The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's)

The Limes Vendor © Tom Barker

"O, for the cool sequestered shade,
Where green peace soothes my scorching eyes."
H Marshall

Bob Moat, Danny McCormack, Ginger Craig and myself were playing cards on a blanket that was spread out on the sand in the hot desert near Mersa Matruh. We would play the game in one of the many ten foot square dugouts in the sand that each accommodated six to eight Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and were covered by ground sheets laced together and dusted with sand to foil any enemy Italian aircraft on the prowl. But with a cool breeze blowing we opted to play the game out on top near one of the dugouts, so if the alarm was sounded, we could dive straight down and under cover.

The distant horizon was shimmering and hazy in the heat and when a supply truck appeared to the sentry as a tiny black dot in the far distance, apparently floating just above the ground, then sometimes disappearing altogether for minutes at a time into the distant wavy heat of the desert, the sentry would alert all in case it was an enemy vehicle. We would only relax and put away our rifles when the sentry had verified, through the powerful binoculars that were passed on to each new sentry, that the now growing larger dot was indeed a friendly one.

Since the desert is normally silent at all times, enemy aircraft, with their noisy engines, gave us plenty of warning and we had time to scurry below ground and out of sight. This was the time when the British Army did not want Mussolini to know we were in the desert, or if he did become aware, that he did not know our exact location.

Below ground we had to endure the dust and fine sand filtering through the gaps in the ground sheets covering our positions and it made the practice of cleaning rifles a chore. The dust and grit also adhered to the corned beef we had to eat and with the flies adding to our meagre menu, it was not surprising that some suffered the miseries of dysentery, and tempers got short. A gust of wind would make the ground sheets above our heads ripple and any fine sand, lying in a crease or dip in the sheet, could suddenly move and find a hole to shower down on us like smoke from a cigarette floating downwards, instead of up.

Hot and perspiring hungry men with open-necked shirts would soon be cursing Mussolini, Hitler, and this God forsaken hell hole as they stripped off their shirts and wiped away the dust and sweat that had now become abrasive mud.

Water was rationed, so we did not want to be suddenly called to alert and put webbing equipment straps over our bodies that were fouled by fine sand. The shoulders would become rubbed raw by the movements of the body continually moving under the weight of pouches full of ammunition and grenades.

Sometimes our reverie was interrupted by an Italian flyer. Like alarmed prairie dogs we would scoop up the blanket and scuttle to our respective bolt hole. Then through a tiny peephole in a ground sheet above us one man would watch the plane's position in case the pilot spotted our position, due to well trodden foot marks in the sand, and begin to strafe us with machine guns. We would move around our square pit to the body language of the man at the spy hole and should the enemy pilot open fire, we would be under the lee of the side he was attacking from, and the sand would act as a barrier between us. We knew when he was about to fire because the soldier looking through the hole would also suddenly duck down to be safe with us.

Then as the noise of the plane thundered over us, our spy would pop up again to look through the tiny peephole to see where the plane was and keep it in view, in case it tried a repeat performance. But if the plane dropped a bomb, and it was accurate, then the men in that pit had no chance. Body parts that had been blown out of a dugout and had rolled over in the sand on landing now looked like sandy boulders that had suddenly become covered with masses of crawling flies. The unpleasant thing about this was that as soon as the plane had gone, we had to search the body parts for the I.D. tags and bury the bodies.

Looking into a dead man's open eyes as one removes the I.D. tags from the neck, gives one the impression he is paralyzed and reproaching one for being a thief taking his tags, while he can do nothing about it. But the dull look of the eyes with the dust already settling on them tells one the man is already gone and beyond aid. The dead man's bayonet would be fixed and the rifle minus the magazine and bolt was pushed bayonet first into the sand as a marker at the head of the grave.

We did get some days when a fresh cooling breeze would blow all day and the lack of flies would re-establish God in the minds of some who were convinced He had forsaken them in this morass of burning sand that seemed to turn into ice crystals at night. When the breeze dropped, the heat seemed to be more intense and the number of flies seemed to multiply. As the sun set each day the evening could be cool and pleasant. Some sunsets could be magnificent, and should someone make a comment about the beautiful rainbow colours, a Glasgow voice would warble

"Aye, enjoy it while ye can, it could be yer last."

And a flippant Geordie would answer, "Bluddy charmin', why divvant ya shurrup man!"

Then as night took over it would turn bitterly cold, and if a breeze sprang up, it could become so cold that sleep was impossible and one lay there shivering in one's greatcoat under one thin dust impregnated blanket. But at night Italian pilots would fly very high, then cut their engines to glide over our positions, dropping fountain pens and thermos flasks that would land on the ground close to us. They could lie there for weeks, but when moved, they blew up seconds later. The pens blew off fingers and hands and some chaps were blinded for life.

One chap saw a thermos flask as it lay on the sand and presumed it had bounced out of an Officers pick up truck. He picked up the flask perhaps anticipating a nice cold drink of rum and orange. Soon a group of his mates who saw him struggling to get the top off decided they too could do with a free cold drink. Then an Officer popped his head out of his fox hole to see what the excitement was about and immediately went over and took the flask from the finder. He too tried in vain to remove the cup at the top then held it to his ear and shook it. It blew his head off and killed most of those nearest to him.

Card games eased the boredom of sitting for months in the middle of miles and miles of - to quote one Officer who was surveying the landscape through his binoculars - "miles and miles of s**t coloured f**k all."

Now and again we had noticed in the distance, an Arab on his camel moving about the desert. One of our Officers got suspicious and ordered a patrol to go out and bring him in. On being questioned, he declared he was merely passing by and selling limes to our chaps, but when the blanket on his camel was searched, a notebook full of sketches of our positions was found. We heard later he had been arrested, shipped back to Cairo and shot as an Italian spy.

Flat metal objects left out in the sun could be used to fry eggs on, if one was lucky enough to find an egg. On odd occasions someone back from a leave in Cairo would come up with a tin of skinless sausages and the smell of these cooking on the flat mudguard of a truck had everyone's mouth watering. Frustrated cries could be heard from those who had none, and those that had to be content with the ever boring tin of bully beef would ventilate, "Why the **** di ye no ***** aff inti the ***** desert ti fry they ***** thengs awa frae us?"

To hide the frustrations and boredom, one could always sit and watch a willy willy as it approached from miles away. A column of dust and sand caught by a cross wind would come swirling across the sand like a mad dancing Dervish. When it was gone, we would sit and ponder about tomorrow and perhaps, with luck, the day after that.