‘The singing, at first, was quite low key,’ said Madge, ‘but then a table of very happy gentlemen set the tone with a rousing rendition of “Rule Britannia” and everybody got to their feet to join in the chorus. Then there was “Land of Hope Glory” which, oh Vera, it was so moving; there was a lady soprano who wouldn’t have been out of place at the Royal Opera House who sang a verse on her own, and then came “Jerusalem”. I just felt so . . . patriotic. And Basil loved every minute too,’ she added, with a sparkle in her eye.
‘We had a nightcap by the bar and one of the senior officers told us that he had been waiting at Alipore airport for a flight back to Chittagong when he met an RAF ground crew who were determined to make the most of being stuck overnight in Calcutta, and one of them joined him for a drink – a delightful West Country character called John Giddins.’ Madge told Vera how the previous evening Giddins, an electronics and radio specialist, had been turned out of his bed along with other NCOs (non-commissioned officers) of each trade and told to be ready with small kit, minimum spares and toolkits for a 6.30 a.m. start, because the squadron was relocating from Ceylon to a strip near Imphal, northeast of Calcutta. The gear was duly loaded onto a Dakota, which had arrived at twilight the day before, and with minutes left to take off the pilot ordered one last check of the aircraft. Everything got the thumbs up until the pilot, who was bursting for a pee, opened the toilet door on the plane only to be confronted by a snarling beast, which was far from amused at having been locked in the loo rather than being taken for his usual early morning walk. The shocked pilot was even less amused, slammed the door and ran down the plane yelling that there was a leopard hiding in the thunder box and he wanted the animal shot.
But Giddins calmed things down by explaining that the months-old cub was the mascot of No. 17 Squadron and was a much revered and very well-behaved young chap, who simply loved having his ears and tummy tickled as well as being given a bottle of milk and a cuddle before bedtime. The official version was that the leopard would die if it was left behind when the squadron relocated from Ceylon. Unofficially the shocked pilot was told ‘There is no way this f***** plane is taking off without him.’
‘It’s quite true, Vera! I saw a photo!’ Madge said as she saw Vera looking at her in disbelief. She went on to tell the rest of the story.
The cub had been adopted as a mascot by the No. 17 Spitfire Squadron when they were based in the north of Ceylon after he was found yowling for his mother by a lake. When she failed to appear the off-duty pilots took him back to the aerodrome and, after lengthy discussions involving many beers, agreement was finally reached to name him Bagheera, after the leopard in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. In spite of chewing a very large hole in the arm of the CO’s favourite chair and bursting the one leather football on the base, the leopard became a pampered addition to the squadron.
‘There is a happy ending to this story,’ said Madge, ‘because once the flight landed, dear little Baghi was chauffeur-driven straight to Calcutta Zoo. They neglected to mention that Baghi got overexcited in the mess and had a little nibble at the leg of a punka-wallah, who had to have ten stitches,’ she laughed.
‘It was such a funny end to an amazing evening,’ continued Madge, ‘and all the singing earlier gave me an idea. I think that once everybody has been fed on Christmas Day we should get as many of the patients as we can out into the sunshine and sing a few carols for them. The boys will surely want to join in and it will cheer them up no end.’
Madge at times felt frustrated that the nurses knew so little and were officially told even less about how the Allied effort to chase the Japanese out of Burma was progressing. There were rumours and eye-witness claims that Lieutenant General William Slim was flying in and out of Chittagong to see the front line for himself, and even suggestions that Lord Louis Mountbatten had been spotted.
It wasn’t until a Royal Engineers sapper, Samuel Laughton, was brought in with a nasty, smelly thigh wound that Madge heard first-hand news. Experienced as she was with combat injuries, Madge still grimaced at the putrid odour of the pus as it began to ooze from the wound and knew instantly that it had all the hallmarks of full-blown gangrene. Fortunately a doctor was on hand and, after confirming the diagnosis, told Madge, ‘This looks like another one for the new drug.’
‘Will I lose my leg?’ Samuel asked when Madge returned from the pharmacy with a syringe and the medicine.
‘Your recovery could take some time but hopefully not,’ she answered with a smile. ‘This new drug, penicillin, has been working wonders for similar injuries.’
After a series of injections the sapper, as Madge had hoped, began to recover and he was delighted to be told that because the infection had been caught in the early stages surgery had been avoided.
He then started talking about returning to his unit because he had been near Maungdaw in the Arakan when Lord Louis Mountbatten had ‘appeared out of the blue’.
‘I’ll never forget the way Lord Louis cheered everybody up,’ said Samuel, who, Madge noticed, had very precise diction and
