Ever Ready on the Pyla Plateau, Larnaca District, Cyprus
Ever Ready on the Pyla Plateau, Larnaca District, Cyprus
Pyla, Plateau, Cyprus
The shift starts 12 midnight exactly, our comrades woke us up at 11.45, and we struggle to our feet, sleep bacchanal, exhausted. Outside our ‘Nissen hut’ (Alu constructed structure, half-round regulated, utilized for accommodation and command), the wind is ululating over the plains, it makes me shiver to think to be on patrol after midnight. In January the frozen winds blow from the Anatolian highlands across the Cyprus strait and covers the island with a blanket of stale.
Radio communication is set at every full hour, just as my colleague takes his seat the control call comes in ‘Nicosia to all report’. I take hold of my FAL NATO rifle, afloat gear, narrating what I have on, for the out is cool , at winds reaching strength 10 at some points, the stale creeps up fast. Cotton undershirt, cordial abundant sleeves undershirt, Cotton over shirt, Army issue, pullover 1, alpine pullover, wind jacket, 7 PCs of clothes assisting me from the stopping dead wind.
I relieve my colleague from his post, and the sub-zero temperature hits me straight into the face. This must be the coldest night experienced on the plains. I am fully astir by now, and climb up up the ladder that leads to the outlook checkpoint. Trying to get habituated with the darkness I take hold of the binoculars to survey the area under our scrutiny. Nothing antic I garner, the wind is pulling on the trusses and backing up steel cables, making it squeak and emit. I can not retrieve when much a storm has drifted here before. In my six months of duty I happen the stale has travelled worse day after day, and in the H.Q. as here we use Kerosene heaters in our kipping wards to keep cordial. The ensuing fumes are still in my nostrils, and I can’t assist thinking that the fumes are a health hazard. No one cares, as we have no choice, if you don’t desire to wake up up stopped dead strong..
In all my life I remember this to be of an unique, moist cold that cuts to the bone and marrow of one’s body. I think of my life stopping up in these distant parts of Cyprus, what made me draft in the service. And the wind agitating goes on and its ululating is strange at some stage.
It is 12.30 AM past midnight, a blaring voice cuts through the storm, the shadow below I acknowledge to be that of the Lieutenant. He asks me to come from the observation post at once. I postdate his order, take up position and salute ‘report no incidents, Sir’. The improbable happens, here, at 12.30 AM, in the central of nowhere, he asks me to cite the ‘duty paragraph’s, including ad hoc rules. Thinking to myself the man has slanted over, I nevertheless falter all the points he refers to, going forth out some. He lectures me for 30 minutes giving me the focus of his career, how he intends to convey sanity in this platoon. A moron I think to myself, what a moron. He wants to make a point, so permit him. After he finishes, he abruptly turns back, inquiring me to return to my post, and vanishes.
As he came he disappears. Now I am gone forth with the wind and still can’t make sense of all that happened a while ago, calculating out what was improper with this guy who happened to be our dominating officer. At exactly one hour into the morning we exchange posts, my colleague who staid inside on readiness will now take post up in the stale. I state him of the incident and he is perplexed, too.
Once inside, the warmth is overwhelming. I stand up near the oven, fraying my hands and generally finger better within minutes. I switch on the radio and ’10 cc blares from the British Forces radio in Nicosia, ‘I’m not in love’. They must be playing this song a hundred times a day, I call back. The night is abundant, and sometimes you be given to doze off. Overcoming the inside Schweinehund’ literally the ‘pig’s dog’, as the ‘dog within us’ is named in our parts of the world. You have to focus and you master self discipline, as I learnt in the Army, compliments of Hauptmann Walter Lukesch, my mentor and company commander, whom I respect.
With every turn the morning is closer, and the thought of the Lieutenant returning is a vague possibility. I take the last turn above the roof of the hut, and watch in reject when the sun’s first rays flood over the plains before 6 AM. Our night shift is over, the next six hours will be expended in readiness, but let to take hold of some sleep after breakfast, which we gladly postdate. Another night in the plains for the next eight weeks has went through.
