We saw all the patients ashore next morning, en route for Poona.35 We had scarcely got to know them and it seemed a pity to see them go so soon. There was a young red-headed second lieutenant, not my patient, who had tried to commit suicide three times before coming on the ship. I had a most interesting chat with him on deck. It was awful to know that he was under strict guard day and night – always an orderly with him – enough to send anyone ‘mental’ and he was most sensitive about it. We had a strange conversation about modern poetry, pacifism (he was a pacifist) and nationalism – he was a Scottish Nationalist – and we talked about India. According to all the laws of the Medes36 and the Persians we could both have been shot for sheer heresy. As it was, he was considered mad and so put under guard while I was still at large, but no one knows for how long! It’s a queer world. This boy Dunnett was the son of a well-known Scots Presbyterian minister from Edinburgh. I feel so sorry for the lad.
We went ashore then and to the bank but no money had been paid into our accounts (nor has it been now on the 28th of the month) so I drew out my last 15 rupees, leaving about Rs2, I fancy, and thus equipped, we installed ourselves in the Grand for the weekend. We visited the paymaster on the Monday and after a lot of cogitating he decided he would pay us, there being some recent amendment to his list, in which he feared at first that we were not included. It was a slight relief, naturally, as we were on the brink of poverty.
We went to the church on Sunday and to a party on the cruiser Hector on the Monday evening. Mona and I were roped in to have dinner with the captain and his guest, who was a commander of a Greek destroyer, and so we spent the evening aboard. The captain had superb quarters on the old Alfred Holt ship. There was a lot of head-turning about our staying to dinner and it was all rather amusing, although annoying. Anyway, they could have stayed instead of us for all the good it would have done them, as it happened. We went aboard next morning in a tropical downpour and put out into mid-stream where we still remain. The Atlantis has been in for maintenance but she left yesterday for England, home and beauty, we believe. The Talunda is still here although rumour – which is rife – has it that she leaves any day. We stay on board most days, sewing, reading or writing. My correspondence is such that I could and should be writing all day long and every day.
The day we got back to Bombay I received 22 letters, several packets of papers and an anthology of verse from Mali, dear Mali, how thoughtful and generous she is. I had two letters from Ken in my bundle informing me that they would not be long in the Middle East and might be crossing the canal. The next one proclaimed they were in Iraq and still the poor darling had not had a single letter from me. I felt so sorry and wrote at once to the new address and cabled to say I had written frequently. Since then I’ve had two more letters, in the first of which he acknowledges two letters and my first cable and in the second, two more letters – earlier ones certainly, but at least as he says, letters. I feel so pleased about it. It seems that having spent 12 days en route through Palestine and Transjordan they have arrived back in Iraq, where they are now about to ‘unfold their tents like the Arabs and as silently creep away’37 again, back whence they came, or so they think. It all seems rather mad, but Iran is now quite quiet, the king has just gone off to Argentine or somewhere especially remote and his son is on the throne. Now, with Russia still fighting grimly for Leningrad and having re-occupied a number of villages out of Smolensk, the position in the south is rather precarious with the Kief gone. It is expected that there will be a big clash in the Crimea with, on one side, Turkey and, on the other, Bulgaria forced into it against Russia. So one day, or another, we shall slip out of Bombay to some place not so quiet, I suppose.
Yesterday, we left on the early launch and went to church. Then we went on to a cricket match at Colaba, between HMHS Karapara and the Welch! It was pleasant under the trees and watching the match took me back years to cricket matches in Shelford afternoons, when we were young. The Welch won, out of hand, and we all had tea together in their mess. They were a nice lot of boys, mostly from South Wales, I learned. They told me that of the 900 1st Welch that were at Alexandria and who went onto Crete, only 200 remained. They fought the rearguard action there and most of the 900 who didn’t get away were killed. It made me so sad to think about it. I received a letter today from Gwen, who is nursing in Llandudno, because her husband Ronald is in Barmouth. The airmail is taking about six weeks to arrive now, a little better. I wish I could afford to send all my letters by air but I just cannot. I’ve begun to send off Christmas cards and small gifts to one or another. I just can’t forget, even in the war, how good they were all to me in those happy years in Cymru fy.
October 20th 1941
Still sitting in the same spot of water and no sign of moving yet. I have done nothing of any note – been to the Taj about twice and once went across to Elephanta Island. That was a pleasant day to walk under the shady trees and to see the sea rolling in surf hundreds of feet below us. We had an excellent lunch with a better view and explored the ancient Hindu caves afterwards. It was all exceedingly interesting. Much of the stone work is in an excellent state of preservation and the figures are finely proportioned and executed. It took two and a half hours to get there and the same to get back.
We have had some difficulty about pay again, pending some decisions as to where we actually belong. Nothing was paid in at all for two whole months. I shall not record our actual words on the subject. However, they have deigned to pay us the August salary and some arrears of pay recently, but September’s has still to come to light. It appears we are now to be paid from Poona, so this ought to be more definite than the ME, although we are still not on Indian rates of pay. What has infuriated us however is that they have taken out, for the third time no less, an advance of £5 which I drew in France in May last year. Investigations are being made, I hope. They certainly are not getting away with this latest piece of infamy – not if I can do anything about it.
Ken has left Iraq and I last heard when he was somewhere en route to the ME again. It sounded like Galilee or Tiberias as he was going to gather some tiny shells for a necklace for me. He sent me a charming silver bracelet from Iraq for which the customs made me pay Rs10. I feel this was grossly unfair and they were exceedingly nice and they said they would refund all but Rs2.8 of it. So I am more than happy about it. Poor Ken, I don’t know whether he realises it but I feel he is going farther and farther away from me. We shall probably never go to the ME again, whilst he is almost certain to be sent to Libya or north, if Germany heads that way. Goodness knows where and how and when it will all end. Japan is threatening again now that Russia is losing ground – Odessa is gone and Moscow seems sorely hemmed in. They have even mined the Great Barrier Reef and Thursday Island. I think we have been at anchor here for quite six weeks this time. I suppose one day we’ll be sheared out, if we haven’t got stuck to the floor with the barnacles before then. Poor Russia, how she has taken the hurt! Well, I hope we won’t forget it, when the time comes for the reckoning up of such things.
Clwyd is in Papua now. Sister Mona seems very happy in her camp hospital. Glyn’s throat is still bothering him a lot it seems and Mother’s dermatitis seems to be getting worse instead of better. I do wish she would go into hospital so that they could keep a constant watch on her. I have just had a birthday letter from General enclosing a canteen order for ten shillings. Of course, I can’t use it – at least I wasn’t able to in Egypt. I’ll enquire when I next go ashore. Sweet of him to think about it, however.
We have had two sports meetings with the Talamba, our sister ship. I didn’t go over there but had to put in an appearance here at the return match. Mary didn’t however, and that caused a mild sensation in various quarters. Now they’ve invited us to tea on Thursday and to stay to supper and a dance later. No one wanted to go but Matron thought two should go and it was decided to draw lots and Marcia and I turned up. We would! I loathe these polite social affairs. It is Diwali, the Hindu festival
, this week so shops and banks are closed for at least two days and Tich is running around presenting us all with dreadful sweets, such as they are in India on these occasions, it seems. We tell him they are delicious so he is quite satisfied and then we get rid of them via the porthole. I have had several John O’London’s and about six Horizons38 from Mali this week. She is so good and we all enjoy reading them immensely – it is a link for me, with a world I was so fond of and familiar with – we never see this type of magazine from one year’s end to another.
The harbour is very busy these days with all kinds of sea-going craft from tiny scarlet yachts with snow-white sails to heavy cruisers. The Exeter is in and one or two Greek ships. The Yara (HMAS of ancient memory) has been in and gone out and there is an Australian armed merchantman beside the Windsor Castle, the Felix Rousseau, a large Free French ship, the Orion with a piece of her bow in some collision or other, the Strathallen, numerous breakers and smaller ships of all nations, mostly Norwegian, Dutch or American and even including Japanese. The little island fort near the ‘Gateway’ seems to be undergoing reconstruction into something really considerable. The docks are stocked with Bren gun carriers39 and such things for export to the Middle or Far East. Everywhere is activity, although the army itself appears to function socially more than any other way, at the moment.
November 3rd 1941
It was my birthday on Saturday. Mona arrived with burning incense at 7.30am plus two parcels, one a little Peter Scott copy of Brent Geese Flying in a Mackerel Sky – lovely! And a set of most exquisite lace table mats. She is so extravagant, but it is no use telling her. Mary gave me a dear little pocket edition of Thomas à Kempis. During the course of the morning arrived letters from Ken, Mother, Mona, Glyn and Edna, and Bruce. I was so thrilled to think that they all arrived on the very day. And Ken’s included a picture of himself – a forerunner of a bigger and better one, apparently. This one however is splendid and I am delighted to have it. Mother, in St Andrew’s hospital, east Melbourne, appears to be slightly improved. I hope it is true and lasting. Some delightful stories from Bruce. Mona is happy in her camp hospital and, from an extremely minute snapshot, looks extremely nice in her uniform. Clwyd, it seems, is charmed with Port Moresby, although I haven’t heard from him so far since his arrival.
I have sent Ken’s Christmas parcel off. Such a to-do, thinking what to buy and then packing it and sewing it all up. Such fun! I do hope he has half as much fun opening it as I had packing it. Mona has sent a parcel to him too. I had a parcel of books from Mali – Geraint Goodwin’s Conversations with George Moore, and the sixth number of New Writing.40 It’s so kind of her to do this, so often. Today from Gwen and Ronald, I received Louis MacNeice’s latest collection of poems Plant and Phantom. Lovely to have some new poetry and they are so good to think about me all this distance away.
I am knitting a pullover for Ken, in a rather nice cable stitch, simple but effective. He has bought a cine camera and I’m terribly thrilled about it. I’ve always wanted one – there is nothing to equal it for holding precious moments. Just think that the films that he takes now we can see over and over again, ‘When we are old and grey and full of sleep’.41 Only he can’t get film in Egypt, he says. I want to try and smuggle some in to him occasionally in the odd, inoffensive looking parcel. Wicked girl! Tomorrow it seems we are going into dock once more for about a week, which means we go off to a hotel, The Grand, I think. We liked it last time – it’s quiet and unpretentious.
November 13th 1941
Well, it wasn’t the Grand, it was the Taj again. We were herded together in what they fondly call a ‘suite’ on the fifth floor: four bedrooms and a bathroom minus doors. All very friendly, but we didn’t appreciate it. I do like a room to myself. I prefer even my postage stamp of a cabin on the ship to having to share: ‘a poor thing but my own’.
The week we were ashore was notable for nothing except that I spent my whole month’s advance from the field cashier and almost all I possessed in the bank and have arrived back almost penniless. However, I’ve been in this state so often since I joined the army, it doesn’t worry me much, although it does irritate me to think that they haven’t paid us one anna since August and it’s now the middle of November. Of course, I did buy myself a frock which I don’t care for much and the shoes (wine court ones, which were made to my measurements) turned out to be complete failures. Much too short and I feel so cross about them. They fit Mona quite well so she is wearing them. It was Mother’s birthday yesterday so we drank her health in shandy last night. In her last letter she appeared rather better and was going home, I hope not too soon.
I had a letter from Ken too and two not very clear enlargements of snaps taken en route by his CO. However they are most acceptable. He had posted two photographs a few days before he wrote to me. He wrote on my birthday and he said he was celebrating it by packing up and getting ready for the road. He had got in touch with Mrs John the previous evening and hoped to be able to see Monica Thompson that night. I do hope he did because she could then let me know odd things that Ken could not perhaps write himself. I am sadly afraid that they are bound north and east perhaps to the Caucasus as there is some talk of our joining the Russians there. Ken sounded rather depressed and I am so far away – he says there is no hope of him returning to India for the duration of the war – and I can do nothing to cheer the poor lamb up. It’s useless worrying, I know, but I find it impossible to do anything else somehow. I want to get off the ship and unless we are frantically busy by the end of the year, I’m definitely going to ask to be transferred back to the ME. Quite apart from Ken, for I don’t really think we shall meet until the war is over, I can’t bear the climate in India, or at least in Bombay. I’m always tired and lethargic and the nights are scarcely cooler than the days. There is some talk that we may move up to Karachi to hang around there for a while. British Intelligence seems to think we take up unnecessary space here. Personally, I think they should put wheels on us and run us into a garage for eleven months out of every twelve. That should cover all the work we have to do. Karachi, they say, is much cooler, but then what about our mail? That’s the only thing I object to moving on for. It’s dull enough on the ship at any time, but while we are here there is always the possibility of some mail every day. It undoubtedly helps our morale. Major Doran, who came up to the ship yesterday, says that Dorsetshire is in Karachi and that Evelyn Cameron is still on her. I hope she is there, when and if we are sent north.
They are coaling today – the awning is down to minimise the coal dust, and the row that is going on, on all sides and below on the barges is indescribable and incredible. There will be no peace anywhere all day. Nickels (IMS) is leaving in a few days to marry Ianto Thomas, who was 3rd mate on this ship, now transferred. He is a dear boy, a general favourite and, being a fellow Cymro, I’m more interested in his welfare. We are all rather staggered and very sorry that this has happened. She’s a nice little girl and an extremely pretty one, but, well, I genuinely hope it turns out alright. He is very young and I suppose after all, it’s no one’s business but his own.
Russia is still holding out magnificently on all fronts, although the winter is settling in.
November 25th 1941
I am writing this in slightly different surroundings – having moved into Nickels’ cabin today as she has gone to Calcutta for a few days, prior to finishing altogether and being married. I like it much better than my own in most ways. I have at last got room to put my books out – before I almost had to get on my hands and knees to get them out of the drawers under my bunk.
Well, much has happened in the outside world in the last 100 days, although we remain as static as always. The offensive in Libya has begun in deadly earnest and it is almost certain that Ken is there and not, as I first thought, in the Caucasus. According to all sources we are doing well, having recaptured Bardio and Fort Capuzzo and a garrison from Tobruk which had set out from there to meet up with them. It all sounds terrible and
horrible to me and, supposing Ken to be alright, there are always others who are not. I can’t help imagining how awful it must be for them, particularly for those who are at all sensitive and there must be so many of them. Of course, I worry and wonder every ten minutes, all day long, although it’s silly, I know.
Ken’s photograph arrived on Saturday, having been opened by the censor and the customs. I think they must suspect me of some international intrigue! I am delighted with the photograph and I now have more room to display it on my new chest of drawers.
We heard today that our long overdue pay is reposing peacefully in MALAYA. We know that we are marked down for the Far East but whether we shall ever be sent there remains to be seen and depends, I suppose, on whether Japan is bluffing or not. The real reason why they have put us on the Malaya payroll is because we are no longer connected to the Middle East. The Indian Command will not be responsible for Indian rates of pay, even though we’ve spent the last six months here and the only British rates of pay allocated out here at all are from Singapore. Therefore to save the army a few pounds they have transferred us there. The whole system of pay is perfectly rotten and should be revised, surely. Anyway this is the last straw – nothing paid into the bank for three months and then they send it to Malaya! I made up my mind then and there to ask for a transfer. This is the direct reason for hurrying things along but I have been restless for some time and ever since the Libyan campaign began, only a few days ago, truly, although it seems like years to me already, I have been impatient to get back to the Middle East. It seems a far cry to Libya, as indeed it is. I feel I’d like to be nearer just in case by some miracle we should meet again.
Joyce's War Page 11
