The Last Chapter

kids who helped out in the kitchens. When we were told, Taffy called her over she hid under the beds and wouldn’t come out, he made a grab for her and she went for him, so that confirmed it. If she had been well, there’s no way she would have gone for Taffy, we had the unpleasant job of drowning the pups, then Mitzy (pups were full of sores). We put the pups in a static pool, on camp weighted down . Mitzy was an obedient dog, she did as she was told, I got her to stand on a stool and put my hand in a sack, she wanted to know what was there and I pushed her in with a couple of bricks, we drowned her in the same pool. It wasn’t easy, I was very attached to her and tiger.

  Another story was the Indian Officer who decided my Radio was too close to me and needed pushing back I said “Its ok sir” he reached over to push it back and he hit the wall behind him. He’d touched a 3 pronged plug with a warning on it “Do Not Touch”, he was so shocked he reached over to push it again and did the same thing, he left in a state of shock.

  Back to Delahli the transit camp, we weren’t there long before we were on our way to Bombay Docks. I considered myself lucky to be there, because I thought my de-mob number wasn’t included for this leave. The troopship “Georgie” was waiting for us at Bombay and we set off home, we weren’t in convoy this time and it took us about 3 weeks to arrive at Liverpool. The liner was a beauty and very big, we mated up with a few good lads, two of them were from Stoke and were in the Military Police and we got on quite well with them. The journey was interesting and more relaxed this time seeing the war was over. One of the M.P.s promised us (me and a lad from down south) a good job as “Special Police” on the journey back. The “Georgie” had been damaged by fire during the war but was renovated to a troop ship.

  We got to the Pier Head, Liverpool and I was glad to see my family again, Bobby Hoyland was on leave as well so we had quite a good time together. I recollect we went down to “Tyson’s” to see a few people but most of our mates had gone away, Bob Skelton (Army) Georgie Bell (Army) Joe Doran (Merchant Navy), the only ones were older tradesmen or deferred apprentices.

  The “Britannic” was the liner that took us back, a beautiful ship, it was like being in a big hotel, the fittings were lovely. The two M.P.s were true to their word and gave us arm bands as “Special Police”. We had our own cabins, proper bunks and the best food. During the day you just watched the troops, making sure they behaved themselves and didn’t flick cigarette ends over the side. If any port holes were open a cigarette end could cause a fire. At night time it was different, we had to make sure everybody was down below at 23.00 hrs, when I say everybody, I mean it, officers, women officers, anyone. One night I went on the upper deck and a General was playing chess, I had to say “Excuse me sir, you should be down below, its 11 o’clock. He was great about it and apologised and went to his cabin. Another time a woman officer who was with a different officer every night was on the poop deck , I think she was with an RAF officer ,we moved her on because it was 11 o’clock. We did this every night and one night I heard her say “ I hate that man”. It was quite a good trip, no rough seas and everything went smoothly. We landed back at Bombay at last and prepared ourselves for going ashore, my paper told me I was going back to Chittagong.

  Another long journey for me again, I’m sure I was on my own again, I can’t’ remember if there was somebody else with me. On a journey like this, I learnt to be very wary, ever since we first made the trip to MHOW. We stopped at a remote station and were approached by an Indian, he pulled a bottle of Rum from his doti, we put our money together and paid him 5 or 6 Rupees. I wanted to open the bottle before he left but Geordie said it was ok, when we did open it, it was cold tea, well I hope it was tea. It was actually sealed as well, we scoured the station for him but he’d flown, so we learnt something that day and hoped it would never happen again.

  When I eventually reached Chittagong the camp looked different, like there was nobody there, when I found somebody to talk to I asked about Tiger, they said “He’s dead”, I nearly fell over. The story was, he got in a fight with Busy and ended up killing him, but he was so badly cup up he wasn’t well and didn’t have a vet. Some idiot decided he needed a soap injection, whatever happened he died, and the lads buried him. When I got to the office, they had posted me to Shillong in Assam, they gave me the paperwork and I was on my travels again.

  Shillong was up in the hills of Assam, I got a train to the foothills and there a wagon or truck picked me up to take me where I was going. But just as I arrived off the train, I took ill, vomiting and generally feeling lousy. Eventually I got to the camp, found where I was staying and picked a bed and just crashed out, when I woke up, a young officer was sitting by my bed and asked me how I was. I said “Not very good” he said there was no panic and to take my time getting over it, he was Lt. Patterson and was my O.C. (officer commanding) he came from Wallasey. He was only about 22yrs so he could talk on the same level to me, I was 21yrs. I was about a fortnight unable to work, I don’t remember a doctor on this camp and I never knew what it was I had. I started work in the signal office which was well organised, it wasn’t a very busy office but we still did shifts and got through the work.

  I remember at Chittagong, I was on guard, not a sole anywhere, I looked at my watch and remember thinking I’m 21, I’m a man.

  One day I was in the dining room and one of the lads said there was a scouser just arrived in our hut, I went over to the hut and this lad came up and asked where I came from. I told him we lived in Norris Green and he lived in West Derby which was close. He had come with a group of lads, their job was graves unit and they had come up to shilling to use it as a base. Imphal and Kohima were scenes of heavy fighting they were just over the border of Burma in India. Their job was to dig up some of the lads who’d been killed and given a shallow grave. They had to lay the bodies out on a sheet and try and get every part of the body, even down to the fingernails. Then take them and give them a decent burial at Imphal cemetery, not a very pleasant job, so they got extra rations of milk and rum. The scouser was Harry Cummins and I think he was probably the softest of the lot, the night I met him we sat up until 2.30am just talking. It turned out that the last night of my embarkation leave I met a girl in Breck Road, it turned out to be Harry’s girlfriend. They were a hard lot, especially Ginger Waugh from Newcastle, I used to say, it wouldn’t take anything for Ginger to kill someone. The back of our hut was a deep drop looking out of the back door, well Ginger throttled a small pup and then threw it out of the back door. Another time they were on location at Dacca and they caught a loose walla (thief) Ginger tied his hands and threw the rope over the beams in the hut and pulled his arms up backwards until he was on his toes. Imagine the pain he was in, that wasn’t the finish, when they got up Harry want to cut him down, Ginger said “Let’s go and get some breakfast first”. After breakfast they cut him down and then handed him over to the police, they beat loose wallas up. Ginger drove a 3 ton truck (covered) and one night I wanted to go to the bazaar and asked for a lift, the smell in the truck was awful, I asked him what it was he said “I’ve got a few of the boys in the back”, I was glad to get away from it. Another character in this gang was a bloke called Chapman, he was the nearest thing to an alcoholic, and he was always drunk. He and Ginger went out one night in the truck and they hadn’t been back by morning, a search party was sent out and they were found 80ft down off the main road, shaken but unhurt. The roads were dangerous with them being in the hills, they were lucky they hadn’t gone over on the other side of the road. When they first arrived they had a dog which had just had pups, but the dog had rabies and so it had to be put down. The pups were drowned except the one Ginger threw out the back door after throttling it.

  Harry and I spent as much time as we could, talking about home and had some laughs, Harry was a fast talker and with his accent a lot of them couldn’t understand him, I acted as interpreter for him he was highly amused by this. Lt. Patterson used to
come around to see me and I had previously introduced them, he took to Harry ok, we had a few drinks with him now and again. One Christmas Eve Harry said, he was going to Mass at the local church, I went with him and was completely amazed by the spectacle that hit me when I got in the Church. There was a balcony all round it and it was crammed full of people, all the seats were full and they were sitting in the aisles. At the time, I was C of E and was very impressed by it all.

  The Army introduced a health system called P.U.L.H.E.E.MS., P = Physical, U = Urine, L = Lungs, H = Heart, E = Ears ,E = Eyes, M = ? S = ?, not sure on them. We all had to go through a stiff medical exam, some of them complained about flat feet, bad eyes and ears, bad backs, I couldn’t see the point of it. The M.O. told me I was the fittest man he’d seen that day. He declared me A1 + (plus) which meant I would have been accepted by special units like, Commandos, Paratroops or any other special forces. I was quite proud of this, because I always kept myself fit.

  While I was in shillong I bought myself a set of chest