大象传媒

EGYPT 鈥� AGAIN

On October 25th the ship docked at Port Said and by 1500 hours I had been transferred to a hospital train and was on the way to the 2nd New Zealand General Hospital south of Ismalia. So from the time I first reported sick I had travelled under the Red Cross sign by stretcher, ambulance, ship and train. Rather an improvement on World War I in which my father, who was part of General Allenby鈥檚 army and who also caught malaria, was evacuated from wherever he was in Egypt on a stretcher slung on the side of a camel!

After two days in the 2nd NZ Hospital, I was examined again by their doctor who said that I was still suffering from kidney trouble and that I must stay in bed. In fact, I spent a further five weeks here and they were really most enjoyable. To begin with there was discipline but not the very strict type such as was maintained in British wartime hospitals and also indeed in British civilian hospitals in those days. For instance, in the British 2nd at Tripoli, when the matron came round everybody was expected to lie or stand to attention. It is difficult to think of anything more oppressive or more blimpish. By contrast in the 2nd New Zealand here at Ismalia there appeared to be more nurses about and there was a much greater comradeship between male and female nurses and doctors. This probably reflected the absence of the class differences and distinctions that were found through all sections of human existence in Britain at that time.

I think one of the reasons may well have been that in the British military hospitals nurses were given commissions but not so in New Zealand. In their military hospital the nurses were corporals or sergeants and the absence of class could be noted by the fact that the senior nurse in my ward was not only very attractive but also the wife of the adjutant to General Freyburg who commanded 2nd New Zealand Division in the desert and in Italy.

The food, subject close to my heart in those days, was delicious. Bacon, tomatoes, bread and butter and so on for breakfast and with variations from day to day. Dinner was frequently based on chicken, rarity indeed for a common soldier and the sweet included large quantities of ice cream of a quality for better than I had ever previously experienced.

The New Zealand Red Cross came round and distributed tins of sweets or cigarettes to all the patients at regular intervals and from time to time entertainment was provided. One evening a convert by the South African forces and another day a military band played in the morning. There was a film show one evening and I saw 鈥淟ittle Nellie Kelly鈥�.

On November 6th an incident occurred which has remained in my memory ever since. The previous evening some ex New Zealand prisoners of war arrived, all suffering very badly from shell shock and other illnesses picked upon the battlefield. They had been repatriated from Austria via Spain after two and a half years in German POW camps. After a quiet night one of them got out of bed early, walked to the table on which there were twenty or more empty fruit juice bottles and commenced hurling them round the ward. There was broken glass everywhere and two or three patients were hit. I took refuge under the clothes and then at the first opportunity darted outside. It took six orderlies to overcome, tranquillise and remove the poor fellow.

On November 9th, I was put on the scales and found to weight eleven stones and three pounds, which is just about the same as my present weight, so in that respect I haven鈥檛 changed in the last forty-eight years. Whilst in hospital I met a wounded commando who had been unlucky enough to have an Italian grenade burst a yard or more in front of him. The incredible thing was that although he suffered twenty four wounds, none were fatal or even serious. Apparently the Italian grenade at that time was made of copper wire wound round a central core and encased in plastic and like a lot of their equipment was not up to the demands of modern war.

One day it rained briefly, in fact it even hailed and it was the first of only two showers of rain during my three wartime visits to Egypt. Other highlights were the purchase of a watch imported from Switzerland and which I still possess, although it has had new hands and a replacement face added to it because the numerals which were luminous had tended to curdle in the Egyptian and Italian sun. Also I was able to play a few games of table tennis and acquire a pair of boots from the Quartermaster鈥檚 store. These were of a type issued to New Zealand tank crews, were made of lightweight top class leather and were most comfortable. Finally, I was struck by the Kiwis passion for gambling. They played a game I think called 鈥淯p the line鈥� and as soon as they received their pay they would be down on the floor where all the action took place.

I left this really first class hospital on December 2nd and moved on to the British No2 Convalescent Camp, where I installed myself in the sergeants quarters. Almost the first person I met was a sergeant who was wounded during the heavy shelling of D Troop at Salerno. He had received a very nasty gash in the leg, but was making a good recovery which was very pleasing as hew was an extremely talented footballer. I did not know it at the time, but I was due to spend four weeks in this camp. However, time was beginning to drag and as I continued to improve in health and strength, I became more and more impatient with the system, although in retrospect I am sure the authorities knew what they were doing. I supposed that all things considered my physical system had received quite a battering and was dragging somewhat behind my desires.

Each day I took part in a session of PT which did me a power of good and soon after my arrival at the convalescent camp, I was interviewed by the MO and given a physical Grade 3. Shortly afterwards I was given for one night only a supervisory job at the regularly run tombola for which I was paid twenty piastres. I also joined the library. To offset the inevitable boredom, I started playing cards for the smallest of stakes and over the whole period ended up just about even so far as the money side was concerned. Several films were shown from time to time such as 鈥淔ingers at the window鈥� with Basil Rathbone, 鈥淢oontide鈥� 鈥淵ou were never lovelier鈥� with Rita Hayworth, 鈥淭he Pied Piper鈥� 鈥淚n which we serve鈥� 鈥淕one with the Wind鈥� which was the second time I had seen it, 鈥淩oad to Singapore鈥� with Bing Crosby and 鈥淪omewhere I鈥檒l find you鈥� with Clark Gable and Lana Turner.

I took part in a whist drive that was held on evening and on another night a band played a wide selection of tunes in the Sergeants Mess. However the strangest thing that happened whilst here occurred very late at night. In the early hours about one or two AM I felt a cat by my shoulders and I later discovered that each night when I was in the land of Nod it used to creep into my tent from out of the cold night air and snuggle its way under my blankets and go to sleep at my feet. It was a black cat and maybe a lucky omen.

On December 15th I was upgraded to category 2 and four days later I was detailed for guard duty and discovered how very cold it was in the desert late at night at that time of the year. I also felt a great deal of sympathy for my little black friend. During my stay in the camp I made friends with two sergeants, one from the Scots Guards who had been wounded at Salerno and the other, a Royal Engineer who was recovering from a broken arm.

Christmas Eve was spent in the sergeants mess where we had a few drinks and passed the time playing darts. I could not help speculating on the very large income that must have flowed into the Mess from the sale of drinks, tobacco and confectionary because there was a constant population of sergeants and warrant officers which I guessed at between one and two hundred, all having come out of hospital with money to spend. The waiters and other workers were Italians, prisoners of war, captured during the desert campaign, so overheads would have been fairly light. Possibly the profits were used to supplement the issued rations by the purchase of locally grown foodstuffs and in other similar outlets.

On Christmas day one of my friends produced a bottle of whisky and before the midday meal I can remember the three of us wandering over to the Suez Canal, sitting on the bank with our legs dangling over the side and passing the bottle until a good part of its contents had disappeared. This consumption of alcohol continued on and off and by 2200 hours I felt just a little tipsy, but probably this was partly due to my not having fully recovered from my recent illness. Compared with everybody else present, my intake was very small indeed and I have needed to be careful ever since.

Earlier when we eventually sat down to the Christmas dinner, which was of the traditional variety, we each received a present of beer and cigarettes from Lady Killearn, wife of the Governor General. The remaining few days of 1943 were spent fairly actively with a PT assault course on the 27th and which I managed without too much trouble. A six mile route march on the 28th, which does not seem very far but on compressed sand was more tiring. On the 29th I was transferred to Base Depot Royal Artillery at El Masa, Cairo, where I was quickly put to work. New Year鈥檚 Eve saw me on guard at the 63rd General Hospital in Cairo, which I noted as being not too difficult and in the circumstances I had no alternative but to see the New Year in!

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