I had a room next to Mona and it was delightful there in the sunny compound. The quietness and the complete absence of planes and taxis and cars were as balm to my soul. The gardens were a delight and the lovely hills which surround that place made me long to be home again. I had four full days there and we had tea in the gardens daily on the grass or under the trees. The gramophone came too and it was good to see David come to life again during the Unfinished Symphony. I think he realised then that the illness was a superimposed thing after all and that when it passed, everything was intact underneath, and it was a great relief to him and to me.
I left on Thursday evening and arrived at Howrah on Saturday about 8pm. We crossed the flooded areas where 20,000 people had lost their lives and the lines were still down after three months. An incredible sight. A monkey came abroad and stole my complete bunch of bananas when I was out of the train having lunch at one station. I had pleasant companions all the way but the second night was very interrupted with Indians who came and went all through the night. We had a large breakfast at 9 the next morning and then nothing until about 4pm: that was tea and toast which had to be consumed in about five minutes so we were ready for a meal when we arrived back. I returned to Harrington Street to my cholera patient to find another one as well. Both did very well eventually.
David, all this time, was sceptical about his Board passing him, although the CO seemed in no doubt at all. Anyway, it has gone through and he has now arrived in Bombay and awaits his ship.
It’s a queer feeling to think everything has changed so within these last three months. Before – one thought of dragging rather drearily on in India until the end of the war. Now the whole face of things has altered entirely and wonderful and unimagined vistas have opened up instead.
I am afraid that I can’t get more leave to go to Bombay to see David before he leaves as we are short-staffed and are busy with an influx of malaria cases again. My application has gone to the Principal Matron and I still await a reply. David has written himself, so perhaps I shall hear something soon. I feel so sorry that I cannot give him any definite assurance before he goes but I am certain that I shall get back within a reasonable time. I am buying linen and such things, difficult to get at home, with a view to future days. I can’t think of anything else now but the day I arrive in the UK. It’s unbelievable when I have been away so long.
It is perfect weather here now – cold nights and chilly mornings and warm lazy days. The humidity has gone entirely.
Christmas arrangements are in full swing. The mess dance is on December 22nd and our Xmas dinner about 27th, after the patients have had theirs and the MOs are having their dance in the first week of the New Year. It is good fun at Xmas on the wards and decorations have already begun.
There has been very little news from home: Clwyd is still in Melbourne; Mona is still in Queensland and Glyn in New South Wales. Mother had flu when she wrote and seemed rather miserable with it. They didn’t know when I last wrote that David was ill; it seems fantastic that the mail takes so long coming and going.
As I write the siren goes – the first time since last December – and the planes are overhead though we can’t see them and anti-aircraft fire is making a fearful din in the calm of a Sunday morning. Signs of the times, I expect, with more to follow over Xmas.
1944
Bombay – Calcutta – Wales
January 23rd 1944
And so it has come to this: I sit here not very patiently, I admit, and await the word ‘Go’! The Indian phase is nearing its close and although I go with mixed feelings, for there is much here that I love and shall miss, I know with absolute certainty that I am glad to be going and that I would not have it any other way. But to go back six weeks – I went to Bombay to see David off in the end. He rang me up one day when I was on duty in Harrington Street, ostensibly to say goodbye. I knew then that I must make a desperate effort to see him before he left and so I went to Matron – knowing that we were less busy and better staffed just then – and she said I could go. I think I was very near to getting a seat on an RAF plane but the registrar spoiled all that and I had the usual long and boring train journey after all plus the expense which, as usual, I could ill afford. And as usual, of course, no one knew the time of the arrival of the train within about four hours but fortunately David was there and all was well. He looked fairly well but tired very easily with walking as I quickly realised. I stayed with Mona’s friends the De Muires, where David had already established himself and they had been extraordinarily kind to him. It was a large and pleasant house above Malabar Hill and it was grand to become civilians again and out of the services for a few short days. We came and went as we pleased and, in spite of Mona’s added presence, we did manage to have a few hours to ourselves. I was so glad I was able to have those few days and we both felt so much happier about everything in the light of perhaps – we didn’t know – a long separation.
I got back to C floor on the 20th to find B floor in Harrington Street in isolation for smallpox. We had 33 patients for those weeks, all fed on the ward, and, as none of them was ill and quite 25 of them could have been discharged, there was little to do except feed them. It was grand fun on Xmas day, in spite of the fact that three of our orderlies had drunk so well and so unwisely, that they were totally useless by midday. The patients came into the kitchen and served their own supper and everything went with a grand spirit. Sally and I were presented with a handbag each and a box of chocolates and flowers and altogether it was quite a family party. I didn’t go out on Xmas eve, preferring to stay on until about 1am for the night sister. The unit dance was a great success at Loreto on the 23rd and on New Year’s Eve there was the usual Braces club party at the Chinese restaurant, followed by an hour at the pantomime ending up in a frantic rush to get to Jimmy’s flat before midnight to see the New Year in. We didn’t make it actually, in spite of considerable abuse, in our best Hindustani, to the taxi driver. But we turned all the clocks in the flat back, and started all over again. The CO’s dance started with dinner in the Great Eastern, given by Mac, of all people. It was very hilarious – the champagne probably – and Mac was persuaded to ascend the platform and sing Danny Boy, his theme song, and for the rest of the time the orchestra played Irish airs, believing us to be an Irish party, I presume.
I was fairly drunk before I had drunk anything at all, because I had had the news that day that I was to be transferred to Colaba to wait a duty passage home. I didn’t, I regret to say, remember much about the rest of the night except that it was an occasion for much good will and toasts on my behalf and everybody telling me how glad they were. We got to Loreto somehow in Jimmy’s car and we were told that the dance that had been fairly dull up to that point had brightened up after our arrival. I shouldn’t wonder.
A few nights after that the Brace’s club farewelled me again, first at Jimmy’s flat avec the Matron and Colonel Jones and later at the Chinese restaurant. Vera had by this time just discovered that she could be repatriated and Patrick had decided that it would be better for her to go. I am sorry I can’t remember the speeches, especially Johnnie’s delivered in best Churchillian-cum-Roosevelt manner: they were gems. The prawns, as usual, were excellent and I regret to say that I ate far too many at the instigation of Johnnie who kept telling me that that every prawn might be my last for years. I thought that that would be my last – positively my last appearance at those happy but mad dinners – but Johnnie Hall was expecting to be posted to Japan the next week and, of course, that was an excuse for another one. This one ended rather abruptly with Jimmy being driven home in his own car by Willie Thompson who was distinctly more sober. We went down next day to see Johnnie off and, although I very definitely meant to go back to my packing immediately after, somehow or other we ended up for lunch at the Stafi and they all came to the Minto Park afterwards and insisted on staying for tea. In the hour they had to spare they climbed up poles and palm trees and jumped the dahlia beds and altogether behaved like na
ughty boys.
I’ve forgotten to mention that Mona bussed up with her unit about a week before I left and she kept appearing at some time every day. We had dinner with Padre Thompson one night and I took her with me to say goodbye to Ray and Oomah.
I was off the two days previous to my departure and although I’d been packing for days – it still haunts me – much of it couldn’t be done until the last day. My warrant and orders were handed to me duly and I was to leave by the Bombay Mail on the Monday evening. Well – I didn’t. I was so certain that I knew the time of the departure of the Bombay Mail that I merely glanced at my orders, without reading them properly. Mona, Vera and Patrick came down in the ambulance with me and Tommy and Mac followed in T’s car. I had given myself a full hour to deal with my luggage – but – I discovered to my horror and chagrin on arrival that the Bombay Mail was just steaming slowly but definitely out of the platform. It was a good thing I suppose that I wasn’t alone for I certainly would have wanted to sit down and howl – but they were all so good and so helpful and I shall always remember the crowd of us threading our way in and out of the bodies on Howrah station, with Tommy and Mac roaring out, ‘A troopship was leaving Bombay,’ trying to cheer me up. We installed the luggage in ‘the left luggage room’ and went off in Jimmy’s little car – the men all roaring lustily – to Firpo’s.
There in Firpo’s we dined and danced for the last time in Calcutta; it was January 1944. After that we went onto the Palo Rica for a while before going home. We delivered Mona safely and I crawled into Minto Park and into Vera’s bed for positively the last time. Mona came early next morning and we did some shopping prior to a last lunch with T and M at the Great Eastern. They had to get back to their work and Mona came down to Howrah with me and saw me safely installed with all my belongings – bound for Bombay – and Blighty.
And so ends my Calcutta interlude. In many ways I felt sad at leaving for I had so many real friends there and I was always happy in the unit. But this, of course, is merely incidental to my life and, in leaving it, I close the door – only too readily – on so many things that are extraneous and quite outside my life and the life I want. So Vale Calcutta – Chowringhee, Firpo’s, the Great Eastern, Christies, the Nan King, the Slap and all the other haunts – and those names that will become mere memories, I suppose: Vera and Audrey and Margaret and Peggy and Mac and Watson and McNamara and Blondie and Babs and Sally – Patrick and Tommy and Mac and Johnny and Willie and Gay – and Wender and Paddy and Arthur – and as Johnny would say, Uncle John Cobbly and all. They were as grand a collection of friends as anyone could have wished and I am grateful to them all.
But now I am in Bombay – in Colaba – and as restless as a leaf in the wind. I don’t, I am afraid, like the matron, who made it definitely clear to me – without any need of words – AC1 was a rank she had never heard of, when I was giving her David’s particulars. It enraged me so much that his number went completely out of my head and it wasn’t until I had cooled down and I had got back almost to my mess that it came back to me. When I first arrived the girls were having only two and a half days a week, which rather horrified me as I felt I had so much yet to do. Today a notice has gone up saying that we may take every other half-day until further orders. Another thing which has made me cross is that messing here is 100 chips a month. We were on rations of course and paid no more than Rs46. This, in my present financial state, is more than a blow, especially as I never appear for breakfast or dinner. The food is very good, I admit, but it seems entirely unnecessary somehow. The mess itself is quite charming with everything nicely done. I am not in Alexandra House but in a long two-storied bungalow across the road. It has wide verandahed balconies on all sides and is most comfortable. Another girl shares the room with me: it is a large room with real beds and there is a dressing room with three wardrobes and a bathroom off stage. Colaba itself is a huge military compound, covering numerous acres on the sea front, and must ‘house’ thousands of army and naval personnel of various units. There are churches and cinemas and canteens and halls and barracks and houses (many families of course live within the compound) and altogether it is a complete world in itself.
Much to my surprise in the little time I have had to myself, I have done quite a few of the things that I knew had to be done in case I had to leave quickly. My account has been transferred to Lloyds and I’ve been to the RAF about my allotment. I quite looked forward to about Rs400, only to find they had already paid Rs315 into Lloyds Calcutta, and as it was exactly the same amount as my December pay, I have naturally concluded that the army had paid me twice over that month. Lloyds mentioned it as ‘my salary due for the month of December’ and I accepted it gratefully (not too surprised at anything the pay department does, although it is usually the other way round) and felt it was worth having it even if I did have to pay it back later. Well this was rather shattering news and I had to make up my mind that if this was my marriage allotment, then I had had it and spent it – or a good deal of it. They had just sent this month’s allowance to Lloyds Chowringhee (Rs64 or thereabouts) and it will be a while before that is transferred to Bombay, I suppose.
I’ve left my wireless in Calcutta to be disposed of and that should bring Rs500. It probably won’t but I’d be mighty glad of this at the moment. There are things I feel I must buy – towels and soap and some warm things for David. I don’t mind about things for me, although I do need shoes and other odds and ends. I went out to Mary’s flat yesterday afternoon to collect my stuff. Oh, those books: I’ll have to get a packing case for them, I’m afraid.
I am so afraid of having to leave in a hurry and without any money. I must keep some for emergencies – taxis and coolies and tips on the ship and such incidentals, and I can’t possibly arrive penniless. I wish I didn’t worry so much about money. I am not very interested in it as such, but I’ve learned only too well that we can’t be without it. I rather hope, much as I dislike having to settle amongst a new unit, and much as I badly want to get back to David, that I can have a few weeks here and by that time someone may have bought my wireless and that would relieve the situation immensely. I have been on tenterhooks for days, knowing that several ships were going and thinking that I might be pushed on one at the last moment. It’s still possible of course but I hope not as I’ve got some material being made up into grey uniforms and I’d have to leave that behind.
If I have time I must call and see the De Muires with some cheese but apart from that I’m truly thankful that I have no social obligations of any kind in Bombay these days.
February 15th 1944
The time has come – we are about to depart these shores. I have been here almost a month and now it is a matter of days. I had a day off yesterday and spent it laboriously shopping. There are so many things I feel I want to buy, not for myself but for the many others whom I have not seen for so long. I bought some food stuffs but not much as the price was beyond my purse. The packing has been done for the third time and I am hoping I shall have room for everything. I went to see Mrs De Muires a night or two ago and I must ring Niermol today and tell him that I am about to depart. Mary is coming this evening. And there was a letter from Mali last night in which she sounded so depressed. How wearily the war rages for everyone who is just at home, trying to make things as normal as possible, under trying conditions. We in the services are far better off and, quite unjustifiably, collect the laurels.
And so perhaps in a month’s time I shall be at home again. It will be March – wild winds and cold. I shudder to think of it on this bright warm day. Still spring will follow and with it the joy of seeing primroses again and cowslips and daffodils. All this will be at one with yesterday’s seven thousand years and just a memory. I wonder where David will be – still in hospital, discharged or at home. I shan’t know until I actually arrive back. No cable yet. I should be so depressed if I didn’t know that we will be together soon. But it doesn’t matter now. This is the last time I shall write herein, overseas: alm
ost four years since I was first posted to the Middle East and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. A rich few years in many ways and I am the wiser for them. Out of all the chaos there are memories of many friendships, precious and dear. And they will outlast the war – I know that. Now I am facing the other way and the beginning of my real life. So many steps, so many curious twists and then one arrives. And now I dare to hope for some permanence at last – a real aim and a steady course – to the end of it all. It may take time but that it will come I do not doubt.
So Vale India!
POSTSCRIPT
So what happened after the war?
Joyce and David began their married life in the small village of Llanferres near RAF Sealand before settling in Swansea and then Cardiff from 1955. David became a journalist on South Wales newspapers and continued to pursue his love of theatre by directing plays for Eisteddfodau and amateur theatres before he was appointed as a radio producer (drama) for the BBC in Cardiff. I was the oldest child, born in 1944; Siân was born two years later and our brothers Ifor and Vaughan followed. So by 1950 Joyce, aged 42, was a full-time housewife with four small children and she was 10,500 miles from her family. She never saw her mother, father or sister Mona again and spoke only twice to them on the telephone. Compared to her life in Australia and much of her wartime experience, life after the war was hard: strict rationing, a cold and damp climate, the British diet with the absence of tropical fruit that she loved and the dreariness of the heavily bombed town of Swansea. Despite the post-war deprivations, which were shared by everyone, she was an exceptionally able manager of a large household which often included actors who needed a bed or a meal. And she was an inspiring mother who sought to nurture talents in each of her children: Siân is an illustrator and artist, Ifor a musician and photographer and Vaughan a writer and landscape gardener. She was a much-loved friend to many people and it was she who created the ballast in a rather bohemian household in which well-known actors, writers and painters came and went and where contemporary ideas, books and politics were discussed with great passion. She remained an avid reader and collector of poetry and contemporary fiction, including the emerging Australian writers.
Joyce's War Page 22
