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Some of the following is in the first person, written by Cliff, the rest, in the third person, by me ~ Ian
Out of hospital
The time came for Popeye and Ben to go home, and we decided on a party. John Mcllroy had smuggled in the odd bottle of beer, which we hid under the blankets until the Sister departed, and now we needed much more. I don’t remember how much beer we had, but my bed rattled each time I moved and there was more hidden behind the head of the bed.
Sisters Whitten and Johnson must have known what was going on but didn’t take any notice. I was confined to bed, so the party centred around my own and Popeye’s bed, just across from mine. It was a happy and merry occasion. One can’t drink too much beer without requiring use of a different sort of a bottle. Someone bet me that I couldn’t use that bottle and drink a full bottle of beer without stopping. I accepted the challenge, and won.
And so we bid goodbye to Popeye and Ben, who left the next morning. Next to go was Hoppy, and I was sad to see him go. Like Lucky, he had been good company. He took with him a parcel for Dorothy, which included my famous “bullet”. I often wonder what happened to these people in later life.
My own stay at the Hospital was drawing to a close. We were shifted to Ward 14, where I met again some of those I’d been with previously. A happy reunion.
One morning, when I was up and about again, Dr. Hudson asked me how I felt. Did I have any sort of heavy work to do in my unit?
How was I to answer that? I said I had no way of anticipating what I’d have to do. I didn’t tell him that an 11 Set weighed about 80 lbs and under some conditions had to be carried into action. Thankfully, I never had to do that.
He seemed almost apologetic when he told me that I would have to be returned to my unit. He had arranged for me to send some time in a Rest Home at Sidi Bishr, in Alexandria, and from there to go to a Convalescent camp in Palestine. Dr. Hudson was a good Doctor and a fine gentleman, and I am very grateful for what he did for me. I think I said, “Thank you, Sir.”
The night before I left, John McIlroy had arranged a farewell party. I borrowed one of John’s battledresses and we began the evening in the skating rink, having a few drinks. John, Cliff Smith and one or two other Orderlies, and myself. Later we returned to their hut where we had soup, sausages and beans on toast, followed by coffee. We had a singsong. John had a very good voice and one song I loved to hear him sing was the Eriskay Love Lilt. It was a very enjoyable evening and my only regret was that the others in my ward couldn’t be there to enjoy it too. It was sad to be leaving these people, most of whom I would never see again.
The next morning, 1st March 1942, I was a soldier again, decked out in a new battle dress. Up at 5.30 a.m., breakfasted, medically inspected and, after hasty goodbyes, on my way by 8 a.m.
The operation had removed the bullet but not the pain. It still hurt when I walked. During the war I could walk at best about 200 yards before it began to grab, and the further I walked the worse it got. It made me irritable and bad tempered — the further I walked the worse my temper! In later years I could only walk for about 100 yards before it began to hurt. It doesn’t hurt often now, since I had a prostate operation about 3 years ago. Months later I suddenly realised that it didn’t hurt anymore. By accident, or design, my surgeon had cured it — he’d probably released an adhesion.
When I left hospital my understanding was that I’d nearly died of pneumonia, but in 1987 — when I demanded to see my files as part of an ongoing battle with War Pensions! — I was astounded to read that my chest was “…clear. Area around bullet abscessed.”
I’m left with one other reminder, a low volume, high pitched tinging in my right ear from that first mortar blast.
Alexandria
Cliff and a bunch of others went by train to recuperate in a salubrious beach front rest home in Sidi Bishr, Alexandria. First impressions were better than Cairo but once again it was a far cry from North Auckland.
One day he took stroll along the beach to see King Farouk’s summer palace. He hadn’t got far before he was confronted by an armed guard with a shotgun, who showed every intention of using it.
On another hot day they were lounging on the beach when — extraordinary in a Muslim country, they thought — there came towards them, with an escort of four armed guards, a “shapely, sensuous” young woman dressed in a scarlet swimsuit of the finest silk, which clung to her body like skin.
His stay at the rest home was all too short and he was soon back in camp, sleeping on sand. He had a job as tea and cocoa maker for the 500 men in camp. This bothered him a bit until he realised there wasn’t much to do beyond serving it out, and he got to share the specials that the cooks prepared for themselves. Steak and onions were best.
§
The clash between their morals and the temptations of the city continued to bother him and his mates. They went to a night club to see the belly dancers. If you bought a girl a drink she’d sit on your knee — and doubtless more for a price — but the prospect didn’t appeal and they stumbled out on the street slightly inebriated and caught the tram back to camp.
On another excursion, past the brothel area, they decided to take an educational tour. As they entered a young white woman dashed out of a room and asked for the time. “Is it time for bed?” they asked. “No,” she said. “I have to get home to look after the children.”
Cliff wrote later that “we heard of blokes being ‘killed in action’ while in a brothel during a bombing raid.”
On another day three of them went out, got their boots polished, paid the boys double for their sterling efforts and sat on the sea wall. There were some women hunting for shellfish, and they went down to watch a grandmother, her daughter and two grandkids. Grandma, wet through, was hunting for the shellfish and Mum was eating most of them. Grandma, friendly, gave the boys a few too, which they reckoned tasted pretty good. The two young girls were too shy to engage until they got back to the beach club balcony, where the girls returned their wave.
By this time they were desperately missing female company, and were “annoyed to hear of the invasion of New Zealand and Australia by American troops while we are stuck over here.”
§
Cliff’s two best mates at this time were “the two Johns”, Colley and McIlroy. Both were older than him. John McIlroy became a lifelong friend. John Colley was a 36 year-old widower with two children who “looked 28” and tried to pass off Cliff as his son. They’d rarely been separated since they were in Convalescent Depot together. Colley had a girlfriend in Tel Aviv. Another friend was a Maori, Jack Edwards, who’d used to work for the McCarrolls and thought they were very fine people. Cliff thought Jack was a fine man himself.
§
Although life in camp was a tedious round of morse practice, parades and infantry training, leave in Alexandria was great. They stayed at the YMCA, where the food was better than in a New Zealand hotel. You could get your laundry done overnight and enjoy breakfast in bed at 7.00 a.m. 50 years later Cliff wrote that every time he had an omelette he thought of Miss Barton of Dunedin, the YMCA Manager, who made the best he ever tasted. They visited the catacombs, various defaced antiquities, Pompeii’s massive triumphal pillar, the zoo, and a beautiful Greek church, with biblical scenes on the gold walls and a portrait of Christ on the domed ceiling. They also inspected the bomb damaged waterfront.
§
Unsurprisingly the Kiwi boys kicked against the pricks of what they saw as unnecessary military discipline, especially when they didn’t like the pricks handing it out. Now that he was back in signal school he was regularly sent out on overnight radio watch. John Colley and Cliff headed out on a truck at 5.00 pm one night taking with them, in lieu of dinner, a Primus stove, a tin of bully beef, two packets of “concrete” biscuits, tea and a couple of spoons of sugar to share between them.
“We don’t mind existing on such rations when up in the blue but putting up with it here is a bit rough. I suppose they want to keep us in trim. We took with us a transmitter and all of the necessary equipment and were dumped off by a truck somewhere in the vicinity of Wadi Digla. We stuck up our tent fly and John got the set under way while I cooked dinner. I had a tin of coffee and milk and a tin of jam from my personal supply, which came in handy. I had scrounged around in the mess room for bread and butter before we left, but the cupboards were bare.
They passed practice messages until 9.00pm, and after that were supposed to keep a half-hourly radio watch in case of further messages. Instead they all went to sleep at 10.00pm. They’d been working around the clock in the field and didn’t see why they should have to do the same here.
In action these exchanges would have been done when quiet, to ration battery consumption — charging batteries was a “cursed job”. But when they turned in for the night like this, their immediate problem was waking up at 4.15 in time for the 4.30 radio call, then packing up ready to be collected at 5.00am.
One morning Second Lt Jack Snow, who was a friend from the Divisional sports team the previous year, arrived a little late — at 5.15. But they were still sleep when Jack arrived.
“We had all arranged to go to sleep at 10.00pm and our radio diaries had also been pre-arranged.”
They were well and truly stirred up. “The only crime in the Army is to get caught.”
§
One officer they had issues with was Captain Borman, who went on to write the Div Sigs War History after the war. Captain Borman had Cliff on the mat for being five minutes late to 10.30 parade. Regimental Sergeant Major “Uncle” Brian Farquhar paraded Cliff before the judge, Captain Ted Fry, who said, “How do you plead?”
“Guilty, Sir,” I said.
“What d’you have to say for yourself, soldier?”
As best as he could remember it, Cliff replied, “Sir, I believe that a 10 minute break from duty is not long enough. In that time we have to drink a very hot mug of tea. Our rifles have to be cleaned ready for inspection. We have to walk to our huts from the Mess Room and back again, and perform other necessary functions such as visiting the latrine.
“In my case, Sir, I am also suffering from tinea of the crutch.”
By the that time everybody was laughing, with the possible exception of Capt. Borman.
“Very well,” said Captain Fry, “Consider yourself reprimanded.”
Cliff had it in for Captain Borman, who he reckoned got certain details wrong when Cliff was mentioned in the war history regarding the Battle of El Alamein.
This was the only time he was “on the mat”, he reckoned, but there were certainly other occasions where Cliff took exception to officer presumptuousness. One was when he shouldered his way aggressively through a bunch of nattering “Pommy” officers who were taking up the entire pavement in Palestine, and ignoring the enlisted men around them.
§
Cliff also met up again with his former offsider, Wilo, who’d managed to get himself evacuated to the Regimental Aid Post before the action at Sidi Resegh.
“Wilo is now in charge of the Officers’ Mess, and he has two stripes up. The job will suit him for he was always hungry. He was examined by Doctors the other day but hasn’t yet heard the results. So far he has been graded fit and he looks it. He is quite fat.
“There was no mention of the problems he left me to contend with.”
Meantime his records had caught with “the powers that be”, and as arranged by Captain Hudson before he was discharged from hospital, he was off for further convalescence in Palestine.