For our last night on board I was picked for guard duty. Why? Perhaps they thought that someone would run off with the ship. Next morning we disembarked and marched up to our new billets on Clairwood Race Course, I was quite weak and unable to carry all my kit, some of my pals carried my rifle and pack for me. I was feeling very groggy but that didn’t stop me from being picked for guard duty again that night. I got the last shift and when I was awakened at 4am I rebelled and said the waiting man could do my turn. Later in the morning I reported sick once more, this time to Clairwood Hospital where I was examined by a South African army doctor. When he had finished he gave me a chit that said, ‘Admit hospital, resolving pneumonia’ and I spent the best part of the next three weeks there, two weeks in bed and a couple of days up and about. I believe I slept for the first 30 hours.
It was an army hospital run on army lines but there were some civilian staff mixed in with the nursing sisters and MO’s. The food was very good and I was surprised to find chicken on the menu quite often; iced water or a lemon drink was kept at the bedside in a little jug covered with a lace cloth to keep the flies off but there were no mosquito nets. At first I didn’t realise what the high pitched buzz in my ears was until I had had a few bites. I recall two nurses, one was a Canadian, an army nursing sister whose name had a Ukrainian ring to it and the other was a South African civilian, Nurse Anderson. The latter who was probably a little bit older than I was prophetically gave us some words of wisdom. The ward cleaning staff was composed of black African men and the British not being particularly racist used to talk to them and give them cigarettes, something that they didn’t from the South African whites. Nurse Anderson said, “You British are spoiling them, when the war is over you’ll be going back to your own country and we’ll be left with the consequences of your actions.” Military discipline was upheld in the wards and when the MO and his following retinue of nurses came on the rounds those who could were told to stand to attention by their beds and those who could not stand were told to lie to attention. More stupidity.
One hospital orderly amused me with his line of thinking; judging by his accent I asked him, “You are an Afrikaner?” “No, no, he replied, “I'm Dutch.” “Surely not,” I said, “the people of Holland are Dutch.” “No, no,” he said again, “they are Hollanders, I'm Dutch.”
On discharge from hospital I was sent to King’s House in Durban for convalescence and was duly fitted out with hospital blues and a red tie. I remember being there for Good Friday and for another couple of days and enjoyed the time touring the city; it was a beautiful place, this was the end of March 1943, their autumn, the right time of the year and the vegetation was lush I was just settling down to a short spell of doing nothing; I wasn’t looking too smart, I used to have my hair cut every two weeks and it was now seven weeks long, additionally the pneumonia had left me with three boils on my face. My convalescence was short lived because I was ordered to report to a hospital, not Clairwood, to be examined to determine if I was fit enough to re-join draft RGDFA. An ambulance arrived and I occupied a stretcher on the upper of two berths, the man on the lower was going to the same hospital. Our ambulance bounced along over dirt roads, it was a very rough ride and after one huge bump my stretcher collapsed and I landed on the fellow below; he wasn’t very pleased with me and I finished the journey sitting down, listening to his constant griping. After a cursory examination by the doctor I was pronounced fit enough to re-join draft RDGFA. He must have known where we were going and he must have known that troops with lung problems were not supposed to be sent there, but there, that’s the military. I suppose that after the war these three doctors, this one and the two on the Antenor, were let loose on the civilian population of Britain, I'm glad I wasn’t one of their patients.
Most of our group had a good time in Durban and were very well treated by the South Africans, when we expressed our thanks they said, “Oh, you should have been here before the Australians came, they nearly wrecked the place.”
Back on the docks we saw our next floating hotel, HMT Aronda; she was much more modern, lighter in build and with finer lines than the old Antenor. Once on board we got into our new routine. The ship had a permanent army officer, OC Troops who, I presume stayed with her on all her voyages. We also had another luxury on board, a real live bugler; his job was to sound off at various periods of the day to announce some activity or other.
As with the Antenor this ship was fitted out with mess tables and attached benches. Early on we had to report to stores and draw hammocks because the sleeping arrangements were similar as well. On the Antenor we had been issued with bottles of fortified lime juice (shades of Captain Cook) but now we were to be issued with bottles of carbonated drinks. We soon set forth, destination still unknown; we were all assigned boat stations and each morning we assembled on deck waiting to be inspected by our betters, looking a little ridiculous in our ‘Bombay bowlers’ and our Bombay bloomers’. The inspection was quite a formal affair as an entourage consisting of the ship’s captain, OC Troops and various others of decreasing rank, a lance-corporal as the caboose, traversed the ship. However leading this group and heralding its approach was the bugler; at each station he paused, stood smartly to attention, put the bugle to his lips and sounded four ‘G’s’ then off he went to the next station to repeat his performance; he was a pain.
When the waters were calm and the nights were clear we sometimes lay on deck looking upwards to the heavens because in the southern hemisphere different star constellations were visible, the Southern Cross for one. As the ship pitched and rolled ever so gently the tip of a mast would trace slow little circles in the near black sky; it was half an hour of peace. We knew that we were moving in a north-easterly direction and we had a general knowledge of the local geography but we couldn’t determine whether we passed to the west or the east of Madagascar. The first bit of excitement came when I perched on a box and, surrounded by a group of interested onlookers, had my locks shorn. I felt much lighter but my face still had its three boils, they were to stay with me a while longer. The Aronda was alone, not in convoy and I remember one morning well, I had gone up on deck early, sunrise comes suddenly at about 6am in those latitudes; there was the gentle throbbing of the engines but complete silence otherwise, the Indian Ocean was grey and more tranquil than I had ever seen water before or since. All around the water was flat and mirror-like except at the stern where our wake, a thin white streak stretched out into the distance. I celebrated my 25th birthday in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
On board we had a public address system, installed presumably to impart words of wisdom like, ‘Splice the mainbrace’ or ‘Abandon ship’ or something but in fact it was used to play records to keep up our morale. Where the control room was situated I never did find out but whoever was responsible for the choice of records must have been a fan of Deanna Durbin; hour after hour the strains of One Fine Day came over the speakers, there were other records of course but even today when I hear One Fine Day I am transported back in time to the Indian Ocean. There are a few other incidents that stay in my mind from that period. One man put on a charge for some minor offence thought the punishment awarded was too excessive so he kicked the escort and fled; of course he couldn’t get very far on a ship, a fact he should have thought of beforehand. We saw him running round the decks with three PT instructors in hot pursuit; he gave them a good run for their money but nevertheless he finished up in the ship’s brig. As usual the military required guards to be posted during the night and in the interests of convenience and fairness each draft took turns to supply the men. For a change my services were not required on that voyage but one night it fell upon the Royal Army Service Corps to stand guard. Since he had to be up early in the morning to sound ‘reveille’ the bugler slept in the guard room to be awakened in good time. He also slept with his bugle, with the fancy cord around his neck. As I said before he was a pain and the RASC decided to do us a favour; while he was asleep the cord was cut, the bugle removed and dumped overboard. We knew something was amiss in the morning when no bugle call aroused us and we waited to see what would transpire. We assembled at our boat stations. By-and-by the bugler came into view, stopped at our station, stood to attention and “Peep, peep, peep, peep.” he went. The military was not to be denied, they had given him a referee’s whistle. That was the same occasion when the ship’s liquor store was broached and some of the guards were the worse for wear. We never heard any more about this episode, perhaps some were punished, we were never told.
Attempts were made to keep us occupied, unofficially cards were played and money changed hands, usually from mine into someone else’s. Housey was often played and at times shows were put on consisting of stand-up comedy, solo singing and sing-songs where we all joined in. One lad stood on the make-shift stage and recited,