The night is dark, the night is cold. My little spark of courage dies. The night is long. Be with me, God, and make me strong. Cuba, was crowded with the soldiers of the Black Watch Regiment, seated at small tables playing cards, or lolling on the floor against the walls reading books.
The air was filthy with blue cigarette and pipe smoke, which hung around the low central lamp, almost screening it from view. The soldiers were wearing as little as possible. Most favoured, a pair of short pants and a singlet, with a handkerchief round the neck to mop up the sweat as it streamed down the face and back of the neck.
Outside, the decks were deserted. Smoking was forbidden there. A burning cigarette could be seen for miles in the pitch blackness of the night. German submarines were on the prowl, seeking for such a target as this, the Highland Division in convoy in the Atlantic. All that could be heard on the deserted decks was the peaceful swish-swish of the water against the sides if the boat, while an occasional glimpse was caught of a sister troopship as she loomed out of the dark, momentarily off her course.
I lay stretched out on the smokeroom floor, my lifebelt acting as a head-rest, reading a book, a mystery it was, and trying to get a breath of the clearer air near the deck. A white-jacketed steward came through the doorway and, at the sight of him, I hurriedly scrambled to my feet. He pinned a sheet of notepaper to a panel at the left side of the doorway and hurriedly moved out the way of the mad scramble that followed. I was pushed almost flat against the wall as chairs were thrown back and a mob of soldiers surged forward behind me.
Each evening it was posted there, for this was the only means of telling the whole ship what was happening on the war fronts. The notice read B. Late last night a field correspondent said a strong enemy column had passed El Daba, coastal point 30 miles east of Fuka and about miles from Alexandria. El Duba is the last big aerodrome on the coast before Alexandria.
