Isegoria

I didn’t realize that the British Army maintained the old Christmas tradition of inverting the hierarchy:

Christmas is the only day in the year the British private gets a break. Theoretically he can have his say about anything. If he does not like the way the army is run, he can go tell the general about it, or anyone else, without fear of getting kicked around for opening his mouth. I do not know about the use this privilege gets.

Also, it is the day the officers and sergeants are supposed to pay for their privileges by working for the ranks. In this little camp it took the form of serving the dinner.

For New Year’s Eve, a case or two of fancy twelve-year-old Scotch was produced, as the boys did not consider the Johnny Walker used as bar whisky very good! Beer was harder to get than hard liquor, being rationed from headquartermaster. All this at a time when American soldiers in a lot of places were stealing dried apricots and raisins from the cooks to make their own.

Dunlap talks about going into Alexandria:

Going in was simple — all British drivers had orders to pick up any man in uniform going their way and plenty of trucks moved in both directions up until about 10 P.M. After that, it was usually a taxi trip back. First you found a taxi which under inspection appeared able to last out the journey, then you persuaded the driver to go. He was usually reluctant, not liking driving out of the city with a load of soldiers who might pay him and might not. After a good bit of mangled English and Arabic he would decide to take a chance and collect his assistant; in Egypt it takes two men to drive any motor vehicle — one to operate and one to act as helper in repairing the inevitable breakdown, messenger if necessary, squeeze the rubber-bulb horn and of course, company, for the trip back. In case the driver had not been working long enough to pick up a smattering of the various languages spoken, the pal had to act as interpreter. Often the “assistant” would be just a boy.

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The better restaurants printed their menus in four languages— English, French, Greek and Arabic.

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However, when Mussolini decided England had lost the war and jumped in, all the Italians in Egypt disappeared and an equal number of “Frenchmen” instantly appeared. They fooled no one, but the British did not care to make an issue of it and contented themselves with taking over official Italian offices and property.

Dunlap ended up at the captured equipment depot outside Alexandria:

The 6 A.O.D. (Sixth Army Ordnance Depot), at Dekheila, (pronounced as in tequila, if you know that) about 12 or 14 miles west of the city of Alexandria was the British Captured Equipment Depot for the Middle East. [...] Artillery and vehicles were handled at a different location a few miles away, though there was a stray 88mm sitting beside the small arms shop, with 16 of the nicest, newest Continental truck tires on it — tires the black market would pay $200.00 apiece for in Cairo. And me with no tractor (how did I ever get off on this tangent?).

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Guards were all over the place, either Indians who spent all their spare time polishing their Enfields and leather bandoliers, or various breeds of “colonials” who to me looked like jungle blacks who had the spears in their hands replaced with fixed-bayoneted rifles.

Most of them knew no English except the words “Inglis Solja.” Their challenge was like something you hear in the zoo at feeding time, but you had better freeze when you heard it, even if you had both feet in the air jumping off a truck. They loved those bayonets.

White British soldiers swore they could see at night and I am inclined to agree. I know I have been called at a distance in pitch darkness and had to identify myself, while the familiar Britishers with me went unchallenged.

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There was one very large warehouse used solely for storing unwanted Italian swords, sabers, bayonets and knives. Thousands of each were neatly piled or stored in chests piled high on one another, and the variety was countless. Italy never declared anything obsolete. Bayonets and sabers 80 years old had been taken—swords of our Civil War period. Models of every type existed. Few had good steel and since there was not much call for extra bayonets, these stayed here and collected dust.

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Although I was a “T-corporal” (Technician 5th Grade) I was considered a guest and allowed to live with the sergeants, eat in their mess, etc. This was extremely important. The Sergeant’s Mess had their own dining hall, with adjoining bar. With a full stock of liquid refreshments they used the best Scotch for bar whisky. The corporals and privates were allowed only beer in their messes.

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When any British Non-Commissioned Officer works, it’s news; when Sergeants and W.O.’s stand at benches, it’s unbelievable. Something like seeing American Majors and Lt. Colonels greasing trucks.

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Under the British system, a would-be armorer puts in four years learning how. He is taught not only all weapons up to 75mm guns but also blacksmithing, tinsmithing, bicycle repair and a general mechanics course. Under the armorers’ training he learns some pretty fancy gunsmithing, working with all sorts of civilian pistols and shotguns as well as machine guns and rifles and making broken and missing parts by hand. One year of the training period is spent in an arsenal or armory as a regular workman, although of course not in a single production job.

Practically all of this time was devoted to the Lee-Enfield rifle and emphasis was placed on speed of work. I have seen some of these armorers spin screwdrivers in each hand disassembling weapons, working very fast, but never interrupting their conversation which usually was thousands of miles away in subject.

The officer in charge, a Lieutenant (First) was called by all “Mister.” And I never saw anybody salute anybody around the place.

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This was extremely shocking to us three Americans, since in the American forces, under the same set-up, the commanding officer would have been a Lt. Col.

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The above sentences are not meant to be funny.

Dunlap’s American unit was stationed Egypt with the British Eighth Army:

And if we went out in the blue we wore British battle-dress and their helmet. The melting-pot troops and colored colonials used for guard duties were not yet educated to the American helmet. If it wasn’t British they shot and then investigated. Fatigues were out; our fatigue coverall and cap happened to be almost identical with the German service work clothing.

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The British were issuing to all troops who put in for them 50 “Victory V” cigarettes per week. These were made in India and would burn the throat out of a 37mm gun. They were so bad even the Egyptians hated to take them.

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The British would have issued us their shoes, but theirs are black, not brown, hence not allowed by our own command. For dress, that is, off-duty wear, we could get hand-made footwear of any kind at prices not too steep. From $10.00 to $20.00 would purchase anything you could think up from a native cobbler, of fair quality leather and good workmanship.

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The only catch to this seemingly luxurious sleeping accommodation was that we and it were promptly covered with fleas and bedbugs which we never did defeat in even a skirmish.

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The British had a good insect repellant powder, but we had nothing, and the commercial preparations we bought did not work. I was assured by the Tommies that after a year or so they would quit biting me; after a white man’s blood thinned out they didn’t like it.

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Units were moving up and back, as the British system is to relieve and replace units rather than individuals. During this past war the American way was to keep any committed unit up in the line and maintain strength through the individual replacement system. Most of us who saw both systems from the bottom shelf think the British the best. Men stay healthier and stronger if a rest period can come up once in awhile.

According to a G.I. movie on trench foot, one American division in Italy had 4,000 cases; the British division alongside it, under identical conditions, had 300; (according to the movie it was because the British soldier did as he was told about taking care of himself, while the childish American did not). Me, I think it was because the whole English outfit pulled back of the lines for dry socks, hot food and sleep every week or two while a relief crew held the line for them.

Dunlap got to know Egypt and its people while stationed there:

Of course the souvenir angle crept in, and every other Arab on the street was a hawker selling something. Anything and everything was sold by these peddlers. Persistent to the point of suicide, they pestered us until we hated to step out of a vehicle on a side street. Naturally, they planned on retiring on what they were going to make from the Americans. Undoubtedly some did, too. We are a nation of suckers.

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But all of them expected baksheesh, meaning a present over the tip class. Most of the population wanted and asked loudly for baksheesh, constantly.

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Only a small middle class exists and that only in the cities, as shopkeepers, civil servants and agents of all types. These are nearly all fairly well educated and it is they who clamor for progress.

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The poor man, whom the English and we called “Wog,” is a small husky brown character, frequently lousy and in the majority of cases with inherited syphilis, who seldom has more than the galabeah on his back and a coin or two for his daily meal.

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Although technically a Mohammedan he isn’t too devoted—or well fed—to pass up a piece of pork or a drink.

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He is uneducated, unbathed and unbothered.

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He is an Arab and his language is Arabic; the ancient Egyptian race is dead.

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He has no shame and no morals whatever. He is dedicated to trying to chisel his way and cheat everyone possible, in such a childish and open manner he seldom succeeds.

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The Wog is an inveterate smoker from the age of five, though he seldom can afford more than a few at a time. He would work harder for a few cigarettes than for money equivalent to their cost in town. Not just American cigarettes, prized throughout the world, but cigarettes of any kind. If he gets a few piasters ahead he’ll gamble or perhaps go to a native cafe for a go at the hubbly-bubbly, the familiar water-pipe. Here he will get a load of hashish, so cut and adulterated it does not really cause much trouble beyond a dream or two.

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The commercial districts are not too different from those of southern American cities outwardly. In fact, they look better as a rule; the department stores and luxury establishments are grade A by any estimate.

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As more Americans arrived and began the customary overpayment for trifles, things went up.

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In the fall of 1942 I bought a beautifully carved little ivory elephant for the equivalent of 60¢. A year later the same item was priced at approximately $5.00.

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Any Cairo architect should be able to make a fortune in the United States, particularly in the West and South, for they can make their creations acceptable to the eye far more so than any of our own “Modernistic” designers.

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Traffic did not even pause at night. It took us quite awhile to get used to the idea of people driving in the dark. Cairo has more traffic than any place I have ever seen except the Chicago Loop during rush hour.

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[Y]ou locate two parallel streets, it is an accident.

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The true native sections are only a little improved over their condition of past centuries. Most of them have no sewage system in the modern sense, as does the metropolitan and modernized section; no water system from house to house; nor electricity.

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Streets are often a page straight from Kipling, with camels, beggars, money-changers, and roving entertainers pushing through narrow passageways.

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I liked the shop sections of the quarter, where men ran lathes with bows and loose thongs, holding their work with their toes and doing good jobs at woodturning. The coppersmiths and brass workers had incredible stocks of pans, pots, trays, candlesticks and other items, some so huge I wondered how they could be lifted and used.

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These mud affairs sometimes reach four stories in height, looking as if they will fall any minute. Do not confuse them with thoughts of adobe structures; these are just plain mud, slapped on a flimsy framework of branches and wooden timbers.

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One of the screwiest aspects of Egypt is the way buildings look as if they had just been tagged with a small bomb. Something is always missing. The secret is that there is—or was, at any rate, shortly in the past—a ruling that no building could be taxed until it was completed. Therefore no one ever completed a structure. Occasionally a magnificent villa or tall apartment building will be seen with a halffinished balcony or a corner of the upper cornice revealing beams or steel and stone.

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Egyptian money is based on the millieme unit: 10 milliemes equal one piaster, 100 piasters equal one pound Egyptian, worth $4.14.

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The lower classes wear the galabeah, like a loosesleeved nightgown, usually made of light-colored striped material, very like that of some barber’s cloths in this country.

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A few Panama-style straw hats are seen and a few felts, but ordinarily the men go hatless or wear red tarboosh, what we have called the fez; like an inverted flower pot.

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The women wear either black gowns and veils covering them completely, or very up-to-date dresses and makeup. Usually only the poorest women wear the traditional Moslem clothing and veil. And if she is good looking the veil gets very thin or lost completely.

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West of the river is a cultivated area of the Nile Valley, and when it comes to farming, an Egyptian fellah can make a Japanese gardener look like a lumberjack raising cotton in a stone quarry.

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Cattle are seldom seen, because they need feed and land is too valuable to use as pasture. The work animal is the donkey, small, white, strong and tough.

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The fellahs, or farmers, are about the only class in Egypt who can go in for the four wives allotted by the Koran, since all four can work and earn their keep.

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Papa would walk at the donkey’s head, leading him. On the flat-topped two-wheeler would be all four wives, a couple of mothers-in-law, a half-dozen or so kids, all of whom would be shouting very disrespectful comments and doing continuous back seat driving. The old man never had a chance for they outnumbered him and were just as big as he was. Any ideas regarding harems and the position of the lord and master we had received immediate revision.

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Conversely, the Sphinx, down the hill two or three hundred yards and a little south, is much smaller than you have been led to believe by pictures. It does not sit majestically out in the desert. It peeps out of a sort of unfilled swimming pool, over the sandbags holding up its chin.

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Being unromantic but practical, what sank in on me deepest was the condition of the mortar in the Great Pyramid at the newly-uncovered base. Good as the day it set, not a grain of sand can be brushed off; somebody knew how to make cement back then, as well as push around large chunks of rock.

Accommodations in Egypt weren’t ideal when Dunlap arrived:

The American pyramidals were better at this time of year, for although very hot during the day they were easy to stake down and hold against the sandstorms. The British tents were of light cotton cloth, made in India, solely for shelter from the sun. They were the wall type, not waterproof and were double, that is, with an inner roof and wall usually blue or purple in color. It was best to dig them in against wind. You simply excavated as far down as the wall of your tent was high, parked the tent in the hole and filled sand down around it. This made the shelter windproof and you were low enough to be safe against most bomb bursts in case of air attack.

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Lumber was worth its weight in silver and for months every board was precious.

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Everything, built by frenzied Egyptian workmen, was on the verge of collapse. They were capable of good work, but seemed to think that they had to go so fast they couldn’t be bothered with the details.

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About the only trucks we had access to were a batch of Canadian Ford farm trucks, with stake and slat bodies, rear wheel drive only. These came to us someway through the R.A.F. and were all painted and scarred up. Some had German crosses plainly visible under the R.A.F. cocardes painted on cabs for aircraft identification. They had been captured and recaptured, used around the desert for a couple of years. Many had been copiously ventilated by strafing fire from planes. The tops of all were dented in from the common habit of the desert soldier of sitting on the cab whenever possible. Except for the right-hand side steering drive these were familiar to our drivers and we got along fairly well. When we had any.

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I never expect to be as cold as I was that winter in Egypt, on the burning desert, of fiction.

After Dunlap went to Africa the long way around, he continued on up to Suez:

One night we had a spectacular show of lightning flashing on the horizon, which turned out to be the sea battle of Madagascar, between British and Free French units and the Vichy French ships based there.

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About the time we headed into the Red Sea I ate something I shouldn’t — probably some of the fancy fruit stored in the hold for officers only — and came down with amoebic dysentery.

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In a week I lost between 25 and 30 pounds.

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[Suez] Didn’t look too bad, though the sight of all ages and both sexes using the banks and wharves as latrines very openly was rather startling.

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On this numeral business, if we use the Arabic system, just what do the Arabs use? The one and the nine are written the same in both systems, but there similarity ends. Their two is a reversed seven, their zero is a dot, their five a zero, and so on.

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As we pulled out of Suez, British soldiers ran alongside the train and handed up cans of beer. This, joyfully received, cemented international relations in the Middle East. The incident will also illustrate how desperate things were at the time and how welcome we were, because, for an English soldier to give away beer at any time — for any reason — and to an American, well it just is not possible to comprehend. Maybe they were so happy about Alamein going OK they were not responsible for their actions.

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That desert is dead. There are no birds, no animals, no cactus, no vegetation; compared with it, Death Valley is a summer resort.

After Dunlap went to Africa the long way around, some of the Americans traveled on and picked up some British Tommies, who had a different way of doing things:

A day or so later when they discovered they were only to get two meals a day, things happened. They didn’t like it. The British Army may not get such good food, or very much of it, but it demands its regular rations when they are available. At any rate, the 500 Britons raised enough hell so that the schedule was revised and the whole 8,000 on board ate three times a day for the rest of the trip, even if the third meal turned out to be mostly tea, bread, butter, jam and an orange.

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When more than three enlisted Americans come to any higher authority with a complaint, it is mutiny, they get court-martialed and spend the next couple of decades regretting it, but British soldiers can petition or complain in numbers and no one but the high command can punish them.

I was listening to the audiobook version of Outlaw Platoon, when Sean Parnell (or his ghostwriter, John Bruning) made the point that gunfire has its own language:

Suppressing fire, the purpose of which is to pin you down, sounds undisciplined; it wanders back and forth over you without much aim. It is searching and random and somehow doesn’t seem as deadly.

Accurate, aimed fire is a different story. It has a purpose to it. You know as soon as you hear it that somebody has you in their sights. The shots come with a rapid-fire focus that underscores their murderous intent. Somebody is shooting at you. It becomes intimate and fear inducing…

The enemy machine gunners hammered at us with accurate bursts. As their bullets struck home, they spoke to us infantrymen as clearly as if they had used our native language. Message received: these were not amateurs in the hills on our flanks.