Abbassia Garrison
However refurbishment complete, the 8th Armoured Brigade set off to Alamein (October '42). We had just arrived when word came of a posting to Abbassia Garrison in Cairo. I went back down from Alamein on the next truck. The uppermost thought in my mind was that, at last, I was confident of survival. Abbassia was a huge garrison with shops, churches, cinemas. It even had an internal bus service. I stayed at Cambrai barracks. All the barracks had First World War names. They had been built by the Turks who occupied the Middle East before the 14-18 War. At the end of the hostilities, all the Middle East was carved up by the Allies who were given mandates by the League of Nations. The barracks were renamed by the Allies after the Turks were defeated.
I was walking along when I met old friend Robert Haig from Balerno - he was in the Scots Greys. He had been wounded in the arm by shrapnel, spent some time in hospital and was now ready to join the Brigade.
He reminded me of the time, two years previously when we were in Sidi Barrani for the first time. Robert had been sent word that Chow McCue, from Balerno, had been wounded and was in the Scottish General Hospital in Cairo. He asked, "any chance of getting there?". As luck would have it, I was going for spares to Abbassia. It took three days. The driver collected the spares and Haig and I visited the hospital and saw Chow. He had had an amputation, above the knee. He was sent home on a red cross ship. No such luck for Haig! He was sent back down the line.
Probably the greatest benefit of the garrison was the water supply. It was mains water. It was pumped into water towers, through purification plants, and wasn't rationed. We were some two miles from the Nile.
For our journeys, we had each been issued with a water "chatty". It was a three pint canvas container which we hung on the truck. We were issued with three pints per day of which two pints went to the cookhouse/field kitchen. You can see that we had collect water to supplement this, whenever we could. We all had, in the trucks, gallon tins which we lined with tar, and filled from wells.
The canvas "chatty" self-cooled by sweating. There were good ones and bad ones. If there was too much condensation it all dripped out and the water wasted. If there was no sweat, the water got too hot to drink. We could cure those that over-sweated by making a mud paste and smoothing it on.
At wells we lowered our tins with a "sinking stone". There was never any depth of water - not like wells at home. We shook the stone to one side to tip the tin and try for water. Once we were desperate for water and I went down on the end of a rope. It wasn't far but it felt like forever. At the bottom I lit matches to look for bodies, then walked round the small water hole. The well was narrow at the top and bellowed out at the bottom. I kept digging out the hole and filling the tins. It was surprisingly clean water. After efforts like this it was unbelievable to turn on a tap, and have a shower.