Miss Corsar also decided that it was time for the issue of tropical kit, which was a lot cooler than the navy blue outfits that soaked up the heat even in the shade. The tropical blouses were still navy blue but made of a much lighter and cooler cotton, but the problem was that if the girls wanted to enjoy the sunshine, they now had to wear a pith helmet as well as a life jacket. It was all so cumbersome, but at least the life jacket ruling was eased when the Strathnaver got into the Suez Canal.
‘Dear old Gertrude really has no other option,’ laughed Vera. ‘It’s so narrow it’s almost a physical impossibility to fall into the Suez Canal,’ she said, eliciting giggles from the other girls.
Certainly, the biggest surprise for Vera, Phyl and Madge was not so much the 102-mile length of the canal but the width. At just 200 to 300 feet wide, Madge could look down from A Deck and just see desert either side of the boat, no water at all. After being at sea for so many weeks it was comforting to see dry land again with people and little settlements with their lights glowing in the dark.
The first evening they were on the Suez Canal, Madge, Sally, Phyl and Vera decided to take a moonlit after-dinner stroll on A Deck. The burning heat had eased and Madge was happily chatting to Vera when a cheeky-looking and unusually tiny officer gave them a mock salute and grinned. Without any invitation, he walked alongside the girls and began talking to them about the day the Suez Canal was opened.
‘Is this chap going to tell us a joke?’ whispered Phyl.
‘No, but he sounds like a bit of fun,’ said Sally as several other nurses stopped to listen and asked him to speak up because the wind was making it difficult to hear.
He said a French consortium had financed and constructed the canal and the honour of becoming the first vessel to navigate the waterway had been bestowed on the French Imperial yacht L’Aigle, with Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, on board.
The night before the official opening in November 1869 a huge fleet of ships, including HMS Newport, drew up behind it. That was until Commander George Strong Nares (Royal Navy) ordered a total blackout on board his vessel and skilfully navigated it to the head of the queue in front of L’Aigle.
The French did not see the funny side when they woke to find the entrance to the canal blocked and were even less amused when the glory of becoming the first to sail from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea was snatched from their grasp by HMS Newport.
A sizeable crowd had gathered alongside the four girls and everyone began to cheer the fact that the Royal Navy had left the French in second place.
‘There’s more to come so let’s have a bit of hush,’ the little officer said with a grin.
When the noise had quietened, Madge’s new friend added that the Admiralty were so upset over the diplomatic incident caused by Commander Nares that he was issued with an official reprimand. ‘They were so irate, in fact, that a few months later Nares was promoted from commander to captain,’ said the officer, who then bowed to the laughing crowd and strolled off into the darkness.
‘That was great!’ said Madge. ‘I think he may have told that tale a few times, but it was still really entertaining.’
The mood on board the ship brightened considerably over this stage of the voyage. The VADs never tired of throwing pennies to the ‘gully-gully men’ who were stark naked and would happily dive from their ‘bumboats’ into the grubby water to retrieve the coins. In return the men had devised an ingenious way of sending up, by rope, bunches of bananas, sponges, bags of nuts and even some erotic carvings which Madge and her friends took one look at and burst into giggles. British troops guarding both sides of the canal made a point of waving and whistling to the nurses, and the nurses were so relieved to see some new faces that they blew lots of kisses and waved back.
There was a three-day stopover in Suez, where the remaining convoy refuelled, took on new supplies and, most important of all, filled up with fresh water. That meant that Madge, after days of having to bathe in sea water, could indulge in the ultimate luxury of a long lazy soak in fresh water. The VADs weren’t allowed off the boat during the short break in Suez, but the joy of a fresh-water bath full of Coty bath cubes and the lifting of blackout restrictions, which meant that the girls could continue to read after dark, helped to ease the disappointment of not being allowed to explore.
Several of the smaller ships had gone their own way after the stopover and what remained of convoy KMF.33 resumed the voyage. Because the slower vessels had left, it meant there was no need for speed restriction. Even so, it wasn’t until well into the Indian Ocean and the home run across to Bombay that the full splendour of the Strathnaver was revealed. As the knots slowly increased and the bow lifted and plunged, Madge gripped the railings round A deck with both hands when she gazed over the side. A pod of dolphins raced with ease alongside the troop carrier and the wind was so strong it almost took her breath away. Madge, for once, was glad she was wearing a life jacket. She took deep breaths of the bracing fresh air and looked out across the horizon. Finally, this feels like an adventure, she said to
