Communication

My clever daughterinlaw has persuaded me to try and get with iting vis a vis blogg ing--so hear goes.

On the journey back from Penn Station with my son ,Angus, I observed the other passengers and they were all ensconsed in various electronic devices be it ipods or things I have never heard of invented by someone called Apple {I thought that was something from the garden of Eden].

I thought I have almost reached my three score years and ten ,will I ever get withthe most this modern age !

I then thought my greatest problem in communication was as a platoon commander in Borneo when I had to give out orders in three languages namley English,Gurkali & Malay.

I had arrived in Borneo six weeks ahead of my own Regiment and deployed forward to a place in the mountains called Ba Kelan.The British officer departed to be ADC to Gen Walker and I ended up in charge of twenty Gurkha soldiers.Also  in this valley was a troop from A Sqn 22 SAS. The CSM Lawerence Smith [Douglas is named after him] came to the conclusion that we might well be attacked by the Indonesians on the day that Sarawak got its independence.We decided to call in all the local Murut Border Scouts to man our little Fort my the side of the airstrip.The Fort was a bamboo constructin
with trenches.
My cunning plan was to have in each trench manned one Gurkha and one Border Scout.I did not trust the Border Scouts to throw grenades.
Fortunately the Gurkha NCOs spoke English as did some of the Border Scouts.

At the end of my orders the only problem raised by the Border Scouts was how were the going to have a pee in the middle of the night.I did not want them to leave their own designated trench in the dark for fear that they would end up shooting each other.I devised a cunning demonstration.I got a Gurkha Nco to cross his legs in mock demonstration of being bursting for a pee.He then made his way to a desert rose in the middle of camp.[Those who have served in the  desert will know a desert rose is a urinal].I then shot at the Gurkha NCO but well over his head : the Border Scouts got the message.I then got the same Gurkha NCO to repeat the same theatrical performance but this time pee in a can inside the trench.

Is this sort of experience something of a bygone age ?