One of the initial joys of being aboard ship was to be supplied with
soft white bread and ample amounts of butter, things that were
unobtainable in wartime Britain. The ship still carried passengers and
freight, the commissioned ranks were the passengers while the other
ranks were freight; eggs were served daily to the former, sometimes
returned uneaten but with a cigarette butt stabbed through their yolks
but nary an egg was seen at our tables We had jam and marmalade in
plenty, coming in seven-pound tins, some of it from South Africa,
apfelkoos confit that I believe was apricot jam, that's what it tasted
like anyway. We were really quite well fed but being young and healthy
we could always manage more; occasionally after dark the cookhouse would
be raided and the raw carrots and turnips that had been prepared for the
following day would be added to our diets.
It was not long before the army had us all organised into mess
orderlies, guards, fatigue parties and anything else that would keep us
out of mischief. Soon the engines rumbled and we were off or so we
thought but the excitement was short lived, we moved down the Clyde and
stopped off Gourock, in Loch Long. The wise ones among us said that we
had to wait for a convoy to form but we waited there for two weeks while
other ships and convoys came and went; it was a frustrating experience
in a confined space.
Of the many ships around one was pointed out to us, the Queen Elizabeth
(the first one), she had never seen passenger service having been
completed during the war, now in the distance we could see her, painted
in battleship grey, serving as a troopship. One night or early morning
when we were nicely tucked up in our hammocks we were awakened by the
rumble of the engines again and we sensed motion; action at last, HMT
Antenor was under way, going down the Clyde. With the coming of the
dawn we could see other ships in the convoy, merchant ships and our
naval escort. We passed Arran and entered the North Channel and that
was as far as our schoolday geography took us. Speculation was rife as
to our eventual destination but there was no shortage of opinion amongst
our amateur navigators who tried to calculate speed, distance and
direction as we moved into the open waters. As time went by the seas
became more and more disturbed and the good ship Antenor pitched and
rolled with them; it would later transpire that we were entering the
tail end of one of the worst North Atlantic storms of the season.
Life-lines were fitted to facilitate a safe passage on deck. Down below
we listened and watched with mounting concern as she creaked and
strained, as she pitched the screw would come out of the water and the
engines would race; all this was a new experience to us land-lubbers.
At the end of each roll she seemed to pause for a second or two -- would
she recover? She always did and then she took about 15 seconds to reach
the other extreme and pause again. Up on deck clutching at life-lines
or anything else secure one could wonder at the strength of the ship as
she rode on the crest of a wave and then plunged to the depths of a
trough; crew members rated them as 40-foot waves and we didn't disagree
with them.
Resulting from this roller-coaster action many of us had queasy stomachs
and were not very happy though it was heartening to see that all ranks
were treated equally by the elements. As the days passed the seas
became less turbulent but other ships in the convoy, merchant and naval
alike could still be lost to sight as they wallowed in the troughs. At
intervals of time our course would change and on the third day out our
escorts began changing their positions; "whoop, whoop, whoop" went
their hooters; depth charges were dropped What surprised me was the
speed of sound in water, no sooner did we see a plume of water rise than
a resounding boom bounced off our ship's hull. These antics went on for
some time then later things returned to normal for a while; about four
o'clock in the afternoon HMT Antenor started to make smoke and fall back
in the formation; not to worry advised our intelligent ones, it's all
part of the plan. We went below and had a bite to eat then came back on
deck 30 minutes later. Where was the convoy? We looked around but all
that could be seen were faint smoke smudges on the horizon and what's
more we were now silent and stationary. Our intelligent ones were
nonplussed and our amateur navigators determined that we were probably
west of Brest off the west coast of France; that together with the
knowledge of the U-boat action earlier in the day didn't improve our
contentment. At six o'clock a lone plane appeared from the west, going
east; it passed over us fairly low but none of us identified it. Our
resident gunners took up their positions at our only gun, a four-inch,
designed I imagine for naval engagements and probably unable to elevate
sufficiently to engage an aircraft. We assumed the plane to be hostile
and that it would report our position and static condition and we
waited. Darkness came and we wallowed helplessly. I decided that I
didn't feel like going to my deck below the water line waiting for a
torpedo to come bursting through the side, I wanted to have a reasonable
chance of getting off the ship if she were going down so I stacked out
on the hatch cover of an intermediate deck and slept fitfully with my
head upon my kapok pillow.
Dawn came and we were still without engines; we were told that the
storm's buffeting had unseated one of the boilers and that a similar
event had caused our departure from Loch Long to be delayed by two
weeks. In the forenoon the engines started to rumble, a most welcome
sound and we limped into motion. We must have been very fortunate
because we took a long three days to reach the relative safety of
Glasgow at dusk, having made the return journey without seeing anything
more than a couple of small fishing boats.
I forget the details but we disembarked and were whisked off to various
destinations; our draft together with some others was sent to a disused
distillery in Wishaw. We sorted ourselves out and bedded down for the
rest of the night. Next morning, Sunday, we looked around the town and
were amazed at the friendliness and hospitality shown us. Our stay
lasted about three weeks or a month while HMT Antenor underwent surgery,
transplants and general re-conditioning. At intervals during this
period small groups of us were given a few days leave at home but all
the time we were in Wishaw we were well looked after by the local
population; one businessman took out parties of us for a meal (was it at
Green's?) then on to a cinema show; this happened on many occasions.
Some of the lads were more or less adopted and lived out most of the
time there only looking in at the distillery to find out when our next
move was due. In the forces I always got on well with all the Scots I
met but our reception at Wishaw was something else, it stays firmly in
my mind and I have a very soft spot for the Scots and Scotland.
All good things must come to an end of course and we had to return to
Glasgow to re-start our travels. Waiting for us at the dock was our
troopship HMT Antenor, well repaired we hoped. This time there was
little delay, soon we were steaming down the Clyde to form up with a
convoy; again we had a naval escort on our flanks and although the seas
were not as rough as before the screw still came out of the water and
the engines raced. Day followed day uneventfully and we seemed to be on
the same course as before according to our amateur navigators; for many
of us this was the first time we had been so far from our island home
and we were quite excited.
In order to keep up our spirits and inform us of the progress of the war
the BBC news was frequently broadcast. These newscasts were usually
preceded by a recording of Rule Britannia and while joining in mentally
with the remembered words I reached the phrase Britons never, never,
never, shall be slaves; I recalled the definition of a slave as being
one who received little or no remuneration for his services and who
could never voluntarily escape his predicament. I made the comparison.
I can still remember my first sight of a lone palm tree emerging from
the early morning mist just before we made Freetown. Some ships of the
convoy entered Freetown but we lay off and paused for a while a half
mile from the coast; we believed that mosquitoes couldn't make that
distance but just to be on the safe side we tried out our
mosquito-repellent ointment. The air was hot and very humid and soon we
decided that we preferred mosquito bites to the discomfort of trapped
perspiration. By this time we had changed into our tropical uniforms
and this did nothing to improve our appearance; our cork topees were
reminiscent of those worn during the Boer War and were probably surplus
to that conflict. There was nothing remarkable about our shirts but the
shorts were something else; worn in their extended form they reached
down to mid-calf, the lower hems were fitted with three buttonholes
while at mid-thigh there were three buttons. The idea was that in the
bright sunlight hours they would be buttoned up to let our knees feel
the breeze and get tanned but in the evening they would be worn at full
length to frustrate the mosquitoes. To economise in footwear the army
supplied knitted hose-tops, tubes, near khaki in colour that covered the
socks just above the ankle while the tops were turned down just below
the knee. Webbing gaiters covered the junction of boots and hose-tops;
whether the gaiters were aesthetic or functional I don't know, either
way they were two more items to be blancoed; perhaps they would deter an
aggressive snake.
Duties on board were no different than before but there were free
periods when we could indulge in the only gambling game permitted by the
army, Housey, or Bingo as it is more usually called today. We spent a
lot of hours gazing out to sea, I didn't find that boring, there was
always something fresh to see, even when looking at nothing in
particular there was the ever-changing pattern of the waves, not unlike
the changing patterns in a glowing coal fire. For the first time we saw
Portuguese men-of-war, jellyfish, with their little sails unfurled, and
flying fish played around the ship. At night time another phenomenon
was revealed, looking over the side the phosphorescent creatures
disturbed by the ship's passage brightly illuminated the ship's hull, so
much so that we thought the portholes were unshielded; it made a mockery
of our strict instructions not to show any light. In this context I put
my foot in it once again; seeing a flashlight beam waving about the deck
on a black night I yelled, "Put that light out." "Who said
that?" asked flashlight. "Who are you?" I countered. "I am
the Orderly Officer," said flashlight, "what's your name and
number?" somewhat chastened I obliged and realised once again that
even when you're right you can't win an argument when you're outranked.
The ship carried only limited amounts of potable water and the only
water available for keeping clean was salt water; true we had showers
and could purchase salt-water soap but this was not very effective and
rinsing off was difficult; the end result was not satisfactory
particularly when trying to get one's hair squeaky clean. This fact was
brought home to me when one mealtime a soldier paused behind me as he
spoke to a pal on the next table; we were in the tropics and it was very
warm. He was holding a seven-pound tin of marmalade above my head;
engrossed in conversation he allowed the tin to tilt -- need I say more?
I had started a head cold just before we left Glasgow and after a day or
so at sea I did what was very unusual for me, I reported sick. The army
had three or four standard remedies to cover most situations and I was
dosed with one of them, mist.expec seems to be the abbreviation that
stays in my memory; several doses brought no relief so again I reported
sick. I was now coughing badly and felt quite ill. Same medicine, same
result; I really should have been admitted to the sick bay but was
not. Reporting sick for the third time brought accusations of
malingering; at no time had I seen either of the two doctors on board,
the diagnosis had been made by an NCO of the RAMC, so I soldiered on.
I don't know how far west we passed into the Atlantic but the crew told
us when we were nearer to Walvis Bay, eventually we pulled into Cape
Town in South Africa, the "tablecloth" of cloud had settled over Table
Mountain for us. Some of our convoy separated from us and docked there.
After a short stop in the bay we moved on to Durban and as we came into
the dock area we saw a little group on the quayside waiting to greet us.
The central figure was "The Lady in White" as she came to be known. She
was a trained singer and made it her duty to meet all the troopships;
armed with a megaphone (this was 1943) she sang patriotic and nostalgic
songs to cheer up the lads who were bound for unknown parts. It was a
nice warm welcome to South Africa.
For our last night on board I was picked for guard duty. Why? Perhaps
they thought that someone would run off with the ship. Next morning we
disembarked and marched up to our new billets on Clairwood Race Course,
I was quite weak and unable to carry all my kit, some of my pals carried
my rifle and pack for me. I was feeling very groggy but that didn't
stop me from being picked for guard duty again that night. I got the
last shift and when I was awakened at 4am I rebelled and said the
waiting man could do my turn. Later in the morning I reported sick once
more, this time to Clairwood Hospital where I was examined by a South
African army doctor. When he had finished he gave me a chit that said,
"Admit hospital, resolving pneumonia" and I spent the best part of the
next three weeks there, two weeks in bed and a couple of days up and
about. I believe I slept for the first 30 hours.
It was an army hospital run on army lines but there were some civilian
staff mixed in with the nursing sisters and MO's. The food was very
good and I was surprised to find chicken on the menu quite often; iced
water or a lemon drink was kept at the bedside in a little jug covered
with a lace cloth to keep the flies off but there were no mosquito nets.
At first I didn't realise what the high pitched buzz in my ears was
until I had had a few bites. I recall two nurses, one was a Canadian,
an army nursing sister whose name had a Ukrainian ring to it and the
other was a South African civilian, Nurse Anderson. The latter who was
probably a little bit older than I was prophetically gave us some words
of wisdom. The ward cleaning staff was composed of black African men
and the British not being particularly racist used to talk to them and
give them cigarettes, something that they didn't from the South African
whites. Nurse Anderson said, "You British are spoiling them, when
the war is over you'll be going back to your own country and we'll be
left with the consequences of your actions." Military discipline was
upheld in the wards and when the MO and his following retinue of nurses
came on the rounds those who could were told to stand to attention by
their beds and those who could not stand were told to lie to attention.
More stupidity.
One hospital orderly amused me with his line of thinking; judging by his
accent I asked him, "You are an Afrikaner?" "No, no, he replied, "I'm
Dutch." "Surely not," I said, "the people of Holland are Dutch." "No,
no," he said again, "they are Hollanders, I'm Dutch."
On discharge from hospital I was sent to King's House in Durban for
convalescence and was duly fitted out with hospital blues and a red tie.
I remember being there for Good Friday and for another couple of days
and enjoyed the time touring the city; it was a beautiful place, this
was the end of March 1943, their autumn, the right time of the year and
the vegetation was lush I was just settling down to a short spell of
doing nothing; I wasn't looking too smart, I used to have my hair cut
every two weeks and it was now seven weeks long, additionally the
pneumonia had left me with three boils on my face. My convalescence was
short lived because I was ordered to report to a hospital, not
Clairwood, to be examined to determine if I was fit enough to re-join
draft RGDFA. An ambulance arrived and I occupied a stretcher on the
upper of two berths, the man on the lower was going to the same
hospital. Our ambulance bounced along over dirt roads, it was a very
rough ride and after one huge bump my stretcher collapsed and I landed
on the fellow below; he wasn't very pleased with me and I finished the
journey sitting down, listening to his constant griping. After a
cursory examination by the doctor I was pronounced fit enough to re-join
draft RDGFA. He must have known where we were going and he must have
known that troops with lung problems were not supposed to be sent there,
but there, that's the military. I suppose that after the war these
three doctors, this one and the two on the Antenor, were let loose on
the civilian population of Britain, I'm glad I wasn't one of their
patients.
Most of our group had a good time in Durban and were very well treated
by the South Africans, when we expressed our thanks they said, "Oh,
you should have been here before the Australians came, they nearly
wrecked the place."
Back on the docks we saw our next floating hotel, HMT Aronda; she was
much more modern, lighter in build and with finer lines than the old
Antenor. Once on board we got into our new routine. The ship had a
permanent army officer, OC Troops who, I presume stayed with her on all
her voyages. We also had another luxury on board, a real live bugler;
his job was to sound off at various periods of the day to announce some
activity or other.
As with the Antenor this ship was fitted out with mess tables and
attached benches. Early on we had to report to stores and draw hammocks
because the sleeping arrangements were similar as well. On the Antenor
we had been issued with bottles of fortified lime juice (shades of
Captain Cook) but now we were to be issued with bottles of carbonated
drinks. We soon set forth, destination still unknown; we were all
assigned boat stations and each morning we assembled on deck waiting to
be inspected by our betters, looking a little ridiculous in our "Bombay
bowlers" and our Bombay bloomers". The inspection was quite a formal
affair as an entourage consisting of the ship's captain, OC Troops and
various others of decreasing rank, a lance-corporal as the caboose,
traversed the ship. However leading this group and heralding its
approach was the bugler; at each station he paused, stood smartly to
attention, put the bugle to his lips and sounded four "G's" then off he
went to the next station to repeat his performance; he was a pain.
When the waters were calm and the nights were clear we sometimes lay on
deck looking upwards to the heavens because in the southern hemisphere
different star constellations were visible, the Southern Cross for one.
As the ship pitched and rolled ever so gently the tip of a mast would
trace slow little circles in the near black sky; it was half an hour of
peace. We knew that we were moving in a north-easterly direction and we
had a general knowledge of the local geography but we couldn't determine
whether we passed to the west or the east of Madagascar. The first bit
of excitement came when I perched on a box and, surrounded by a group of
interested onlookers, had my locks shorn. I felt much lighter but my
face still had its three boils, they were to stay with me a while
longer. The Aronda was alone, not in convoy and I remember one morning
well, I had gone up on deck early, sunrise comes suddenly at about 6am
in those latitudes; there was the gentle throbbing of the engines but
complete silence otherwise, the Indian Ocean was grey and more tranquil
than I had ever seen water before , or since. All around the water was
flat and mirror-like except at the stern where our wake, a thin white
streak stretched out into the distance. I celebrated my 25th birthday
in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
On board we had a public address system, installed presumably to impart
words of wisdom like, "splice the mainbrace" or "Abandon ship" or
something but in fact it was used to play records to keep up our morale.
Where the control room was situated I never did find out but whoever was
responsible for the choice of records must have been a fan of Deanna
Durbin; hour after hour the strains of One Fine Day came over the
speakers, there were other records of course but even today when I hear
One Fine Day I am transported back in time to the Indian Ocean. There
are a few other incidents that stay in my mind from that period. One
man put on a charge for some minor offence thought the punishment
awarded was too excessive so he kicked the escort and fled; of course he
couldn't get very far on a ship, a fact he should have thought of
beforehand. We saw him running round the decks with three PT
instructors in hot pursuit; he gave them a good run for their money but
nevertheless he finished up in the ship's brig. As usual the military
required guards to be posted during the night and in the interests of
convenience and fairness each draft took turns to supply the men. For a
change my services were not required on that voyage but one night it
fell upon the Royal Army Service Corps to stand guard. Since he had to
be up early in the morning to sound "reveille" the bugler slept in the
guard room to be awakened in good time. He also slept with his bugle,
with the fancy cord around his neck. As I said before he was a pain and
the RASC decided to do us a favour; while he was asleep the cord was
cut, the bugle removed and dumped overboard. We knew something was
amiss in the morning when no bugle call aroused us and we waited to see
what would transpire. We assembled at our boat stations. By-and-by the
bugler came into view, stopped at our station, stood to attention and
"Peep, peep, peep, peep." he went. The military was not to be
denied, they had given him a referee's whistle. That was the same
occasion when the ship's liquor store was broached and some of the
guards were the worse for wear. We never heard any more about this
episode, perhaps some were punished, we were never told.
Attempts were made to keep us occupied, unofficially cards were played
and money changed hands, usually from mine into someone else's. Housey
was often played and at times shows were put on consisting of stand-up
comedy, solo singing and sing-songs where we all joined in. One lad
stood on the make-shift stage and recited,
"Do you remember an inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an inn?
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"And the shouts and the jeers
Of the young muleteers,
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