Joyce's War Read online

  We started for home and then through the fertile Nile valley, the cotton crops, and the corn and the endless date palms, so cool and green against the bare yellow sands. We had dinner and Ted called in the car for me and we went for a run – first to Heliopolis and then, after various attempts to get on the road to Ismailia and being stopped at the boundary gate three times by fierce-looking Sikhs with wicked-looking rifles, we gave up and went down and sat for a while by the moonlit Nile. I fear it was exceedingly late, or should I say early, when I crawled into bed.

  September 21st 1940

  I didn’t get up for breakfast but messed about unpacking and so on. We have space to spread ourselves in this large room now and I think I may fairly say that we are taking advantage of it. Bill comes over for lunch and we lie about or iron respectively. Mona and I have purchased a lovely little iron – universal – for 85 piastres and simply wallow in our ironing; it is such a treat to have one to ourselves. We go off to the Church of Scotland in our beautiful grey belvederes, white hat, shoes, stockings and gloves, the three of us in a gharry, and we feel like pocket Queen Victorias and look like Yeomen of the Guard. A nice little church but the padre had a dreary voice and would work his eyeballs up and down. The sermon was something about the sins of the fathers being revisited upon the children, but I dozed off before I learned the real reason for all this. Later we had dinner and Bill went back to Helmieh and I went out for a run with Ted for a time, but got back soon after 11pm. He goes out to the Battery16 today for the rest of the week.

  September 22nd 1940

  Up betimes – Mona and I are sleeping in a large four-poster now with a magnificent mosquito net surrounding us – and take it in turns to see if any of our letters have arrived – but in vain. We then do a little shopping and buy some little water coloured sketches of Egypt – camels and pyramids and so on. Three of the girls overheard Matron in her doorway say that we may draw £2/10/- in advance pay, three times a month, so we shan’t starve after all. We have written to the matron of the 61st general hospital, which is now in Nazareth, to ask for our letters to be sent on to us here, as Matron doesn’t seem to think we are going to Palestine at the moment and we pine daily for some mail. Bill comes over and we have tea brought to us in our room and then go into town for further shopping. We have not long deposited Bill at her bus station and now I am trying vainly to get this journal up to date. I shall fall into bed any moment now …

  September 23rd 1940

  To the bazaars to pick up our dressing gowns and slippers and then we purchased other materials for mats and coverings for our future home or hut. I spend between 2 and 4pm ironing quite happily, and then after eating a large and luscious mango we departed to the dressmaker for a fitting of our white tricolenes. We went to the pictures and then Raffles, and, as we had had no dinner, called in at the Casino and had sandwiches and coffee followed by an ice – vanilla, chocolate and mango mixed. It was delightful sitting there on the terrace, in the cool night, with the world going by below us: cars and lorries, Egyptians, Arabs, Australians and British soldiers, and a few QAs – the whole motley crowd. After many years we shall remember the nights in Cairo – just like this. And now to bed under the mosquito netting. We have just heard that the City of Benares has been sunk and all but a few of the evacuee children drowned.

  September 29th 1940

  On Wednesday evening Mahomet Ali hired a felucca17 for us and we spent about one and a half hours on the Nile. These ancient boats have gone up and down the Nile unchanged for thousands of years. It was delightfully cool, scudding through the water with the starry sky above us and the palms and hibiscus lining the river banks.

  On Thursday Bill came in from Helmieh, looking very worn and tired – they all loathe it out there – so preserve us from ever following suit – and may we yet land in Palestine. We went to Tommy’s Bar for sandwiches and coffee instead of having dinner at the hotel.

  Yesterday I had a letter from Mother re-addressed from Colwyn Bay and one from the padre whom I had befriended in London. I had a siesta after lunch and needed it – and a final warning from Flossie, the Matron-in-Chief, that we must not in any circumstances have anything to do with, what they are pleased to term in the army, ‘other ranks’, which means that our fellow Australians, who are not officers, we must firmly but tactfully ignore.18 How lacking in all feeling and humanity the army is. Now we have been allocated a separate lounge where we may not be contaminated by the mere rank and file!

  October 2nd 1940

  The Eve of the Feast of Ramadan

  Bill Williams was off today, and came over from Helmieh last night to sleep. As it happened none of us slept as it was particularly noisy without and the beds creaked unmercifully each time we turned. We did some shopping and began the process of opening our accounts in the National Bank of Egypt, Lloyds’ agent there; in case the paymaster should ever think fit to send us a cheque. This seems unlikely, but it looks well to have a banking account, even though there is nothing in it.

  As tonight is the beginning of Ramadan and we knew the mosques were all to be lit up, we asked Mahomet Ali to suggest something interesting for the three of us. It was decided that he should meet us at 4pm in a taxi and we would go to the Governate where we would watch the Governor of Cairo lead a procession from the law courts. This sounded interesting enough but it transpired that we were to have one of the most thrilling and picturesque evenings of our lives.

  Mahomet Ali, always mindful of our welfare, spoke to the major of the Egyptian troops and got permission from him for us to go and stand on the pavement in the best possible position to see the governor emerge. It was like a scene from The Talisman19 to see the long rows of white Arab horses with their superb riders and their orange and red helmets flying in the breeze. Then came the military band playing Colonel Bogey with great zest, followed by the infantry smartly turned out in khaki, with leather poches around their waists on which were the moon and stars of Egypt and, of course, the usual fez. The lieutenant colonel of the Cairo city police came over to us and gave Mona permission to take photos. We chatted to him and asked him numerous questions and were delighted when he told us that we could go with him to the Mohammedan Park to watch the ceremony which was about to take place there. We were given right of way through the gates and conducted to a sort of enclosure outside the law courts. The roof was open to the heaven but the walls were hung with tapestries of brilliant colours and intricate design and the floor was covered with huge Persian rugs on which there were rows and rows of chairs, some of them very ornate. While we sat there drinking out of tiny cups, delicious spiced tea, we were introduced to various notable people who wandered in and out, mostly sheiks and army officers.

  Then we went outside again to watch the scene with eager eyes and scarcely believing our good fortune. The band played under the awning, the soldiers ‘at ease’ in front of us, groups of smartly clad officers in white and scarlet and gold chatted under the palms, flowers falling from the jacaranda tree almost at our feet, people crowding onto the flat roofed houses opposite, soft-footed servants running about putting lights up for tonight under the trees, coffee thick and sweet (Turkish), sweets, cigarettes coming around in swift procession. In between we were being presented to various officials, while press photographers took several group photographs and, it appeared, mostly of us. The patrician features of the sheiks and of the high priests as they arrived for the ceremony gave the impression that the scene was part of the Arabian Nights’ entertainment and not 1940, and we were part of it all.

  Bimbashi, the lieutenant colonel, was so sweet, answering all our questions in extremely good English and forgiving our extreme ignorance. He has already agreed to send the photographs to the hotel tomorrow and he asked our permission to include it in the Mohammedan magazine, with the names. He said he would send us a dozen copies of this. The important assemblage disappeared into the mosque to await the arrival of the news – by Marconi – as to where the crescent moon had been sig
hted, for unless it is actually seen in one country or another where Moslems are watching for it, Ramadan does not take place. The messenger arrived presently to say it had been seen at the observatory in Helwan outside Cairo so everything was alright. We went then with Bambashi up to the Citadel to await the firing of the 21 guns, announcing that Ramadan had officially begun, and to see the minarets light up, one after another all over Cairo and indeed all over Egypt, for it appears that they all wait for the Citadel to light first before following suit. We were the only ones there, it being a fortress closed to the public after sunset, and it was a thrilling sight to be high above the city and to see Cairo at our feet, springing to life out of the darkness.

  Into the car again, then on to an Egyptian restaurant where Bimbashi insisted on taking us to have a real Egyptian dinner. The pièce de la resistance was a grilled pigeon, killed and cooked whilst we waited, so we learned later, a gruesome thought, although the birds tasted delicious and we ate them, comme il faut, with our fingers. Bimbashi arranged that we should go with him on Friday to the Coptic and Egyptian museums and then to the University Mosque where the king was praying that day. He was getting special permissions from the ministry of works and was calling for us at 9.30. Alas, this was all cut short for on Friday we were on our way to Alexandria and our future home.

  Next morning we were told not to leave the hotel as we were getting orders to move on. This upset us a little, as of course we were not ready; we never are when the time for moving arrives, and there were overalls to collect from the little Turkish dressmaker who had been doing odds and ends for us and everything we possessed had to be picked up at once. We learned later that twelve of us, and five from Heliopolis, were detailed for the 2/5th General Hospital, Alexandria and that we were to leave next day. That left us free to go to the Sezara Club with Mona, John, a sister of a friend of Mona’s, and we spent a most pleasant afternoon there with her and her husband who is a captain with the forces. They were such nice people and I found in the end that both were from Wales originally. That night Mona and I took ourselves – for a last treat in Cairo – to the Continental Savoy for dinner. This cost us 100 piastres each, so it was just as well we left Cairo the next day.

  We departed in an army van at 2.30 the next day, and after a rather uninteresting run, arrived in darkness in Alexandria about 8pm. The assistant matron met us and we started on our first run to the hospital in total blackout. It was all strange: full of new sounds and sights as a new house always is. We were given supper and allocated to our bedrooms for the night. Mona and I shared one in the mess but others went down to the flats on the Corniche Road.

  November 22nd 1940

  It is nearly two months since I wrote this up – although I try to do it regularly. In that time we have thoroughly established ourselves, got the feel of the wards, and the mess, explored the town itself and altogether made ourselves at home. We are all very happy here, liking the matron particularly and the general atmosphere in which we are working. Mona and I, after about three weeks in the mess, have moved down to the flats on the Corniche Road where I have a corner room on the right and Mona on the left of the back flat, second floor. There is a superb outlook especially from my balcony, along the shore to Alexandria and the harbour. I can see the sunrise o’ mornings and the sunset by night from my bed. We have been busy fixing up blackout curtains for the doors and windows – I have dark blue – and have also made a cover for the trunk. We have each bought a folding table which we propose to stain and which should prove to be an invaluable piece of furniture. We are mostly happy down on the Corniche and don’t for a moment begrudge the walk up in the early mornings and at night. We have dragged Beatrice from her lair in the kit bag and put most of her together again, and she more or less willingly boils our water for coffee when we require it.

  As for ward work – I have been on B Ground from the beginning. It has 108 beds and is Septic Surgical; an enormous ward really, one can scarcely see into the furthest corner. I was on day duty for about six weeks but am on nights now. We have at times had our full quota of patients, which makes it very heavy, but quite recently it has been made a CCS, and so we keep the men only so long as it takes them to get sorted out and then they are sent elsewhere to the 62nd Jerusalem or the 19th at Geneifa or the 8th, which is between here and Alexandria. We do however keep all naval patients as there is nowhere else for them to go. Just now we have had quite a number from the Maine, the hospital ship in Alexandria’s harbour. They have had a noisy and nerve-wracking time down there during air raids at night and so have been sent up to us. I think they are glad to be on terra firma and in the comparative peace of it all. We have had a lot of Aussies and New Zealanders in from time to time. One day a tall lanky boy arose from his bed and said, ‘Excuse me Sister, but are you Joyce Parry?’ With astonishment I replied, ‘I am and who are you?’ Then it transpired that he was one Cecil Brown, erstwhile of Shelford, whom I last saw as a small boy at school!

  The nights are long, especially as we are so slack, and trying to keep conscious between doing active jobs is as difficult for me as anything can be. There were no raids last night, for a wonder, and have been none tonight so far. The night before, my night off, there were five all told. Two of them I missed, being too deeply asleep to hear the sirens, but there were more than 40 killed and 70–80 injured and over 80 killed in the previous bad raid and 100 injured – all civilians. The raids have been bad in England again, nearly 300 killed in Coventry in one air raid alone20 and a thousand and more casualties altogether. It is so awful to think of the desolation and the waste of life and property.

  I am hearing from Mother on a regular basis now, but the English mail is irregular and slow. The only person I hear from with any regularity is the Australian padre I met in London, who apparently thinks I must be written to once a week at all costs! Bill is still at Helmieh, Cairo, and not liking it any better. She has been up to Alexandria twice – flying once – on her days off. She hopes to get a transfer here one of these days. Mona and I go to Cairo on our days off when we come off night duty, that is, if Mona is allowed to stay the extra days to coincide with the end of my month.

  Greece of course is in the war now and we are vitally interested just here because we are so near to these fast moving events. A friend of Mona’s, an MO who has been in Palestine for some months, has gone to Greece and so has John Brennan, the paymaster for Cairo. He rang me up the previous night, somewhere in Alexandria. He couldn’t say where, but probably they were on their ship awaiting their departure. I shall hear about it later I expect. I do hope I shall get a transfer to Greece myself after I have done a few more months here as I always did want to visit Greece, and now to be so near, and yet so far! Our two prize burns cases were transferred to the 62nd today. They were so ill when they first came in, both were on intravenous drips but they are simply wonderful now. I’m really glad they’ve gone however, because they did demand, and got a good deal of attention.

  November 23rd 1940

  I had a good sleep today. Mona and I went out on a minor shopping expedition to the little Greek grocery store in the tiny village near the ‘new house’ on our way down to the Corniche. Coming back a very dirty but very beautiful Egyptian woman was sitting on the kerb with her two children. The smaller of them must have been no more than ten months old but she waved to us in the friendliest cheeriest way and called, ‘Saida, Saida’. Well schooled these native children are, much less self conscious and much more cute than our children at the same age. Later, I decided to put permang21 on my folding table before going to bed. I made the gesture of putting on a pair of gloves and got to work. When I took the gloves off my fingers were coal black from the nails to the knuckles. A more revolting sight you never saw. It took fifteen minutes with a pumice stone to remove the evidence. When I awoke the sun had set and the sky was smoky grey and the last vestiges of pink were slinking away. It was time to arise, and take my shower, alas cold, and to put the iron on, for the battle frocks
need pressing every time one puts them on.

  Good news tonight – if one can call any war news good: Koritza has fallen to the Greeks and Albania, it seems, has assisted. No raid for three nights; we hardly know ourselves. No doubt, however, we shall pay for it later on.

  Athenordon, the Greek, with a hydrated cyst of the lung is my biggest worry at night, apart from Rifleman Smith who has a large plaster sore. The rest sleep like children and there is very little to be done for them apart from a few painkillers. I have just come across from C2 E, from supper – the sky, black, with a million stars and the tall tower of B Ground standing clearly against the sky. Rather a nice building, altogether, this erstwhile ‘Victoria College’.

  November 28th 1940

  I think it must have been the night I last wrote this up that we had our worst raid so far. The sirens went at 4.45am when we really thought that everything was over until the next full moon and soon the navy was exceedingly busy with pom poms and a terrific barrage of fire and guns. One or more planes flew quite close over the hospital and it seemed a bomb was dropped less than quarter of a mile away. It must have been then that the machine guns went off. I was up at the end of the ward taking temperatures when suddenly, amid the dull thud of bombs and the muffled notes of the fleet guns, came the sharp rat, tat, tat of machine gun fire. I feel certain it was done so that it was just outside the window where I stood and I quite expected to see holes where the bullets had come through.