Road to China Rock

China rock was the place where we had the job of relocating the observation Tower used for spotting Artillery and bomb hits on a little rock that rose from the sea about a mile off shore in the China Sea.

The original site was being eroded by the sea and needed a safer base.

There was a dirt track road that led up the coast to the Tented Artillery camp where various units would take their turn at pulverising that little rock in the China Sea.

This dirt track was in a very poor condition and was also used by locals and the Bauxite mine personnel. It was particularly bad after a Monsoon.

As we were working in the area it soon became one of our projects to sort out the road with our plant equipment.

Construction troop members got the usual chunky jobs of cleaning ditches etc but there was one part that needed a bridge making,

There was a small tidal river that could be driven across at low tide or crossed on foot by a rickety old wooden bridge at high tide.

We had a very young 2Lt with us at the time and he drew up the plans for a bridge with concrete abutments with RSJ spans topped off with a concrete slab. It was a workable option but difficult to dig out suitable foundations in the mud without a lot of plant equipment to build some sort of cofferdam.

So our leader decided we would build on top of the mud with very little preparation to save time.

We needed abutments of 10 ft wide for the road way and about 30 foot back into the rocky bank to give a viable bridge. This also had to be sunk into the mud deep enough that it would not sink under it own weight and had to rise from the water at least 5 foot at high tide. In all both abutments needed a few tons of concrete. The abutments also had Armco pipe built in to ease the wear and tear of the tides.

Our leader went off to the local merchant for timber to build the shuttering for the abutments. He returned some time later with quarter inch ply board and 2X2 timber to build the shuttering with.

Most of us by this time had a fair amount of experience with concrete projects and expressed our doubts about the flimsy materials. We were assured by our leader that he had done the calculations, and all would be well.

The shuttering was duly constructed and we began mixing and pouring the concrete. When we had a depth of about 3 feet the shuttering gave up and burst.

The only saving grace was that we had a much better base to build the new stronger shuttering on.

From then on the job proceeded nicely and at the end only Geoff Mynette and myself were left to do a bit of plastering and rendering to the outsides of the finished bridge to give it a more professional look.

The only problem we had was sand flies and poisonous water snakes swimming around the bridge. We had been told by one of the RAF medics that the bite from these snakes would likely kill you unless you got treated very quickly after being bitten. Not a nice thought as we were on our own and had no radio contact with the people working up the road.

We were wearing shorts and the sand flies left no inch of exposed skin untouched. Our legs and arms in particular were a mass of tiny septic sand fly bite that itched like mad. Geoff Mynette was suffering really badly and was nearly cracking up.

To do the rendering on the outside of the bridge span I was using the angled wooden shuttering as scaffolding. This consisted of a beam fastened under the span with upright rakers to hold the vertical boarding in place. Once the vertical shuttering was removed the rakers were pushed down and made a fairly safe platform when a plank was put across.

I was at the mid point and above the deepest part of the river and enjoying the respite from the sand flies, as they seemed to prefer the bank side. Geoff by this time was sat on the bank rubbing furiously at the bites on his leg and almost in tears at the irritation of it all.

I chose this time to lean back and admire my work and promptly overbalanced. Arms wildly grabbing at thin air with my steel float luckily landing safely on the bridge I fell in almost slow-motion into the drink.

As the water closed over my head the thought of the sea snake hit me. I surfaced and some one screamed with an awful high-pitched wail and I realised it was me doing the screaming. I have never been much of a swimmer but I reckon that that day I could have beaten any Olympic champion as I ploughed to the bank.

The upside to this was the change in Geoff. Instead of being hysterical with the itching of the sand fly bites he was now holding his sides with hysterical laughter.

When he could get his breath he explained that he had watched me hit the water and bob back up heading for the bank like captain Hook being chased by the crocodile.

This triggered a reaction from me and neither of us stopped laughing for ages. Of course the story got better with the telling over a few drinks in the bungalow that night as we got pleasantly drunk with calamine lotion soothing our sand fly bites.

Its all a long time ago now but I can still remember the fear as I hit that water. I never liked snakes before and that did nothing to make me change my mind.

Labouan is a small Island off the coast of Borneo and in the early part of 1966 we were sent there from Singapore to build a large concrete area for the RAF to park their refuelling bowser lorries on. We travelled up in an Argosy aircraft that you could see daylight round the door seals and after the heat of Singapore we were all half frozen when we got to the higher altitude.

Some of the work we carried out there suffered from the lack of layout plans of the camp area. What plans we had were old and out of date. There had been years of hole digging and laying signal cables etc so no one really knew what was underground.

One of the jobs was to lay cable and pipes across the main perimeter road which was also the road to the main gate of the camp. As it was a busy road we had to close it off  and carry out the work at night. This time we were assured that the plans of the road showed that there were no hidden obstacles to cause us any problems. We had been assured that the plans we had were the most up-to-date available. The road was closed at about 10 pm and proceeded to dig our trench across the road.

The trench was about 5 feet deep and good progress was made and by about 1 am we were at the centre of the road which, as it was a pick and shovel job was quite good.

At that point Taff Fisher uncovered a pipe. He shouted up to the staff Sgt, Taff Jones, to tell him what he had discovered.

With some irritation Jones said to break it out because there was nothing of importance shown on the drawings and he was impatient to get back to his bed. Taff was still loath to carry on and asked again If he should dig round it rather than break through. More irritation from the S/Sgt, So Taff, carried on.

The pick swung down and the sound of metal on metal was heard. "Staff this is a metal pipe and its going to be hard breaking it out". “Just get on with it” was the only comment.

 More metal on metal noises then a comment from Taff that there appeared to be water coming from the pipe.

"It will be ground water", said Jones, “just keep hitting it”.

Taff did as he was told and suddenly the water was spouting above the trench and Taff was scrambling out.

We had of course hit the water main that carried the camp and airfields water supply.

The next day we had the scruffiest RAF personnel in the Far East because there was no water to wash with. Breakfast was delayed until emergency water supplies were brought in and our name would have been mud if it weren’t for the fact there was no water to make mud with.

This was not the only time we suffered the consequences of inadequate plans and drawings. We also managed to take out the communications to the control tower and Signals Unit after being told that the area we were digging was virgin ground. The area turned out to have all the signal cables for Airfield under it.

Once again it was the result of poor record keeping by the MPBW. It was after all their responsibility for the camp infrastructure. Most of them were Civilians from the UK who spent their time knocking back pink Gins in the Mess leaving the donkey work to Local Workers. ( I am sure that some of them were highly qualified and hard working, its just that I never met them.)

Despite all of our problems the main tasks were completed in good time by working flat out for 12 hrs a day. Although we did still find time to have some very entertaining parties.

A monumental Darts tournament with the Royal Signal section is a very strong memory. Tiger beer was flowing freely and curry and sandwiches were laid on as a buffet.

The curry was a very hot one and I at that time did not like curry very much. So after trying a little I had to discard it and grabbed sandwiches instead.

To my amazement someone fed the curry to a stray dog that had been adopted by some one. The dog wolfed it down with no apparent harm. I don’t know why but I had assumed that dogs would dislike curry as much as I did.

I won my match against the Signals bloke I was playing against.He said, because he had lost it was their tradition that he buy the beers. The only problem was he brought two beers. Then we won the match overall and this bloke turned up with two more beers. I was already past my limit but honour dictated that I did not abuse his hospitality so I had to drink them.

I woke next morning wrapped in my mosquito net on the floor by the side of my bed. During the night my arm and face must have been outside of the net and the mosquitoes had made a meal of it.

I went to work that morning with itchy bumps and an eye like I had been in a fist fight and the hangover from Hell.

I would like to say that it taught me a lesson but sadly it didn’t.

I had my twenty-first birthday in Labuan. It fell on a day when my money had trickled to a sad pittance. So when every one went to the Malcolm club I waited a while so that there would be a shorter drinking time.

When I arrived there, people on hearing it was my birthday started to by me drinks. Yes, you have guessed it, I ended up on the floor covered in bites again with another hangover. This time it did slow me down. I did not drink more than a pint tops for some months until going out with Geordie Aston and Frank Hughes one night in Bugis Street. That's another story altogether though.