The sun that had been so seductively brutal was slowly setting as they began the drive back from Patanga to Chittagong. By the time they arrived at the gates to the hospital the sky had turned a vivid and very romantic red. As they sat chatting in the jeep that had picked them up, the sun disappeared at speed to be replaced by a crescent-shaped moon and a multitude of stars.
The setting was almost perfect for a Mills and Boon farewell – except for two things. The first was that the Gurkha guards were scrutinising their every move from the other side of the barrier. The second was that the shoulders and backs of both Madge and Basil were as red as the sunset had been, and infinitely painful.
The farewell on the eve of Basil’s seaborne departure to Rangoon was always going to be emotionally painful, but combined with the burning agony of sunburn, their final, loving embrace was overwhelmingly tender, to say the least. Basil was in such severe pain that he almost forgot to give Madge the elegant jade bracelet that he had bought her as a farewell present.
‘My greatest worry,’ said Madge, ‘is that I’ll never see you again.’
‘Don’t think that way,’ said Basil. ‘This war will end sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later, and then we’ll be able to pick up just where we left off.’
Madge could only hope with all her heart that he was right.
The following morning Madge was in such pain that she took a roll of lint and cut two holes for her arms to go through, fashioning herself a kind of soft bodice that marginally eased the pain of those sunburned shoulders and back rubbing against her nurse’s uniform.
The emotional pain of her separation from Basil, however, was simply unbearable and she yearned to be back with the man she knew was equally heartbroken.
In fact, Basil had been so severely sunburned that on the first day of the three-day journey by sea he was bed-bound. On the second day there was a knock at the door and he was told that the captain of the rust-bucket of an old freighter that was carrying the Movements unit down the coast of Burma had a very important announcement to make and wanted everybody on deck without delay. For the life of him, Basil couldn’t think what it would be as he gingerly pulled a shirt on over his blistered shoulders before going up. The captain stood in the middle of a large group and spoke through a loudhailer when he said that the information he had received in a radio transmission had been verified by two other sources. The announcement was short, sharp and greeted with an enormous cheer.
‘The Germans have surrendered!’
Within seconds the deck was alive with men jumping up, yelling question after question, shaking hands and slapping one another on the back. When Basil got a full-blooded smack on his shoulders, the pain almost took his breath away but he wasn’t going to miss this for the world and joined in a somewhat off-key version of ‘God Save the King’ with enormous gusto.
At the celebration party on board in the afternoon Basil put on the bravest of faces, but the pain of his blistered shoulders became so intense he left the fray after an hour and retired to his cabin. Later that evening when things began to calm down he wished fervently that he had been with Madge when the wonderful news was announced.
The converted freighter carrying Basil and the Movements units finally sailed up the Irrawaddy River, which had been heavily mined by the Japanese but swept clear within days of the Allies taking over. Enormous numbers of troops with tons of food and supplies were arriving into Rangoon docks. Lieutenant General Hyotaro Kimura, the Japanese Commander-in-Chief in Rangoon, having been instructed to defend the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese army to the death, simply abandoned Burma’s capital. Before they fled the Japanese systematically demolished a convent that they were using as a hospital, resulting in the death of almost four hundred of their own soldiers. In addition, Rangoon’s main jail was burned to the ground. Once the Japanese left, Rangoon suffered widespread looting and vigilantes ran amok while heavily armed robbers caused terror in the suburbs. Units of the 26th Indian Division along with British troops were seconded to police the city.
The Japanese were being systematically driven back towards the Thai border supply lines. Basil’s next few months would be a furiously busy period. Every day he would make a round journey of almost a hundred miles from Rangoon to Pegu in his army jeep to a barren area of land with only a pebble track leading to the vital trans-shipment zone. It was from Pegu that Basil and the Troop Movement unit organised the transfer of thousands of tons of equipment, ammunition, food and troops to the front line.
The big worry is not the Japanese, Basil wrote in a letter to Madge, it’s the thought of letting the troops down if things go wrong. That is what plays on all our minds every moment of every day.
Madge felt tears come into her eyes at the thought of the weight of responsibility on other Allied unit’s shoulders, and gave a silent prayer that he would return safely to her.
23
The Casualty Clearing Station
Back in Chittagong, 56 IGH heard about the end of the war in Europe a day after Basil. Madge celebrated in a very crowded nurses’ mess where Matron Olive Ferguson had gathered doctors and medical staff to raise a toast to victory. Sister Blossom was doing a sterling job of making sure every glass was full of good cheer. Unfortunately it was nothing stronger than fresh orange juice and not the pints of Newcastle Brown Ale that Vera had demanded because it was such a special occasion. Madge’s first thought when she heard the news was to hope Basil’s blistered
