Dearest Jane... Read Online Free Page A
Author: Roger Mortimer
you can eat yourself silly on excellent food for about half a crown; the cinemas are indifferent and all the films are cut and they adhere to the odious French habit of having a long interval in the middle of the big film. Thank God for Penguin Books!’
Best love,
Roger
Then Roger found himself caught up in a modern Battle of Jericho. There were plenty of military challenges in the area. When my father later described his days in Palestine to me, it was clear that over and above the conflict, he personally liked both Jews and Arabs for their different qualities, not least in the Arabs’ readiness to always laugh at a joke
.
Dear Pop,
I have just returned from a short trip to Jericho where we were dispatched to restore order and re-establish the police who have been turned out by the rebels over the last three months.
We had another of those bloody night drives – a convoy a mile long, leaving billets at 2.45 a.m. and getting to Jericho at 9 a.m. I thoroughly enjoyed it: You go down a twisting, precipitous road with the hills rising sharply up on either side. The whole 25 miles can have changed very little since biblical times and the only signs of modern civilisation were the ashes of burnt out Jew lorries, driven up without escort from the Dead Sea Potash Company and meeting with the inevitable fate on what must be the world’s best road for ambushes.
Bethany is a charming place, without any of the unfortunate traces of tourist-catching vulgarity that mars so many places in Jerusalem.
After 20 miles or so downhill, we reached the Dead Sea, with Jericho in the distance. It’s a very small town, appalling hot and stuffy in summer and full of mosquitoes – with plenty of trees and surrounded by banana groves. The inhabitants are mainly of Sudanese extraction but periodically the place gets overrun by the gangs who come down from the hills and raise hell.
We met with very little opposition but a few natives were shot trying to break the cordon. British HQ was established at the Jordan Hotel, kept by a club-footed Greek whose trade has been ruined by lack of tourists and non-paying gangsters. I enjoyed my stay there as I had my first night in a bed since we left Alexandria. The bugs were rather more annoying than usual and all had to swallow quinine every day to avoid malaria.
One afternoon there, an old Arab rode into our HQ on his donkey and asked if we could spare him some iodine for a couple of scratches. On examination, we found six bullet holes right through him, all stinking and gangrenous; apparently the poor old boy had been shot up about two days before by an aeroplane which also polished off about fifty of his goats.
God knows how long we shall be out here – I should imagine about another six months. I don’t mind living in mild discomfort but its rather boring, never getting out of uniform, having no books to read, and never seeing anyone at all except soldiers.
The more I see of the Palestine Police, the more I realise how incredibly idle and indisciplined they are. They cause us endless trouble by letting all their rifles get stolen, spreading secret information and getting pissed and shooting up harmless people.
The more I see of the Army on semi-active service, the more hopelessly inefficient they seem to be: thank God there wasn’t a war! Some of the British regiments out here are absolute jokes, like the Ws who have lost five trucks, several Lewis guns, shot up their own patrols and run like Hell whenever they meet an armed gang of more than one. Then there are the KO who are nothing more than an armed gang themselves and the RS who are absolute savages. The Buffs and Black Watch, though, are both first class as are the 11th Hussars.
Best love,
Roger
‘Thank God there wasn’t a war’! Oh my dearest father, don’t hold your breath
.
This letter to his sister Joan indulges in one or two more gentle pleasures beyond the debris and squalor of poverty and strife in Palestine
.
I rather
Best love,
Roger
Then Roger found himself caught up in a modern Battle of Jericho. There were plenty of military challenges in the area. When my father later described his days in Palestine to me, it was clear that over and above the conflict, he personally liked both Jews and Arabs for their different qualities, not least in the Arabs’ readiness to always laugh at a joke
.
Dear Pop,
I have just returned from a short trip to Jericho where we were dispatched to restore order and re-establish the police who have been turned out by the rebels over the last three months.
We had another of those bloody night drives – a convoy a mile long, leaving billets at 2.45 a.m. and getting to Jericho at 9 a.m. I thoroughly enjoyed it: You go down a twisting, precipitous road with the hills rising sharply up on either side. The whole 25 miles can have changed very little since biblical times and the only signs of modern civilisation were the ashes of burnt out Jew lorries, driven up without escort from the Dead Sea Potash Company and meeting with the inevitable fate on what must be the world’s best road for ambushes.
Bethany is a charming place, without any of the unfortunate traces of tourist-catching vulgarity that mars so many places in Jerusalem.
After 20 miles or so downhill, we reached the Dead Sea, with Jericho in the distance. It’s a very small town, appalling hot and stuffy in summer and full of mosquitoes – with plenty of trees and surrounded by banana groves. The inhabitants are mainly of Sudanese extraction but periodically the place gets overrun by the gangs who come down from the hills and raise hell.
We met with very little opposition but a few natives were shot trying to break the cordon. British HQ was established at the Jordan Hotel, kept by a club-footed Greek whose trade has been ruined by lack of tourists and non-paying gangsters. I enjoyed my stay there as I had my first night in a bed since we left Alexandria. The bugs were rather more annoying than usual and all had to swallow quinine every day to avoid malaria.
One afternoon there, an old Arab rode into our HQ on his donkey and asked if we could spare him some iodine for a couple of scratches. On examination, we found six bullet holes right through him, all stinking and gangrenous; apparently the poor old boy had been shot up about two days before by an aeroplane which also polished off about fifty of his goats.
God knows how long we shall be out here – I should imagine about another six months. I don’t mind living in mild discomfort but its rather boring, never getting out of uniform, having no books to read, and never seeing anyone at all except soldiers.
The more I see of the Palestine Police, the more I realise how incredibly idle and indisciplined they are. They cause us endless trouble by letting all their rifles get stolen, spreading secret information and getting pissed and shooting up harmless people.
The more I see of the Army on semi-active service, the more hopelessly inefficient they seem to be: thank God there wasn’t a war! Some of the British regiments out here are absolute jokes, like the Ws who have lost five trucks, several Lewis guns, shot up their own patrols and run like Hell whenever they meet an armed gang of more than one. Then there are the KO who are nothing more than an armed gang themselves and the RS who are absolute savages. The Buffs and Black Watch, though, are both first class as are the 11th Hussars.
Best love,
Roger
‘Thank God there wasn’t a war’! Oh my dearest father, don’t hold your breath
.
This letter to his sister Joan indulges in one or two more gentle pleasures beyond the debris and squalor of poverty and strife in Palestine
.
I rather
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