Farming, Fighting and Family

by Miranda McCormick

  Although David had experienced Atlantic crossings in order to visit his American relatives, he had never previously sailed in warm waters. On 21 May he wrote again to Pamela and his parents, describing in both letters some of the novel sights he had witnessed: ‘I have seen hundreds of flying fish – the best ones fly at least 200 yds – a shark, dolphins, & a large rectangular ray who tossed himself in the sunshine like a huge pancake.’ When David’s troop ship crossed the Equator, a quaint ceremony took place: ‘When we crossed the Equator I was ducked at least 10 times in the best traditional manner & have been issued with a fine certificate of duckworthiness signed by the barber, King Neptune & 6 bears …’

  In this letter to Pamela, David again describes how he was being kept busy:

  Fortunately I do not have much time to reflect on my fate. I get up every day at 5.45. Your Dad would say ‘Quite right too’. I have to take P.T. at 6. I make my troop do imaginary rowing exercises in the dark to the strain of the Volgar Boatmen. I then fight for the basin for a long time & eventually have breakfast at 8.30. Then follows a day of lectures. Much of my spare time is taken up preparing them. Apart from ordinary military subjects I am methodically reading a long book on the Campaigns in the Middle East in the last war with a view to lecturing on them. I am also learning Arabic & give my troop an hour’s lesson a day, which is rather a joke as they don’t yet know that I don’t know it.

  Despite the hard work, the men managed to find ways to amuse themselves. Further on in the same letter to Pamela, David records:

  I have grown the most wonderful moustache. I don’t know what you would think of it. It is like a couple of stoat’s tails, both in shape & colour. The officers of the regiment had a moustache competition & although I was not able to enter as I started a week late several people say I would have won if I had been in it. I am quite proud of it.

  Such light-hearted notes are rare, however. David’s true state of mind during the voyage comes through particularly in his letters to his parents, in which he reveals his feelings of homesickness and isolation:

  I find already now that distance separates one far more definitely than does time. Do you feel the same? And surrounded as I am by friends of necessity rather than of choice I find I am virtually alone. It is rather upsetting. I feel even now that I am writing to a different world & one of the past. Life will be very different I should imagine.

  In his letters to both Pamela and his parents, David expressed his disappointment and frustration about not being allowed ashore at the first opportunity:

  I was very upset at not getting ashore at the place where I posted my last letter. I was unlucky in the shore draw … It looked perfectly lovely & there were little bathing bays à la best Tahiti tradition. The thing that struck me most about the natives was the extraordinary variety of their headgear & the size of their feet & the fact that they were pink underneath which made them quite indecent …

  At the next port of call, however, David had better luck, and on 5 June wrote an enthusiastic letter to Pamela, describing the people and places he visited. Strict censorship meant that he was unable to tell her the name of the port in question which was, in fact, Cape Town:

  I have really got something to tell you for once, for we have been ashore. I can’t tell you how marvellous it was to get my feet on the ground again & to see a female again after all these days at sea!! We ran into a terrible storm which we ran before for a night & a day & then turned round and were pushed slowly backwards. Eventually we got to port & tried all afternoon to get a pilot on board, but could not and had to spend one more night at sea in the storm. All work had to be stopped, all the food got spilled & masses of furniture & glass broken. I had to go & watch 600 people eating pork, but survived!

  We had five days on shore, & were allowed off from 2 to 2. I had five very good parties & we have all spent all our money. The people were most hospitable & terribly generous & kind. As soon as the news spread that we had arrived they all flocked down to the docks in big American cars & whisked our men off to see the town & the country & gave them tea & baths & dinner & huge dances. They paid for masses of their drinks too. The officers were all invited to a lovely night club where they were wined & feasted & entertained & not allowed to stump up for a sausage. Down here, apart from losing their young men they are quite unaffected by the war. The town was a blaze of light at night & there was no rationing of any kind. The only war work they can do is to entertain passing troops & this they do with a wholehearted generosity & enjoyment. I have been censoring all the letters from the men in my troop to their homes & to the people who were kind to them in this port, & I was absolutely moved by their gratitude. Every letter was the same & the simple sincerity in the expression of their appreciation was really fine. One appreciates that sort of thing in the army & it reminds me, not that I am likely to forget, of all that you & your Mother & Father did for me when I was at Larkhill.

  Many promising attachments & friendships were made here & one officer of about 40 married a girl he met during our brief visit. Ian & I were fortunate in meeting a couple of sisters who were very sweet & nice to us. We took them out to a night club some fifteen miles out where I was very impressed because at the end everyone stood up & sang ‘There’ll always be an England’, looking at us, who were the only Britishers there … The country was quite beautiful & there were many flowers although it is late autumn here. The weather was like the sort of bad August day that one gets on holiday in England; everyone was wearing furs & overcoats & shivering. The foliage was all shrubs & trees which looked like small plane trees, but, as they were the only kind, had no name & were just trees. There were lots of huge mountains, some with snow on the top. They had no trees on their lower slopes as do the mountains in Europe, but rose out of the ground like huge stone teeth. I am told there are still leopards quite near the town & if the weather had been better I might have hunted baboons with a pair of Great Danes with some people I met.

  The people all seem to belong to a rich & well-educated middle class & talk their own language among themselves, but when they talk in English their accent is most delightful & very attractive in the girls. The whole place seemed to have been very influenced by American ideas & I was surprised to find quite as many Europeans as natives, if not more, even in the country. No one seemed to do much work, but everyone was wealthy & looked well fed & happy. These two sisters were 18 & 19 & were earning £18 & £30 respectively as a secretary & a chemist …

  Delighted though she undoubtedly would have been to receive such a long, detailed letter, the remarks it contained regarding the female inhabitants of South Africa must have given Pamela somewhat mixed feelings.

  David had one more chance to go ashore before arriving at his destination, as he reported in another letter to Pamela dated 20 June, though this time it appears that the ship’s reception was more muted:

  Darling,

  This is the third start I have made as the last two efforts got wiped out by perspiration & I was ashamed to send them to you. It really is quite hot. Last night I slept on the front end of the deck, where the breeze is greatest & in spite of that slept without even a sheet, & was forced to vacate my bed at 5 owing to the heat of the sun which was beating down on me. The official temperature at 6 was 96 in the shade & the temperature of the sea was 89; so little comfort can be obtained from a bath of sea water. I am told by the experts that it will get hotter every day too!

  We had two days at another port a few days after the last one I mentioned; we did not receive quite the same reception from the townsfolk as we did at the other, as they have seen so many troops passing by, that it was like whipping a dead horse. On the other hand I was very moved by their send off, which is the first send off we have had. Hundreds of girls came down to the dock & everyone cheered & all the ships in the harbour hooted. I was quite moved & felt for the first time that I was really going to do something worthwhile. I made contact with some old friends the second night who were awfully nice to
me & took me to a cocktail party, dinner & a night club. The first night we landed after dark & not knowing the town all got awfully boozed & I am rather hazy about the whole evening. All I do know is that we went into the country, driven by a madman who thought he was on Brooklands* & danced at a place which in the right company would have been very wonderful. You sat about with nothing but stars overhead, while Indians brought you long cool drinks & every now & then you danced on a floor which looked like a lake surrounded by fairy lights.

  Well, Darling, we are expecting to get off this bark in a few days now, & about time too. We are all very tired of it, and although we all realise that wherever we go it will be far worse, we are looking forward to getting off & I am very happy to be where I am in the present circumstances, though I often reflect on the perversity of fate which necessitates all this unpleasantness for one who desires only a little place in God’s sun in which to live in peace. Let us hope it will soon be over!

  Strict censorship meant that David was unable, at the time of writing, to reveal the names of the ship’s ports of call, or indeed the name of the ship itself. However the regimental diaries of the 72nd RA set the record straight. The regiment sailed from Liverpool on 24 April, on a hastily converted cruise-ship, the Empress of Asia, with 2,410 officers and men on board. First they travelled north and stopped at the head of the Firth of Clyde, where they joined a convoy which then sailed westwards round the north coast of Ireland and out into the Atlantic before turning south. The first port of call was Freetown. Their next stop, where they received such a rapturous welcome, was Cape Town, and the last stop was at Durban. A confidential appendix to the regimental diary at this point reveals that the stopover at Durban was considerably lengthened by a semi-mutiny on the part of the ship’s stokers, who having departed on shore leave, either returned too drunk to be capable of working, or else failed to return at all. In order to resume the journey, troops had to be ‘volunteered’ to take the stokers’ places. In fact poor discipline amongst the stokers had already caused the ship to be considerably behind schedule, and it eventually reached its destination, Port Tewfik, Suez, on 24 July, ten days late. Whether David was ever aware of these difficulties remains a matter of conjecture; certainly they could not have been mentioned in letters home.

  * * *

  Back in Wiltshire Pamela was carrying on with her hospital duties, which she was finding ever more onerous. She lived for her off-duty periods back at Ditchampton Farm, for which her gratitude is recorded time and again in diary entries such as: ‘June 11th Home – sleep and food!!! … Wrote to David and it is lovely to be home.’ To exacerbate matters, she was once again afflicted by daytime insomnia during night shifts:

  June 5th Didn’t sleep … What will happen to me? I must pull through. I can’t be ill again through sheer worry of feeling guilty …

  June 6th Didn’t sleep again – it’s awful but tonight Mummy & Daddy came in with a letter from David of all the wonderful things … He was somewhere on the way and his letter was oh so lovely. Just like him. What I’ve gone through for that boy at least I think I have …

  June 7th Just too bad about this wretched sleep. Sister Edwards is doping me now thank heaven …

  June 13th … am writing this now in the old night-nurses quarters – oh the waiting – one long wait for the dawn. Oh David I wonder where you are and what you’re doing. Are you thinking about me I wonder? Sometimes I think you are because you seem so near … Somehow you went away when it was all just beginning and then sometimes I think it was right. If everything comes right in the end it will be worth the years of waiting …

  At the beginning of July an incident occurred at the hospital that made matters even worse for Pamela:

  July 3rd The most awful thing that I have ever done happened last night. I couldn’t connect Dr. Gubbin with the Surgical and it was a matter of life & death haemorrhage [sic]. Oh it was awful. I wasted masses of time getting through to him & everyone & in the end didn’t do it. Completely lost my head. The man had another h at 1 today & foot off. Shan’t ever forgive myself. If I’d been quicker he mightn’t have …

  July 4th At last I’ve got something really to worry about. I shall never forgive myself not learning before. Oh the mistakes I make and the muddle and everything. His wife came last night to stay. I do pray he’ll be all right …

  July 5th Telephoned & telephoned last night to learn but too late. The only time I could have been of real use & I failed. Full of reproaches – it’s awful. Please may I soon do something all right & worth while to make up for the awful things I’ve done …

  * * *

  Around this time, other members of the Street household were preparing for a fête, which was to be held at Ditchampton Farm. In Hitler’s Whistle, Arthur Street describes in some detail and brio the fête and its origins, modestly omitting, however, that the event took place in the grounds of Ditchampton Farmhouse. It appears that many decades previously a working party of local ladies had been set up to make knitwear for troops in South Africa, garments for slum children in Britain’s cities, and more recently items for homeless evacuees and prisoners of war; this local organisation had now become integrated with the Red Cross, but was experiencing such lack of resources that its very existence was threatened. However a certain local maiden lady, who despite her gentle exterior evidently possessed a core of steel when it came to getting her way, prevailed upon the local residents to come up with what Arthur Street described as ‘that age-old rural financial weapon, the garden fête’.

  Despite wartime restrictions and rationing, the fête was evidently a big success. Wilton folk from all walks of life, together with locally billeted evacuees and members of the armed forces, flocked to enjoy a rare, nostalgic moment of relief amid the unremitting bleakness of the continuing war. An amateur orchestra was provided by the CO of the nearest regular troops; there was a bring-and-buy stall, a ‘weigh all-comers’ booth courtesy of a local farmer with his farm scales, a fortune-teller, an illegal raffle, clock golf and much more besides. At one point, in Arthur Street’s words:

  One Fannie, ably assisted by a local groom, took off her shoes and stockings and ran up and down with a white pony on the short green turf of a wide grass path, giving rides to small children by the score. The bring-and buy stall was thronged with people who both brought and bought. There was a twenty-yard queue outside the fortune-teller’s tent. At every competition officers queued with privates, squires with farm labourers, keepers with poachers, and mistresses with servant maids.

  The greatest success of all was the rummage stall, set up in an adjacent barn, scheduled to open later in the evening:

  At seven o’clock the rummage sale was to open, and half-an-hour before that time a crowd of at least a hundred serious housewives, local and evacuee, were ready waiting. They looked so grim that the maiden lady called in her Major and some other officers to help control the rush when the barn doors were opened, and afterwards that same Major vowed that Dunkirk beach a year before had been a child’s party by comparison …

  The partying and dancing continued until midnight; not only had the event been a great morale booster, but had also raised over a hundred pounds for its intended cause, enabling the ladies’ working party to continue with its now vital wartime contribution. Pamela’s diary entry for the day in question states quite simply: ‘July 2nd The Fête. It all went terribly well and masses of people. Mummy & Daddy did it very well and it was all wonderful.’

  A few days earlier Pamela and Vera Street had made a rare trip to London so that the latter could look her best on the great day. In her diary Pamela comments on the war damage they witnessed:

  June 26th Mummy & I went to London! Terrific event – hunting frock for Mummy – seemed pre-war somehow & all wrong. When you think how lucky we have been here & all they’ve been through … It was knocked about – especially houses into Waterloo. Poor London …

  Despite such brief moments of light relief, all too soon Pamela found h
erself once again wrapped up in her bleak existence: ‘July 14th Just existence but you don’t live somehow. I think half of me’s gone out with David and I’m not certain where the other half is …’ During this dark period, thoughts of David did indeed seem to be almost the only thing that kept Pamela going, and the days she received letters from him were occasions for rejoicing, in particular 6 July, when she received the news of his safe arrival in Egypt: ‘Mummy & Daddy fetched me and brought a letter from David and he’s arrived safely. Isn’t it wonderful. It was written on the 16th of April & he gave it to the Colonel’s wife to forward when she received the cable!’

  More letters and telegrams now started trickling in from David. On 15 July Pamela received a letter written whilst he was still aboard the troop ship:

  This morning Mummy came in with a letter from David … He’d gone ashore and everyone had been very kind. Poor thing cooped up on the ship. I think the reaction was terrific – please don’t forget me David – somehow I hang on to a wonderful hope which is too wonderful to think might come true …

  July 23rd This morning as I was doing the flowers in the sluice room Sister brought me a telegram. I thought it as just an ordinary one and then when I opened it, it was from David!!!!! Pop sent it on from home. His new address is R.A. Base Depot, Middle East & fondest love darling etc and it was just wonderful to get …

  The gloom that pervaded Pamela’s summer was not helped by the weather. Just as the previous year had been kind to British farmers and produced a bumper harvest, in 1941 the British weather displayed its typical fickleness, and from late July throughout almost the whole of August the rain hardly ceased. Pamela’s diary entries reveal her concern for her father: