Summer Times is the Journal of the Old Scarborians Association

Battalion were sick at both ends. The medi‐
cal officer analysed a sample of water he
took from the town’s reservoir and found it
full of germs. The inhabitants of Campo‐
basso had been drinking this water for gen‐
erations and had obviously become immune
to the microbes.
After reaching the vast Foggia plain, we
were to switch to the east coast, and on
Christmas Eve, relieve the Gurkhas at
Pescara. I was sent a few days before the
Battalion to liaise with them. They were, of
course, in trenches, and snow was thick on
the ground. They had a cookhouse hidden
in a small valley about a quarter of a mile
behind the line and the two in each slit
trench took it in turn to crawl out and race
to safety and hot food. I was having a meal
there when about 40 Gurkhas appeared.
The cooks had run out of Indian rations and
had to serve the usual British fare. Each
Gurkha put into his mess tin stew, then, on
top, rice pudding and a dollop of jam, and
he stirred it round and ate up the mess. It
looked revolting, and many thought it so for
they spat it out.
I had never seen Gurkha soldiers before. I
always imagined them small, compact men
with beautiful white teeth and a ready smile.
I honestly believed in the story that they
used to wriggle up to German trenches at
night and cut off, with a kukri, the head of
the sentry on alert while his colleagues slept.
In this way, they not only killed one enemy,
but also destroyed the morale of the others.
However, I never saw any kukris.
In reality, I found them to be as fed‐up with
the war as our own soldiers, unsmiling, cold
and resigned to the inevitable. One of their
sergeants told me that they had never ex‐
pected to serve in such dreadful weather
conditions. Nevertheless, it was an honour
to be a Gurkha soldier, and their pay ‐‐
much higher than they could ever hope to
earn at home in Nepal ‐‐ enabled them,
when their army days were over, to buy a
49
farm and be highly respected. We were
relieved in turn on New Year’s Eve, and
then told we were bound for Anzio.
Editor: The next instalment will follow in
our November 2004 edition.
A VISIT TO ROMANIA
Alan Hodgkinson
(1949-54)
May 1989 was a big
month. I had just retired
from work, all the prepa‐
rations for our daughter’s
wedding were reaching
the frantic stage, and my
son had been selected for
his first match for England. Never mind the
wedding, we were off to Bucharest for the
rugby.
We joined a party of supporters at Heath‐
row for a flight by Tarom Airways (who?),
the official and only Romanian airline. The
plane was a Tupolev something or other and
basic would have been a flattering descrip‐
tion. For example the let‐down shelves in
the backs of the seats had no upholstery,
and everything was in a sort of military
grey. Confidence was not improved when
we all had to get out of the plane because
there was more luggage than passengers
and we all had to identify our own. Pre‐
sumably the extras were just blown up.
Anyway we flew into Belgrade Airport,
which of course was a military installation,
and then had to be actually allowed into the
country. We filled in lengthy forms and
were then individually scrutinised by an
armed young soldier, glowering with suspi‐
cion, and clearly not comprehending the
party atmosphere we were showing. As the
jokes flew about the officials became increas‐
ingly uneasy and a number of guarded tele‐
phone calls were made, but eventually we
were escorted to our coach.
There we met our tour guide and the driver.