“OUR TOWN”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 65, Issue 5493, 3 July 1942, Page 6

“OUR TOWN”

YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY . 1 r ' ") A SYRIAN GLIMPSE N.Z.E.F. Official News Service (By Air Mail) SOMEWHERE IN SYRIA, May 8. This is a picture of our town. It isn’t really ours, of course, but for a>. brief time it is a familiar part of our lives. For three thousand years before us soldiers have trod its streets— Assyrians, the armies of the Pharaohs, Roman centuriaris, knights of the Crusades, soldiers of the Ottoman Empire, New Zealand Mounted Rifles and Australian Light Horse of the last war, men of La Legion Etrangere. The country might be Central Otago but you miss the wire fences and the road signs are by the Touring Club de France instead of the Automobile* Association. The lines of poplars and the bare, snowcapped mountains are there though, and sometimes a nostalgic creek and willows. Under the walnut trees on the outskirts of the village poppies are just raising their heads above the barley. Three gaunt red cows, like local edition Polled Angus, stand together in the shade. Opposite the; branch of la • Banque de. Syne -et. .du ■ >’ stands. white and still injtlie afternoon’s heat. Lorries going north suck at the sticky bitumen. A donkey laden with flour from the mill by the river gently picks his way among the gravel of the roadside. Two New Zealanders walk by like schoolboys on their way home, swinging their bathing togs in their hands. At the corner you see a relic of the previous occupation. Above the'battered wooden door of a small flatroofed stone building are the words “Aussie Bar, Fair Dinkum Prices. Icecold Beer. Good Winfe. Come In.” Two Arabs sit at a cafe table on the footpath playing tric-trac, or backgammon. Past them is the Ao-te-Aroa Bar, “Kia Ora Katoa Haeramai” scrawled on its windows. “HOW MUCH THE BEER?” A wheezy gramophone on the wooden bar grinds out “At the Balalaika.” The room, the walls and floor of stone, is empty except for three Arab boys gravely playing pinochle at a corner table and the barman polishing the glasses. Myrna Loy looks down from above the rows of bottles. “Entree Autorisee aux Troupes,” says a red poster. “How much the beer?” we ask. “No beer.” ’ ’ This would be distinctly discouraging to most New Zealanders if they had not got used to it by now. “Well, what is there?” Vin blanc, vin doux, curacao, creme de menthe, limonade, vermouth.” So for 50 Syrian piastres, or just over a shilling, we get two glasses of creme de menthe. Outside a three-tonner from one of the battalions pulls up and the chaps jump down stretching their arms and legs and grinning as a platoon marches down the sides of the street, sweat leaving clean streaks in their dusty faces. Saoud Chabcoul follows two of the leave men through glass doors into his “Salon de Coiffure—Beaute Per-fection-Coiffures Dames et Messieurs.” Others cross to the schoolhouse, which now has the red triangle of the Y.M.C A. hanging outside. In a few minutes these New Zealanders are absorbed into the life of the village. HIGH SCHOOL FRENCH UTILISED rf Just past “Genuine Antiquities and Oriental Souvenirs” is Fred’s Waitemata Bar. There isn’t any beer here either at present but few come here to drink beer anyway. Farid Bracha’s greatest achievement is his “Fred’s Specials.” Two fingers of vermouth, a dash of Cassis, a heavy sweet fruit syrup, and the glass filled up with lemonade. “You like it?” he asks anxiously. Memories of high school French are recovered. “Bien.” “Ah, vous parlez Francais.” Perhaps it would have been better if those memories had remained as memories. In the dusty narrow street shadows lengthen. An army truck stops and two Tommies get out, attracted by the name of the Rose and Crown BarCafe. A gendarme hitches his shotgun on his shoulder, tilts his cap back and has his boots cleaned by an Arab boy. A New Zealander in battledress on the corner unbuttons his tunic with the heat. A tired military traffic policeman scratches his elbow and waves a despatch rider on. From a secondhand shop comes the faint tune of an incredibly old waltz record. On the roadside a blind beggar sits against a poplar and chants “Allah, Allah.” When we walked slowly back to the barracks an hour later he was still sitting there.