the songs that had not been scratched to nothing through years of sand and overuse. An impromptu bar had been set up at what had been the dressings station, the drips converted for use with whisky and beer bottles.
Many were out of uniform tonight, the women in pale blouses and floral skirts, the men in shirts with trousers that had to be winched round their waists with narrow belts. Several sisters were dancing, some with each other, a couple with the remaining Red Cross staff and physiotherapists, stumbling over the more elaborate moves. A couple stopped when Audrey Marshall entered, but she nodded at them in a way that suggested they should carry on. ‘I suppose I should do my final rounds,’ she said, her voice mock-stern, which prompted a weak cheer from the tent’s occupants.
‘We’ll miss you, Matron,’ said an emotional Sergeant Levy in the corner. She could just make out his face behind his raised legs, which were still in plaster.
‘You’ll miss the bed-baths, more like,’ said his mate. More laughter.
She moved along the row of beds, checking the temperatures of those with suspected dengue fever, peering under dressings that covered tropical ulcers, which refused obstinately to heal.
This lot weren’t looking so bad. When the Indian prisoners-of-war had arrived at the beginning of the year even she had had nightmares for weeks. She remembered the shattered bones, the maggoty bayonet wounds, the starving, distended stomachs. Reduced to an almost inhuman state, many of the Sikhs had fought the nurses as they tried to treat them – over the years they had become used to brutality and, in their weakened state, were unable to anticipate anything else. The nurses had cried in their mess tents afterwards, especially for the men whom the Japanese had deliberately overfed as they left the camps, and who had died painful deaths from their first taste of freedom.
Some of the Sikhs had hardly been men: they were light enough to be carried by a single nurse, mute or incoherent. For weeks they had fed them like newborn babies: two-hourly doses of powdered milk, followed by teaspoons of mashed potato, minced rabbit, boiled rice, trying to coax their collapsed digestive systems back into life. They had cradled skeletal heads, mopped spilt food from chapped lips, slowly convinced the men with whispers and smiles that this was not the precursor to some further terrible act of violence. Gradually, their hollow eyes bleak with whatever they had seen, the men had begun to understand where they had come.
The nurses had been so moved by their plight, their wordless gratitude and the fact that many had not heard from home in years that some weeks later they had got one of the interpreters to help them prepare a curried dish for those able to stomach it. Nothing too ambitious, just a little mutton and spices, some Indian flatbread to go with the boiled rice. They had presented it on trays decorated with flowers. It had seemed important to convince the men that there was still a little beauty in the world. But as they entered the ward, and proudly laid out the trays before them, many of the POWs had finally broken down, less able to cope with kindness than with hard words and blows.
‘Share a nip with us, Matron?’
The captain lifted the bottle, an invitation. The record finished and at the far end of the room someone cursed as the next disc slid out of slick hands on to the floor. She eyed him for a moment. He shouldn’t be drinking with the medication he was taking. ‘Don’t mind if I do, Captain Baillie,’ she said. ‘One for the boys who aren’t going home.’
The girls’ faces relaxed. ‘To absent friends,’ they murmured, glasses upheld.
‘Wish the Americans were still here,’ said Staff Nurse Fisher, mopping her brow. ‘I don’t half miss those buckets of crushed ice.’ Only a few British patients now remained.
There was a swell of agreement.
‘I just want to get to sea,’ said Private
Many were out of uniform tonight, the women in pale blouses and floral skirts, the men in shirts with trousers that had to be winched round their waists with narrow belts. Several sisters were dancing, some with each other, a couple with the remaining Red Cross staff and physiotherapists, stumbling over the more elaborate moves. A couple stopped when Audrey Marshall entered, but she nodded at them in a way that suggested they should carry on. ‘I suppose I should do my final rounds,’ she said, her voice mock-stern, which prompted a weak cheer from the tent’s occupants.
‘We’ll miss you, Matron,’ said an emotional Sergeant Levy in the corner. She could just make out his face behind his raised legs, which were still in plaster.
‘You’ll miss the bed-baths, more like,’ said his mate. More laughter.
She moved along the row of beds, checking the temperatures of those with suspected dengue fever, peering under dressings that covered tropical ulcers, which refused obstinately to heal.
This lot weren’t looking so bad. When the Indian prisoners-of-war had arrived at the beginning of the year even she had had nightmares for weeks. She remembered the shattered bones, the maggoty bayonet wounds, the starving, distended stomachs. Reduced to an almost inhuman state, many of the Sikhs had fought the nurses as they tried to treat them – over the years they had become used to brutality and, in their weakened state, were unable to anticipate anything else. The nurses had cried in their mess tents afterwards, especially for the men whom the Japanese had deliberately overfed as they left the camps, and who had died painful deaths from their first taste of freedom.
Some of the Sikhs had hardly been men: they were light enough to be carried by a single nurse, mute or incoherent. For weeks they had fed them like newborn babies: two-hourly doses of powdered milk, followed by teaspoons of mashed potato, minced rabbit, boiled rice, trying to coax their collapsed digestive systems back into life. They had cradled skeletal heads, mopped spilt food from chapped lips, slowly convinced the men with whispers and smiles that this was not the precursor to some further terrible act of violence. Gradually, their hollow eyes bleak with whatever they had seen, the men had begun to understand where they had come.
The nurses had been so moved by their plight, their wordless gratitude and the fact that many had not heard from home in years that some weeks later they had got one of the interpreters to help them prepare a curried dish for those able to stomach it. Nothing too ambitious, just a little mutton and spices, some Indian flatbread to go with the boiled rice. They had presented it on trays decorated with flowers. It had seemed important to convince the men that there was still a little beauty in the world. But as they entered the ward, and proudly laid out the trays before them, many of the POWs had finally broken down, less able to cope with kindness than with hard words and blows.
‘Share a nip with us, Matron?’
The captain lifted the bottle, an invitation. The record finished and at the far end of the room someone cursed as the next disc slid out of slick hands on to the floor. She eyed him for a moment. He shouldn’t be drinking with the medication he was taking. ‘Don’t mind if I do, Captain Baillie,’ she said. ‘One for the boys who aren’t going home.’
The girls’ faces relaxed. ‘To absent friends,’ they murmured, glasses upheld.
‘Wish the Americans were still here,’ said Staff Nurse Fisher, mopping her brow. ‘I don’t half miss those buckets of crushed ice.’ Only a few British patients now remained.
There was a swell of agreement.
‘I just want to get to sea,’ said Private
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