大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Bill Ross of the 鈥楢ction Desk 鈥� Sheffield鈥� Team on behalf of Doctor Ivy Oates, and has been added to the site with the author鈥檚 permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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I had to return to Calcutta by train, and to understand the next part, we have to step aside. Two ladies, a doctor and a matron in one of the hospitals, decided that when they had some leave, they would go to Kashmir. Kashmir is a beautiful Shangri-la in the Himalayas 鈥� all mountains and lakes. The only unfortunate thing is that men were killing each other then and still are. However, they went to the station. Indian trains were very beautiful; they were sleepers, four berth compartments, but at the end of every carriage, was a two-berth compartment reserved for ladies. So the two ladies got into this compartment, settled down for the night, going across India to Kashmir for their dream holiday. The next morning, they were both found murdered, strangled with a silken scarf. This upset the establishment very much. An Indian Army order came out that women were not to travel in these two-berth compartments any more. They were to travel in four berth compartments.

My husband and I went to Bombay Station and found a four-berth compartment. An Indian lady got in; when the whistle went for the train to start, my husband pulled out his revolver, he handed it to me and said, 鈥淚t is loaded. If you have to, USE IT!鈥� So I just said, 鈥淥K,鈥� and I took the revolver. He hopped off the train and away he went.

At about seven o鈥檆lock - it gets dark in the tropics - the train stopped at a station, and the sergeant in charge of the train came down, banging on the door. 鈥淟OCK ALL YOUR DOORS! LOCK ALL YOUR DOORS!鈥� So, when the train started up, we went to lock the door, but the lock was broken, we couldn鈥檛 lock it. However, we decided to put our tin trunks across the doorway; we had to use tin because the ants had everything else; and away we went. We hoped that if anybody tried to get in, they might fall over them and perhaps, happily break their necks.

Anyway, we settled down for the night. I remember the Indian lady brought some very nice cake with her, with cherries in and cream. We didn鈥檛 very often get cream cakes there. However, away we go, I could not lie down because of the bandage around my head, so, when it got dark, I propped myself up in a semi-sitting position on the bunk, and I must have dozed off as we as we 鈥榮ailed鈥� through the night. Then, I noticed an odd feeling. It seemed cool. I opened my eye, one eye because the other had quietly closed under the bandage, and there, in the darkness of the tiny little light that there was in the carriage, I could see the carriage door was wide open, and standing at the bottom of my bunk, was an Indian figure shrouded in a shawl.

I thought of my revolver and I could not move. I wondered about this, I do not know why, but I could not get that revolver, but when the figure turned towards me, I realised it was the woman from the opposite bunk. If she hadn鈥檛 been sharing with the slowest person 鈥榦n the draw鈥� in the whole sub-continent, she might have had a bad accident. I don鈥檛 know how it is that men can draw and shoot in a split second, because I don鈥檛 think a woman can, because you鈥檙e undecided, you鈥檙e not quite sure. Anyway, I don鈥檛 know what happened, but I didn鈥檛 shoot her and we moved our trunks back against the door, we closed the door, and we got back to Calcutta.

Whenever I鈥檓 in a life and death situation, people think it鈥檚 hilarious, the men in the mess thought it was terribly funny; maybe it was. Something similar happened to me once in Sheffield. My son was with me, he鈥檇 gone out early in the morning, and I heard the door go, then I heard someone rattle the knob. Of course, I didn鈥檛 go down, I was in the bathroom; someone came up the stairs. I looked through the door to say, 鈥淲hat have you forgotten?鈥� and found a perfectly strange man coming up the stairs. I said, 鈥淕ET OUT!鈥� He ran down the stairs. He said, 鈥淚鈥檝e come to see if you want anything doing.鈥� I said, 鈥淵OU DIDN鈥橳! GET OUT!鈥� When I told my lads, they thought it was hilarious. They said, 鈥淚 bet he was frightened to death.鈥�

So there you are; however, I got back to Calcutta. I had different jobs. One particular job I had was to go to a place called Bhuracrutee, where a Raja had lent us a beautiful marble guest palace, as a sort of convalescent halfway house in a hospital. We had got a building, which we could have used; it belonged to the army, but they鈥檇 never been able to get it sorted out. So, one day, I had to go Bhuracrutee, see to the patients there, stay overnight and come back the next day.

It was the time of the 鈥楺uit India Campaign鈥�, and this palace was away from any western settlement. Rioting started, so it wasn鈥檛 safe for anyone to leave the palace or the hospital to go out. The nurses who had been on all night, had to stay on the next day, and the next night and the next day. So did I. My husband rang me up from the fort in Calcutta where he worked. He said, 鈥淎re you all right?鈥� I said, 鈥淥f course not, I thought I was only coming for 24 hours. I鈥檝e only got two changes of clothes.鈥� You have to change your clothes at least twice a day in Calcutta. I said, 鈥淚鈥檝e no clothes.鈥� So he said, 鈥淚 will put myself on a convoy, and come and bring you some.鈥� So the home sister who was also incarcerated with me said, 鈥淚 have a friend in transport and he said 鈥業 have enough transport to move this hospital to the place in Calcutta, but I haven鈥檛 enough men.鈥欌�� So when my husband arrived, I said, 鈥淭he home sister has a friend in Home Transport who could move the hospital into Calcutta, but they haven鈥檛 enough men.鈥� He said, 鈥淗ow many men do you want? Eighty? A hundred?鈥� I said, 鈥淎 hundred will do.鈥�

So, he bought lorry loads of men in and transport brought their three tonners; we packed patients, beds, equipment, everything into the three tonners, went in convoy to Calcutta to the building which the army had there, and 鈥榮hovelled鈥� them all in. I didn鈥檛 tell the C.O., after all, the administrators don鈥檛 need to know everything, but I did say to the quartermaster, 鈥淚鈥檝e a hundred chairs for you Q.鈥� He said, 鈥淲hat do I want with a hundred chairs? I don鈥檛 want a hundred chairs.鈥� I said, 鈥淣or do I, but you鈥檙e the Quartermaster.鈥�

The next morning, the C.O. sent for me and started apologising, told me how sorry he was that I was out in the sticks; it wasn鈥檛 suitable being out there, you know, a poor defenceless woman amongst the rioting etc. And so, when he鈥檇 finished, I said, 鈥淚鈥檝e moved it.鈥� He said, 鈥淢oved WHAT?鈥� I said, 鈥淭he hospital.鈥� He flew up into the air. He said, 鈥淵ou鈥檒l have offended the Raja.鈥� It was as though I鈥檇 started another Indian mutiny. Well, perhaps鈥︹�︹��.I don鈥檛 know. It didn鈥檛 occur to me until years afterwards that maybe I had offended the Raja, not only because I had moved the people from his palace without saying goodbye, but 鈥測ou had done it, a woman鈥�.

It just occurred to me, years later, that that would have offended him. Never mind, whatever happened, happened. The silence after it was deafening. I didn鈥檛 get a medal for doing what the C.O. said was impossible, and I didn鈥檛 get court-martialled for offending the Raja, but I did hear one of the men saying, 鈥淥nly a woman would have gotten away with it.鈥�

I don鈥檛 know whether you have ever been on a job where you have to cover. But when you are on duty and covering, something always happens. When other people are on, nothing happens; they go to bed. Something always seemed to happen when I was orderly officer. One early hour of the morning, the war in Burma had ceased and men were coming back to Calcutta, to go home. Lorry loads of men were being taken to Calcutta Station, and they had a pile up; one lorry ran into another, and the Casualty was full of badly injured men and slightly injured men. The whole lorry load suddenly arrived in Calhitti. And of course, who is orderly officer? I am. Well, I don鈥檛 mind a big job like that, it suits me. I like a big organising job. 鈥淎ll those not hurt, go over there, a char will make you some tea. All those with slight cuts and bruise, over there, the nurses will see to you.

We had runners, we didn鈥檛 have telephones. So we sent all the boys, the runners off to every ward to get them to send all the orderlies with all the stretchers they鈥檇 got, and they all came running into Casualty like spokes on a wheel. We put the more seriously ill ones on the stretchers to get them onto the wards. And then I thought, 鈥淲hat am I doing? We have a Casualty like Piccadilly Circus, and all the men are in bed. So then I sent all the runners to get all the consultants up, and I can just imagine what they said. It gave me great pleasure.

However, that was one night. Another night I was on, the troops had come out of Burma and they were bright yellow with nepacrine, and they thought, 鈥淗ooray, we鈥檙e out of Malaria country.鈥� They stopped taking nepacrine. A Medical Officer rings me up and says, 鈥淚鈥檝e ten men with Malaria.鈥� He rings again, 鈥淚鈥檝e eight more men with Malaria.鈥� He was gradually shipping the whole regiment to me with malaria, because they鈥檇 all stopped taking the nepacrine, and that was his blessed fault. However, I said, 鈥淟ook, I鈥檝e no more beds left. You鈥檒l have to turn one of your barrack rooms into a ward, and I鈥檒l send you the treatment. We can鈥檛 admit anyone else. That was another time when the C.O. went out, and went to bed with a half empty hospital and woke up to find it bulging at the seams. They must have dreaded me being on.

Once, I got a phone call from French Indo-China. A little French girl, they thought, had inhaled a peanut and we were the only people who could do the bronchoscopy. So they said, could they fly her over? So I said, 鈥淵es!鈥� The next morning, the C.O.鈥檚 having kittens. 鈥淵OU HAVE ADMITTED A CIVILIAN TO A MILITARY HOSPITAL. YOU MAY HAVE TO PAY FOR HER!鈥� So I said, 鈥淎lright, I will.鈥� I didn鈥檛 know what I was going to pay, but he wasn鈥檛 going to brow beat me. I said, 鈥淚 thought the French were our allies.鈥� Mind you, we had our doubts about that. I was never forgiving of the French for letting us sink their navy, rather than come over to the allies when Hitler invaded France. However, we got the little girl and I think the C.O. was a bit touched, seeing me going round with this little girl, talking to her in my pigeon French.

Anyway, we did the bronchoscopy and she hadn鈥檛 got a peanut stuck there, and she was flown back and I didn鈥檛 hear any more about it. But this is how it was.

Now, V.E. Day, the war in Europe had finished. We were glad to hear of course, that it had finished, but our war hadn鈥檛. We were still fighting the Japs. They were the rottenest enemy anybody could fight. All the atrocities that were done by the Germans were done by the Japs. People had hidden many of the things that the Japs did. The Germans have had to live with their past, but not the Japs. However, it took an atomic bomb to end our war. Now, when the atomic bomb fell, people had said to me that it was immoral. But I don鈥檛 see it as any worse to be killed by an atomic bomb than by torture, and the treatment that the Japs dealt out to our prisoners. They say, 鈥淲as it necessary to drop two bombs?鈥� Well, the Japs were a people very difficult to vanquish because of their ideology. Whether one would have been enough, I do not know, but, they had a documentary on television: when Hitler was losing the war, he sent a submarine with his uranium, and all the details of how far the Germans had got with an atomic bomb. We knew the submarine was going to Japan, and we did not want to sink it. We wanted to capture it, which we did. With that, we realised how near the Japs were to an atomic bomb and how near the Germans were. So it wasn鈥檛 a matter of whether it was right to drop it, it was a question of who was first to drop it. That justified to me the second atomic bomb.

Parts 1 - 5 of this story can be found at:

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A3890207
A3890225
A4181348

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