Humorous situations occurred as inexperienced soldiers tried to persuade
their mounts to greater efforts or in some cases even to start. The
outcome of one race manifested itself when that good old standby of
military law Section 40 of King's Regulations was invoked; Daily Orders
informed us that one, No.732 Craftsman Smith, was charged with "conduct
prejudicial to good order and military discipline in that on the
occasion of the Donkey Derby he did wilfully and cruelly goad his mount
with a railway spike." Needless to say he didn't win on either day.
The day's festivities were often rounded off with a concert given by the
Band of the Royal Sussex Regiment. A civilian lady singer appeared so
frequently with the band that she was made an honorary sergeant.
We were more than a little incensed to read a report in one of the
British newspapers of one of the infrequent visits of an ENSA show. A
female member was quoted as saying that "bacon and eggs are no luxury in
Paiforce." Poor dear, she obviously had been a guest of the Officers'
Mess and didn't know any better.
Fairly near Al Musayyib was the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldees, the
reputed birthplace of Abraham. It had been discovered and excavated in
the 1920's by Sir Leonard Woolley; as with most deserted habitations in
that land it first appeared to him as a Tel or hill, rising up above the
surrounding flat land. I visited the site with a group led by our
padre. Woolley excavated one half of the site down to below ground
level, carefully preserving and documenting all he found; below ground
level he found a layer of silt that he thought could only have been laid
by water and thus he concluded that it was evidence of the biblical
flood of Noah's time. I believe this theory has now been discounted.
Below this silt layer were pieces of broken pottery and I picked one up.
At that time it was quite a large part of the bottom of an unglazed
earthenware urn but due to an unfortunate accident when my kitbag fell
off a lorry I now have only a very small fragment. We wandered along
the excavated streets that were bordered by low walls of sun baked
plano-convex bricks and marvelled at the state of preservation.
Although the Romans are generally credited with its introduction there
was, dating back to a much earlier period, a semi-circular arch still
existing. In places one could see, outlined by bricks, the formation of
the rooms of houses. In the nearby museum were plans showing how the
city was believed to have been laid out, dominated by the ziggurat.
A second trip of similar ancient historical interest was made to
Babylon, again organised by the padre; the excavations here seemed to be
on a much larger scale and had been made by German archaeologists at a
time when Germany was extending her political interests in the area.
They carted off quantities of the better preserved relics and displayed
them in the Berlin Museum; whether or not they survived the bombing of
WWI I don't know. Again we were amazed at the skills of the ancient
artisans, building blocks fitting together with scarcely any visible
joints. Bricks here were a bit different from those at Ur, they were
about one foot square by four inches thick made of sun baked straw
reinforced mud and in their centres many carried an imprint in cuniform
characters that I was told translated into This was built by King
Nebuchadnezzar. I have a portion of such a brick, not in this case
purloined by me but given to me by another member of the group who got
tired of carrying it The site had its own interesting museum and the
whole was guarded by some smart Arab soldiers, members of the Arab
Legion that had been formed after WWI by the British and that was under
the command of Glubb Pahsa, an officer seconded for the job.
Iraq was a monarchy and the king at the time was a young boy, Feisal but
because of his age the de facto ruler was a Regent; both were to be
assassinated in the 1950's. In the interests of public relations our
workshops made a model of an armoured car suitable for riding in and
also a model of a two wheeled water trailer; these were presented to
Feisal. He was not over-pleased however because the armoured car was
not powered.
Quite a few Arab civilians were employed by the army in various
capacities, some clerical and some labouring depending upon their
abilities. In general we got on well together though early on I learned
not to offer cigarettes from an open packet as ten would be accepted in
one grasp with profuse thanks, rather I found it more economical to hand
them out one at a time in which case I would have some left for myself.
There were Iraqis who showed an aptitude for our type of work, some
indeed who were smarter than we were and where possible they were
trained as tradesmen. Some difficulties were encountered such as when a
sergeant-instructor was told by his pupil that there was no such thing
as the law of gravity, it was the pressure of air that kept things on
the earth. Generally however the training was successful. Life was not
without its humour, one trainee was given for his trade test two pieces
of green wood to weld together, and he tried. After a minute the
instructor said, "How're you doing, Johnny?" "Thik hai, Sahib." replied
Johnny as clouds of acrid blue smoke enveloped him, smiling as he went
about his impossible job. After a while he realised that he was being
teased and took the joke in good humour. He was then given the real
test which he passed easily.
Eventually the time came for No.5 ABW to disband. There were no special
farewells but an informal parade took place at which we were thanked for
our services; after that we dispersed but not before we set fire to the
officers' latrines and enjoyed the sight of some tardy members fleeing
the flames. I forget the actual details of our departure, we were split
up to some extent and I together with others boarded the train,
southward bound, heading for our new home, No.1 Base Workshops, Shaiba.