My second story, like the first, starts in Morocco in the early part of 1944. The Americans were due to ship the equipment for the division to the port of Casablanca but, before anything arrived, the personnel that were gathering had to sit about waiting. Armies in this situation have a tried and tested remedy for keeping their men out of trouble: they send them on a course.
The Americans, for whom this situation was nothing new, had several courses already set up. The titles of these and the people the French chose for them were wildly inappropriate. Padres were sent to study voodoo, tank drivers to read about 16th Century religious painting and I, a Quaker and a pacifist, was offered "Unarmed Combat" or "High Explosives". One look at the instructors for the first course, which was sub-titled "16 Ways of Killing a Man with Bare Hands" and I opted for "High Explosives".
In fact the course was rather fun to begin with. We were taken down to the beach, which was made up of enormous grey-white smooth boulders. The instructor was armed with several yards of explosive cord and a detonating box. We were taught how to split a three-ton boulder neatly in half and drop the two halves precisely into the places marked for them. That lasted two days and then we got onto anti-personnel mines. After a brief lesson we were shown an area said to be mined and told to go ahead and lift one. The instructor said, soothingly, that they were all dummies and if we did trigger one it would give a loud click, and we would have failed. He then moved away to a desk, alongside a low brick wall. I managed to lift my mine without a click and carried it proudly over to the desk. The instructor took it gingerly and tossed it over the wall. There was then a loud explosion!
I soon realised that the whole charade was stage-managed to teach us fundamental truths about high-explosives. However, the course did include one item that was to prove useful six or seven months later. The Germans, we were told, always laid their mines to a set pattern and if two or three had gone off you could easily see where all the others would be. I treated this information with a good deal of scepticism but the details of the pattern must have stayed in my mind as will appear later.
For weeks the port had been empty and silent but, one morning, it was suddenly full of shipping. There was noise and activity everywhere. Our equipment, or at least the first instalment had arrived. Mines and unarmed combat were forgotten and we were immersed in training schedules that continued until we set off for England and the invasion of France.
In my first story I mentioned that our Sergeant Chef was very fond of the English. This applied to nearly all the officers from the General himself down to the Captains and Lieutenants. There were exceptions, of course, one being a rather objectionable Captain who made it clear that he thought our presence was a great mistake. He was given to shouting orders and generally behaving badly, especially to our stretcher-bearers who were charming and kindly Berber Arabs.
One day, when we were slowly fighting our way across Northern France after the liberation of Paris, I called in at the regimental office to collect my mail. The Captain knew I was on my way back to the tanks so, while I was in the office, he ordered my stretcher-bearers to load my vehicle with boxes of armour-piercing shells. This was, of course, in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention under which we operated. When I came out I told the stretcher-bearers to unload. This gave rise to an explosion on the part of the Captain and he ended up in such a rage he threatened to shoot me unless I complied. He then tried to draw his gun but the leather cover was stiff and I'm afraid I laughed at him.
He must have been on the verge of a heart attack, but fortunately Chef Larreur had been watching the whole charade from his office. He really did manage most tactfully to stop the situation from becoming very serious. He ran out calling "Captain - telephone". The Captain turned to Larreur to be shown where the 'phone was. Larreur signalled to me, behind the Captain's back, to clear off fast. He ushered the still purple-faced Captain, gun still undrawn, into the office and out of sight.
When, subsequently, I asked Chef Larreur what had happened he said it was best not to enquire. I think the fact that I had laughed was taken as an example of the English sense of humour, something that exercised a strange fascination for both French and Germans. I was not to see the Captain again until about a month later.
We had been in a particularly unpleasant village suffering shell and mortar fire for several days, waiting for supplies and the American Infantry to catch us up, and were only too pleased to receive orders for an attack at dawn the next morning. The Germans were ensconced in the next village to which the road ran in a half-circle around a small hill. The plan was that the tanks should attack straight over the top of the hill which was well within their capabilities. There would be a small infantry back-up which, unusually, would be led by the Colonel himself. I was to remain on the road with two ambulances, one driven by a Berber Arab stretcher-bearer. To say `driven' is perhaps exaggerating his skills. He could get a vehicle from one point to another but that implies more credit to the makers of Dodge motors than to my senior stretcher-bearer.
The attack took place dead on time and the tanks disappeared over the hill with much roaring of motors, crashing of guns and the general smoke and noise of a heavy tank charge. Then there followed a short moment that I shall always treasure. The Colonel habitually went into action, even in a tank, with a walking stick, very English, and this time he was wearing his regimental kepi of pale blue. He waved his stick in the air and cried "En avance mes braves". I never expected to hear such words, straight out of Beau Geste. He and his ADC then led the dozen or so foot-soldiers, bayonets fixed, at a run and line abreast up the hillside.
My laughter turned to great dismay in a second as they all went down, having run into a concentration of anti-personnel mines. I stood there with the fact slowly dawning that my stretcher-bearers and I were the only people still on our feet.
Much like dealing with damaged tanks, drill immediately took over. All the ambulances carried sticks and white tape for this situation and, as I surveyed the scene, I could see the pattern in which the mines had been laid. It did not take long to mark out safe paths and to get the stretchers in action. The Colonel and his ADC were on the right of the line and, as I approached, the ADC called out that I should deal with the officers first. I ignored this and then realised that the voice was that of my bęte-noir, so I ignored harder!
In fact this was difficult to do since he was very badly hurt, far worse than the Colonel who had lost one buttock among other things. I patched up both of them and got them on to stretchers. Meanwhile the stretcher-bearers had got all casualties who could possibly sit up into the second ambulance, leaving room for one stretcher along the floor into which we slid the Captain. My ambulance had the four other serious cases which included the Colonel.
We then set out for the field hospital. On the way we had to cross a bridge which was being systematically shelled. There was an engineer in charge of the bridge who stopped the traffic when he expected a salvo of shells. The senior stretcher-bearer, who was leading, ignored the order and passed safely over. I had told him to ignore any orders unless from me, to forestall any efforts by the Captain to upset things! This was a classic case of being hoist on ones own petard, because I had to stop. I pulled away from the road and debated whether to set up saline drips for the very bad cases or make a cup of tea. Tea won, and while it was brewing I heard strange noises coming from the Colonel. He was laughing ................ "You English" he said, between chuckles. While he and I and the other casualty who was conscious were sipping our tea he called me over. "How serious is this?" he asked, pointing vaguely towards his wound. I told him that his condition was not life-threatening but it would be at least six months before he could sit comfortably. "Colonels don't do much sitting" he said. "English humour, yes?" I assured him that it was a very good example. I believe it did him more good than any saline drip.
The Captain did survive in spite of, or perhaps because of, the senior stretcher bearer's driving. He went back to his estates in Algeria and forgot the Geneva Convention. The Colonel returned to his regiment and went to Vietnam where I hope he continued to exhibit his mastery of the English sense of humour.
I went back on the following day to the scene of the disaster, where I could see clearly, now the pressures were removed, that there was no pattern to the mines at all. They had been laid between rock outcrops where it was possible to do so. I was left with an abiding disinclination to discuss mines or minefields ever again.