Joyce's War (24 page)

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 bright 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,
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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.
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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.

November 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.

I bought a very pretty little afternoon frock at Dora Smith’s yesterday and it was a nice change to be able to buy something ready to wear instead of eternally having one made. The red velvet frock had to go back to have the neck altered slightly, which didn’t please me altogether. Otherwise I like it immensely, although apart from being able to wear it on leave, if I ever get any in the hills, it will probably be useless.

December 4th 1942

Off night duty and after two days to myself, I go on D11 at 1pm today. Lovely to have two days all to myself. It reminds me of Colwyn Bay – coming off a case, saying nothing to anyone that I was free, doing what I pleased, suddenly making up my mind to spend the whole day walking through the woods and away beyond, within the sight of the hills. That was always enough – I could then return to my little room content. But there are no hills here, or anywhere to walk at all, save up and down the crowded city pavements, with their odd assortment of humanity – the khaki clad to the poor misshapen beggar. So I spend my free time in the market or in the more dignified city shops, buying things I don’t need at all – filling in time.

Such a lovely morning, as I sit here writing, my windows open to the lake – full of blurred reflections, a light breeze blowing. Coolies pad up and down, barefoot, on the path below carrying stones, and from a distance the sounds of stones being cut. At times a white-clad sister walks across from the wards, dazzling in the strong sunlight: rather nice, it gives one a sense of pleasure, if only momentarily. The huts across the lake look already native in the grounds, and being brown, they look as though they had come up out of the earth, like mushrooms. I always, on my nightly rounds, thought them so cosy, the green turf on the floor, the long rows of beds with their scarlet blankets, the mosquito nets up, and the hurricane lamps hung up on the centre poles and the boys idly chatting in groups or sound asleep under their nets. And always their cheerful ‘Good night, Sister,’ as I stooped on my way out of the door and went out into the darkness and left them to their youthful schemes and dreams.