The office was also home to ants (small, medium and large) and red ants, mice, termites and temporarily to visiting hornets and scorpions. The termites built their tunnels of regurgitated wood fibre up one wall, along the insulated electrical wires and down the central wooden roof support to the nest that housed their queen. She was a bloated white creature. They were constantly building, repairing and enlarging the tunnels and nest. Red ants contested possession of this area and we watched the perpetual battles unfold. Arab incursions into the workshop compound were a bit of a problem and in order to combat them the sergeant-major announced that the perimeter fence would be mined. The mines were really hand grenades, not the No.36 or Mills bomb but the No.69, a plastic cased type. I suggested to him that if he were to record their position then we could add the information to our map of the camp or record it on a separate map. He agreed. Off he went, several hours passed and then he and a couple of his accomplices returned. "Gimme the map." he politely requested and I did so. Now the scale of the plan was such that the whole area covered a sheet measuring about four feet by three feet. He looked at it for a bit and then stabbing at it with his stubby forefinger he said, "We put one or two here, some about there and a few in this part ---- ." Relative to the scale of the plan his stubby forefinger spanned about 20 or 30 feet so his information was useless and we never did have an accurate record of the disposition of the mines. Presumably after the passage of more than 50 years they have been discovered, probably to the disadvantage of the discoverers. Our OC had an unusual name, Bonallack that was often mispronounced as bonny-lack and to remedy this gaffe a notice appeared on Daily Orders to the effect that, "The Colonel wishes it to be known that in the pronunciation of his name the accent should be placed upon the penultimate syllable." Uncomprehending soldiers stood around the notice-board saying things like, "Wot's 'ee mean?" or "Wot the 'ell's a penultimate syllable?" The kinder more knowledgeable types explained it to them. Of course this lesson was purely academic for as far as we lesser mortals were concerned we never had occasion to address him as other than Colonel or Sir.