Friday August 10th 1945

Frank and I arrived in Jerusalem this morning after a most interesting trip, and are now installed at the St. Andrews Hostel, run by the Church of Scotland. At the fifth attempt at getting away – the first four attempts being fruitless owing to :–

1) too many priority passengers,
2) railway ‘wash-out’
3) orderly room mistake,
4) aircraft grounded by rain –

we finally left at 03:00 hours for S.A.A.F. aerodrome in the desert. Soon after we arrived heavy rain commenced and the desert became sea.

By 8 however, the rain stopped and the field had begun to dry up. We took off and saw the towns we had left as tiny fringes of green in the remote distance, from a great height. The partly flooded desert looked from above for all the world like a sandy beach from which the tide has barely receded yet. The colour is the same, the bigger wadis correspond to the channels which the receding sea cuts and then leaves behind dry, and the smaller fern like channels and wind ridges are reminiscent of the sea shore. That is perhaps why there is very little feeling of height, even when flying well up. Soon after leaving I had my first sight of a cloud from above. The railway line from above, seemed infinitesimally small, not a ribbon, but a thin scribed line and the Nile no more than a trickle not (apparently) moving at all.

But although the railway seemed so small, a puff of what was for all the world like engine smoke came along. Then, close behind, more and more, but soon the difference appeared, the puffs were being blown along and were correspondingly streaked, transversely, not lengthwise. Then the main bank of cloud came into sight, covering all the ground. The upper surface was very uneven and bumpy, as if the smoke from a number of explosions had linked up and suddenly been frozen. To speak of smoke being frozen is perhaps absurd, a mixing of metaphors. Yet, although from close at hand the smoky ethereal formation of the clouds is seen from higher up the cloud bank looked much more solid and seemed more to resemble fantastically rocky, pebble strewn terrain covered with very fine, powdery snow.

The passage was very smooth apart from the descents at the border town, where we came down for half an hour’s break and tea and sandwiches, and at our destination. The reason for the bumpy nature of the glide down is that there are strong currents of hot air rising from the very hot sand and these cause air pockets at lower levels. On the second half of the trip we were able to see ‘Egypt, the gift of the Nile’ a wavy strip of dark green bordering each bank of the river, within a number of great irrigation canals everywhere visible, the whole divided into a great irregular patchwork by these canals and the thinner, less conspicuous roads. Presently the pyramids came into sight and in the distance we saw the great dark mass of Cairo. We touched down and were treated by the South Africans to an excellent lunch. Their generosity was, however, marred by an example of their greatest national failing, the colour bar. We had brought with us a Syrian, or Maltese soldier, Rahid by name, and he had sat with us, talked with us and eaten with us before we left. When we walked into the U.J.F. mess, however, the Sergeant in change came up, tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to sit at the tables at the far end of the hall, where the coloured South Africans, including the waiters, were sitting. We had a leisurely meal, a long wait and a long truck ride at high speed along a modern road to Cairo. Here, after several interviews with R.T.O’s and people we were able to get seats on the 18:00 hours (E.S.T.), ‘Palestine Railways’ train. Here we travelled third class on hard wooden seats, and were very crowded. Fortunately, however, we were travelling with a lot of native troops who disappeared under the seats to sleep on the floor, so I was able to get a seat to myself and to be reasonably comfortable. We crossed the border during the night and were woken up to have our documents examined and our kits very cursorily so. Breakfast was at Gaza and from there on the scenery was different. Although the soil is essentially very sandy and occasionally huge sand dunes, or sand hills appear, in general it is richly cultivated either in vineyards and olive groves or under grain or vegetable crops. Orange groves and orchards are seen from time to time. As we moved northwards the distant mountains became visible to the East, and an occasional glimpse of the sea could be caught between the low hills. There were many surfaced roads carrying a fair amount of traffic. We noticed that the people, going about their daily work, moved much quicker and more sparingly than do the Arabs in the hotter climates.

At length we drew into Lydda Junction and left the station for the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem main road whence for 100 mils (2 shillings) a Jewish bus took us incredibly swiftly across the plain, up the foothills and by a winding road among the rocky escarpments up and up to Jerusalem. We fixed up with the C.M.P. and found our lodging, there are three of us in one room in a magnificent hotel, over some shops on the Jaffa road, just outside the New Gate. We have bathroom (and shower) in our room, with hot and cold water, and a balcony over the Jaffa road. The hotel was taken over by the Church of Scotland and refurnished by subscriptions from home, a grant from the Nuffield Trust, and a gift from Scotsmen in Toronto. Bed and breakfast is 200 mils, daily.

This afternoon being Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath, the muezzin of some neighbouring mosque was calling loudly, apparently just opposite our room, at the hour of mid-day prayers. On Friday also the Old City is out of bounds. As we were tired we walked up as far as the huge American YMCA, with the highest tower in Jerusalem, suggestive of a modern British town hall, and later to St. George’s Church, the Anglican Cathedral. After Dinner at St. Andrew’s, I went up to Wesley House with Frank, and then we both came back to the ultra-modern ferro-concrete Church Army hostel where we are both writing letters.