Some Sunny Day

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 and keep asking when we are going to have another steak and kidney pudding, but they never moan, bless their souls.

Poor Mum, thought Madge. Here we all are with fresh eggs every day for breakfast, lovely chicken curry for lunch and even roast beef sometimes for dinner, but then I suppose we do have to go without shampoo.

Madge read on and was pleased to hear that Ernest Bevin, the Minister for Labour and National Service, had announced plans which would eventually lead to military demobilisation. If that is true, then I think we really must have the Boche on the run now.

The letters cheered Madge up no end. It also gave her a lift that just as she put down the last of the letters she looked up to see Phyllis Yearron for the first time in weeks. Different shifts on different wards and a different social life meant their paths hadn’t crossed.

The two chatted for a while, although Madge didn’t want to ask if rumours about a failed relationship for Phyllis were true so she changed the subject and told her just how much she had appreciated the gift she had given her of the silver hairbrush.

‘It is so beautiful that even Ahmed is impressed and loves to dust and polish the shiny silver surface. You know, one afternoon I actually caught him looking at himself in the mirror side before giving his hair a good brushing!’ Phyllis clapped her hands in delight as she laughed her head off at the thought of Madge’s bearer posing with the hairbrush.

‘Phyllis, I bet you that Madge hasn’t mentioned a word about the real story involving her hair?’

‘Well, Madge has told me all about the coconut oil,’ she replied, ‘and I’m so impressed with the way her hair looks I’m going to try it myself.’

‘Yes, but I bet she didn’t tell you where she got it from!’ Vera said with a wink in Madge’s direction. She snorted and then, obviously deciding not to embarrass Madge too much, asked, with a mischievous grin, if the kite hawk incident had been discussed and began to sing ‘Pack up all my cares and woe, here I go swinging low, bye bye blackbird.’

The happy trio wandered back to their bashas and Madge prepared for another night shift with a degree of trepidation because she was worried about the badly burned soldier. He had been under sedation, but as she arrived to begin her shift she discovered he was awake and seemingly alert.

‘Oh, hello there,’ she said to the soldier. ‘How are you feeling this evening?’

‘A lot better than yesterday and my hearing is starting to come back,’ he said. ‘Although apart from a loud bang and a multi-coloured flash I can’t remember anything else.’

The incident that had left him dreadfully disfigured had also rendered him almost completely deaf for more than forty-eight hours. All he could recollect was advancing, very carefully, through a thickly forested area of jungle and following instructions from his sergeant to stay ten paces away from the next man in case a mine was triggered. That advice almost certainly saved his life because when the explosion came, whether it was from a mine or a booby trap, the soldier to his left took the full blast and was killed instantly.

Madge listened without passing comment as she changed the dressing on his hands as well as wiping away sweat that had formed on his brow. The facial disfigurement, appalling as it appeared to be, would heal in some form or another, although it would take months, or even years. In Professor Tommy Kilner’s plastic surgery unit Madge had been taught to try and make an assessment of the emotional condition as well as the physical damage when someone had been injured in this way. The services section of Stoke Mandeville hadn’t exactly been overstaffed and there were times when Madge had run four and five wards at night on her own, but in comparison with the number of nurses at 56 IGH it was light years ahead. She wanted desperately to stay with the corporal, but others needed attention as well so she had little option but to move on after doing her best to make sure he was as comfortable as possible.

There was no such thing as a ‘front line’ in the brutal confrontation in the jungles of northern Burma, but there had been a notable change in the type of patients arriving at the hospital, who were increasingly suffering from combat injuries rather than disease. The success of the 14th Army in pushing the Japanese back, deeper and deeper into Burma, was remarkable but it was being accomplished at a cost that included massive extra pressure on hospitals and already overstretched nursing staff in particular.

Madge fervently wished there was more help available on that very busy night and her wishes were answered almost within an hour when the Padre made his first official evening visit to the hospital and dropped by to say hello, and then have a chat with the dysentery-riddled Gurkha.

‘I’m so sorry for turning up after visiting hours again,’ said Rev Davies, who had been at 68 IGH since early that morning. He made it clear he wanted to be a hands-on padre and was well aware of the unique pressures nurses faced at night. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ he asked.

From the moment she had seen him standing on the veranda soaked to the skin after marching through that raging storm Madge had instantly liked the caring and courteous new padre. ‘Actually, we do have a new arrival who has terrible facial injuries after having been caught in an explosion. I’m worried about him. The soldier he was with was killed instantly and he’s beginning to show signs of stress. Do you think you could spend some time with him?’

Madge showed him where the soldier’s bed was and then left the Padre to do her rounds.

When the ward finally began to settle for the night, Madge decided to take a fifteen-minute break and walked over to join the Rev, who had been encouraging the young soldier to relax and take things day by day until he was back on the road to recovery. Reverend Davies’ words seemed to strike a chord with the corporal because Madge could instantly tell from the expression on his face that the depression in which he had sunk had already begun to ease.

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, sir,’ he suddenly said to the Padre, ‘but where did you get those tattoos and how did you end up in Chittagong?’

Madge followed the corporal’s gaze and spotted some very prominent tattoos on the Reverend’s forearms.

Madge had brought three cups of tea with her in the hope that the corporal would take a few sips as well so she handed one to each of the men and began to drink her own as she listened to the Padre’s extraordinary reply.

‘In answer to your first question,’ replied the Padre, ‘when I was working with troops in Orkney I wanted to show I was a missionary of the church and one of them, not a superior officer, and that was why I decided to have both arms tattooed. There was a slight problem, however, because there was no tattooist in Orkney!’

Madge thought she had detected the faintest hint of a smile from the corporal, who was listening intently. For the first time since arriving at 56 IGH his mind was focused away from his terrible injuries.

The memory of the time and trouble he went to in trying to find a tattooist on Orkney made Rev Davies smile and he added that it wasn’t until he arrived in Bombay on a troopship after a six-week journey from Liverpool that he eventually found a tattooist.

‘I drew the designs on a piece of paper before having “God with us” put on one arm and “Who loved me and gave himself for me” on the other. There are also images of Jesus on the cross and with his mother Mary. It took two hours to complete and it was terribly painful, but definitely worth it,’ he said.

The Reverend then went on to tell the corporal more of his story. ‘On the voyage over to India I had to conduct a burial at sea, but unfortunately there was a submarine around so the troop carrier had to continue at full speed. That was tricky to say the least!’ he said, chuckling slightly. ‘I wanted to get to know the troops I was with better so I joined in with a bit of sparring one day with a group of keep-fit fanatics, but one caught me with a punch that sent me spinning onto the metal deck. That’s why I’m slightly deaf in one ear,’ he said.

His determined effort to communicate with the troops had paid off, however, because he conducted two baptisms, but the naval tradition of using the ship’s bell as a font had to be ignored this time because it couldn’t be removed.

‘We used a pie dish, disguised with a silk scarf, to hold the baptism water instead,’ he said with a smile.

From Bombay he travelled by train to Calcutta where the Rolex he was given as a twenty-first birthday present was pickpocketed. He had placed it in his breast pocket after the strap broke and the corporal actually smiled when the chaplain added, ‘The watch cost £50 but I got £70 in the insurance payout!’

Madge’s break was over and the Rev had put in another long day so they left the bedside of the sleepy corporal and discussed his chances of recovery.

‘Time will be the greatest healer,’ said the Padre. Madge agreed but knew from her experience on Professor Kilner’s team that long-term pastoral care would be even more important once the physical damage healed.

In the early hours of the morning shift Madge found the corporal wide awake and filled with utter despair so she told him about the wonderful things that she had seen accomplished with plastic surgery patients, in particular RAF pilots, who had been taken to Stoke Mandeville after suffering facial damage when their aircraft had burst into flames.

‘One of his specialities was rebuilding noses through skin grafts,’ she said, ‘and once the grafts settled down it changed their lives. With a bit of luck you will be back in England soon and I’m sure you’ll be able to have similar treatment.’ But even that failed to cheer him up.

‘I know it must be getting towards midnight,’ he told Madge, ‘but is there any possibility of having an omelette? My mother always made me an omelette when I was poorly as a little boy. It’s just what I fancy now.’

‘I’ll see what can be done,’ promised Madge, who was only too aware that the corporal had hardly eaten since his arrival. The problem was that as the only nurse on duty she was worried about leaving the ward even for a few minutes. There were no ward-boys around at that time of night and the kitchens wouldn’t be staffed, but as she wracked her brain for a solution Big Arthur, one of the night guards from the RASC (Royal Army Service Corps), strolled past, said hello and asked if everything was OK.

When Madge explained the omelette problem the giant Yorkshireman simply nodded and said, ‘Right, love, leave it to me.’ Just fifteen minutes later he reappeared with his rifle over his shoulder and a very tasty and fluffy-looking omelette ringed with sliced tomatoes. He had even brought a knife and fork. ‘Couldn’t find bread,’ he said, ‘but them there tomatoes make everything look right luverly.’

It looked so good Madge could have eaten the whole lot there and then. Instead she thanked the guard. ‘Where on earth did you manage to perform this little miracle at this time of night?’

Arthur said that as there was no reply when he knocked on the kitchen door he gave it a little kick and it just sort of burst open. ‘There was nobody in the kitchens so I made it myself, love,’ he added, before resuming his lonely patrol. The corporal was staring at the ceiling when Madge walked in with the omelette and because his hands were still so painful she fed him a forkful at a time. After eating what was his biggest meal since arriving from the casualty clearing station Madge thought he would soon fall back to sleep.

Instead he talked, with a wistful look on those painfully distorted features, about his ‘sweet and beautiful girlfriend’ back home and how she had given up the chance of a place at university to become a nurse. She had even tried to get a posting to India to be near him, but had been turned down because she was just nineteen.

Madge didn’t even need to think about what to say in response because the answer came straight from her heart.