Life (and sometimes death) in BSH - El Ballah.

We recently had the following sent to us by 'A Medic' after being approached because of a letter submitted by him and shown on the Forum page of this Web site.   It is with our thanks to him we re-produce his brief account here.
Aye, Richard Woolley and Jock Marrs.
October 2004.

I had a skill and training which was very unlikely to be of use in a BSH, so I was given a variety of jobs to do.  I would start the day by being an escort in a staff car, ambulance or ration truck and, if I was back too soon, would complete the day as a clerk or even an armourer.  My career as an armourer was cut short by a minor medical problem I suffered from -- nosebleeds.  One afternoon I was locked in the armoury and fell asleep on the bed provided.  I awoke to screams and shouts outside the armoury.  Someone wanting to hand in a rifle had peered through the grid in the door to see why I hadn’t answered his knock to see me lying very still on the bed with head and pillow covered in blood.  He ran for assistance and the screams were from the soldier and whoever had come back with him observing the bloody 'suicide' rise from the bed to open the door.

Christmas 1951 was a time of very mixed emotions.  The army really did pull out all the stops in an attempt to make the celebrations meaningful.  The wards (old barrack huts) were decorated; staff on duty wore festive costume and staff off duty changed appearance by getting plastered.  Even our dining hall, another old hut, was decorated.  Paper streamers were hung from the walls and attached to the ceiling fan. You have guessed, haven’t you? Yes. One drunken soldier arriving a few minutes late for his Christmas dinner switched on the ceiling fans as he walked in.  Decorations everywhere!  'Tich' Cross, remember him?  The CSM
 oared "Put that man in the guard room".  Do you remember how many windows were in one of those old huts?  At each window, as he was being marched off to the guardroom, the prisoner delivered a part of a Christmas address to Tich Cross.  "Tich.....as a sergeant major.....you would make.....a *!^(0”ing good comedian."  As soon as the escorts returned to the dining hall Tich said to them, "Get him back here. You can’t put a man in the guardhouse for Christmas day."

Blood is quite common in an operating theatre so maybe it was my nosebleeds that got me that job.  I hated the operating theatre, but of course that was not a consideration.  Lots of cleaning, more cleaning and if all was done and there was nothing to do – you did cleaning.  Then my life changed; partly for the good and partly for anything but the good. Do you remember the day that the Egyptian police were ejected from their buildings in Ismailia?  I brought an ambulance full of wounded from Ismailia to El Ballah and was about to return to collect more when I was told to stay in the operating theatre.  I had assisted in a very menial way at quite a few operations but nothing such as this.

We had so many casualties that all that was possible was to take life saving emergency measures with surgery and hope.  Professional staffing was so short, (one surgeon I think,) that a GP MO was brought in to take over one theatre. The dentist was a temporary anaesthetist, the Padre was washing the floors and a British civilian engineer acted as records clerk. My job, with others, was to receive the casualties, assess their wounds by taking off clothing and bandages and pass them through to more qualified staff for more detailed assessment.  I have forgotten how long we worked, certainly more than two days.  Near the end of this time you would think that we had become hardened to blood, torn bodies, broken limbs and death; not so.  It was all I could do not to scream each time I removed a bloodied bandage, which revealed some poor persons misery.  You will note that I have not described the patients as Egyptians, British or Colonials. (Are we still permitted to call people Colonials?  However, we were at that time.)  We received all three national groupings. I have been asked if we gave any priorities. Yes we did.  To the best of my recollection they were prioritised by need.  In those days, such actions were those that made us proud to be British, not the tabloid headlines as so frequently now.

It was not all work at BSH El Ballah.  A unit dance was arranged.  Not only were the QARANC sisters attending the dance but a truckload of British NAAFI girls were invited and accepted the invitation.  For a few, a very few, hours BSH El Ballah must have been one of the most desirable pieces of property in the Canal Zone.  In years past, I would have related the happenings at that dance but as I am of a similar age to the rest of you SCZ Vets, I know what excitement can do to the septuagenarian heart.  Well, OK, I will tell you my story.  I had received a few glances which indicated that one of the QA sisters might be interested in my company.  In fact she came up to me and said that she was afraid to cross the strip of sand between the dance hall and the ladies toilets and
would I accompany her?  Would I?  You bet I would.  She clasped my hand and we set off into the dark taking a path that I judged to be well off the normal route to the ladies toilet but deferred to the senior officers superior knowledge.  Then! Drip, drip, drip.  I was having a massive nosebleed.  She took me back to casualty and left me with a 15 stone scouse male nurse to staunch the bleeding.

For fifty years I have tried to put to the back of my mind some of the sights I saw and the tragedies that were played out at El Ballah.  The education sergeant who lost part of his hand – he was an artist in civvy street.  The promising footballer who lost a leg to a snipers bullet.  The fit young men who went for a training run and died of heat exhaustion.  The diseases caught, which would ruin lives for years to come.  The mental torture of young and ill-prepared young men who were never offered counselling. Counselling?  Was that the chat you had with your mate in the NAAFI?   No, in those days it was a weakness for a man to be
'upset'.   However, I was upset on many occasions – and angry.  When I received my GSM it was like getting a much delayed thank you.  It would have been so much easier for me if I had received that 'thank you' in the 1950’s.

©  Ken Brock.