Anyway, what with Christmas and New Year there’s been quite a lot to do. At Christmas I had a great 4 day holiday: stayed in luxury at a marvellous farm house just outside Nairobi with two old ladies and a fellow in our flight called Alec Leuchars (who’s a friend of theirs). Alec used to be in Dar es Salaam with me as Imperial Airways man. George, who went to Mombasa lent us his car, and we went to Brackenhurst (7500 ft) every day to play golf and dance. Nothing very much happened but it was very enjoyable and extremely restful . . .
On New Year’s Eve we had the best party that I’ve had in East Africa—and that’s saying something. I went with a fairly large party to the Muthaiga Club whose annual New Year’s party is famous. I got special permission to wear a dinner jacket, which was in itself a bit of a relief, and after polishing off about a bottle of Pol Roger 1926, I didn’t remember very much else about the party—not in detail anyway. I remember dancing around the most enormous bonfire on Muthaiga Golf Course at midnight, and kissing all the unfortunates who came within reach. The next thing I remember was ordering breakfast at 7 a.m., and then going home to bed—only to get up again at 9 a.m. to play in a golf competition, which, believe it or not, I won. In fact I won this very smart 40/- fountain pen with which I’m writing this letter, and which, in my opinion makes my writing look a little less spidery than usual.
And now we’re flying again, and as far as I can see everything is going O.K. I was the first in our batch to do the more advanced solo aerobatics such as slow rolls and inverted gliding—and it’s bloody good fun. (We always wear parachutes for that.)
I’m not allowed to tell you where we’re going or when we’re going, but in a very few weeks’ time we’ll be on the move.
I seem to remember that either Alf, Else or Asta knew some people in Cairo. I may be wrong, but if they or anyone else you know does, you might let me and them know, because it would be useful. This doesn’t mean that we are actually destined for Cairo, because we are NOT . . .
There’s no more news. The weather here is a very pleasant change from the coast, and I was told the other day that I was looking really fit for the first time since I’d been in Africa. (They only sell beer at the canteen—no whiskey!)
Lots of love to all
Roald
January 29th
P.O. Box 1071
Nairobi
Dear Mama
The time is now drawing very near and we’re all feeling fairly excited about leaving this country. All our exams are finished and so now all we do is to fly the whole time. Yesterday I had a great time. I flew someone up to Nakuru about 90 miles, dropped them there and went on to a place called Eldoret, another 100 miles or so. It’s a grand country to fly over, because the scenery is so interesting. Escarpment going into the Rift Valley is amazing. You fly along merrily over woods, fields and native villages and things when suddenly you see below you what is little less than a bloody great cliff about 2000 feet high, and the whole country in front of you suddenly assumes a level of 2000 feet less than it was before. This Rift Valley, which you’ve no doubt heard of in your geography lessons, is full of extinct volcanoes with huge craters, and lakes and flocks of pink flamingos and giraffes and ostriches and many other things which force you to take your eye off the compass too long and lose your bearings. I’ve seen quite a lot of Africa already; it really is marvellous fun.
Else keeps asking what sort of machines we are flying but I haven’t mentioned any names because I don’t think I’d be allowed to. Anyway up to now we’ve only been flying fairly small trainers, but as soon as we arrive at our next destination we get straight on to bigger and more serious stuff. Whether it be bombers or fighters. If we get any choice, which I believe we do, I shall choose fighters straight away . . .
We’ve had rather a tough week. Friday we ‘held an airman’s ball’ in our hangar, at which about 200 airmen and their molls participated. We got a bit drunk and I went to bed in my shoes and socks and a shirt—at least that’s what I woke up in. The others in here seemed to think it was very funny but I didn’t feel in any mood to laugh . . .
I haven’t got the cake or the pullover yet! But I’m leaving instructions for it to be forwarded—so by the time I get it that cake will have done a bit of travelling.
Lots of love to all
Roald
February 20th 1940
Tuesday
Address: L.A.C. Dahl
774022 (!)
Pupils Squadron
4 F.T.S.
Habbaniya
Iraq
Dear Mama,
Well here we are in Iraq. We flew from where you got my last letter and arrived 2 days ago. On the journey we called in at the most remote places in Palestine that you could ever imagine—a small aerodrome in a vast desert with perhaps a pumping station for the Iraq petrol pipeline—an icy cold wind blowing, and a group of incredible Bedouin folks all in about 6 huge sheepskin coats and furry hats. Altogether we saw a lot of country but it was mostly sand. The river Jordan looked picturesque and so did one or two of the oases, but otherwise, as I have said before, it was just sand; and for that matter it still is!
This place is miles and miles from anywhere—it is literally IN THE DESERT. Sixty miles away is Baghdad, but, except for an exceptional weekend, no one ever gets there—I expect we’ll go sometime. On the other hand it is a rather marvellous place—an enormous R.A.F. camp—so enormous that you could not possibly visualise it. Churches, cinema, hospitals, mineral water factory, a street of shops, and hangar upon hangar and billet upon billet; all these things there are, but women do not come this way, so amongst numerous other things, they, during the next 4 or 5 months will have to be completely forgotten. But that will not be difficult because we are working and flying so hard.
Lake Habbaniya is very close, and the River Euphrates wends its very windy way past us only a few hundred yards distant. Otherwise there is sand all around us; in one direction it is flat sand, and in the other it’s a curious mountainy sort, and when the wind blows as it invariably seems to at this time of the year you breathe this sand in a rough proportion of 50/50 with the air. Then, so they say, you get Gyppy Tummy and spend the next 3 days on the lavatory seat hoping that you haven’t got dysentery—you usually haven’t! There’s hardly any malaria, but there’s sand fly fever which has almost exactly the same effect—high temp. for 3 or 4 days and 8 days convalescence. They say one is bound to get sand fly fever because no mosquito nets are small enough to keep out the bloody little sand flies. Otherwise at the moment, the climate is lovely because it is meant to be springtime. Icy cold in the mornings, and warm in the daytime. In a month or so the summer comes along and it will be 120/130 degrees in the shade! Deserts, they say, get very very hot.
Because of these inconveniences, they have built here one of the finest R.A.F. Stations in the world; up to date and beautifully equipped. Excellent sleeping quarters and good food; marvellous canteens and Naafis, tennis, squash, cricket, rugger, soccer, hockey, and golf of a sort! A good swimming bath . . . It appears that we’ll be stuck here for 4/5 months, after which time, with luck we should be drafted to a squadron with a commission. We should get our wings fairly soon. By that time I should imagine that we shall be pining for a bit of civilisation and a little less sand.
So much for Habbaniya. We had 4 days in Cairo and had the hell of a time from which we are only just recovering. We had unfortunately to stay in a large R.A.F. camp outside the town, but we went in each day. Wine, women and song were the order of the day or rather of the night, and by day we scrambled up the pyramids, gaped at the Sphinx, rode camels from place to place, and galloped about the desert on frisky Arab steeds (I did not fall off). We saw King Tutankhamen’s treasures in the museum and King Farouk driving through the streets. They were all cleared at his approach, and he passed at 55 mph surrounded by men and motorbikes.
Then we called on your o
ld friend Dr. Omar Khairat, who gave us a very cordial welcome. Four of us Leading Aircraftmen were invited to dinner at his brother’s house where the most incredible orgy took place. Course upon course of rich Egyptian delicacies were piled upon us, and we were forced to eat until we could literally hardly stand upright. Dr. Omar, as we called him, was extremely kind to us . . . Jock Dick, who had toothache was whisked off by him in a taxi to a good dentist, where his rotten tooth was removed, and he was informed that it would be taken as an insult if he attempted to pay for anything—even the taxi. He gave me 2 photographs—one of Else and Asta tabulating blood transfusions and one of Ellen working in the labs, both very good. His other photos were absolutely marvellous and if Ashley had known the number of University College nurses that he had photographs in the nude he would have had a shock—very beautiful women and very beautiful photographs. We sent him an enormous box of chocolate-covered marron glacés because he likes sweet things . . .
Here is an unposed and not very good photo taken of me in the streets of Cairo by one of those men who pop up from behind a public lavatory and snap you and hand you a bit of paper telling you to call tomorrow for the print. What do you think of the uniform! Jock Dick is in the background, and Geoff Pelling’s arm is in the left foreground. Also some snaps taken in Nairobi on our last day at the aerodrome.
Lots of love to all
Roald
[postmarked March 8th 1940]
Pupils Squadron
4 F.T.S.
Habbaniya
Iraq
Dear Mama
. . . The post is doing funny things these days—witness the fate of your beautiful Christmas pudding and the Air Force blue pullover, which are now probably being eaten and worn respectively by some Gyppy postmaster in some outlandish Egyptian village.
On the other hand the watch turned up last week. Thank you very much indeed. It seems to be really quite a good one, and keeps excellent time. It comes in particularly useful here and is in great demand because we can time at how many words a minute we are sending our Morse code. I hope it won’t get worn out. Talking about watches—I couldn’t resist spending what was virtually my last penny in Cairo on another wrist watch, merely because it was such a bargain (there’s no duty here on Swiss watches). My gold waterproof is going perfectly but I thought I’d like a standby, as I lost my silver Stauffer in Dar es Salaam some time ago. Anyway the one I bought is a very small waterproof stainless steel Longines—who are I think the finest watch makers in the world. I paid £8, but you couldn’t have got it in England under £12 or £14. I know because I looked at some Longines when I was going to buy the gold one you gave me, or rather before I bought it. You may think it rather extravagant, but I’ve got rather a weakness for watches with good movements. My gold one and the Longines both keep time to the second.
. . . I went on a cross-country flyer today and saw a bit of Iraq from the air. Saw the Tigris meeting the Euphrates; saw Baghdad; saw, down in the desert, one of the seven wonders of the world—the largest unsupported arch in existence at Ctesiphon; saw one of the holy cities with an enormous gold domed mosque. You could see the same glittering in the sun many miles away. Also saw lots of desert.
You ought to be able to find a photograph of it in your photographic encyclopaedia.
Naturally the people who live in the desert round here are most curious types. It is literally dangerous to wander far out of the camp either into the desert or along the bank of the river. By far I mean only 3 or 4 miles, because they are quite liable either to fall upon you and hand you over to their womenfolk, who take good care that you do not get away with your balls; or to have a shot at you with a rifle from the top of a date palm! Not long ago they murdered a Pilot Officer who was riding to the lake on his bike because they wanted his bike and he wouldn’t give it to them. I’ve taken some photographs of these people and will send you them when they are developed . . .
(Pause while I eat my orange, which are very good here.)
. . . I hope the cold weather has disappeared. How awful not being able to get any coal. I expect you’ll get a warm spring to make up for it. My Christmas presents seem to have been very well chosen.
When we go to Baghdad I’ll see if there’s anything interesting there for your birthday, also for Alf and Leslie’s wedding present. Am writing to Parrain.
Lots of love to all
Roald
Photographs of Iraqi desert-dwellers taken by Roald on a trip from Habbaniya to Baghdad, 1940. Roald was fascinated by the Bedouin, but sometimes alarmed by them. These “blokes with guns and knives,” he told his mother, “don’t think twice about cutting your balls out for the sake of getting your brass fly buttons.” They were, he reported, “a treacherous crowd.”
A photograph of the Arch of Ctesiphon, the largest unsupported arch on earth, taken while Roald was flying over Iraq. “I was flying over the desert solo in an old Hawker Hart biplane,” he wrote in Going Solo, “and I had my camera round my neck . . . I dropped one wing and hung in my straps and let go of the stick while I took aim and clicked the shutter. It came out fine.”
March 27th 1940
Pupils Squadron
4 F.T.S.
Habbaniya
Iraq
Dear Mama
Many thanks for your letter—I’m glad you’ve given Harrods the raspberry about the Christmas Cake—although I don’t suppose that it’s their fault. John’s a lucky bugger having Else and Asta keeping a pub for him at Havant—tell him he can thank his stars he’s not here. He’d only get his balls cut off if he wandered out of this camp!*
Anyway we’ve just had a marvellous Easter weekend—probably the most expensive I’ve ever had in my life—I’ve got no more money left! But what’s the use of saving it. There were three of us altogether—Alec Leuchars—whose home is in West Byfleet Surrey: Peter Blignant, who hails from the gold mines of South Africa, and myself.
We hired a taxi and beetled into Baghdad on Thursday evening and stayed at the Semiramis Hotel again. That evening we beat up the Cabaret and most of the rest of Baghdad, finished up at 4 a.m. in a filthy top storey attic playing poker with 5 of the crookedest Iraqi gents I’ve ever seen. They were all wearing hats and smoking yellow cigarettes and eating raw onions. Anyway they were shouting and grabbing and kept fingering their knives (all these blokes carry them) so we buggered off after we’d lost about £5 each.
The next day we decided that we must see the ancient city of Babylon, an opportunity which would probably not occur again, and which after all is not granted to many. It’s so difficult to get to that very few of the average travellers or sightseers go there. We hired a taxi and drove out across the most desolate looking country for 2 1/2 hours and finally arrived at what looked like a few large slag heaps on the banks of the Euphrates. But lo and behold; on approaching closer, there beneath the ground which had been excavated to some 150 feet lay part of the old place itself.
It really was most interesting and absolutely amazing. The most marvellous brick walls still in perfect condition, the bricks cemented together with ordinary bitumen or tar. There was no-one there to look after the place, except an old Arab who had been with the German expedition which had been doing the excavating, but had packed up when the war broke out. We wandered round, picking up pieces of beautifully glazed pottery, blue and green, and I found a bit of brick with cuneiform writing on it—you know the stuff like this.
I translated mine to read ‘Dear Nebuchadnezzar, I’m in pod, what are you going to do about it?’* But the others said that that was wrong. However they are a good 6000 years old.
Meanwhile I got the old camera going, and got some good shots, which I rather treasure, because apparently no-one has taken many good ones of the place. They are enclosed herewith plus explanations on the back. The ones of the three of us are very successful considering they were taken by the old Arab. I
fixed everything and told him what to press, and he did it very well, particularly the one of us in the Lion’s Den where Daniel was thrown.
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and ate—our lunch of sandwiches and beer, and drove home again, to have another beat up in Baghdad . . .
I think I must buy a Persian carpet before I go—they cost very little—and they are Persian, hand made . . .
Many happy returns, and the same to Louis.
Lots of love to all
Roald
Roald, Alec Leuchars, and Peter Blignant exploring the ruins of Babylon, and the den where the biblical Daniel was purported to have been thrown to the lions. “I got the old camera going,” he told his mother, “and got some good shots, which I rather treasure, because apparently no-one has taken many good ones of the place.”
April 26th 1940
Same address as before
‘The Desert’
Dear Mama
I don’t think that I’m very good at writing letters on the floor of a tent with eight other blokes in it, pitched on top of a bleak sand mountain in the Iraqi desert. I think it’s nearly over now; more I cannot tell you, but I’ve probably witnessed one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of the R.A.F. . . . Anyway it’s an excellent thing to experience discomforts which are so intense that you can be tolerably certain that you will never have to experience ones which are worse. Putting up tents at midday of an Iraqi summer in a desert which consists not of ordinary sand, but of a form of dust which is so thin and light (I expect some will get into the envelope of this letter anyhow) that the slightest puff of wind whips it up in your face.
Anyway the wind doesn’t seem to have dropped since we have been here, and many times it has blown at 40 mph for hours on end. That means a proper sand (dust) storm. You can see about 20 yards if you dare to open your eyes. You certainly cannot go about without special dark glasses with side bits on them. I was on guard duty on the river for 7 hours last night in the middle of it, and staggering back to my tent to find my blankets under 2 inches of sand. Five scorpions and 2 sand vipers were found in the tents on either side of ours this morning, and a fellow or 2 here have been bitten—I believe a native died—but we are keeping a careful watch in our tent.
Love from Boy Page 13
