The calmness of the Mediterranean and the bright summer sun meant that A Deck was crowded with sun-seekers the next morning. But Madge wasn’t one of them.
The VADs had already been given a general warning about the dangers of keeping a diary but the previous day one had been reprimanded in front of the entire mess hall for keeping a notebook. The army officer who was in charge of the briefing made it very clear that the main reason the military were banned from keeping diaries was the worry of important information falling into enemy hands. Madge had paid particular notice to what was said as she was also writing regularly in her own notebook; she had promised her sisters that she would keep a diary during what she hoped would be happy times overseas. After that incident, though, she made a careful examination of the contents of her little book but remained convinced there was nothing that would be in the slightest of interest to the enemy whatsoever.
Madge kept the diary upbeat and didn’t mention things like the German attack on the destroyer or the endless nightmares the nurses on board suffered over the safety of their loves in cities still being bombed back in the UK. So she happily continued until the next VAD was reprimanded, in even sterner terms than the last. It was made clear that, if necessary, the ultimate sanction would be invoked and the implied threat of a court martial put an end to her diary too.
In any case, Madge had plenty of studying to keep her occupied. A series of mandatory lectures on tropical diseases were given in the Ladies’ Lounge to prepare the VADs for the medical problems in India and Burma that they would rarely have encountered at home. The first half dozen had the nurses’ full attention but they became repetitive and Madge would regularly find herself staring out of the porthole, mesmerised by the blue of the sea. The lessons certainly sank in because Madge could recite by heart, among many others, the fact that onchocerciasis (river blindness) was caused by worms or sandfly, sandfly fever was a virus carried by midges, sleeping sickness was caused by tsetse flies, typhus fever was an infection carried by lice, ticks, mites, flies or rats and yellow fever was a virus transferred by the bite of a mosquito.
The 180 wpm shorthand speed Madge had achieved at the commercial college was helpful when it came to taking notes. Tedious as the lectures were, they provided early warning of the complex problems the VADs would soon be facing.
One night at supper, Madge found herself engaged in conversation with a charming ex-surveyor called Stanley. They had been exchanging light-hearted banter when suddenly his expression became intensely serious. He checked that their neighbours weren’t listening and leaned in. ‘If I tell you something, will you swear not to repeat it?’
‘Well . . . I suppose so.’
Stanley pulled out a cutting of a Daily Express article from January 1943. It told the story of RMS Strathallan, another of the ‘White Sisters’, and the danger it had faced in the Mediterranean. Early in November 1942, the troop carrier had come under attack when it took the same route as the KMF.33 to take Allied personnel to Morocco and Algeria. Just after midnight on 21 December disaster struck. Two torpedoes were fired at the Strathallan by German U-boat U-562. One missed, but the other scored a direct hit and exploded in the engine room. Water flooded through a gaping hole on the port side and the ship began to keel.
Fires broke out below deck as men scrambled for safety but two Queen Alexandra nurses, Sister Julie and Sister Olive, went deep into the lower levels of the ship where they knew there would be men in the on-board hospital in desperate need of help. By now the tiny room was beginning to fill with more injured men seeking medical aid. Men with serious burns. Men coughing and choking from smoke inhalation. Men half blinded by oil that had sprayed everywhere in the engine room. The sisters treated every one of them.
The Strathallan, though irreparably damaged and listing at a frightening angle, simply refused to go down. The sea was calm and several Royal Navy destroyers were steaming to the rescue so a halt was called to the evacuation until first light in the morning when nearly five thousand people were saved in one of the most successful rescue operations in British maritime history.
‘What a relief that so many were saved but what a terrible thing to happen!’ Madge whispered when she had come to the end of the article.
There had been no mention whatsoever aboard the Strathnaver of the tragedy and after carefully reading the cutting, Madge gave a shudder before consigning the evening to memory and keeping her vow of silence. The fear of German submarines was bad enough as it was, she didn’t want to make the other girls any more panicked.
Within days convoy KMF.33 reached Port Said and slipped into the Suez Canal, where the heat was so intense it left Madge gasping. If it was that hot in the Middle East, Madge began to wonder exactly what she would be letting herself in for in India.
Commandant Corsar was so concerned about the effects of the sun that her contingent of VADs was issued with pith helmets. The girls were told that if they were on deck between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., the big
