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Dear all
A hundred years ago… A massive
artillery duel raged all week around Arras in northern France, while on the
Eastern Front the Russian Army’s Great Retreat paused to score modest successes
at Strypa (August 30) and Lutsk (31, both in Galicia, now in Ukraine). The
Italian Army too gained ground on its northern border against the Austrians at
Monte Marona (30) and Trentino (September 4).
The
week’s big military/political development saw Germany accept US President
Woodrow Wilson’s terms for ending “unrestricted submarine warfare” (September
1) – meaning, for merchant shipping, that U-boats resumed stop-and-search,
sinking vessels carrying “contraband” only after crew and passengers had taken
to lifeboats. This was to avoid America, and possibly other neutral states,
entering the war – however, three days later the U20, which had sunk the Lusitania,
torpedoed the British liner Hesperian
off Fastnet (she got help before eventually sinking, but 32 died).
In
Gallipoli, the final major onslaught by the Allies petered out on August 29,
when the Turkish Army beat back British, Gurkha and Anzac forces at the
nine-day Battle of Hill 60 in the Suvla Bay area.
Meanwhile...
Gallipoli-bound (they feared), but lately shipped in from seven months training
in Malta, the thousand men of the 2/1st City Of London
Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, including my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam
Sutcliffe, his brother Ted (still secretly underage at 17
and 18), and their pals from Edmonton, north London, explored their first few
days in an even more exotic setting: Egypt.
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Longer posts from Egypt – hope they hold you –
because Sam packed so much into this brief pre-Gallipoli sojourn (around
September 1 to 17) in the other world of a place he’d never expected to see. Last
week, Sam’s Fusiliers settled into a new “tent town” at Abbasieh, just outside Heliopolis
(an ancient settlement dating back to 2-3000BC). Blazing days turned to cool
nights, so each soldier was given two bright-red blankets. Sam recalled in his
Memoir:
‘I made a hollow in the ground for my hips and laid down my
groundsheet, placed my kitbag as a pillow, wrapped one of the gorgeous rugs
around me and laid the other loosely over the top of it… wrapped in these
fine-quality wool blankets we hoped, some of us, that we looked like the sheiks
about whom we had heard love-lorn ladies singing in church-hall concerts back
in England.’
The impression of
superior organisation at this camp grew with the arrival of good news on the
victualling front:
‘… with what joy did we learn that old wax-whiskers, the
villainous Battalion Quartermaster, had remained in Malta, his department now
placed in the care of the young Lieutenant Booth who had guarded our interests
since the rather comical mutiny some time back [see Blog 51 June 28, 2015]. He
made his rounds in the straw-mat hut at dinner-time to inspect the food and
told us that – in addition to their blanket-supply commitment – the Egyptian
authorities were obliged to provide money for additional food for our troops.
As he said, the meat we had just eaten – or not – was very tough, but nothing
better could be bought for love nor money. The sweet potatoes that went with it
were strange to us, but there were no ordinary spuds to be had. So he proposed
to spend the additional funds on canned goods, meats if available, otherwise
fruits from a big importing company.
A sound
businessman, he looked after our interests carefully… we knew instinctively
that he would not take the kitty, for he was a rare, honest man; he would not
deviate even by a hair’s breadth from the straight and narrow path…’
Ever curious about any new location, Sam began
to look around:
‘With no training schemes nor other compulsory activities to
occupy us during the first few days at Abbasieh, I was able to explore a great
sandy hill at the rear of the camp. The story spread that a big battle had been
fought there some years earlier and, since then, sandstorms had buried the
buildings which stood there. How, during a war already claiming thousands of
lives, I could possibly feel excited while prowling over a former battlefield I
cannot explain. I seriously hoped to stumble on some wonderful trophy. I
didn’t, though odd bones I came across were possibly of human origin and I did
identify one as a thighbone.
Climbing to the
top of the hill, though, I had a fine view across part of Cairo to a group of
pyramids. I decided a trip to see them was essential and, on returning to camp,
applied for a chit for 24 hours leave.’
He spent a piastre (then 2½d) on a donkey ride
into Heliopolis and a tram along the main road where…
‘… for a piastre, I bought a book of useful phrases
expressed in French, English (sort of) and Arabic spelt out phonetically in
English characters. I remember from it “tala-hena” (come here), “saeeda”
(good-day), “empshi allah” (go away), “mush quois” (no good), and a funny one,
“ruk shooh” (translated as “up to shit”) – I never knew when to use that last
one.’
While wandering, he
bumped into an old friend from the Battalion, called Tim Thane, and agreed to
spend the day with him – although he’d rather have meandered alone:
‘I had
little money and that little came under threat when, inevitably, he needed a
drink. I should be a churl if I didn’t pay my whack.
That’s how it
went. Within a few minutes of our entering the drink-shop, I had four glasses
of some very potent brew under my belt, and less money in my pocket. You notice
I don’t call the place a “pub” – it bore no resemblance to one. Comfortable
chairs, small, marble-topped tables, waiters wearing white jackets, fezzes on
their heads. Customers probably all Egyptian, apart from us. Most of them wore
European-style suits with, again, fezzes; a few had robe-like garments, but
none of them wore the white nightshirts, as I regarded them, of the manual
workers. So Tim had probably landed us in a pricey joint and I was living it up
in a style far beyond the limits of my small income.
Those four glasses
of the strong stuff had made me drunk. I thought I was concealing that fact as
I essayed to rise from my chair. It must indeed have been a high-class place
for I had hardly fallen back into my seat when a waiter placed a small dish of
radishes in front of me, indicating with a couple of words and several
expressive actions that if I ate them my head would clear and my gait would be
steady. He asked for no money and appeared happy and satisfied, so I concluded
he had helped himself to tips when changing my five-piastre pieces.’
Poorer, but wiser
as to the medicinal properties of radishes, we resumed our stroll.’
After that, they acquired
an unwanted guide, Abdul, whose informative skills Sam could not enjoy because
of true British embarrassment about the uncertain situation:
‘… we found ourselves gazing at the Pyramids and then at the
Sphinx,*, before walking along a sort of road below ground level where there
were many carvings, and an outstanding figure – I seem to remember being told
it represented Rameses. I just couldn’t take an interest in these marvellous
things, because this man’s job was obviously to guide tourists around and
impart his knowledge to them for a monetary consideration and I had no money to
spare and I wasn’t a tourist. Both of us had tried to convince the chap about
our poverty, but he just smiled and continued his spiel.
Come the time when
nature demanded relief, and who could I turn to but him? At breakneck speed we
followed him along crowded streets, presently left the busy part of town and in
a narrow passageway climbed stone steps in a poor sort of dwelling and finished
up in a small room with a stone floor in the centre of which was a circular
hole, nothing else. That had to do, but the self-conscious performing over that
hole with an audience added one more humiliation to the day.’
*
The Great
Sphinx and three pyramids, including the Great Pyramid of Giza, stand on the
outskirts of current Heliopolis/Cairo.
They resumed touring the
streets of Heliopolis, Sam’s unease temporarily dispersed by what he heard and
saw, relishing every detail as you can see:
‘… we
unexpectedly found ourselves in a bazaar, the stalls displaying metal objects
of many kinds. Such a hammering and tapping was going on around us, such
beating of brass and copper with mallets and hammers, such chasing of fine
patterns on trays and bowls and shapely vessels as made me wonder where this
vast output of ornamental metal might be disposed of. To moneyed travellers, I
presumed, if any still came by in wartime. Those informative short stories in
weekly magazines had left me with the conviction that much of the stuff sold to
tourists in marketplaces Middle-Eastern and beyond had first seen the light of
day in Birmingham, but the goings-on in this market persuaded me otherwise…
Soon we passed
along a narrow path on either side of which men displayed carpets and rugs, all
presumably of local manufacture. Fortunately, most of the merchants were away
out at the mosque or dinner or otherwise engaged. The occasional exception
squatted either behind a hookah, the loading and lighting of which was a home
industry by itself, or on a sample of stock, propped up by piles of rugs, and
so deep in thought their eyes had closed, their chins resting on their chests.’
Finally, Sam and Thane
argued about paying Abdul, Thane’s view being that “a boot up his arse” would
suffice, Sam pointing out that “we had, at least, the certainty of being fed, clothed, and some
sort of roof over our heads, while the poor blighter still keeping pace with us
probably had a family to look after”. So Sam offered Abdul three piastres to
which Thane grudgingly added two and their day’s tourism was done.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam meets the Aussies and, wide-eyed, watches their Crown
& Anchor gambling school – not to mention a riot…
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