African Interlude
The rude manner in which our hopes of going home had been shattered, left us wandering round Taranto like ships without rudders. We had come here solely for the purpose of embarking for England and now that this prospect was indefinitely postponed, we seemed lost and out of place in this busy port, with even our immediate future a completely closed book to us.
For two days we explored this extraordinary town. It was extraordinary because the central part was built on a small island, and this was only connected to the mainland by a swing bridge which spanned a narrow channel separating the inner from the outer harbours. Every time a normal sized ship wanted to pass through this channel, the bridge had to be swung round to allow her to go through, and thus, for the period required for this operation the centre of the town was completely cut off from its outskirts. Usually it happened that the bridge was ‘up’ for an hour in the busiest part of the afternoon, so that streams of vehicles jammed up against each other on either side waiting to cross, while the pedestrians too massed at both ends of the gap. It seemed a most primitive arrangement for so large and thriving a port.
But meanwhile Harry, who in Paddy’s absence was left in command of us, had been busy arranging for our disposal. We knew nothing about all this until early one morning we were marched out of the transit camp and down to the docks, where we embarked on a fleet of American LCIs.
These were too small a craft to take us to England, and ruling out that possibility, we were left completely in the dark as to our destination, until word was passed round that we were bound for North Africa, and that we would proceed to Philippeville and there remain as the guests of the 2nd SAS Regiment until our future was decided.
The voyage across the wintry Mediterranean was far from comfortable. Instead of the blue skies and smiling sea to which we had grown so accustomed during the summer months a bleak and cheerless view met our eyes. A sharp breeze tore at the surface of the steely water, whipping it into an angry motion which tossed our small craft hither and thither; rain, drizzle and fog exercised their customary depressing effect, and our spirits were therefore not high as we steamed away from Europe and back to Africa.
We could not help being amused at some of the methods the American navy had adopted, especially in connection with their navigation, and these at first caused us some concern! At the time when we were nearly level with Catania, on our journey southwards, Tony as was his custom, was on the bridge chatting to the skipper and the first mate, and asked when we could expect to reach Bizerta. The skipper replied that as they were now almost level with the toe of Italy it would be a good 48 hours steaming before we reached there!
Tony looked at him in amazement. ‘But surely we are now just passing Sicily,’ he exclaimed, looking at the well-known, regular slopes of Etna, clearly visible above its surrounding foothills, ‘that must be Mount Etna over there.’
‘Oh no’, replied the American naval officer, confidently, ‘that mountain is a mountain in Southern Italy!’
Tony did not argue with him, although in his own mind he was positive that the skipper was mistaken, but by tactful enquiries he was able to establish the fact that neither of the officers on our particular craft had learned anything about navigation, that there was only one navigator in the whole flotilla, and that it was up to all the LCIs to keep well in sight of his ship!
We could not help wondering what would happen if the flotilla were to become separated in storm, fog or night, and what our ultimate destination was likely to be under those circumstances. However, fortunately no such thing occurred and we woke up one morning two days later to find ourselves in Bizerta harbour, as expected.
Extraordinary rumours were flying round Bizerta harbour that morning. Something was in the air and moreover, obviously something of the utmost importance, of that the American dockworkers were certain. In fact there was much talk to the effect that the Germans had made a peace overture, and that even now some Nazi general was on the way over to discuss terms. Otherwise why had the anti-aircraft defences of the harbour been warned not to fire at any unidentified planes that morning?
The Americans were certain that a large scale and important peace move was in progress, and so sure of this were they that many of them were staking high bets to that effect with our lads. We did not know what to believe, but we certainly had far more doubts than the Americans that the observed activity was due to the possibility of an armistice. But we were curious to know what lay behind all these rumours, since it was obvious that they could not have arisen from nothing. Only several days later did we learn that at that time the Teheran Conference was taking place, and that it was this which had given rise to all those vague and conflicting reports at Bizerta, and moreover which had caused the postponement of our posting home.
We were spared having to submit ourselves to the rigours of Bizerta transit camp. For Harry, on seeing the unnecessarily uncomfortable conditions which prevailed there, arranged an immediate train journey to Philippeville where we were to join the 2nd SAS Regiment.
Thus we spent the night spread out on the floor of a number of cattle trucks which bumped and jolted their way along the railway line to Philippeville, which, so we understood, lay along the coast about 300 miles to the west.
Two days and three nights were spent in that cattle truck before we eventually arrived at Philippeville early one morning. It was a far from comfortable journey, especially since the truck had previously been used for transporting coal, with the result that by the end of the journey, our clothes and bodies were black with grime and filth. The smoothness of our motion was further impaired, by the fact that the Arab brakeman inadvertently forgot to take off the brake for a considerable stretch of the journey, with the result that, after we had pointed out his error to him and this had been rectified, we found the wheel in question had become a trifle elliptical from the rough treatment it had had to undergo, and we thus spent the rest of the journey bumping up and down as though crossing a ploughed field on a bicycle!
Another amusing incident took place on one of the nights which we spent travelling in this way. All the officers had managed to get together in one truck, and had so spread themselves out, that it seemed that there was not an inch of floor space left unused. In the middle of the night, Johnny Wiseman woke up to find, that there was considerably less space than usual in which to move around. He could not account for the exceptionally tight squeeze, until he became aware of an inert sleeping figure occupying most of the small empty square around the doorway.
Now who on earth can that be? thought Johnny, by now wide awake, and sitting up to try and see which officer had moved from his customary sleeping position. But no, we were all accounted for, and there was still no clue as to the identity of the recumbent form by the doorway. By this time Johnny’s curiosity had been thoroughly aroused, so that at length the vague and unpleasant suspicion formulating in his mind drove him out of his bed with the intention of giving the stranger a thorough shake and in this way finding out who he was. With a grunt, the sleeper awoke, stretched himself lazily, and then slowly looked up to see who had so roughly disturbed his slumbers. Johnny found himself gazing down at the unshaven face of an Arab, still completely at his ease, and unperturbed by his rude awakening! With a shriek of rage Johnny hurled himself at our nocturnal visitor, raising sufficient clamour to waken us all, and stir us into some semblance of action. The offender was dealt with in no gentle manner and cast off the train with a marked lack of respect.
The camp at Philippeville was one of the most charming I have ever seen. Beautifully kept paths ran through the bush-covered coastal sand dunes, on and around which the tents were pitched, in delightful irregularity. The undulating hillocks and undergrowth so divided up the camp that we were able to experience a pleasant sensation of solitude even when right in the middle of the camp area.
The night after our arrival a guest night was given in our honour in the officers’ mess – after a first class meal, three pipers from a neighbouring unit were called in to play, marching round the tables as they piped, in the traditional manner. The colonel of the 2nd SAS, Bill Stirling – who incidentally was the brother of our former CO, David Stirling – delivered a speech of welcome. A very charming and sociable man, I thought him, but unpractical like his brother and without the compensating verve, dash and personality which had made David Stirling such an extraordinary character.
Dances were also organized in the camp, and for the first time since they left England many of the men were able to meet English girls in civilian clothes many of whom had come out to North Africa to work for NAAFI and had not at that time been issued with uniforms. The situation was considerably confused by there being many French girls also at these dances, and so the men soon found that they had to be very careful to whom they were talking, for it was at first difficult for them to know that the partner they had chosen might be able to speak English as well as they. In fact, one of the sergeants received quite a surprise when, in the casual manner which had been generally adopted in Egypt and Italy, he strolled over to ask a girl to dance. He felt sure that she was French, and was thus not too particular as to the words he used to request the pleasure of the next dance. His actual words were something like: ‘Come on, worm, let’s wriggle,’ but the wind was taken right out of his sails when he discovered that he was addressing an English NAAFI girl!
The longer we remained at Philippeville, the more confident we felt that very shortly we would be sent home after all. This optimism was, of course, entirely without foundation, and merely based on our conviction that Paddy, now in England, would be pulling all the strings in his power to get us over to join him. Everything was taken as a sign that soon we would be moving – a kit exchange, an issue of new battledress, signals from Paddy and Movement Control, and so when the movement order did eventually come no undue excitement was felt; no surprise or incredulity, for that was exactly what we had expected and had known would happen.
One morning, about a week before Christmas we found ourselves huddled once more in a filthy cattle truck, bound this time for Algiers. Indeed there had been no mention of our embarking there for home, but we were only too ready to put two and two together, knowing that Algiers was the port from which repatriation to England took place from North Africa.
After 48 hours in this crowded and uncomfortable train, which swallowed up the miles to Algiers so interminably slowly, we eventually arrived at our destination and were at once taken by transport to the transit camp in the Bois de Ferdinand, about 15 miles outside the town. As its name suggests, the camp was sited in a wood, not a nice, dry sheltering pinewood, but a tangle of undergrowth winding round the trunks of the scattered larger trees. It was pouring with rain as we arrived, and continued to do so for the remaining two days we were there. The water running in small rivers from the branches above, continually dripped on us as we passed below; the tents leaked and were so short of pegs that they seemed likely to be blown away by the wind at any moment; the ground became nothing more than a quagmire of red mud which sucked greedily at our boots and seriously impeded our movement. These were not the sort of surroundings any of us would voluntarily have chosen in which to celebrate Christmas, but we naturally could not have everything our way, and if this time we really were on our way home, then this fact alone was sufficient to offset the discomfort of our present conditions.
Even when the news that we were to embark for England was announced, many of us were sceptical. But we need not have worried. One such disappointment as we had experienced at Taranto was quite enough, and on this occasion nothing went wrong to interfere with the smooth operation of the embarkation programme.
We embarked on Christmas evening. Our Christmas dinner was eaten from our mess tins, as we stood under the dripping trees of the forest, with the rain soaking through our clothes and the mud weighing heavily on our boots. Nothing could have been more miserable and were we not on our way home we would certainly have been sadly depressed by these conditions. But we were kept sufficiently occupied to prevent ourselves from being overwhelmed with nostalgic memories of Christmases spent under happier circumstances, for no sooner was the Christmas dinner finished, than the roll was called and the squadron was bundled into trucks which bumped their way down to Algiers harbour.
And there she lay – the ship which was to take us home, looking incredibly beautiful in our eyes for this very reason!
We filed aboard her, as quickly as we could, so that we could be installed before the authorities changed their minds again and told us that we would not be going – for many of the men were firmly convinced that it was someone’s job in Movement Control to raise our hopes and then to disappoint us again. But if this was the case he certainly slipped up badly on this occasion, for on the morning of 26 December, 1943 we slipped out of Algiers harbour on the start of our journey across the sea back to England.