Joyce's War (23 page)

The Germans are at the foothills of the Caucasus. It seems so awful to think that so far we have not been able to divert them to help Russia at all. In fact it seems rather bad all round. We have taken the offensive in the Solomons it seems but there is a lot of talk about delicate situations and confusion and so on, so it doesn’t look entirely promising. The situation in Egypt remains static at the moment.

I have just had a letter from Mona and two from General. Mona says Clwyd followed up his malaria and dengue with dysentery. Poor old Clwyd; he can’t have much resistance left after that dose; it’s too bad. I’ve a fellow feeling for him regarding the dysentery as my tummy has been behaving badly for about a week. I’ve retired to my cabin yesterday and today, there being nothing better to do as I’ve been on fluids only. Mona has had measles, poor child, and Glyn is only about 40 miles down the line from where she is. So they are creeping further and further away from home. It’s all rather sad.

August 20th 1942

Women’s Services’ Club, Bombay

We went alongside on the 13th and orders came on that morning about our transfers. Mona goes to Dehra Dun and I to Calcutta. We came ashore with the rest of the staff and have been staying at the club again. Our relief arrived that day – one called Barr – and that looks hopeful, but as the days whiz by it seems less so, as no-one else is appearing to take our places. On the 18th the rest of the staff embarked again – they were told they were sailing for Suez next day – so I determined to get myself off somehow or other and Mona and I set off to see the CO as soon as we knew. We reckoned that as we had been one short on the last trip and no-one noticed the difference, they could sail one short again. After some persuasion I was permitted to disembark and got all my stuff off that night. Mona came ashore to dinner here, and we went to the cinema afterwards.

I went to see Embarkation yesterday and they arranged my seat on the train for tonight 5.40. Whilst I was there I saw the captain who told me that their plans had changed and they were back on 36 hours’ notice, instead of four. So there still remains a chance that another relief may come and Mona will be able to set off too. Mona came ashore on the 4pm launch and stayed the night with me here. She will see me off on the train which will be some comfort. Embarkation gave me a chit on Lloyds for Rs135, which is first-class fare (I pay second class on my concession) and the remainder is meant to cover excess baggage. I doubt if it will as it is so heavy. They used to be given one and a half fares, but recently it has been cut down. Our bad luck again! We are going into Lloyds this morning to finalise arrangements for mail and transferring our accounts. Then there are just the remains of the packing and I shall be off.

8.30pm Ichapur

We have stopped for dinner at quite a large station and I still don’t know the name (all names removed, of course) but the guard said something that sounded like Ichapur. Outside are dozens of Tommies, tin hats an’ all, whiling away the time singing mostly Scotch songs, though two at least insist on the occasional Irish air. Those who aren’t singing are whistling and the rest are laughing and joking with the peanut wallahs. It’s a cheery scene in the half-lit station and we might be anywhere in Britain. The bell has just clanged and thereupon it raised loud cheers from the troops, apropos of nothing, as far as I can tell.

All
these youngsters so far away from home. Their mothers could hardly picture them as they are now but they seem happy enough, despite the monsoon rain that drips upon them through the leaky station roof.

Mona came down to the train with me and it was nice having someone to see me off on my newest adventure.
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We got down successfully to the station, without the taxi breaking down under the strain, and a poor miserable little body tackled the lot quite cheerfully and I eventually embarked. I’ve managed miraculously to wangle a whole compartment – I nearly wrote cabin! Actually, I did ask the waiter a moment ago if I could have my coffee in my cabin and he looked very shocked – too much sea going, I fear – for me. The compartment is about 12ft x 10ft and very comfortable with a bathroom and shower attached. There are two long side seats and two above which, if necessary, come down like upper berths and a sort of dressing table with mirror and cupboards and odd racks and pegs.

As I appear to be the only female travelling (first class anyway) I have the whole place to myself and have my entire luggage with me. The sergeant in the RTO place told me that this was alright if I could get it in, but hearing so much about having to pay excess for baggage, I feel uneasy about it. I sincerely hope I shall have a good sleep, if intermittent; we stopped several times through the night and no Indian station is exactly quiet even in the night, it seems.

August 21st 1942

As I am writing we have stopped at Nagpur where we will have breakfast at 10.30am. I got rather tired of writing so opened a packet of biscuits which Mona put in for me and cut into my melon, which I bought as paw paw, but it wasn’t really ripe. I went upstairs however and drank a cup of coffee. Hearing such tales about things being stolen from compartments when they are left empty, I hesitated but everything seems perfectly all right. A sweeper comes along in most stations and will sweep the dust for an odd anna. Everything is very easy and comfortable: there are six large windows, with wires and shutters and all lock from the inside so one feels secure enough. Nothing very interesting so far, except endless paddy fields, springing green and lush and under water with the recent rains.

4pm

I have just had lunch at Gandhi – a smallish station but quite a good meal and nicely served – and I am on my way again now. There has been a mountain range to the right and left now for the past hour or so – I wish I knew my geography better. And last night, just before sundown we came through some rather lovely country, rugged hills, quite close to us, and the sunset behind them, smoky red and orange, was a lovely thing to see. For the rest so far it has been still quite flat, plenty of trees and shrubs and everything a fresh green as far as the eye can see: a welcome sight indeed. The earth is deep red and the winding country roads with their straw covered bullock wagons look pleasant and peaceful.

5pm

Tea at Raipur Junction. For something to do I’ve read the book
The Grasshoppers Come
by David Garnett and I’ve begun another pair of stockings for Bob. I have hopes of finishing another two pairs before the summer is fled from Basrah, but time will tell. The carriage gets so filthy despite the sweepers’ efforts that I scarcely like to handle anything at all, let alone white wool.

Bilaspur 7.15pm

I ate some more unripe melon and a biscuit or two and drank some water, being too lazy to get out of my slippers and walk across for dinner. A girl has got in plus a dog, so I shall have company for tonight.

August 31st 1942

Calcutta 47th British General Hospital

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.