Frank James
CAPERS OF A MEDIC was meant to be a life story to demonstrate some of the contributions of blacks to help preserve the freedoms of America during World War II. The intent has been to report truth of events, but to avoid boredom by adding a touch of humor.
The author was a laboratory worker in a hospital. He was also employed as an assistant to the medical examiner or coroner. He worked as a salesman for Bausch & Lomb Optical Co. The author, now retired, has hobbies in art collecting, music, numismatics, painting and astronomy. He served as treasurer of Cleveland Astronomical Society for several years.
The train trip from Mombasa to Nairobi was one of the most interesting in my life. We found Africa very picturesque, but very hot. I would like to cite one incident that took place on the way from Mombasa, which was a port city. We were riding the train (it was about 150 miles between Mombasa and Nairobi and was a whole days trip). We left early in the morning and then the train stopped. We were in wartime and not too far away from the field of operations where there were battles and aerial attacks going on. We were in East Africa and there were many battles in Egypt, Libya and the North African campaign under way. On the way to Nairobi we saw big herds (400 or 500) of elephants running down the track, excited by the train. Then we saw herds of zebras and gazelles. We saw a herd of giraffes. We did not see any lions or tigers along the railroad track. I guess they were deep into the jungle. This was very exciting time for me, since the only time I had seen jungle animals was at a circus. Suddenly, there came a time on the train when it stopped in the middle of the jungle, much to everyone's surprise. We were wondering what happened. Had we been attacked? We looked up ahead and saw all the British troops including their officers outside. At this time we were attached to the British Expeditionary Forces and under their command. They came along and told us to dismount from the train. They sent one or two from each coach to go up to the engine of the train. We took a five-gallon bucket to the engine to get water. The British soldiers gave us tea leaves in order to make tea. The train had stopped because it was "tea time". At certain times of the day, everything stopped for tea, war or no war. The lieutenants would come through the train and leave a five-gallon tin of food. The British or American army person in charge on our coach distributed the ration of hardtack. Tea was served in a tin cup and the hardtack was almost as hard as a brick. It happened that this hardtack came out of can that had 1917 (World War I) written on it. This was 1942 and one was eating hardtack from 1917. When one took a bite of the hardtack and looked at where one bit and one would see a part of a white worm. Many of the soldiers threw them away. I was hungry and knew that this was the only food we were going to get. I didn't throw away my hardtack. I ate it, worm and all. I didn't know how many worms I ate, but you either ate it or went hungry.
