MAASSALAEMA (GOODBYE)
Bill Julian, 3 GHQ Sgnals Regt, Fayid
For many Canal Zoners the excitement of the journey to Egypt remains uppermost in their minds. But within mine there is also a special place for my return on the Empire Medway, formerly the Eastern Prince. This trooper was such a tub that Guards officers marched their men off her at Singapore in protest at the conditions aboard. But when I left Port Said on April 26th 1951 I was happy to put up with its overcrowding, few and poor facilities and the fact that the only goodies on sale in its canteen were most bizarrely boxes of dates.
Our only stop before the UK was at Tobruk where she disembarked troops en-route to Benghazi. After that it was goodbye to the sunshine and hello to the misery of acclimatising myself to the damp, grey chilly weather. On the evening of the 5th May we approached the English Channel and in every direction there were scores of ships. Most were Royal Naval and others mercantile. We were informed they were searching for a submarine which had gone down with all hands, I believe it might have been HMS Affray but I am uncertain of this.
The following morning, after being almost mesmerised by the greenery of the Isle of Wight following Egypt’s barrenness the Medway docked at Southampton and berthed between the ageing Mauretania and the Festival of Britain exhibition ship which was a converted aircraft carrier called the Campania.
Upon disembarking I was a different soldier from the one who had left Liverpool 15 months earlier. Leaner, deeply tanned and in a uniform so faded by the sun that its stitches were bleached white. And upon my arm was a divisional insignia camel and stripe.
After clearing customs we were London-bound travelling in second-class carriages hitched to the rear of the world famous Golden Arrow express train. A couple of hours later we arrived in ‘The Smoke’ where I alighted at Waterloo Station with a wallet stuffed with credits accumulated in Egypt. A movement control truck took my draft to Kings Cross where we were to board the train to York – but we had different ideas.
After dumping our kit in the left luggage office we descended on the nearby fish restaurant where we all ate the same meal which we had long fantasised about in Egypt. Flaky cod crusted in golden batter alongside a pyramid of greasy chips and flanked by a hillock of green peas, swamped in tomato sauce and washed down with lemonade quaffed from the bottle.
Afterwards, the draft split up into small groups and headed up West. At Trafalgar Square we bumped into two corporals who months earlier had served with us. Then we made our way to the South Bank to see the Festival attractions and marvel at the Skylon, which was an aluminium structure symbolising the Festival.
Much of the rest of the afternoon we spent in making provocative remarks to the young and not so young ladies passing by as we strolled to the Nuffield Centre where we partook of afternoon tea with triangle sandwiches and seed cake.
Then we freshened up in the readiness for the pub’s opening. It turned out to be an evening full of pubs. Pubs with interiors bright with light from crystal chandeliers; pubs with dark mahogany counters dripping with beer; pubs with red-carpeted floors, others strewn with sawdust. Behind every counter were bosomy barmaids clad in frothy sequinned blouses, mouths bright with red lipstick. They greeted us with kisses and called us all “luv”. Grey-haired men with tattooed arms recounted tales of the time they had spent in the ‘mob’ as they thrust foaming pints of beer with froth tumbling down their thick handled sides into our hands. Others treated us to small measures of dark treacly rum.
We sang, told lewd jokes, shouted and talked too loudly in a mixture of Arabic and English with voices muddled by alcohol. And at the end of it we somehow made our way back to Kings Cross singing raucously and waving bottles of London Stout and Worthington White Shield.
With just two minutes to go before our midnight departure the last pair of our draft, bellowing a song that had something to do with Scotland, we deposited on the platform by two grim-faced Redcaps. Then the train doors slammed, a whistle blew, the train belched clouds of steam that shrouded the platform and its wheels began to turn. The Redcaps peered intently through the gloom making sure we got out of town as the drunken Scottish twosome blew them farewell kisses.
The rhythm of the trains’ wheels
created a melodious lullaby. My head was fuddled with Fuller’s beer and
naval rum. Although I was still euphoric at being back in the UK I dropped into
a deep sleep. When I awoke it was in York and demob just four days away. And
the last exciting day of my Egyptian adventure was over.