My Life by Lionel Graves. (Page 19)
Monday 7th Jan. Missed parade this morning and cleaned a few windows to dodge fatigues. Went to NAFFI for supper in the evening. Had letters from Jean and Fred Large, answered Fred's letter (!)
Tuesday 8th Jan. Was on fatignes in morning but got off because I was room orderly...
(Here the diary peters out)
Meals were served in the dining hall – obvious enough I suppose – and when we had finished we had to empty the remains in our mess tins on large marble slabbed tables outside, flocks of kite hawks, huge birds used to swoop down to pick up the scraps of food, never hitting us but a wing span of a couple of feet, pretty scary, we used to call them shite hawks!.
One of our jobs was collecting 15ewt trucks and water carriers for new regiments just coming out. Once it was for the XII Lancers who came in looking so spick and spam it put us to shame, we had come in looking a real shambles.
Once four or five of us met a sergeant in the Cherrypickers, I can't remember their actual name. He had won an MM in the desert campaign against Rommell and told us they had captured some Afrika Korps prisoners after a battle in which his mates friend had been killed. His mate ordered the Germans to go along in front of their tank with hands on heads, then he opened fire with the machine gun and killed the lot. We all went to the pictures where he put his hand on my knee. I think he was gay, so I just took it off!
We used to go into Cairo on the no. 23 tram, (I think) as it rattled and clanged its way in you would never lean an arm on the window ledge or someone would slash your watch strap and grab the watch. We could only go in when a certain flag was flying in the barracks, if it was black that meant that the mobs were rioting and the town out of bounds, troops had been caught and literally torn limb from limb by the crowds. Boot blacks used to be a menace, pestering they would splash a blob of gooey polish on boots, then offer to clean it off, no, no, no! One followed me when on my own and wouldn't stop, so I unbuckled my belt, the only weapon I had, he started to draw a knife but luckily backed away when I went forward, he must have been all of 13 or 14 years old.
We went to the open air pictures in camp a lot, the “akker gaff” it was called for some reason, akkers being the slang for piastres. You sat in old fashioned wicker chairs and there was a tall reed like fence all round to stop people seeing it for free. A most romantic setting especially with the introductory music which was always Bing Crosby singing 'Down in the Valley', no wonder its still one of my favourites. There were NAAFI, Church Canteens and our favourite the Sally Ann or Salvation Army at Scots Corner where we could get a bit of a break from the military routine.
Because there were so few of us in camp and drafts were coming or going, we were always being called on to do the odd fatigues and dirty jobs so I acquired quite an art of dodging them. I would disappear into the lavatory at parade time and there find a quiet corner and pretend to be doing a job until 11am, then into the NAAFI for the morning break of tea and delicious cream doughnuts and stay talking till lunch time – you were safe in the afternoon because that was siesta or rest time and in the clear till next morning. I managed to keep this up for quite some time, you learn a certain low cunning in the army. Until one day a corporal came up to me in the NAAFI and told me that the sergeant wanted to see me in the squadron office. I reported in fear and trembling but all he said was, “I didn't want to see you, but now you are here there's a fatigue detail for guarding German P.O.W's that you can go on”. Talk about poetic justice.
Email: Lionel Graves (lionel@graf-tek.com).
Copyright ©2000-2008 L. Graves. All Rights Reserved.
