Joyce's War (29 page)

August 3rd 1943

Three years ago on this very day we slipped out of the Mersey, under cover of night; destroyers and cruisers to guard us with the rest of that large convoy. So much has happened since then – so much.

I am so tired again; any hour is just at a standstill but relief is on its way. I feel like a prisoner who has been told his reprieve is at hand. I think I have had in the last four months the worst collection of orderlies in the whole British Army. With a very few exceptions I must regretfully put it on record that the RAMC (orderlies) is not worth its salt in this war. For lack of intelligence, interest, co-operation it would be difficult to find its equal. I think it must indeed be true that those who are totally unfit for any other kind of war service are pushed into its ranks.

August 9th 1943

Just as I was writing the above complaint, Alsander came in and begged me to join a party at the Club. I said, ‘No, definitely no’ and meant it; but she seemed desperate as she had promised to rope in someone else, and in the end I got myself drawn in and went. I was glad in the end because it took me out of myself and life is dull enough at present. It’s all a matter of filling in time and I suppose one must just make the best of it. There was a regular army captain among the crowd and, as his views on India and imperialism weren’t exactly mine, we had plenty of scope for a discussion. I got some support for once too – and from a Scot. The poor man must have felt rather bewildered at the attack; for I am sure he has never been crossed before, on this question, which most people accept as ‘divine right’. There was a very right-thinking American civilian amongst them (we went to his flat first) whose wife is interned in one of the Japanese occupied islands. It is rare to meet a Calcutta civilian who isn’t thoroughly biased about the Indians.

I’ve handed over A to Standing now. I had a ‘barrack equipment’ check one afternoon and the very next morning had to trot everything out again, much to my displeasure. On the whole I didn’t do so badly, for in four months I lost only:

Pails, slop 1 (one)

Ewers, enamel 1 (one)

Syringe, Higginson 1 (one)

Probe 1 (one)

Counter scissors 1 (one)

Sheets 30 (thirty).

It doesn’t look so good in the ‘handing-over book’ in Matron’s office but so relieved and exultant was I that I had got rid of it all, I shouldn’t have cared if the list were ten times as long.

I shall be leaving the army soon so have agreed to work on ambulance trains in the meantime. But the floods have held things up and few trains are running anywhere so it may be weeks yet. Meanwhile I remain on A Ward as a mere subsidiary, where for so long, I held complete control. I don’t like it very much, but it is better than having the worry of it all.

I’ve had a chit from the Chartered Bank to the effect that someone owes me £5, which translated means around 60 chips. It comes through the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Sydney. It’s from someone in the family – perhaps – nice of whomsoever it was anyway. I’m poor this month as it happens, the field cashier having cheerfully taken 600 chips from me for July, leaving me without an anna. I wish they wouldn’t be so ruthless in their deductions. If ‘they’ take 200 a month I might get out of debt to them one day. As it is, I visit the fort every month and draw another 200 to keep the wolf from the door. Taxis have increased their flag fares to one rupee instead of eight annas: 1/6 for a few yards seems a bit too much. One could so easily walk, but it is either too hot to drag oneself around or it rains so heavily, as it is doing today and did yesterday, that a taxi seems the only means of rescue from death by drowning. The roof in ‘A’ has been leaking badly again and everywhere one walks there is a pool of water or a bucket or basin. Going across on duty yesterday, I completely ruined my comfortable white duty shoes, wading through a rushing torrent past my ankles. There was no path to be seen anywhere and I had to go on duty, of course. It’s a dreary afternoon – my half-day – and I sit in this untidy room trying to while away the hours until I get up tomorrow morning. It’s the waste of time that I so deplore – I just can’t settle to anything worthwhile.

August 26th 1943

Ambulance Train BN Line

I
should have written this before, of course, for this is my second and last trip and we are now on the run home – somewhere between Midnapur and Howrah. The first time we were away eight days, disgorging patients en route at Ranchi, Lucknow, Biralli and finally Dehra Dun. At first I hated it – the dust and train grime, the eternal chug chugging of the wheels, the constant rocking motion of the carriages, the confined space, worse than the ship, but gradually I became used to it and, surprisingly enough, have ended up liking it. Not, I know, that I should like it for long – but it was a relief to be away from the wards, the maddening routine of doing dressings and giving out medicine and writing reports. A relief, too, to be out of the mess, the idle gossip, the talk of the shop, the irritating remarks at the table, the neverending enveloping atmosphere of a hospital. True, this was uninteresting as regards work, but the scene was fresh and the paddy fields green, and there were occasional brightly coloured birds, and the long-legged elegant cranes stalking through the flood waters, and there was an amusing colony of monkeys, which as one man came alongside the train when it stopped, begged for food – imitating no doubt the eternal railway station beggar who, in India, is legion. I read with interest and without interruption and I played my records over and over again.

I couldn’t contact Mona in Dehra Dun as there was no time but it looked a delightful place and I envied her green and delightful surroundings. The days in Lucknow on the return run resulted in an almost empty purse, for things were attractive and different and cheaper than in Calcutta. And so by easy stages, very easy, we ambled back into Howrah. I had a young Anglo-Indian girl with me, very attractive and a good companion. She amused and annoyed me by her attitude towards all Indians; she spoke of them always with complete and utter disgust. She was as Oriental as any Yasmin; her mother was Canadian and her father an Anglo-Indian ‘but’, she went on, ‘only because he had always lived here’. Evidently, she’s been told and believes that she has no Indian blood at all, but her looks belie her. She was more attractive for her Indian blood if she only knew it, poor child, than she would have been if she’d been pure European: little and graceful as a kitten. I loved to sit back and watch her move and talk, however stupidly.

I reported back at the mess next day, telling them that I might go again at any time. I lay very low in case Matron decided to put me on duty, and I got away with it. I had three days there but I doubt if she realised it. I came back to the train again yesterday, only to hear we were doing a very short trip this time into Midnapur only ten miles distance and that we would be returning next day. I was sorry, as I still thought I might contact Mona this time with better luck. But there it is and now we are slowly on our way home again, and I shall have to return to the mess tonight.

In the last bundle of letters from home came the news of sister Mona’s engagement. I wasn’t so surprised but these things always come as a shock, when they are announced and one has been far away for a long time. So both of us leave the parental roof, officially, in one year. I am awfully pleased for her as she will make an excellent wife (in the way that I shall not) and it all sounds very delightful and interesting. How very differently our paths will lie, hers and mine, I well know. We used to say, she and I, that one day we’d buy an old cottage in Surrey and have a garden; we were influenced in our choice of a county by some books we were then reading. Well, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then but now I expect she will live in Melbourne, while I, having at times considered living in various spots on earth, will have returned to my native hills.
Ainsi soit-il
!

But for now it is still India and just at the moment rather pleasant countryside – scattered native villages, thatched roofs, mud huts, clumps of palms, long water lily-covered lagoons, or whatever they are called here, brown bodies bathing among the reeds, cows and goats grazing quietly in the fields. It looks quiet and peaceful and far removed from all the complexity and worries of the sophisticated city.

Sometimes I envy these simple people for their detachment, their aimlessness and their lack of responsibility. The fact that we consider that they are missing so much that we consider essential, what of it? Perhaps they would not understand it anyway and they would be more than fools if they desired it:

Let not ambition mock their useful toil

Their homely joys and destiny obscure.
72

September 29th 1943

This is becoming a monthly affair of late and scarcely a record of activities, if such a word is applicable in these monotonous days. I got back from the train in time for Vera’s wedding to Patrick. She looked very sweet in a blue suit and Blandie wore navy blue. St Paul’s was nicely decorated and the whole unit turned out in strength and the CO gave her away. The reception was held in the mess and it was quite a large affair and all were very happy and jolly. We went to see them off on the Darjeeling mail in the evening; the carriage was duly decorated and petals were carefully sprinkled over everything, for atmosphere. Then we went on to spend the rest of the evening at the Nan King and ate curries, delicious Chinese dishes and the MOs did tricks with their glasses, all very undignified, but there was a lot of cheer and good humour.

I was at Davidian Schools then for a week or so until I went ‘on nights’ in Officers Surgical. That was pleasant and I was enjoying it when, much to my disgust, I had to go off sick with dengue again. I was warded this time in Sick Sisters for a week and then I had four days off in Minto Park. When I returned on duty it was to C Ward until I was due to return for the rest of my night duty, this time to B, where I write this. Anything that has legs or wings or any life at all in the insect world is on my table tonight – the most curious looking creatures. The lizards on the wall are having a royal feast. One has just attacked successfully a great strapping grasshopper, head on, and proceeded to swallow it in six gulps. I watched it, intrigued, and after about thirty seconds, it had a series of abdominal convulsions and the whole thing came back up again – intact – but the lizard, evidently a lizard of some determination, started swallowing it all over again and, it appears, this time it remained where it was first meant to go. It is quiet here at present, no one is very ill (about 100 patients) and the only hectic period is between 5 and 8am, for we have to make the most of the beds. Anyway, the days are passing and I come off on the 8th October.

That, on the surface, is the sum of my activities over the last month. But alas, I’ve had more on my mind than just these routine things. For David has sprue and is in hospital in Dacca.
73
He was in Chittagong first, being treated for amoebic dysentery – but later diagnosed as sprue and evacuated to Dacca. Poor David, he had been so unbearably depressed and miserable for so long, it must have been almost a relief for him to be put in hospital at last. But sprue … I can remember every morning when I wakened up, SPRUE seemed to be written across my brain. I could visualize the long months of hospital – perhaps one after another, a mere patient, scarcely an individual at all, and I was fearful for the awful depression and weariness that comes with a long illness, on his mind. One can so easily let go on these occasions and I felt that it might be too much for him. But I feel better about it now, now that I know he is getting good treatment and that someone is interested in him. I wrote to Dorrington and she assured me that the medical specialists there say his cure will be final and that there will be no after-effects.

David himself seems (or seemed), so much more cheerful, so glad to get away from his environment, that the old urge to read and write had returned and an entirely new vista opened up, so that we felt, perhaps this is a good thing after all, here is a way, perhaps the only way, to get him away from all those things he so hated. But the last two letters show a marked decline in spirit again, due perhaps to his injections (liver) and other treatment. He has developed a phobia towards needles which is getting him down. He is beginning to realise now, just how weak he is, that the convalescence will be long and dreary and he just doesn’t know what he wants. I can go up to Dacca for my nights off – it will mean only a few hours there, but I must see him for myself and feel it will cheer him up a little. Also, I want to take the gramophone as he needs it more than I do.

It’s a bad start off but I am determined not to harp on about it too much. These are trying days and letters are such poor things after all, moody as each one of us is, the smallest situation is bound to be over-emphasised and it takes weeks to disentangle a loosely written phrase. Once we can begin our lives in a normal place together, I shall have no fears at all, but sadly enough I see no prospect of this for many a long day. However, one lives from week to week, undisturbed on the surface, and hoping fervently for the best in one’s mind. One day I hope I shall read this and smile to think that I was so foolish to worry myself for nothing.

There’s to be a mock air raid in a few minutes – to try out the city’s services, I suppose. One has almost forgotten what a siren sounds like; it is so long since its blood-curdling wail was heard hereabouts last Christmas!

Letters from home drift in occasionally – one from Mother about two weeks ago but then there are large gaps and some, even many I am bound to think, do not arrive. Mali and Gwen write faithfully, and the
JOLs
and
Horizons
and
World Reviews
arrive from time to time, delighting me first and then David.
The Captain’s Wife
, which Mali sent me, was like a cool breeze after a hot airless day – lovely, lovely, lovely.

There is a pure white moth propelling itself around my books as I write this, about a third of an inch long, with one tiny black eye and long feelers. It gleams like silver and is too pretty a thing to dispatch in the usual way. So because it is beautiful I shall allow it to live its allotted span. If it were ugly, and it displeased me, I suppose I should kill it without a moment’s thought. An uncomfortable thought indeed and so true of life!