Sand in My Eyes - A Strange Journey to a Strange Land
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Sand in My Eyes By Ronnie Bray When the sand’s in my socks and the sun’s in my eyes And I can’t see the jam on my pudding for flies, I can quite understand though I’m half off my chump How the poor, Patient camel came by his hump ANON. The terror of the transit camp hidden in the bowels of London, miles below the surface in Goodge Street deep shelter, was eased when my flight was called and along with several dozens of other eager young soldiers and airmen, I was driven in an uncomfortable and smelly bus through the sleepy mists of an April morning before the sun had climbed above the housetops and transported our heavy-eyed company from the oppressive but well-charted hegemony ofinner London into the unfamiliar countryside and poured us into Stansted airport where a twin- engined Avro-York was warming up on the concrete apron. We disembussed and shuffled into a low building that served as a st aging post for our flight. We were briefly reunited with our luggage, mostly just a kit bag and whatever we could carry. There was a general air of confusion but we exercised out normal faith in the military mind and rel axe d. All would be wel l. It always was – event ual ly. The wa it wa s not long, j ust l ong enough for us to consider that the aircraft could run out of fuel from being stood with its propellers whirling on the ground. Then, time to go, so back on the move and more s huffling in a weak but promising sunshine as we straggled across to where our transportation stood shining silver in the brightness of our farewell morning. We stumbled up the steel steps and piled into the plane, found seats, fastened the broad canvas seat belts with hardly time to think before the engines revved up loud to make afraid and straight into a madcap rush along a ribbon of concrete whose end, marked by a copse was alarmingly close, brought a flood of fear into the once apple-cheeked flower of Britain until we rose ponderously into the low sky through clouds and into the sun bright world above the world, the clouds, and even fairyland, though fairyland it seemed to those of us whose days of wonder were not done. My first flight, and I was afraid only that I might be afraid, but as it turned out there was nothing frig hteni ng about flying. In fact , it proved to be qui te the rever se. I enjoy ed the rumbl ing and shaking of the aircraft as it reached around three-hundred miles an hour before the nose came up, the wheel rumbling suddenly stopped, and the death-threatening shaking almost vanished when the plane was at reasonable height, banking steeply so that I could see the fields below and villages and houses shrinking, first to pigmy and then to miniature size, before my eyes and could see more land than I had ever taken in in a single gaze, and then the cotton wool clouds swallowed us up, and all was a rushing whiteness, and then there was nothing to see. The aircraft filled with the buzz of excited conversations as neighbours too-loudly expressed their relief. These soldiers of t he Queen, pretending to be brave, whose small ashen faces round with youth and smooth-shaven with only fluff to shave, held saucer-sized wide-eyed looks ofwonder over youthful grins, emitted airs of phoney confidence and, in the silence of their hearts, fervent prayers of thankfulness to a God whose existence they were unsure of, but who just
Sand in My Eyes - A Strange Journey to a Strange Land
