Some Sunny Day

by Madge Lambert

  ‘One of his specialities was rebuilding noses through skin grafts,’ she said, ‘and once the grafts settled down it changed their lives. With a bit of luck you will be back in England soon and I’m sure you’ll be able to have similar treatment.’ But even that failed to cheer him up.

  ‘I know it must be getting towards midnight,’ he told Madge, ‘but is there any possibility of having an omelette? My mother always made me an omelette when I was poorly as a little boy. It’s just what I fancy now.’

  ‘I’ll see what can be done,’ promised Madge, who was only too aware that the corporal had hardly eaten since his arrival. The problem was that as the only nurse on duty she was worried about leaving the ward even for a few minutes. There were no ward-boys around at that time of night and the kitchens wouldn’t be staffed, but as she wracked her brain for a solution Big Arthur, one of the night guards from the RASC (Royal Army Service Corps), strolled past, said hello and asked if everything was OK.

  When Madge explained the omelette problem the giant Yorkshireman simply nodded and said, ‘Right, love, leave it to me.’ Just fifteen minutes later he reappeared with his rifle over his shoulder and a very tasty and fluffy-looking omelette ringed with sliced tomatoes. He had even brought a knife and fork. ‘Couldn’t find bread,’ he said, ‘but them there tomatoes make everything look right luverly.’

  It looked so good Madge could have eaten the whole lot there and then. Instead she thanked the guard. ‘Where on earth did you manage to perform this little miracle at this time of night?’

  Arthur said that as there was no reply when he knocked on the kitchen door he gave it a little kick and it just sort of burst open. ‘There was nobody in the kitchens so I made it myself, love,’ he added, before resuming his lonely patrol. The corporal was staring at the ceiling when Madge walked in with the omelette and because his hands were still so painful she fed him a forkful at a time. After eating what was his biggest meal since arriving from the casualty clearing station Madge thought he would soon fall back to sleep.

  Instead he talked, with a wistful look on those painfully distorted features, about his ‘sweet and beautiful girlfriend’ back home and how she had given up the chance of a place at university to become a nurse. She had even tried to get a posting to India to be near him, but had been turned down because she was just nineteen.

  ‘What will she think if she sees me like this?’ he asked.

  Madge didn’t even need to think about what to say in response because the answer came straight from her heart.

  ‘If she’s a nurse, then she will love you even more.’

  15

  Letters From Home

  The hours were awful, the heat and humidity were suffocating and the mosquitos were lethal, but Madge was happy because she felt needed and appreciated at 56 IGH. Yet one autumn Monday morning she woke up feeling down in the dumps and couldn’t work out what the problem was.

  Depression could be a side effect of mepacrine but she had been taking it religiously for months so that wasn’t to blame. There was no food rationing or blackouts or doodlebugs or depth charges to worry about and the team spirit at the hospital was first class, but, Madge realised with a tug at her chest, there was no dear Mum, no Doris and no Doreen. For the first time since walking out of her twenty-first birthday in tears on the troopship Strathnaver Madge was homesick.

  That day everything reminded Madge of home. The smell of newly baked bread wafted down from the kitchens of the big house and made her think of happy days as a child in Dover. The deep red roses on the veranda brought to mind the beautiful blooms in the back garden of the house in High Wycombe, and the sound of laughter in the nurses’ mess triggered images of her sisters Doreen and Doris joking together. Mum’s advice would be to put your shoulders back and get on with it, she told herself, and she tried.

  There had been no letters from home, or indeed any mail at all, for weeks and Madge was so blue she certainly didn’t expect any that morning. However, Sister Blossom, who handed out the mail, had a little treasure trove for her that included a card from her cousin Ruby in Anerley and a big envelope from Auntie Bea in Dover, who had enclosed several pages from the Dover Express.

  By far the pick of the bunch was a lengthy and funny letter from Mum saying how proud she was that Doris had joined the Women’s Land Army and was working on a farm near East Grinstead in Sussex. Madge could almost see the twinkle in Mum’s eye as she’d written about it.

  Can you believe that one of the first things she learned to do was drive a tractor? My little Doris, driving a tractor! Although I told her that driving a tractor was better than driving me mad by coming home late from all those dances.

  Mum also said that she’d caught Doreen dancing in front of the lounge mirror with the wireless on full blast as Vera Lynn sang ‘There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover’.

  Doreen looked so graceful and beautiful that I joined in and we had a lovely time. We just wished you could have been with us.

  Lily’s words helped lift Madge’s spirits and she put the bundle of mail into her little bag and walked into the dining room for breakfast. Vera waved her over and couldn’t wait to say that she had a bit of gossip.

  ‘That’s very unusual for you,’ smiled Madge.

  Vera blurted out, ‘Guess who’s coming to see us today?’ Without waiting for an answer Vera said she had been told that Gertrude Corsar would be visiting 56 IGH. ‘Apparently she wants to see all two hundred and fifty of us to make sure we’ve settled into our “arduous and testing new lives”. But I’m not sure what that means exactly,’ said Vera.

  ‘All it means,’ said Madge, ‘is that she’s trying to make sure that we are all OK and I take my hat off to her for that. She really is a good old stick.’

  Madge went to her next shift feeling much cheerier than she had that morning. One of her patients, Adam, who had been very poorly with amoebic dysentery, was due to be released and returned to his unit, which he said was involved in heavy fighting in the Arakan.

  Adam had told Madge that he sold flowers at Columbia Road market in the East End of London and the other lads in the ward nicknamed him ‘L.O. Flower’ because that’s what he always said to nurses who came to clean him up. He was the only patient she had nursed who survived on custard and cans of British army tinned fruit for a number of days before eventually returning to a normal diet.

  ‘I hate that bully beef stuff and my stomach is so upset I can’t eat nuffink else,’ he insisted in his Cockney twang.

  Madge liked ‘L.O.’ and when he started to recover he helped out in the ward, happily fluffing up pillows, lending a hand to turn some of the bigger patients over to stop them getting bed sores and writing letters home for one soldier, whose right arm was heavily bandaged and in a sling. The nursing sepoys loved him because he spent time helping them with their English and taught them some very funny and naughty words.

  L.O. was a jolly soul who cheered everybody up and teased Madge mercilessly. A few weeks after he’d been admitted he appeared just before her lunch break dressed in his army khakis, looking a different man to the weary and dispirited character who had been carried in on a stretcher.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you for saving me, memsahib,’ he said in his Cockney accent as he bowed his head. Then from behind his back he handed Madge a beautiful bouquet of deep red roses wrapped in brown paper before picking up his few possessions and walking up the hill.

  Madge felt a lump in her throat as she watched him go. She put the roses in a jug of water and later took them with her to lunch in the nurses’ mess where she had arranged to meet Vera.

  After listening intently to Madge recounting what had happened, Vera gave a mock swoon and said, ‘Ooh, it sounds to me just like an episode straight from Mills and Boon.’

  Madge ignored the interruption and picked up the deep red blooms. ‘What a kind and thoughtful gesture. He must have walked all the way in to Chittagong to buy them for me,’ she said.
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  By this time Vera was laughing uncontrollably and pointed to the bush on the veranda. ‘Your cheeky chappy has only gone and pinched them from here!’ she said.

  At the end of her busy day shift, Madge returned to the nurses’ mess to discover that Miss Corsar had arrived. The VAD liaison officer kindly poured Madge a cup of tea and then offered a plate of biscuits. She was holding a meeting in a room away from the main dining area and within twenty minutes everybody was in place. The esteem in which Miss Corsar was held was underlined by the attendance of Lieutenant Colonel Whittaker, who asked politely if it would be in order for him to listen in.

  Gertrude, a very different figure in khaki from the Red Cross uniform she had worn on the Strathnaver, told the hospital chief he would be most welcome, walked over to the door and locked it. ‘Security purposes,’ she said after receiving one or two inquisitive glances, then started by outlining how the group had been split once they got off the ambulance train in Calcutta.

  ‘Quite a few,’ she said, ‘are working with the 14th Army and all of you are divided between eleven very busy hospitals, where the matrons have been highly impressed with the enthusiasm and professionalism that has been shown under conditions which are often little better than primitive. The turnover of patients in the eight forward area hospitals is particularly high, as the figures here at 56 IGH have shown. Nobody knows just how busy this hospital has become better than you girls, of course,’ said Gertrude, in a comment that was greeted with numerous nods and smiles. ‘The other three hospitals to which VADs have been posted are further west in Ranchi and Dacca.

  ‘I have been shown the bashas in which you are living here at 56 IGH and seventy-five per cent of all VADs are in similar accommodation. Many have to use hurricane lamps because there is no electricity available and few have running water. One unit is sleeping in tents,’ she said, ‘whereas the lucky few are in more substantial buildings.

  ‘Of far more importance,’ Miss Corsar underlined, ‘is the question of safety on night duty and the strain that it places on you nurses, who at various points are looking after more than a hundred patients at a time.

  ‘One girl even has three hundred patients in three separate blocks, with just a night sister on duty with her apart from the nursing sepoys, who are prone to fall asleep themselves.’ There were a few giggles at this point.

  ‘Please talk to me later,’ she said, ‘if any of you are worried about safety on night shifts and don’t hesitate to write if you run into any other problems.’

  ‘Security is the least of our worries at 56 IGH,’ Madge whispered to Vera, because she had become fond of the Gurkhas who guarded the complex, and British army soldiers maintained a high profile outside the basha wards.

  After twenty minutes there was a short break in which Miss Corsar again made sure everybody had tea and happily walked round with plates of biscuits. Madge thought she came across as the mother hen of her widely spread flock. ‘I really like her,’ whispered Vera and Madge nodded in agreement as the second session got underway.

  Miss Corsar began with a compliment about how impressed a number of matrons were with the way in which Indian soldiers had been nursed. ‘My overall view is that you are doing a magnificent job under the most testing of conditions. I am visiting as many hospitals as possible to reassure you nurses that far from being forgotten, your sheer enthusiasm has ensured a warm welcome and the number who have volunteered to work closer to the battle zone is also very impressive indeed,’ she added.

  She thanked them all for attending and being so attentive and said she was pleased to hear that their social life in Chittagong was such a lot of fun. As one last word of advice, she added, ‘But please don’t worry about turning down invitations. Everybody knows just how hard you have to work in the basha wards, which are not air conditioned, and lots of late nights on top of that can lead to tiredness. If you get run down in this heat, it can also lead to illness. So just learn to say no!’

  Laughter and applause followed as Miss Corsar walked across to unlock the door and the VADs went slowly through to the dining room, many of them by now desperate for more food as they had been up and on the go since early that morning.

  ‘What did you think of the meeting?’ asked Madge.

  ‘Impressive. Very impressive indeed,’ said Vera, who also admired the Commandant’s courage in travelling so many hundreds of miles on the notoriously dangerous Indian railway system on her own.

  ‘I agree, and it is really nice to know there is somebody looking after our interests and we haven’t been forgotten,’ said Madge.

  As the duo walked towards the door, a familiar figure suddenly appeared and asked if they had time for a pot of tea in the nurses’ mess.

  ‘Sally! Where have you suddenly sprung from?’ smiled Vera.

  ‘The last time I saw you was in Calcutta,’ said Madge. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ replied Sally, as they walked through to the mess.

  She insisted on getting the tea and cakes and sat down opposite Madge and Vera. ‘I feel terrible as I wasn’t even able to say a simple thanks for your kindness to a very lonely and unhappy me. One minute we were all together at the station in Calcutta. The next minute you had gone.’

  ‘Bonnie lass, you’ve become a real mystery to us,’ said Vera. ‘I know I’m being nosy, but let’s start at the very beginning. I can’t even work out your accent.’

  ‘That’s good coming from you,’ laughed Madge, ‘and you are being very nosy.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Sally. ‘I owe you an explanation. As a teenager I dreamed of becoming a doctor, but then war broke out and my elder brother JP – that’s short for John Patrick – packed in his job, made his way to Cape Town and caught a boat to England to join up.’

  ‘Slow down,’ said Madge. ‘Made his way to Cape Town from where?’

  ‘Sorry, I thought I’d told you I come from Southern Rhoxdesia,’ said Sally. ‘We had only been there for a few years after emigrating from Edinburgh because Dad had health problems and needed to be in a warmer climate. Two years after my brother joined up Dad gave me the money and suggested that instead of knitting socks and sweaters for the war effort like my mum, I got a boat back to the old country as well and became a nurse.

  ‘To cut a long story short, Dad has since died, my brother was taken by the Japanese as a prisoner of war in Singapore, I haven’t seen Mum for five years and the last we heard about JP was a message that he may be working on the Death Railway somewhere in Thailand near the Burmese border. I answered Lord Mountbatten’s plea for nurses because I thought it might help me get closer to my brother.’

  ‘Goodness me,’ said Madge. ‘That’s some story.’

  ‘Keep going,’ said Vera. ‘How have you ended up in Chittagong?’

  ‘I actually asked to be transferred from a hospital much further north to be closer to the front line,’ said Sally, ‘and have been nursing at 68 IGH.’ She had been totally calm in revealing details of the way in which her life had started to fall apart. Now, however, tears began to trickle down her freckled face as she broke down and sobbed. ‘I just want to feel needed.’

  ‘That’s what we all want, love,’ said Madge, placing her hand tenderly on Sally’s arm. ‘That’s what we all want.’

  16

  Captain Basil Lambert

  As the battle to drive the Japanese from the north of Burma intensified there was a huge increase in the turnover of patients at 56 IGH, with dozens of sick and wounded men coming and going, and for the nurses it was all work and no play. Every day they had to remake dozens of beds as patients left and others arrived after being transported to Chittagong by trains and DC-3s. Mattresses had to be turned as well as sheets changed and that was an exhausting task in the heat. This was before administering even basic medication and the all-important TLC.

  Madge was more than grateful when she was given an unexpected afternoon off, which meant she could write an overdue letter to
Mum while there was still natural light rather than by the dull glow of the hurricane lamp in her basha. In spite of the cheery letters she received from High Wycombe, she wondered how Mum was coping on a widow’s pension of just ten shillings a week, plus the ten shillings a week she received from the Dover flour mill where dad Charles had worked before he died. It really wasn’t very much on which to clothe and feed Doris and Doreen.

  Madge kept her return letter deliberately cheery as well, addressed the envelope and opened the little chest of drawers in the basha to get a stamp, but couldn’t find one and realised she had run out. That was a problem because if the letter missed the 5 p.m. collection, it wouldn’t be on the boat that was due out of Chittagong first thing in the morning and Mum would start imagining that all sorts of things had happened to her eldest daughter.

  Madge went straight to the nurses’ mess to ask if anyone there had stamps she could buy, but it was unusually quiet and there was no response. That was until an Anglo-Indian officer, who had been visiting the hospital, waved and introduced himself as Mac. As Madge reached into her purse for some rupees, he told her not to worry about money. ‘I haven’t got the stamps with me; they’re back in my room and my living quarters are only ten minutes’ walk away.’

  Madge was in somewhat of a quandary. Her initial reaction was to be wary of the man’s intentions, but there was nowhere else to buy stamps and time was fast running out. ‘How kind of you,’ she said, and off they went.

  It was getting dark and Madge began to feel nervous as the pair walked further from the hospital grounds. Eventually they arrived at his room near the officers’ mess and stepped inside. ‘Would you like a gin and tonic?’ Mac asked.

  Madge was about to tell him that she wasn’t the sort of girl to drink alone in men’s rooms but relaxed when Mac introduced her to his room mate, who was concentrating on a file of papers.

  ‘Madge, this is Basil Lambert, 10th Baluch Regiment; Basil, this is Madge, a nurse at the hospital.’