Our leave finished and we went back to a camp at Durban, a mixed forces transit camp. On the way back on the train, we had to go over a big viaduct. We were looking out of the window at the scenery and the river below when, just after we had crossed the viaduct, the train made an awful jerk and we were nearly thrown out of our seat. We had hit a cow on the track and this had split the train leaving us separated in the after-end of the train. The forward part of the train went on into Durban, dropped off that half of the train and then came back to hitch up the back half of the stranded carriages.

I landed back in Durban and was put on a troop ship going to Madagascar then Mombassa, Kenya, where I joined the Submarine depot ship HMS Adamant which was a Cunard pleasure liner converted to accommodation workshops and quite a big sick bay. Submarines came in and were repaired, refuelled and re-torpedoed. With all the equipment aboard we could have virtually built a submarine on that ship.
I very much enjoyed my time on the Adamant because we were stokers but there were only minor boilers running, just to service the ship so we had very light duties.

One day I was talking on the quay and an engineering officer, a Lieutenant Commander (a “two and a half ringer”) heard me. He said, “You come from the West Country don’t you?” Well, I spoke very much like I do now (with a West Country accent) so I said, “Yes I do, and my Depot is Devonport”. It wasn’t any good saying I lived at Waterloo Cross, so I said I lived near Exeter. “Oh! I know Exeter very well” the officer said, “My wife and I live in Plymouth now but we used to live on the outskirts of Exeter before the war”. “Well” the officer said, “ It’s really nice to talk to a fellow West Country-man” and I thought to myself – how bloody nice! - a two and a half ringer, he could have really been off-hand, but he was really nice. He said, “I see you are a stoker” and I said, “Yes a survivor from the Dorsetshire”. Well, he knew all about County Class Cruisers and the sinking of my ship. He said, “You’ve had a hard time boy”, and I said, “Yes, but I’m all right now”. He said, “What did you do before the war?” I laughed and said I was a gardener, he laughed and said “Dear, dear, dear”, I said I volunteered because I preferred to go into the Navy but there were no jobs for me as a gardener so the Navy thought that working in the engine room as a Stoker would give me a chance to learn things I was interested in, like engineering and electrics.

This is exactly what happened and whilst on the Adamant I was able to work as a mate to some of the finest electricians and engineers. I learned a lot and this encouraged me. I didn’t go for promotion because I wanted to keep on doing what I was doing, I had experience on generators and some watch keeping with a more experienced man in charge, of course. I worked through the watches and finally had a draft chit passed to me to say that the following day I would be catching a train with another stoker, whom I didn’t know, and that we would be going up to a Fleet Air Arm station west of Nairobi, an aircraft service station for the carriers in the fleet that needed repairs that couldn’t be done on board.
There was a continuous flow with parts and bits coming from the UK and America to the station. We could have virtually built a plane up there. We were about five miles from Nairobi and had to have our own electricity supply. The base was called HMS Korongo. It was a very interesting place. They had these people all working on aircraft, even the old Swordfish. All these blacks were helping in the camp, working on generators with us but all we had was a clipboard to take regular readings from the controls on the generators. The blacks did all the dirty work; they changed the oil, cleaned and polished the brasses and they loved it, they really loved it. We got on very well with them, they learned a little bit of English and we learned a little of their lingo.

They had a band there and they trained the blacks, we called them the “Tommy Cooper Hat” soldiers known as The Kings Own African Rifles because they all wore fez hats and they were absolutely dedicated to their regiment. Should one of them go astray for any reason and do something wrong, his punishment would be to be taken out of training and loaf and do nothing. They didn’t punish him as such, but his punishment was “You’re not staying in there with all those good men if you do things like that”, “OUT!” “PUSH OFF!” “Don’t want you”, and they’d cry their eyes out and were really frightened and would eventually get back in again.

We were right out in the wilds and we saw lots of wildlife, lions, zebras, wildebeest all the darn lot, plenty of snakes and God knows what.

Eventually after three or four months we were drafted back again to the Adamant, and two more people came up to take our place. It was a bloody cushy number, a snip, because we weren’t on normal watch keeping hours. We had six hours on and six hours off for forty eight hours then we had two days off in Nairobi looking around for what we could buy and chatting up the women who were nearly all black. We went into town on Fleet Air Arm lorries and trucks staying in there all day, it was a nice place.

I went back to the Adamant and carried on doing what I had been doing, still learning all the time. I never saw the engineering officer again; he was obviously still on board but with at least fifteen hundred men on board, including the top brass, that wasn’t surprising. Submarines kept coming and going, then one Sunday a notice went up.
Two engine room personnel required to join HMS Triumph (a Trusty class submarine) which was pretty certain to be travelling back to the UK in two or three weeks.

Right Mister! - I want to bloody go home, I want to see my young lady. I went up to the office and asked if I could go and see the submarine. They said yes, but there will be two of you as someone has already requested to see the sub. You’re under no obligation as you’re a volunteer.

Well, my God, - I had a surprise when I got down there - you couldn’t swing a cat or put your arms out straight without hitting something. Bunk beds to sleep on, the two diesel engines that they used to charge their batteries when they were on the surface, God, you had to squeeze through on the side. You couldn’t walk straight!
So two of you would be watching those engines back to back touching each other when you passed. Well not me, not bloody likely, and it’s a long way down too, I came back and told them it’s not for me; I’d rather wait.

Again after 6 months or so on the Adamant another notice went up. A “D” class destroyer, HMS Duncan, wanted a stoker and so I volunteered. I thought that being a volunteer, if I didn’t like it, I could always get back to the Adamant. This was a much smaller ship than I was used to and the old timers used to tease me saying “You’ll find a bloody difference on there boy, from what you were on before you were sunk, you’ll get chucked around!”

I joined the Duncan and went to sea. It was rough! As I was watch keeping the weather got worse and I was jumping and bouncing about in front of those boilers, rolling and tossing, it shook me up. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, so I went to the doctor and I told him, “I volunteered for this job and I can’t stand it, I’m ill”.
He said, “You are, and this is not for you, but because you’re a volunteer we’ll get you back to the Adamant as soon as possible”. That was on the Saturday morning and I was told to get my kit together as I would be transferred on Sunday by motorboat back to the Adamant. That was after three weeks to a month on board.

I was off duty in harbour early on Sunday morning and we had to go to the Church Service on HMS Duncan’s quarterdeck, sing a few hymns and say a few prayers, even if you were not particularly religious you had to be there. The skipper said after the service, “I have some good news for you lads” – “Everyone here will be much happier going back to your jobs. We are leaving here for the UK in approximately two to three weeks”. Oh the noise, you should have heard it, everyone was jumping and cheering and everything. I thought to myself well, my dear soul, I would stay on this ship if it killed me, now I could get back to the UK! But it was too late; it was all arranged. Back next morning, pick up my kit, down the boom, jump into the motorboat and back to the Adamant.

The Duncan never went to sea again on normal patrol, when it left Mombassa it went straight back to the UK and by that time, at the end of 1943, the Mediterranean was cleared. I was still on the Adamant; I had left it too late. If I’d known what was going to happen I wouldn’t have gone sick. I was desperate to get home; I’d been out there a long while.

The next thing - another draft would be joining a troop ship in Mombassa adjacent to the Adamant and would be sailing down to Madagascar which had been occupied by the Vichy French when France was occupied by the Germans.
We were sent down there and although we were stokers, the Navy was short of patrol staff to keep discipline ashore and try to stop punch-ups.
We landed up in quite a comfortable house that was formerly a nunnery; there were plenty of beds, good food and runs ashore.

Funnily enough, I had a job going to the market in Diego Suarez, the port nearest the camp. I was given a trade cycle and was allotted to go, each morning at 6 o’clock, to the early morning market to buy meat for the camp, beef or whatever, ……camel sometimes I think! It was red anyway!
It was kilos then and I didn’t understand metric measure, so I had to think roughly 2lbs to the kilo and I went down with the bike and came back with the meat. There was never any money involved because it was paid through the office - I just had what I wanted.

They drove on the right hand side of the road out there. I started out on the right hand side but by the time I had gone two hundred yards and the first turning I found myself on the left hand side of the road, hence my refusal to drive on holiday nowadays. I stayed there for quite a while. They had a cinema we used to visit twice a week, it was a really good job, we paraded around, marched around, did a bit of rifle shooting. It was a slap-happy set up really. If the Vichy French and the Malagasy natives got into punch-ups we were the ones to sort them out, part them up and threaten them. It was a bit dodgy because, you see, the Vichy French would have thought nothing of shooting or stabbing us. We were enemies because they were favouring the Germans of course, but the Navy kept them in check by rationing their food.

We acted like Military police really to the local population but in Naval patrol uniform leggings and so forth. I remember one night we went to the cinema and the entrance was up a long flight of stone steps like the entrance to some cathedral. We’d buy bags of peanuts, go in, eat the peanuts and throw the shells on the black heads below. We had the best seats being white. We were outside the cinema waiting to get our tickets and on each side of the entrance were two huge Kings African Rifle men standing guard doing the same job as we were just waiting for someone to make trouble. My friend and I were close enough in the queue see a punch-up starting. First there were two in the fight then there were four. It happened really quickly and could have developed into something big.

Those two African Rifle soldiers at least six feet three inches tall grabbed the heads of two of the fighters and banged them together. As those heads collided (I can hear the “click” now - I have just heard it) and then threw them down the steps. They rolled and tumbled, down over the steps. That put pay to that, shut everyone else up and we went in and enjoyed the film. That was the sort of things we experienced. I stayed in Diego Suarez for a while and eventually got drafted back by troop ship to Mombassa to join the Adamant again. That was the day I walked aboard the Adamant smoking and got a few days of stoppage of leave for breaking the smoking rules.

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