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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… lethal
to and fro proceeded on the Western Front; for instance, the French gained
ground at Frise (February 9, Somme department) and lost it again four days
later, while the German Army attacked with some success at Soissons (12, Aisne
department) only to be repulsed by the French 24 hours on.
The
Russians maintained their role as the most multi-front proactive participants
during the (European) winter, fighting aggressively in modern-day Latvia
(February 7, Riga; 11, Dvinsk; 13, Garbonovka), Ukraine (8, crossing the
Dniester; 9, Volhynia and Galicia), in the Caucasus (12, launching the final
attack of their five-week campaign to take Erzerum from the Ottomans; 8,
continuing their new Trebizond Campaign with a naval bombardment of Turkey’s
Black Sea coast), and moving on steadily in western Persia (13, occupying
Dalautabad).
The
combined Austrian/Bulgarian invasion of Albania proceeded, but the Allies
emphasised their defence of still notionally independent Greece by supporting
the establishment of a Serbian Government in exile on Corfu and moving French
reinforcements into Salonika on the border with conquered Serbia.
Way
down south, a combined South African/Indian/British/Rhodesian force made a
first attack on German East Africa (current Rwanda, Burundi, and mainland
Tanzania) and failed utterly at the Battle Of Salaita Hill (actually in
present-day Kenya). Messing up their advance intelligence (they expected 300
German defenders, when really it was 2,300), their 6,000 men were beaten by
machine-gun power and an outflanking manouver. Then when they retreated towards
Serengeti they fell into disarray with the Indians instructing the South
Africans they were not to be referred to as “coollies”.
Meanwhile,
the 200-odd 2/1st City Of London Battalion Royal Fusiliers comrades
who remained after four months in Gallipoli, found their brief R&R (and
de-lousing) respite in Alexandria swiftly concluded. For my father, Lance
Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London
(still under-age at 17), and his mates there followed a spell in a rural
location on the banks of the Nile and the edge of the Sahara…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, the remnants of the 2/1st Battalion
(200 out of the thousand who signed up together in September, 1914) started to
build a tented town on the sand near an Egyptian village called Beni Salama, 30
miles north-west of Cairo. Others joined them, about a Battalion a day,
including some Australians – and then Sam’s older brother Ted (then 19), with a
Lawrence of Arabia air about him, emerged from the desert riding a camel.
Meeting
each other for the first time since their chance encounter on Lemnos before
Christmas, 1915 – where the 2/1st rested between Gallipoli stints at Suvla Bay
and V Beach – they caught up on the news. Ted explained that after he got
separated from the Battalion on the docks at Alexandria before they sailed for
Gallipoli the previous September – he’d lost his front teeth in a fight,
rendering him unfit for the battlefield(!) – he’d been transferred into the
Transport Section. He understood he would soon rejoin the 2/1st.
After
that they commiserated about how none of them had been paid for months and Sam
mentioned that he longed for something nice to eat following months of
malnutrition intermittently eased by a tin of corned beef (in serving which, imaginative
Army cooks deployed two different recipes: corned beef hot and corned beef
cold). Between them, they decided that what they might be able to sell to the
local fellaheen (peasant farmers)
was… Sam’s long woolly underpants. Herewith, the eventful story of their debut
in international commerce:
‘… a few evenings later, in brilliant moonlight we went
strolling, both of us enjoying the opportunity to chat without interruption
about our affairs past and present. Three Arabs interrupted our pleasant
interlude when they approached and asked if we had anything to sell.
We had wandered
some distance from camp and I might have been a wee bit anxious about our
safety, unarmed as we were, if Ted had not assured me with complete confidence
that he understood these people and could handle anything they might start.
Well, when I
mentioned my pants – and exposed the tops of them because these men spoke no
English – much interest was shown. So I stepped aside, removed them, replaced
my trousers, and asked, “How much you give?” Their English could cope with
that, or the obvious implication, and up went two fingers. Two pieces of five
piastres I signalled, but they wilfully misunderstood and proffered two pieces
each of one piastre.
The pantomime
dragged on and I didn’t like the way they crowded us and made grabs at the
pants. Their final offer appeared to be three piastres and, at that, Ted’s
patience ran out and he yelled, “Empshi, empshi allah”. When they still lingered, he swung at one of them, hit him on the
side of the jaw, and he sank down. He caught number two the same way, took
another swing at the last one and just connected, but by then all three were up
and running away.
It all happened
quickly, I found it hardly believable. I didn’t like it for, scurrying away in
their gowns, they looked like whipped children. The short, wiry Ted assured me
it was the only way to act in these circumstances; soon they would have thought
they had scared us and that might have turned out badly. It demonstrated the power
a quick decision and quick action gives, rightly or wrongly, to the man who
reacts swiftly. (I didn’t say that to Ted, I just thought of it while recalling
this episode.)
As we walked back
to the camp, looking behind us I glimpsed one of the Arabs still hovering dimly
some way off and, after I said goodnight to dear old Ted at the horse-lines, I
walked in the direction of my tent and waved to the fellow to join me. He must
have been expecting this for he came at the trot. I dickered with him briefly and
eventually got about four piastres, worth tenpence*, for my pants. Next day, I
bought a large can of pears at the Nile Storage Co. depot, which had opened
near the railway stop.
In due course, we completed our Pioneer task of founding a
large camp, which fresh Battalions from other Regiments moved into as fast as
we erected new rows of tents. Any additional structures they required, they
created themselves.
Now the Royal
Engineers arrived, obviously regular Army men, trained for construction work in
hot countries. Their main stock-in-trade, apart from a lot of tools, was a huge
quantity of sectional piping and standard-sized rectangles of the framed
matting we’d often seen used to build reed or cane huts. In no time, they put
up showers, ablutions and cooking shelters of uniform size in endless lines
between camp and river. I never saw their pumping and purifying plant way over
by the river, but blessed them for their good works. Now we could have a cool
shower quite often, a boon in that sweltering heat.’
* That’s old pennies, of
course: 12 to the shilling, 240 to the £ sterling. One online historic currency
converter suggests that 1916 10d would be worth £4.29 today, but these estimates
vary hugely according to what inflationary factors are considered.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: The Battalion
builds its masterpiece – an enormous communal al fresco latrine that looks like
a bandstand – and Sam learns to make a luxurious bed out of the Sahara sand.
Also a bit of rough desert dentistry, and fraternal friction…
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