Suez 1956, page 46
We’d gone from Brandon Station near Thetford to Liverpool Street by train. There were no lorries to meet us at Liverpool Street – this was the first in the beginning of a long line of disasters – and we actually travelled from Liverpool Street over to Waterloo by tube, at the time of the rush-hour, with entrenching tools, map-cases, pistols, Sten guns, the lot, cheered on by all these old ladies: ‘Go on, son! Get stuck in!’ It was quite embarrassing.13
Arriving in Southampton, the Royal Scots embarked on the Empire Fowey. They sailed on the evening of 1 November.
On the principle of ‘fitting you in somewhere’ we all got on board. Odd Royal Scots soldiers were tucked away in every nook and cranny in the ship and any question of a sub-unit or platoon of the same company being together on the same troop deck was purely coincidental. Officers were accommodated four in a two-berth cabin (two on the floor), five in a three-berth, and so on. However, eventually we were all aboard and in total we had 2,700 troops on a ship designed to hold 1,300–1,400. Although crowded, we were not uncomfortable; there were no complaints – we had a job to do. We sailed just after midnight, having arranged to get on board about sixty or so of our leave personnel who arrived from Bodney in transport at 2200 hours. We were told that the rest of our leave personnel would be sent in other ships which were to leave in the next few days.14
Six days later, the news of the ceasefire having just got through, courtesy of the BBC, the Empire Fowey docked at Malta. What now? The best guess was for the ship turning about for the voyage back to Southampton. But no. Port Said was still on the order sheet. After taking on fuel and water, the Empire Fowey, accompanied by an escort destroyer ‘in case any country other than Egypt might try to molest us!’, set off for Egypt, the captain expecting to deposit his passengers early on the 10th. But come the morning, the Empire Fowey was heading away from Port Said, having had orders to cruise 100 miles north of the coast until the 11th. ‘The day was therefore spent in steaming one and a half hours north and then one and a half hours south.’ Since this was Armistice Day, a service was held on deck and in the evening there was a film show. ‘It was the most dreadful film that has ever been made, and certainly very insulting to Scotch persons; the film was Brigadoon. This got booed continuously by all the Jocks, as you can imagine.’15
It seemed that if the sense of urgency had thus far evaporated, everybody might as well go home. But it could never be that simple. As the ship eventually anchored 6 miles off Port Said, still with no notion of what was going on ashore, an attempt was made to open a radio link with divisional command.
Despite the fact that the Brigade set could hear the Divisional Headquarters Control set ashore, the latter would not answer and we remained in the dark. It was not until the evening, when an exasperated Brigade Major used some strong language over the ether, that the Control set replied with a signal in code, ‘Are you 19 Brigade?’ The Brigade Major’s reply in clear is unprintable. It was subsequently learnt that the Divisional operator had been thoroughly trained in the dangers of Egyptians attempting to operate sets on our frequencies.
After this contact had been established with our Headquarters ashore, we were rather surprised to learn that they had no idea where we were. Upon being enlightened by our now almost hysterical Brigade Major that we were lying off at anchor and that we wanted some information, we were told that they would try and get a landing-craft out to us the following morning (12th) to take off the Brigade Commander and the unit reconnaissance parties, and that the units would probably disembark on the morning of the 13th.16
There were two more false starts before a thoroughly disgruntled Royal Scots battalion set foot on the quay alongside the Casino Palace Hotel, by then converted into a casualty station, where they learned they were to relieve 45 Commando Royal Marines. They were given an enthusiastic welcome, which came as something of a consolation for finding that their vehicles and stores, which should have arrived ahead of them, were still at sea.
The Royal Scots, bagpipes skirling, debarked this morning and marched to their billets through the dusty, war-torn streets of Port Said.
They were a ‘braw’ sight as they marched, the pipers in their kilts and tan tam o’shanters. The companies moved in slow step behind them, complete in battle dress and full kit.
It was the first bit of color Port Said has had since the British–French assault on Nov. 5 and even the troops already here raised a cheer. The kilts were much admired and elicited the usual jokes, but to those who wanted to try them on the stock Scottish answer was: ‘No, mon, ye no have the figger for it.’
The shrill music of the pipes and the joking and the color were a tonic for the troops.17
Port Said certainly needed cheering up. With the all-pervading smell from broken sewers, water rationing, a curfew and with thousands of troops crammed into what one observer described as a ‘congested sand pit’, it was a grim place for an extended stay.
Doubtless mindful of his responsibilities as propaganda chief, Brigadier Fergusson found ‘hardly any damage [in Port Said] except to the wooden bathing huts on the beach, some of which had been full of ammunition’.18 Elsewhere, Fergusson reckoned the material losses to have been limited to ‘a small area in the old Arab town, a block of flats behind the Governorate where a small party of Egyptian soldiers had fought stoutly and the Navy House and Customs Shed where, being unable to get away because they were surrounded by water, a party of police had held out to the end’.
Reporting for the Daily Express, Donald Edgar described a rather different scene that had less of the Boy’s Own adventure about it. Port Said, he wrote, ‘is a fearful sight, a city of flames and acrid smoke’.19 It took some time for his words to appear in the Beaverbrook press, which was reluctant to move out of the comfort zone created by the official handouts. It was only when pictures of the devastation along the seafront of Port Said began to appear that Edgar’s version of events was taken seriously.
Port Fuad, once an attractive, mainly European town, was in no better state than Port Said.
The first thing we noticed was a twisted pile of various Egyptian troop-carrying lorries, still burning, contorted machine-guns and melting tyres. Beneath an engine, part of a corpse was sticking out, burnt almost to a cinder. All the streets were littered with debris. There were several dead, too. But above all, there was a lot of military equipment lying about, even on the lawns, which had been ripped up by tank-tracks. Palm trees were blazing like torches. The whole town smelt of burning, grease, iron, oil, powder and rotten meat.20
For the latest arrivals, the first job, while trying to maintain law and order, was to help in the clearing up and, so it seems from reminiscences, to engage in running repairs. This could be quite a challenge.
There was a modern building next to the beach about 2 or 3 storeys high and it had a flat roof with a very low parapet around the edge of the roof. A stream of water was running down the stairs inside . . . On reaching the roof we found some lead water pipes, which we guessed had been hit by gunfire from aircraft. With no tools it seemed an impossible task. Then an inspiration. For the beach landing we had worn inflatable navy blue belts with straps, which had been abandoned on the beach once we were ashore. Sure enough the beach was still littered with them, so we collected some and returned to the roof. You might think that at this stage things were now looking better, but no, a shot rang out, and we dropped flat on the roof. A sniper was on another rooftop further away from the beach. But first things first. We had to sort out the damaged pipes, and then we could sort out the sniper. It was tricky work lying flat bandaging the pipes with the inflatable belts and remembering not to let any portion of your body get higher than the parapet. He must have thought that we were still there, as now and again bullets were hitting the parapet. He was probably puzzled as to why we were not firing back. Eventually, we had completed the repairs to the best of our ability and the water from the pipes had been reduced to a trickle. Now for the sniper, but he appeared to have gone. Either he became bored, or maybe someone else became aware of our predicament and sorted out the problem for us . . . After this rather stressful incident, it occurred to me that you never know what tomorrow will bring, so I went downstairs and ‘acquired’ an expensive silver knife, fork and spoon, and a linen serviette. I could then dine in style from my mess tins, as long as the opportunity prevailed.21
The Royal Scots found themselves cleaning out drains and sewers (‘not the most wholesome of tasks and even now “all the perfumes of Arabia” still seem to cling nostalgically’) and controlling queues for food and kerosene oil, the latter from a horse-drawn cart. There was much more:
We would receive messages from our patrols that an old lady had fallen out of the window; could the doctor come at once? Another not so old lady had given birth and wanted assistance. Another, a local pig had had its throat cut (allegedly by one of our allies); someone else’s car had been stolen, and so it went on. Whenever asked we never refused assistance, and as a result we built up an almost embarrassing reputation as ‘saviours of the poor’.22
The French were inclined to be less sentimental. Second Lieutenant Nicholas Vaux, who, twenty-six years later, was to lead 42 Commando in the Falklands War, noted that while British forces used minimum force, not always successfully, the French reaction to trouble was to demonstrate in the most obvious way the consequences of the failure to cooperate.
I was with a French Company Commander, whose Company were supervising the issue of flour to the local residents, who were very short of food. And they began to get excited, and it was obvious that a riot was likely, unless something was immediately done. And so he spoke to his Sergeant Major, and they shot six people immediately, who were, if you like, inciting or beginning to push this situation over the edge. And it absolutely sorted the whole problem out, and for the rest of the day everybody queued up, got their bag of rice or flour, and went home. And when I gently remonstrated with the French Company Commander, he said to me: ‘Well, which would you rather have had?’ And it was a difficult question to answer, I have to say.23
As Nicholas Vaux readily concedes, however, there were occasions when British soldiers were too quick on the trigger. Sent to relieve one of his fellow commanders on a lakeside south of Port Said, he heard the sound of firing as he approached.
When I arrived at the lake most of the troop that we were going to relieve were lying on the bank, firing at two small dhows that had obviously attempted to land. And when I asked the chap in charge what was going on, he said: ‘Well, they fired at us, so we’re firing at them.’ By this time, in fact, it was obvious that they weren’t firing at anybody, and there was a rather sort of ominous stillness about the boats. And so, for some reason, which I can readily understand, he did the quickest handover of all time, jumped in his transport and disappeared.
I got an Egyptian to hail the boats and some people eventually appeared. To my consternation, not only were most of them European but actually some of them were women. We thought all the Europeans had been evacuated and accounted for, so where on earth had these people come from?
The answer was not what any troop commander wanted to hear. Not only had British troops been firing on European civilians, but they had been firing on a party of European journalists. ‘We couldn’t bring the boats in because the water was too shallow so we all waded out to the boats and discovered that in fact two Egyptians had been killed and one European wounded. The group included some very strident American ladies who were definitely going to make sure that their President knew about Vaux and his trigger-happy Marines.’24 There were also Russian journalists in the group, who were convinced that they were about to be executed. The reward for serving the international press was to endure just about every injection known to medicine after wading through contaminated water.
Every day brought new deliveries to Port Said of troops and equipment, much of the latter surplus to requirements. Checking out the ammunition points along the beach, Hugo Meynell found crates of military law manuals, ‘which would have been fine for an occupation,’ but even then as a low priority.25 Another unlikely consignment was the regimental silver of the Life Guards, who never made it to Suez but who had taken the precaution of sending their trophies on ahead.
With the canal blocked landing at Port Said could be a tricky business. The troopship carrying the 19th Royal Scots infantry brigade arrived at night in choppy water. Moreover, radio communication with the shore had broken down. It was, wrote Roger Booth, like ‘being in a party of unwelcome trippers who had overbooked at some marine resort’.
Now out of the darkness loomed a large Admiralty tug, its bow swathed in massive rope fenders. It sniffed our white flank like an inquisitive bulldog. I could tell it was being superbly handled in the bad conditions. Its engine telegraph rang like a busy exchange as it nosed up to us and gingerly retreated on the abrupt urine looking waves in an effort to point us out of the harbour entrance. Finally a malevolent wave lifted the tug forward with an inconvenient surge and its bow struck the troopship a hammer blow. Our whole vessel rang like a cheap tin bath. The tug went full astern, like a man who’d received a punch on the nose in a fight, and was now in full retreat. As it backed into the gloom we could see from its bow that it was named HMS Careful. Two thousand troops gave an ironic cheer in the bucketing wind.26
At El Cap, where the ceasefire deadline had brought the allies to a halt, troops held a monotonous vigil under a blazing sun. There was some contact with the natives. Colonel Bela Bredin, who had been in Ismailia in 1952, was sought out by his former dhobi wallah, who wanted to renew his contract for taking in the officers’ laundry.
Help for the local economy was provided in more unorthodox ways with the nightly disappearance of several hundred yards of underground cable, which fetched a good price in Cairo for its lead.27 It was hard to blame the Egyptians for taking whatever they could get. After all, Allied troops were equally inclined to treat other people’s property as their own. Cigarettes were purloined on a massive scale, recalls Nicholas Vaux.28 Abandoned European homes were regarded as fair game. One old soldier was seen helping himself to a very expensive fur coat.
Did second lieutenant X who so mysteriously acquired a blue Studebaker until ordered out of it really have links with black marketers in Port Said? Had he delivered a truckload of nuts and foodstuffs to an orphanage but also sold another truckload to an Italian businessman? Did he wire his stockbroker brother urgently for Egyptian currency when Port Said traders, who’d illegally accepted BAAFS [the army’s Naafi money], were desperately trying to sell them back to soldiers for Egyptian money at an absurdly low rate?
The answer to all those questions is probably ‘yes’ since that same officer was later convicted of fraud.29 It is said that looting was vigorously discouraged by British officers. Not so by the French.
We guarded warehouses against looters, Egyptian or otherwise, and often out of the dusk would come the Legion intent on breaking into them. On one occasion a French officer was carrying a hacksaw to remove the padlocks. Our sentry had saluted him then told him to ‘bugger off’. The British provost sometimes arrested French officers looting with their platoons, and then handed them over to the French provost, who saluted politely in acceptance and then irritatedly released the miscreants in this exasperating charade of allied cooperation . . . It was reputed that a French battalion on parachuting into the city had made a bee line for the main post office, despite any other tactical requirements, in order to ‘sort out’ the registered mail. I glimpsed a legionnaire who had a dozen watches worn proudly up each tattooed arm. Acquired jewellery was liberally swathed around his neck.30
While life, legal or otherwise, went on the horrors were never far away. On the way to El Cap, Donald Edgar crossed the combined road and rail bridge captured by the French after tough resistance. Waiting his turn to pass through the security barrier he had time ‘to study a French paratrooper spooning up his meal from a mess tin perched on the bonnet of a burnt out civilian car. Half in and half out of the car sprawled two dead Egyptians, their faces covered with flies’.31 Once more, the image did not appeal to the editorial desk in London. He had better luck when he found ordinary soldiers adapting, patiently and sympathetically, to extraordinary circumstances.
We drove out through Arab Town and approached a long quay by the side of the Lake. A crowd of five or ten thousand men, women and children were milling around laden with their bundles of possessions . . . Just away from the crowd was parked a solitary jeep with the driver sitting impassively with folded arms. We got out and talked to him.
‘Bloody awful, isn’t it!’ he said when we spoke to him. ‘They’re all trying to get on those bloody boats, haven’t a hope in hell, have they? . . . Poor bastards. Mind you, I don’t know anything about it all. He’s in charge.’
He pointed to a sergeant wearing the red beret of the paratroops with a tommy-gun slung over one shoulder. Men and women were coming up to plead with him, some carrying bits of paper. ‘Can’t do anything for you here,’ he was saying firmly. ‘You’ll have to go to Movement Control office back in the town . . . No, luv, I can’t help . . . Now come along, pass back there.’ He put out his arms as if he was a traffic policeman back in Guildford.
The sergeant was all alone. There was no other military presence for miles. All around him swarmed a crowd of several thousand, wailing, screaming, shouting. He and his driver and jeep could have been overwhelmed in a minute. But he just stood there, imperturbable, supremely self-confident under the Egyptian sun. I should say he was around twenty-two or twenty-three.
