Free Joyce's War by Joyce Ffoulkes Parry Page A

expecting a large convoy in tonight and everyone is on call again. Those who successfully escaped and are in town have to ring the mess every two hours. I was to have gone out myself with an MO from the 11th General but he didn’t turn up; presumably, he couldn’t get away either. Mona, however, is having a first fling and has gone out with Hugh Bebb to a cinema, unless she is recalled to Monseigneurs later.
    We’ve had a very delightful leave and actually, we are better off financially at least, not having gone to Cairo. We slept most of Thursday, got up and had some tea and went into Alexandria by train and managed to do a little shopping before going to the pictures. It was the The Light that Failed (from a story by Kipling) and a more depressing picture I have not seen for years. At the interval, Mona spotted Bebb and said there was someone with him. After the show they beckoned to us and we met them outside. The other one turned out to be Major Jones and it was decided to go to the Carleton for dinner. It was quite bright there if rather too bristling with uniforms. We danced and ate alternately which was very jolly. The cabaret was only fair but we enjoyed ourselves. About 11.30 we decided to move on and try somewhere else so we ended up at Monseigneurs, which is more continental and less military-naval and we liked it better. We did some more dancing there and left sometime after 1am. It was heavenly driving along the Corniche home again with a full moon glinting on the surf with golden light. Lovely.
    We had arranged to meet next afternoon, all four of us, and go walking for a change. In the morning Mona and I dashed out for more shopping and had coffee and a ham sandwich at Harricha and then out to the flats again, in time to meet the men at the station at 2.30. It was a beautiful afternoon, very warm with brilliant sunshine; so odd for winter time. We were about 20 minutes in the train, I suppose, and got out at El Marama or some such village, having passed en route the King’s Palace and little else but squalid villages, and sand and palm trees and then still more sand and more palm trees. We started walking along the road with the usual string of small boys following us, very black and filthy and charmingly attired in the oddest mixture of clothes imaginable. One had a bright pink skull cap which he obviously cherished. A muddy stream ran along the road side, and it seems this serves the villagers for drinking and washing purposes.
    People seem happy enough, however, sitting about in the sunshine, idling, presumably without any responsibilities. We saw a number of water wheels along the banks of the stream, worked by a donkey. They were blindfolded, with straw casings over their eyes, and walked endlessly around and around.
    We came at length to a path and left the road for sand and still more sand. The only vegetation was sand, trees and a few odd plots of beans and potatoes, usually hedged around with rushes or pampas grass. We were walking towards the sea and very lovely it was when it came into view across the sand hills, deep blue and very calm. There was nothing to spoil the scene at all and nothing indeed at all but fishing boats and the men casting their nets as they have done, I suppose, for hundreds of years. Aboukir, as it came into view, looked like a coloured picture in an illustrated Bible. These places have changed so little in the years between. We had tea in the local ‘pub’ – on the terrace, as the winter sun went down, orange, over the desert.
    We left by train about 5.30pm and got back to the flats about 6 o’clock. Mona and I changed into mufti, which, of course, is strictly verboten and Bill called for us at 6.45 when we met Jones and Copack, ate at the Metropole and then we all went on to the pictures. I was awfully sleepy and remember very little of it. Afterwards we went on to Monseigneurs for dinner and danced for a while. We had to be back at the flats by 11.30 however as a