THE COVENANTER
he. He subsequently went back to Arabia in But all good things come to an end. The
the Trucial Oman Scouts, and died a decade battalion received orders to fly to Aden
ago. for a temporary move in response to an
international crisis in Jordan. There was
On 14’~ May, the battalion held its traditional a rear party left behind in Nairobi to keep
armed conventicle. We marched into the the barracks ready, and those of us whose
bush close by (it might have actually been military service was coming to a close were
in the Nairobi National Park) and there, to left behind in Nairobi. A month later, I was
the on a Lockheed Constellation airplane, along
surprise of the resident giraffes and warthogs, with about 30 others from the battalion, on
we sang hymns. During my time in Nairobi, our way home to
the regiment had a boxing tournament. It be ‘demobbed’. The plane flew an unusual
was the last boxing tournament that I ever route, to avoid flying over Egypt. We flew
fought in. I had learnt to box as a small boy, across Uganda, Central African Republic
and had boxed through school. I recall when (then still a French colony) and the
I was a recruit in the Black Watch being Cameroons, to Nigeria, landing at Kano,
singled out to do a demonstration bout with where we stayed the night. We went for a
another chap. I also remember discovering walk, to the local market, and there I bought
drive-in cinemas. The management was a a ferocious dagger, which I still have, and
bit upset when we took a three ton truck use as a paper knife. Then we flew across the
filled with soldiers into the cinema! Before Sahara desert, and after a refuelling stop in
the regiment was reunited in Nairobi, Malta, we flew
there had been a company of Cameronians through the night to Gatwick, thence by
already in Kenya at Gilgil in the Rift Valley. train to Lanark. There after a couple of days I
It had been a training company, training the was told that I could go home. And so home
new arrivals sent from Scotland to join the I went. But even though I had left the army,
battalion. I recall going down to Gilgil on I never forgot the army, nor the wonderful
several occasions in connection with the men with whom I had served. I have been
former camp there, which was closed when a passionate Scotophile ever since. In later
the battalion reunited. It was a superb drive, years I have also come to know the west
down the escarpment into the Rift Valley, coast of Scotland well, by sea. My time in
and the giraffes running beside the truck as the army had been a wonderful two years,
we drove along. and I continue to be intensely proud of my
two regiments.
Charles A Cain
General Jack’s Valediction to the Cameronians
…”For nearly eighteen years I lived with officers and other ranks who faithfully and
unostentatiously performed all their duties, whose instincts were those of gentlemen, whose
interests of duty lay with manly sports, whose grumbles were superficial, who met set backs
with a smile, danger and death without flinching. It is a great privilege to have served in a
company of such high quality, a privilege realised perhaps more fully as time rolls on and one
meets at gatherings of old comrades so many who express the ardent wish that they were back
with the Regiment”
Sentiments we can all share no matter how long or short a time we had the good fortune to
serve as Cameronians. (extracted from General Jack’s Diary edited and introduced by John
Terraine and published by Cassell & Co)
92
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