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My Country Needed Me: Part Five
There were electrical storms very often, and they were not welcomed by Wireless operators, they created too much noise in our head-phones. The cables to those phones were the old fashioned braided kind which absorbed some of the damp atmosphere (Singapore is a very humid place ) and if we had made ourselves comfy, ready to send a long signal (perhaps 500 words long) the cable would perhaps be resting against our cheek, and as soon as we touched the morse key we would get an electrical shock.
Not serious, just enough to make us jump, and interrupt our transmission. I learned to swim out there, where the water is always warm, and very buoyant, but not too healthy. Some of my friends offered to teach me. They told me to jump in the deep end, and promised to teach me how to swim once I was in the water. This method I believe originated in Japan, but I did not fancy this Kamakasi method, so I declined their generous offer. But one quiet lad said that he could teach me in about a foot of water, and he did. I wasn't very good, I could not manage the breast stroke, seeming to breath when my mouth was under water instead of on top. But I developed a satisfactory side stroke, which kept me afloat for the rest of my stay in Changi.
When I returned to England I went to the Shipcote Baths, to show off my sun-tan and my ability to swim and dive. This was a mistake! My friend Ernie Johnson went with me, he dived in first and pronounced it lovely. So in I dived. The water was FREEZING compared to the water in Changi. I came out rather quickly, and have never been back. I should have remembered that I hate cold water. Another happy occasion I vaguely remember was to take a bus trip to Seletar, about 30 miles away. The bus was an old Chevvy, driven by a native Singaporean, obviously a direct descendant of Ben Hur. He hurtled along at what seemed suicidal speed, remembering that the jungle came down right to the edge of the road. His method of negotiating a village was simply to sound his horn all the way through it, and chickens and people ran for cover.
There was some kind of fair on at Seletar, but I can not remember much about th at. But the return journey, in the dark, was even more scary.
One lad, a fellow wop/telly op, got on Fairly well oiled and carrying a pint glass full of beer, yes a glass not a bottle, and my concern was that he would spill it all over me. But he didn't and had drunk most of it by the time we got back to Changi. I picked up a germ from the water in Changi (the swimming pool, or pagar, was simply part of the sea fenced off) and this caused a fungus to grow on my ear-drum and made me deaf. A deaf wireless operator is not a lot of use, so I spent a week in hospital, being pumped full of penicillin. We were paid extra for being over seas, one Singapore dollar per day, that was two shillings and four pence. When jankers (punishments) were being dished out the sentence was doubled because we were on active service. It dawned on some bright lad
that we should have some of the perks of being on active service. So we were issued with a tin of 50 cigarettes each. As I did not smoke I was suddenly very popular.
There was a chance to go on leave to Penang, a few hundred miles away, but to go there I had to draw a rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition, just in case the train was attacked by communists. This was a regular occurrence and as the train took more than one day to get there you had to sleep, with the bolt of your rifle clutched in your hand as this was the part the thieves wanted most of all. I did not think this was much of a holiday so I did not go. We played football, in the evening as it was too hot even for mad dogs and Englishmen to play in the mid-day sun, against a local team who played in their bare feet.
There was a big parade for Battle of Britain day, September 17th, and it started at 5 a.m., because by 7 it was too hot for parades. Dawn did not creep gently over the window-sill, it leapt up into instant bright day-light, hurtful to our sleep laden eyes. The sun came up at the same time every day, started instantly hot, and just got hotter as the day progressed. There was a native village at Changi, but we were not allowed to stray off the main street, but spent many a happy hour in Tong Sing's restaurant, when we had any money left. Thursdays were pay-days, once per fortnight, and it seemed strange to be paid for two weeks work with one bank note, for 45 dollars (£5.5.0d). this did not seem quite right as I earned sixteen shillings and four pence per day, which should have amounted to £11 plus, less of course those infamous barrack damages. Or did I pay income tax?. I did not worry about tax in those days.
But we went straight down to Tong Sing's and had steak egg and chips followed by pear berry fantasy. This was simply tinned pears, ice cream smothered in a purple sort of juice which in England we called monkey's blood. But we could walk on the beach, and sometimes the local Ladies of the night would be there, and as we passed (and we always did pass, remembering those awful films) they would shine a torch on themselves, what a sales technique ! The notorious prison at Changi was outside the camp and village and I never saw inside it. Nowadays it is a tourist attraction, as well as a prison, but then the war was too recent (this was 1949) to let any one inside just to have a look.
During the war British prisoners were forced to build the airstrip, and of course they sabotaged it, so it needed repairing. There were Chinese women working on the airstrip, carrying a yoke with a basket on each end, filled with stone or rubble. They looked as old as my grandmother. Other Chinese women sewed for us, shortening our shorts, which when issued came down to our knees, but nobody left them that way, so "Sew-Sew" made some money altering them for us. We employed a Bearer, and paid him two shillings and sixpence per fortnight to clean our room and make our beds (well you did not expect us to do that ourselves did you ?). He was Indian, black as night and wore t-shirt and shorts, no shoes. But after he had swept the dusty floor he stood on the bed with nice clean sheets to fasten the mosquito net. He was I think Hindu, and went mad if we stood on an insect, it was the spirit of his ancestors.
We had four uniforms, and wore one each day, then they were washed by the local Chinese laundry. Can you imagine washing shirts, shorts and undies for 1500 men every day. After washing they were starched, and left the seam inside very rough, causing some problems in the most delicate of places.
One incident I will never forget. Wilf and I were alone in our room when we heard a kitten crying. It had been locked in another room, but when Wilf called to it puss puss, it ran at him and sank it's teeth into his outstretched hand. Muttering naughty pussy, or something like that, he walked to the door and threw the kitten into the darkness. After he had gone on watch at midnight I was alone in my bed, just below the window, which was just an opening, no glass in it. I was wakened by the howling of a cat, and there on the window-sill, silhouetted against the moonlight was the biggest cat you ever saw It was forty feet long, twenty feet wide, with claws everywhere, honest ! I thought it was the kitten's Mam come for revenge, and lay terrified, I had not put down my Mosquito net and was wearing only shorts, and vivid pictures flashed through my mind of my tender flesh being torn apart by this monster. But it left me alone. I never liked cats. We left on the first of December to come home, on the good ship Devonshire, which had been built as a troopship and was not nearly so comfortable as the Empire Trooper. Christmas day was spent on board, and we had extra good meals, served by RAF officers, whom we had not previously seen on board.
There was a stop at Port Sudan in East Africa. Ashore we found that it was not a nice place at all, where the beggars maimed their babies so they would have more appeal as beggars as they grew, what ambition. The red light district (I don't mean the street lights) we were told was nearly as big as the town. While in port here we saw two men walking along the quayside, they looked like father and son. I think they were "fuzzy wuzzies" because of their thick mop of curly hair. They wore only a European shirt and each carried a spear. No one laughed at them. Back up the Suez canal to Port Said, where we changed back into Blue uniforms, the wind off the Med was very cold. We called at Valetta in Malta, but were not allowed ashore.
There we listened to a little radio, which was playing Grieg's piano concerto no 1. I used to like it, but it does not sound the same when the ship's telegraphist is blasting out signals in morse code at the same time. The Devonshire had only hammocks to sleep in, and we had started off in Singapore sleeping in them in shorts. By the time we arrived at Liverpool we were sleeping on the deck wearing everything we could. The beautiful blue Med was anything but, and there was a violent storm. The ship (remember no stabilisers) rolled and pitched it's way through the storm, the screws thrashing the surface of the water at times. But we arrived at Liverpool safely, it took several hours to disembark, 1500 men walking in single file down the gang-plank, through customs to the waiting trains. We docked at two in the afternoon and I did not get off until eight in the evening, standing waiting impatiently on the open deck all that time. We became hungry, and one lad found a little room down below where
someone had prepared packets of sandwiches, and we helped ourselves. Well they were for us weren't they? They had just forgotten to tell us. R.A.F. sandwiches are a meal in themselves, just two slices of bread with about a month's ration of corned beef between them, and a slab of fruit cake. Very satisfying. Off we went to Kirkham in Lancashire, where we were "demobbed" during the night. We were x-rayed at four o'clock in the morning! I had to pay £6 for my uniform to come home in, the only civvies I had were shark-skin shirt and shorts, hardly suitable for England in December. So I arrived home at twenty minutes to midnight on New year's Eve, no longer required. My country could manage without me at last. Or so I thought. A few months later came another letter, they had realised
that really they could not manage without me and would I mind helping them again. Of course not, so I went as requested for another fortnight. New uniforms were issued, and I went to Patrington, near Hull. The camp was on that little promontory of land sticking out near the river Humber, beyond the light-house, in tents. That was where we lived, we worked on the mainland, and were driven each day in a lorry along the single track road. The driver had obviously driven that road many times before, and new every bump and pot-hole. It was bad enough in the day-light being driven at high speed, wondering when he would tip the lorry over or put it in a ditch, but in the dark it was quite scary. By that time I was courting and spent most of my free time writing to my girl-friend. But a fortnight isn't long, and my National Service came to an end.
The motto of the Royal Air Force is ----Per Ardua Ad Astra,
--through hardships to the stars.
had a little of that ardua, but I never quite reached those stars.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five