in would have been suicide. We would have been wiped out in the water. Happily, the big noises realised that and the plan was abandoned. If I had a guardian angel, she had just appeared again. It would count as my second lucky escape after failing to get into the RAF.
I would finally get to mainland Europe but it would be as a prisoner.
Next, we moved north to Liverpool to camp on Aintree Racecourse, home to the Grand National, though now it was a sea of soldiers waiting to be despatched to who knows where.
We slept al fresco and even in early summer you’d wake with aching limbs and a bedroll damp with dew. Kipping at the Canal Turn with its famous ninety-degree bend was a treat for a lad who had lived and breathed horses on the farm. After three weeks of that we moved to a large civic building and at last we were out of the damp.
It was here I met Eddie Richardson for the first time. He was a fine fellow from an established military family so we called him Regimental Eddie, ‘Reggie’ for short. He was very well spoken, a little posh perhaps compared to the rest of us, and we shared a room. Months later he was to get into trouble in the desert on the same day as my fortunes turned south.
Training in Liverpool took on a different dimension. We were being prepared for house-to-house fighting in streets set aside for demolition. We learnt the delicate art of making and throwing Molotov cocktails, glass bottles filled with petrol. We mastered the Mills bomb, a hand grenade with a segmented steel shell and the appearance of a mini pineapple. I would become pretty familiar with them in the months ahead. They were mean and simple. You could alter the length of fuse, to give you three, seven or nine seconds before detonation but you had to time it right. The last thing you wanted was the other feller hurling it back at you. You’d pull out the pin, run forward and throw with a straight-armed bowling action as you dived on your stomach. If you didn’t blowyourself to kingdom come, the grenade was supposed to end up in a huge pit where the explosion was relatively contained. I had been able to throw a cricket ball a hundred yards when I was sixteen. It was still a game.
We knew as we set off from Liverpool in the
Otranto
that we were leaving Britain in a sorry old state. France had fallen to the Germans in June, Italy had declared war on the Allies, there were regular dogfights between the Luftwaffe and RAF fighters over southern England and the Battle of Britain itself was just starting.
As I boarded the ship, above me the twin dark-rimmed funnels were belching smoke into the air and all around me in the breeze were the chaotic sounds of men searching for a berth. Some were carrying kitbags, hunting for cabins, others were calling out to their chums and finding their way around the ship. Down below us were the vehicles and heavy equipment.
Les Jackson was there from the beginning. He was a corporal then, a regular soldier – a first-class chap with a twinkle in his eye and a wicked sense of humour. He was older than most of us, over thirty, but we had a bond from the start and we would be together at the end, too. Eighteen months later I would be side-by-side with him when we drove head-on into a wall of machine gun fire.
Les had introduced me to his family in Liverpool and I had taken quite a shine to his sister, Marjorie. She was a very attractive fair-haired girl with a gentle Liverpudlian accent, a kind girl and an excellent dancer. I had taken her out a couple of times but we were innocence personified. In those days you could walk a girl home for miles at the end of an evening and the most you expected was a kiss on the cheek. It was still special. His family had shown me such hospitality. He liked his sherbet, Les’s old man, but it would be five years before I would cross that threshold again to take him out for a beer and it wouldn’t be a happy occasion.
I had Marjorie’s picture stuck on the wall of the
I would finally get to mainland Europe but it would be as a prisoner.
Next, we moved north to Liverpool to camp on Aintree Racecourse, home to the Grand National, though now it was a sea of soldiers waiting to be despatched to who knows where.
We slept al fresco and even in early summer you’d wake with aching limbs and a bedroll damp with dew. Kipping at the Canal Turn with its famous ninety-degree bend was a treat for a lad who had lived and breathed horses on the farm. After three weeks of that we moved to a large civic building and at last we were out of the damp.
It was here I met Eddie Richardson for the first time. He was a fine fellow from an established military family so we called him Regimental Eddie, ‘Reggie’ for short. He was very well spoken, a little posh perhaps compared to the rest of us, and we shared a room. Months later he was to get into trouble in the desert on the same day as my fortunes turned south.
Training in Liverpool took on a different dimension. We were being prepared for house-to-house fighting in streets set aside for demolition. We learnt the delicate art of making and throwing Molotov cocktails, glass bottles filled with petrol. We mastered the Mills bomb, a hand grenade with a segmented steel shell and the appearance of a mini pineapple. I would become pretty familiar with them in the months ahead. They were mean and simple. You could alter the length of fuse, to give you three, seven or nine seconds before detonation but you had to time it right. The last thing you wanted was the other feller hurling it back at you. You’d pull out the pin, run forward and throw with a straight-armed bowling action as you dived on your stomach. If you didn’t blowyourself to kingdom come, the grenade was supposed to end up in a huge pit where the explosion was relatively contained. I had been able to throw a cricket ball a hundred yards when I was sixteen. It was still a game.
We knew as we set off from Liverpool in the
Otranto
that we were leaving Britain in a sorry old state. France had fallen to the Germans in June, Italy had declared war on the Allies, there were regular dogfights between the Luftwaffe and RAF fighters over southern England and the Battle of Britain itself was just starting.
As I boarded the ship, above me the twin dark-rimmed funnels were belching smoke into the air and all around me in the breeze were the chaotic sounds of men searching for a berth. Some were carrying kitbags, hunting for cabins, others were calling out to their chums and finding their way around the ship. Down below us were the vehicles and heavy equipment.
Les Jackson was there from the beginning. He was a corporal then, a regular soldier – a first-class chap with a twinkle in his eye and a wicked sense of humour. He was older than most of us, over thirty, but we had a bond from the start and we would be together at the end, too. Eighteen months later I would be side-by-side with him when we drove head-on into a wall of machine gun fire.
Les had introduced me to his family in Liverpool and I had taken quite a shine to his sister, Marjorie. She was a very attractive fair-haired girl with a gentle Liverpudlian accent, a kind girl and an excellent dancer. I had taken her out a couple of times but we were innocence personified. In those days you could walk a girl home for miles at the end of an evening and the most you expected was a kiss on the cheek. It was still special. His family had shown me such hospitality. He liked his sherbet, Les’s old man, but it would be five years before I would cross that threshold again to take him out for a beer and it wouldn’t be a happy occasion.
I had Marjorie’s picture stuck on the wall of the
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