Joyce's War (17 page)

We’ve had some mail but to my mind not nearly all we should have had. I had about ten letters on two successive days, last week. Nothing since. Mother’s appear to be up to date and there was one from Edna, Clwyd and Mona and various others. But only one from Ken. I can’t quite understand this as his letters should be getting through quite well.

Yesterday came the bad news that New Guinea was threatened with an invasion and that Rabaul has had several full-scale air attacks. This morning I got myself up in time for the 8.15am news to hear that Rabaul had been silent since 4pm yesterday. No wireless communication at all. So that, I suppose, is that. The idea is of course to use New Guinea as a base from which to attack Australia. And one wonders, now, with all the air reverses everywhere, how they are to be stopped from getting their objective. Oil supplies have been cut off between America and the ME and even from Borneo and the East Indies now, where they have had to destroy them – and communications are difficult generally anywhere between the Far East and Australia. I am wondering of course about Clwyd and whether he is still there or back in Australia again. I expect that they will be frantic at home, although as long as he does escape successfully I expect he won’t mind at all, being involved for the moment. It’s rather ironic that Clwyd, with his pacifist principles and his seemingly safe job for the duration – although it just happened that way – should really be the first one to be involved. I couldn’t hear the news this midday, which is extremely irritating with all this going on – so I don’t know whether the Japs have met with resistance or not. One wonders how, where and when it will all end. Fantastic to think that of all countries anywhere, the eyes of the world are on Australia.

February 4th 1942

Onward bound from Colombo
44
to Batavia

We stepped out of the harbour about 8am this morning and now with Singapore as our first goal, we are en route for Batavia.
45
We left Karachi on the morning of the 27th of January – a Wednesday I think – and we were told of it the afternoon of the previous Monday. We had more or less made up our minds that Karachi was to be our spiritual home henceforth, instead of Bombay, and when the news came that we were off again and this time to the FAR EAST, we could scarcely believe it. We did some quick thinking, and as it was the end of the month and there was no field cashier in Colombo, we decided to storm the citadel and ask for our next month’s pay in advance. Scotty and Wright between them worked the oracle and lo and behold we each collected Rs150 with no bother at all. Now at long last there was a gentleman amongst field cashiers – a rare specimen indeed and as such, to be revered and treasured against another such rainy day – in Karachi. So of course we dashed into town in fine frenzy, in the train – our usual means of transport when alone, five pies (paise)
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from Keamari into town (about 8 miles) as against five rupees in a taxi! There we squandered a lot of our newly acquired subsistence but only, actually, on essential things.

We took a victoria back to the docks – Mary, Mona and I packed around with purchases and we set off behind a hefty looking horse and a charming gentleman in a fly, who knew no English. We got on splendidly until we reached the bridge at the Port Trust building, and then the old horse decided he’d prefer to turn around and head for home and no amount of coaxing, threats, slashes from the whip or invocations to Allah would persuade him to do otherwise. Of course the usual interested crowd gathered around to admire and advise – the horse was nearly in
the
victoria with us, by this time of course – and we ended up letting him go his own sweet way, which was about a mile back along the way we had come, and then either for reasons sentimental or temperamental, which we shall never know alas, he went suddenly down a side road and, by some miracle, arrived at the docks and delivered us safe and sound. Quite exciting and all for Rs2! That was our last excursion ashore in Karachi and when we got back there was mail for me, one from Mother, Mona and Ken (I had had one from Bob just before going out).

Ken’s letter had been written on Xmas day so it took long enough to arrive. He was annoyed that I wasn’t getting all his letters, and I know I am not, and they are taking so much longer to arrive than ever before. Well, it was lovely to hear from them all at the eleventh hour, because I expect it will be four or five weeks before we collect our next mail. What a day that will be. So much happens in a few weeks these days. I quite expect that I’ll hear in my next letter from home that Clwyd has been evacuated. I am so pleased that they all received their little odds and ends at Christmas but the wretched skin condition of mother’s still continues to worry her.

Rabaul is apparently still in Japanese hands and we hear that Port Moresby has been bombed. Since we left Karachi we have been completely news-less (except for odd snips that we are not supposed to hear from ‘Sparks’). All wireless sets, private and otherwise, have to be handed in because of vibrations! This seems perfectly ridiculous in a hospital ship that sails at night, ablaze with lights and is supposed to be more or less neutral in any case. Since leaving Colombo the captain, after a struggle, has obtained permission for us to use one general set to which everyone must listen if he wishes to hear the news. We got into Colombo – five years exactly since I went through here in 1937
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– at about 8.30am on Monday morning and we had 48 hours there. Coaling took us longer than we first thought because it appears that there is a good deal of labour shortage, hereabouts. The harbour was chock-a-block with ships’ cargo, amid merchantmen (P&O), corvettes,
48
destroyers, cruisers (
Cornwall
and
Slogav
), troop carriers, tankers and all manner of ocean going craft.

They told us that there were 75 big ships in, all at the same time. What a target for the Japanese planes, if they only knew. In the morning, while Mona was on deck, an Australian Red Cross man came up to her and asked if she was one of the two Australians aboard and, learning she was, asked her to go and see them when we went ashore. We did and they were charming to us and most kind. The head of the whole Red Cross in Colombo is a man called Wilkinson, an old Wesley boy, and such a nice man. He told us that there was no British Red Cross at all and the Australian bunch acted for all and sundry and very generously and efficiently too, I should say. They gave us a hamper each, such as they give to their own boys and sisters. McConachi was the name of the other man and he was a cousin of the family in Queenscliffe where, I know, my family have stayed at least once.

While we were there the matron of the 12th Australian Hospital came in and she asked us to go out to dinner to the hospital and it was arranged that we accompany Major Perry (Melbourne) and two New South Walians. It was a delightful drive out to the hospital – about eight miles – on a road similar to the Kandy Road, green banana and coconut palms growing thickly on either side and lush green grass and undergrowth to the very road’s edge. Hibiscus, frangipani, oleander and bougainvillea were a riot of colour everywhere and once again we met the quaint straw-covered bullock-drawn carts, rickshaws and the Singhalese men with their long hair coiled in a neat bun on the back of their heads. The sari isn’t worn so much or with such variety of colour and fabric as in Bombay but I did see some rather lovely girls.

The hospital itself reminded me of the hospital in Geelong, although it is larger and covers more acres of ground. The wards are built bungalow-style with red roofs and walls that finish half way to the ceiling. Wide verandas keep the weather out and individual mosquito nets, somehow suspended from the ceiling, dissuade the local mosquitoes and their brethren from disturbing the minister in his bed o’ nights. Long pillared covered ways connect the wards and wide strips of green grass divide them. The Sisters’ Mess and quarters are most attractive. They introduced us to lots of the girls – they looked so nice en bloc in their grey frocks and red capes and we felt so inferior in our white drill overalls and white stockings and shoes. I met Rae and Vickers (Victoria), the latter, it appears, was at Bonegillia hospital near Melbourne with sister Mona. She has just had a photograph sent to her of the staff there at present and there, sure enough in the back row, was ‘our Mona’. Well, well, a small world. The girls plied us with questions and seemed quite awed and impressed with our very ordinary experiences. It’s odd that we never think of ourselves as being ‘interesting’; one grows accustomed to seeing fresh fields every few weeks. A pity perhaps.

After dinner we had a most delightful concert out o’doors under a full moon, sitting on deckchairs on the lawn. The MOs have formed a musical society and one of them, Bolebatch, who compiled the programme, gave a brief but comprehensive sketch of the composer and the circumstances in which the composition was written – or the story, if it was an opera. In the first half, records of
La Bohème
and Gounod’s
Funeral March of a Marionette
and other familiar modern things were played. In the second half, the whole score of the ballet
The Firebird
. It was really heavenly to hear some good music again. After that we went up to the mess and sitting outside, had supper – tea and sandwiches and homemade cakes (a real Australian tea!) and there was more talk again about one another. The whole evening was a series of ‘Do you knows?’ and ‘Do you remember?’ Two of the MOs drove us back to the Red Cross and came down with us to the wharf to see us onto the launch all set for
Karapara
. It had been a most pleasant and exciting day, because so unexpected. And I believe the people whom we met were quite delighted to meet new Australians again. We quite hope that we shall call here often and will be certain of good friends while the 12th Australian hospital and the Red Cross are here.

Next morning we were allowed ashore leave until midday and, clad in clean white overalls, we set out in the BI launch for the shore. Just as we reached the steps, I got the full force of the back wash, and as the whole harbour was literarily covered in filthy black oil, discharged the previous day from a tanker that had been torpedoed ten miles off, and which had been towed into Colombo with a lovely hole right through her amidships, I was a sight to behold! From my shoulders to my waist I was a mass of oil and there were splashes of it, alas, on my white hat, shoes and stockings, bag and kid gloves. Oh dear! Well, everyone was very upset and it was nobody’s fault and there was nothing to be gained by sitting weeping about it, so I steeled myself from thinking about what I must look like from the rear and proceeded into town and did my shopping as though I was still attired in spotless white. It was rather an ordeal but such things can be done as long as one makes up one’s mind that there is no alternative.

We didn’t sail yesterday, however, as we had first thought, but we are ‘on our lawful occasions’ now, well out to sea (the gong has just gone at 1pm) and once again there is no land to be seen anywhere at all.

It all seems rather peaceful like any summertime cruise and it seems also quite incredible that we are on our way to the Dutch East Indies.
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Singapore, of course, is now a fortress, all our troops having withdrawn to the island, and it is being bombed relentlessly according to all the news. Time will tell whether we shall really get there. We get our orders in Batavia, it appears. The
Talamba
‘got in alright’ and away again with her patients and they dropped the Australian lads in Colombo although the ship was en route for Karachi. Maybe we’ll all do the same. This time, just five years ago, I was on the old
Mongolia
outward bound for England. Well, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge in five years and the face of the world has altered quite considerably. Now I’m heading towards Australia – the north of it this time – and very near it too I expect in a week’s time, but just as far away as ever in terms of touching it. The airmail is now suspended which removes the strongest link of all and I shall miss my faithful weekly bulletin from Mama and I expect she will miss mine. I expect most of them will arrive eventually but in sixes and sevens as General’s have done for so long.

This morning I packed an emergency bag in case of ‘abandon ship’
–
two actually: one with essentials such as toothbrush, soap, towel, cream and powder, sun glasses, passport and cheque book and so on; the other with as much of my new undies as I can stuff in and which I have no intention of resigning to the fishes. I shouldn’t mind losing my uniforms at all but I should hate to lose my entire gradually acquired mufti. Not that I even think that we shall ever need these bags, but in case of such an eventuality, I should only have to grab them and run!

And now, my recording up to date, I am all set for my afternoon sleep which has become habitual, I fear.

February 9th 1942

Far East NE1

I am waiting for the bath boy to tell me my bath is ready. Only half a tub these days because we are conserving water! Oh! The sea and sky tonight! As I look up through my porthole and reflected also in my wall mirror, there is a bank of cloud of the deepest violet, shot through and through with palest rose. Above it the sky is turquoise and apricot; below, where it meets the sea on the horizon, an ever deepening flame. The sea is smooth as silk, except for a deep swell, and the colour of it is like all the opals of the entire world. It’s a pity I’m so inarticulate because tonight I feel like Turner and Keats and Beethoven all rolled into one. Yet we are told, only two days away from us is bitter fighting, an incredible thought indeed. The news announces that the Japanese have landed forces in Singapore and that Java expects an attack at any time. Maybe even yet we may receive an order to turn round and go home. Hateful thought: so far we have not done anything really useful and none of us can bear the thought of turning back at this stage. Meanwhile we are on our way – and I go to my bath!