Madge Goes Dancing
Madge had been at 56 IGH for two months when she walked into the nurses’ mess and saw a group so engrossed in conversation that she thought a serious problem had developed. She decided to sit down and join in.
‘I can’t believe how much I took for granted being able to wash my hair back home,’ one of the nurses at the table was saying. ‘I wouldn’t have been seen dead going out the way I look now!’
Shampoo was virtually unobtainable in Chittagong so soap was the only option for the nurses when it came to washing their hair; Madge herself had got to the stage where virtually every day was a bad hair day. It was coming to something, she thought, when the height of luxury would be washing your hair with shampoo.
The only option was a trip to Calcutta, which by road was hundreds of miles away, and then you ran the risk of being given a large shopping list from the other nurses. A lovely Scottish nurse, Julie Boyle, was a bottle blonde, who asked any friend visiting Calcutta to bring back some bottles of shampoo and peroxide for her.
It seemed everybody missed out one way or another. Girls with curly or wavy locks found that within half an hour of dressing up for a dinner date or a dance the hair on which they had spent so much time and effort became one great big frizzy mess. Girls with naturally straight hair couldn’t even wear pigtails because of the hospital’s ‘above the collar line’ rule. Some even found their hair falling out in lumps when it was brushed. Girls like Madge, whose hair was not quite wavy but also not quite straight, found that whatever they did it never looked right, although she had a trick of cutting off the elasticated ends of army-issue stockings and making them into a halo which she would use to keep her hair neatly rolled.
Numerous other worries came to light, but nobody at the table had a solution until a raven-haired Indian sister walked past. The whole table turned to gaze in admiration and it spurred Madge into making a courteous little wave.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘but we’re talking about the problems we’re having with our hair. Yours is beautiful. Would you be so kind as to tell us your secret?’
The girl was attractive and very charming and said that she had been blessed with beautiful hair, but even she had to take the greatest of care in Chittagong’s suffocating humidity. There was almost total silence in the usually noisy nurses’ mess when she said that there was, however, a secret, and that secret was coconut oil. The barrage of questions from the table full of VADs stopped only when she held her hands up and laughed as she pleaded for silence.
‘While my hair is still damp after being washed I massage coconut oil into it. Many others rinse it off after thirty minutes, but the key is actually leaving it on,’ she explained.
‘Do you mean not rinsing it off at all?’ asked Vera.
‘You would have very greasy pillows if you did that,’ the sister replied. ‘What I mean is leaving it on as long as possible. All evening if possible, or a few hours at least, then rinsing it.’
Madge compared the condition of the shining black locks with her own sadly lacklustre hair and decided there and then that coconut oil was the answer.
As luck would have it, Madge had an afternoon off the following day and she cadged a lift to Chittagong in one of the ubiquitous three-ton army supply trucks that drove in and out of the hospital. She was on a mission to buy coconut oil but wasn’t having any success. She turned down a side street that consisted mainly of one-floor shops that included a grocer’s, a cafe, a laundry and the inevitable stalls. There was nowhere that sold coconut oil, however, and she was so engrossed in her search that she was more than surprised to find instead what looked like a ladies’ hairdressing salon. Madge could hardly believe her luck and all thoughts of coconut oil were forgotten as she peered in through the window. Suddenly the door was opened and an assistant in an intricately embroidered sari confirmed it was a salon and asked whether memsahib would like her hair permed? Madge replied that she most certainly would.
The salon was impeccably clean and comfortably furnished, if a little dark, with the enchanting aroma of jasmine oil. Three double settees were draped in deep red rugs and at the back there was a washroom with stairs leading to an upper floor. There was even a little kitchen and one of the many assistants produced a pot of tea as Madge settled in. When the girls, the same age as their customer, heard that she had been invited to a dance that night they got very excited and promised her a special treat.
There seemed to be a lot of staff, but Madge was told they were needed for later in the day when business picked up. One or two of the girls wanted to practise their English and happily translated every word to their friends who had gathered round. Stools were drawn either side of the carved high chair in which Madge sat, and it turned out the special treat was a manicure on the house.
‘This is absolute heaven,’ laughed Madge to one of the brown-eyed beauties, who was maybe just a year or two younger than her English customer. ‘It is luxury beyond a dream!’
While her hair was being permed Madge took the opportunity to ask if coconut oil was the reason why their hair looked so shiny and healthy. All said they used it but opinion was split on whether to leave the oil on or wash it off. The nicest surprise of all came as she left the salon after tipping and thanking the girls and they gave her a gift of a bottle of coconut oil.
When she returned to her basha the light was fading as Madge made one last check of her new hairdo, had a little twirl to make sure there were no creases in the piqué dress she had bought in Poona, and off she went for a jolly night at the SIB (Special Investigation Branch) mess. After being virtually danced off her feet Madge realised she was beginning to feel a little jaded as she was being whisked round the floor during a Glenn Miller number. That was until her partner said he loved her dress and then asked how on earth she kept her hair in such amazing condition. She felt like the belle of the ball!
Later an RAF pilot won a competition by drinking a pint standing on his head. Another won a bet with his pals when he stood with his back to Madge before he completed a backflip. It left her so open-mouthed in surprise that she simply couldn’t refuse when he asked her if he could have the next waltz.
The dancing went on and on and it was only when the master of ceremonies announced that ‘the lovely ladies who have graced us with their presence here tonight need a little break’ that Madge realised the midnight curfew on returning to her quarters had long since passed. You’re in trouble again, young lady, she told herself.
Madge’s escort drove her back in an open-top jeep from which she enjoyed the sight of a crisp new moon and a million twinkling stars. By the time she got back to 56 IGH it was close to 1 a.m. and it looked for the entire world as if her perfect day was going to end in tears. After she identified herself, the gate was opened by two heavily armed Gurkhas. She was asked to step into the office and introduced to Havildar Bahadur, who checked her pass and looked pointedly at his watch. Just when Madge convinced herself that things couldn’t get worse he caught her completely by surprise when he burst out laughing.
‘Memsahib very late,’ Bahadur said. ‘Safer if I walk with you to your basha.’
Best of all, as he escorted her down the hill he promised that nobody would know she had arrived back an hour after curfew.
‘You remind me of the Welsh missionary lady who taught me to speak English in a little school a day’s walk from my village,’ he said, and explained that he had grown up in the Himalayas, on the Nepalese side of the Indian border near Darjeeling.
As Madge tried to say thank you he stood to attention and gave her a big smile which was accompanied by an impeccable salute, turned on his heel and marched back to the main gate.
The following morning at breakfast Madge happily told her companions about the salon and what a lovely evening the military police sergeants had staged, but thought it better not to mention just how late she had returned from the dance. She felt as if she was almost floating on air as she strolled down to the hospital wards, but that soon changed when she was told by another of the nurses to be at Matron’s office for 10 a.m. She was absolutely certain that Havildar Bahadur had not gone back on his word but try as she might, she couldn’t think of the reason for the summons and it worried her. She did not understand either, as she walked in, why there was a giant of a military police sergeant standing by the side of Olive Ferguson’s desk.
The MP was far from courteous when he virtually demanded to know, ‘Where were you yesterday afternoon, Nurse Graves?’
‘I was shopping in Chittagong,’ she said, ‘and then I had my hair permed in a salon down a side street off the main road.’
There was a prolonged silence during which Madge thought she spotted Matron shaking her head. The strict but always fair New Zealander was sitting leaning on one arm with a hand across her mouth.
‘Standards have to be upheld and it’s an utter disgrace for a young lady to go into a place like that,’ said the increasingly unpleasant MP.
Madge felt herself getting quite hot and before she knew it she said, ‘I’ve worked without a day off for more than a fortnight and I wanted to look nice for a dance. What could possibly be so wrong with that?’
‘The salon had been under surveillance for some time and has now been closed down. A repeat of any such behaviour will result in serious consequences,’ the red-faced MP spluttered in response. ‘You had your hair permed in a house of ill repute!’ With that he thanked Matron for her co-operation, turned on his heel and marched out. Madge turned to Matron expecting another telling-off but instead the Aussie was doubled up laughing.
‘Strewth,’ she said, ‘I can’t believe you had your hair permed in a brothel! What was it like?’ With tears rolling down her cheeks she just about managed to point to the door and wave Nurse Graves out. As Madge walked smiling down the corridor, there, standing on the corner, was the MP, with his peaked hat under his arm. He was well over six feet tall but she noticed that the surety he had displayed in Matron’s office had all but disappeared. He half stuttered as he bent towards her.
‘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.’