The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.1981, Blaðsíða 35

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
33
and are fairly comfortable. My company,
which is “Headquarters” occupies a big
white stucco house on the top of a big hill.
Thor, Joe and I are in the same room upstairs
with two Irishmen. The room is not very
big, but it has a basin with hot and cold
water, which comes in handy in the morn-
ings when I have to wash and shave. Then
there is a beautiful fireplace which we light
sometimes when it is cold and damp.
Otherwise the place is heated with hot
water. We are issued no beds, but sleep on
straw mattresses on the floor. In the morn-
ing these mattresses are folded and the
blankets piled neatly on top.
“A typical day goes something like this.
At seven A.M. the bugle sounds reveille and
I get up in a hurry and shave. The rest of the
boys have a habit of sleeping in, so I have to
wake them. At a quarter to eight we pick up
our mess tins and set out for breakfast. The
kitchen is more than half a mile away so we
get there just in time as they start serving at
eight. Refn, Carl. Norman and Leifur live in
a house right beside the kitchen. When we
have filled out tins we go to their room
where we sit on the floor and eat our meal.
For breakfast we usually get bacon, por-
ridge, bread, margerine and tea. Breakfast
over we go back, sweep up the rooms and
are ready when the bugle sounds for the ‘fall
in’. This is the start of the working day,
which now begins at 9 A.M. I don’t have to
bother about the bugle but go downstairs to
the orderly room where I work. Thor and
Joe, however, go outside where the men are
lined up under cover of some big trees. Then
a sargeant calls the roll and reports his
company to the captain, who then gives the
instructions for the day. As a rule the men
are taken for a route march of four to six
miles in the forenoon, while the afternoon is
devoted to lectures or sport. At 4:30 the
boys are through for the day. Supper is at
five and from 5-11 the men can do as they
please, although they are not supposed to go
more than five miles from camp. Every third
day our company is duty company and then
the boys have to stand guard, work in the
kitchen, haul coal, etc. Thor is on guard
today, for instance and Joe went with a truck
this morning to get our rations for the day.
By God, here comes the mail! Well, all the
excitement is over. A lot of parcels and
newspapers came in, but no letters. Norman
Vestdal was the only one of our bunch to get
a parcel. We get mail twice a day, but the
Canadian mail usually comes in bunches.
“In the orderly room the bulk of the work
is done in the morning. Routine orders are
put through, reports on defaulters and sick
personnel are made out, etc. Trucks come in
with the sick from other units. In serious
cases our ambulances go out to pick them
up. After being examined and attended to,
our ambulances take these men to the
Casualty Clearing Station. In the afternoon
things quiet down, but two men must be on
duty all times night and day. I have to stay
on duty every third night till 10 o’clock, but
as some of our staff sleep in the orderly
room I never have to stay later than that.
“The only excitement here are the air-
raids, not a night passes without bombs
being dropped all around us. A bomb landed
within a mile will rattle the windows and
literally shake the building. The closest they
have come is 200 yards from our house. All
night we hear the thunder of the anti-aircraft
guns and the thud of bombs. The fires from
London are plainly visible on a clear night,
so is the burst of anti-aircraft shells. Para-
chute flairs are visible from a long distance
and look like the full moon, blood red and
terrifying. They drop very slowly. Most of
our boys are now getting used to the bomb-
ing and it bothers us not at all, although a
bomb dropping real close gives us a very
uncomfortable shock. These last few nights
hundreds of planes have passed overhead in
a steady stream, most of them fly so high
that the sound is barely audible. It is some-
thing like the passing of the geese at home in
the fall of the year.