, and climbing roses. We went through one such village just before dark, and there were cyclists and cars busying up and down the main road, which was just beside the station. The officials of course were French, but there were plenty of Arabs to be seen, and the barefooted children would run to the train at every station, holding out grubby palms for anything edible that would be thrown or handed to them from the carriage windows, running after us, sometimes with scruffy dogs, as we moved slowly out of the stations on our way.
The night was rather trying, as several girls were not feeling well. It was hot and stuffy, the bully beef was not very appetising, we were none of us very skilled with tin-openers, and the insect population was commencing its activities. This last was my main ordeal. I seemed to attract mosquitoes and other unmentionables, in spite of Keatings and anti-insect cream. After the early tea we had a little sleep, and soon after eight Iris and I made sure of being among the first to visit the toilet and try to repair our ravaged and travel-weary faces and coiffures. Iris as usual emerged looking immaculate: I tried to pretend I did.
My Italian Adventures Page 4