Authors: D.E. Kirk
The tea was hot and wonderful and we savoured it, the sugar buns were just as welcome and we wolfed them down in no time.
We were drinking our second mug of tea which we had sent Jack and Harry to get as they were our youngest members, they would probably get the most sympathy and therefore the best chance of a refill. We were savouring some of the cigarettes left by the Navy, when a bloke in a tin helmet, wrapped in a blanket with bare legs showing below, arrived at our table “ere, got any fags to spare mate?” He said, I reached into my battledress pocket to get a tin out, knowing we had plenty between us and was about to give them to him when Fishy put his hand out to stop me. “What regiment you wiv then?” said Fishy.
“Eh?” The man said. “Not that difficult is it?” Said Fishy, “what regiment are you wiv …?”
“Err the Guards” said the man backing away slightly. Fishy was up in a flash, he ripped the blanket off the man, exposing him in ordinary civilian clothes with his trousers rolled up above his knees.
Over his shoulder was a bag out of which spilled several tins of cigarettes as he fell to the floor following Fishy’s first punch.
With a great fierceness, Fishy jumped on top of him and was starting to beat him about the head when Harry and I pulled him off. A huge elderly civvie policeman, attracted by the scuffle, came over to us and not too gently lifted the man off the floor holding him by the upper arm. “Now you just drink your tea,” he said to Fishy “me and Freddie here will have a little walk outside and I’ll try and stop him from falling over again, come on Freddie we don’t want to take up anymore of the nice soldiers time now do we?” They walked off Freddie’s feet barely making contact with the floor. I glanced over at Fishy “You alright?” I asked.
“Makes you flipping sick it does everyfink you go through and then bastards like him try and flippin rob you…”
Tears of frustration rolled down his cheeks as the strain of the last few days finally came out.
We gave Fishy time to pull himself together, no one making any comment until eventually I said, “Come on then let’s make a move.” we all stood and left the warehouse. Outside in the sunshine again another MP directed us over to some prefabricated buildings, over one of them was a big roughly painted sign that said EVACUEES REPORT HERE. We went inside and were given a card with a number on it and told to wait until our number was called. When we were called out we sat in front of NCO clerks who filled in forms as they asked us questions. Name, rank, serial number, regiment, time of arrival in port, name of vessel used for evacuation, injuries sustained. Having obtained this information we were again told to wait and called back later and given travel warrants, the RAOC in their Bedford QL three tonners were back in action again here, this time running a shuttle service to Dover rail station from here we got a train to Oxford where we were told we would find the rest of our unit.
We spent a very uncomfortable night on an overcrowded Dover station before leaving in the early hours of the following morning for our destination. When we arrived at Oxford some five hours later we asked at the local police station for directions to Tillington Camp and were told that it was only a couple of miles outside the town. The desk Sergeant also told us the next bus would be leaving in about another hour from outside the town hall, so as it was fine weather we decided to walk rather than wait.
When we arrived at the camp gate a barrier was pulled down to prevent vehicle access, there were no such restrictions to pedestrians so we just walked in.
Ignoring the big sign that said ‘KNOCK AND WAIT’ I walked into the guard room thinking I might find someone that I knew.
In the office sat a small, ugly, little man, wearing Sergeant’s stripes whom I had never seen before, he was reading a paperback cowboy novel with his feet up on the desk. He was obviously not pleased to have been interrupted, he looked up at me from the desk, closing the book with a pair of hands at least two sizes too big for the rest of his body and said. “So the Army is now so short of Bombardiers that it’s choosing them as can’t read is it?”
“I’m sorry Sergeant, I thought that perhaps it would be someone that I knew on guard, I was just expecting to surprise them.” I spluttered.
“Well then lad, let me surprise you! What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, coming in to my camp, looking like a bloody tramp … and when did you last have a bloody shave, get yourself back outside now” .
I went outside and he picked up his cap, put it onto his bald head and followed me out.
As he got outside, his eyes rested on the other four that made up our crew and I saw them for the first time as he must have done, our uniforms were torn and dirty, with bits missing. Ronny and Jack were also missing their caps
And you could tell from the size of our kit bags there was hardly anything inside them. “Well, well, well … there are more tramps out here and here’s me thinking this was a blooming Army camp. Turns out it must be the local doss house eh?”
“Excuse me Sergeant but we lost most of our kit in France.”
Jack said, his face blushing.
“My, my, lost your kit eh? Probably have to get the charge sheets out now then wont I? Oh you do make work for a poor Sergeant don’t you boys?” The Sergeant went on berating us for some considerable time, and would, I think, have gone on for a lot longer had his entertainment not have been cut short by the arrival, at the gate, of a Humber staff car which stopped at the barrier.
Out of the back door stepped a Major, he was of medium height, late thirties or early forties, with a round face which seemed to have a permanent smile and a twinkle in his eyes. He also had a good array of medal ribbons for one so young, including the MC. “Sergeant Foxwell, what’s going on here then?” said the Major, looking at the Sergeant in a none too friendly way.
“Oh these are some of our blokes returned from France sir.” said the Sergeant his voice full of sweetness and light.
“No you misunderstand me Sergeant Foxwell” said the Major the smile still on his lips but gone from his eyes “I’m asking you why these men, who have no doubt been through hell and high water during the last few weeks, are standing about here when they should be lying down in their beds umm?”
It was the Sergeant’s turn to look worried but then he must have thought he could bluff his way out of it. “Begging the Majors pardon Sir, they only arrived here just a couple of minutes before the Major Sir.”
“Oh I see that’s ok then, as long as you’re telling me the truth that is? Is he Bombardier? Have you only just arrived? Now think carefully before you answer me because I saw you marching down the lane twenty five minutes ago, by my calculations you must have arrived here over 10 minutes ago. Now then who’s right, me or the Sergeant?” said the Major with just a trace of Irish brogue in his voice.
Now I was in a difficult position, it was never a good idea to get on the wrong side of a Sergeant particularly one like this one but at the same time I wasn’t going to lie for him.
“I think the Sergeant may be mistaken Sir. We did arrive about a quarter of an hour ago.” I said standing to attention as I addressed the officer.
“Hmm thought so, now then Foxwell,” he said and I felt that he had deliberately missed out the word Sergeant. “Do you have a hut for these people, we’ve been all through this, and there should be accommodation for up to three hundred men, now where are these going? I want to see them settled in before I go to my quarters.”
Reluctantly the Sergeant went back into the office and came out with a clip board, “Names?” he said in a Sergeants voice, and we all called out our names, he used his finger to methodically trace down the paperwork and after much deliberation that I could tell was irritating the Major, he looked back up and addressing the Major told us we were all in hut 48.
“Carry on then chaps” the Major said to us and saluted, and then turning to the Sergeant he said “Barrier Foxwell please.” and strode back to his car.
As we marched off with our kit bags and rifles, we caught a glimpse of Sergeant Foxwells’ face, he was not pleased.
We marched down the main road through the camp, passed some elderly but smartly painted huts, until we came to a sign that said ‘HUTS 30 TO 90’ and pointed to a path to the left. We followed the path left, it took us through some trees, and then the ground opened out into what was obviously a newly created open space, that it had once been woodland was obvious by the fact that it was surrounded on all sides by trees. Roads had been laid through the soil and about twenty newly built huts crowded around the road close to the entrance. As you followed the road to where it abruptly ended you could see other areas marked out for the erection of similar structures.
No attempt had been made to do anything clever with the numbering. The first hut was number thirty and the one opposite was thirty-one, this pattern carried on until we had passed huts thirty nine and forty where the ground opened out to a small parade square on one side of the road and a large hut on the other, above the door of which was the sign NO 3 Mess Hall.
We crossed this minor junction and walked on along the road where the pattern of huts was again repeated until we found one near the end of the row on the right hand side of the road, which was hut forty eight. I walked up the two steps and pushed the door open, everything smelled of new paint. It was pleasant enough though, there were six beds down each side, each with a locker next to it and a foot locker stood at the end of each bed on all of which was a pile of new blankets and pillows.
A stove pot stood in the middle of the hut and at the end, a separate room that I assumed was a bedroom come office for whoever was allocated to be in charge of the hut.
It was obvious that as yet, no one else was using the place, so I told the lads to pick a bed, which they did in such a way that our crew occupied the first five beds closest to the end room and furthest away from the door we had come in through. “What we going to do now then Bomb?” asked Harry.
“Good question, I suppose it would be nice to have a bath and a shave and get into some decent kit, only we don’t have any razors, let alone decent kit and I haven’t seen any latrines anywhere …” I said, still wandering around the hut looking at things as I spoke.
“There were blokes in some of the huts we passed” said Jack, “shall I go and try to find out what’s what?”
“Good idea, Fishy you go with him and I’ll go and try and get something that will burn for this stove, while I’m gone Harry, you and Ronny make up the beds and try and lay out what kit we’ve got into some sort of order, personal stuff in the bedside cabinets eh?” I said following, Fishy and Jack to the door.
By eight o’clock that night we had a fire burning in the stove, a pot of tea was brewing on the top. Earlier, by boiling up water on the stove we had all taken turns to have a wash in hot water, using borrowed razor blades, we had all had a shave, we looked a lot better but we were still unbelievably scruffy. The last of the light had faded as we were finishing our tea and as if from an unspoken command one by one, we put down our mugs, got undressed and climbed into bed.
I awoke the next morning at 06.30 hours to the sound of Reveille being blown on a bugle, we had been away from camp life long enough to have forgotten just how horribly intrusive that sound could be.
Overcoming the temptation to pull the blankets over my head and go back to sleep I sat up in bed and took stock. I stretched different muscles in turn and none felt too bad, I looked out the window, the sun was shining, birds had resumed singing, once the bugle had stopped, it felt good to be home. I got out of bed, pulled on my shabby trousers and shouted far louder than was necessary “Come on you ‘orrible lot rise and shine!” This was greeted with moans of protest but gradually all of the crew emerged from under their bedding. By 06.50 we were all dressed and as ready as we could be for parade, Jack was acting as lookout to tell us when soldiers from the other huts were setting off, the plan being to follow them. Five minutes passed but no one emerged from the huts nearest to us even though we knew some of them were occupied. So I said that we had better start off on our own and see what we could find. When we got to the older huts, people were filing out, hurrying off down the road, so we followed at their pace, eventually we arrived at the parade ground, where people were lining up in groups. I could see no one that I knew so I asked a Sergeant, who was standing with two others, if he could tell us where to stand? He asked how many we were and when I told him he told me in a friendly enough way that as we didn’t look too pretty to take the lads and fall in at the back. I did this only to find that already there were another twenty or so blokes similarly attired as ourselves we were later joined by another dozen or so just before they called us to attention.
Major Greene arrived, accompanied by a Lieutenant and along with the three Sergeants they stood at the front of the parade. The Lieutenant read out the day’s orders and then, accompanied by the Sergeant that I had spoken to, he and the Major walked down the ranks of men. We watched as occasional notes were made by the Sergeant, dreading the amount of writing he would have to do when he reached us on the back row. We couldn’t have been more wrong, the Major said that he hoped we had all slept well and told us that after the parade had finished and we’d taken breakfast we were all to report to the stores to get ourselves a new issue of kit, so that by the next time he saw us again we would all look like soldiers and that once we had transformed ourselves back to soldiers we were to visit the paymaster and draw a weeks wages as an advance on what we were owed. He then told us to take the time to have a wander around the camp and familiarise ourselves with the place. Other than that we were excused duty for the rest of the day, He finished by telling us that he had arranged for us all to have passes made out from 18.00 hours until midnight, they were waiting for us at the gate, we just needed to ask the Sergeant .