‘Might you be so kind as to join me for dinner tonight?’ he asked.
Madge looked up, gave him her sweetest smile, and replied, ‘Please excuse me but I have to wash my hair again this evening.’
14
The Gurkhas’ Holy Man
Madge wandered out onto the veranda of the BOR ward for a five-minute break. Twilight was approaching and a ferocious autumn storm raged. The wind whistled in from the Bay of Bengal so powerfully that the rain drove in sheets across the grounds of the hospital. With visibility down to less than ten yards it took her time to spot a group of four trudging their way down the hill from the big house.
As they came closer Madge recognised three of the four as Gurkhas who guarded the hospital, one of them being her friend Havildar Bahadur. She waved and got big smiles in return as they finally made it onto the veranda and shook their brollies dry. The fourth man extended his hand and introduced himself as John, but Madge still couldn’t work out what could possibly be important enough to make them venture out in such dreadful conditions. Then she noticed that the fourth man wore a dog collar and wondered, after ordering tea for the sodden group, if this was in fact their new chaplain.
Lieutenant Colonel Whittaker, Commander-in-Chief of 56 IGH, had announced weeks earlier that he was optimistic that chaplains would soon be appointed for both 56 and its sister hospital 68. After months of security lectures she had learned never to ask questions about postings, past, present or future but Madge needn’t have worried because the visitor thanked her profusely for the tea and introduced himself as the new padre of 56 IGH and 68 IGH. She smiled, pleased that there was religious comfort available for men too badly injured to leave their hospital beds. On a personal note Madge had attended Sunday school and church regularly from her days as a child in Dover and found great comfort in once again being able to continue.
The chaplain quickly added that he was not on official business. ‘Not until tomorrow anyway.’ John Conway de la Tour Davies also said he was quite used to being called ‘the Rev’ and asked if it would be convenient to spend a little time with one of the Gurkhas who was suffering from a tummy bug that turned out to be dysentery.
It was well past 9 p.m. and the Padre said he realised it was an unusual request, but he had been in meetings most of the day about his new appointment.
‘It’s not like England with strict visiting hours,’ laughed Madge, guiding the group to the stricken Gurkha who had been drifting in and out of a shallow sleep and must have thought he was dreaming when his three pals and the Reverend appeared at such a time of night. Madge apologised for leaving them but explained that she had to spend time with a new arrival, who had suffered terrible injuries after being caught in a Japanese booby trap.
It wasn’t until much later that evening that Bahadur reappeared to thank memsahib for allowing them to see their pal so late at night. He said he’d first met the Padre when he was attached to a military hospital in Comilla where he made a policy of dealing with men of all faiths. Because the Rev liked the company of Gurkhas he spent one afternoon a week with a group, which included Havildar Bahadur, who were on a parachute course. The Rev had expressed his sorrow about the death of a twenty-one-year-old when the parachute ‘candled’.
‘I’m not sure what that means,’ interrupted Madge, who was told that the chute had failed to unfold when the young Gurkha had jumped out of a DC-3. The following day, said Bahadur, the company adjutant asked Reverend Davies to conduct the burial service and was told that while it would be a privilege ‘perhaps a Hindu holy man may be more appropriate’.
‘What happened then?’ asked Madge, who found tears begin to well when she was told that a delegation of Gurkha elders approached the adjutant and insisted that ‘Rev Davies is our holy man’.
The following day at an open-air service attended by dozens of Ghurkhas the soul of the Nepalese warrior was commended to Jesus by the British padre ‘because he gave his life for others’.
Bahadur had to return to duty and Madge made another check on her new patient, who had been seen by the doctors earlier in the afternoon on his arrival before she had cleaned up several still weeping wounds and settled him down for the night. His injuries weren’t life threatening but the explosion had left the soldier’s face in a terrible state and his hands had also been badly burned. She had seen similar damage when she was a member of Professor Thomas Kilner’s plastic surgery team at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and was worried. Very worried indeed.
The following morning, three letters from Mum all arrived at once despite the postmark showing they had been mailed on three separate Fridays. Madge went to the nurses’ mess to read them over lunch. Lily wrote:
Things are beginning to look up because for the first time since September 1939, the blackout regulations have eased. There are still restrictions but instead of calling it a blackout it is now officially a ‘dim out’; light equivalent to that of the moon is allowed. Goodness knows what that is actually supposed to mean, but it made us all feel better when we read it.
In case this letter is delayed, the ‘dim out’ was announced in September, and it is wonderful after having lived in the dark for so long. But we still have to follow full blackout regulations if the air-raid sirens sound again.
I just wish that they would also ease up on rationing because I can’t get the things I need to make treats for the girls. They love their cakes
