Joyce's War (9 page)

1941

Alexandria – Cairo – Ismailia – Hospital Ship
Karapara
Suez – Aden – Bombay – Basrah

January 31st 1941

I’ve allowed this to lapse for about six weeks, which is sheer laziness and now I shall have forgotten so many things that have happened. I see I was in Hut 4 when I last wrote herein, but we closed down the day before Christmas. I went to AIW Medical for a few days then but as soon as the next British convoy arrived, I was packed off to Hut 1. Miss Thoms was in charge and we got on very well together, although she was a bit of a muddler. I was very happy there when Matron suddenly decided to send Mona and me on leave.

Continued February 21st

We didn’t want to go because (a) we hadn’t enough money and (b) with only a few days notice, and 14 days required, we couldn’t go to Palestine. This broke our hearts entirely but Matron seemed to think it was now or never and so we decided to go anyway. We thought we’d have a few days in Cairo en route and then spend the bulk of time in Ismailia. There seemed to be nowhere else to go in Egypt, except Luxor, which didn’t quite fit our bank accounts at the time. We booked our seats on the plane to Cairo but the day turned out to be so filthy – a terrific sand storm – that the plane didn’t go and we had to go up by train. We got talking to a charming Egyptian – Sabri Batos – who was in the Ministry of Agriculture and he asked us to go to tea at his sister’s house the next day. We went and found them a delightful family, the sister, three small girls, a boy of 18 or so, who was a medical student at Cairo University, and a friend who was a doctor. They were all Coptics as distinct from Moslems. We were given, or I should say ‘forced into’, the most exotic and enormous tea that we have ever seen, and then we went again to lunch the next day and to the zoo and the Gardens of Mair afterwards.

We spent these two nights at Shepherds where lying in bed and ringing for breakfast gave us the unbound satisfaction that it is possible only for two weary nurses to know! We arrived at Ismailia about 10.30pm and taxied out to the United Services Club. The room we were conducted to almost made us weep, enamel beds and red blankets! Busman’s holiday! The club however was superbly situated on the shores of Lake Timsah through which runs the Suez Canal. Sitting on the veranda in the warm sunshine, it was heavenly to look across the lake at the far shore, with honey coloured sand hills and groups of dark palms, and away to the right the high road that runs on its desert way to Suez and Port Said. The sweet water canal that runs through Ismailia was always crammed with barges and ancient wooden craft that looked as if they’d been in the same spot since Cleopatra was a girl. Their tall curved masts against the sky were strangely beautiful.

The town itself was hopeless: dirty and uninviting, but the French gardens were very lovely indeed. We stayed two nights at the YMCA and the rest at the club. We drove out to the Australian hospital one afternoon. Enid Baker had come into town in the morning on a day off and it was marvellous to see her again after many days – and then once again I met Jean Oddie. She is just the same Jean and I felt mean to let her slide out of my days for so long a time. We had tea in the mess, a long narrow brick hut, and inspected the tents and huts in which they lived. They seem happy enough there; their uniforms are very nice indeed and much superior and more sensible than ours are. Jean came into the club on her day off which was the day before we left and we talked and talked. While we were going over the old days, by coincidence, an airmail letter came for me from Connie Short, which mentioned Jean.

We left next day for Cairo, travelling up with some RAF men we had previously met and who were bound for the Sudan. We had tea with them at Grappi’s
before seeing them off on their long journey to the desert. We stayed the remainder of the time at the Metropolitan Hotel which we liked very much. Our old friend Bimbashi Abbas Ali came up to meet us that night and he and Mrs Jaques Bewish took us to dinner at the James, and then to the film of
Rebecca
afterwards which we’d seen in London, so found it a bit boring.

Next day Bill came out, having a day off, and we all went to the tattoo given by the police at their barracks in Abbasia. It was a grand afternoon, sitting there in the glorious sunshine, watching the superb Arab horses and their riders, balloon shooting, tent pegging and Cossack riding. We went to the Bardia, a night club, later to see some Egyptian dancing and then had supper and went to bed. We also met, through Bimbashi in Cairo, a charming couple, Mr Baileu, who was Swiss, and his wife, a Jewess. And two very gallant gentlemen, Felix and Ralph Green – also Jews and very wealthy bankers. Felix lives in Alexandria and Ralph in Cairo. Ralph asked us to go and see him next morning before leaving and we did. He has the most amazing collection of treasures I’ve ever seen. There was much too much to take in at one glance; odds and ends from all corners of the Orient, Greece, Japan, China and Palestine. Dear old Bimbashi came along to the train to see us off and bought us a box of sweets each; he really is the kindest soul I have ever known and he just can’t help it.

On return from leave, I was sent to A2 W (Dysentery) with Miss Silb in charge. They were very slack and Silb is delightful to work with but I was there only three days when Matron sent me off to Hut 9. They were frantically busy there with a new convoy of badly wounded men, mostly Australians. I hated it at first but got to like it very much, as usual, so much so that about a week ago I was really disgusted and disappointed when Matron sent word that I was to go at once and open Hut V for Italian Medical. I’ve never been in charge before and my head spun round counting sheets and going over the equipment with Steele from whom I was taking over.

We started out with about nine patients for B1 but odd ones drifted in and then the next day we got a convoy of about 16 patients and we really had a busy time for a few days, until most of them were evacuated on a convoy a few days ago. Keary is with me at the moment and three orderlies who come and go in addition to five Italian orderlies who remain. Surgeon Lieut. Phillips is the medical officer and quite nice to work for. It’s quite a picnic getting anyone to understand what I want to know and what I want them to do; but somehow or other under some special providence for POWs, they have all so far survived. Today we have been made all medical, so perhaps it’ll be more straightforward from now on.

Duncan rang me on Tuesday. I hadn’t heard from him for quite three months and I had thought he might be in Greece or even killed. But it seems he has been in the desert, Bardia, Tobruk and the rest, and is back in his original camp for a while. I went out with him last night after 8, which is, of course, strictly taboo. We had dinner at Le Petit Coin au France and then drove home and talked for a long time. He looks graver and older but is not so very much changed, although he thinks he is. It is nice to see him again. I had a letter from Major Dalt too, from the Abyssinian border, I imagine, at the 11th IGH and from Ted, who was in the Bardia, Tobruk and Dernia
23
business and who is now convalescing in Palestine after some slight illness. Padre Helman has also arrived in Alexandria but I’ve seen him once only as they left to go up to Tobruk some weeks ago but were turned back before they arrived and are back now at the King of Maru hotel again. Mona and Hugh and Major Jones and I went to the Union club on Saturday night and another night Mona and Hugh and a Polish officer and I went to the pictures and to dinner afterwards. Oh and I went with Cpt. Marshall to dinner at the Carleton one night. That, I fancy, is the extent of my gallivanting since my last leave.

But Mona and I had a delightful day off on Wednesday. We caught the bus out to Aboukir about 1 o’clock and lay on the sands under the palm trees. We wore mufti and took our lunch with us and I wrote to the family. It was heavenly to get right away from the army atmosphere for a few rich hours. In a letter from Mother this week, I learn that Clwyd, ‘little Clwyd’, has been appointed to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. How we Parrys are getting around the earth! Poor Mother: how she will hate the thought of it as it will mean two years at least, I suppose. I hope he doesn’t get malaria or any of those horrid infectious diseases. I can imagine Clwyd in a topee and shorts – very dashing.

I’m glad I’ve written this up to date. I’m on a 5–8 shift and have suddenly had the urge, as well as the time, to do something about it and I mustn’t leave it so long again. Japan is becoming very disagreeable and would like to stir things up in the Pacific. Well, who can tell which way the wind blows?

March 31st 1941

It’s exactly a month since I wrote this up – very disgusting really as so much and so little too has happened. The Western Desert affair is drawing to its logical conclusion or so we are led to believe. Gerabub and Keren have fallen at long last and most of the crowds who were at Benghazi and round about are now waiting to set sail for Greece, Salonika or some such spot. Turkey is still lying doggo but German troops have taken over Bulgaria, which made no resistance at all and issued an ultimatum to Yugoslavia, whose government signed a pact within its axis, but who, a day or two afterwards, overthrew the government, the regent and his wife fleeing the country and the young king taking over. So good for Yugoslavia and its people and its eighteen-year-old king. Yesterday, we had splendid news of the fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, three cruisers and two destroyers sunk and no loss at all to our ships or personnel. We were told to stand by last night for seven officers – but none has so far arrived – and it transpires that only five casualties came to us, to B Ground as usual. It was a grand show – good old NAVY. The officers were thrilled and as excited as boys, even the commanders!

I am in Officers now, where I went about ten days ago and like it quite well. We aren’t busy and Mona is in charge, having taken over from Kirsten, who is on sick leave. I have sixteen rooms to do, comprising mostly senior officers, naval and military, majors and commanders and what nots and two head cases, one a young RAF fleet officer (of Duncan’s squadron), a nice lad, and another fractured base of skull, a Norwegian from a minesweeper who was beaten up in the town last night. There is a nice Australian lieutenant commander who, in a taxi accident, unfortunately lost the sight of one eye, and then there are one or two other Victorians on the ward.

Duncan came back out of the blue, or out of the desert, about three weeks ago but has been transferred recently to Cairo to do ground work duties for three months. I rather think he has become somewhat unnerved after the desert business anyway and he doesn’t trust himself flying at the moment. He brought us some yards of the Italian parachute material, pure silk, white, a lovely quality and I shall get it made up into blouses or something. Ted came back for a night last week too, from Mersa Matruh. He has been back with the regiment beyond Benghazi but they are just waiting now to go off to Greece – probably gone by now, I think. He is completely fed up with the army and utterly disillusioned with the war in general. The usual thing, I fear.

The padre came down to the ward recently and has been up at Gerabub and was very thrilled about it. He said it fell in two hours at the last stages. He brought me a piece of broken pottery and a little saucer as souvenirs. Mona and I have gone all Australian in the last week or two, with the MO, Colonel G., field ambulance and a Captain Mac. We and two other Melbourne MOs with Annie Nixon and Teddy Head had a jolly party at the Hussein Club on Saturday night and we fell into bed at 3am. I am really dead today as a result.

The weather is warming up nicely at long last. It has been so cold and soon I know it’ll be too hot. We go into whites soon – a doubtful advantage. Anyway it’ll be something to get out of black stockings.

Enid Baker and Jean Oddie have had leave and have each spent three days in Alexandria. It was delightful to see them. They came out here and had tea with us on our balcony and later we took them over to the hospital.

April 5th 1941

Benghazi evacuated by us. Not so good.