After losing a week’s pay for evicting their Section Corporal and his mangy dog from their basha (more on this in my book), the ‘Three Musketeers’ of the Intelligence Section (Trev, Dan and me, pictured above), along with Murph the armourer, decided we needed some respite from the Notts & Jocks’ Bull Capital in Batu Pahat. We booked two weeks leave in Penang.
It was here, at the Sandycroft Leave Centre, that I had my first encounter with an Australian—the ‘Diggers’—in Malaya.
First encounter with Australians in Malaya
On arrival at the beach bar on my first evening, my attention was drawn to the only person in the leave centre wearing uniform. This turned out to be ‘Bastard’ the Bombardier, as his Aussie mates called him. The reason for his unusual choice of dress was that earlier in the evening he had challenged a WRAC (Women’s Royal Army Corps) wearing a summer frock to run into the sea with him. On the count of three, off he went, but the WRAC stood her ground. It being a squally evening, Bastard needed to change into some dry clothes after his fruitless dip. But, with all his spare civvies at the dhobi wallah’s (the laundryman), he re-appeared in his Olive Greens.
Soon afterwards, the showers forced us to abandon the beach bar and retreat indoors. Here Bastard decided we should have a sing-song. To the tune of Waltzing Matilda, he launched into ‘Once a jolly bombardier caught a dose of Gonorrhoea’. But he was abruptly cut off by some RAF Sir Galahad pointing out that there were ladies in bar.
Next the dartboard attracted Bastard’s attention. Before long he had organised a game of ‘Killer.’ However, he omitted to get all contestants to chip into a winner’s pool. Bastard and I were the last two left and, by sheer fluke, I beat him. This is the first and only darts contest I have ever won. However, in the absence of a winner’s pool, I had to shout the other contestants a beer each before being officially declared the champion. It costs you to win against Diggers!
Never come between a Digger and his beer
At closing time, the Diggers stocked up with Melbourne Bitter to keep the session going outside. We all returned to our blustery perches in the beach bar. Having spent all my readies shouting beers for the darts players, I was broke. I surreptitiously helped myself to a bottle from the Diggers’ stash. Big mistake!
‘Where’s my fucking beer gone? exclaimed Bastard.
‘That four-eyed Pommie bastard half-inched it,’ replied another, pointing at me. Soon I was confronted by half a dozen angry Diggers. At this point, the sizeable form of my fellow Three Musketeer and friend Dan stepped in as peacemaker. After I returned the missing bottle to its rightful owner, peace was restored.
A short time later Trev and Dan had to take Murph away for a chunder and put him to bed. This left me alone with the Diggers. That was their chance and they wasted no time in taking their revenge. Four of them grabbed a limb apiece and dumped me, fully clothed, into the sea.
Ocean-bound, I had managed to discard my specs. After emerging from the water, I was faced with the daunting task of finding my glasses in the pitch-black dark. After crawling around in the sand in my myopic state I finally found them. Sadly, they were now missing one of the arms, broken off during my journey to the ocean.
Honour satisfied, the Diggers invited me, along with Dan and Trev, to share the rest of their takeaway beers before the weather eventually drove us all to bed.
Moral of the story: never nick a Digger’s beer unless you want an involuntary dip in the ocean—or possibly worse!
More stories of Murph and the Musketeers’ subsequent leave exploits in Penang can be found in Misadventures with Coco-Oscar: available now.
