We approached the Egyptian shore in weather little warmer than it had been in Liverpool. I stood, huddled in my greatcoat, in the welcome blast of a ventilator, which was expelling hot air from the engine room - and I still felt cold! The entrance to Port Said harbour is heralded, first, by the turgid brown waters of the Nile delta, surging into the sometimes blue Mediterranean, then by a long stone breakwater with a statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, at its extremity. As most of the sea traffic between Europe and the East has to pass through this bottleneck, it hosts one of the greatest concentrations of shipping in the world.

We dropped anchor in the crowded basin and were immediately surrounded by one of the best known features of this exotic port, the Bum Boats. These are large scows decorated in garish colours and loaded with oriental gewgaws, most of them originating in Birmingham. Since the construction of the canal, they had preyed upon passengers, both civil and military, travelling by ship to India and beyond and had adopted such incongruous names as ‘Jock McTavish’, ‘Sandy MacIntosh and ‘Paddy O’Shaunessy’, with a unique banter in broken English, the better to entice their intended customers.

Transactions are conducted my means of canvas bags attached to long cords. The prospective purchase is first drawn up to the rail for inspection, then a furious and noisy bargaining process ensues until a price is established. When the deal is mutually approved, money replaces the goods in the bag and it is lowered to the boat below. Brassware, embroidered prayer mats and coloured leatherwork are the most popular wares. A companion of mine purchased a fez by this method and we all took turns at being photographed wearing it. My mother acquired the ‘pouf’ in our lounge room from the same source, many years later.

Local Egyptians, other than Canal Company officials, are strictly barred from boarding, due to their light-fingered habits, and it was widely believed that they would have stolen the ship’s funnel if not for this precaution. One long observed exception were the ‘Gully-Gully’ men’. By tradition, these people came to entertain the children on board. Although there were none on our voyage, they came anyway and we enjoyed their shows. Basically they were conjurors, but with an eastern slant. Their stock-in-trade included live chicks (the small feathered variety, unfortunately) but they were just as likely to produce snakes and frogs from the pockets and ears of the unsuspecting audience. They put on a skilled and polished display of prestidigitation, which was much appreciated by bored soldiery, and their collection boxes were generously filled when passed around.

Satellite view of the Suez Canal

Ships traversing the canal have to travel in convoy and passenger ships have priority. For this reason, our stay in Port Said was short and we were unable to go ashore as a convoy was already assembling. Early the following morning we began the hundred-and-one mile passage to Suez. A Company pilot took command of the ship and a powerful searchlight was mounted in the bows. The canal operates like a single line railway track with passing zones, where the waterway widens to allow more than one vessel abreast. Speeds are strictly controlled, as the bow waves erode the banks at excessive speeds, necessitating dredging of the navigable channel.

The weather during our passage was, if anything, colder than the day before and our images of scorching deserts were irrevocably shattered. Icy rain and sleet fell until we reached Ismailia, where the canal opens out into the Bitter Lakes, and we were treated to the unusual sight of camels, backside-on to the gale, trying to keep warm, their drivers wrapping their gelabiyas tightly around themselves in a similar quest. By the following morning we had completed our traverse and after dropping our pilot we entered the Gulf of Suez and thence into the Red Sea.

Within a day or two, the weather changed dramatically. It became so hot and humid that the Lascar crewmen, who were quite accustomed to tropical conditions, were only working two-hour shifts in the engine room. We broke out our tropical gear and consigned our serge uniforms to the bottom of our kit-bags. This was the first occasion, apart from trying them on for size at the depot, that we had worn them and it didn’t take us long to discover what trashy garments they were. The traditional hot weather dress of the British Army was either khaki drill or olive drab but the latter had recently been superseded by jungle green.

Our clothing was the colour of boiled spinach and just about as insipid. The fabric was some kind of cotton/polyester mix, I suspect. We were soon to discover that it wouldn’t hold a crease, no matter how heavily we starched it and our uniforms always looked as if they had been slept in. The garments had obviously not been made from the same batch of cloth, so that after a few washes the components faded to varying degrees. One leg of a pair of trousers might be several shades lighter than the other and decorated by patch pockets of a third hue. The buttons were made of vulcanised rubber and disintegrated after the first wash. We had not felt much like soldiers before: now we didn’t even look like them! Fortunately, being in the Ordnance Corps, my comrades and I were able to exchange these monstrosities for the infinitely superior olive drab, once we had arrived at our units, but for the time being we were stuck with them.

Having stepped from English mid-winter into tropical summer, we now spent much of our time on deck in various stages of undress, and as a result, there were many severe cases of sunburn, a lesson learned the hard way. We also developed a raging thirst because of the unaccustomed heat. There was no wet canteen on board – at least none that we had access to – where we could buy refreshments. Each of us was entitled to one bottle of beer a day and this was brought up from the cold store every morning, with the frost still on it, then left for the remainder of the day in the blazing sun until it was issued in the late afternoon. Anyone who has experienced warm beer will appreciate how refreshing it can be! The only other liquid we had to slake our thirsts, except for the tea served with our meals, was plain water.

There was plenty of this available but our storage tanks had been refilled at Port Said, not the most hygienic source, and it was so laden with purifying chemicals as to be virtually undrinkable. I managed to buy a tin of Andrews’ Liver Salts from the shipboard outlet that supplied cigarettes, soap, razor blades and precious little else. Although this was a mild laxative, it fizzed and was sufficiently flavoured to disguise the taste of the water and make it drinkable, even if the penalty was frequent excursions to the heads!

The water available in the wash-basin taps was fresh, so we managed to shave and brush our teeth without problems, but the showers, the toilets and the laundry were provided only with sea water. Because normal soap will not lather in salt water we were given a bar of special soap, a dark grey lump with all the saponaceous qualities of a house brick. It was reputed to be capable of lathering in tar, an attribute we were unable to verify, but we knew from bitter experience that its performance with seawater was remarkably unspectacular.

Our next stop was Aden, then a British outpost on the tip of the Arabian peninsula, which is now part of the Republic of Yemen. Most of us managed to get a few hours ashore here. This was literally a landmark event for me, being the first foreign soil on which I ever set foot. Some of the lads took a tonga into Crater, the commercial part of the town but I was content to stroll along the foreshore at Steamer Point, where we were berthed. I came upon a local cafe serving cold drinks and, despite dire warnings by the MO about indulging in local comestibles, treated myself to large glass of lemonade. The huge lump of ice floating in it probably crawled with microbes but it tasted like nectar, making it one of the most memorable drinks of my life. I suffered no ill effects.

My insides had already been sterilised by the laxative!

Aden