The train arrived about 11am and I got myself plus my baggage to the RTO’s office. As usual they hadn’t received the wire from Embarkation and didn’t know of my arrival, nor, consequently, did the BMH. However, an ambulance took me, miles it seemed, by devious ways and many native bazaars to the original BMH. There, after waiting for about an hour Miss Dexter, the matron, arrived and decided what to do with me. It seems the 47th comprises various sections in odd parts of town: the BMH (Surgical), the Loreto Convent (Medical), the Davidian Schools (Dysentery) and a place for skin and VD somewhere in the wilds … and there may be more, for all I know.
Anyway I was sent to Loreto, an old convent about three miles out of Chowringee itself: it is large and rather battered looking, but the grounds are spacious with lawns, a lily pond, plenty of trees and a statue of the Virgin Mary to watch over us!
We are in temporary quarters only, it seems, and are to move to permanent ones shortly. Now we are in cubicles – one each, thank heaven – and, although we sleep on camp beds, it is not that bad. We have a large writing table and two smaller ones and a chair. No drawers or wardrobes but it seems there will be such pieces of furniture as well as beds when we move. I have acquired a mosquito net which I badly needed after a week’s subjection to mosquitoes.
I went on duty next day in a ward of 60 beds – malaria, dengue fever, and jaundice. The wards are really very nice – airy and open and bright – but the equipment is nil and daily it pains me to work under such conditions for the patients’ sake. No sterilizing drums, no instruments and no thermometers – as they appear to be taken daily and no one replaces them – and very little of anything indeed except gallons of quinine which I dish out thrice daily to numerous patients.
The off-duty is good; a half-day every other day and a 10–1 shift on the other day. Even so my feet are sore and I am utterly weary at 8pm. I don’t go to dinner – I can’t think of food in this heat really – although we are on rations – but no food tempts me these days. I’d much rather fall into my cold bath and be ready for bed. I get myself out of bed in the morning at 6.30 in order to get a bath in the only available bathroom. I hate washing piecemeal at a row of basins and I don’t know what to do about it at all. The bearer brings tea at 6.45 and breakfast is at 7.30. Wards at 8am.
It’s good to have someone who will put buttons on my overalls and clean my shoes – two things I detest – and the bearer brings tea at 4pm to our rooms as well. The dhobi [washerman] calls every few days and a dursie [tailor] very frequently so we are fairly self-contained. I went with him on my first half-day to buy sheets and such at the market, which is a very good one, although more expensive than Bombay. I acquired a very large valise from a small boy who carried my things for me all afternoon. I paid him the large sum of four annas for it. I went in again with Sharpe, a New Zealand girl, two days ago and we had tea at Firpo’s and then went to see the film The 49th Parallel before taking a taxi home. One can get into town in a rickshaw for eight annas or by ambulance if there is one, and there usually is, daily at 4pm. Taxis are Rs2. We pay messing at the rate of Rs12 a day, which is less than if we were on rations, which is all to the good. Still no sign of any pay from Poona and of course the Melbourne contribution is still missing, and will be I imagine until the end of the year. So I suppose I go monthly to the field cashier at the ‘Fort’ in order to keep myself going.
But the real thing that is waiting as ever is MAIL. I’ve had two letters from Mona, who should be in Dehra Dun now (her nursing relief arrived in time fortunately) and one from Mrs Mcluhan, who tells me that three hours after we left Karachi for Bombay, a cable arrived for me from Bob. And then a letter later. She enclosed these with the shoes and had sent the parcel off – registered – that morning (18th). I received the letter on the 28th. Floods and recent riots have, it seems held up the trains. But daily, I await the arrival of that parcel and its contents. I can’t think why I haven’t heard from home either, as Lloyds have my present address. One of these days I suppose I shall have a bundle but how these days drag. Meanwhile … it has rained heavily yesterday and today and consequently it is cooler. Calcutta is intolerably humid and still hot and … very tiring I fear it will be. I am having a half-day off, and instead of my siesta after tiffin, I decided to bring this up to date.
September 2nd 1942
I think it was the evening of the day I last wrote herein that coming off duty, one of the girls knocked on my door and handed me a parcel. The SHOES. I think they are rather tight (but haven’t so far worn them on duty) but enclosed therein and for which I have been waiting so long, the letter. By this time it has grown to 55 pages, the largest ever-written over the period 5/6/42–5/8/42. So now I don’t feel so neglected or bereaved. No mail from Mother, however, since I arrived or from anyone else.
I went up to the BMH yesterday to meet Morrison who is on night duty at the Davidian Schools. We went to the market and I bought more underwear – which is quite an obsession with me – and then had tea. Walking up Chowringhee later, I saw O’Connor who is taking Miss Tyndall’s place in Assam, at an IGH and had coffee with her while she had dinner at the Grand and then took a taxi home, by devious routes, according to the sunshine or the taxi meter. Things started off badly at the hospital this morning. The bearer offered me porridge (ugh!) at least four times, then toast which is too thick and flabby to eat anyway and I rejected both. He then brought me kidneys on toast, which is poison to me at all times. In desperation I called for toast after about ten minutes, during which time I lost any desire to eat it so when he brought it I said, ‘No thank you’. During the next five minutes it was brought to me at least three times and in desperation I got up and left breakfast-less. I think I shan’t bother to attend again.
It is still raining in earnest but it is cooler and that means everything. I filled in another four forms for Miss Warner this morning. This is about my forty-fourth since I arrived here. Somebody must be interested in my life’s history, I presume. And yet we are told – a shortage of paper. Oh! The army!
September 9th 1942
It is over two weeks since I arrived here and already I feel quite settled. Strange how soon one becomes accustomed to a new mode of life and new surroundings in these days. I like the ward and the girls and, as far as I can be in the circumstances, I am happy enough. Letters are slow to arrive – except for the ones from Mona and Mary and the one from Bob. But I should mention – just by the way, so unimportant it seems nowadays, amazingly enough – that Poona has been moved to pay into my account Rs822, and again today a further Rs234 for travelling allowances. Now, of course, I feel extremely vulgarly wealthy and I had the urge to go out yesterday and spend some of it and for no good reason. I bought myself a dinner frock just to reassure myself that I had the wherewithal to pay for it, I think. It cost me just 100 chips and I feel grossly extravagant but entirely pleased and satisfied.
Pozner, the young MO of our ward (who is a poet of some worth) and with whom I went to dinner and a cinema one evening recently, has been posted somewhere in the jungle, much to his annoyance. Several girls are being posted elsewhere from the BMH and a minister is going up there from here. This reduces our staff somewhat. Scott was sent on an ambulance train rather suddenly yesterday – to Lucknow. One is liable to fall in for such things, I believe. And as Plunckett has gone to the BMH today, Fairweather and I alone remain in D3. As I write deep rumbles of thunder rend the air and the rain is descending in earnest. Some climate this!
September 20th 1942
I’ve been off with dengue: my first bout of real sickness since I joined the army. I felt rather queer one evening almost a fortnight ago, but thinking that nothing ever happens to me, I had my bath and very rapidly got myself into bed. Next day I realised that I really wasn’t feeling very good but staggered around for two and a half days thinking I’d be alright and then gave in. There were two days when I wouldn’t have cared what happened, I ached so abominably, and then I distinguished myself by fainting one bri
ght evening – a thing I didn’t think I was capable of, and that shook the household a bit. I felt so strange that evening, neither here nor there, and I remember noticing how everything went gradually dark and then oblivion embraced me. A lovely feeling it was – and I hated coming round. But now I am up and about but still feeling incredibly weak but picking up daily. I lost some weight and am drained of colour and I’m on a vile tonic, which should by the law of compensation restore my lost vigour.
I went into town yesterday morning to Lloyds to fix up my account and to pay in the mysterious cheque which arrived one day last week. I didn’t know where it had come from, £7/6/-. It was telegraphed through the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Brisbane, where I know no-one. Does someone think I am in financial distress, I wonder? The bank proposed the idea that someone has left me a legacy. It is all very mysterious but possibly, one day, I may hear more of it. Lloyds were exceedingly helpful and as I was feeling childishly weak and helpless, I was very grateful. I proceeded then to have my hair washed and then went on to see Dangerous Moonlight. Lovely music and then I came back and wrote to Bob. I have written to Ken, rather incoherently I fear. I feel very low about it all but it had to be done so – Vale Kenneth! Another chapter closed and another begun – as it began a long time ago when the world was young. Somewhere I lost the way but have found it again before it was too late. I had a mere 28 pages from Bob one evening last week. How long my letters seem to take to get through and I write so often too.
The Japs are only 35 miles from Port Moresby. I suppose poor Mother is feeling frantic about Clwyd. Maybe they’ll try to get the ‘pay’ people back to the mainland. I hope – selfishly – that they do. I’d feel so much happier if we were off that island.
October 27th 1942
We have been in the new house now,61 some time since and nice it is to be able to unpack and spread oneself into drawers and cupboards. I have a room with a view and a balcony overlooking the lake. It’s delightful here early morning and late afternoons with the long shadows of the trees reflected in the lake. There are three tall palms etched against the sky in the far side of the grounds, like three sentinels. I look for them daily.
Mona is due on leave from Dehra Dun. She spent the first few days in the Great Eastern Hotel but didn’t like it much, so moved in here for Rs3 per day. It’s pleasant here and she can come and go as she wishes. It’s good to see her again and to be able to go over old times and old friends – places and people that mean nothing to anyone here. She left for Darjeeling last Friday but returns on Thursday in time for my birthday, which is presumably Sunday. Thirty-four indeed – how aged I am becoming!
I am tired these days and my brain is weary with running or trying to run the ward with 54 patients and one orderly to help me. I hadn’t one at all between 1pm and 8pm yesterday and just had to manage with the help of patients. I get through it all somehow: beds, temperatures, odd dressings, medicines, endless quinines – because malaria is an epidemic these days – meals and all the paper work which takes up so much time, but it doesn’t please me to know that as far as the patients are concerned they don’t get the personal attention which they should.
I hear from home occasionally, but I certainly do not get all the mail that is sent. Sister Mona is in the AIF now, somewhere in the north of Queensland. I sent off their parcel yesterday, held up because I was waiting for father’s pyjamas from the dursie. I gave him 15 chips to get the material and it appears that after about a month’s absence he had decided to clear off with the money. I bought a rather pretty bedspread recently and after carrying it around all yesterday afternoon and evening left it in the taxi at the mess gate. So it was goodbye to that. The next day I left two frocks at a stall in the market but they kept them for me, fortunately. The day after I did the same thing with a parcel which I left at the station, but someone discovered it just as I was leaving and chased after me with it. I think all this lapse of memory off duty is the reaction to coming off the ward when I really have so much on my mind. I’ll be glad to be going on leave for more reasons than one: to get right away from everyone in the army will be a tonic in itself. I’m having my mosquito net put up again today – I was kept awake all last night with the brutes and, in any case, I don’t want malaria.
Bob’s letters come rarely now as he prefers to send an accumulation by ship as far as Karachi or Bombay. They are more than welcome when they do arrive but I have to wait so long in between. I am joining the Saturday Club as I go there occasionally, and as Mona is returning, it is a rather nice place to take her for tea: quiet and comfortable and nicer altogether than a café or Firpo’s.
I bought some velvet for a dinner frock last week – cerise – and paid much more than I should for it. Still, I’ve wanted one for long enough and it’ll be useful for leave as it will be cold then. Now I’ve got to find someone to make it up, I suppose.
November 15th 1942
Night duty, my fourth night on – and a battle of existence against mosquitoes. Mona went back last night before I came on night duty. I saw her into the Dehra Dun Express at 11pm. I was feeling about as low and spiritless as I’ve ever felt and although I was quite seriously ashamed of myself, I didn’t seem able to pull myself together. I couldn’t take in that she was going back and kept saying to myself that I ought to feel this moment more, that I might not see her again until after the war, perhaps not for years, if we are sent in different directions – who knows – but I soon forgot and began thinking again about how tired I was and how I wanted to crawl into bed and never get up again. I felt that I should have done so much more to make Mona’s holiday brighter and more varied, but I couldn’t think somehow and we just went to the cinema and dinner each half-day. She said she enjoyed herself but I rather doubt it. And now it’s night duty, and my daily cares having dropped from me, I feel better already.
It’s the endless stream of admissions and discharges and the paperwork that is involved that increases the strain. I think everyone is feeling it more or less. Four enormous tents have gone up in the hospital grounds and all patients go over there automatically when they start on pamaquin.62 All this looks so well on paper and someone is bound to get the OBE out of it – maybe he thinks it’s worth it; meanwhile the staff: the MOs, sisters and orderlies work themselves to a standstill and the patients hardly get a look in at all. I did join up originally as a nurse to attend the sick, but it seems I am nothing but a glorified office girl writing up papers all day long and I hardly ever get a chance to see a patient. It’s a queer life.
Today a number of letters, nearly all Australian, but only one from Mother. I can’t think what has happened to the rest. Nothing from Bob, except, while Mona was here and on the eve of my birthday, a cable in which was written: ‘Will explain next airmail. Hope well.’
It intrigued us greatly at the time. Mona went to bed and got up trying to get to the bottom of it, for days. I’ve given it all up. There has been no airmail following it and nothing previous to explain. It was most disconcerting not to be able to understand the gist of it but I expect I shall know what it means one day.
I sat up until 4pm today and went to the Saturday Club for tea, but I am tired now and it’s rather early to be feeling sleepy at 9pm. The wards these nights are seas of mosquito nets – every bed having its own. And really it’s impossible to see who is in the bed and whether they are alive or dead. So one leaves it to the common sense of the patients within to call out in a loud voice if they want anything. There are a lot of sick boys in the hospital just now – mostly malarias, but more recently a number with enteritis. No one turns a hair nowadays if we have malarias with temps of more than 105; it’s much more exciting to get in someone who isn’t malaria for a change, say perhaps simple rheumatism or nephritis. One never hears of such a thing hereabouts – they appear to be rarities. Well, preserve me from having malaria anyway. So many of the boys who have come down from Assam have had relapse after relapse. Awfully depressing for them.
Novemb
er 21st 1942
I am writing this in the lounge under a dim religious light before dinner and prior to going on night duty. I got up at 4pm today and went into town to have my hair done. I shall suffer for it tonight I expect. I have done about half my time I think and in a way I am sorry – there is much to be said for the night watches after all – peace and seclusion and a certain freedom of movement. It’s a very social night duty this one. We begin to drink tea at 10pm, when one or another begins to drift across to my duty room. O’Sullivan from upstairs and ‘Old Mother Brown’ as she is known within the unit and usually the OMO on duty, and perhaps others. This session lasts until 1am, possibly later, and then I proceed to get the supper ready for ourselves in D1. I trail hazardously downstairs with a tray full of dishes, praying all the way down that I won’t drop them. Supper is a tedious and lengthy affair – usually we don’t eat anything that is sent to us and I scramble eggs or some such thing. As Watson comes down for a decent supper, I find my time in D1 is prolonged. Sullivan goes across to relieve Watson and Brown is too busy to stay.
After the washing up, which I loathe at a dirty sink, and more often than not with cold water, a most depressing business, we go our several ways, do rounds, take a short walk by the lakeside and install ourselves once again until 4am. This is the signal for more tea – incredible although it seems written down in black and white – and everyone collects again, with the exception of the OMO who, it is to be presumed, is now well away in bed, and at 5am we really begin the night’s labours. It is one hectic rush from then on. I wash the sickest patients for Jameson in C1, five of them, and by the time I do a morning round in each of the three wards and collect the temperatures and write the reports, it is 8 o’clock and with that – the day staff.
The moon is almost full and the last few nights have been perfectly lovely. The lawn has been pure silver and the lake is full of stars. There is silence and peace abroad instead of incessant chattering and noise of the day – a lovely feeling – and the night air is cool and soft and healing. No letters at all. I’m becoming resigned, I think. I just refuse to think about them at all. I’ve had two letters from Mona, however. She had her two days in Benares and found it full of local colour and not at all disappointing. She sent me a piece of lovely gold and cerise brocade, enough for shoes or a bag, and I am making an evening handbag out of it, possibly two. She watched them weave this actual piece – the threads are pure silver dipped in gold. She says the carving is very fine there and there are numerous interesting temples and of course the river – where the faithful bathe. She is back in Dehra Dun now, her train being only 24 hours late on arrival. She also is on night duty and has five tents to supervise.
Joyce's War Page 17
