Hitching Rides in Wartime
To save money, Edgar Whitehead and John MacDonald had booked second class passages from Beira as far as Mombasa in an Italian liner which was practically empty.
Underway, the ship's captain invited Edgar up to his cabin, and in excellent English told Edgar that he was delighted Italy was keeping out of the war quoting the latest Mussolini story from Rome, "Ever since this war was declared Hitler has been trying to drag me into it by the hair, but fortunately for Italy I am bald." This seemed to be the sentiment of all the ship's officers.
But in Dar-es-Salaam the liner took on two hundred Germans, many of military age, who had been interned in Tanganyika and were being repatriated. Edgar and John were the only two British passengers on the ship. Arriving in Mombasa there was a rush of Kenyans going to Britain who had snagged all the available berths.
Luckily, Edgar and John managed to secure a two-berth cabin on an old French coal burning liner of about thirteen thousand tons, belonging to the Messageries Maritimes. It had departed from Madagascar headed back to Marseilles. The French consul was most accommodating, but the formalities took so long that the ship was specially held up for them. Finally, the Consul himself drove them at speed to the dockside. The gangway was pulled up the moment they set foot on deck.
Charged the prewar second-class fare, the ship had not been converted from its prewar condition because the wives and children of the French military personnel were on board. Two full-size bottles of French ration wine were delivered to their cabin every morning. Heavy, it needed dilution with water before drinking.
Not one of the N.C.O.’s could speak a word of English. By the end of the three weeks voyage Edgar and John became not merely fluent, but colloquial in French. Taking their meals in the N.C.O.'s mess they found the N.C.O.’s well educated. They enjoyed lengthy discussions on ballet and opera. But the favorite topic of conversation was how many starving children in Marseilles could be fed with the money that the Officers wives spent, in particular, on their pet Pekinese. Politically the N.C.O.’s were communist or communist sympathizers. The officers were the exact opposite.
Full afternoon tea was always provided in the dining saloon at five o’clock serving green Indo-china tea which Edgar had not tasted before. Plenty of cakes and biscuits were provided. Most of the N.C.O.’s cut out this extra meal, but it was popular with the women and children. On Christmas Eve John and Edgar came down to tea as usual to find only their table was laid for tea. The others were decorated for a sumptuous spread with snow white tablecloths and many wine glasses.
Edgar said to John, “We had better hurry up and have our tea, because they are obviously going to have one whale of a party and we have not been invited. The best thing to do is go up on deck and keep out of the way.”
They hurried over their tea. At the foot of the companionway they were each firmly seized by two N.C.O.’s and escorted to seats of honor at the main table, explaining that they had given the matter anxious thought and had feared if Edgar and John knew there was going to be a party they would not have their tea and knew that any Englishman who had missed his tea was bound to be a wet blanket for the rest of the evening. They were determined to see the tea go safely down before they told them what was in store.
The party was a tremendous success. The grand finale was one of the funniest and most magnificent sights Edgar had ever seen; John teaching twelve N.C.O.’s to do the Lambeth Walk.
They arrived in Marseilles on the morning of New Year’s Eve and disembarked. It is one of the finest pleasure cruises Edgar was ever to remember. But scrutiny by the French Immigration Authorities awaited…
The historical novel Whitewashed Jacarandas and its sequel Full of Possibilities are both available on Amazon as paperbacks and eBooks.
These books are inspired by Diana's family's experiences in small town Southern Rhodesia after WWII.
Dr. Sunny Rubenstein and his Gentile wife, Mavourneen, along with various town characters lay bare the racial arrogance of the times, paternalistic idealism, Zionist fervor and anti-Semitism, the proper place of a wife, modernization versus hard-won ways of doing things, and treatment of endemic disease versus investment in public health. They're a roller coaster read.
References:
- Sir Edgar Whitehead's Unpublished Memoirs, Rhodes House, Bodleian Library, Oxford University, by permission.
- Postcard credit: https://www.simplonpc.co.uk/MM3.html
