大象传媒

Towards the end of November 1943 I began to feel 'off-colour. It became hard to climb the last two flights to my sixth-floor billet. I finished on hands and knees. I consulted my Dutch messmate. Sergeant Lagas had served with the French Foreign Legion in Syria under General Weygand. He looked at my eye-whites critically: 'You better go sick. You maybe have jaundice.' I told the medical officer of my suspicion, was abused for my self-diagnosis and told to report as 'fit for duty'. The Dutchman sighed: 'Soon you p**s brown and shit white - then you go yellow.' Correct as to the first event.

This time I was examined and a sample taken. Verdict: 'Get your kit together and give this (a scribble) to your C.O. I'm sending you to hospital.'

Brigadier Rabino sighed, sympathised, wished me well and told his chauffeur to drive me to the hospital which was not large. It had long since been overwhelmed by casualties from Tunisia and Italy. The gardens and adjacent fields were white with marquees, each containing some thirty beds. Beds - with sheets! A pillow! I slept until roused by the doctor. Jaundice diagnosis confirmed. I would have a 'fat-free' diet, must remain abed and rest. I might expect to leave in about three weeks. A wonderful programme.

Next morning, 2 December, though feeling worse, I wrote to my wife Minna of my 'slight attack of jaundice. This will be a nice holiday. A "fat-free" diet produces better food than I have eaten for months!' I had groused about Army food to Sergeant Lagas who had cocked an eyebrow: 'In the Legion men would have killed for food half as good as this.'

In hospital there is only Time Present. The view from my bed is restricted to two lumpy shapes - one to the right and another to the left, shapes which speak of places and people of which I know nothing. Nurses stick thermometers in my mouth; each morning a doctor peers at me; food and drink is shovelled into me and the results removed. Above me the canvas roof. My body demands my attention, has no patience with Time Past, does not wish to consider Time Future. People can die from jaundice... can't they?

A week passed before I took any interest in my surroundings but Minna had to be given news. I wrote. I had forgotten the Christmas postal chaos. I had even forgotten about Christmas. Later I discovered that Minna was told of my illness on 13 December - a telephone call from Major Gosling who had been called to War Office for a briefing. The Major was suitably optimistic but Minna wanted my 'own words'. Those reached her on 17 December, by which time, unknown to her, I was eating almost normally.

Minna wrote of her delight at my Christmas parcel which contained the 'mystery gift' I had promised her weeks ago: 'I walked round it in ever-decreasing circles but managed to leave it alone until I had prepared the surroundings for the opening ceremony which was accompanied by Delibes' King's Diversions - very fitting, don't you think? Your card with Christmas greetings delayed procedure for a little, while I battled with my conscience whether I ought to wait until Christmas Eve... oh Len! The stockings are lovely, thank you so much for everything - the ribbons, hairpins, combs and all.

'Now I shall have to practice putting up my hair. It is almost like playing at being grown-up. But the stockings are too precious to wear yet. I just gloat over them - American ones, too. How neat your wrapping - such fun to unwrap the separate little parcels. I took one of your lemons to the office and raffled it in aid of the Red Cross. A girl sold 67 tickets at twopence each, bringing in 18 shillings. I have bought a tiny Christmas tree. The spread will be somewhat meagre but I will not let that worry me. Mrs. Batley has given me two lovely new-laid eggs and I have returned the compliment with a couple of lemons.'

Major Gosling's phone call brought her, as she wrote later, 'from the peaks to the depths' and on 21 December: 'Still no news but shall do my best for the honour of the house at Christmas with the big smile expected from a hostess.' Not until 27 December was she able to write: 'Saved from despair by your very kind Brigadier who phoned me to say that you were on the mend. I have had only one letter from you. I felt sure that you had written. You would never cause me pain.'

Then, on 31 December: 'Misery ended. Two letters from you and I will celebrate New Year's Eve with them alone. I imagine that our house resents intruders as much as I do. Three weeks of silence! I like your remark that we owe our success to the directness and simplicity of our life. My little attempt to make Christmas seemed insufficient and Spartan, though I remember a much less spectacular Christmas when you and I shared a dinner which came out of a tin.'

There came a day in Algiers when it rained incessantly, continuing through the night and the following day. That night I awoke to a swishing sound. A nurse was moving down the ward carrying a hurricane lamp (Florence Nightingale!) and the swishing was produced by her Wellington boots. My bed was surrounded by water more than a foot deep. Mopping up occupied most of the following morning with the convalescent patients ordered to volunteer.

A fat-free diet did not bar me from quantities of sweets and fruity delicacies. I was childishly delighted at 'being looked after' for the first time since leaving England. Sheets, breakfast in bed... as I snuggled down to reach the borders of sleep I desired nothing more than to go into a state of suspended animation until the war was over. Awake, I began to take an interest in my fellow-patients.

Many were Canadians and I was dumbfounded to learn that one knew Warlingham. His unit had been stationed in Marden Park. Many of his mates had been wounded in Sicily and Italy. I suffered some good-humoured chaffing about the Pay Corps. I discovered that we British were paupers compared with the Canadians and that the Canadian plutocrats were eclipsed by the Americans. The latter were encouraged to insure their lives for up to ten thousand dollars under a State scheme. They would draw huge gratuities on demobilisation. We uninsured British would get sixpence a day from January 1942. A sergeant of the same grade as myself drew 拢12 l0s. weekly compared with my 拢3-odd while his rations made mine look like Oliver Twist's breakfast on a bad day. A different world.

Christmas Eve brought sunshine and an incredibly blue sky. The first Christmas in Palestine must have been like this. The wards were decorated as best we could. We had a fir tree adorned with cotton wool and stars cut from tin cans. No one had found mistletoe. Kissing a member of the QAIMNS (Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service) was unimaginable. All were 'officers'. The padre and a nurse toured the wards giving each man a packet of cigarettes and an orange. Kindly meant, but oh the chill touch of organised benevolence. A party of nurses and patients sang carols outside each ward, but our northern songs of Yule sounded alien in Africa.

A few Arabs, their white robes glimmering in the darkness, gazed curiously at the strange foreigners with their incomprehensible customs. Yes, I thought, we are the most transient of visitors. The Romans, the Byzantines, even the Vandals had struck deep roots here over many years and traces remain. When we go we shall leave no impression on this place. The tents will come down, the lorries roar away and we shall achieve, perhaps, a passing remembrance among the shoeshine boys who have learned our swear-words and waxed passing rich on our francs. Ramadan is the solemnity here and Christmas a pale guest from the north, bemused by vivid unaccustomed colours, discouraged by the millions who have never heard of it.

Outside, amid masses of green foliage peer the tawny-gold globes of oranges. In the hedgerows iris blooms in blue splendour and there are roses - great blowsy pink roses - like prosperous barmaids. One ward has erected a splendidly decorated Christmas tree outside their marquee but - alas - the Mediterranean goats assemble and chew happily at the lower branches. Depression steals among the still-jaundiced. The rumour has spread that the state of their livers precludes beer. The rumour is confirmed. Worse: Christmas pudding is forbidden fruit for those still abed and roast potatoes are interdict.

All these delicacies appear for up-patients, in which happy band am I: tinned turkey too, with pork, peas, tangerines and a bottle of beer. Then comes the order: 'Stand by your beds for inspection.' There are suppressed giggles and when the 'matron' reaches my bed I recognise - beneath the uniform, head-dress, mascara and lipstick - the cheerful features of our Medical Officer. But the best gift I have on Christmas Day is a couple of letters from Minna.

I have made splendid progress, measured by the increasing number of 'fatigues' I have to perform. I am placed in charge of Ward Administration (diet-records and meal-lists). Another new experience. I am rather weak when I have my first full day 'up' but on the second I walk about a mile within the hospital grounds. On the third day I am almost normal and with an abnormal appetite. I leave hospital on 29 December with my papers marked 'return to unit, fit for duty'. Had I appeared wan and weak I should have been sent to a dreaded Convalescent Depot where fifteen-mile route-marches and five-mile cross-country runs are the rough therapies. In a few days it will be 1944. How long before I walk up the hundred steps to reach our hilltop home... and Minna?

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.