‘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
