Ernie was a cook; Battle dates 1941; Loot; The Voyage; Near miss.

ERNIE WAS A COOK

He took pity on us, and said he'd send us a babbling brook. He did.  He sent us Ernie. Ernie was the funniest-looking cove I've ever seen. He would have made a fortune stooging for Walt Disney.  He had a frame that was six-feet-plenty of no bones at all, and a moon-face that rocked backwards and forwards on top of it.  He had a mouth that stretched from ear to car, about two teeth, and a pair of watery-looking eyes. He was one of those blokes who could walk without moving, if you get what I mean.  He just shuffled into the billet, gave us one of those face-collapses which we learned afterwards were his apologies for grins, and said, "Hello, boys. I'm yer new babbling brook!"

We weren't impressed a bit with Ernie. He didn't look exactly like one of those smart coves who do things with a white cap, an apron, and a couple of frying pans and a stove, and out comes steak and eggs, with chips on the side, for two bob a nob. We watched Ernie totter outside to where the boys had rigged a bit of a stove and a stack of firewood for him, and watched him fumble about. He seemed so punch-drunk that we swapped knowing winks, cast a miserable eye at the boxes of tinned horse and biscuits in the corner of the billet and walked out.

We copped the shock of our lives when we came home that night-cold and wringing wet from a petrol-scrounge. We expected nothing better than the usual feed of bully and biscuits when we landed back. We only hoped that Ernie would have enough common lolly to make some tea without burning it. We nearly went for a seven when we came in the door.

Our noses worked overtime taking in the pleasant whiff of cooking. Ernie looked at us from over some pots and pans and said, "Kerm on, boys. I've made yer some sausage rolls and chipped pertaters. There wasn't much I could pinch on the way up."

We soon put the tucker away, don't worry. It was like some of that manna from heaven that we didn't see when we were training in Palestine. We pumped Ernie, and he told us that he'd got off with half a bag of Iti flour, about a dozen big tins of English snags, and the Lord knows what else from a ration dump he'd passed on his way to us. Oh, he did better than that later on, when we started to gather up a few of some of the more eatable Wop rations that were lying around. He got as far as three-course turnouts, with soup and all, while the pile of uneaten bully and biscuits filled more and more space in the little "Q" dump we'd made. We swapped some of it with Libyans for eggs and vegetables, but still it piled up like empties outside a bottleoh's joint after Boxing Day. We wouldn't look at it-didn't have to. Ernie made dampers-and good dampers, too. He bought sheep from native herders for Italian nickel coins and that shin-plaster paper money of theirs.

Then we had chops and the rest of the good parts of the jumbuck all done up with gravy and extras, and a few other things to follow. Poultry. Lord, yes. The peasants had shot-guns, and used to pot
pheasants, which they'd let us have for tins of bully. They sold us grog, too, though not as much of it as the winter made us want. Of course, a man had to lick out his mess tin thoroughly so the custard (yes, custard) wouldn't taste of onion gravy, but we didn't worry about that. 

We were shifted to a seafront job a little while afterwards, and Ernie's skipper let him come with us. He didn't know what a jewel he was giving away, I suppose. But nobody was going to part us in a hurry. We were getting almost bloated, with Ernie around the place. No longer did the winter winds chop their way through our ribs -they couldn't get around the lining that Ernie's tucker had put there.

Every day brought from us the old inquiry, "What's for tea, Ern?" and invariably he'd turn off something that would make a chef at the Hotel Carlton turn up his toes and die of shame. At least, that's how it struck me. Don't kid yourself. We were living well, and I mean well. One morning when some of us were doing a bit of Government Stroke on some blown-up Wop concrete, we spotted Ernie walking down to the beach, with his usual silly grin spread across his Jern Mace. He had about half a dozen T.N.T. briquettes from a broken-down Iti landmine in his hands, and he had some coils of F.I.D. and safety fuse and detonators looped around his arms. I was a bit worried about seeing the poor old coot playing about with these fireworks, and I thought I'd give him the drum to be careful.

He didn't stop grinning when I yelled out to him, and just answered, "Yairs, I know all about it. I was a powder-monkey once. It's tens against and write yer own ticket, that we'll be sparring up ter Lillian Gish fer tea." Later, we heard the thump, of underwater blasting, and Ernie came shuffling back with a big string of fish hanging by their gills from a cane ring. Ernie cooked us Lillian Gish for tea, all right. There were chips as well, and the tide went down in the tin of Italian olive oil that. we'd scrounged.

Life was always like that, with Ernie around the joint. We never went short, and even when there wasn't much to be drawn or scrounged, he always turned on something that would have made one of these Ritz chefs look a bunny.

Poor Ernie! If he hadn't walked into an issue of hot stuff, maybe we'd still have been living the life of Riley. But he got a trip to the Pearly Gates, and it broke up the. happy home.

One day he was fishing around among some smashed-up packing cases on a kindling-wood hunt. He'd picked on a place which the Security Officer must have missed. Anyhow, he touched off a thermos bomb and that was *'mafeesh" for Ernie. He wasn't cut about much, but he certainly never knew what had hit him.

We buried him, the padre came up and said a few words about loving out mates, and what a fine thing it was to have comradeship among mates. I felt a bit silly about the Adam's apple, and my eyes ran a bit, I might as well admit. But I didn't have that on my own, either. It's a stone cert that the Padre never knew the sort of jewelled-in-every-hole bloke that Ernie was. I don't suppose he ever jerried to why we were so fussy about making a nice job of his grave, and why we built a stone top to it, and got one of the boys to fix a headstone. I've often wondered about, it myself-but maybe it wasn't only because Ernie could turn off miracles with his dixies.

I wish I could see his homely old clock around the joint now. Well, he'll be the warrior that our particular gang will talk about most if ever we go on an Anzac Day scoot when we hit civvy clothes again.

NX15647

WITH HILLS LIKE HOME

It crouched in close to the hill, as if it were seeking protection. At home the houses all spread out, as if they wanted to have their own free air.

Move shells, churning things up a bit over yonder, too. That's made them move faster than they intended. Darkness coming on now, though.

If things were a bit slack, sometime or other during the year, this would be the place to come for a week. Bring a pack-horse and the dog. Sleep over there near the shelf where the little hill changed its mind and decided to continue growing into a full-size mountain.

Darkness creeping over blotted out the details and left the outlines. He looked at the sky background. His pals were getting ready for whatever might happen in the night. He began to do the same, not talking much, except to say something about "those swine spoiling all this." It did not seem to have much to do with the work in hand.

Sometime after midnight there was a sharp burst of fire. Voices and a clatter sounded out in front, and there were dark figures moving. They seemed close. With the concerted anger of a pack of dogs suddenly wakened, the machine guns barked and spat.

For half an hour it went on, then the bedlam gradually eased. Guns fired their parting shots. In the new silence they were as distinct as the last drops falling from a tap that had been abruptly turned off.

They wrapped him in a blanket and pulled him in from where he had gone raging at the intruders with his bayonet. A chance shot in the dark had got him.

There was not much in the way of keepsakes or papers to send home for him. Only a letter just begun. There had been time for him to write only, "Greece is a lovely place, with hills like home. I wouldn't mind staying here . . . ."

"A.P.F."

LOOT ON THE INSTALMENT PLAN

"I know that you would not countenance such a crime of theft; but many of your people have rifles and ammunition hidden away. They must be brought out for me. You are responsible for them, whether I get them or not. You will be held responsible. I will come back next week."

When he comes back he will get some rifles. No doubt of that. He will get also the most passionate assurances that nothing of contraband is left in the village. He will accuse. He will argue. He will threaten. And when he comes again he will get some more rifles. They may have been in the next room as he talked, but they will be produced with a specious story of their having been found where some unknown rogue had hidden them; so no one is incriminated.

Search could be made for such loot, but in country where every rocky scrub-covered hill and valley offers a thousand hiding places the odds are heavily against the searchers. The astute approach, the blustering and cajoling, bring far better results.

That is how the search for salvage goes on. Village after dirty village is combed for the equipment that the Arabs have taken often before the battle is over. As the armies move on, hordes of scavengers sweep over the ground. Useless to hide anything from them. They know the ground and their intelligence system is far better than ours. It is easy for them to pick up a small fortune. In the aggregate this makes a very big fortune lost by the army, and how hard it is to get it back! Nevertheless, half a million pounds' worth of material was recovered by one salvage unit in a few weeks, operating in only a small sector of the Syrian battle area.

First, the heavy stuff is taken out. Recovery sections working with the salvage units bring their scammels and their tractors to move artillery, tanks, and military transport which cannot move under its own power. Over the roughest wrecks of side roads and dirt tracks the ten-ton scammel crawls, through village streets where every corner is ten minutes' agony for the driver, where balconies impede the high upper works of the recovery trucks; breaking down terraces and building up tracks to reach the salvage, then stringing cables to winch the laden vehicle up the steep slopes again.

A few miles south of Beirut was the French battery whose constant barrage helped to hold us off for days from the banana plantations of Damour. Hidden away behind a 500400t outcrop of rock in a jumble of hills, unspottable from the air, unreached by fire from sea and land, the guns dominated the sector. A lucky shot killed their captain, but the battery was a constant nuisance until the armistice brought the cease fire.

Eleven big guns and 1,200 rounds of ammunition were taken from that position or its vicinity. Then the real clean-up started. Scattered caches of shells were found for weeks afterwards, shells in fig and olive groves, shells dropped casually beside the road in the underbrush, shells among the rocks, in houses, in pits. All went back to the great central dump.

That left only the houses-the cross that every salvage officer has to bear. He must be a man of parts, this leader of the small hardworking section which saves an army millions of pounds a year for the cost of a few hundreds. Drive and nous are essential qualities. He must be a super-detective-one who can ferret out a guilty secret, can tell when a man lies; one who can inspire fear and take advantage of that fear. He must bluster and threaten - or placate and woo with soft words.

Diplomacy is necessary. The good salvage officer, more closely in touch than any other with the peasants of village and farm who are the country's backbone, is a diplomat also in the wider sense. Salvage is linked with security; security has political implications, so the salvage man is liaison, security and political officer. If he can inspire respect - as he must if he does effectively his primary job among supreme bargainers who pay tribute to one who can beat them in a bargain - then that respect extends to the military force which he represents and thence to his country and countrymen.

Traditional European diplomacy is his model. As puppet state is played against pocket state, so his salvage psychology pits moukhtar against would-be moukhtar, exploiting village jealousies. Grey-bearded Muhammed invites him in for a cup of coffee only to tattle of the rifles hidden under the woodpile in Suleiman's stinking backyard, across the' road. Perhaps Suleiman that morning has called Muhammed a lousy old fleabag. There may be a deeper antipathy. As a whole these people stick together. But the exceptions are helpful and bring results. A few wayside calls, at the trifling cost of a palate embittered by rank coffee, can provide many a talking point or trap for the ultimate routing of the moukhtar's arguments or the ordinary villagers' miniature armaments ring.

The headman and his subjects may scowl as they hand over another small instalment of their loot, but they bob up smiling and palavering when the next visit is made. They welcome in the salvage man and his party-for always it is wise to have support, with sidearms well in evidence to hint at action if needed-and the argument is on again.

Coffee follows, as punishment follows crime, and while it is drunk with loud complimentary schlooping noises, a receipt is handed over. But before it is signed it is checked with a private list. Pontifically the salvage man frowns and the headman waits as a runner waits for the gun, ready with as many denials as he has items of loot.

We have blankets, ammunition boxes, batteries and so on; but what about the greatcoats, clothing, limber wheels, axle pins, boots and . . . rifles. "Mafeesh abaden" the moukhtar wails. "Nothing, nothing, nothing at all." He pleads, stands on his dignity, shouts fiercely at the interpreter. (In the midst of his ravings he shoots a smile at the officer to show that he does not mean to offend.) Then he produces two pairs of badly worn issue boots and promises to check up on the villagers. Honour is saved and he probably knows just where to lay his hand on all the stuff.

The boots do not seem worth salvaging, but they must be taken, on principle. It's the old story of the inch and the ell. Winner takes all in the salvage game. If he does not, he is brewing trouble for himself and the contempt that the shyster has for the sucker. He must take everything, see everything, believe nothing, and never, never take nothing for an answer.

"VX17681"

On Leave, Jaffa by Harold B. Herbert

THE VOYAGE

There is an horizon somewhere out there, glimpse of a landfall, perhaps ... who knows? It is a darkness filled for man's imagination with sea-serpents, enemy raiders, periscopes, castaways, and giant octopi.

From behind the tightly-shut doors leading to the enclosed fore-deck drift a faint confusion of voices, the rumour of a song, and the "tin-tin-tin" of a piano in time with the soft pounding of the engines. It is a little too still out here: the night lies like a cloak wrapped about one's face.

One cannot see-that is the reason of this faintly disturbing feeling of discomfort.

"VX37927"

NEAR MISS

"SX7106"

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