The seas were calm as we steamed away from Bombay on a north-westerly course, we lost sight of land but now we had an idea of where we were going. The skies were cloudless and the sun blazed down on us for 12 hours every day; thick canvas awnings were erected over the passageways on each side of the ship. “Keep wearing your topees,” we were told, “harmful rays can penetrate the awnings.” I believe we took four days or more to reach our destination passing from the Arabian Sea into the Persian Gulf; the journey was quite uneventful, we spent the days doing very little, looking at the water, playing cards, eating, dozing and listening to even more of Deanna Durbin over the inter-com. With faint memories of maps in our minds we tried to identify Bandar Shapur and Bandar Abbas on the starboard side with uncertain success. In the afternoon of the last day we entered the Shatt-el-Arab and headed for Basra; now there was a little more to see. The waterway was relatively narrow and we passed through the dense groves of the palm trees that lined both banks, however at intervals we came to small inlets intended no doubt to give access inland and here the effect of water upon plant life became apparent. The tall palms at the river’s edge gave way to more stunted ones further inland and a couple of hundred yards from the river the desert began.
It was past midnight when we docked at Marquil, we disembarked and got ourselves sorted out. Then we loaded our bits and pieces and ourselves on to waiting lorries and set forth towards our new temporary home, No.15 Reinforcement Transit Camp, a tented camp. We were now members of PAIFORCE, the Persia and Iraq force.
IRAQ
Our arrival at the transit camp was in the early hours of the morning and we didn’t try to get organised but being young and tired we slept well, nevertheless we woke with the dawn at about 6am and then surveyed the scene. There were a dozen or so bell tents including ours set in the middle of nothingness, flat vacant desert all around us; true there was some sign of activity a quarter of a mile away that turned out to be the local brickworks but otherwise nothing. We asked the name of this God-forsaken spot and were told Shaiba.
It was still May and the days were getting hotter. We had to be initiated into the ways of desert life; topees to be worn at all times in the sun, shirt sleeves rolled down and slacks to be worn after 6pm when it was the mosquitoes turn to be around and about, copious amounts of water to be drunk and two salt tablets taken daily.
To get us into condition after the inactive period at sea we were exercised gently. Small groups were marched along to the brickworks, a somewhat over stated term, where some Arabs were mixing up a dough-like slurry that was then put into wooden moulds, something that had been done by their forbears for the last three or four millenia. The moulds consisted of four sides and a bottom; the open face of a filled mould was smoothed off by hand and the brick turned out to dry and bake in the sun. I never measured them but they seemed to be near enough the same size as standard English ones. Bricks made this way were called plano-convex because five faces were flat and the sixth convex; each bore the imprint of a thumb on the convex face, formed as the brick was ejected from the mould. Similar bricks were used in the building of the Sumerian city of Ur several thousands of years ago.
From a pile of bricks we each had to pick up two and march back to the camp, dump them then return for two more; 10 or 12 such trips gave us the exercise we needed and acclimatised us to the dry heat. What was unexpected was the blowing sand that seemed to get everywhere, in one’s eyes and ears and sticking like a film to any exposed sweaty flesh; some relief came by eating one’s food in the relative shelter of the tent but even so sand could find any chink to gain entrance. Ignorantly after dinner one day, mindful of instructions, I swallowed the two obligatory salt tablets; later I felt a little strange and then discovered the emetic properties of salt. Ever afterwards I took my salt in small quantities with plenty of water.
As its name implied the camp was only intended to hold troops until they could be dispersed to their various units; there were no recreational amenities available though we could purchase a local brand of cigarettes called Red Bird in packets of five for five fils (about one farthing each, old currency). We slept 10 to a tent, feet at the central pole and bodies radiating outwards; early on without being taught we learned how to dig a recess for our hips and over this area we spread our groundsheets. Though a bit firm our small packs served as pillows. After dark the only source of light came from a hurricane lamp, this was not always effective in which case it was swapped for a useable one from another tent when nobody was looking, standard army practice.
I forget how long we stayed there, maybe a week but then the draft was split up and dispersed and I was posted to Al Musayyib, some 40 miles south of Baghdad. However before I started the army wanted to get some useful work out of me and so with three others I acted as escort to an ammunition train going up as far as Mosul near the biblical city of Nineveh. We were supplied with canned and dry rations sufficient for the journey and joined the train in the evening with rifles, some ammunition for them, side arms and all our kit. An empty wagon served as our mobile quarters, empty that is except for straw or similar material to soften the hard wagon floor and we slept uncomfortably in shifts. On the first morning we awoke itching, sand flies had feasted on us as we slept fitfully; I think they really enjoyed fresh caucasian blood and we spent a while scratching and slapping.
With the start of the day deficiencies were discovered in our equipment, while we had tea, sugar and dried milk we hadn’t any water or the means of containing or boiling it. One difficulty was overcome when we bartered cigarettes for a petrol can from some railside Arabs. Funny really because it was once part of British stores; it was a tall square-sectioned metal can from which the top had been removed; at the top a wooden bar stretched from side to side to form a carrying handle; it appeared to be clean and we assumed that it was. The problem of boiling water was solved when we asked the locomotive driver to blow some out from his steed. I learned years later that this was definitely not recommended healthwise but that’s what we did many times and we survived.