Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8: TROOPSHIP

Our convoy must have been an impressive sight. Twenty troopships, converted passenger liners, steamed ahead in formation, about a quarter of a mile apart. The battle cruiser Malaya made her stately progress alongside. Four escorting destroyers circled the convoy, sometimes dashing off at full speed, cleaving the waves in spectacular fashion in response to an alarm. The Malaya had on board a small Walrus biplane, a 'pusher' with the propeller at the rear, which would occasionally chug around overhead.

The chief danger to the convoy was from German submarines. There was also a risk of bombs or torpedoes from aircraft, and the looming hazard of a lethal attack from any German battleships in the South Atlantic. In the event, though there were two or three alerts, none of these dangers materialised. In order to deceive the enemy, the convoy followed a devious route, our north-western progress taking us towards Greenland. Presumably, on leaving port the captain of each ship opened his sealed orders, and knew his route and destination even if this remained a secret from all the troops. We must have travelled three quarters of the way across the Atlantic before turning south and east. We did not go in a straight line for any distance, but moved in a succession of zig-zags. Thus our course could not be predicted if we should chance to be observed by enemy aircraft or submarines.

This would have confused the enemy, but had its own dangers. At one point the Awatea zigged when the rest of the convoy zagged and we struck our neighbouring troopship a glancing blow. A few railings were bent and our bow dented, but we were able to continue, leaving any repairs until we reached port. Notices were prominently displayed warning us that the convoy would not stop for Man Overboard. The safety of the convoy could not be jeopardised for the sake of one life. As far as I know, we did not lose any men overboard, but the ship's crew may have seen no point in raising the alarm if the convoy was going to pay no attention. Certainly no-one was put at risk by high seas: the Atlantic was uncommonly calm and glassy until we rounded the Cape.

Together with five other subalterns I was housed in a cabin designed for two passengers. My individual patch was on the floor in a narrow passageway leading to the cabin's wash basin, where I would occasionally get trodden on or tripped over by my companions. We were a bit cramped, but this was the height of luxury compared with the conditions in which the troops lived, ate, and slept. They slept in three layers in the mess decks, the top row in hammocks suspended from the ceiling, the middle layer on the mess tables, and the third on the floor. In daytime the hammocks were stowed and the troops ate their meals on the tables. At night there was scarcely any space between the bodies for air to circulate, and the portholes were kept closed and blacked out. It was forbidden to sleep on deck, but I expect that some soldiers disregarded this as we approached the tropics — and probably risked sleeping in the lifeboats, though the penalty for discovery would have been severe.

The officers were engaged in tactical military exercises to keep us busy, and we joined our troops in physical training on deck. We had frequent lifeboat drill, parading on deck wearing our lifebelts. On some occasions we had a full rehearsal, the lifeboats being lowered to ensure that they were in working order. The troops constantly played bingo, or ‘Housey-housey' to give it its military name. All other forms of gambling were strictly forbidden, in order to protect the more gullible soldiers from exploitation by more worldy-wise comrades, and the bingo was conducted under the supervision of a warrant officer.

We followed news of the war on the BBC bulletins. In mid-Atlantic we heard of the Allied raid on Dieppe. At first we thought this was the start of the Second Front in Europe — until the withdrawal was reported. The episode was presented as a successful raid to test the enemy's defences, in fact it was a disastrous failure in which the Allies suffered severe casualties, especially the Canadians who felt very bitter about it.

The fail of Tobruk was of more immediate concern to us. Though we still had no clue to our destination, Egypt was obviously one of the more probable. Tobruk had held fast when besieged in the first German advance into Egypt. Militarily it was a thorn in Rommel's side: symbolically it represented far more than that — the heroism of its defenders was legendary. We know now that Churchill was deeply affected by the surrender. The South African Division of the Tobruk garrison surrendered ignominiously. Honour was preserved by many of the soldiers of the Fourth Indian Division who escaped individually through enemy lines and made their way back across hundreds of miles of desert to rejoin the Allied armies. The loss of Tobruk boded ill for the British and Australian troops holding the line in Egypt against Rommel's further advance towards the Nile Delta.

The colonel of our new regiment, a regular soldier of course, was an irresolute and hesitant commander. He knew that in the tropics, the traditional wisdom of the Army — and indeed of the entire British Empire — was that pith helmets had to be worn when you were out in the sun. As we approached the tropics he stood anxiously on deck, scanning the neighbouring ships through his binoculars. When he saw the first topee appear on the deck of the next troopship he gave the order for us to follow suit. The next day our neighbours appeared to have reversed the order, but our colonel thought we had better play safe and keep ourselves protected.

The heat increased as we crossed the equator with the sun vertically overhead. Showers were available but it was not easy to have a satisfactory wash. There was plenty of water on the ship but it was all sea water, except for the drinking water ration. We were issued with a special soap that was supposed to be usable in sea water but it wasn’t. We were permanently salty and sticky.

Apart from such minor troubles, the voyage through tropical waters was an exhilarating delight. We were surrounded by schools of flying fish by day and by waves of phosphorescence by night. The convoy called in to refuel at Freetown in Sierra Leone. The ships anchored three miles from shore: this was believed to keep us beyond the range of malarial mosquitoes. The Malaya had now left us but we still had our four destroyers. In the wide natural harbour of Freetown a large part of the British Navy lay at anchor, ready to sally forth and fight if the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, giant battleships of the German fleet, should appear in the South Atlantic. In Freetown Harbour HMS Rodney and Nelson lay in wait, together with countless other fighting ships of the Royal Navy. For us it was a historic occasion to witness such an array of British naval might.

After three days off Freetown the convoy zig-zagged southward towards the Cape of Good Hope. Still we had no idea of our ultimate destination. Ten ships of the convoy split off to head towards Capetown. Our half of the fleet of troopships headed round the Cape towards Durban. Both Capetown and Durban were intermediate ports where troops would transfer to other ships, their destination then being determined by the state of the war in the various theatres. Approaching and rounding the Cape we had our first experience of heavy seas. The great liner rolled alarmingly from side to side as the South Atlantic met the Indian Ocean. Other more complex rotatory motions induced a sense of acute nausea. I was the regiment's Orderly Officer on the night we rounded the Cape. My duties included ‘exercising control over sea sickness’ but with no guidance as to how this should be done. I paid dutiful visits to the mess decks which were filled with groaning soldiers and awash with vomit overflowing blocked lavatories. I could do little but add my contribution. After my third visit below decks I admitted defeat and handed over to a fellow officer who thought he could cope better. I believe he did so by making no further ventures into the chaos below.

The sea returned to calm after we rounded the Cape. At last, five weeks after we sailed from Glasgow, we landed on the palm-fringed coast of Durban. Before leaving the Awatea we were warned that the South Africans had strange customs that we would be expected to observe, such as separating the facilities for white people from those for people with darker skins. We were warned also that we would not find universal enthusiasm for fighting the war. The South African government under General Smuts had won only a narrow parliamentary majority for entering the war on the Allied side. In the event we had little contact with the local population. The whole regiment, numbering almost a thousand, was accommodated in neat rows in a vast warehouse five miles to the north of the city. From there we would march our troops down to the beaches for bathing parades. I used to enjoy swimming in the surf of the Durban beaches where the great waves rolled in from the Indian Ocean. It was disconcerting that the beaches were designated for whites only.

One day some of us took part in a tour of the interior, where we visited African villages. More ambitious trips were out of the question, as we might get our sailing orders at any time, depending on the availability of shipping. In fact our stay in Durban lasted for twenty-eight days. The Colonel, having overcome his problem about pith helmets, now developed a morbid fear of letting any soldiers wander about freely in case they should be tempted to desert and he should get a black mark for it. His paranoia about desertion led him, when we at last got our embarkation orders, to cancel the normal evening permission for soldiers to leave the warehouse (provided they were back by ten o’clock).

That evening I was Orderly Officer for the Battery. My duty was to call the roll at ten p.m. and to report any absentees to the Adjutant of the Regiment. At ten I walked up and down the rows of mattresses allocated to my Battery, where everyone was to stand by their beds for roll call. There were many gaps in the serried ranks which I duly counted. Sergeants Behan and Regan were nowhere to be seen. Four worried Orderly Officers reported to the Adjutant. It fell to me to make the first report. “Sixty-eight absentees, Sir". My total was exceeded by two other batteries. The total score of absentees that the Adjutant had to report to the Colonel was over three hundred. The Colonel no doubt assumed that they had all deserted in order to avoid the rigours of a desert or jungle campaign. I expect he had a bad night.

Later that night, and through to the dawn, three hundred soldiers returned in ones and twos to the warehouse, many of them rather the worse for wear. Despite the restrictions, many of them had made friends in Durban with local girls or families. They had decided they were not going to sacrifice their last night of freedom. By morning parade the Regiment was complete to the last man.

In the morning we had a six mile march down to the docks to embark on the next stage of our journey into battle. About ten of my troop could barely stand upright. The prospect of their marching six miles was dim. Sergeant Scarlett rose to the occasion: it was his finest hour. “I’ll sort them out, Sir” he said as the troop paraded for inspection. He placed all the casualties in the centre rank and advised me to complete my inspection as quickly as possible before anyone fell over. Then “left turn, quick march” and every unsteady gunner was supported on either side by a relatively stable comrade. We made it to the docks without anyone toppling over. I cannot say that the spectators saw the British Army at its best. The Afrikaners were no doubt confirmed in their belief that the Allies would lose the war.

The next stage of our journey was not made in convoy. From Durban, troops sailed in single ships. Ours was the ‘Kosciusko’, an old Polish coal-burning vessel built in 1906. It was named after the Polish explorer who discovered the highest mountain in Australia, which is named after him. Not many Australians can name the highest mountain in their country, but I can. We were soon to look back nostalgically on the luxury of the Awatea. All the food on the Kosciusco was rotten. There were weevils in the bread and the porridge. Slabs of chocolate loaded on board in the distant past had become totally indistinguishable from their paper wrappings after repeated crossings of the equator. Fortunately the voyage was brief. In ten days we rounded Mauritius and called at Aden at the entrance to the Red Sea.

Aden had little reason for existence except as a coaling — later an oil — port Ragged teams of the local population covered with coal dust shovelled coal into our hold. It looked like a scene out of Hell. The heat at Aden was intolerable. It was worse as we made our way up the Red Sea in August. Whatever our orders, no-one could be expected to sleep below decks with closed portholes. All of us, officers and soldiers alike, slept stark naked on the deck, revelling in the feel on our skin of the slight breeze created by the leisurely movement of the ship. From time to time a sleeper would awake with a start and a curse as a burning spark from the funnel singed a sensitive part of his anatomy. We passed Socotra, an arid red rock sticking out of the Red Sea, and nosed our way into Port Tewfiq at the south end of the Suez Canal.

We were to join the Eighth Army.

Troop inspection in Durban: August 1942 The picture above shows a troop inspection by the Colonel, wearing Sam Browne belt, followed by the Battery Commander Major Geoffrey Armitage. I am standing to attention in front of my troop. On the left of the front rank (right of picture) is Sergeant Behan, to his right Sergeant Garswood, to the right again the tall figure of Bombardier Kenyon who was robbed of all his money when he was drugged on a visit to a Cairo brothel. The big man in the rear, visible behind Behan’s right shoulder, is Sergeant Scarlett. The smallest man in the front row, three to the right of Kenyon, is Gunner ‘Cheeky’ Cole: I mistakenly thought it my duty to persuade him to marry a girl who came to me in distress shortly before we embarked, telling me that Cole had made her pregnant and what was I going to do about it.

Next: Chapter 9: Desert War