T H E C O V E N A N T E R
L E T T E R F R O M S Y D N E Y S C R O G G I E
Roseangle Cottage instant I was under the tram, there was an
Rosemill Road explosion, and when I got out from under
Bridgefoot
the tram nothing was left of a tenement
Strathmartin
building beside it but a ruckle of stones.
Dundee DD3 0RW
Head for Hayton, I thought, where the
unit was in huts; something will be getting
Tuesday 12th Nov, 2002
organised there; and I set forth walking
in that direction. There was broken glass
Fellow Cameronians,
underfoot, tangled wires knocked out
tramcars, and always a fresh clutch of
“Jerry’s finished”, said the driver of a 3 ton
incendiaries spluttering on pavement and
Bedford grinding its way up a zigzag road
road darkness was falling, and the whole
in the Appenines, the sky blue, the sun hot.
of the town was enveloped in a red glow.
He’s got the 8th Army ribbon on his bush
Things began to get a bit wild, so I took
shirt, the touch of swagger that went with
refuge in a close, shutting its door behind
it, and his K.D. shorts were rolled right up, me. I found an old wifie sitting on the
revealing a magnificent scar all the way floor, unable to do anything but tremble.
from the knee to the groin. He’d got a bit
I took her hand and was comforting her
too close to the Africa Korps, he told me,
when there was a huge explosion, the door
lost on his motorbike, and someone got
of the close blew in, and in the light of
him with a spandau. Now he was taking
incendiaries I saw a man staggering across
a strategic view of things, and, “Yes”, he
the road towards me. “What we need
said, “Jerry’s finished. He hasn’t got a plane
is men,“ I heard him say, so I got up and
crossed the road to see what was what. It
in the sky”. It was July 1944, the Lovat
wasn’t nice, the bomb had blown off the
Scouts were making their way up to the
end of an air raid shelter, and there were
line, Vesuvius behind them with its puff
mangled bodies everywhere. One lad was
of pink vapour, the antique, rutted streets
buried up to his chest, and was only just
of Pompeii, and a 92nd British General
conscious enough to make vague plucking
Hospital where I was to finish up 10
movements with his arms. There wasn’t
months later, the Regiment’s last casualty. really anything I could do, no obvious help
The 7th Cameronians remembered when to be offered, and what happened after that
Jerry still had a plane or two in the sky, and
I have no recollection. Am I right in saying
well I personally remember that Aberdeen
that one or two of the boys got killed, this
evening, seated on the top deck of a
in the neighbourhood of the Fountain, and
tramcar, when I awoke to the knowledge
certainly Davy Arnot was all too close to
that three easily identifiable Heinkel III’s
things when bullets punctured the Nissen
were flying at rooftop level straight towards
hut which was his weapon training store.
However, my Bedford 3 tonner, somewhere
me, their machine-gun raking Great
north of Arezzo, had dumped me at the
Northern Road. This was in striking contrast
end of its journey, the moon shone, guns
to what I’d just been doing, practising
grumbled and next night 12 Troop, D
figure skating under the tutelage of a nice
Squadron, the Lovat Scouts, got a jolly
Aberdeen lassie, and at the same time I’ve
good mortaring from the Teds. Thanks to
no doubt some of the boys would have
a still vigorous Luftwaffe, however, in the
been in the dance hall on the other side purlieus of Dee and Don, I’d already had
of Spring Gardens from the ice rink, one my baptism of fire. Was it some remnant
so dithyrambic and wild that they called it
of the spirit of Wallace and Bruce in me, or
the Battle School. The tram stopped, and
arrant stupidity. most likely the latter, but I
I was just abandoning it, one hand on the
hadn’t been frightened at all.
stanchion, one foot on the cassie stanes,
when I heard a whistling sound. In an Sydney Scroggie
5
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