• To read about Gilbert, a Jamaican RAF volunteer, sailing for England, click here.
• To read about Gilbert seeing his shipmates' first impressions of England click here.
• In a third passage Gilbert watches his wife Hortense's reaction to seeing London for the first time. To read it, click here.

Once we were under sail, under orders and captive on this ship, Corporal Baxter began with his lectures. This man took satisfaction in telling us ‘colony troops’ everything his twenty-six years as a Londoner had taught him about England. Me, I found it interesting. Did you know that the smog in London can be so thick that it is not possible to recognise your own hand in front of your face? I did not know this. But many of the boys did and yawned wide as crocodiles so Corporal Baxter might realise. "Don’t expect your rice and peas or spicy things or grub like you had in America and England," he warned us. That I did know and was not pleased to be reminded. "You’re off to a war zone." I was yawning now.

"Britain’s been at war for a long time, everyone’s tired out. There’s shortages. You’ll have to get used to ’em. You can kiss the idea of a banana goodbye," he informed us, with uncharacteristic mirth. Then suddenly, without warning, we West Indian RAF volunteers destined for England felt something like an explosion. I was not the only one on my feet ready to fight when I caught its blast. Not the only one with fists clenched willing to kill, when the renk and feisty fool-fool ras-clot Corporal Baxter, belittling us once more with his ‘colony troops’, told all us boys, "And don’t think you lot are going there to paint the town red. No white women there will consort with the likes of you." You see, most of the boys were looking upwards. Their feet might have been stepping on London soil for the first time - their shaking sea legs wobbling them on the steadfast land - but it was wonder that lifted their eyes.

They finally arrive in London Town. And, let me tell you, the Mother Country – this thought-I-knew-you place – was bewildering these Jamaican boys. See them pointing at the train that rumbles across a bridge. They looked shocked when billowing black smoke puffed its way round the white washing hung on drying lines – the sheets, the pants, the babies’ bonnets. Come, they had never seen houses so tall, all the same.

And what is that? A chimney? They have fire in their house in England? No! And why everything look so dowdy? Even the sunshine can find no colour but grey. Staring on people who were staring on them. Man, the women look so glum. Traffic turning their head this way and that. Steady there, boy – watch out. Look, you see a white man driving a bus? And over there, can you believe what the eye is telling? A white man sweeping the road.

While Hortense looked out from the top of the bus at the city around her, I gazed at her. So roused was she at every site the bus passed even her well-bred composure could not keep her voice from squealing. "Look, this is Piccadilly Circus. I have seen it in books. The statue is called Eros." Gleeful, her head spun with the effort of seeing. And everything her glad eye rested upon she pointed out to me. "Gilbert, can you see? That is the Houses of Parliament and the big clock is called Big Ben." Although I had seen all these sights many times before, I too spun my head to feign elation. So pleased was she with her view from the top of the bus, she held her hands as if on a steering-wheel, saying, ‘You can pretend you are the driver of the bus from here.’ However, excitement for that particular experience I could not affect. The driver of a bus – oh, God! – with my luck, one day I probably would be.