Part 10

In the army I came across quite a cross section of humanity, running the whole gamut of characters. I am reminded of a sergeant-major, a peace time regular, who discovered one day that things were missing from the Company Office; he decided to do something about it. In the office there was a large wicker basket used for laundry and into this he contorted himself pulling down the lid nearly shut so he could peep out and identify the thieves. He waited and waited but nobody came in because the word had got around; eventually he emerged very stiffly, defeated. Early one morning he had occasion to phone the captain; it was a wall mounted instrument, he took the receiver off its hook and stood rigidly to attention facing the mouthpiece; when the captain answered he snapped a perfectly smart salute and said, "Good morning, Sir -- I am now saluting you." And then he carried on with whatever else he had to say.

I forget exactly how it came about but one time when I was in Baghdad I got roped in for guard duty, this time it was to watch over a prisoner. The prison was only a tent top surrounded with barbed wire and there was only one prisoner. It was all very informal, we chatted a bit and he didn't seem to be at all concerned with his predicament. I asked him what he was doing there and he said that he was being charged with theft. "Of what?" I asked. "A jeep," he replied.

Apparently he had acquired a jeep and sold it to an Arab. "For how much?" I asked. "Four hundred dinars." he answered. At that time the Iraqi dinar and the British pound were at par. He seemed to be quite happy, perhaps he had the money stashed away somewhere.

A new item was now added to our kit to improve our lot; to alleviate some of the discomfort and soreness around our shirt collars due to perspiration we were issued with scarves puggree, squares of light cloth, khaki coloured. This was the same material that was wound around the crowns of our pith helmets; some lads, fashion conscious, decided not to wear them in the accepted manner and this led to an order being issued to the effect that 'scarves puggree will be worn loosely around the neck and not in a triangular cowboy fashion."

Most of us were classified in one of many trades but there were a few who were not tradesmen and they were classified as general duties and they could be given any task not requiring any special skill. Three of these were attached to the Company Office where their main duty seemed to be making tea. A vacancy occurred in one of the workshops for a clerical type and I was ordered to take this job on a short term basis, for about three weeks. I didn't jump at the chance, actually I didn't think much of the idea but I went. The work was simple, checking parts in and out of the shop and took in total less than 30 minutes a day and it was boring, boring. The three weeks stretched into six weeks and eventually into ten weeks. I complained several times that the job could be easily done by a general duties type but was constantly fobbed off. After a while I asked to see the colonel and then the bureaucracy slowly slipped into gear, my request went upwards from rank to rank until at last an appointment was made for two weeks hence. The very morning that I was to see the colonel I was told to get back to the DO again. When I approached him after going through the rigmarole of marching in, saluting smartly and agreeing that I was indeed the soldier he thought I was he said,

"You have a complaint?"

"Yessir."

"You want to return to the Drawing Office?"

"Yessir."

"But I see you are back there already."

"Yessir, this morning"

"Then there doesn't seem to be any complaint now does there?"

"No Sir."

"Now don't think that your return has anything to do with your making a complaint, it's purely coincidental."

"No Sir, certainly not, Sir." I lied.

"Dismiss." I did so, inwardly fuming at having to take part in this farce that could have been settled weeks before at a lower level and which would have saved the colonel from looking so foolish.

Opportunities sometimes allowed us to do something out of the ordinary and two of us asked if we could spend our two weeks leave in Teheran, in Iran. Strangely enough permission was granted and we set off in the evening crossing into Iran at Ahwaz. The journey took about 20 hours passing through Dizful, Khorramabad, Arak and Qum and countless numbers of tunnels through the mountain ranges before reaching Teheran. It was an interesting trip carried out in upholstered luxury. We were billeted in an army camp but were left to our own devices day and night. After Shaiba Teheran was a lively bustling city; we did some window shopping looking at the Russian made Leica cameras that were much cheaper than but inferior to those made in Germany. There was a plethora of uniforms about of various branches of various forces of various countries not counting the wonderful uniforms of the cinema doormen -- quite confusing; I was saluted several times by Russian soldiers who were probably just as uncertain as I was.

I was caught out by a British major when I failed to salute him; he asked me where I was stationed and when I answered "Shaiba." he enquired, "don't they salute officers there now? They used to when I was Provost Marshal." I had not worn my greatcoat for ages when I was in Shaiba and had not polished the brass but it was much colder in Teheran and I was now wearing it. He eyed the green brass buttons of my greatcoat with disapproval but let me off with a warning as he realised that I was on leave from that God-forsaken spot; I think he felt sorry for me.

We went to a cinema to see Bambi which I had seen before in England but this was different; the sound track was in English with French sub-titles and to one side a separate screen about seven feet square carried the dialogue in Farsi. It was just as well that I had seen it before because those who could read explained the film to those who could not and I could hardly hear the sound track for the constant babble.

Compared to Shaiba the air was cool and crisp and my friend who was a bit of an amateur astronomer said that under the right conditions the planet Mercury could be seen with the naked eye and sure enough under a cloudless sky just after sunset we saw it quite close to the sun's edge; I've often looked for it but I've never seen it since. The reason for our choosing Teheran as a vacation centre was that another couple of members of our group had gone there not long before and spoke of it approvingly; they had stayed a little longer than we and had climbed, or partially climbed, Mount Demavend that was about 19,000 feet high. We had no desire to copy them but spent the best part of a day walking northwards from Teheran seeing the wide open spaces apparently uninhabited apart from the occasional local who viewed us with interest and suspicion as to our intent. In the city one of the main sights was the railway station, an architectural gem that had been built earlier by the Germans. Being a carpet weaving centre there were all shapes, sizes, colours and patterns on display and also for sale, many laid out on the sidewalks to be walked upon by passers-by which surprised us. I wasn't too certain about the sanitary arrangements but on many streets I saw open gutters running between the sidewalk and the road and there seemed to be ample water run-off from the northern highland. All good things have to come to an end and after two weeks we caught the train back to Ahwaz and thence to Shaiba.

For entertainment we had radio programs relayed from Britain but we also picked up programs emanating from Ahwaz which was under American control. Rum and Coca Cola sung by The Andrews Sisters was pounded out at least three times daily. Occasionally boxing was arranged between ourselves and the Americans to what we would call amateur rules, three three-minute rounds with a two-minute break between rounds, no referee in the ring but with the contests bring controlled verbally by an officer at ringside. The styles of the two countries differed and we considered ourselves lucky if we won three out of the ten bouts. Naturally we cheered for our own boxers but were appreciative of any American who adopted the more upright stance rather than the American crouch. There were frequent cinema shows and sometimes ENSA parties visited us on their tours of army bases; twice I recall going to shows given by touring Russian groups; though the language was unintelligible to most of us the types of turns given did not require any great understanding of Russian and their performances were first class. I usually went along fairly early to grab a reasonable seat and was frequently annoyed when I was dispossessed by late arriving superiors; on such occasions I sometimes returned to my billet to read a book or to go to sleep; I was fairly content in my own company.

The army would not be the army if we did not have visitations at times by the top brass. I don't remember and I don't think I ever knew who the officer was who came to inspect our installations; I wasn't much interested. However the Machine Shop was set up to display our talents and virtually every machine was to be working, operators were called in from other jobs where necessary and Johnny Lockett was one such lucky one. Although he was a skilled man he had been put to work driving an internal gharri around the base on trivial errands but now he was called in to stand by a machine that was honing the bores of cylinder blocks and he was doing just that when the top brass came by. The machine had been previously set up.

"And what's going on here?" asked top brass.

"Honing cylinder bores Sir".

"I see, and how metal are you removing?"

"Don't know, Sir."

"You don't know! then what are you doing here?"

"Watching, Sir."