When Madge met up with Vera later in the day in the nurses’ mess she was greeted by a rousing chorus of ‘Just me and my shadow all alone and feeling blue’, followed by laughter and applause. The incident had played on Madge’s mind throughout the day so the bit of fun and nonsense in the mess cheered her up.
There were more interesting things to talk about anyway because she had been too busy in the past few days to have a good old gossip with Vera, who lowered her voice and said she had been in Chittagong that afternoon and couldn’t believe what she had seen. There had been a demonstration calling for home rule for India and it had been very civilised, if somewhat noisy. There were lots of drums being beaten and flags being waved. Some, said Vera, had emblems on them that looked very much like the German swastika and she was worried what the connotations could involve.
As Madge sat listening the ever-present Sister Blossom wandered past and told her not to worry about the ‘shadow incident’ but sensed there was a bit of a problem and asked if she could help. Because the home sister had been so honest and helpful since the VADs had arrived, Vera told her outright that she was pretty sure she had seen a number of swastikas being waved at the home rule demonstration.
Sister Blossom pulled a chair up to their table and told Vera she was almost certainly right. But the emblem on the flags, far from showing support for Nazi Germany, was a symbol of peace and love and had been so for thousands of years in India. It was sacred to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism and was also believed to bring good fortune, said Blossom.
The monsoon season was long over, but the humidity was still extreme with temperatures between 85 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. In a basha ward that lacked air conditioning and shifts that involved long and very demanding hours Madge found she was becoming increasingly jaded. There also seemed to be a cocktail party, dinner or dance every night as well, which she had been attending regularly, so she decided the best thing to do, for the first time since she had arrived in India, was to have a couple of early nights.
She certainly began to feel more like herself, but that meant that she soon rejoined the others for evenings out again! After one particularly late evening that had begun with a cocktail party and ended with a dance, Madge was looking forward to a lazy morning in her basha as she was not due to work that day. All of a sudden there was a knock on her door. ‘Come on, Madge, rise and shine,’ said a croaky voice that she just about recognised.
‘Have you got a sore throat? You sound terrible,’ she asked Vera after escaping from the mosquito netting and opening the door.
‘Never mind that,’ said Vera. ‘I met a rather nice chap from one of the artillery units last night and he says there’s a picnic going on this afternoon. He’ll take me on one condition,’ said Vera.
‘So why are you banging on the door so early in the morning? I’m very pleased you’ve got a date,’ laughed Madge. ‘Hang on a minute . . . what’s this condition?’
‘He wants me to bring a friend along for his pal,’ laughed Vera.
Just then, as if on cue, a camouflaged three-ton army lorry chugged through the gates with the horn blowing and balloons bobbing from the wing mirrors. ‘Surely this can’t be them come to pick us up, is it?’
‘It certainly is!’ smiled Vera.
Nine hours later they were dropped back at the gates after a wonderful time swimming, eating, drinking and singing, and both the girls were on a high.
At breakfast the following morning Madge told Phyl, ‘The boys had laid a couple of huge carpets on a riverbank and got a fire going so we had roast chicken with all the trimmings, and the flames kept the mosquitos away. Do you know the best thing about the whole picnic?’ she asked, barely taking a breath. ‘I didn’t get bitten once!’
Later that day, while she was busy on her shift, Matron Ferguson asked Madge whether as a favour she would be happy to help with some catering problems which had developed up at the big house where a conference of bigwigs was taking place. ‘You are a brilliant organiser and the staff up there like you,’ said Matron. ‘It’d be much appreciated if you’d give them a hand.’
Lunch was already running late by the time Madge had walked up the hill from the hospital and changed into a clean, newly ironed uniform. She organised the waiters into two groups and food finally began to arrive from the kitchens, which were in a separate building some ten yards behind the Governor’s house, into the dining room.
Even so, it was all still moving far too slowly for her liking so she picked up one of the large oval plates, which was beautifully adorned with cold cuts of chicken and beef. Considerable care had been taken in making sure the plate looked perfect and Madge wasn’t at all surprised when she was told it was for the top table.
One of the kitchen staff offered her a cloth to cover the succulent feast and Madge remembered the shadow incident. She decided, however, that because this lunch was almost certainly for Allied officers there would not be a problem this time. Within five yards of leaving the kitchen she wished with all her heart that she had taken that cloth.
As she walked out of the doorway Madge felt something whoosh past her head. She
